others may accidentally fit us for greater ruin Remember those words of our blessed Saviour Luk. 10. 15. And thou Capernaum which art lifted up to Heaven shalt be cast down to Hell Whereby 't is intimated unto us that God will punish Malefactors as well in respect of the mercies they have receiv'd as in respect of the sins they have committed When we shall all appear before the judgment seat of God to answer for the things which are done in the body we then must render a strict accompt what Use we have made of our Grand deliverance and how much we are the Better for all that good that is done unto us The third Reason is because our dangers are greater in time of Peace and Prosperity than in time of Distress and Persecution and so we have need of the greater Caution Agur pray'd against Poverty for fear of Stealth but he pray'd against Riches for fear of Atheism If Iesurun wax fat he falls a kicking and quite forgets the God that made him Deut. 32. 15. If Nabal is drunk with the prosperity of sheering the Innocent and harmless Sheep it is no time to tell him that either David or God is Angry Nay David himself in his prosperity began to boast he should never be moved Psal. 30. 6. From fulness of Bread ariseth Idleness and Pride and those we know were the sins of Sodom When God rain'd Manna upon his people and gave them all that they desir'd Then saith the Text they were not estranged from their lusts But when he slew them they sought him and inquired early after God If ever any mortal was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the White boy of Fortune and special favorite of the Fates as the Heathens phras'd it the Youth of Macedon was sure the Man But though he could not be overcome by the strength of all Asia he was by the weakness and softness of it 'T was this made Cato cry out in Livy Quo magis imperium crescit eo plus horreo The more our Territories increase the more I tremble for fear the Kingdoms which we have taken do prove indeed to have taken Us. He knew that where the Soul is not commensurate with the success the Pride arising from the Victory does so defile the glory of it that the prize may be said to lead the Triumph into Captivity It is so natural for a man to be transported with prosperity that it extorted from Moses an extraordinary caveat before he could safely admit his people to the delights of Canaan When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things Then beware that thou forget not the Lord who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt Deut. 6. 10. 12. and so again in the 8 Chapter When thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly houses and dwelt therein Then beware least thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the house of Bondage 'T is a dangerous thing to be imparadis'd on Earth because in every such paradise there lurks a Serpent The fourth Reason is Because it is better to have a conquering then an untempted Innocence To live exactly in despight of sollicitations to the contrary is more thank-worthy and more rewardable than only to want the Importunity or Opportunity to offend A man may easily be submissive whilst he is under a Persecution and study compliance when he is worsted But 't is as laudable as it is difficult if we who sought even for Victory whilst we were trodden under foot shall sue for Peace in our Prosperity That which makes us most high in the sight of God is our Humility for which there is hardly any place in our Humiliation But the Taller any man is by so much the lower he hath to stoop and so 't is the Benefit of success to be Remarkable for Modesty and Moderation That especially is the season wherein our Armour of light is of most honourable Employment when the Prince of darkness hath most auxiliaries within and our Lusts are made ablest to War against us The fift Reason is because there is no other way whereby to prevail with God Almighty both to complete that happiness he hath begun and to continue it when compleated I say to compleat it being begun because the night is far spent but not quite over The day is dawning or at hand but not arriv'd at its Meridian God's Anointed is setled but not his Spouse Many are sorry for their Sacriledge but do not earnestly Repent Or they Repent a fair way as far as Ahab but not with Zachae the Publican as far as a four-fold Restitution Many who sinned out of Ignorance in a very high manner do stifly argue their being Innocent from their not apprehending that they were guilty But seeing Repentance is better for them than a meer Temporal Impunity they should be intreated to consider and put it a little to the question whether their Ignorance was not caus'd by the Previous Dominion of some great Prejudice which had also its Rise from some Reigning sin Alas The Jews were too guilty of killing Christ although they knew not what they did for had they known him they would not have crucified to themselves the Lord of Glory But yet I say they were guilty because their Ignorance was not invincible It was their guilt that they were Ignorant they might have known what they did had they not stood in their own Light If men will either wink hard or fling dust into their eyes It is not only their Infirmity but their fault that they are blind Saul the Pharisee was excused indeed a Tanto for having blasphem'd against God and also Persecuted the Church because he did it in Ignorance and Unbelief But however it did alleviate it did not nullifie his sins For to become the Apostle Paul he stood in need of a Conversion Now if we do not only earnestly but also rationally desire to see a sutable end or rather no end at all of these fair Beginnings that the Temple of Ianus may so be shut by our Augustus as never more to be open'd by any Caesar and that this Day of our Deliverance may never more be overcast with a cloud of darkness but happily lost into Eternity we cannot better give Thanks to God for the present breaking in of our glorious day than by an Annual day of Fasting for the clamorous sins of our tedious Night I mean the Profanation of Holy Places the sacrilegious perversion of Holy Things the monstrous Harmony of Oathes which some have fancied to arise from the greatest discord the effusion of innocent and not only so but of Royal Blood with all the Preparatives and Attendants of that unspeakable Provocation which of it self does deserve and that for ever a Monthly day of Humiliation It was
the Policy of Balaam saith Philo the Iew to make the Moabitish Women sell the Use of their flesh to the Hebrew Men and that for no other price than their Sacrificing to Idols As knowing that the Hebrews were not otherwise to be worsted than by their own breaches of Gods Commandments And we know not how soon our dawning Day may grow dark if we do not cast off the works of Darkness Which implies a good reason for the word Therefore in the Text as 't is a particle of connexion betwixt the Duty and the Deliverance Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only Wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever FINIS Die Iovis 30. Maii. A. 13. Car. Regis Secundi ORdered that the Thanks of this House be returned to Dr. Pierce for the Sermon he Preached yesterday and that he be desired to Print his Sermon And Sir Heneage Finch Mr. Coventrie and Mr. Pryn or any one of them are desired to give him the Thanks of this House Will. Goldesbrough Cler. Dom. Com. A SERMON PREACHED At St. MARGARETS WESTMINSTER by the Order of the Honourable the House OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT Assembled Upon the 29 th Day of MAY being the Anniversary Day of the KING' 's and KINGDOM' 's RESTAURATION MD. DC.LXI Legum Conditores Festos dies instituerunt ut ad hilaritatem homines publicè cogerentur tanquam necessarium laboribus interponentes Temperamentum Senec. de Tranquil Ani. c. ult DEUT. 6. 12. Then beware lest thou forget the Lord who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt WHen I look back upon the Church in all her motions out of the East observing how Monarchy and Learning have been at once the two Shoulders to bear her up and withal the two Legs to bring her hither And when again I do reflect upon our Twenty years sins which were the complicated Cause of our Twelve years sufferings I mean our Drunkenness and Luxury which were deservedly prescribed so long a Fast the rashnesse and vanity of our Oaths which gave us a miserable option betwixt a perjury and an undoing our profanation of the Quire which turn'd us out of the Cathedral our gross neglect of Gods Service which helpt to vote down our publick Liturgie our general idleness and sloth which often cast us out of our Houses and as it were set us to eat our Bread in the sweat of our brows or of our brains our unprofitable walking under all God's methods and means of Grace which left us nothing but his Iudgments for many sad years to work upon us And yet again when I consider How God hath turn'd our Captivity as the Rivers of the South and cast the Locusts out of our Vineyards that we may sit under our Vines injoying our Iudges as at the first and our Counsellors as at the Beginning And that the use we are to make of so miraculous a Recovery is to be fedulous in providing against the Danger of a Relaps To sin no more after pardon for fear a worse thing happen unto us I think I cannot be transported with a more Innocent Ambition because I cannot be ambitious of a more profitable Attempt than that of bringing down the Heads of certain Hearers into their Hearts that what is now no more than Light may by that means become Fire That we may All in this sense be like the Baptist not only shining but burning Lamps not only beautified with the knowledge of Christian duties but zealous too in the discharge as unaffectedly punctual in all our carriage as the greatest Enemies of Godliness are hypocritically precise And though Heresies are to be hated as things which lead unto destruction yet that Vice may be reckon'd the worst of Heresies by how much the Errour of a mans Practice is worse than That of his bare Opinion Last of all when I consider That though Peace is a Blessing and the greatest in its kind yet many consequences of Peace are but glittering Snares and that the things which are given us as helps to memory are apt to make us forgetful of Him that gave them I cannot think of a fitter Text for the giving advantage to my design than this Remarkable Caveat against Forgetfulness aâ—d Ingratitude amidst the pleasant Effects of a Restauration When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things when thou shalt have eaten and art full THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt AT the very first view of which holy Caveat there are five particulars of Remarque which presently meet my observation As first the Downfal of a Nation Secondly the Deliverance Thirdly the Author of that Deliverance Fourthly the Duty by him injoyn'd And lastly the Iuncture of Affairs wherein this Duty is most in Season And of all these Particulars each is the greatest in its kind too For First behold the greatest Curse that any poor Nation can struggle under A Yoke of Bondage and Captivity impos'd by the hardest and worst of men A Yoke so insupportable to some mens Necks that I remember Hegesistratus a captive Souldier in Herodotus would rather cut off his legs then indure his Fetters that by the loss of his Feet he might be enabled to run away So insufferable a thing is the State of Thraldome very significantly imply'd in the Land of Egypt and exegetically express'd by the house of Bondage But yet the Curse is so set like Shadows in a Picture or Foyles with Diamonds as to commend and illustrate the greatest Blessing A Deliverance brought about by such a miraculous complication that nothing but the experience that so it is can extenuate the wonder that so it should be A People groaning under the pressures of several Centuries of years and so accustom'd unto the Yoke as to have made it a kind of acquired Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Galen calls it De Terra Aegypti eductus est is now at last brought out of the Land Egypt And yet the wonder begins to cease Because The Author of this Deliverance is so much the greatest to be imagin'd that he is Dominus the Lord the Lord that stretcheth out the Heavens the Lord that layeth the foundations of the Earth the Lord that formeth the spirit of Man within him The Lord in whose Hand are the hearts of all men who turneth man to Destruction and again who saith Come again ye children of Men In a word It is the Lord to whom Miracles are natural and by whom Impossibilities are done with ease 'T is He that brought thee out of the Land of Egypt And therefore The Duty in proportion must be superlatively great too however hid in this place by a little Meiosis of expression Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God that is Remember what he hath done
and thank him for it by thy obedience Let thy gratitude be seen in thy conversation Be sure to love him and to serve him ' with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Forget him if thou canst unless thou canst forget thou wert Pharaob's Bondman Nay forget him if thou dar'st unless thou art so stout that thou dar'st be damn'd And yet beware lest thou forget him whilst thou art swimming in prosperity the stream of which may either drown thee or make thee drunk if thou are not fore-Armed with circumspection And therefore Beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt And that thou mayest not forget him write the Favours which he hath don thee upon the posts of thine house and place them as Frontlets between thine eyes tell them out unto thy children as thou walkest by the way both at thy lying down and thy rising up Let them be as a Signet upon thine Arme and as a Seal upon thine heart That the pleasures of thy Deliverance may not make thee forgetful of thy Deliverer forgetful of the Rock out of which thou wert hewn and kicking like Iesurun at him that made thee keep an Anniversary Feast a standing Passeover in May whereby to fix him in thy Remembrance Lastly a Duty so indispensable should be inforc'd upon the Soul by the present season A season of Peace and Prosperity succeeding a season of Persecution The greatest Incitement to the Duty should be the manifold Injoyment of this Deliverance For so 't is obvious to infer from the particle THEN so strongly implyed in the Hebrew that in the English 't is well express'd upon which there seems to lie the chiefest emphasis of the Text if we observe how it stands in a double Relation to the Context When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things when thou shalt have eaten and be full THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt The Text is so fruitful of particulars and each particular is so apt to administer matter of Discourse that it hath been my hardest Question whereabouts I should begin and how I should end my meditations And after too much time lost in stating the Question within my self I have thought it at once the fittest and the most useful to be resolv'd as most immediately complying with the solemnity of the Time not to yield to the temptation of comparing our Land with the Land of Egypt for fear of seeming to have a pique at the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion otherwise 't were easie to make a Parallel because however our Native Country yet for twelve years together it was a very strange Land But not advancing one step beyond the Threshold to bestow my whole time upon the little word THEN as being a particle of connexion betwixt our Duty and our Deliveraâ—ce betwixt the Business of the Time and the Time it self betwixt the Occasion and the End of our present meeting looking like Homer's wise man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a visible prospect on all that follows and with as visible a retrospect upon the words going before When Prosperity breaks in like a mighty stream in so much that I may say with our blessed Saviour This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears Then beware that ye forget not the Lord that brought you out of Egypt Beware ye forget him not at any time but especially at This. For the particle Then is an Important monosyllable and that especially in three respects First because of the Difficulty of having God in our Remembrance much more Then than at other times Next for the Dignity of the Duty rather Then than before or after Lastly by reason of the Danger of not performing the Duty Then when it becomes incumbent on us by many unspeakable obligations These especially are the Reasons of the particle Then in this place on which alone I shall insist in this Mornings Service For should I adventure upon the rest not only the hour but for ought I can conjecture the day would fail me AND first of all let us beware amidst the Effects of our Deliverance that we forget not the Author of it because it is difficulter THEN than at other times For the Flattery and Dalliance of the world hath perpetually been the Mother of so much Wantonness or Pride that Adam found it dangerous to be in Paradise yea and Lucifer to be in Heaven Do but look upon Solomon in the Book of Kings and again look upon him in his Ecclesiastes How was he there liâ—ted up by his Prosperity and how does he here Preach it down I know not whether as a Prince he more inioy'd his Pleasures or as a Prophet more condemn'd them Whether the luxury of his Table made him a Wanton or whether the vastness of his Wisdom made him a Fool 'T was That betray'd him to his Concubines and This permitted him to his Idols Since then a prosperous condition hath such a secret poyson in it as against which no Medicine hath been sufficiently Alexipharmacal and from the force of whose contagion there is no sort of men that hath been priviledg'd no not Adam the Innocent nor Solomon the Wise nor even Lucifer the beatified who were so hugely swell'd up with this Venom and so quickly burst not the first in a state of sinlesness nor the next in a state of grace nor yet the third in a state of glory since there is no other man than the man Christ Iesus that hath been ever temptation proof Lord how wretched a thing is happiness on this side Heaven and how dangerously treacherous are our Injoyments I suppose we are taught by our late experience how easie it is to be over-joy'd and how equally hard to be truly thankful for all those wonders of salvation which God hath wrought and is working for us the grateful commemorating of which is religiously the end of our present meeting Sweet-meats indeed are pleasant but then they commonly turn to choler 'T is sure the state of Humiliation which though we can worst feed upon we are notwithstanding best nourisht with we are such barren pieces of clay that our fruits will be wither'd with too much laughter if Grace does not water them sometimes with tears It should be matter of real gladness to a considering Christian that in the midst of his prosperity he can see himself sorrowful that as he was destitute with comfort so he abounds with moderation and that he does not live rejoycingly is many times a chief reason for which he ought It was David's resolution at such a time as this is to serve the Lord with fear and by a pious Oxymoron to rejoyce unto him with trembling And if we reflect on the abuses which many have made of a Restauration we may charitably pray that God will
give them some tears to drink and having given them some tears will also put them into his Bottle that they may serve for this end to blot their merriments out of his Book That the pleasant effects of a Deliverance which are peace and plenty living securely and at ease are apt to make us turn Atheists provoking the Author of our Deliverance to correct us once more in the house of Bondage appears as by many other reasons so particularly by this that it is hard for us to prosper and not to lye snoring in our prosperities For 't is the 〈…〉 of a prosperous man as our Saviour iâ—plies by way of Parable Soul take thiâ—e ease eat drink and be merry for thou hast much goods laid up for many years Luk. 12. 19. And therefore Agur's wisdome was never more seen than in his Prayer Give me not Riches lest I be full and deny thee lest I say who is the Lord Prov. 30. 8 9. He knew by manifold experience that the friendship of the world is perfect Enmity with God and tends immediately to practical if not to speculative Atheism He did not therefore pray thus Give me not Riches lest I be liberal to my Coffers or Give me not Riches lest I be bountiful to my Lusts but for fear of a greater mischief give me not Riches lest I be full and deny thee lest I say in my heart who is the Lord that is for fear I turn Atheist and only sacrifice to my flesh So also Solomon when he was wisest that is to say when he repentâ—d and of a very vicious Prince became a Preacher of Repentance concluded all under the Sun to be but vanity of vanities as having found by all his trials who sure had made more trials than ever any man did that Peace and Plenty with their two Daughters which are Idleness and Ease are exceedingly great though glorious dangers But we need not go farther for an instance than to the People in my Text whom though God might have called a very wild Tam'risk he was pleased to stile his Beloved Vine Lord how carefullâ— was it manur'd with Rain and Sun-shine with Quailes and Manna and water squeez'd out of a Rock with the Dew of Heaven and with the Fatness of the Earth and yet when all was don that could be they either brought forth no Grapes or if they did they were commonly wild ones And when sometimes they yielded good 't was rather for fear of cutting down than for the fertility of their soil or for the manifold helps of their cultivation 'T was their frequently being prun'd which more especially made them fruitful 'T is true that God did not evermore punish although That people was still offending For as he own'd his being as well their Father as their God so he was pleas'd to make use of either Method for their Amendment I mean Incouâ—agement as well as Terror God dealt with Them as with Us of this Nation As he prescrib'd them a Law so he promis'd them a Canaan As he led them into Egypt so he deliver'd them out of Egypt As he thundred from on a Cloud so he whisper'd out of a Bush. As he pincht them with scarceness so he feasted them with plenty And if the one was even to famin the other was even to satiety But if we compare them with our selves in another instance by considering how ingrateful and how unmalleable they were how repining under their Yoke and how mutinous in their Liberty How like some amongst us in this very day of our Deliverance they fell a hungring after the Garlick and the Flesh-pots of Egypt quite forgetting the Bondage and tale of Brick how they murmur'd at their Moses as if he were worse than a Pharaoh to them like some repining at their King as if he were worse than a Protector For That ye know was the Euphemismus whereby to express the most Bloody Tyrant How like so many untam'd Heighfers they were exceedingly hard to be brought to hand or like a Stable of unbackt and unbridled Colts how apt to kick at their Rider who gave them Food How God Almighty was forc'd to discipline this stiff-neckt Rabble first of all by committing them to the hardships of Egypt and then by sending them to wrestle with the difficulties of the Wilderness And how when all this was don they were fain to miss of their Canaan whilst they were taking it into possession for of so very great a multitude to whom the Promise of it was made no more than a Caleb and a Ioshua had a Capacity to inherit it we must conclude they were a People who deserv'd to be whipt with a Rod of Iron not so easily reducible by the allurements of Mount Gerizzim as by the Curses and the Threats to be thundred out from Mount Ebal So far were They from considering what they suffer'd a while agoe in the house of Bondage that they forgot this very Caveat as many will do this very Sermon which was meant to bring it to their Remembrance When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly Cities and houses full of all good things c. THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt Pass we now if ye please out of the Vineyard into the Fold from the People under the Law to Us who live under the Gospel whom though our Lord out of goodness was pleas'd to call his Flock of Sheep he might have stil'd out of Iustice his Herd of Swine For if He the great Shepherd withhold his Crook Lord how quickly we go astray And for here and there one who will be led into the Fold how many are there that must be driven like the Prodigal in the Gospel who would not return unto his Father until he was brought to feed on Husks we seldom care for our Physician until the time that we are sick and then as soon as recover'd are very glad rather than thankful And this may point us out a Reason why for so many years together before this last our Heavenly Father made use of his sharpest Methods for our amendment even placing us as Israelites amongst Egyptians like so many flowers amongst thorns of which the principal design was not to torture but to defend us To defend us from the danger of carnal security and presumption of pride and wantonness of forgetfulness and ingratitude And since the way to be thankful for our twelve months liberty is very soberly to reflect on our twelve years thraldome Let 's so transcribe a fair Copy of God's Oeconomy on the Iews as with a grateful commemoration to consider it also in our selves We who flourish at this day like a goodly Tree not only planted by the River of God's Rich Mercies but surrounded like our Land with an Ocean of them we who stretch forth our branches not only for our own but for
forth in its native Lustre And it appears by Magna Charta that all the Rights of the Church are the chiefest Liberties of the Subject To be but capable of the Honour the double Honour of the Clergy to wit the Reverence and the Revenue is an eminent part of the Layman's Birthright I pray be pleased to consider what is not every day observ'd That all the Dignities and Endowments which do belong unto the Church at once by the Statutes of God and Man are so many Rights which appertain to your childrens children I must not here be thought to forsake my Text For it ye compare it with the Context especially from the first to the eighth verse of this Chapter ye will see the great fitness of all I say and that my Text cannot be satisfied unless I say it For he that saith in this place by the Spirit of God Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers does also say by the same Spirit Obey them that have the Rule over you who have spoken to you the word of God and who do watch for your souls as those that must render an Accompt And the Interest of the former is so entwisted with the later That till our Bishops receive their Right though we are glad to have our King we may rationally fear we shall not hold him For ask I beseech you of the days that are past and ask from the one side of heaven to the other if ever there were any such thing as This that a King could be happy without a Bishop Lord What an Epocha will it make in our future Kalendars when men shall reckon from this Year as from the Year of Restitution But then like that which Saint Peter mentions Acts 3. 21. The Restitution is to be general as well to God as to the People And ye will find in Magna Charta which does deserve to be imprinted in all your memories That all the Rights of the Church were entirely granted unto God They were granted unto God and that for ever Now of so sacred a force is the word For ever That if a Statute shall be made against the Liberties of the Church The Law of the Land hath provided against that Statute And by an Anticipation declares it Null Shall I guess at the cause of so great a Caution It seems to be as for other Reasons so in particular for This Because to alter that Government was as well against the Kings Oath as against the Oathes of both Houses which swore the Right of his Supremacy as well in all Ecclesiastical as Civil causes Besides that in the Judgment of the most eminent in the world for depth of knowledge in holy things The order of Bishops is by Divine Institution And if 't is so in good earnest it will be dangerous to deal with the Laws of Christ as we read Agesilaus once dealt with those of Lacedaemon which he pretended onely to abrogate that he might not break them But whether so or not so a thing in Being and Debate is to pass for good until the Dispute shall be fairly ended And if an Errour must be adventur'd on either hand Religion tells us it ought to be upon the Right Would any know why I insist on such a subject in such a place my Reasons for it are plainly These First I insist on such a subject because my Text as I said does exact it of me And because 't is my duty at least to wish That the day breaking forth may be full and lasting That the Repentance of the Nation may be impartial and so to our SOVERAIGNS RETURN there may be added his Continuance in Peace and Safety I say in Safety not more to his Person than his Posterity Nor in Safety for a season so long as men are well humour'd but so long as the Sun or the Moon endures And then for you of this Place who are an honourable part of the English Nation That which I take to be your Duty I think is your Interest to indeavour The most I am pressing on you is this That ye will labour for the means of your being happy If ye think ye cannot be happy with the establishment of the Prelacy I shall pray you may be happy at least without it and also wish I may be able to pray with Faith too Only as often as I reflect on King IAMES his Motto No Bishop no King and withal do consider its having been verified once and before our eyes I think it my duty to desire it may not be verified any more But that it may rather be here applyed what was spoken heretofore of the Spartan Laws ut semper esse possent aliquando non fuerunt They only ceased for a Time to the end they might continue to all eternity These are sincerely the very Reasons for which I insist upon such a Subject Secondly I do it in such a place because I look on This Assembly as on the Head and the Heart of the Royal City I look on the City as on a Sea into which the main stream of the Nation runs Even the Parliament it self hath such a respect unto the City that if ye plead for Gods Spouse as ye have done for his Anointed for which your names will be pretious with late posterity if ye shall supplicate for a Discipline which is as old in this land as Christianity it self and stands established in Law by thirty two Acts of Parliament and without which ye cannot live unless by living under the Breach of your greatest Charter they will not onely be apt to grant but to thank you also for your Petition Having gone thus far in prosecution of the Advertisment That the Night of our Suffering is fairly spent and that the Day of our Injoyment begins to dawn And having directed unto the means with submission be it spoken to all Superiours by which our Day is to be lengthned not only into a year but an Age of Iubilee into a kind of perpetual Sabbath a Day of Rest from those works which either wanted Light or were asham'd of it which either borrow'd Darkness for their Cover or else which own'd it for their Cause I humbly leave what I have said to His acceptance and disposal in the Hand of whose Counsel are all your Hearts T is more than time that I proceed to the general Use of this Advertisment to which I am prompted by the word Therefore as 't is a word of connexion betwixt the Duty and the Deliverance Our Apostle does not thus argue Because the Night of Oppression is now far spent and the Day of Deliverance is hard at hand Let us therefore inioy the good things that are present let us stretch our selves upon 〈◊〉 bed of Ivory let us Crown our selves with Rose-buds let us drink Wine in bowles and let us dance to the sound of the Viol let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every street
let none of us go without his share of Voluptuousness for this is our portion our lot is this I say he does not thus reason like the swaggerers and Hectors in the second Chapter of Wisdom and in the sixt of the Prophet Amos but on the contrary That the serious consideration of an approaching deliverance should be a double enforcement to change of life for such is evidently the force of the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that looks back on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because the Night is far spent and because the Day is at hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us therefore cast off those works of darkness and let us therefore put on the Armour of light Which is as if he should have said At this very Time and for this very Reason let us live better lives than we did before let us buckle up close to our Christian duties The Reformation of our manners will be the properest Answer to such a Blessing Such also was the Reasoning which Moses us'd to the People Israel Did ever people hear the voice of God as thou hast heard and live Deut. 4. 33. Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes that it may go well with thee v. 40. so again Deut. 8. 6 7. The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good Land Therefore thou shalt keep the Commandments of the Lord. Such was the Reasoning also of Zacharie in his Divine Benedictus That the use we are to make of being saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us is to serve the Authour of our deliverance in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our life What now remains but that we go and do likewise Not arguing thus from our late great changes Because the Night of our Sufferings is well nigh spent and the Day of Restitution is hard at hand let us therefore put from us the evil day and cause the seat of violence to come neer for now it comes to our Turn to oppress the poor and to crush the helpless and to call our strength the Law of Iustice let us never so much as think of the afflictions of Ioseph Let our Joy run out into Debaucherie and surfet into the braveries of vanity and the Injoyments of our lust or at the best let us express it by the making of Bonfires and Ringing of Bells by solemn drinking of Healths and casting Hats into the Air whereby to make the World see that we are glad rather than thankful But let us manifest on the contrary and let us do it by demonstration that we are piously thankful as well as glad Because the Day of good things breaks in upon us Let us Therefore offer to God thanksgiving and pay our vowes unto the Lord. Our Vowes of Allegiance and Supremacy Our Vows to assert and maintain our Charters Our Vows to live according to Law and obey the Canons of the Church But above all let us pay him our Vow in Baptism by forsaking the VVorld before we leave it by subduing the Flesh unto the Spirit by resisting the Devil untill he flyes That whilst God is making all new without us we may not suffer our Hearts within us to be the only things remaining old But rather on the contrary that we may prove we are in Christ by that demonstrative argument of our becoming new creatures which until we do become we cannot possibly be in Christ 2 Cor. 5. 17. Do the two Twin Blessings of Peace and Plenty which have been for many years at so low an ebb begin to flow in upon us from every quarter Then let not our Souls be carried away with the pleasant violence of the Tide Let not any Man seekgreat things for himself but rather study to deserve then to injoy them Make no provision for the Flesh whereby to fulfil the lusts thereof but put ye on the Lord Iesus Christ and Adorn his Doctrine by a conformity to his Life Put on his Modesty and his Temperance in a perfect opposition to Rioting and Drunkenness put on his Chastity and his Pureness in opposition to Chambering and Wantonness put on his Bowels and his Mercy in opposition to Strife and Envy Ye know 〈◊〉 I told you in the beginning that Loyalty and Love are the two grand duties at which this Chapter does chiefly drive And having been instant for the first in the former part of my discourse I think it a duty incumbent on me to be as urgent for the second For Love is part of that Armour my Text commandeth us to put on Nay considering that Love is the fulfilling of the Law in the next verse but one before my Text the armour of Light may be said to be the armour of Love too Love must needs be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole armour of God in as much as it comprehendeth the fulfilling of the Law As one Scripture tells us that God is Light so another also tells us that God is Love and therefore the children of light must be children of love too Then let the same mind be in us which was in Christ Iesus who when he suffered threatned not but committed his cause to God who judgeth righteously And let us prove this mind is in us by our forbearing one another forgiving one another Even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us As we are stones of that Temple in which the Head of the Corner is Christ himself He meant his Blood should be the Cement to fastenâ— every one of us to one another and altogether unto himself And since we see that Disloyalty is taking its leave throughout the Land le ts rather shut the Door after it by Love and Unity then by Breaches and Divisions open â—way for its Return Let us effectually make it appear by the modest use of our Injoyments Pacem Bello quaesitam esse That we fought onely for Peace and contended only for Union that the end of our strife was our Agreement that we aim'd at Truth rather than Victory or rather at the Victory of Truth and Righteousness Let our generous deportment become an evidence that as the greatest of our Calamities could not bow down our heads so the greatest of our Injoyments cannot trip up our heels That as our Crosses could not deprive us of Hope and Comfort so the Tide of our Prosperity shall but Illustrate our Moderation But above all let us distinguish betwixt our weak aud our wilful Brethren Of some Saint Iude saith we must have compassion making a difference But others he saith we must save with fear pulling them out of the fire That is we must save them even by making them afraid Must shew them the Terrors of the Lord and fright them out of the way to Hell We must in any wise rebuke them and must not suffer sinne upon them It is a Rule amongst Musicians that if a string be but True 't