passages we may easily understand wherein these Monthly Fasts of the Jews were defective and what was the fault that God finds with them when he expostulates so severely in the Text When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh Month even these seventy years did ye at all fast unto me even unto me In the general the fault which God finds with them was this that these Solemnities did not serve any real end and purpose of Religion but fail'd in their main design which was a sincere repentance and reformation of their lives For which reason he tells them that they were not at all acceptable to Him nor esteem'd by Him as perform'd unto Him because they did not answer the true intention and design of them My work at this time shall be First to consider in general what it is to fast unto God that is to keep a truly Religious Fast Secondly to bring the matter nearer to our selves I shall consider more particularly what the Duty of this Day appointed by their Majesties for a solemn Humiliation and Repentance throughout the Nation does require at our hands I. I shall consider in general what it is to fast unto God that is to keep a truly Religious Fast And of this I shall give an account in the following particulars First a truly Religious Fast consists in the afflicting of our Bodies by a strict abstinence that so they may be fit and proper instruments to promote and help forward the grief and trouble of our minds Secondly in the humble Confession of our Sins to God with shame and confusion of face and with a hearty contrition and sorrow for them Thirdly in an earnest deprecation of God's displeasure and humble supplications to Him that he would avert his Judgments and turn away his Anger from us Fourthly in Intercession with God for such spiritual and temporal Blessings upon our selves and others as are needful and convenient Fifthly in Alms and Charity to the poor that our Humiliation and Prayers may find acceptance with God I do but mention these particulars that I may more largely insist upon that which I mainly intended and proposed to consider in the next place namely II. What the Duty of this Day appointed by their Majesties for a solemn Humiliation and Repentance throughout the Nation doth require at our hands And this I shall endeavour to comprize in the following particulars First that we should humble our selves before God every one for his own personal Sins whereby he hath provoked God and increased the publick Guilt and done his part to bring down the judgments and vengeance of God upon the Nation Secondly that we should likewise heartily lament and bewail the Sins of others especially the great and crying Sins of the Nation committed by all Ranks and Orders of men amongst us and whereby the wrath and indignation of Almighty God hath been so justly incensed against us Thirdly we should most importunately deprecate those terrible Judgments of God to which these our great and crying Sins have so justly exposed us Fourthly we should pour out our earnest prayers and supplications to Almighty God for the preservation of their Majesties Sacred Persons and for the establishment and prosperity of their Government and for the good success of their Arms and Forces by Sea and Land Fifthly our Fasting and Prayers should be accompanied with our Charity and Alms to the poor and needy Lastly we should prosecute our Repentance and good Resolutions to the actual Reformation and Amendment of our lives Of these I shall by God's Assistance speak as briefly and as plainly as I can and so as every one of us may understand what God requires of him upon so solemn an Occasion as this First We should humble our selves before God every one for his own personal Sins and Miscarriages whereby he hath provoked God and increased the publick Guilt and done his part to bring down the Judgments and Vengeance of God upon the Nation Our Humiliation and Repentance should begin with our selves and our own Sins because Repentance is always design'd to end in Reformation but there cannot be a general Reformation without the Reformation of particular Persons which do constitute and make up the generality And this Solomon prescribes as the true Method of a National Reformation and the proper effect of a publick Humiliation and Repentance in that admirable Prayer of his at the Dedication of the Temple If there be says he in the Land famine if there be pestilence blasting mildew locust or if there be caterpillar or if their Enemy besiege them in the Land of their Cities what-ever plague what-ever sickness there be what prayer or supplication soever be made by any man or by all thy People Israel WHO SHALL KNOW EVERY MAN THE PLAGUE OF HIS OWN HEART and spread forth his hands towards this House Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place and forgive and do and give to every man according to his way whose heart thou knowest for thou even thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men that they may fear thee all the days which they live in the Land which thou gavest to their Fathers You see here that in case of any publick Judgment or Calamity the Humiliation and Repentance of a Nation must begin with particular Persons What prayer or supplication so-ever be made by any man or by all thy People Israel WHO SHALL KNOW EVERY MAN THE PLAGUE OF HIS OWN HEART Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place and forgive Particular persons must be convinced of their personal Sins and Transgressions before God will hear the Prayers and forgive the Sins of a Nation And because we cannot perform this part of confessing and bewailing our own personal Sins and of testifying our particular Repentance for them in the publick Congregation any otherwise than by joining with them in a general Humiliation and Repentance therefore we should do well on the Day before the publick Fast or at least the Morning before we go to the publick Assembly to humble our selves before God in our Families and especially in our Closets confessing to Him with great shame and sorrow all the particular Sins and Offences together with the several Aggravations of them which we have been guilty of against the Divine Majesty so far as we are able to call them particularly to our remembrance and earnestly to beg of God the pardon and forgiveness of them for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ And so likewise after we return from the Church we should retire again into our Closets and there renew our Repentance with most serious and sincere Resolutions of reforming in all those particulars which we have confessed and repented of And if we would have our Resolutions to come to any good we must make them as distinct and particular as we can and charge it upon our selves as to such and such Sins for which we have declared our sorrow and repentance that we
vouchsafed to us Because this is an argument of great ingratitude And this we find recorded as a heavy charge upon the People of Israel that they remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side neither shewed they kindness to the House of Jerubbaal namely Gideon who had been their Deliverer according to all the goodness which he had shewed to Israel God we see takes it very ill at our hands when we are ungrateful to the Instruments of our Deliverance but much more when we are unthankful to Him the Author of it And how severely does Nathan the Prophet reproach David upon this account Thus said the Lord God of Israel I anointed thee King over Israel and delivered thee out of the hand of Saul c. And if this had been too little I would moreover have done such and such things Wherefore hast thou despis'd the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight God here reckons up his manifold mercies and deliverances and aggravates David's Sin upon this account And he was very angry likewise with Solomon for the same reason because he had turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appear'd to him twice However we may slight the mercies of God he keeps a punctual and strict account of them It is particularly noted as a great blot upon Hezekiah that he returned not again according to the benefits done unto him God takes very severe notice of all the unkind and unworthy returns that are made to Him for his Goodness Ingratitude to God is so unnatural and monstrous that we find Him appealing against us for it to the inanimate Creatures Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourish'd and brought up Children but they have rebelled against me And then he goes on and upbraids them with the Brute Creatures as being more grateful to men than men are to God The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass her Masters Crib but Israel doth not know my People doth not consider And in the same Prophet there is the like complaint Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but the shall see and be ashamed They that will not acknowledge the Mercies of God's Providence shall feel the strokes of his Justice There is no greater evidence in the World of an intractable disposition than not to be wrought upon by kindness not to be melted by mercies not to be obliged by benefits not to be tamed by gentle usage Nay God expects that his mercies should lay so great an obligation upon us that even a Miracle should not tempt us to be unthankful If there arise among you a Prophet says Moses to the People of Israel or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder cometh to pass whereof he spake to thee saying let us go after other Gods and serve them thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet And he gives the reason because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord God of Israel which brought you out of the Land of Egypt and delivered you out of the House of Bondage 3. It is a greater aggravation yet after gteat Mercies and Judgments to return to the same Sins Because this can hardly be without our sinning against knowledge and after we are convinced how evil and bitter the Sin is which we were guilty of and have been so sorely punish'd for before This is an argument of a very perverse and incorrigible temper and that which made the Sin of the People of Israel so above measure sinful that after so many signal Deliverances and so many terrible Judgments they fell into the same Sin of murmuring ten times murmuring against God the Author and against Moses the glorious Instrument of their Deliverance out of Egypt which was one of the two great Types of the Old Testament both of temporal and spiritual Oppression and Tyranny Hear with what resentment God speaks of the ill returns which they made to him for that great Mercy and Deliverance Because all these men which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the Wilderness and have tempted me now these ten times and have not hearkned unto my voice surely they shall not see the Land which I sware to their Fathers And after he had brought them into the promised Land and wrought great Deliverances for them several times how does he upbraid them with their proneness to fall again into the same Sin of Idolatry And the Lord said unto the Children of Israel did not I deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites from the Children of Ammon and from the Philistins The Zidonians also and the Amalekites and Maonites did oppress you and ye cryed unto me and I delivered you out of their hand yet you have forsaken me and served other Gods wherefore I will deliver you no more go and cry unto the Gods which ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation This incensed God so highly against them that they still relaps'd into the same Sin of Idolatry after so many afflictions and so many deliverances Upon such an occasion well might the Prophet say Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy sins shall reprove thee know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God It is hardly possible but we should know that the wickedness for which we have been so severely corrected is an evil and bitter thing Thus much for the first part of the Observation namely that it is a fearful aggravation of Sin after great Judgments and great deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again I proceed to the Second part namely That this is a fatal presage of ruin to a People Should we again break thy Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these abominations wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping And so God threatens the People of Israel in the Text which I cited before wherefore I will deliver you no more Wherefore that is because they would neither be reform'd by the Afflictions wherewith God had exercised them nor by the many wonderful Deliverances which he had wrought for them And there is great reason why God should deal thus with a People that continues impenitent both under the Judgments and Mercies of God 1. Because this doth ripen the Sins of a Nation and it is time for God to put in his Sickle when a People are ripe for ruin When the
know thy abode and thy going out and thy coming in and thy rage against me Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears therefore will I put my hook into thy nose and my bridle into thy lips and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall do this But more especially in vindication of his oppressed Truth and Religion and in the great and signal Deliverances of his Church and People God is wont to take the conduct of affairs into his own hands and not to proceed by humane rules and measures He then bids second Causes to stand by that his own Arm may be seen and his Salvation may appear He raiseth the spirits of men above their natural pitch and giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might he increaseth strength as the Prophet expresseth it Thus hath the Providence of God very visibly appear'd in our late Deliverance in such a manner as I know not whether He ever did for any other Nation except the People of Israel when He delivered them from the House of Bondage by so mighty a hand and so outstretched an arm And yet too many among us I speak it this day to our shame do not seem to have the least sense of this great Deliverance or of the hand of God which was so visible in it but like the Children of Israel when they were brought out of Egypt we are full of murmurings and discontent against God the Author and his Servant the happy Instrument under God of this our Deliverance What the Prophet says of that People may I fear be too justly apply'd to us Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness in the Land of uprightness he will deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord Lord When thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed And I hope I may add that which follows in the next verse Lord thou wilt ordain peace for us for thou also hast wrought all our works for us What God hath already done for our deliverance is I hope an earnest that He will carry it on to a perfect peace and settlement and this notwithstanding our high provocations and horrible ingratitude to the God of our Life and of our Salvation And when ever the Providence of God thinks fit thus to interpose in humane affairs the race is not to the swift nor the battel to the strong For which reason their Majesties in their great Piety and Wisdom and from a just sense of the Providence of Almighty God which rules in the Kingdoms of men have thought fit to set apart this Day for solemn repentance and humiliation That the many and heinous Sins which we in this Nation have been and still are guilty of and which are of all other our greatest and most dangerous Enemies may not separate between God and us and hinder good things from us and cover us with confusion in the day of our danger and distress And likewise earnestly to implore the favour and blessing of Almighty God upon their Majesties Forces and Preparations by Sea and Land And more particularly for the preservation of his Majesties sacred Person upon whom so much depends and who is contented again to hazard Himself to save us To conclude There is no such way to engage the Providence of God for us as by real Repentance and Reformation and by doing all we can in our several Places from the highest to the lowest by the provision of wise and effectual Laws for the discountenancing and suppressing of Profaneness and Vice and by the careful and due execution of them and by the more kindly and powerful influence of a good Example to retrieve the ancient Piety and Virtue of the Nation For without this whatever we may think of the firmness of our present settlement we cannot long be upon good terms with Almighty God upon whose favour depends the prosperity and stability of the present and future Times I have but one thing more to mind you of and that is to stir up your charity towards the poor which is likewise a great part of the Duty of this Day and which ought always to accompany our Prayers and Fastings Thy Prayers and thine Alms saith the Angel to Cornelius are come up before God And therefore if we desire that our Prayers should reach Heaven and receive a gracious answer from God we must send up our Alms along with them And instead of all other arguments to this purpose I shall only recite to you the plain and perswasive words of God Himself in which He declares what kind of Fast is acceptable to Him Is it such a Fast as I have chosen a Day for a man to afflict his soul Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush to spread sackcloth and ashes under him Wilt thou call this a Fast and an acceptable Day to the Lord Is not this the Fast that I have chosen To loose the bands of wickedness and to undo the heavy burthens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thine house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thy salvation shall spring forth speedily thy righteousness or thine Alms shall go before thee and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward Then shalt thou call and I will answer thee thou shalt cry and He shall say here I am Now to Him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb that was slain To God even our Father and to our Lord Jesus Christ the first begotten from the dead and the Prince of the Kings of the earth Vnto Him who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us Kings and Priests unto God and his Father To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever Amen And the God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his Will working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen The way to prevent the Ruin of a Sinful People A FAST-SERMON Preached before the LORD-MAYOR c. ON Wednesday June the 18th 1690. Pilkington Mayor Mercurii xviii Junii 1690. Annoque Regis Reginae Willelmi Mariae Angliae c. Secundo THis Court doth desire Dr. Tillotson Dean of St. Pauls to Print his Sermon preach'd before the Lord-Mayor Aldermen and Citizens of London at St. Mary-le-Bow Wagstaffe To the Right Honourable
gone backward therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee and deliver thee I am weary of repenting By our obstinate impenitency we harden the heart of God against us and make him weary of repenting And when his soul is thus departed from a People nothing remains but a fearful expectation of ruin Wo unto them saith God by the Prophet when I depart from them Therefore be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited Having given this account of the Words I shall observe from them three things well worth our consideration First The infinite goodness and patience of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruin and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is He that things should come to this extremity He is not without great difficulty and some kind of violence as it were offered to himself brought to this severe resolution his soul is as it were rent and disjointed from them Secondly You see here what is the only proper and effectual means to prevent the misery and ruin of a sinful People If they will be instructed and take warning by the threatnings of God and will become wiser and better then his soul will not depart from them he will not bring upon them the desolation which he hath threatned Thirdly You have here intimated the miserable case and condition of a People when God takes off his affection from them and gives over all further care and concernment for them Wo unto them when his soul departs from them For when God once leaves them then all sorts of evils and calamities will break in upon them I shall speak as briefly as I can to these three Observations from the Text. First I observe the infinite patience and goodness of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruin and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is God that things should come to this He is very patient to particular persons notwithstanding their great and innumerable provocations God is strong and patient though men provoke him every day And much greater is his patience to whole Nations and great Communities of men How great was it to the old World when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty years And did not expire till he saw that the wickedness of man was grown great upon the earth and that all flesh had corrupted its way not till it was necessary to drown the World to cleanse it and to destroy Mankind to reform it by beginning a new World upon the only righteous Family that was left of all the last generation of the Old For so God testifies concerning Noah when he commanded him to enter into the Ark saying Come thou and all thy house into the Ark for thee that is thee only have I seen righteous before me in this Generation The patience of God was great likewise to Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities about them For when the cry of their sins had reached heaven and called loud for vengeance to be poured down upon them to express the wonderful patience of God towards such grievous Sinners though nothing is hid from his sight and knowledge yet he is represented as coming down from Heaven to Earth on purpose to enquire into the truth of things and whether they were altogether according to the cry that was come up to him And when he found things as bad as was possible yet then was he willing to have come almost to the lowest terms imaginable that if there had been but ten righteous persons in those wicked Cities he would not have destroy'd them for the ten 's sake Nay he seems to come to lower terms yet with the City of Jerusalem Jer. 5.1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if ye can find a man if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth and I will pardon it What can be imagin'd more slow and mild and merciful than the proceedings of the Divine justice against a sinful People God is represented in Scripture as taking a long time to make ready his bow and to whet his glittering sword before his hand takes hold of vengeance as if the instruments of his wrath lay by him blunt and rusty and unready for use Many a time he threatens and many a time lifts up his hand before he gives the fatal blow And how glad is he when any good man will step in and interpose to stay his hand As we read Psal 106.23 Therefore he said speaking of the People of Israel that he would destroy them had not Moses his servant stood in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them And how kindly doth God take it of Phinehas as a most acceptable piece of service done to him and which he hardly knew how sufficiently to reward that he was a means of putting a stop to his anger against the People of Israel Insomuch that the Psalmist tells us that it was accounted to him for righteousness to all generations for evermore I will recite the whole passage at large because it is remarkable When the People of Israel were seduced into Idolatry and Whoredom by the Daughters of Moab Phinehas in great zeal stood up and executed judgment upon Zimri and Cozbi in the very act By which means the Plague which was broken out upon the Congregation of Israel was presently stayed Hear what God says to Moses concerning this act of Phinehas The Lord spake unto Moses saying Phinehas the son of Eleazer the son of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the Children of Israel whilst he was zealous for my sake that I consumed them not Wherefore say Behold I give unto him my Covenant of peace and he shall have it and his seed after him even the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the Children of Israel That which God takes so kindly at his hands next to his zeal for Him is that he pacified God's wrath towards the Children of Israel And thus did God from time to time deal with the People of Israel that great Example of the Old Testament of the merciful methods of the Divine Providence towards a sinful Nation And an Example as St. Paul tells us purposely recorded for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come Let us therefore consider a little the astonishing patience of God towards that perverse People After all the signs and wonders which he had wrought in their deliverance out of Egypt and for their support in the Wilderness and notwithstanding
breaks through all considerations and rejoiceth against judgment For he cannot find in his heart to ruin those who by the terror of his judgments will be brought to repentance And this surely is a mighty motive and encouragement to repentance to be assur'd that we shall find mercy and that when our ruin is even decreed and all the instruments of Godâ—s wrath are fix'd and ready for execution and his hand is just taking hold of vengeance yet even then a sincere repentance will mitigate his hottest displeasure and turn away his wrath And if we will not come in upon these terms we extort the judgments of God from him and force him to depart from us and with violent hands we pull down vengeance upon our own heads Thirdly and lastly the Text intimates to us the miserable case and condition of a People when God takes off his heart and affection from them when he gives over all further care and concernment for them and abandons them to their own wickedness and folly and to the miserable effects and consequences thereof Wo unto them when his soul departs from them For then all sorts of evils and calamities will rush in and wrath will come upon them to the uttermost as was threaten'd to the Jews a little before their final destruction and executed upon them in the most terrible and amazing manner that ever was from the foundation of the World These as our Blessed Saviour expresses it were days of vengeance indeed that all things which were written that is foretold by Moses and the Prophets concerning the fearful end of this perverse and stiff-neck'd People might be fulfilled And because my Text speaks to Jerusalem Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited though this was spoken to Jerusalem before her Captivity into Babylon yet because this first Captivity was but a faint Type of her last and final Desolation by the Romans when God's Soul was indeed departed from Her and Judea was left desolate a Land not inhabited I shall therefore briefly represent to you the full effect of this Threatning in her last final Destruction when God's Soul was as it were perfectly loosen'd and disjointed from Her That you may see what the fierceness and power of God's Anger is when he departs from them and wrath comes upon them to the uttermost because they would not be instructed and know the time of their visitation Thus it was with the Jews about forty years after the Passion of our Lord whom with wicked hands they had crucified and slain Then was God's soul departed from them Then darkness and desolation came upon them and they were in a far worse condition than a Countrey would be that is forsaken of the Sun and left condemn'd to a perpetual night in which darkness and disorder faction and fury do reign and rage together with all the fatal consequences of zeal and strife which St. James tells us are confusion and every evil work For when God is once gone all the good and happiness of Mankind departs together with Him Then men fall foul upon one another divide into Parties and Factions and execute the vengeance of God upon themselves with their own hands Thus it happen'd to the Jewish Nation when the measure of their iniquity was full and their final ruin was approaching And that we might know their Fate and be instructed by it God provided and preserv'd a faithful Historian on purpose who was an Eye witness of all that befel them I mean Josephus who was personally engaged and was a considerable Commander in the Wars of the Jews with the Romans before the Siege of Jerusalem And during the Siege was present in the Roman Camp and being a Jew himself hath transmitted these things to posterity in a most exact and admirable History such a History as no man that hath the heart and bowels of a man can read without the greatest pity and astonishment In the Preface of that lamentable History he tells us that all the misfortunes and calamities which the World from the beginning of it had seen compar'd with this last Calamity of the Jewish Nation were but slight and inconsiderable He tells us likewise that their Civil dissentions were the next and immediate cause of their confusion and ruin And this more than once For when Pompey about sixty years before our Saviour's birth sate down before Jerusalem he tells us that the Factions and divisions which they had among themselves were the cause of the taking the City and Temple at that time And when they rebelled afterwards that the Heads of their Factions provok'd the Romans and brought them unwillingly upon them and at last forced the best natur'd Prince in the World Titus Vespasian to that severity which he most earnestly desired by all means to have prevented And he further tells us that even before the Siege of Jerusalem the Cities of Judea had all of them civil discords among themselves and that in every City one part of the Jews fought against another And when Jerusalem began to be besieged What a miserable condition was it in by the cruelty of the Zealots under the command of John the Son of Giorah And presently after another Faction arose under Simon who enter'd into the City with a fresh Force and assaulted the Zealots in the Temple so that most miserable havock was made between them And then a third Faction started up under Eleazer as bad as either of the other So that infinite almost were the numbers of the People within the City that were barbarously slain by these Seditions And what an infatuation was this when the Enemy was at the Gates and ready to break in upon them to employ their whole strength and force against one another When the same courage and fury which they spent so freely upon themselves had it been turn'd with the like desperateness and obstinacy upon the Romans might have endanger'd the whole force of the Roman Empire Once or twice indeed they seem'd to lay aside their enmity for a little while and to unite in the common defence but as soon as the danger of a present assault was over they relaps'd into their former state of intestine enmity and dissention as if that had been their main business and the preservation of their City against the Romans only a work by the by and not much to be regarded And to add to all their other miseries they were so blinded by their own rage and madness that they wilfully brought upon themselves an extreme Famine For as the Historian tells us they themselves set on fire vast stores of corn and other necessaries sufficient to have serv'd them for many years and by this means the City was much sooner reduc'd even by a Famine of their own making and which could not have been brought upon them but by themselves This Famine besides all the other miseries and