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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89586	The song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lambe: opened in a sermon preached to the Honorable House of Commons, at their late solemne day of thanksgiving, Iune 15. 1643. for the discovery of a dangerous, desperate, and bloudy designe, tending to the utter subversion of the Parliament, and of the famous city of London. / By Stephen Marshall, B.D. and Pastor of Finchingfield in Essex. Published by order of that House.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1643 (1643)	Wing M789; Thomason E56_5; ESTC R16053	30,483	54

THE SONG OF MOSES THE SERVANT OF GOD AND THE SONG OF THE LAMBE Opened In a Sermon preached to the Honorable House of COMMONS At their late solemne day of Thanksgiving Iune 15. 1643. for the discovery of a dangerous desperate and bloudy Designe tending to the utter subversion of the Parliament and of the famous City of London By STEPHEN MARSHALL B. D. and Pastor of Finchingfield in Essex Published by order of that House REVEL. 17. 4. Come hither and I will shew thee the judgment of the great whore LONDON Printed for SAM: MAN and SAM: GELLIBRAND in Pauls Church-yard 1643. TO THE HONORABLE House of COMMONS now assembled in PARLIAMENT Honorable and Beloved THe holy King and Prophet David required that the prayses of God should be sung upon well tuned Instruments and some Psalmes which himself composed to that purpose he styled Michtam golden Psalms as being full of precious and choise treasure Such could I have wished might the Instrument have been and such the Song of Praise and Thanksgiving to have celebrated the goodnesse of God for this late wonderfull preservation of your Honorable Assembly and the famous and worthy City both whose ruine was plotted and designed by wicked and unreasonable men But you were pleased not onely to designe to this service a weak and untuned Instrument though not Crackt as Malice and Slander hath bruted it abroad but also to injoyn the publishing of this song of Thanksgiving which is full of weak and imperfect Notes And to this latter task I was I confesse farre more unwilling then to the former as being conscious unto my self how few conceptions could be brought by me to any such maturity as might render them meet to become the standing Monument of so great a Mercy and so happy a Day which is worthy to be ingraven on Marble rather then to be written on Paper and with letters of gold rather then with ink But in the pursuance of your Commands I have done it and added some few things which time nor strength would permit me to deliver in publike Being resolved to deny my self and to do nothing that may hinder me from being what I am and shall always desire to remain Yours wholly in the service of Christ and his Church STEPHEN MARSHALL A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE the Honorable House of COMMONS on the 15. of Iune 1643. being the day of their publique THANKS GIVING HOnorable and Beloved were the strength of my body and my furniture of wisdome learning and grace in any degree answerable to the service of this Day I could not but exceedingly rejoyce in being called to this work in this place at this time For having been lately restored from the gates of death what greater mercy could I wish then to praise God in the great Congregation and having been reported over the whole Kingdom to have altered my former judgement concerning this just cause of the Parliaments Defensive Arms yea that the horrour of my guilt in adhering to this Cause had distracted me and made me mad can I look upon it otherwise then as a great and publike taking off this reproach by being called to exercise my poor talent in that Assembly which is the whole Kingdom by Representation and at this time to be a furtherer of your joy and thankfulnesse for Almightie Gods watchfull eye and powerfull hand thus wonderfully manifested against the desperate and bloody Designes of those that would destroy you But I fear lest this which is so many wayes a favour to me should prove your losse through my weaknesse which would not permit me to study much in private and I fear will disable me in the publike delivering that little which God hath brought to my hand yet this doth encourage me I have abundant experience of your Candor and I know that both with God and man where there is first a willing mind especially in a day service of Thanksgiving it is accepted according to what a man hath and not according to that he hath not Yea I have one encouragement more that Gods providence hath directed me to such a Text which is not onely sutable to our meeting and service but so really intended by the Spirit of God for your time and work that the very reading of it though an hour together might exceedingly affect you if once you have the true meaning of it which Text you shall finde written in REVEL. 15. 3 4. read also ver. 2. Verse 2. And I saw as it were a sea of glasse mingled with fire and them that had gotten the victory over the Beast and over his Image and over his Mark and over the number of his Name stand on the sea of glasse having the harps of God 3. And they sung the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lambe saying Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy wayes thou King of Saints 4. Who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorifie thy Name for thou onely art holy for all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgements are made manifest THis Text though it be a part of the Apocalyps the darkest and most mysticall Book in all the Scriptures and therefore thought generally hard to be understood yet time one of the best Interpreters of Prophecies hath produced the events answering the types so full and clear that we have the whole Army of Protestant Interpreters agreeing in the generall scope and meaning of it which in a few words be pleased to take thus A great part of this Book is a setting out the conflicting state of the Church under the great Apostasie with the Antichrist the heaviest and forest enemy which ever the Church had and this Antichristian power and dominion is set forth as other Kingdoms elsewhere are by a systeme of the world wherein are earth water air sunne moon starres a King a Metropoliticall City Provinces People c. an Antichristian Empire an Antichristian World and this great Monarchy of Antichrist hath the time of its rising its triumphant reigning its declining and ruine and the state of the Church of Christ under all these clearly foretold in this Book And to say nothing of his rising and reigne his ruine is described in this fifteenth and sixteenth Chapter under the Type of seven Angels pouring out seven vials full of the wrath of God the seven vialls being so many degrees of the Beasts or Antichrists ruine which story of the vialls the Holy Ghost sets down two wayes first generally in the fifteenth Chapter secondly more particularly in the sixteenth Chapter In the generall description of them in this fifteenth Chapter we have first the circumstance of the place where this Vision was seen whence these Angels came that is heaven I saw another signe in heaven verse 1. that is the true Church whereof Christ is King opposed to the world wherein Antichrist reigns as beyond all doubt may

greatnesse of his strength we finde him leading them in uncouth wayes which they knew not and wayes which to them seemed unpassable His way hath been in the sea and his pathes in the great waters and his footsteps were not known yet still leading his people like a flock sometimes removing mountains our of their way making them flow down at his presence sometimes skipping over them sometimes his way hath been in the whirl-winde and in the great storm yet always working in such wayes and in such a manner as that first his own people have thought he could intend nothing but their ruin as Ionah did when cast into the Sea and swallowed up by the Whale an unlikely way of deliverance and in such wayes secondly as to the enemy have ever seemed most advantagious to their own purposes and destructive to the Church God suffering them to lay the Plot for their own ruin to dig a pit for their own destruction and making the ways by them intended for the Churches ruin to be the greatest meanes of their deliverance as fully and clearly as Hamans Plot proved the exaltation of the Iews and Mordecai and the ruine and destruction of himself and family a Volume might be filled with instances of this kinde The device of Charles the fifth to disinherit the Duke of Saxony to keep the Landgrave of Hessen in perpetuall imprisonment thereby intending utter ruine to the Protestant party in Germany was the very occasion of the confederacy of Smalcald which almost drove Charles out of Germany and established the Protestant party in the liberty of their religion The Massacre in France in which were destroyed within the space of thirty dayes as the Historian reports it above seventy thousand Protestant souls proved ye know a means within a short space to double and treble if not quadruple their numbers in that Kingdom and procured them publike Edicts and Cautionary Towns for the liberty and security of their Religion which before they had not The cruelty and tyranny of the Spaniards in the Netherlands one of whose Deputies Duke D'Alva boasted that he put to death six and thirty thousand Hugenots and Protestants hath been the greatest meanes to prevent the swelling of his intended Monarchy and increase the freedom and strength of the Protestant party not onely in the five United Provinces but in all these parts of Europe Who that hath read the Scottish Story is ignorant that the Archbishop of St. Andrews cruell burning of Mr. George Wischart conferred much to the Reformation of that whole Kingdom The time would fail me to tell you of the desperate Conspiracies of the Priests and Jesuits in England all the time of Queen Elizabeth of the Powder-treason and their unwearied Machinations in other States and Churches and how constantly the Lord hath turned them all to the advantage of his Church and to bring ruine and destruction upon the contrivers of them And if any of you have not had time or means to observe these things in Story your eyes cannot but see them all fulfilled in Christs late and present dealings with our selves and our brethren of Scotland For them what great things hath the Lord lately done and by what very weak means hardly the fifth part of the Nobility as I have heard appearing for them the greater part openly opposing them scarse one fourth part of the Kingdom owning the Cause how often were they at their wits end when some unexpected door was opened to them And were not all their works wrought for them by the rage cruelty and cunning of their enemies Were not the book of Service and the book of Canons sent and obtruded upon them from England the occasion of their late mercies was not the tyrannie of a few of their Prelats a means to unburden them of their whole Prelacy and when they were as much shut up in straits as the Israelites at the Red-sea and knew not over-night what would become of them the next morning then constantly some absurd desperate Plot or other of their enemies brake out which gave them an out-gate to escape And even so hath God dealt with England his work amongst us is of the very same warp and woof The great mercies which we enjoy the great deliverances we have lately received from what a high hand have they come to what a very dead low ebbe were we brought Our liberty almost swallowed up and turned into slavery our Religion into Popery and Arminianisme and even then God remembred us in our low estate and by what instruments becommeth me not to speak much in your own presence Your selves know how sinfull and all the Kingdom how mean and contemptible in the eyes of your adversaries they looking upon you as Sanballat and his company did upon Nehemiah and his builders and with like scorn uttering the same reproaches What do these feeble Iews will they fortifie themselves will they make an end in a day will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish even that which they build if a fox go up he shall even break down their stone wall And well may you take up the builders complaint Hear O our God for we are despised and yet by such despised broken vessells hath the Lord hitherto delivered us And which is still more wonderfull to the glory of God be it spoken our greatest deliverances have been more promoted by the cunning treachery and violence of the enemy then by the foresight vigilancy and strength of our best friends The Prelates late Canons and Oath purposely contrived for the perpetuating of their Hierarchy and their other treacherous and malicious endeavours against the State joyning with the Papists and with them labouring to turn all into confusion rather then suffering the least abatement of their former pride and tyranny have helped thus farre towards the taking them away both root and branch The multitudes of calumnies and reproaches cast upon the Parliaments just proceedings slighting their Authority slandering their intentions misinterpreting their actions have they not through the goodnesse of Him who preserveth them from the strife of tongi been an occasion of making their Authority Priviledges intentions actions clear as the Sun at noon day And to instance no further this late bloudy and mischievous Design in which this Honorable Senate this famous Citie and with them our lives religion laws and liberties had undoubtedly been made a prey to their mercilesse rage and fury the Lord hath not onely brought to light without any foresight or watchfulnesse of yours but made those that were the contrivers to be the discoverers their own evidence and confession being the thread which lets you into the depths and labyrinths of those counsels which they had digged deep to hide if possible even from the eyes of God himself and thereby giving you a great opportunity the Lord in mercy teach you to improve it to advance the glory of his Name for

forged against you condemning every tongue that hath risen up against you in judgement I need not name the particulars I am perswaded your selves beleeve that no former Parliament can parallell Gods dealing towards you and all this while let me speak freely how little have you done for his honour and glory I know your distractions have unavoidably hindered much of what might and I hope else would have been done But say in this day of your thanksgiving if you be not infinitely behinde hand with this Lord God Almighty with this King of Saints if you have not ordinarily forgot his mercies as fast as he hath wrought them Hath he not often filled your hearts with joy and your purses with money and you like unthrifty children have played away all at a cast Have you not checked his providences not improved his deliverances and the advantages which God hath put into your hands or if your hearts at any time have been raised a little have they not presently been at a dead low ebb again have you not gone about to kill his goodnesse with your unkindnesses by provoking him at the sea even at the red sea even when and where he hath delivered you Especially have not many of you dishonoured his Name and grieved his Spirit by your sinfull lives by breaking out into things extreamly scandalous doing the devills work while you professe your selves to be the Lords servants Let me tell you the Lord will not alwayes strive in one way in the way of mercy and deliverance when he hath many a time delivered a people and they goe on to provoke him with their counsells he knowes how to say I w 〈◊〉 ll deliver them no more he knowes how to bring them low for their iniquity and to give them up into the hands of their enemy he that for a long time hath seemed unweariable in watching over an unthankfull people will prove weary of repenting and in stead of saying I have seene their wayes and will heale them will in the end sweare I will overturn them overturn them overturn them as a man wipeth a platter turning it upside down Secondly consider your own place and standing the calling office and work wherewith God and his people have trusted you at this time doe with a wide and loud voyce call upon you to feare the Lord and glorifie his Name More then the salvation of your own soules depends upon you the glory of Christ the establishment of this Church and Kingdome yea the welfare of all Christendome in great measure are all imbarked in that vessell the steering whereof is in great part committed unto you You are in part one of the Angels who are to poure out the viall of the wrath of God who should therefore come out of the temple cloathed in pure and white linnen having your breasts girded with golden girdles adorned like the Priests of God holy and pure Be you cleane yee that beare the vessels of the Lord Honourable and beloved how a bominable a thing were it to see the Angels of God live like the instruments of Satan how uncomfortable a thing would it be to the people of God who have chosen you to this worke and beare you in their hearts and present you every day at the throne of grace who are willing to sinke and swimme with you to live and dye with you that they should hear that such and such a Parliament man will be drunke that such an one dare blaspheme and swear and abuse Religion that Reformers of Religion should hate religion that such as are called to save the Kingdome should betray the Kingdome that in the grief of their spirits they should be compelled to say O Lord can these men save us tell it not in Gath publish it not in the streets of Askelon How dishonourable would it be not only to you but to the King of Saints who useth you that they who hate the worke you are about should hate it the more in regard of your wicked lives who are intrusted with it That they should have occasion to say of you as Amurath the great Turke said of the Christians who brake their league and Covenant with him and therefore sped accordingly O Iesus are these thy Christians if thou beest a God as they professe thee to be revenge this impiety upon them So when Papists and Atheists and such as hate religion and reformation when they shall see the deformity of your lives shall say O Iesus are these thy Reformers are these the Angels that must pour out the vials of thy wrath Oh beloved do not with Elies sonnes occasion men to abhorre the work of the Lord far be it from you But let the office you are called unto the place you are set in the worke and the dignity of the work ingage you to glorifie the name of Christ that both his work may prosper in your hands and your selves be established before the Lord for ever But if you will not hearken to me let me sadly speak it to you you are as a City set upon an hill you and your wayes are looked upon by all men and if you hinder the worke by your lives which your office calls you to further it were better you had never been born into the world Them that honour Christ he will honour and them that despise him shall be lightly esteemed yea he knowes how to make use of you and your gifts to promote his cause and to destroy you for the iniquity of your lives as many of those who forwarded the building of the arke yet perished in the waters Thirdly consider how loud this dayes deliverance cries in your eares to ingage your selves to feare him and glorifie his name who hath wrought this great salvation for you It were a wastefull expence of time to insist upō the particulars of this late bloudy design in this Assembly though in others usefull All the light we have about it comes from you The many great and high hands which were ingaged in it the subtilty of the contrivance the neernesse of the execution the woefull consequences and the bloudy fruits which must needs have issued from it The good hand of God in crushing this cockatrices egge before it brake out to be a fiery flying serpent are fit things to be published and to be spread abroad in other Congregations But to you I shall only be a remembrancer of thus much That you knew not your neer approaching danger and that had this treacherous and bloudy contrivance took effect many of you had been at your long home ere this time and the rest of this Honourable Assembly hitherto the great preservers of our liberty had beene made as a Parliament of Paris the greatest instruments of the Kingdomes slavery and vassallage for time to come But the Lord was awake when we slept and hath took the enemies in the pit which they digged and hath filled your hearts

be cleared out of the fourth Chapter of this Book which is the Stage of all the Apocalypticall visions Secondly we have the things themselves or the marvellous signes which were seen in this place and they are three First The behaviour of the true Church of Christ during this time of the pouring out of the vialls ver. 2 3 4. Secondly The description of the seven Angels the instruments who were to pour out these vialls their apparatus qualifications and furniture they come out of the temple clothed in pure and white linnen and having their breasts girded with golden girdles Habitu cluctu sacerdotali ornati like the Priests of God Ezek. 44. 17 18. pure worshippers Thirdly A description of the Church in reference to Christs presence with it his owning and protecting it though after a more dark manner vers. 8. The Temple was filled with smoak from the glory of God and from his power c. alluding to Gods taking possession of the Tabernacle Exod. 40. 34. and of Solomons Temple 1 King 8. 10 11. The first of these I am to deal with at this time viz. The behaviour of the Church during the time of the pouring out the vialls Wherein observe two things first their state verse 2. secondly their work verse 3 4. Their state I saw as it were a sea of glasse mingled with fire and them that had gotten the victory over the Beast c. stand on the sea of glasse having the harps of God This sea of glasse or crystall is described Chap. 4. 6. placed before the Throne alluding to the great Laver or Sea in Solomons Temple wherein the Priests were to wash themselves from their uncleannesses whenever they approached nigh to the Altar of God to offer sacrifice onely that was made of brasse this of a more pure and transparent metall In this Laver the Reformed Churches had lately been washed from the foulnesse and pollutions of Antichristianity out of which they had newly escaped having gotten the victory over the Beast and over his Image and over his Mark and over the number of his Name and being cleansed in this Laver though mingled with fire whether of contention or other affliction I dispute not they stand up on the brim of it with the harps of God in their hands with instruments of praise as the Israelites did upon the banks of the Red-sea thorow which they had lately passed and in it been baptized unto God singing a song of praise for their great deliverance from Pharaoh and his Hoast who perished in the pursuing of them This was their condition and their posture a delivered cleansed condition a praisefull posture Secondly their work during the time of the pouring out the vialls they sang an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a triumphant song Canticum gratulatorium eucharisticum a song of praise and thanksgiving wherein observe two things first the Title of the Song The Song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb Secondly the subject matter of the Song Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty c. The title First the song of Moses the servant of God i. e. such a Song and upon such an occasion as Moses and Miriam and the rest of the Israelites sang unto God when they had passed through the Red sea 2ly and the song of the Lamb we have many songs of the Lamb recorded in this Booke cap. 4. 11. Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power c. is the constant song of the whole Church of Christ cap. 5. 9. the same quire sings a new song to the Lamb when hee had taken the booke to unloose the Seales thereof cap. 11. 17. the same Church sings another song of prayse upon the resurrection of the two witnesses and the fall of the tenth part of the great City We give thee thankes O Lord God Almighty c. cap. 12. 10. upon Michaels victorie over the dragon there is another Song of praise Now is come salvation and the Kingdome of our God and the power of his Christ c. cap. 14. 3. there's a New Song sung before the throne which no man could learne but the hundred forty and foure thousand which were redeemed from the earth Now whether this Song of the Lamb be the Song which those harpers sang or whether and how farre it is composed out of the rest of the songs recorded in this Book is needlesse as some Interpreters doe to enquire because we have the matter of the Song layed downe in so many words it is sufficient that it 's therefore called the Song of the Lamb because it was indited by the Spirit of the Lamb and tends to advance the glory of the Lamb their Saviour and Deliverer 2. The matter of the Song which divides in selfe into two parts 1. The Churches confession of the nature of those workes which Christ doth in the pouring out the seven vialls ver. 3. viz. Great and marvellous are thy workes Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints i. e. They are great and wonderfull fit onely to bee done by him who is the Lord God Almghty just and true well becomming him who is the King of Saints 2. The use which the Church makes of these works which is threefold 1. They record celebrate and publish them 2. They engage and binde themselves faster and closer to him in his worship and service Who shall not feare thee O Lord and glorify thy Name for thou onely art holy 3. They prophetically foretell the use which shall be made of these workes by such as yet were strangers viz. As Christ proceedes to manifest these wonderfull and righteous plagues and judgments upon the Antichristian world the people of Italy Germany France England Scotland Denmarke Sweden Polonia Hungaria and the rest of the elect shall shake off the Yoke of Antichrist and submit to the Scepter of Iesus Christ for all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgments are made manifest Thus you have a plaine view of the Text together with the interpretation out of which many excellent and usefull truths might be observed As first that all which is done in the pouring out of the seven vialls is the wrath of God upon the Antichristian faction so that however in the pouring out of every viall there is something which is grievous to the reformed Churches to humble purge and quicken them yet there is no wrath upon anywhere ever it is poured but onely as there is something of Antichrist among them which Christ will search for find and destroy where-ever he finds it Consider the whole work of the vialls and you shall finde noysome and grievous sores upon them onely that have the mark of the Beast the drinking of bloud the scorching with heat the gnawing of their tongues for paine the being destroyed with hailstones c. All these light

the present putting a new song of praise into your mouthes A prop for your faith to stay upon for time to come the Lord hath delivered and will deliver A further advantage to break the power of the malicious and ungodlymen and a warning to you to beware of neuters and secret false friends who though they take sweet counsell together with you and speak you fair beleeve them not for there are seven abominations in their hearts And by all this ye are I suppose fully satisfied that these works of our Lord God Almighty are as marvellous for their manner as before you have heard they were for their time kinde and instruments working light out of darknesse causing even the experience of the Church in these later ages clearly to interpret Sampsons riddle Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetnesse and making all the bloudy and cruell entendments of the Antichristian enemie in the effect no more hurtfull and dangerous to the Church then his was to Phereus Iason when he run at him with his sword and in stead of killing him opened an incurable imposthume and saved his life Secondly as they are great and wonderfull so as evident is it that they are just and true the justice of them is celebrated chap. 16. 5. Thou art righteous O Lord because thou hast judged thus and chap. 18. 6. we finde the Angel calling upon the Church Reward her as she hath rewarded you double unto her double according unto her work in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double how much she hath glorified her self and lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her O in what exact ballances hath Christ proportioned and weighed out gall and wormwood reproach and shame bloud and ruin to these enemies making them to drink of the same cup which they had before reached to his servants They had grievously afflicted the bodies of the Saints of Christ and now behold upon them noysome and grievous sores They had drunk the bloud of the Saints and Prophets and now behold rivers and fountains of bloud given them to drink They had their Edicts to kill heretikes and Lollards as they called them and now in England and among the Netherlands it 's made capitall for the Iesuits and other Incendiaries and Factors for the Whore to be found amongst them They had burnt the worshippers of Christ and now behold themselves scorched with fire and great heat They had before deprived the Saints of the light of the Scriptures and now behold the Beasts Kingdom overspread with darknesse so that they gnaw their tongues for pain Thus you see the King of Saints rendring according to that rule of justice Eye for eye breach for breach tooth for tooth full measure shaken together and running over Ecclesiasticall historie is full of instances which speak home to our purpose in this particular of Emperours Kings Nobles Popes Bishops Priests men women of all ranks and degrees upon whom these righteous judgements of God have been made manifest you have a whole Catalogue of them digested to your hands in Mr. Foxes book of Acts and Monuments I shall let passe this particular onely with this one observation That whereas this great enemy this Abaddon this Apollyon is made up of all the hatefull qualities of all those Kingdoms which heretofore have oppressed the Church of God and is therefore called Aegypt Sodom Babylon so the wrath of these vialls poured out upon him is the mixture and quintessence of those plagues and judgements whereby all those Kingdoms formerly were destroyed for here you have noysome and grievous sores waters turned into bloud palpable darknesse thunder and lightning and great hailestones the plagues of Aegypt here you have the drying up of the river Euphrates the means of the destruction of Babylon fire and brimstone the judgement of Sodom Even so Lord God Almighty true and righteous are all thy judgements And they are as clearly celebrated for their truth Even so Lord God Almighty True are all thy judgements was the voyce of the Angel out of the Altar at the pouring out the viall upon the Rivers and Fountains of waters turning them into bloud and after they were all poured out Iohn heard the voyce of much people in heaven saying Hallelujah salvation and glory and honour and power unto the Lord our God for True and righteous are his judgements for he hath judged the great whore which to understand you must know that these vialls were put up long ago by Christ and laid up in store with him and sealed up among his treasures and written in a book and not onely so but the Counterpart of this book was sent and signified by his Angel unto his servant Iohn and the epoche or time of their beginning and the whole series of their accomplishment for time and place matter manner and measure exactly represented to him whereof many things are already come to our knowledge being fulfilled just ad amussim apocalypseôs according to the standard of the Revelation and although some things concerning the interpretation of these plagues and curses remain yet dark unto us being not fully accomplished yet when all these vialls shall once be poured out the whole Church shall be able to say of them as Ioshuah did in another case of the blessings You know that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you all are come to passe and not one thing hath failed So not one drop of all these vialls hath fallen to the ground in vain not a plague failed but all have accomplished the things for which they were sent write them down These are the true sayings of God If you would know some reason why Christ delights to proceed after this manner in the destruction of this enemy I answer First because this enemy is the master-piece of all the Devils workmanship the Dragons darling to whom he hath delivered over his power and his State his throne and dignity whatever Beelzebub prince of the Devils and the whole Conclave of hell could invent all hath been infused into this grand Adversary there was never yet State framed in the world by the wit and art of man more wisely contrived and plotted more powerfull and forcible to subdue the whole world unto it self by claiming a Ius divinum laying a foundation for firm obedience in mens consciences and having in it sufficient to nourish all mens affections and to fit every mans humour that each fancie may be satisfied and each appetite finde what to feed on yea what ever may prevail with any man is there to be found wealth for the covetous honour for the ambitious learning for the studious great employment for metald spirits multitudes of ceremonies for the superstitious gorgeousnesse of shows for the vulgar and simple miracles for