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A30728
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A sermon preached at St. Mary-le-Bow, before the Lord Mayor, Court of Aldermen and citizens of London on Wednesday, the 16th of September, a day appointed by Their Majesties for a solemn monthly fast / by Lilly Butler, Rector of Bubbingworth in Essex.
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Butler, Lilly.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing B6278A; ESTC R35817
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13,127
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33
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all that affection and importunity which becometh the importance of the suit not to remember our offences not to take vengeance of our sins but to spare his people whom he hath redeemed Hearty and fervent Prayer hath a mighty prevailing power with God The greatest blessings are promised to it and the hardest things have been effected by it It hath opened and shut the windows of heaven and restored departed souls to their forsaken bodies It defeated the malice of Haman the wisdom and counsel of Achitophel and put to flight an army of a thousand thousand Ethiopians It hath prevailed with God to revoke the judgments he hath denounced and to deliver his people after he had declared he would deliver them no more How then should this encourage us to lift up our hearts with our hands to God in the heavens to embrace all opportunities of pouring out our supplications before him both in our closets and our houses of prayer To pray without ceasing with the utmost vigour of our affections To cry mightily unto God to wrestle and not give over till with Jacob we have prevailed prevailed with God and obtained his blessing Thirdly We must add the reformation and amendment of our lives Otherwise our Humiliation will be mockery and our Prayer sin Our sins are the Achans the troublers of Israel and were but these accursed things put away from amongst us we might then be confident that God would be appeased and the Nation flourish It is to the wicked only that God saith there is no peace But the work of righteousness is peace and the effect of Righteousness quietness and assurance for ever O then that we would all know that in this our day we would know the things that belong unto our peace That every one of us would bid an eternal farewel to his sins in that passionate stile of returning Ephraim What have we to do any more with you Hence ye disturbers of our peace ye provokers of our God and most treacherous underminers of the safety and happiness both of Church and State Let us then resolve and if we do it not we have but dissembled with God in our approaches this day Let us resolve henceforward to ingage with all our might in bridling our passions in curbing our appetites in mortifying our lusts in pulling down the strong holds of Satan in us and in bringing nto captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ And thus fighting the good fight of Faith we may as effectually promote the safety and honour of our Country as if we had served in its Fleets or Armies This is the way to strengthen the hands of them that fight for us to send them most effectual relief and succour to bring down the Lord of hosts to go before them the God of Israel to be their Rereward to be a wall of fire round about them and the glory in the midst both of them and us O that my people had hearkened unto me saith God and Israel had walked in my ways I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries Ps 81. 13 14. But is it not may some object an universal Reformation that must produce these happy effects To what purpose then will our personal and particular Reformation serve For the answering of this I shall proceed to the last thing I am to do which is Fourthly To endeavour by some proper motives to perswade every one to do his own part in that the general practice whereof is the only certain means to procure the favour and divert the judgments of God To this end therefore let us consider these following things First That a General Reformation is nothing else but the Reformation of all Particulars and if ever it be wrought amongst us it must be the work of particular persons and the result of every one's doing his own part Let us not then stay for examples but rather contend for the honour of being examples to others Let us strive who shall be first and most active in so noble a design in setting forward that work wherein the Honour and Happiness of our Country is so highly concerned How great an influence might your examples have upon this whole City And how soon do the manners and fashions of that overspread the Nation You are therefore more concerned than others to begin this great and blessed work to cause your light so to shine before and above other men that seeing your good works they may be won by the charms of a bright and illustrious vertue to follow your steps and to glorify your Father which is in heaven And this would advance your reputation and perpetuate your memories more than all the dignities of this world Secondly Though by doing our own parts we should not be able to do much towards a General Reformation yet we might make up such a number for whose sake God might spare and bless the whole Land How ready was God to have spared even Sodom it self had there been but ten righteous persons found in it He did spare the City Zoar for the sake of Lot and the small company with him A single act of one single man staid the fury of a devouring Plague and restored health to the Congregation of Israel Ps 106. 30. Then stood up Phinehas and executed judgment and so the plague was stayed To which I may add that gracious Proclamation we find published Jer. 5. 1. Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if ye can find a man if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth and I will pardon it One faithful Magistrate executing Judgment had saved that great City How then should this encourage you to a zealous and upright execution of the Resolution ye have made Not to bear the Sword in vain but to make it a terrour to evil-doers Thus avowedly to set your selves to destroy the works of the Devil To be hearty and couragious in the cause of God and righteousness in the midst of so crooked and perverse a Nation To contemn all the censures and reproaches the execution of justice and judgment may expose you to Who knoweth how far this might prevail with God If a few righteous men can yet save us none so likely to do it as such Magistrates by such heroick piety and vertue There may be a time indeed when the sins of a Nation are so ripe that though Noah Daniel and Job were in it they could not avert the judgments of God yet consider Thirdly That however They may deliver themselves by their righteousness Our personal reformation may procure a refuge for us in the day of Gods wrath Thus Noah escaped the Deluge of waters and Lot the flames of Sodom and those that sighed and cried for the abominations of Jerusalem the fury of that destroying Angel who went through the midst of it In what manner God doth often deal with good men when his judgments are abroad in the earth we have at large described in Ps 91. Thou shalt not be afraid of the terrour by night nor for the arrow that flyeth by day nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon day A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand but it shall not come nigh thee If notwithstanding it should seem good to the Divine Wisdom to involve us in the common calamity yet let us consider Fourthly That the conscience of our own personal reformation would be then a most comfortable support to us What a reviving consideration would it be when the judgments of God are upon us that we are not the guilty causes of them that we have done our parts to prevent them and and are clear from the blood of all men That even these things will work together for our good because we love God and keep his Commandments That all these clouds cannot intercept the light of Gods countenance or hide his face or favour from us that no tribulation or distress neiter 〈…〉 nor famine nor nakedness nor peril nor 〈◊〉 able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Lastly Consider how unsuccessful soever our personal reformation may be in promoting the publick or our own particular good here it will not fail of a great and glorious reward hereafter For so an entrance shall be administred unto us into that City which hath Foundations whose builder and maker is God into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Where we shall be free from sin and all the dreadful consequences of it and when not only the Cities and Nations of this world but this world and time it self shall be no more we shall be still secure in the enjoyment of the most perfect peace and happiness To conclude then I exhort and beseech you all as you regard the Honour and Preservation of your Country your own present Good and Safety and the everlasting happiness of the Life to come by all that is valuable and dear to you both in this and the other world that you would no longer delay that Reformation in which all these things are so highly concerned O that there were such an heart in every one of us to repent and turn from all our transgressions to fear God and to keep his commandments always that it might be well with us and with our children for ever Amen FINIS
happiness From whence come wars and fightings among you come they not hence of your lusts that war in your members Jam. 4. 1. It is our Saviours own observation That a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand And from whence is it that a Church or Kingdom is divided into Sects and Factions that some are of Paul and some of Apollos is it not because they are carnal Are not combustions of States and Kingdoms and all unhappy broils the natural fruits of pride and ambition He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife and Only by pride saith Solomon cometh contention Prov. 28. 25. 13. 10 Is it not natural for proud and ambitious spirits to do all they can to unsettle that Government which doth not advance them according to their opinion of their own merits and to try by repeated changes and revolutions to raise themselves to their affected greatness The love of money is the root of all evil from whence those evil practises do naturally spring which are continually disturbing the world wasting and spoiling confounding and ruining the Nations of it Idleness and Luxury impoverish a Nation and make it unable to bear the charge of its own defence Sensuality impaireth the understanding and enfeebleth the spirits of men and maketh them unfit for counsel or action it taketh them off from all concern for the common good and from all other care but for their own ease and pleasure and maketh them unwilling to part with any for the Publick safety for fear they should want it to consume upon their lusts Irreligion and Prophaness dissolve the strongest obligation which is that of Conscience faithfully to observe those Laws upon which all Societies are founded and subsist And if the Community suffer through the rashness or negligence the unfaithfulness or treachery of riotous and lewd and Atheistical men intrusted to manage the affairs of it no one can think any strange thing hath happened It would be very easy to shew of all particular sins and vices that they have a very ill influence upon Societies and do faturally tend to the great damage and dissolution on them Certainly then the condition of a wicked people must needs be most desperate when they have nothing else to secure them from Misery and Destruction but an extraordinary interposal of the Divine power and providence For can we imagine that God will always work miracles on the behalf of his enemies and alter the natural tendency of things meerly that the wicked may go unpunished Will he still refuse to avenge himself when nothing more shall be required towards it but to stand still and suffer wickedness to overthrow the sinner On the contrary Thirdly We have abundant reason to conclude that the providence of God will farther promote the unhappiness of a wicked people and manifest it self in severe and signal judgments upon them For First The Honour of God is very much concerned in it When a People have generally corrupted their ways when they that can hardly agree in any thing else can yet unanimously conspire to break the Laws and dare the Power and Justice of God if he should still keep silence if such publick affronts such combinations of Sinners do not move him to the execution of judgment upon them Men will be ready to conclude with those Zeph. 1. 12. That God doth neither good nor evil He is therefore concerned for the honour of his providence to convince the world that he is a God that judgeth in the Earth and governeth the Nations of it to arise and visit for these things and to avenge himself on such a Nation as this Upon occasion of such high and notorious provocations such a general defection from God even good men are ready to expostulate with him in the Language of Jehosaphat and David O our God wilt thou not judge them How long shall the wicked how long shall the wicked triumph And then if ever it seemeth necessary for the God to whom vengeance belongeth to shew himself and to make his power and justice known by the judgments that he executeth These National judgments are such publick manifestations of the Providence and Justice of God as all the Neighbouring Countries cannot but observe they are warnings and examples to all the World teaching all men to fear proclaiming the name of God to all the ends of the earth and causing it to be said among the Nations the Lord reigneth And therefore there is abundant reason to expect them from a God that is so highly concerned for the honour of his great name Secondly God hath expresly declared that his Providence shall interpose in promoting the happiness or misery of a People according to their doings That this is the course he is resolved to take with the Nations of the earth to pull down or to build up according as they persist in or turn from their evil ways Jer 18. 7 8 9 10. At what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil I thought to do unto them And at what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to build and to plant it If it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice then will I repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them The Lord hath a controversy with the Nations He will plead with all flesh he will give them that are wicked to the sword saith the Lord. Jer. 25. 31. And accordingly we find Thirdly That the Providence of God hath always interposed in this manner that in all ages his judgments have followed the prevailing wickedness of a Church or Nation When God saw that the wickedness of man was great and that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth he sent an overwhelming deluge to cleanse it of its corrupt inhabitants And by fire and brimstone from heaven consumed the proud and lustful Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha What a succession of dreadful plagues did God send on the oppressing Egyptians And what terrible destruction was made of the Amorites and all the Kingdoms of Canaan when at length their iniquities were become full And all along the Old Testament we find the judgments of God Famine or Pestilence Captivity or the Sword continually following the growing wickedness of his People Israel And when at length they had killed the Prophets and stoned them that were sent unto them when they would not hearken to the gracious invitations of the Blessed Jesus and the Son of God himself could not perswade them to repent the Lord brought their greatest fears upon them The Romans came and took away their place and and Nation And when the conquering Romans themselves had laid aside that temperance and justice by which they had been raised and to their other abominable sins had superadded