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A46650 A sermon preached on the day of the publick fast, April the 11th, 1679, at St. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of Commons / by William Jane ... Jane, William, 1645-1707. 1679 (1679) Wing J456; ESTC R13564 23,060 50

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to some more particular Causes of it which is the next point to be considered 1. And the first cause is a spirit of Atheism and Infidelity which has possest the minds of men which takes their eyes off from God and fixes them upon second and inferior causes The Plague is nothing else but some infectious atoms in the air which in certain determinate periods of time gather together for the annoyance of a City or a Nation Wars are caused meerly by the different interests of States which engage them in mutual provocations of one another and by that means dispose Princes to Choler and Revenge The Revolutions of Government proceed from the ambition and treachery of subjects who whenever they find an opportunity will be ready to break forth to disengage themselves from their subjection and involve a flourishing Kindom in blood ruine and confusion It was Jorams desperate resolution in the Siege of Samaria This evil is of the Lord wherefore should I wait upon the Lord any longer But the men whom we now speak of conclude with a little better Logick but as bad Divinity These evils are not from the Lord therefore why should we wait upon him It is not he that has broken us neither is it he that must bind us up It was an error in the Heathens which their own reason might have corrected that they ascribed all their ordinary success or misfortune to themselves or their enemies but any great and extraordinary calamities either to fate or chance And this engaged them in a great deal of perplexity so that they knew not which way to turn themselves when difficulties pressed upon them But methinks those that live in a Christian Nation and call themselves Christians should be better taught who are instructed by the Sacred Oracles to impute all the miseries that befal them to an over-ruling Cause to discover the Finger of God in the hand of an enemy and ascribe all events whatsoever even such as are brought upon them by the instrumental mediation of secondary Agents to the Justice Wildom and Providence of God the Supreme Governour of the World It is the Lord 2 Sam xvi 31. that bids Shimei to curse David and that raises up to him enemies out of his own house xxi II. 1 Kings xii 15. If King Rehoboam will not hearken to Faithful Counsel the Cause is from the Lord. And through the anger of the Lord it came to pass 2 Kings xxiv 20. that Zedekiah Rebelled against the King of Babylon And when Babylon has filled up the measure of her iniquities it is the Lord that raises up Cyrus Isa xlv 4. that calls him by his name that marches forth with his Armies to bring upon her a swift sudden and surprizing desolation Can a bird saith the Prophet Amos fall in a suare upon the earth where no gin is laid for him Amos iii. 5. And shall there be any evil in the City which the Lord hath not done It is God and not the Air the Elements or the Stars that brings the Famine or Pestilence upon a Nation It is God and not man whether he be the Foreign Enemy or the Domestick Rebel that overturns a State and dissolves a Kingdom These instances are sufficient to evince the Divine efficiency in the works of second Causes And if the infidel notwithstanding will not be satisfied in the Doctrine of a Providence we must even leave him to be convinced as he certainly will either in this life or in another by Gods own immediate stroke This in the mean time is certain that this prodigious humour of Atheism Scepticism and Infidelity which so abounds in this Nation is both a real cause of mens impenitency under Judgments and a dreadful symptom that God will go on to judg and afflict them still And by this means I greatly fear our adversaries of Rome are more likely to compass their ends upon us than by any of their other artifices and stratagems whatsoever II. There is a great indifferency upon the spitits of men as to the truth or honesty of the Cause that they are engaged in Which makes them instead of thinking of the proper expedients to save their Country from ruine to plot and contrive how they may advance themselves in the next turn of affairs and the revolution of the Government Men that have been used to fish in troubled waters and by little tricks and devices of their own to wind themselves in with that side that gets uppermost will never in any National calamity entertain any thoughts of returning unto God as long as they can have recourse to the same arts to save and secure themselves And this seems to be the Case of Ephraim in the Text. He stood in no great fear of the Assyrian because he had no concern for his God and was not at all sensible of his misery in being carried away Captive into a Land of Idols as long as he was already prepared to worship after the manner of the gods of the Land Thus we find the people were in the time of Ahab 2 Kings xviii 21. when they halted between two opinions between God and Baal Such were those Nations whom the King of Assyria placed in the Cities of Samaria xvii 33. that feared the Lord and served Idols And the Jews in the Prophet Zephany who could swear by God Zeph i. 5. and swear by Melchom Such as these are men ready and prepared for a change whatever it be and resolved if the King of Babylon or whoever else get the upper hand that Idolatry and Superstition shall put no stop to their preferment Men that can counterfeit any Religion are really of none at all And therefore whatever pretences they may make for the present what is there that can hinder them when occasion serves from making the best advantages they can for themselves by coupling in with that side that wins the day But however such as these by their arts and disguises may make a shift for a while yet God will not be mocked The time will certainly come when the sinners in Sion shall be afraid when fear shall surprise the Hypocrites And perhaps it may be no lessening of their miseries that they are the men to be destroyed last The Gnosticks in the Primitive Church were a sort of Hereticks who profest the name of Christians and yet held it lawful to Apostatize in time of danger and comply with the Jews for fear of Persecution But when the days of vengeance and visitation came God makes a distinction between those Carnal pretenders and such as continued stedfast to the profession of his Truth He provides a Pella for the Christians a hiding place for them to retire to in that day of the Lords anger but leaves those abominable Hereticks to be destroyed with the Crucifiers of Christ and Hypocrites to perish with Unbelievers And this is said by some to be the accomplishment of that prediction