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A34954 Judah's purging in the melting pot a sermon preached in the cathedral at Sarum before the Reverend Sir Robert Foster, and Sir Thomas Tirrell, Knights, judges for the western circuit, at the Wiltshire Assizes, Sept. 6, 1660 / by W. Creede ... Creed, William, 1614 or 15-1663. 1660 (1660) Wing C6873; ESTC R37688 31,329 49

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JUDAH'S PURGING IN THE MELTING POT A SERMON Preached in the Cathedrall at SARVM before the Reverend Sir Robert Foster and Sir Thomas Tirrell Knights Judges for the Western Circuit at the Wiltshire Assizes Sept. 6. 1660. By W. CREEDE D. D. Archdeacon of Wilts and Canon Resident of Sarum Published at the speciall request of their Lordships and divers eminent Gentlemen Justices of the Peace and others LONDON Printed for R. Royston and are to be sold by John Courtney Bookseller in SARUM To the Reverend Sir ROBERT FOSTER AND Sir THOMAS TIRRELL Knights His MAjESTIES Justices of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster Judges for the Western Circuit AND To the Honourable and Right Worshipfull the Justices of the Peace for the County of WILTS My Lords and Gentlemen THat I presume to affix your Names to this Sermon is to let the World know that as by your Favour in not forsaking our Cathedrall I had the Opportunity to Preach it so by your desire and at the Instance of divers Honourable and Worshipfull Persons Justices of the Peace and others it was committed to the Press The truth is my Lords you and those worthy Gentlemen did more then desire it You assured me as a Motive for you to ask and me to grant that it would be very useful for the Publick And this had with me the Nature of a Command because I count it my duty as a Minister of Christ to promote by all lawfull wayes the true interest of Christianity exemplary Piety Repentance Purity and Peace And as these blessed Ends wherein the Happiness and Wellfare of a Church and Nation consist have been by Gods Grace though with much Frailty and Weakness the constant Objects of my Endeavours in the work of the Ministery so now more especially since God has been pleased so miraculously to be seen in our Deliverance and happy Restauration For though Gods Judgements allwayes signally call for Repentance yet me thinks his Mercies much more because he has promised that Christs People shall be willing in the day of his power Psalm 110. in the Beauty of holiness from the womb of the Morning when the lively fruitfull Dews of Grace fall that renew the face of the Earth and make it fresh and youthful And as these times are Times of Mercy so I thought that healing Discourses were the fittest But then that the Cure might be sound and reall not Palliative and false I thought it proper at this Season the Embleme of the great Assize to search the wound unto the bottome And therefore I made choice of a Scripture not so much to teach you your Duties which I had good Reason to hope you better understood than to need my Admonition as to make my Auditory sensible of those sins that had drawn down our heavy Judgements that so laying them to heart they might leave the Magistrate less work by a Cordial Repentance and more prise Gods Mercies so miraculously bestowed on us when we had least Reason to expect them because by his Corrections we had so little been prepared for them Yet because I saw God had drawn a wonderfull Veil of Mercy between our Sins and his Judgements and that the King and his great Council were so sollicitous and carefull in Preparing and Passing so unparallell'd an Act of Grace and perpetuall Oblivion I resolved not to meddle with any Persons or Parties concerned in that Act but with the crimes of the Text and the Vices of the Nation and stil to fix on such Motives as the Text naturally suggested to make us bury our Animosities and with all Humility to adore the Hand in the Clouds and not regard the rods and the Scourges wherewith we were beaten And where in the Application I was forced to speak of the sins that had made us like Jerusalem in the Punishment I industriously confined my self to those that had been in the Melting Pot. And I have reason to bless God that the great Sufferers and prime Objects of my Discourse were so sensible of my reproofs that they gave me hearty thanks As for the rest of the Audience they were so unconcerned in my Thoughts that I could not be so uncharitable to imagine they would so much own and countenance the sins of the Text as to conceive themselves aimed at in the Description of those sins And it must be their own unchristian Imprudence if by any sinister Construction they turned that into a Satyre which I delivered a Sermon And I wish them timely to consider whether such unjust Apprehensions may not deprive them of a right to our Mercies by entitling themselves as yet to those sins that have drawn down such Judgements Yet if any Sanballats and Tobiahs still maligning the happy restauration and Building our Jerusalem and Temple will think themselves concerned when the sins so sorely threatned and sharply punished in Gods People are but named and described this wil onely argue their guilt that still stares them in the Face and will not suffer them to forget what their Brethren have resolved to bury in perpetual oblivion and they are too much like the Roman Dame whose trembling at the noyse of the Lictors whip that was the Ensign of her Sisters Honour did palpably betray the meanness of her present condition But as I thought not of any such Self-libellers as these before the Sermon was Preached so I shall less think of them now when it comes from the Press I have better work at present to praise God for his Mercies in the removal of his judgements and humbly beseech him that by the power of his Grace he would put an end to our sins lest they make us unworthy of the continuance of his mercies And as he has restored us our Judges as at the first and our Counsellors as at the beginning so he would make you my Lords and Gentlemen very eminent among those whom he has designed to dress and polish us by Justice and Judgement that so being now delivered from the hands of our enemies we may all serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the dayes of our life and becom● a faithfull City a City of Righteousness And this shall be the Prayer of My Lords and Gentlemen Your most faithfull servant in Christ Jesus WILLIAM CREEDE JUDAH'S PURGING IN THE MELTING POT Isaiah I. vers 25 26. And I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy dross and take away all thy Tinne And I will restore thy Judges as at the first and thy Counsellors as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the City of Righteousness the faithfull City The Context runs thus Vers 21. How is the faithfull City become an Harlot it was full of judgement righteousness lodged in it but now murderers 22. Thy silver is become dross thy wine mixt with water 23. Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of thieves every one loveth gifts and followeth after rewards they judge not the
23. Moses did when he resolves to destroy them We do not b Gen. 18. 32. find ten righteous persons in the foure Cities of the Plain though Lot and his Family dwelt in Sodom lest it might have been spared for tens sake And no injustice at all in this For as the best men have their sins and he that is least guilty in a Nation has some way or other helped to add to the publick Banck so the worst may through Gods mercy to them in Christ be reprieved in National Judgements to give them space to repent it was wicked Jezabels case Revel 2. 21. or he may reserve them for whips and scourges to punish an hypocriticall people as he saved the c 1 King 11. 26. 40. 2 Chron. 13. 6 Traytor Jeroboam from the sword of his Prince that so he might be the d 1 Kings 11. 31 32 33. compared with vers 9 10. 11. scourge to Rehoboam the son of a e 1 King 11. 1 2 c. to the 11. Quisquis ille Confessor est Salomone major aut melior aut charior non est qui tamen quamdiu in viis Domini ambulavit tamdiu gratiam quam de Domino fuerat consecutus obtinuit Postquam dereliquit Domini viam perdidit gratiam Domini Et ideo scriptum est Tene quod habes ne alius accipiat Coronam Cyprian de Eccles Unitate seu simplicitate Praelat p 171. edit Froben Basil But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye Ezek. 18 21. And that Solomon repented of his evil wayes I have reason to imagine and that Ecclesiastes was the signal fruit of his Repentance wicked Father And if they make not good use of this Reprieve God has greater Judgements in store as he had for impenitent Jezabel Revel 2. 22 23. and when the discipline is ended then the Assyrian the f Esay 10. 5. 12. Rod of his Anger must be thrown into the fire and f Esay 10. 5. 12. another nation shall visit and ruine them for the evil of Gods People to which they were instrumentall Let not then the g Esay 10. 15. Axe boast it self against the wood that is hewed and say I am better then thou much less against him that heweth therewith nor let him that has escaped a common Calamity think it was for his own goodness that he fell not as other men Gods Judgements as we read in h Dan. 12. 4 9 Revel 6. 3. 10. 4. Isai 29. 11. Daniel and the Revelation are still sealed They are secret hidden things to us and we know not the Causes nor the Justice of them Nevertheless as the Apostle * 2 Tim. 2 19 2 Tim. 2. 19. the foundation of the Lord standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his And let every one that but nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity That is † Deut. 29. 29. our business at all times especially in publick Calamities † But secret things his winding intricate Paths of Providence and Judgement against an hypocriticall People belong unto the Lord. We may see indeed who suffers and what scourge falls upon him but then we know not the end or reason of the stroak It is not then for us to pry into Gods Counsels when he is at his work of Judgement When the Founder sits at the Melting pot none can know but himself why this piece of Metall first goes into the flame or why that other is reserved Gods Judgements sayes the * Psal 36. 9. Psalmist are a great deep not to be fathomed by us No rather let it humble us under his sin-avenging hand and make us tremble at the severity of his wrath and abhor our own vileness that makes him spare none Good bad all alike we see lye under a common Calamity and the best are either first taken away or are the most eminent in sufferings Let it teach us to adore his Justice in Wonder and Silence and make us lay our hands on our lips as † Psal 39. 9. David did and be dumb and open not our mouth because God did it Or rather let us lay our hands on our hearts and judge not others but our selves and say as Nathan did to David we we are the men 2 Sam. 12. 7. We have brought this destruction on our Princes and on our Brethren Let it make us lift up our Prayers for the remnant that is left As the Judgement Esay 37. 5. has been National and Publick so let all the Joel 2. 16. 17. Congregation the Elders the Sucklings the Bridegroom the Priests all cry out spare thy People O Lord and give not thine heritage to reproach Let our Prayers and our Repentance be as large and publick as our Sins and Miseries have been Alas let us not consider who was struck or who spared or who threatned in the desolation but the hand that did strike us The Author of the Punishment the next thing considerable And that is one sufficient enough for such a work For he wants nor Power nor Skill nor Authority to effect it because he is the Lord the Lord of Hosts Esay 1. 24. the mighty one of Israel as he describes himself in the verse before the Text to shew his own strength and our weakness and affright the sinner to Repentance For his Power he is the Lord of hosts the mighty one Job 25. 3. and is there any number of his Armies as it is Job 25. 3. And certainly methinks this alone should humble us were we rationall Creatures For do we provoke the Lord the Lord of hosts to Jealousie Are we 1 Cor. 10 22. stronger then he that is the mighty one of Israel Are any of us able to dwell with his Everlasting burnings Esay 33. 14. Are we sufficient to meet him with our ten thousand Weaknesses that comes against us with his twenty thousand Judgements Me thinks when a Nationall Plague is broke in upon us it should humble and terribly amate us that it is the King of Kings and Lord of hosts one higher one stronger then all that smites us that can consume us with the very breath Psal 18. 8. Esay 5. 24. Esay 31. 3. of his nostrils us that are as stubble before the flames and chaff before the wind that like Aegypts horses are flesh and not Spirit Though in our Brave with † Esay 37. 24. 25. Sennacherib we talk high and threaten what we will do against the enemy at home or abroad yet * Vers 29. Leviathan has a hook in his Nostrils the war horse hath a bridle in his lipps he shall go but to the compass of his Line and whether † A notable example of Gods Providence in this kind we have Ezechiel 21 19 20 21 22 c.