A SERMON PREACHED At St. MARGARETS in WESTMINSTER before the Honourable the House OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT Assembled Upon the 29th Day of MAY being the Anniversary Day of the KING' 's and Kingdomes Restauration BY THOMAS PIERCE D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by R. Norton for Timothy Garthwait at the Little North-door of St. Paul's Church 1661. DEUT. 6. 12. Then beware lest thou forget the Lord who brought thee out of the Land of AEgypt 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 withall 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 rashness and vanity of our oathes 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 Iudgements for many sad years to work upon us And yet again when I consider That 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 sedulous in providing against the Danger of a Relapse 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 then 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 error of a mans practise is worse then 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 then This Remarkable Caveat to the People of God against forgetfulness and 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 2ly the Deliverance 3ly the Author of that Deliverance 4ly 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 speaks de Terrâ AEgypti eductus est is now at last brought out of the land of 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 Pharaoh'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 whilest thou art swimming in prosperity the stream of which may either drown thee or make thee drunk if thou art not fore-arm'd with circumspection And therefore beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt And that thou mayst not forget him write the Favours which he hath done 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 at thy lying down and thy rising up Let them be as a Signet upon thine Arm 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't 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 enjoyment of this Deliverance For so 't is obvious to infer from the particle THEN so strongly implied in the Hebrew that in the English 't is well express'd upon which there seems to lye 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 really 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 Indempnity and Oblivion otherwise 't were easie to make a Parallel because however our native Countrey yet for twelve years together it was a very strange Land But not advancing one step beyond the Threshold I shall bestow my whole time upon the little word THEN as being a particle of connexion betwixt our Duty and our Deliverance 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 you forget not the Lord that brought you out of Egypt Beware you 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 morning's 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 pleasant 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 so much 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 Ecclesiastes how was he there lifted up by his prosperity and how does he here preach it down I know not whether as a Prince he more injoy'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 wisdome made him a Fool 'T was that betrayed 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 then 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 enjoyments 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 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 Davids 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 that he will 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 Delive rance 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 natural language of a prosperous man as our Saviour implies by way of Parable Soul take thine 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 then 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 repented 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 then 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 further for an instance then to the people in my Text whom though God might have called a very wild Tamarisk he was pleased to stile his Beloved Vine Lord how carefully it was 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 done 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 then 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 incouragement 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 whispered out of a Bush. As he pincht them with scarceness so he feasted them with plenty And if the one was even to famine 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 then a Pharaoh to them like some repining at their King as if he were worse then a Protector For that you know was the Euphemismus whereby to express the most bloudy 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't 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 done they were fain to miss of their Canaan whilest they were taking it into possession for of so great a multitude to whom the Promise of it was made no more then 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 Passe we now if you 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 untill he was brought to feed on Husks we seldome care for our Physician until the time that we are sick and then as soon as recover'd are very glad rather then 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 thankfull for our twelve moneths liberty is very soberly to reflect on our twelve years thraldome Let 's so transcribe a fair Copy of God's Oeconomy on the Iewes 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 foreign birds also to build their nests and whose Spring blessed be God doth promise at last to be as lasting as once our Autumn was like to prove we who flourish like a Myrtle how like a Willow did we droop How was our verdure almost exhausted and our boughs how deflowr'd How did we fall after the measure our sins had risen First God blasted our noblest Fruits then he despoyled us of our leaves next he hew'd down our branches Nay how strangely were we fed on by those very vermin which we did feed how greedily eaten up by all those Caterpillars and Locusts which though ingender'd perhaps by a Northern wind I am sure were bred out of our Body It is not easie to recapitulate how many Mercies we now enjoy which our iniquities had withheld for so many years and how many good things our sins had turn'd away from us And now if after our Restitution we shall be found to be a barren unfruitful tree or fruitful only in our impieties so as that which was intended to make