his Soule to take hold of God to be glued and united to him in all faithfulnesse sincerity care and diligence to be onely his for ever This if we doe we need not care much for other Covenants God will provide for that and make a league for us even with the beasts of the field and with the stones of the street he will make our Exactors peace and our Officers righteousnesse Isa 60.17 18. violence shall no more be heard in the Land nor wasting nor destruction within our borders our very walls shall be salvation and our Gates praise He will be a God of Covenants and take care for our estates Lawes liberties lives children and all that belong to us when once this is done Therefore I beseech you yea I require you in the name of the God of heaven whose you are whom you serve before whom you stand from whom you expect salvation in the midst of the Earth as well as in Heaven that you forthwith enter into this bond Expect no assistance no successe in any of your Consultations in any Lawes that you agree upon till you have fully brought your hearts to this point to follow the Lord fully to be no more for your selves than you would have the dearest wife of your bosome to bee for any other man in the world but to be wholly for the Lord to imploy improve all your wit abilities industry counsels actions estate honor Gen. 17.10 and lives to promote his service honour what ever become of your selves and yours for doing of it Say not as some Ieerers of whom it is hard to judge whether their malice or ignorance bee the greater doe Psal 50.5 that there needs no more Covenants than what wee made in Baptisme and that all other Covenants savour strongly of faction and the Puritan Leaven For so Gods people of old made a Covenant by Circumcision and after by Sacrifice that is in every sacrifice which they offered they did renew their Covenant begun in Circumcision Neverthelesse God thought it necessary often to call them out to strike another solemne Covenant with him besides the former Exod. 19. You have already heard that so soone as the Israelites were gone out of Egypt and entred a little way in the wildernesse hee put them upon a Covenant Deut. 29. When he brought them neer to Canaan he required another solemne Covenant of them And when Ioshuah had brought them into Canaan and divided to each of them the lot of his inheritance hee drew them into another solemne Covenant Iosh 24. So that here was Covenant upon Covenant and yet can no man without blasphemy charge it with any Puritan humour faction or any thing superfluous or uncomely for the Greatest on earth to submit unto That I may a little more enforce this duty and quicken you to the imbracing of it give mee leave to present you with some Motives further to presse you to it and with some few Directions to guide you in it 1. For Motives Motives to a Covenant 1. Our many Deliverances Consider 1. how many great admirable and even miraculous deliverances God hath given us What great things hee hath done for us No Nation under heaven can say more to his praise in this kinde than we have cause to do Our Great deliverances out of Babylon from the Spanish Invasion from the Gun-powder Treason and from many other evils and feares do all call upon you for a Covenant Yea even the present Mercy and Opportunity of opening that Ancient Regular and Approved Way of cure of those publique evils that threaten confusion and desolation to all 3. Vse Exhortation Motives pleades hard for the same duty But among all these I desire You of that Great and honourable Body of the Parliament to reflect sadly upon that Stupendious Deliverance from the Gun-powder Treason which more especially and immediately was bent against You. For albeit the ruine of the whole Kingdome was in their Eye who were the Cursed Instruments of Antichrist and of the Devill his Father in that hellish Designe yet no blow could have come at us but through Your sides And albeit some of You that have the honour to be members of this present Parliament were then unborne yet had that Plot taken effect scarce any of You had been this day in being to have sate there now but had long since been covered and buried under the ashes of confusion Think now whether such a preservation deserve lesse at Your hands than to give Your selves to your Great Deliverer for so Great a Deliverance whereby three Nations destinated at once to Death received no lesse than a joyfull resurrection from the Dead and were againe borne at once Therefore let not this Great mercy seeme small in Your eyes And remember too that you may have as much need of God another time nay you know not what need You may have of him this present Parliament You cannot be ignorant of the many murmures and more than whisperings of some desperate and devillish conception suspected to bee now in the wombe of the Iesuiticall faction And how neere it may bee to the birth or how prodigious it may prove being borne I take not upon me to divine but this we are all sure of that what ever it be which they are big withall it shall not want the least graine of the utmost extremity of malice and mischiefe that all the wit power and industry of Hell it selfe can contribute unto it and that they labour as a woman in travaile to be speedily delivered of it What dangers and what cause of feare there may bee at the present I leave to your Wisedome to consider But this bee confident of if Deliverances already received can prevaile with you for a Covenant that Covenant will be your security for it will certainly engage all the power and wisdome of the Great and only wise God of heaven and earth to be on your side for ever So that if God himselfe have power enough wisdome enough and care enough you cannot miscarry no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper no plot no gates of hell shall prevaile against you And if he have goodnes enough mercy enough bowells enow in him he will then also raine downe aboundance of truth righteousnesse justice peace and plentie upon all Corners of the Land from whence and on whose errand You are now come together Therefore it becomes you above all others to be first in a Covenant 2. Consider that till we do this there cannot be such a full enjoying of God 2. There can be no full enjoying of God without a Covenant as otherwise there might be Indeed the perfect fruition of God is not to be expected till we come to heaven but yet we might have much more of God even in this life than now we have could we be perswaded to such a Covenant with him Whatsoever experience we have of him
prayed have wee not fasted Have we not had more Fasts at Parliaments of late than in many yeares before Yea hath not there been generally among Gods people more frequent humiliations more frequent seeking of God notwithstanding the malice and rage of some men to discountenance and suppresse it than in former times Why then is Deliverance and Reformation so slow in comming Surely Beloved we have all this while mistaken the maine businesse and neglected the principall part of a Religious Fast You come Fast after Fast to seek God in his House You forbeare your victuals afflict your soules endure it out a long time you pray heare confesse your sinnes and freely acknowledge that all is just that God hath brought upon us and that we suffer lesse than we deserve All this is well But here is the error and the true Cause of the continuance of all our evils and of their growing greater namely that all this while wee have never in any Fast or at any other time entred into such a solemne and publique Covenant with God as his people of old have often done upon like occasions and exigents That I may yet more effectually bring home this to all our hearts give mee leave briefly to parallel the slow pace of our deliverance out of Mysticall Babylon with that of Iudah and some of the remnant of Israel out of old Babylon which for a long time had held them Captives And here first bee pleased to call to minde that as touching the Captive Iewes God failed not on his part of his promise At the end of 70. yeares liberty of returne from Babylon to Hierusalem was proclaimed in the first yeare of Cyrus the Persian Monarch whereupon Ezra 1.1 2. Ezra 2. many did returne under the conduct of Zorobbabel Being come home to Hierusalem wee may not conceive that they were not at all touched with sense of their deliverance or of the sins which had formerly provoked the Lord to cast them into that great bondage out of which they were delivered Well on they goe first to offer sacrifices in the right place Although the foundation of the Temple of the Lord was not yet laid Ezra 3.6 In the second yeare of their comming Zorobbabel began to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and the foundation was laid Verse 8. Verse 10. Ezra 4.1 But the adversaries of Iudah the Great Officers of the Kingdome under the King of Persia apprehending or rather pretending the going on of this building to be matter of prejudice and danger to that Monarchy they procure a stay of it upon reason of State so as it was well nigh an hundred yeares ere they got liberty to go on againe and it was above an 100. yeares before the Temple could bee finished For as many exact Chronologers observe the Temple was not perfected in the reigne of Darius Hystaspis as some have thought but in the sixth yeare of Darius Nothus betweene whom and the former Darius both Xerxes the husband of Esther and called in Scripture Ahashuerus and Artaxexes Longimanus successively swayed the Persian Scepter In all which time many things were amisse Cruelty Oppression Adultery Mixture with strange wives and other great deformations remained Then comes Ezra after the Temple was finished and somewhat he did to set forward the work of Reformation in the seventh yeare of Artaxerxes Mnemon Ezra 7.7 successor to Darius Nothus And yet there was much more to doe After him therefore comes Nehemiah Neh. 1.1 in the twentieth yeare of the same Artaxerxes Mnemon and after all the former endeavours he findes the Church still weltring in her bloud and even wallowing in her owne gore I meane in most of her old and long continued sins although cured of Idolatry so that still there was great corruption in doctrine in worship and in manners Whereupon he now resolves and sets upon a more thorough Reformation of all these but could never effect it till beside the proclaiming and holding of a publique Fast he and all the people lighted upon this course namely of entring into a publique and solemne Covenant with the Lord subscribed sealed and sworne unto Neh. 9. ult and 10.29 as before you have heard and so from that time forward the work prospered and the Church was purged of many abominations wherewith till that time she was defiled Behold here Quantae molis erat dilectam condere Gentem how great a work how long a businesse to perfect a Reformation even of Gods dearest people Their captivity in Babylon lasted not halfe so long time as was spent after their returne thence ere their Reformation could be brought to any tolerable perfection And why so Did they omit prayer and fasting and seeking early after God surely no. For in Zach. 8.19 we read of foure severall publike Fasts * Quarto menst Vrbs fuit expugnata quinto autem fuerat excisum Templum consumptum incendio septimo mense interfectus tandem fuit Godoliaes qui stâ—terat cum residua plebe quae collectaserat ab ejus manu Iejunium autem dici mi mensis putant fuisse institutum post urbem obsessam Ergo jejunium mensis decimi tempore alio praecessit Calvin in Loc. Non quod haec omnia in eodem acciderunt anno sed diversis annorum intervallis The fast of the fourth moneth the fast of the fifth moneth the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth moneth which they held not onely by all the time of the 70. yeeres captivitie in Babylon but many yeeres after their return thence Zach. 7.3 and vers 5. But all this labour was in great part lost for want of this addition to all their humiliation and prayer namely The ioyning of themselves to the Lord in an everlasting Covenant not to be forgotten And when God once directed Nehemiah to this course see how all things began to thrive and come on a maine Now not onely the Temple but even the walls of Hierusalem were built up and that within one twelve yeeres after this Covenant was smitten which before lay wast many scores of yeeres Let us now reflect upon our selves and the State of Religion and progresse of Reformation in our owne Church that we may make up the Parallel Some beginnings of our deliverance from Babylon we received by King Henry the eighth For he threw out the Pope His sonne King Edward the sixth came after and cast out Popery in the body and bulke of it A great work and a large step for the short time of his infant reigne And indeed he had many excellent helps that way beside the zeale of his owne pious heart an Excellent Archbishop a Prudent and vigilant Protector beside others else he could never have done so much Notwithstanding the potency and secret underminings of those mighty Factions then prevailing hindred the work not a little so that it exceeded not an infant Reformation yea through the immature
death of that Iosiah it soone prov'd abortive The Princesse that came after quickly turn'd the Tide before it was halfe high water and she set all the Gates wide open again both for Pope and Popery to reenter with triumph and to drink drunk of the bloud of our Ancestors till God discharged her and released his people from her crueltie So that when Queene Elizabeth that glorious Deborah mounted the Throne although her heart was upright and loathed the Idolatry of the former Reigne yet found she worke enough to restore any thing at all and to make any beginnings of a Reformation She soone felt when she would have throughly pluckt up Popery both root and branch superfluous Ceremonies and all remaining raggs of superstition as well as grosse Idolatry that she had to do with an Hydra having such a strong partie of stout Popelings to grapple with at home and such potent and dangerous abetters of them to cope withall abroad I need not name them I might adde hereunto some difficulties arising from the interests and engagements of not a few of those though good and holy men that underwent voluntary exile in the heat of the Marian persecution who while they were abroad had a large share in the troubles at Franckford too eagerly perhaps pursuing the English Formes of Worship and Discipline and so when upon their returne they were advanced to places of Dignitie and Government in this Church they were the more apt and forward to maintaine and hold up that Cause wherein they had so farre appeared and for which some of them with more heat than Charitie had so openly declared themselves in forrein parts And so what by one impediment and what by another we see it hath been a long time ere our Reformation can be thoroughly polished and perfected as were to be wished and desired for there is nothing so perfect here but is capable of more perfection Nay so farre are we become now from going forward with the work notwithstanding the pietie care of our Princes since the last Restitution of Religion in this Kingdome that as it was in Iosiahs time though his owne heart were for God yet there was a packe of rottten men both Priests and People very great pretenders to Devotion but indeed mad upon Images and Idols we begin to fall againe and not onely to coast anew upon the brinks of Babylon from whence we were happily delivered but even to launch out into her deepest Lakes of superstition and Idolatry under pretence of some extraordinary pietie of the times and of some good worke in hand What is the reason of all this but that not so much as once since the first beginning of Reformation of Religion in this Island we never for ought I know entred into such a solemne publique universall Covenant to be the Lords as he requireth for those beginnings already given us but have sate loose from God and so have not joyned together as one man zealously to propugne his trueth and Ordinances and to stand by him and his Cause as becomes the people of God in all just and warrantable wayes against all opposers and gainsayers So long as we please our selves in this liberty of our holding off from a Covenant with God we may feed our selves with vaine hopes of redresse of things amisse but shall speed no better than those libertines back-sliders in Ier. 14. who lookt for great matters from God but came short of all and then seemed to wonder at the reason For thus they bespeake him ver 8. O the hope of Israel the Saviour thereof in time of trouble why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the Land and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry onely for a night Why shouldst thou be as a man astonied as a mightie man that cannot save yet thou O Lord art in the midst of us and we are called by thy name See here how they are put to it They acknowledge his Power Goodnesse Presence yet they are not saved He seemes to be like Sampson with his Locks cut off as if he were not able to save or would not do it and this they wonder and stand amazed at as a thing incredible and impossible But God makes them a short and sharp answer which may also serve us ver 10. Thus saith the Lord have they loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore the Lord doth not accept them If God be as a wayfaring man sometimes with a people more often gone from them sometimes blessing sometimes crossing them and suffering them to fall under heavy pressures never keeps an even and setled station or course of proceeding with them it is but that he hath learnt from themselves as I may so speake they will be their owne men they will not be tyed to him so strictly they will have some libertie for their lusts for the world for the devill for any thing and loe here is the fruit of it God will not be bound to nor walke with them he will not draw out that strength that goodnesse that compassion which might deliver them from the evils they howle under He will neither heare them nor any body else for them not Ieremy himselfe vers 11. not Noah Daniel and Iob Ezek. 14. Nothing therefore but a more solemne and strict Covenant with God will put us into a posture and condition capable of perfect redresse of our grievances how faire so ever either now 3. Vse Exhortation or hereafter we may seeme to be for it This is the second use Thirdly suffer I beseech you a few words of exhortation The returning Iewes you see call upon all their Nation to enter into Covenant Give me leave then to call upon You the Representative Body of this whole Kingdome who stand here before the Lord this day to humble your soules and let me also prevaile with you all to ioyne your selues even this day to the Lord in an everlasting Covenant that shall not be forgotten Make this day a day indeed a day of Covenanting with God and God shall Covenant with you and make it the beginning of more happinesse than ever you yet enjoyed Beloved mistake me not my meaning extends not to engage you in any Civill Covenant and Bond for defence of your Municipall Lawes and Liberties No doubt you will be able to find meanes enow by the blessing of God to setle those things in a legall way especially if you be carefull to Covenant with God Much lesse is it my purpose to draw you into that late Ecclesiasticall Oath and Covenant enjoyned by the late Canon which in my apprehension is little lesse than a Combination and Conspiracy against both King and State My businesse is meerely to perswade you into a Religious Covenant with God as himselfe hath prescribed and commanded and his people in the best times of Reformation have readily admitted namely every man to stirre up himselfe and to lift up