on Gods side and he pays them home in the same kind they thought in the Famine to have kept the more for themselves and they had less for keeping from him that which was his own A just hand of God upon all such who think every thing too much for his service for the most part they are alwayes in want and needy their wealth melting away like Snow before the Sun The Merchant that denyes to pay his Customs forfeits all his Commodities they forfeit their own portion who with-hold Gods from him God tames his Prodigals and starves their bodies who by neglect of his worship starve their owne souls God denies the same external things to them which they deny to Gods House But might not these Jews have pleaded against this Sentence and charged God with too much severity saying with their Forefathers The way of the Lord is not equal What is this Temple more then another place Cannot we worship God in any House as well as this Is not God a spirit and will be worshiped in spirit and truth and that we may do in any Mountain as well as this Whereunto although it might be a sufficient answer to say with S. Paul O man who art thou that replyest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Shall sinful man plead with his Maker Yet because this malapert sauciness is the temper of many in this age as well as that that the most just God may be justified when he speaketh and clear when he judgeth we may take notice of the equity of it by a twofold consideration First Of the nature of the place and Secondly Of the nature of the punishment First Gods equity will be cleared from the nature of the place which was First A visible sign and token of Gods more immediate and gracious presence for although God dwels not in Temples made with hands that is so as we dwell in our Houses to be comprehended in them yet God is sayed to dwell there where he manifests himself and therefore what was done before the Temple was sayed to be done before God called therefore The Throne of his Glory The place of his rest The place of his habitation His dwelling place Now we know that affronts offered to the Kings Chayre of State although in his absence are as much resented as when he is present Secondly That House was the choisest and chiefest instrument of Gods worship in the Jewish administration they were to direct all their worship towards it It was the King of Heavens Court of Requests which he had appointed for the hearing their prayers and granting their Petitions and which had the priviledge of an universally gracious audience In this place will I give peace saith the Lord c. 2. 9. Now because the honour done to any part of Gods service reflects on himself as those that offered any polluted bread on Gods Altar are sayed to despise his name therefore to punish this offence so grievously could be no over much severity Thirdly That House was a type of Christ it was a sacred Mystery representing their Messiah to them who was the true Temple made without hands as himself makes the application John 2. 19. Destroy this Temple and after three dayes I will raise it up which S. John who was his beloved Disciple and lay in his bosome interprets as meant of his own body Vers. 21. He spake of the Temple of his body And this the Apostle asserts at large in the ninth Chap. of the Epistle to the Hebrews Jesus Christ was that true Temple in which the God-head dwelt bodily that is really fully substantially by the neerest union and most intimate conjuction as the soul dwels in the body and so the neglect was the neglect of Christ himself Fourthly That place was the spring-head of all their blessings God had made that the staple of all his favours In all places where I record my name I will come to thee and bless thee From whence it is that in Scripture Gods blessings are not said to be given from Heaven immediatly but from Syon the place of Gods worship There the Lord commanded the blessing even life for evermore Psal. 133. 3. And the Lord that made Heaven and Earth bless thee out of Syon Psal. 134. 3. The Ocean of blessing is in Heaven but the well-head is Syon and so by neglecting Gods House they forsook their own mercy so that the nature of the place acquits the Lord of Hosts from the imputation of over-rigorous proceeding which likewise will appear Secondly From the nature of the Judgment if we shall consider those veins of mercy which run through it which is the Second general part and is included in the scope and designe of the words of my Text. And this mercy is visible in four particulars First In the Judgment it self Secondly In the matter of that Judgment Thirdly In the measure of it Fourthly In the discovery of the cause and consequently the means of removing it First It was mercy that they were punished at all correction being a signe of Gods paternal care For every Son whom he loveth he Chastneth and Scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth Immunity from Chastisement and Correction is the Bastards not the Childs prerogative Gods forbearances are his most dreadful Severities and a prosperous iniquity is the most unprosperous condition in the world It is cruelty not mercy to suffer men to go on in sin unpunished it being that which hardens men in sin and consignes them over to ruine and reprobation It is a deplorable condition when God shall say Why should ye be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more Vis indignantis Dei terribilem vocem audire will you here the terrible voice of a provoked God Hear it saith Origen in that of Hos. 4. 14. I will not punish your Daughters when they commit whoredome Never was Jerusalem's case so desperate as when God sayd to her I will make my fury towards thee to rest and my jealousy shall depart from thee and I will be quiet and will be no more angry Ezek. 16. 42. That 's the first beame of mercy that they are punished A Second is that their Punishment is in external temporal things and not in internal and Spiritual which as they are most necessary so the loss is most dangerous Man may be happy without the one he cannot be so without the other The Lord of Hosts might instead of a famine of bread have sent a famine of the word of God which is the Souls proper food and without which it cannot live which he threatens in another Prophet as the most dreadful Famine Behold the day is come saith the Lord that I will send a Famine in the Land not a Famine for Bread nor a thirst for Water but of hearing the Word of the Lord. We never fear a dearth if we have Bread-Corne
taken Houses at great Prices and Furnished our shops with rich wares but loe it comes to little there are few Buyers and but small gaines we can scarce pay our rents Doth not the Handicrafts man complain we look for much for we labour hard and work good and sufficient wares but loe it comes to little The Shop-keeper will not buy but at his own rates so that we have little more than our labour for our Paines And that which adds to the unhappiness of all this is that every one of these is apt to impute this Calamity to any thing rather than the right cause and so hinder themselves of the true remedy because they will not understand the true cause of the distemper Either a Forreigne Nations ingrossing Trade abroad or the Magistrates neglect of Trade at home must bear the blame who is it that considers that Gods House lyes wast while every man runs to his owne House Gods House said I nay Gods Houses how many of them lie in their ruines in their rubbish for we must not fancy that God hath no Houses now and that because that Temple at Jerusalem together with it's Ceremonial worship is abolished that God hath not adopted any other places which he will own for his for before the foundations of that Temple were laid and since they have been razed and one stone not left on another which was not thrown downe God always had a place appropriated to his worship and where he was pleased to afford a more gracious Presence than elsewhere Even in Paradise Adam had a place to present himself before God Which was called Gods Presence or Face Gen. 3. 8. From which he hid himselfe for from Gods general presence nothing can be hid but all things are naked and open And his Sons out of Paradise had their places where to bring their Sacrifices Gen. 4. 3. From which when Cain stood excommunicate for the Murther of his Brother Abel he is said to be cast out from the presence of the Lord. Vers. 16. Abraham besides Altars in several places planted a grove Gen. 21. 23. To be a fixt place for Gods worship for there he called on the name of the Lord. And so it is expounded by one that was no great friend to our Churches And afterwards when he is commanded to offer his Son Isaac the very Mountain is prescribed him Gen. 21. 1. and Gods title to it ceased not with that one act for there Solomons Temple was afterwards built which God in my Text calls his House nor did it then begin if we may believe the general consent of the Jewish Rabbins who assert that to be the place where Cain and Abel nay Adam himself offered When Jacob consecrated that place where he saw the Vision of the Ladder reaching to Heaven Gen. 28. 18. he called it Beth-el Gods House the ground of which both consecration and name is rendred Vers. 16 17. Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not how dreadful is this place This is none other but the House of God the gate of Heaven So that Gods Houses began not with the Temple of Solomon no nor that ambulatory Temple of Moses the Tabernacle which is peculiarly by David called Gods House nor while they were in being did they ingross that title to themselves for there were both in Jerusalem and in other places of the Land no small number of Synagogues for the People to resort unto for their Devotions which are called Synagogues of God and Houses of God in the Plural Number and these were Frequented by Christ and his Apostles as well as the Temple And since the Destruction of that Temple God was never destitute of Houses for his Worship True it is that in the Primitive times of Christianity when they had not the Publick allowance and Countenance of authority they could exercise their Religion only in Private yet then they had places for the Saints to meet in for Divine Worship such were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the upper-roomes mentioned so frequently in the Acts of the Apostles and distinguished by St. Paul from Private Houses 1 Cor. 11. 22. Have ye not Houses to Eat and Drink or despise ye the Church of God understood by most Interpreters both ancient and modern of the publick place of Gods Worship those perhaps not so sumptous and stately as afterwards the Churches mean Condition and the worlds envy would not permit that but such as their Poverty would allow they had But when it pleased God to raise up Kings and Emperours to favour sincerely the Christian Faith Churches were then erected in all places and no cost spared nothing thought to deere which that way was spent and these were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords from whence the Scots Kirke and our English Church doth proceed and is the same title which is given to his day Rev 1. 10 And not improperly since we find the place and time of Gods Worship Joyned together by the Holy Ghost in Scripture Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my Sanctuary and then what the Son of Syrach saith of one may be applied to the other and we may say why doth one place excel another by the knowledg of the Lord they are distinguished and some of them he hath made high places and hallowed them and some of them he hath made ordinary places As the one is the Day of rest and when we hallow it it is called Gods rest so the other when Consecrated to his name is called Gods rest This is my rest for ever And such were those Houses in this City which are now wast for they were Dedicated and Consecrated to Gods service in them the Saints were assembled the Gospel of Jesus Christ was Preached The Lords Holy Name was Invocated and the Sacraments of the new covenant duly administred to all which Christ under the Gospel hath Promised a gracious presence Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them Mat. 18. 20. And to this promise he hath set to his seale by Converting to and Confirming many a Soule in the doctrine of Jesus Christ from these places Now that these are wast is as legible as if writ in Text but where to lay the blame is not perhaps so easily discovered To impute it to the Magistracy of this City this Honorable Bench would be no less then Scandalum Magnatum Their Zeale in general is Sufficiently evidenced by this place wherein we are now Assembled and in particular many of them either by actual contribution or subscription have testified abundantly their respects to these Houses And of the Commonalty I have reason to have as good an opinion if their abilities were consonant to their desires when I consider their ancient zeal while the City was Flourishing to these Houses of God how they opened their hands and filled with Blessings many Churches both
MERCY In the midst of JUDGMENT By a gracious discovery of a certain Remedy for LONDON'S Languishing TRADE In a Sermon Preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and the Citizens of London on September 12. 1669. at the new repaired Chappel at Guild-Hall By D. BARTON M. A. and Rector of Saint Margarets New Fish-street London LONDON Printed for James Allestry at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1670. To the Right Honourable Sir SAMVEL STARLING Knight Lord Mayor of the City of LONDON AND THE Court of ALDERMEN Right Honourable THIS Sermon savouring of the Countrey in which it was conceived and brought forth without the Midwifry of a Library my own perishing in the same Flames with your City and the place of my now residence not affording an assistant was intended onely for your religious ears in them to have both its birth and buriall but since it hath pleased you to reprieve it to a longer and more publick life where should it be more justly laid than at your doors who for your able parts and endowments have been fitted for the publick imployment and intrusted with the weightiest affairs of this City and who by your Favour and Countenance are able to cover the rawness and rudeness or what other defects in my weake and unworthy handling so necessary a subject I have in publishing it regarded more your Opinion than my own conceipt and I hope because you think so that the matter will not be altogether unprofitable or unseasonable although it be not handled so artificially and rhetorically as it ought my main study being to be plain and to apply the things delivered to the present times whatever it be and I wish it much better it is now no more mine but yours and if under the beames of your goodness it shall so thrive as to become an Instrument for the furthering that important Work mentioned in it next under God your Honour and your worshipful assessors are to have the Praise and I therein shall receive a sufficient reward of my labour accounting it my greatest happiness on earth to have been able to performe any acceptable service to that Royal City to which for many yeares past and my whole life for the future I have dedicated all my endeavours I will not detain your Honour c. any longer from your more publick and serious affaires but only beseech the Almighty and All-wise God that he would give you understanding and valiant hearts to manage them Couragiously and Prudently that you may be instruments in Gods hand for the making up the breaches in our Syon and Jerusalem which is and shall be the dayly Prayer of Your Honours and Worships unfainedly devoted in all Christian duty and Observance DAV BARTON Haggai I. 9. Ye looked for much and loe it came to little and when ye brought it home I did blow upon it Why saith the Lord of Hosts Because of mine House that is waste and ye run every Man unto his owne House SOme Geographers have observed that there is no Land so placed in the World but from that Land a man may veiw some other Land though between Land and Land you may see Seas enraged with stormes and tempests yet land is still within ken An observation perhaps of more curiosity than verity in the material Sea of this World yet most certain if it be applyed to the mistical Sea of Gods Judgments which the Royal Prophet compares to a great deep and the dry land of his mercy though between mercy and mercy God interposeth a raging Ocean of trouble and calamity raised by the storme of his indignation so that men seeme to be in the condition of the material world Gen. 7. When the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth and all the high hils that were under the whole Heaven were covered Omnia pontus erant deerant quoque littora Ponto All was a Sea and that Sea had no shores yet if they looke but onward they cannot miss of a prospect of dry land of Mercy The Almighty God hath so interwoven these two in the dispensation of his providence that the one is never discernable without the other When God landeth his people in the Haven of prosperity he would have them look back on the tempestuous Sea from which they are escaped and fear his Justice when he lancheth them forth into the depth of misery he carries them not out of sight of land that there may be hope of mercy Thus doth the most Gracious God in the midst of Judgment remember Mercy and giveth even the vally of Achor the vally of trouble for a door of hope and in the deepest Ocean of his Judgments discovers a little Island of Mercy to repaire to And thus did he of old deal with his People the Jewes He caused the King of Babylon to arise like waters out of the North and to become an overflowing flood and to overflow the land and all that was therein whereby they were swept away into Captivity yet then when these waters did so overflow their heads that they said they were cut off the all-merciful God lifted up their heads and shewed them a prospect of mercy by a faithful promise of deliverance after seventy years at which harbour they are no sooner arrived but their sins provoke God to bring them back into the Sea of his Judgments and he afflicts them with famine ye have sown much and bring in little ye eat but have not enough ye drinke but ye are not filled with drinke c. vers 6. of this Chapter Yet even here though the Sea roared and the Heaven was black with Clouds that God which gave to the Sea his decree saying Thus far shalt thou go and no farther and there thy proud waves shall be staied not only discovers a Cape of good Hope and makes a path in that mighty water for his ransomed to pass to it Go up to the Mountain and bring wood and build the House and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified saith the Lord vers 8 but also gives them a faithful representation of their present state and condition with the by-path that brought them into it that so they might be induced to consider their waies and leave them and return into the way of peace and this he doth in the words of my Text Ye looked for much and loe it comes to little c. So that my Text is made up of the two parts of Davids Song Psalm 101. 1. Mercy and Judgment which in God are alwayes twisted together Gracious and righteous is the Lord Psal. 25. 8. and all his pathes are mercy and truth v. 10 Not one path of mercy and another of truth but every path mercy and truth both The red Cross of his Justice as in your City Armes is born on the white Field of his mercy as these therefore were the burden of David's Ditty so they must be the support of my
had hard Taskes and cruel Task-masters yet they had their Fleshpots and their Garlicks and their Onyons to the full bnt now they labour and have nothing to eat thus the Messengers of ill newes as to Job did throng upon them one at the heeles of another which was none of the smallest aggravations of this Calamity that it followed so immediatly on the neck of the other The fourth marke of the Severity of this Judgment was the frustration of their hopes and expectations Ye looked for much and loe it came to little If hope deferred makes the heart sick Prov. 13. 12. Hope frustrate and lost can do no lesse then breake it When men thinke themselves sure as Esau did of the blessing and it then failes them this is matter of bitter weeping For God to take away the Corn in the time thereof and the Wine in the season thereof that is just at harvest when it is to be inned when the old store is spent and they looke for a new recruit then to have the meat cut from their mouths and the morsel from between their teeth then to have their hopes defeated hightens the misery A fifth print of the Severity of this Judgment was the loss of their labour It is very frequent and scarce ever otherwise to see the Sluggards hopes blasted he that will not sow in Winter can never promise himselfe to reap in Harvest but after Plowing Sowing nay Reaping too and bringing home to find but little that adds to the weight of the want Nothing so much discontents men as labour in vain to take paines and to see nothing come of it is enough to make a Prophet complain to labour all night in fishing and take nothing may tempt an Apostle to desist To labour in the fire and to weary themselves for vanity to lose oleum operam cost and paines is sufficient to bring men to desperation Especially when that little which is coming in doth no good when God blows on it and takes away the nourishing virtues so that either men dare not eat their fill for feare of want another day or if they do eat the Staffe of bread being broken for want of Gods concurrence they are not satisfied A Boulimy or Canine appetite being a disease common at such times when in the fulness of their sufficiency as Zophar in Job speaks of the wicked they are in streights that little is so far from abating that it encreaseth the Calamity And so much for the first Particular the Judgment with the Severity of it The Second thing is the Author of this Judgment I did blow upon it Saith the Lord of Hosts Shall there be Evil in the Citty and I have not done it Saith God himselfe Am. 3. 6. God Challengeth the execution of Justice to himselfe not only at the Last Day but in this world and it is as agreeable to his nature now as it will be hereafter It is not luck or fortune that tosseth or tumbleth things below but God sits at the stern and steers the affairs of this World The Genealogy of all the good creatures is resolved by God into himself Hos. 2 21. Unless he hear the Heavens and the Heavens hear the Earth no Corn or Wine or Oyle can be expected The Earth is a kind Mother yet it cannot open her bowels to yield seed to the sower or bread to the eater if it be not watered from above The Heavens are the Storehouses of Gods good treasure which he openeth to mans profit and nourishment yet they cannot drop down fatness on the earth if God close it up and with-hold the seasonable showers which he can do if he please and will do if he be provoked First He can do it easily Secondly He will do it justly First He can do it easily It is but his blowing upon it and it is done As he made all things so he can dissolve them by the breath of his mouth He hideth his face and the creatures are troubled he taketh away their breath and they dye He sendeth forth his breath and they are created and reneweth the face of the Earth He turneth man to destruction and again he saith come again ye children of men And this he can do so easily because he is the Lord of Hosts a title frequently used by these three last Prophets Haggai Zachary and Malachy who prophesying after the Jews return from the Babylonian Captivity when their state was at the lowest scarce ever name God by any other title to denote unto them how easie it was for him to bring his Judgments upon them and to remove them again all creatures being at his command as Lord of Hosts and like the Centurions Servants if he say to one Go hee goeth to another Come hee cometh and to a third Do this hee doth it When he will do a thing who shall hinder him Nature may be resisted and stopped in her course Men and Devils though never so potent may want of their will and be crossed in their designes and desires but the Lord of Hosts doth whatsoever he will both in Heaven and Earth without controul or contradiction Secondly He will do it justly Gods Judgments are not alwaies manifest they are alwaies just And he may say as David to his Brethren in another case What have I now done is there not a cause God never punisheth a People but there is a just cause for it and could men but see it the root of the matter would be found in themselves It is the Plague of their own hearts that procures them all their mischief and this might have been put among the aggravations of the Judgment that it is from themselves that they are the cause of their own ruine that they may thank themselves and blame their sin as the Mother of their misery and cause of their Calamity O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self Saith God So that there is no ground of complaint why should a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sin Had man never been sinful he had never been miserable had he never lift up his heart against Heaven to provoke God God had never lift up his hand on earth to punish man If these Jewes would but have considered their own waies as God himselfe exhorts them twice in a breath vers 5. and 7. They might have easily found the Serpent that bit them to be lurking in their own bosom the contempt and neglect of Gods worship which brings me to The Third particular The cause of this Judgment why saith the Lord of Hosts c. Wherein three things offer themselves to our Consideration First The sin it's selfe Gods House lyes wast Secondly The Aggravation of that sin Ye run every man to his own house Thirdly The Proportion between the sin and the punishment First The sin it selfe is that Gods House is suffered to lie wast This House which God Challengeth to himself