Israel's Lamentation After the Lord OR A DISCOURSE WHEREIN Every well-wisher to Zion is excited and directed how to lament after the Lord with Prayers and Tears To maintain the Ordinances of God or God's presence with his Ordinances amongst us BEING Some Meditations upon 1 Sam. 7.2 Psalm 80.4 O Lord God of Hosts how long wilt thou be angry Heb. smoke against the Prayer of thy People LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the three Crowns Bible at the lower end of Cheapside 1683. AN Humble Address TO THE Righteous GOD. RIghteous art thou O Lord in all thy ways and holy in all thy works must Dust and Ashes say when they speak to thee or plead with thee All Israel have transgressed thy Law and despised thy Gospel therefore hast thou brought upon us a great Evil such as hath scarce ever been done under the whole Heaven not three Shepherds cut off in a month but some thousands in one day and this not for a day or month or year but even twenty years already neither is there any among us that knoweth how long this sad Cloud may be upon us Thy will be done Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve but to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses though we rebelled against thee and shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right Look down from Heaven and behold from the habitation of thy Holiness and of thy Glory Shall the needy alwaies be forgotten shall the expectation of the Poor perish for ever Be not wrath very sore O Lord neither remember iniquity for ever Behold see we beseech thee we are all thy People though our iniquities testifie against us do thou this for thy Names sake for behold for thy sake we are killed all the day long The Lord God of Hosts the Lord God of gods he knoweth and Israel he shall know if it be rebellion or transgression against the Lord. Judg O Lord them that have walked in their integrity Recompence thy Servants according to the cleanness of their hands in thine Eye-sight that have not wickedly departed from their God or by the grace of God have acknowledged their offence returned to thee and who at last are following on to know the Lord and pleading and hoping for a reviving and raising up after these daies or years of death let thy dead men live thy slain Witnesses be called up and ascend to Heaven in a Cloud let there be a shaking that these dry Bones may come together Come O Wind and breath on them that they may live Cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary for the Lord's sake In midst of Judgment remember mercy and at last revive thy work Give us the opening of the mouth Set thy Light on a Candlestick Hold the Stars in thy right hand Let thy Peoples Eyes see their Teachers Give us help from trouble for vain is the help of man Purifie the Sons of Levi that they may offer to the Lord an Offering in Righteousness Thou art Jehovah and changest not therefore we the Sons of Jacob are not all consumed Thou art the Creator of the Ends of the Earth and therefore canst command deliverance for Jacob. There 's no searching of thine understanding therefore canst devise ways for the banished to be restored a faithful God and wilt perform thy Promises and confirm the Word of thy Servants But our God is a God of Judgment blessed are all they that wait for him He which testifieth these things saith Surely I come quickly Amen even so come Lord Jesus TO All the Mourners IN ZION That wait for The Consolation of Israel Grace Mercy and Peace THe sharp rebukes that Divine displeasure hath laid us under these many Years have caused many thoughts of heart whilst prophane men have shot their Arrows bitter words it becomes Gods Children to have many solemn searchings of hearts and serious Enquiries after the Reason of the Lords Controversie with the Daughter of Zion word and Rod call to us to consider our ways and Gods People have called on themselves and one another saying Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord Doubtless the occasion is given by us we turned away from God before he turned his back upon us Judgment is begun at the house of God and he expects repentance should begin there That pacification may be first begun there God saith You only have I known of all the Families of the earth therefore I will punish you for your iniquities And well he may for the provocation of his Sons and Daughters goes nearest his heart as being against greater light and love means mercies obligations and expectations then any others surely it 's high time for us to awake out of sleep The charge is drawn up the indictment is read Scourges have been laid on yea of such a nature as have come nearest the hearts of the Godly Loss of Gospel-priviledges is a greater affliction then loss of Gold Goods Houses Liberties Relations Yea of life it self Yea saith God Woe also unto them when I depart from them God doth not use to depart till he be slighted or thrust away This hath been a long dark and gloomy day a day of rebuke and Blasphemy a day of Scattering and treading in down the valley of Vision Ministers and their dear flocks rent asunder Solemn assemblies sorrowfully broken up Sad and silent Sabboths by some profaned Ignorance increasing conversion work stopped Sinners hardened Young beginners in Religion discouraged Atheism abounding Presecution revived and thousands of precious Souls wandring about as sheep that have no shepheard Many publick uplaces being ill supplyed and guilt broaght upon the nation pressing us down tow ords destruction yea such sins as leave a People remediless mocking the messengers of God despising his words misusing his prophets till the wrath of the Lord arise against us till there be no remedy or no healing this brought Israel into captivity out of their own Land Yea this hath brought the final scattering of that forlorn Nation to this day killing the Lord Jesus their own Prophets persecuting the Apostles forbidding them to speak to the gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alwaies for wrath is come upon them to the uttermost surely this lies nearest the hearts of real Saints next to Gods glory and their own Souls that poor sinners damn themselves destroy the Nation It 's dreadful indeed to see debauchery in the land abounding and basest of men vent personal malice against Gods dearest Children for no other fault but worshipping God and praying for their persecutors Men write voluminous treatises of invectives against us charging us with Schisms Sedition Faction and Rebellion which God knows our Souls hate and we durst appeal to our worst
adversaries in their sober intervals that they cannot but know the contrary and after all these long-lasting and heavy-pressing evils come upon us one barvest is passed and many summers and winters ended and we are not saved As for us our eyes as yet failed for our vain help in our watching we have watched for a Nation that cannot save us We looked for peace but no good came for a time of health and behold trouble And we may discern Gods anger in the wrath of men And after all this shall we sit still and be sottish under this astonishing hand of God Surely our work is not to complain of much less oppose men but look into our own hearts and lives by self examination Humiliation Reformation for these vapours that darken the Heavens arise from our filthy hearts and lives these Arrows are winged with our own feathers it may be said to every individual thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness Because it is bitter because it reacheth unto thine heart yea to thy Soul Salvian complained of old that by our sins the enemies were strong this is the Achan in the camp the Jonah in the ship the worm in the gourd if sin abide still in us we cannot be safe it 's in vain to expect deliverance till the cause of the provocation on our part be discarded and purged away It 's true God is the inflicting cause wicked men the instruments but our own selves are the deserving and procuring cause of all our woes The protestants in Queen Marys days lamented that their unprofitableness contempt of the Gospel under King Edward 6th brought on them those bloody days of Persecution and if we do not mourn and reform we may conclude these are but the beginnings of sorrow as drops before the shower of blood that after this prophesying in sackcloth witnesses shall be slain and the number of Martyrs accomplished and Antichrists sins filled up By setting up the abomination of desolation which God Almighty prevent These things considered and often rolled in my thoughts I cast about what was the fittest course to be taken for preventing God's further Removes and reduce him back to our Souls and Assemblies and I find that 1. God purposely removes to make us follow him as a wise Nurse doth by a weak Child 2. He stops and halts as in suspense what to do that he may both alarum us and afford us leisure to consider what course to take 3. He makes a gracious promise that if we do follow on to know the Lord his going forth shall be prepared as the morning And 4. He complaineth that there is none that calleth on his Name that stirreth up himself to take hold on God i. e. to keep him from departing or to fetch him back Considering the Premises I was desirous in my poor measure to promote God's work in the Souls of his People and ingage all that have any Interest in God to improve it at this day for the preventing of his total Removal and detaining of God with us not as the Inhabitants of Tyrus when Alexander besieged it and one of their Diviners told them that it was revealed to him in a Dream that Apollo their god was shortly to depart from them thereupon they take the Image of Apollo and bind it with a Chain of Gold to a Post thinking thereby to detain him No no we cannot force God against his will to tarry but we are in obedience to God's command and discharge of our duty and in performance of the Condition of his Promise to lament after the Lord with Prayers Tears Confessions Reformations pleading with God through the Intercession of his Son for his Return and Residence with us While wicked Gadarens are by words and works bidding blessed Jesus depart out of our Coasts it becomes us solemnly to invite him open the doors of our hearts to him and give him free welcom saying Lord abide with us thus he may be constrained to tarry with us And though in this horrid Tempest that the Ship of the Church is sorely tossed with so that it 's covered with Waves our Lord be asleep yet Faith and Prayer will awake him And though we cannot peremptorily say he will save our Persons Priviledges or his Church in England yet we may with some confidence say he will certainly save Zion and build his Church somewhere in the World he will save our own Souls and it may be we shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger it may be that the Lord God of Hosts will be gracious unto the Remnant of Joseph Who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him Even an Heathen King took this course and upon no other assurance than a Who can tell There is hope in Israel concerning this thing only it becomes us to wait God's leisure and patiently yea valiantly pass through the Fiery Tryal before us wherein Papists will far exceed Protestants in rage However Mr. Greenham said He that will suffer by Papists must learn to suffer by Protestants and he that hath well passed the Pikes in Camp-fight may hope to pass safe through the Fire-Ordeal Integrity and uprightness will preserve us seconded by a Divine manutenency in sharpest Tryals The God of all Grace who hath called you into his eternal Glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you May it please the Lord to own these weak though seasonable Labours for quickening the Spirits of his People to lament after the Lord it may be he will return to the many thousands of his People in these Nations And after we have been digging Esek Strife and Sitnah hateful opposition God may cause us unanimously to digg Rehoboth Room that the Lord may make room for us and make us fruitful in the Land Oh for such a day There is a day wherein they shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's holy Mountain wherein the Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid c. Wherein his People shall see Eye to Eye and serve him with one consent or shoulder and that he will turn to his People a pure Language or Lip that they shall feed and lye down and none shall make them afraid It becomes God's People to make a Catalogue of these and such like Promises and spread them before the Lord for he is a faithful God and will perform his Promise which saith Jer. 30.17 For I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee of thy wounds saith the Lord because they called thee an out-cast saying This is Zion whom no man seeketh after And let all that love her say Amen Then the Angel of the Lord answered and said O Lord of Hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on
we shall agree amongst our selves Lamenting together would clear up our eye-sight and beget an harmony of hearts 5. Other persons in all other cases do lament after the Objects that their hearts are set upon David followed his dead Friend Abner with sorrow and bitterly lamented his dead Son Absalom The Companions of Jephthah's Daughter yearly lamented her Yea David much lamented Saul though his Enemy while living and his sworn Brother Jonathan Jeremiah lamented for Josiah and all the singing-men singing-women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day Yea they made them an Ordinance in Israel 2 Chron. 35.25 And which of you are so hard-hearted but you would lament a dead Friend or Brother Sister Wife Child Parent And canst thou not find in thy heart to spend some sad thoughts on thy departing Lord or follow the sad Hearse of deceased Ordinances Ah carnal hearts Ah hard hearts Wo be to stupid wretches Shall a poor Idolatrous Micah cry out after his Teraphim And shall we let the only true God go with silence and dry eyes Is not our God worth lamenting after Will even careless women lament at last for the teats for the pleasant fields for the fruitful vine And shall not Gods Children lament for those full breasts of Gospel ordinances Shall not Children cry and long for the sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby If you were sensible you would cry out my Father a little bread to an hungry Soul my Mother let me suck those breasts of consolation I am pining languishing famishing to death let me be nourished to eternal life 6. If we lament not after the Lord and his Ark he will go yet further from us if not totally leave us There was never such symptoms of Gods taking away the Candlestick and leaving us to the Idolatry and Cruelties of Popery in this Kingdom since the Reformation as there is at this day horrible Abominations and Atheism preparing for it our ingratitude for prevention thus long the general Antipathy to a Sound Ministry a Spirit of giddiness to entertain the most senseless fopperies a mincing some grosser Popish doctrines by pretended Protestants humane Inventions coyned in darkest times of Popery retained Courts Fees Officers Ceremonies Popish names places Customs defended Want of Sympathy with our suffering brethren abroad in that kind attempts for Reformation not succeeding opposed Instruments reserved prepared for Scourges denying plots as clear as the Sun Preferring Popish Tyranny before Christs Government most debauchery in some that should be best Popish Emissaries swarming Popish Families increasing Honest Ministers much laying aside Weapons Antidotes fearlesness in many unpreparedness of all for such a dispensation impressions on many of Changes Freedom of Ordinances to lay in for a storm unprincipled professors must pass an Ordeal-Tryal judgment beginning at God's house Choyce stakes taken out of the hedg transplanted to Heaven Witnesses prophecying in Sackcloth must be slain the Whore must sit as a Queen and see no loss of Children Antichrist must render himself more cruel and odious to stir up Kings hearts against the Church indifferency of great potentates in the cause of Religion Policy for outward security the compass that most stear by Christ's interest is low in Protestant Countries God's laying them under severe rebuke by his immediate hand Little notice taken of providences no publick fastings and humiliations former guilt of blood unwiped off Such things as these speak black showrs of Popish darkness and barbarous showrs of blood God almighty prevent But certainly these things call for bitter lamenting after the Lord either to prevent them or prepare our hearts for them or both I shall add 7. There is no way to bring our Lord or his Ark back to us but this course of lamenting after him God hath withdrawn himself purposely to make us follow him mourning And he seems to stand still and hearken what we do in this case Jer. 8.6 I hearkened and heard saith God but they spake not aright What was that certainly repenting of their sins lamenting inquiries after God And Jer. 31.18 19. If God can but hear persons bemoan themselves follow God desire the Lord to turn them and turn to them see what kind language he gives them ver 20. Is Ephraim my dear Son Is he a pleasant Child for since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy upon him saith the Lord. God doth carry in this case as a loving Father being provoked to Whip or leave his offending Child looks back on his sobbing broken-hearted lamenting Child saying Alas my Child what ails thee What 's the matter with thee What wantest thou Dost thou want an heart to repent friendship with me Dost thou lament so sadly after reconciliation with me and return to thee I am glad of it that was all I aimed at I have attained mine end come come thou art welcome to me come my dear my lovely Child let me wipe thy blubbered cheeks and kiss thee again I am glad my rod and anger work so kindly I will return to thee with love and sweetest embraces Thus doth our Lord return with loving kindness and mercies and they shall be as if he had not cast them off There 's no way probable or possible to bring God or his Ark back but this and shall we not take this course It 's true its a doubtfull and dangerous case we are not certain he will return but yet there 's a May-be a who can tell in it We are sure running from him and sinning against him with an hard-heart will undoubtedly rob us of him and ruine us but we have lost more labour to less purpose therefore let us turn to the Lord with all our heart with fasting with weeping with mourning c. Joel 2.12 13. and then say as Gods directs them v. 14. Who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him even a meat-offering and a drink-offering unto the Lord our God Oh how well doth God take such a carriage How willing is he to return back to us Only he expects we should be sensible of his withdrawing and bitterly lament after him 8. If we do not lay to heart the loss of God's Presence and Ordinances God will make us to lament upon other accounts If he design us good he will pinch us till we feel and cry out if not we shall be left to lament hopeless and helpless in Hell torments If we will not lay to heart spiritual Judgments God threatens to send a Curse upon us and to curse our blessings Mal. 2.2 How why if men prize not their Temple Priviledges God can blast the fruits of the Earth Hag. 1.9 We looked for much and loe it came to little and when ye brought it home I did blow upon it or blow it away why saith the Lord of Hosts because of mine house that is
a work what mercy were it prayer is needful at all times in all cases but much more now If any thing fetch back a departing God it must be a believing prayer 2 Chron. 7.14 If my People which are called by my Name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their Land You see the duty You see the incouragement prayer is sutable to a sad disposition and dispensation Prayer is the Conduit of comfort Afflictions make us seek out Promises Promises to seek Faith Faith to seek Prayer Prayer to seek and find God What should God's Children do were it not for this priviledge of praying When they cannot preach and hear they may pray when they cannot meet together they may meet at the Throne of Grace when they are shut out from petitioning men they may be admitted to the Court of Heaven and the Lord's Ears are still open to their cry I should think the Spirit of Prayer to be the best token for good to us Thou wilt prepare their heart thou wilt cause thine Ear to hear Psal 10.17 Moses besought the Lord and the Lord seems as bound fast by his prayer Let me alone saith God The People here intreat Samuel not to cease to cry to the Lord for them and he did pray and you see the issue Oh that we could not only pray but lift up a prayer for the Remnant that 's left If God return to us it must be upon the wings of such an advanced Prayer When Sennacherib had sent Rabshakeh to blaspheme God the Text saith For this cause Hezekiah the King and the Prophet Isaiah the Son of Amoz prayed and cryed to Heaven For this cause If any thing will quicken God's Children to Prayer surely it will be the dishonour of their Father they would not answer them but complain to God this was then and is still the most effectual course to speed When Nehemiah was to make request to a great King he saith Then prayed I to the God of Heaven It was an ejaculatory Prayer for he spoke it not yet it was effectual he thought if by Prayer he could move the main wheel all the rest would move This is a way to set a work all Second Causes Indeed we have no other means in prospect let us betake our selves to this spiritual Armour for Prayers and Tears are the Church's Weapons Ephes 6.18 19. Praying alwaies with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all Saints and for me that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the Mystery of the Gospel This is our case we beg our Peoples Prayers for our restitution Oh that Ministers and People could strive or be in an Agony together in their mutual Prayers to God for each other If you could pray more and better we should come the sooner and with a greater blessing even in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ and for your encouragement to pray for us we hope we can truly say as Heb. 13.18 Pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience in all things willing to live honestly Though we suffer as evil-doers and are reproached as factious seditious schismatical as Paul was accounted an Apostate an enemy to the Law but we carry our selves as Subjects as Ministers living orderly in our places giving none offence so that none can challenge us in any thing save in the matters of our God and in that they must excuse us if we cannot in all things see with their Eyes nor swallow down such Oaths Subscriptions as some dare whom we judge not but are afraid of nothing so much as sin and as for our Preaching to you though prohibited by men it 's our obligation to duty For woe be to us if we Preach not the Gospel Zeal for God's glory and love to your Souls that exposeth us to all these censures and oppositions it is for your sakes that we bear all these affronts and will not you pray for us Surely your selves are concerned in our work we are content to endure all for the Gospels sake we ask nothing of you but your entertainment of our Message and Prayers for our persons we spend our time and strength and lungs for you will not you pray for us If God help us will not this turn to your advantage Your Prayers will return into your own bosoms We have been serving almost three Apprentiships in our divorcement from Publick Places and Imployments yet our God hath not forsaken us but secured our Persons and some Liberties he hath delivered us doth and will deliver liver us 2 Cor. 1.10 11 12. You also helping together in prayer for us that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf for our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience c. Having obtained help of God we continue to this day at great uncertainties as Melancthon said Ego jam sum hic Dei beneficio quadraginta annos nunquam potui dicere aut certus esse me per unam septimanam mansurum esse So we may say we have continued by Divine bounty and care of us twenty years and could never say assuredly nor upon any probable grounds that we should abide one week to an end Much of this may be ascribed to the effectual Prayers of the Church as a mean under God Who can tell but in a short time your Prayers may fetch us back again Howsoever we are persuaded that these things shall turn to our and your Salvation through your Prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ Phil. 1.19 Only see that your Prayers be such as God will accept I cannot inlarge on this Head but hint the due qualifications of such a Prayer as shall undoubtedly prevail 1. Your Persons must be in covenant 2. You must act Faith upon the Mediator Christ 3. You must pray in the Holy Ghost 4. Ask what is according to God's Will 5. Aim at God's Glory as your main end 6. Cast away all sin in heart and life 7. Live in the daily exercise of Repentance 8. Maintain an holy Awe of God in your hearts 9. Set your hearts in order for the duty 10. Pray with understanding minding the object 11. With fervency importunity 12. Forgiving others that have offended you 13. Watching against Temptations 14. Living up to your Prayers 15. Maintaining communion with God 16. Coming with hopes to speed 17. Be Sincere as to frames and ends 18. Be dayly sensible of wants weaknesses 19. Wait patiently for returns of prayer 20. Be thankful for any in-comes after Prayer Such
Jerusalem and on the Cities of Judah against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years And the Lord answered the Angel that talked with me with good words and comfortable words That this may be the Issue of this Dispensation Intercession Lamentation is the hearty Prayer of Thy Soul-Friend O. H. Aug. 22. 1682. Israel's Lamentation after the Lord. 1 Sam. 7.2 And all the House of Israel lamented after the Lord. THe whole series of the History of the Times in which this Scripture was writ take in short thus After the Judges in the preceding Book so called God raised up Eli who was both a Judg and Priest who though he was a good man himself yet his Sons were prophane and oppressed the People by requiring both boyled-flesh and raw for roasting abusing the women that came to the door of the Tabernacle so that their sin was very great and of bad consequence for men abhorred the offering of the Lord. Eli being informed of his Sons profligate courses too much indulged them or too mildly rebukes them Why do you such things too soft words for such hard and hainous acts there wanted deeds he being a Magistrate ought to have punished or removved them if not put them to death well God sends a man of God to Eli Whether Elias or an Angel or Phinehas or Elkanah I dispute not to rebuke and threaten him and his house but he not reforming God inspires and commissions young Samuel to give him a Sound admonition and warn him as immediately from the Lord the good old man falls under the Admonition though by a Child but now the disease was grown past his curing his counsel did no good and he could not correct them no doubt he acknowledged his fault and since it will be no better he puts the matter over into Gods hands let him do what seemeth him good God can by his grace curb and cure them or by his power he can crush and confound them let him use his pleasure I give my children into his hands let my Lord get to himself a name of Glory by them or upon them I freely submit a speech becoming a man of God and religious Priest well God himself undertakes to deal with them in the 4th Chapter the Israelites and Philistins joyn battel four thousand Israelites are slain the Ark is sent for into the Camp the Tables of the Law within it are broken yet the Ark must be their Palladium They doted on the Ark but provoked the God of the Ark they repent not of their corrupt manners or defiling Gods Worship they neither used outward means by recruiting their Army which was a tempting of God nor do they use proper religious means to get reconciliation with God but fondly presume upon Gods lenity and indulgence to them because of the meer presence of the Ark the Ark comes Hophni and Phinehas carry it Israel shouts for joy the Philistines animate one another imagining if they now prevailed they conquered the God of Israel looking on the Ark to be Israels Idol or at least that Gods power was tyed to it after the conceit of Idolaters they fight prevail kill thirty thousand Hebrews Hophni Phinehas take the Ark prisoner the tidings whereof broke Elies heart then his neck brought pangs on Phinehas wife and though she was a mother yet full of grief which she bequeathed to the world in the name of her surviving child Ichabod Well the Philistins now lead Israels God in triumph as they judg they bring it to Dagon they God in Ashdod in reproach of the true God but the triumphing of the wicked is short though Israel be a loser yet Dagon and his Worshippers are no gainers by the Ark of Gods presence Dagon falls on his face prostrated in homage thereto beaten on his own dunghil being crected again his head hands were knockt off by another fall So that now he had neither wit nor strength to help himself the fair Venus or womanish part was gone the fishy part only is left but this was but a sport in comparison of what befell Dagons Worshippers for Gods hand was heavy on them all Ashdod or Azotus as the Spartan Boy carryed the Fox in his bosom till he stopt his vitals so these the Ark that was salutiferous to its observers was mortiferous to its contemners even as the Lords Supper is profitable to due partakers but unworthy receivers find it to turn to their judgment here and damnation hereafter Carnal hearts pretend a fond respect to ordinances but find the Lord a jealous God upon their perverting his institutions or unsuitable carriage Ashdod was soon weary of Gods Ark they hold a councel of their Lords they post it away to Gath which was their Metropolis thinking belike that to be a better air or under a more benign influence of the stars But here also Gods hand was upon them with a very great destruction they had painful and incurable Emerods in their secret parts being weary of the Ark they would shift it off to Ekron but the Ekronites were wise by others harms and a consultation was had to carry back the Ark into its place for all the five citys of the Philistins were sharply punished those seven months it was in their country And they were weary of it only consulted the Diviners how to send it back they advised to send it with a trespass offering i. e. five golden Emrods and five golden Mice give glory to the God of Israel upon a new cart drawn by two milch Kine and by their motion they might know whether it was Gods hand or a chance and peradventure they might be healed they did so the Kine went straight to Bethshemesh a city of the Levites they rejoyced to see it coming but though they offered a burnt-offering to the Lord yet looking into the Ark the Lord smote fifty thousand threescore ten men with death and they lamented it cryed out Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God But alas they lament not their Sacriledg injury to the Ark but the death of their People imitating the Philistine qui propter culpas non dolebant sed propter paenas ululabant they houled for the punishment not kindly mourning for their offences they reflect not on their own miscarriages but transfer the cause to Gods holiness And now they also would be glad to be rid of so chargeable a Guest and send messengers to Kiriath-jearim to fetch it to them who came and fetcht it Qu. Why did they not send it to Shilo where it was before Ans 1. That was far off this near they in hast to get delivered of that burden 2. Divine providence removes from Shilo for the impiety thereof Jer. 7.12 you see ordinances are not perpetually entailed on one place the Gospel is a flitting Gospel God sometimes breaks up