We may run by the Text and easily read in it these three things as so many very Natural Deductions and Emanations from it First our own Ignorance and Stupidity Born like a wilde Asse's Colt as Zophar speaks and then to our Natural we add affected Ignorance too So that we are much to seek and to learn Righteousness it must be taught us Secondly God's infinite and inexpressible Grace and Mercy to us that when we had blurr'd the Original defac'd the first Traces of Righteousness upon our Souls he was pleas'd to provide Expedients to teach it us again the second time that we might be renewed unto Knowledge after the Image of him that created us in Righteousness as the Apostle speaks And Thirdly Our indocible and unteachable Humour our foul and shameful Non-proficiency under so plentiful a Grace For though the Text indeed speaks of our learning Righteousness when God's Judgments are upon us yet if the Appearances of the World abroad suggested nothing to the contrary 't is introduc'd here in the Text too as the Effect of the last Form in God's School in exclusion of all the former as ineffectual his utmost Method not to be used but at a pinch when all the rest are baffled and prove improsperous upon us And then 't is exprest in the Original and learned Versioâ—s with so many Limitations and Abaâ—ements as we shall see by and by that we may well give it up as the sum and up-shot of all that our All-merciful God omits no Means or Methods of our Improvement but we supinely negligent and prodigiously stubborn as we are render them all ineffectual That we may do so no longer but rather make good the profession with which we have dar'd to appear this Day before God of humbling our selves under his Almighty Hand Let us before we pass on any further lift up our Hands and our Hearts to Him in the Heavens beseeching him by the Power of his Mighty Grace so to sanctifie to us All both the Sense of his present Judgment and all our Meditations and Discourses thereupon that by all we may be promoted in learning Righteousness THe Inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness or Iustice What 's that Is there such a thing in the World Or is it a Name only and a glorious pretence Is it not only another word for Interest or Utility and so nothing just but what is profitable Carneades his infamous Assertion retriv'd and own'd with open face by Christians Is it not the taking of a party or the espousing of a Faction and appearing for it with heat and animosity and a savage condemning and destroying All that are not of it Is it not the Profession to believe such a Systeme of Opinions what life soever is consequent thereupon An airy invisible Righteousness that never embodies or appears in our Actions but hovers in the Clouds in speculations and fancies where no Man can find it The Truth is there is no piece of Unrighteousness more common in the World than thus to weigh Justice it self in an unjust Ballance while every one contrives his Hypothesis so as to salve the Phaenomena so declares his Notion as may best suit and comport with his own unrighteous practices But the Righteousness we are to learn in God's School must not be a self-chosen Righteousness We must not pay God our Soveraign the Tribute of our Obedience in Coin of our own stamping it must be such as will abide the Touch-stone of his Word and the Ballance of his Sanctuary To make short Righteousness or Justice though elsewhere a single Vertue yet here 't is virtually All 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and said the Prophet and the Phylosopher after him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a part but all Vertue And so often but in Scripture and Fathers comprehensively all Religion the whole Duty of Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrisostome Omnes Virtutum species uno Iustitiae nomine saith St. Ierome Not a particular Star nor a single Constellation but a whole Heaven of Vertues an entire Globe of Moral and Christian Perfections an Universal Rectitude of the Will consorming us in all Points to God's Righteous Law the Rule of our Righteousness Or if you will in two words 't is Suum cuique to give every one his Due Suum Deo first and then Suum proximo give God his Due and your Neighbour too These are the integral parts of it So that Righteousness as the great Rule of it hath two Tables or if you will two Hemispheres the upper and the nether Both so vast that we cannot measure them in a Span the Span of time allotted me I shall therefore contract them to the occasion and give you only some of those particular Lessons of Righteousness which this present Judgment of God upon our Land seems most clearly to take us forth both into relation to God himself and to our Neighbours and then call you and my self to a serious Scrutiny how well we have learn'd them and so an end And first we begin as we ought in giving God his due in rendring to God the things that are Gods To limit this wide Universality too and render it more proper and peculiar we may reduce all to that first of Esai's three Songs mention'd at the beginning Glorifie ye the Lord in the Fires giving him upon this sad Occasion the Glory of that great Trinity of his Attributes the Glory of his Power and Majesty the the Glory of his Iustice and Equity the Glory of his Goodness and Mercy Give him the Glory of his Power and Greatness which the Prophet calls Singing for the Majesty of the Lord Chap. xxiv 15. or Beholding the Majesty of the Lord when his Hand is lifted up in the verse after my Text. How great and glorious our God is who is in himself incomprehensible appears best by the glorious greatness of his Works If he builds it is a World Heaven and Earth and the Fulness of both If he gives it is his only Son out of his Bosom the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person If he rewards 't is a Crown 't is a whole Heaven of Glories If he be angry he sends a deluge opens the Cataracts of Heaven above and breaks up the Fountains of the great Deep below and pours forth whole Flouds of Vengeance Or else he rains down Hell out of Heaven and in a moment turns a Land like a Garden of God into a dead Sea and a Lake of Brimstone If he discover himself by any overt expression of his Power though the Intention be meer Mercy and loving Kindness Mortality shrinks from it and cannot bear it When his Glory descends on Mount Sinai the People remove and stand afar off and Let not God speak with us say they lest we die And Depart from me O Lord saith St. Peter amaz'd at that miraculous draught of Fishes How much
our serious Amendment we have no Rainbow to assure us that we shall not again be drencht in that horrible Tempest Though the best Naturalists say That great public Fires are a proper Remedy for the Plague Yet God if he be Angry can send a ruffling Wind into the very Ashes of our City blow them into the Air and turn them as those of the Egyptian Furnace into a Blain and a Botch and a Plague-sore upon us Nay even out of those dead Ashes can He raise yet a fiercer Flame to consume what still remains As the Lightning comes out of the East saith our Lord and shineth even unto the West so shall my coming be sc. to destroy Ierusalem and where ever the Carcase is will the Eagles be gathered together Matth. xxiv Fire is the Eagle in Nature nothing in the Elementary World mounts so high to its place and stoops so low to it's prey The two properties God himself ascribes to that Bird Iob xxxix 27 30. And if we still refuse obstinately to be gathered like Chickens under our Lord's Wing he can again let loose this Bird of Prey this Eagle of Heaven upon us and from the East where it began before flie it home like Lightning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even to the utmost West to seize and to devour where ever there is the least Quarry remaining Or if this move us not let us remember that we have another City upon the Waters a floating Town of moveable Forts and Castles the Walls and Bulwarks of the Nation stronger than those of Brass the Fable speaks of As we desire that God would ever fill their Sails with prosperous Gails and still bring them home with Honor and Victory and good Success Let us take heed that we fight not against them too Our Sin like a Talent of Lead may sink them to the Bottom our Lusts and Passions and Animosities may fire them our Drunkenness and deep Excesses may drown them our Vollies of Oaths and Blasphemies may pierce them nay our Seditious Murmurings and Privy Whisperings may blow them over For God is Piorum Rupes Reorum Scoâ—ulus a Rock to found the Just upon but a shelf to shipwrack and confound the Unrighteous And yet all these are but the common Roads and ordinary Instances of God's Displeasures But he hath also besides and beyond all these unknown Treasures of Wrath vastâ— stores of hidden Judgments for who knows the Power or the extent of his Anger laid up in those secret Magazines where his Judgments are when they are not in the Earth reserv'd as his dreadful Artillery against the time of trouble against the day of Battel and War as he speaks himself Iob xxxviii 23. Oh let us take heed of treasuring up to our selves Wrath against that day of Wrath and the Revelation of his Righteous Iudgments And now what shall I say more if all that hath been said hitherto prove ineffectual The Text affords yet one Expedient as the Chaldee Paraphrast may seem to have understood it Because thy Iudgment saith he not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the Hebrew but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Iews call it and St. Iude from them The Iudgment of the great Day because that Judgment though not as yet in the Earth is yet fixt and appointed and prepared for all the Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Hebrew it self too for rather than in the Earth therefore most certainly if at all or for any thing the Inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness But if they put far from them this evil day too as if they had made a Covenant with Death and with Hell if they finally refuse to come under God's Discipline and to take forth to themselves Lessons of Righteousness here they shall then be made themselves great Lessons and dreadful Examples of God's Righteousness to all the World If they will not glorifie God in these Fires as they ought nor walk in the light of them let them remember that there are Fires without Light where none glorifie him but by suffering the Eternal Vengeance of their Sins There must they learn by saddest experience who obstinately refuse the more gainful Method 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 't is a fearfull thing to fall into the Hands of a living God For our Enemies here must die and our storms at last blow over and our Fires you see though never so great in time go out and vanish But God lives hath a Worm too that dies not for those that live not as they ought and a Fire that is not quenched The Babylonian Furnace seven times hotter than usual a cool walk to that all our Vulcans and Aetnas our Heclas and Andes faint Types and shadows of it the great Conflagration we so lately trembled at and still bewail but a spark to that infernal Tophet but a painted Fire to that dreadful Mongibel even Everlasting Burnings From which God of his tender Mercy deliver us All and give us Grace in this our Day the Day of his Judgments so to learn Righteousness and so to do it that at the last and great Day of Judgment when he shall come again to Account with us for all our Learning and for all our Doings we may through his Mercy receive the Crown of Righteousness for his sake alone who so dearly bought it for us even Jesus Christ the Righteous To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed by us and all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth Blessing Honour Glory and Power henceforth and for evermore Amen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FINIS Die Jovis 24 Octobris 1678. ORdered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled That the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury be and is hereby Appointed to Preach before the House of Peers in the Abbey-Church at Westminster on Wednesday the Thirteenth Day of November next being the Day appointed by His Majesty for Solemn Fasting and Humiliation to implore the Mercy and Protection of God Almighty upon the King's Majesty and His Kingdoms IO. BROWNE Cleric Parliamentorum A SERMON PREACH'D To the House of Peers November 13th 1678. Being the FAST-DAY Appointed by the KING TO Implore the Mercies of Almighty GOD in the Protection of His MAIESTIES Sacred Person and His Kingdoms By the Most Reverend Father in God William Sancroft Late Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury LONDON Printed by T. B. 1694. Die Iovis 14 Novembris 1678. ORdered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled That the Thanks of this House be given to the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury for his Pains in Preaching before the House of Peers in the Abbey-Church Yesterday being the Day Appointed by His Majesty for Solemn Fasting and Humiliation and that His Grace be desired to Print and Publish his Sermon then Preached IO. BROWNE Cleric Parliamentorum A SERMON PREACH'D To the House of Peers PSALM Lvii. ver 1. In the Shadow of
or Umbrella over their Heads and are all the while in the Shade And yet every Shade is not a safe Protection Umbra aut Nutrix aut Noverca est saith Pliny And all the Naturalists tell us that the shadow of some Trees is unwholsome of others deadly Ay there is a shadow of Death too in Scripture Language and you have heard of the Shades of Hell it self And therefore to distinguish this benign and saving Protection from those black and dismal Shades here is yet a further and a higher Emphasis 3. 'T is in the third place Umbra Alarum a Shadow of Wings An Expression borrow'd from Birds and Fowls that brood and foster their young Ones under them The Wing of the Dam is both the Midwife and the Nurse it brings forth the Chickens and it brings them up too So Providence is both the Womb that bare us and the Paps that give us suck The Wing is not only as the Shade a protection from the Heat but a more Universal Defence against all the Injuries and Inclemencies of the Air. Is it too hot The Wing casts off a cold Shade Or is it too cold The Wing affords a warm Covering Are the Younglings frighted with a Storm The Wing is a ready Shelter Doth the Kite or Hawk the Tyrants and Freebooters of the Air hover over and threaten The Wing is a safe Retreat And thus in sacris Domini Defensionibus as Cassian speaks in God and his holy Protections we have All. That our Troubles are not long since grown too hot for us 't is because He cools and allays them That our Comforts do not grow cold and die away in our Bosoms 't is because he warms and reinforceth them That we have heard it bluster abroad for so many years together in a formidable Tempest which hath drench'd and drown'd so great a part of Christendom in Blood and yet the Storm hath hitherto flown over us That the Clouds have been gathering at home too and so long hung black o're our Heads and yet not power'd themselves forth in showers of Vengeance That Gebal and Ammon and Amaleck and the Rest that Hell and Rome and their Partizans our Enemies on all Hands both foreign and Domestick have been so long confederate against us saying Come and let us root them out that they be no more a People that the Name of the Reformed Church of England may be no more in Remembrance that they have so often lookt grim and sour and roar'd and rampt upon us and yet not been able to seize us to what can we justly ascribe all this but to the gracious protections of God's shady Wings spread over us 'T is pity Brethren we are not more deeply apprehensive of it since so it is We sit continually in the Lap and Arms of Providence She is at once our Fortress and our Store-house 'T is to her we owe both our Defence and Supplies our Safety and our Abundance That we ever had any good thing in this World whether Personal or National 't is because we have suckt the Breasts of her Consolations And that we keep and enjoy any thing while our Soul is among Lyons while we dwell in the midst of Cruel and Blood-thirsty Men as holy David complains a little below my Text 't is because we sit under the shadow of her Wings And since we are for all this so over apt to forget her and to pride our selves in Bulwarks of our own projecting God hath seem'd oftentimes and now again of Late to be about to dismantle all and to teach us this Lesson at the dearest Rate if we will not learn it better cheap That we cannot be safe out of his protection that the shadow of his Wings is our best nay our only Refuge And that whether we take a Refuge for the protection of Secrecy or for the protection of Strength Of which much might be said would the time permit it But so much briefly of the first Privilege that of Safeguard and protection from Calamities that they come not upon us I hast to the second 2. If Calamities do come and who is wholly exempt from that common Tax and Tribute of Mortality the Expression speaks Assistance too and timely Deliverance out of them Wings in the common Notion of the World signifie Speed and Activity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret speaks God's speedy and efficacious Providence and Appearance in time of Need to deliver his People 'T is therefore that we give the Winds Wings and the Angels too as being the swift Messengers of God the nimble Mercuries of Heaven 'T is therefore too that when God appears seasonably to deliver his afflicted People he is said in the Psalm to mount a Cherub and to flie or to come flying to them upon the Wings of the Wind or to carry them off into safety on the Wings of an Eagle Birds do not only cover their young Ones under their Wings within the Neast If the Seat prove dangerous they take them up too on their Wings and carry them off to a safer Station Ye have seen what I have done for you saith God to the Iewish Nation how I bear you upon Eagles Wings and brought you to my self As if he had said When you were in actual Bondage I rescued you not only brooded you under my Wings in Egypt and preserv'd you by my Providence while you were yet in the Egg but I hatch'd you as it were even in the Iron Furnaces of Memphis into Political Life and National being and then brought you out safely openly triumphantly as the Eagle doth her Young and brought you off too into a more prosperous Condition And may not God bespeak us too the People of England in the same Language When we were enslav'd at home and so in worse than Egyptian Slavery and our Pharach and his proud Task-Masters made even our Lives bitter to us in hard Bondage in Mortar and in Brick to build up their own proud Babels when they had now kill'd and also taken possession and divided the Spoil and said in a Frolic of their lusty Pride We have devoured them and there is no Hope for them in their God Then on the sudden as an Eagle stirreth up her Neast and fluttereth over her Young and spreadeth abroad her Wings as Moses speaks in his admirable Song thus awakening and exciting their natural Activity and emboldening them to use it to the utmost and when that will not do taketh them up her self and beareth them away upon her own Wings So here The Lord alone did lead us and there was no Other with him that 's Moses's own Reddition When our own Pinion prov'd too weak and all our faint Flutterings to no purpose then by a Miracle of Wisdom Power and Goodness he took us up to that gallant and wonderful Flight even up to a higher pitch than we durst look and made us to ride upon the high Places of the Earth
and set our Neast again amongst the Stars And now when restless and unquiet Men the true Spawn of him whose Tail drew the third part of the Stars of Heaven and cast them to the Earth would fain by their Hellish Plots and Contrivances bring us down again from thence even down to the very Ground and lay all our Honour in the Dust When by their secret Machinations they are at work on all Hands to hurry us back into the old Confusions in Hope that out of that disordered Mass they may at length rear up a new World of their own But what a World A World made up of a new Heaven of Superstitions and Idolatries a new Earth too of Anarchy first and pretended Liberty but of Tyranny insufferable at the next Remove In such a dangerous State of Affairs as this whether should we rather nay whether else can we run for Help and Deliverance but under his Protections the Stretching out of whose Wings fills the Breadth of thy Land ô England He can make all these Cockatrice Eggs on which this Generation of Vipers that eat out the Bowels of their Mother have sat so long abrood windy at last and addle and he will do it So that out of the Serpent's Root shall never come forth an Adder to bite us or a fiery flying Serpent to devour us He will confound these Babel builders with their City and their Tower or Temple their Foreign Politie and their strange Worship their novel Modes and Models of Government in Church and State and scatter them abroad from hence upon the Face of all the Earth Like as a Dream when one awaketh so shall he despise their Images and their imaginations too and cause them to vanish out of the City and make the whole Bulk of their vast Contrivance to consume away like a Snail and become like the untimely Fruit of a Woman which shall never see the Sun He that at first made all things with an Almighty Word said only Let it be and it was so can with the same Facility unmake and annihilate those Worlds of Wickedness which these great Architects of Mischief have been so long projecting and building up 'T is but for him to say It shall not prâ—sper or This shall not be and behold the mighty Machin cracks about their Ears and sinks into Ruin into Nothing leaving no Effect behind it more real or conspicuous than a more firm and lasting Establishment of that which God 's own Right Hand hath planted amongst us When the Earth at first was without Form and void and Darkness hovered over the Face of the Deep the Spirit of God saith the Text mov'd upon the Waters The word in the Original as St. Hierom tells us from the Hebrew Traditions implies that the Spirit of God sate abrood upon the whole rude Mass as Birds upon their Eggs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Greek Author speaks elegantly and hatch the Chaos into World by degrees digesting and in the mean time preserving and susteining it by kindly Heats and vital Incubations And to the like benign and gracious purposes doth God still spread the Wings of his good Providence over his People and their Affairs in calamitous times such as this is when he may seem to stretch out upon the Political World the Line of Confusion and the Plummet of Emptiness Tohu and Bohu the very Words which describes the first Chaos as 't is Es. XXXIV 11. And if hereupon we put our selves as we ought under the saving Influences of his Wings he will either digest our Confusions into greater Order and Beauty than before or at least support and chear us while we lye under them which is the third and last Privilege implyed in this Expression 3. Comfort and Refreshment in Calamities while they are upon us For the Wing is not only the Retreat of Safety from Calamities as in the first particular Nor only the Instrument of Deliverance out of Calamities as in the second 'T is also the Seat of Comfort and Fountain of Refreshment when they lye heaviest upon us And here I might spend the Hour with much Delight for the Prospect is fair and large before me But I am sensible that I have already staid too long upon the first Head of Discourse propounded and so perhaps comply'd too much with the common Humour which loves rather to be tickled and amused with high Privilege than instructed in necessary Duty I shall therefore make hast to seize what remains of the Time and improve it to let you see That All I have said hitherto and the Much more I might have said upon that first Head of Privileges signifies nothing at all is all blank and Cypher to them that go not on chearfully to the Second that of Duty II. They that would be safe under God's Wings must not only please themselves with the general Speculation that Safety and Protection is there to be had They must also make their Refuge there they must put themselves under the Shadow of those Wings by their special Act and Deed must deliberately chuse and effectually place their last Resort there and if they will partake the Benefits must comply with the Obligations of such a State God is our Refuge and our Strength saith holy David most devoutly and most Methodically too For we must first make him our Refuge by flying to him before we can hope that he will be our Strength In vain do they dream of God's saving Protections that turn their Backs upon his Precepts and cast his Laws behind them 'T is true God's Altars are our Sanctuary an inviolable Asylum in our Sufferings and in our Sorrows in our Calamities and in our Dangers for our Ignorances and for our Infirmities But are our Crimes too privileg'd and protected there That were indeed to turn God's Temple into a Den of Thieves and Murderers the notorious Abuse of the modern Sanctuaries and to set up the Wing of Abominations spoken of by Daniel the Prophet even in the Holy Place Nay but pluck them from mine Altars saith God or slay them there that sinâ— presumptuously and with a high hand God will not be so merciful to those that offend of malicious Wickedness as to receive them with all their Sins about them under that sacred and saving Protection The holy Dove broods not a Kite or a Vulture They are Birds quite of another Feather If in good earnest we would be foster'd and cherisht under God's Wings we must first be hatch'd into his Likeness and Similitude be renewed after his Image and be made Partakers in some Measure of the Divine Nature To hover no longer in Generalities the fruitful Metaphor of the Text as you have distinctly seen it big with our Privilege so to qualifie us for that 't is as remarkably pregnant with our Duty also Among the Rest it clearly suggests to us in three noble Instances of our Duty so many apt and proper Qualifications