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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29626	The famine of the word threat[e]ned to Israel, and Gods call to weeping and to mourning being two sermons preached on the fast day, Novemb. 13, 1678, and on the fast day, April 11, 1679 / by James Brome ...	Brome, James, d. 1719.; Brome, James, d. 1719. Gods call to weeping and to mourning.	1679 (1679)	Wing B4856; ESTC R18967	48,082	74

Imprimatur Guil. Sill R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. à sacris domesticis May. 26. 1679. THE Famine of the Word Threatned to ISRAEL AND GODS CALL To Weeping and to Mourning BEING TWO SERMONS PREACHED On the Fast Day Novemb. 13. 1678. AND On the Fast Day April 11. 1679. By JAMES BROME A.M. Rector of Cheriton in the County of Kent LONDON Printed by M. Clark for Richard Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-yard 1679. To the Right Worshipful JAMES BROCKMAN Esq My most honoured Friend and Patron And his Vertuous Consort Madam LUCY BROCKMAN THese Sermons finding so favourable an acceptance at your hands and being so generally desired and called for by all the neighbourhood I thought it my duty to prostrate them both at your feet and usher them out into light under your most auspicious Patronage These perillous Times into which we are fallen as they call for a serious Humiliation on all sides so do they command our joint-endeavours to promote it and if I can be any way instrumental to this good work in the publication of these Papers as it is the utmost of my design so likewise of my desire unless it be further to give hereby a testimony of my real gratitude for the manifold favours so frequently conferred since I had the honour to be under your wings upon Your most obliged Servant James Brome The Famine of the Word Threatned to ISRAEL c. SERMON I. AMOS viij Vers 11 12. Behold the days come saith the Lord God that I will send a Famine in the Land not a Famine of Bread nor thirst for Water but Hearing the Words of the Lord. And they shall wander from Sea to Sea and from the North even to the East they shall ran to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord and shall not find it IT was ever an act of great mercy and kindness in the God of Heaven and Earth that he never issued out his Judgments in the World but he gave timely notice of them before their approaches to awaken mens Consciences either by timely Repentance to divert them or else by Vigilancy and Prayer to prepare against them I might give you sundry instances that this is the certain method of Gods proceeding with mankind Thus before he destroyed the Old World and washed away their pollutions by the general Innundation Noah the Preacher of Righteousness was the Harbinger of that news and he forewarned them what would follow their continual disobedience and perseverance in Iniquity After the same manner did he deal with Sodom with Gomorrah and with Niniveh But I need look so far back Israel a people of Gods own choosing had sufficient experience of his loving kindness and patience and forbearance in this particular Though that Generation of men were a sort of people so refractory and stubborn so stiff-necked and disobedient so unsufferably wicked and such notorious transgressours that God might in justice have swept them away with the Beesom of Destruction without giving them the least space of time to consider of their ways or amend their doings I say though he might have opened all the treasuries of his Vengeance and sent down his arrows in great numbers upon their heads by reason of their manifold provocations against him yet did he never do this but first by his Prophets and Messengers for warned them of what would happen he did not strike till he dealt with them as the Angel did with Balaam Numb 22.31 open their eyes that they might see the blow was coming he did not proceed to sentence till he had first convicted them and represented their guilt in a true Mirrour before them he did not make them examples of his Justice till he had first declared what it was had provoked him and what such wilful provocations did deserve at his hands thus did God still temper his Mercy with his Justice forewarn them that they might be fore-armed And for this very end and purpose was this precaution which God gave Israel in the words read unto you Behold the days come saith the Lord God that I will send a Famine in the Land not a Famine of Bread nor a Thirst of Water but Hearing the Words of the Lord c. From which words I shall discourse 1. Of the Nature of that Judgment which is here threatned to Israel and shew you the dreadfulness of it It is a Famine but not of Bread nor of Thirst for Water but Hearing the Words of the Lord. 2. I shall consider the reason of this denunciation what was the ground and original of it and what it was that caused God Almighty to threaten that people with so severe a Judgment 3. I shall endeavour to shew how they might and we may prevent the like Judgment which seems at this time to hang over our heads 1. I begin with the first of these the Nature of that Judgment which is here threatned to Israel 't is Famine A sore Judgment indeed the very name of which is sufficiently dreadful and terrible were it but onely a corporal punishment For if by Famine the Prophet had only meant scarcity of Bread or extream want of Victuals Gen. 43.1 such a Famine as hapned in Canaan in the Patriarch Jacobs days or such a Famine as fell upon Samaria in the days of Elisha 2 Kings 6.25 when an Asses head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver and the fourth part of a Kab of Doves dung for five pieces of silver that indeed would have been a sore evil by the fearful effects that would have followed and ensued upon it For to see men and women fainting for lack of Bread and ready to prey upon and devour each other to hear their Children and Sucklings Lament 2.11 12. rending the Skies with their bitter ejulations and crying to their Mothers Where is Corn and Wine whilest their souls were ready to be poured forth in their Mothers bosom nay to behold women eating the fruit of their own wombs 2 Kings 6.28 and children become a feast to their Mothers that newly bore them as it hath hapned many times through the extremity of hunger this must needs be a very doleful calamity which would grieve the heart and afflict the eyes of all such as did behold it And yet this corporal Famine though to us it appears to be the greatest of Evils is nothing to that Famine which is here threatned to Israel which was the Famine of Hearing the Words of the Lord or the scarcity and want of Heavenly Bread by depriving them of all holy Ordinances and Duties For certainly this is meant when God threatens to send a Famine amongst them that is utterly to subvert the whole Jewish Church and Religion to banish them from his Temple and all their legal sacrifices to deprive them of all their Rites and Ceremonies and Sacraments which were most dear and pretious to them take from them the Law with which before he

their foreign enemies for dum pugnant singuli vincuntur universi Nay have we not great reason to believe what some considering persons have affirmed upon very probable conjectures that if ever Popery came in amongst us it would most certainly creep in through the back door of Separation And yet for all we know and are forewarned of this shall we give the opportunity to these Philistins to bind us and take from us our strength by cutting away the locks of Unity that would make us invincible Were you ever in more danger than at this time Do you not see these mad Bulls of Bashan ramping and roaring Psal xxii 12 13. and gnashing upon you with their teeth Upon which account there was never a more absolute necessity to forget all animosities to lay aside all unnecessary cavils and scruples than now and to join your forces together with one consent John xi 48. lest the Romans should come and take away both your place and Nation Join therefore your hands and hearts together and become as one people for such a blessed Union would frustrate all the designs and plots of our enemies it would become a brazen wall of defence round about us which they would never be able to undermine or cast down it will put them quite out of heart and dash all their hopes it would take away from them all advantages and put them to their last shifts nay in fine 't is the only way to continue peace and happiness to the Nation for God who is the God of peace of order and unity would then begin to take a delight in us and protect us under the shadow of his wings from all the outward violences and secret machinations of the sons of Belial and if we could once be perswaded to arrive at so good and holy a temper of mind as with one heart Rom. xv 6. and one voice to glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ this would so far endear him to us as to ensure him on our sides and to gain his Patrouage and then let men or devils combine against us and threaten our Church with ruine and desolation He that sitteth in the Heavens would laugh them to scorn Psal ii 4. the Lord would have them in derision and as he would defeat all the evil contrivances of our enemies against it so would he raise it to greater beauty and lustre and establish it upon such firm durable and lasting foundations that the gates of Hell should never be able to prevail against it Since then these would be the joyful effects of Unity since this would make God to be our peculiar Guardian and us to be his more especial favourites since this would be a means to secure us from all our enemies and reduce us to a blissful and a flourishing condition if either you desire to desire to promote the common interest of your Religion or your Brethrens welfare or your Nations happiness let S. Pauls advice sink down in your hearts and appear practicable in your lives I beseech you Brethren 1 Cor. i. 10. by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same things and that there be no divisions amongst you but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment 2. Secondly as united hearts minds and judgments would become one very instrumental means to divert Gods Judgments from us so would our joint concurrence in humbling our selves by Prayer and Supplication be another excellent way to move God to commiserate our condition and preserve us from destruction When Jonah came with that severe message to Niniveh that in forty days God was resolved to destroy it both nature and the present danger they were in suggested it to them to address themselves in all humility to the supreme Being who had sent his Prophet to denounce that Judgment against them and both King and People Man and Beast was covered with sackcloth and they lift up their voices with one accord and cried mightily to God to deliver them from that evil which he threatned against them and we find that they met with success suitable to the importunity and fervency of their prayers for God repented him of the evil which he said he would do to that City Jonah 111.8 9. and did it not O let us follow the same method at this day let us humble our selves before Almighty God and if there be ever a Jacob amongst us any who can wrestle and prevail with God let him forthwith set about so glorious a work for never was there more need of such pressing intercessions Alass when we see our enemies ready to devour us when we find they are restless in their plots and conspiracies against us 't is sure high time for us to fall to our prayers and be as restless in our supplications to God Almighty to disappoint them and indeed if we were but once really sensible of our danger as it would melt the strongest heart living and make it bleed to consider the miseries that would ensue from hence so would it make us fly forthwith with the greatest speed to Gods Sanctuary and there implore the Auxiliaries of Heaven to succour and relieve us and since we know not how long we may enjoy the blessed opportunity of treading in Gods Courts and calling upon his name and deprecating his judgments as blessed be God we do yet for the present since we are not sure how soon we may be banished from his Temples be abridged of his worship be deprived of his word and made to wander to and fro from this place to that place from this City to that City to seek that word which yet we shall not be able to find why do not we make the best use of it whilst me may Why do not we assemble more unanimously together and with whole Volleys of Prayers storm the gates of Heaven and enforce God to stand up for us and to become our defence and refuge If your Houses were like to perish in a general Conflagration would you not all run to quench the fire with the greatest celerity And when the whole Kingdom is ready to be put into a flame by a company of turbulant Popish Incendiaries will not you be as ready to use all possible means to obstruct and allay it Now since nothing can be more effectual to this purpose than Prayer why are we so back ward in the performance of this Holy Duty What is the reason our petitioners are so few and the House of Prayer so empty and unfrequented Alas Can we think that God will do what we would have him though we say nothing at all to him or that a short slight sleepy-hearted address now and then when we please will serve the turn Can we hope to bind Gods hands with wit hs and straws to arrest his vengeance with weak and feeble Assaults What our Saviour said in another case

would make ones heart ake to read the History of their Times when in the space of less than seven years there perished of the Jews at home and abroad both in their Civil and Foreign Wars as Lipsius hath computed the number no less than duodecies centena quadraginta millia twelve hundred and forty thousand men De Constantia lib. 2. cap. 21. to fulfil the tenor of those threatnings which had so frequently been issued out by their Prophets against that Nation And now since the mercies have been as great which God hath vouchsafed to us and our incorrigibleness as remarkable under the greatest of them what remains for us but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation to devour all Gods adversaries What can we say for our selves that God should not suffer us to fall into their hands whom we most fear since we have trampled upon his goodness whom we have most reason to love It is but just with God to punish one sin by another and so fit us for destruction by the permission of it to change our indifferency in Religion into a blind Zeal and superstitious practice of it our open Prophaneness into professed Idolatry our contempt of Order and Discipline into rigorous Censures and a bloody Inquisition our despising of Dominion and speaking evil of Dignities into a Yoke of Tyranny and Romish Usurpations And I know not what can any way avert the one but our hearty and sincere resolutions to retract and utterly forsake the other and with prostrate bodies and contrite souls unanimously to implore the divine mercy in that excellent Form of Prayer which our Church affords us for this occasion GLORIOVS and gratious God whose judgments against obstinate offenders are most severe and terrible but thy mercies insinite to all that with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto thee We sinful people of this Land do acknowledge before thee to thy glory and our own shame that never any Nation had more experience of thy goodness nor yet did ever any more unthankfully abuse it when thou gavest us great and long prosperity we fed our selves to the full waxed fat and kicked against thee when thou threwest us into horrid confusions from which we saw then little hopes of arising even in the time of that distress did we trespass yet more against thee when by miracles of mercy thou hadst turned our captivities we soon returned to folly to our vomit and to our wallowing in our former or greater filthiness Even while thou hast of late appeared for us by discovering the Plots and Contrivances of our implacable enemies of the Romish Faction we have been in the mean time by our sins sighting against Heaven and against thee And now we are no more worthy to be called either thy sons or thy servants whom neither thy fear hath driven nor thy goodness led to repentance In mercy awaken our drowsie consciences and subdue our hard hearts into deep contrition Pardon the many great offences of us thy servants and the crying sins of the whole Nation Remove the evils we now lie under Avert the judgments which we justly fear because we most justly deserve Discover more and more the snares of death and Popish treachery and let us never fall into the hands of those men whose mercies are cruel Vnite all our hearts in the profession of the true Religion which thine own right hand hath planted amongst us and in a holy conversation answerable therete Pour out thine abundant blessings upon our gracious King and his great Council the present Parliament Keep him as the apple of thine eye hide him under the shadow of thy wings Inform his Princes after thy will and teach his Senators wisdom And grant that all their counsels resolutions and endeavours may tend to and end in the glory of thy great Name the preservation of the Church and true Religion amongst us and the security peace and prosperity of these Kingdoms All which we humbly beg in the Name and through the Mediation of Jesus Christ thy Son our Saviour Amen FINIS