baptiz'd in the first Martyr-blood and breath'd out threatnings so that nothing but thunder could out-voice him and at last was born as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an untimely birth aborting through those vvounds vvhich his own hands had made in the Church and making himself a birth vvith ripping up her bowels yet this Abortive prov'd the strongest birth and 't was a Miscarriage into the chiefest Apostle As he began the after-sufferings of Christ in Stephen so he fulfilled the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and made up all that was behind in himself being in deaths more than those he inflicted The sound of his preaching was loudee than that at his Conversion out-voic'd the thunder for this vvent out into all lands as if himself alone meant to execute the vvhole Commission preach the Gospel to every creature vvhich he did almost not only preaching to those places where Christ was not named withâ—â—â— the other Apostles line but even where the rest imploy'd themselves he vvrought as much as they in Asia as Saint Iohn at Antioch as Peter yea and at Rome too having as much to doe in their foundation If I had said more I could have brought the Popes own Seal for evidence where not onely both are but Saint Paul hath the right hand And truly if they had had the luck to think at first of founding all their pretensions on Saint Paul his cars of all the Churches would have born them out as well as feed my Lambs does now But these considerations I pass though they would give a Man that hath done mischief in the Church a pattern for the measures of his future Service to the Church The thing I shall concern my self in is the solemne separation here of those who were before separated to the work of the Gospel Barnâ—bas sent by the Church of Jerusalem to Antioch Act. 11. 22. and Paul not onely separated from his Mothers womb Gal. 1. 1â— but chosen by express Revelation and by the laying on of Ananâ—at hands that so he might receive the Holy Ghost qualified to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles and to Kings In vvhich vvork both of them had for some years exercised themselves Yet here is a new consâ—cration and they are taken up to a condition more separate and distinct from vvhat they were before And all those vast advantages in vvhich these persons did excell the one of faith and fulness of the Holy Ghost the other besides those of express and immediate mission from Heaven and the most strange success their labours had been blest with all these I say did not qualifie them to assume these powers which the Holy Ghost commands another Separation to enstall them in and 't was this Call that call'd Paul to be an Apostle Rom. 1. 1. as from this time he is alwayes call'd Paul not sooner Nor do vve find any least footsteps of their being Apostles before though Barnabas vvere sent to Antioch yet he does not undertake vvhat Peter and John did at Samaria in the very same case for they confirm and give the Holy Ghost Act. 8. 15. 17. but Barnabas does nothing but Exhort Act. 11. 23. and he and Paul together preacht the VVord abroad but vve find nothing else they enterpriz'd but from this time they exercise Jurisdiction settle Churches and ordain them Elders in the Churches Ch. 14. 22 23. and as it does appear singly deriv'd these povvers to others to be exercised by them singly To Titus most expresly Tit. 1. 5. the like also to Timothy vvith all the other acts of Iurisdiction of vvhich their Epistles are the Records particularly that of Censures vvhich Paul himself had inflicted on offenders in the Churches he had planted Powers these vvhich by such steps and by degrees of separation an Apostle himself receives and does not execute till he ascend the highest that vvhich they have a new solemnity ordain'd from Heaven to enstare them in by a new laying on of hands and the Holy Ghost himself commanding Separate The separateness of this highest order in the Church is a doctrine handed down to us both by the writings of all ages and the practices two things vvhich as they scarcely do concurre in such a visible degree in any other things in our Religion so also when they do concurre they make and secure tradition beyond all contradiction give it sufficient infallibility and truly he that does refuse the evidence vvhich such tradition gives to all the motives of believing Christianity if he be not a Socinian he must be an Enthusiast and can receive his Religion only from Revelation Now the matter of fact of this tradition is a subject for Volumes not for a discourse and it hath filled so many that there is nothing left unsaid or to be said against as to the main And they that pick some little sayings seeming against this order out of those Ancients which were themselves of it and wrote much expresly for it and think by those means to confute it do the same thing with that Romanist who tore some little shreds that look as if they favoured some opinions of the Romanists out of the books of Protestants most of which were directly writ against the Church of Rome and putting those together went about by them to convince the world there never were any such things as Protestants but they that did profess to be so were all Papists But I will say no more then my Text hath done which evidences it not a separation only of degree but Order by a new Ceremony and commissionating to new powers If I vvould stay on words 't is expressed here by one that speaks very great distances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate which does in Scripture vvord the distances that the censures of the Church do make Luke 6. 22. and still in the Greek Liturgies vvhen absolution is given 't is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to free them from all curse and separation as if to pass into the bounds of this uncall'd vvere such a thing as to leap over the Censures of the Church over the Line of Excommunication and to break through this wall of separation vvere to break through Anathema's and Curses Yea 't is used to express the distance betwixt the Lord's two hands his right hand and his left at the day of Doom Mat. 25. 32. betwixt vvhich hands there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most insuperable gulfe But these I shall not urge Indeed the Fathers of the Church have been in these last dayes counted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate in the severest sense cast out as the dung of the Earth and the calling it self was under reprobation as if it separated only to the left hand of God but so it was vvith their Predecessours in the Text Saint Paul sayes of himself and the rest of his Order that they vvere counted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
sins are so not that our Enemies are sunk but that our flesh is vanquisht that sub hoc signo ninces is thus also come to passe with the Standard of the Crosse that Cross on which our selves were Crucified we have overcome and with this Christian banner we have put to flight the Armies of our Heathen Vices For thus it must be if my Text be true and sure it is not possible it should be otherwise For look upon the Muster-roll of these our Foes which S. Paul does produce Gal. 5. 19. 20 21. and see which of them could escape it runs thus Adultery Fornication uncleanness lasciviousness Idolatry Witchcraft Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings Murder Drunkenness Revellings To begin with the great Commanders those that lead the Van and bring up the Reare Uncleannesse and Revellings They that consider how they not onely suffered for but by these Vices which did misplace mens watches and attendances sins that were not onely like Achans in our Army and ruin'd it by bringing the accursed thing into it but were like Hannibal's Numidians in the Roman Army that did at once betray to and inflict Ruine sins that did merit and effect Destruction and made as well as provok'd overthrows and sins that by Gods goodnesse did cut off themselves whilethey did bring men into a condition that would not bear such Vices These are the guilts of Wealth and Splendor that do attend Felicity and Pomp it is not onely hopeful that men did resolve to be reveng'd on these great workers of their mischief and will no more resett such traitors in their bosoms but sure these sins are ceast that did put out themselves Then for Seditions They who consider when they broke the Scepter they left us nothing but the Rod of God instead of it a Rod that turned straight into a Serpent that changed our Seas into Blood or rather made new Seas of our own blood that brought Locusts over the Earth and Frogs into the Temple also to croak there that struck Lights here worse than Egyptian Darkness and destroyed all the first born of the Nation all the Nobles of the Land these will easily believe that we have felt this Rod too much to seize upon it hastily again the Scepter is restored and this Rod like to that in Israel laid up I hope within the Ark together with the Tables of the Law never to be disjoyn'd from Gods Commands nor taken thence against them Next for Heresies Truely we have left us none to revive or to make new the mischief both of them and their Cause the want of Government in the Church is now discerned and remedied And for Divisions and Schismes they who reflect on the sad issues of them how well meaning soever all their Causes were will certainly avoid them To see how while we quarelled for the Fringes of Religion we tore the seameless Coat of Christ to pieces yea and the body too How when we first dislikt a Liturgy the daily Sacrifice of Prayer was made to cease and then the House of Prayer was demolisht next Christs our Lords Prayer was rejected that Liturgy of his own framing thrown away in the Rubbish of his Temple and then it was a sin to pray at all His Table we must have remov'd and then his Supper was so too and that Great Mystery of our Religion the Sacrament of our Redemption was buryed in the Ruines of his Altar To see how thus out of heats of Religion we destroyed all Religion because that some adjacent Circumstances did not please us and fetcht a Coal from the Altar to set fire to and burn down the Temple because the building of some out-court was we thought irregular is Document enough not to attempt this any more for Religions sake For now it would be in despite of Christ who hath almost verified the Jewish accusation of him Destroy this Temple also and in three dayes he will build it up again and hath built it up we hope as he did that of his own Body never to fall again by us Surely we will not kill this Body of his out of Love to him and make his Temple his burnt Offering When God hath set our sins in order thus before our eyes shewed them us in their sad effects there is no fear that we should fall in love with them But where it is not thus where Gods last and most working Method hath been able to produce no good I must to keep my word Apply the Danger In that case what remains but the Curse of the ground Heb. 6. 8. which if after all the Husband-mans methods of Care and Art it bring forth only thorns and briars it is rejected by him he will bestow no more labour on it but can hardly forbear cursing such an ill piece of ground and its end is to be burnt So we after Gods Husbandry of Afflictions when the Plowers plowed upon our backs and made long furrows and the Iron teeth of Oppressors as it were harrowed us if we bring forth onely the fruits of the Flesh we are rejected reprobated God will bestow no more arts on us we are not far from his curse and there remains onely a fearfull looking for of Judgment and ficry Indignation If any did continue refractory to the Rod sinn'd under and against Judgment and did commit with an high hand even while the Lords hand was stretcht out against them what shall reform what can express their guilt To have beheld that tragical iniquity we read of Lyons where when the City was so visited with the Pestilence that scarce any were free that the Dead without a figure buried their dead falling down one upon another each being at once a Carcass and a grave the Souldiers of the Cittadel would daily issue forth and deflour Virgins now giving up the ghost defile Matrons even already dead committing with the dust warming the grave with sinful heats and coupling with the Plague and Death would not this have seemed the Landskip of Hell to us when they suffer and sin together yet when a Church and State were on their death-beds Gods tokens on them visited with the treasures of his Plagues and our selves sinking in that our Ruine if any went a whoreing after their own flesh still fulfilling the lusts thereof and in the midst of Deaths searching for sins what was this but to do the same things whose story does affright us while the actions please and in this case what method will be useful do we think our selves of that generous kind that will do nothing by compulsion but will for kindness and though we would not be chained yet we will be drawn to Vertue by the cords of Love and now God hath shewn mercy on us we will return him service out of gratitude Truely I make no question but most of us have promised some such things to God how if he would but save us from our Enemies that we might serve
and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's wayes please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. 16. 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. 12. 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessednesse and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen SERMON V. VVHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LEN. EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THe Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and choyce He will Dye That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will dye Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choyce and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye Which as it is adrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which Mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddyness and srenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would teare open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forreign and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgment live as if we would try all the wayes to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holynesse and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choyce He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must dye Everlastingly Such is first his fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Ofspring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely it self derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subtersuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers infidels But then this being granted that such is the sinners fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David inquires as if it were a prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdome that is Virtue sayes He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. 8. 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annext inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poysonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what wayes and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptisme and
faith why didst thou doubt couldst thou imagine I vvould not sustein thee in the doing vvhat I bid thee do In answering my call But vvhy seek we experience of so old a date There is a more encouraging miracle in these late calls themselves Had God sustein'd the Order in its Offices and dignities amidst those vvaves that vvrack'd the Church of late it had been prodigy of undeserved Compassion to our Nation but vvhenas all was sunk to bid the sea give up what it had so allowed and consumed this is more than to catch a sinking Peter or to save a falling Church The vvork of Resurrection is emphatically call'd the working of God's mighty power and does out-sound that of his ordinary conservation And truly 't was almost as easie to imagination how the scattered Atomes of mens dust should order themselves and reunite and close into one flesh as that the parcels of our Discipline and Service that were lost in such a vvild confusion and the Offices buried in the rubbish of the demolisht Churches should rise again in so much order and beauty Stantia non poterant tecta probare Deum This calling of the Spirit is like that when the Spirit moved upon the face of the abyss and call'd all things out of their no-seeds there or like the call of the last Trump Thus by the miraculous mercies of these calls God hath provided for our hopes and warranted our faith of his protections yet he hath also sent us more security hath given us a Constantine if his own be not a greater Name and more deserving of the Church for which it is well known to some he did contrive and order when he could neither plot nor hope for his own Kingdome and did vvith passion labour a succession in your Order vvhen he did not know how to lay designes for the succession of himself or any of his Fathers house to his own Crown and dignity Nor is the secular arme all your security God himself hath set yet more guards about his consecrated ones he hath severe things for the violaters of them Moses the meekest man upon the Earth that in his life vvas never angry but once at the rebellious seems very passionate in calling Vengeance on those that stir against these holy Offices Smite through the loines of all that rise against them and of them that hate them that they rise not again the loines vve know are the nest of posterity so that strike through the loines is stab the succession destroy at once all the posterity of them that vvould cut off this Tribe and hinder its succession Nor vvas this Legal Spirit Gospel is as severe Those in Saint Judge that despise these Governours that do as Corah and his Complices did vvho gathered themselves against Moses and Aaron and said You take too much upon you ye sons of Levi since all the Congregation is holy every one of them and the Lord is among them wherefore then lift you up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord vvords these that vve are vvell acquainted with and vvhich it seems St. Iude looks on as sins under the Gospel these perish in the gainsaying of Core vvhom God vvould not prepare for punishment by death but he and his accomplices went quick into it He would not let them stay to dy but the Lord made a new thing to shew his detestation of this sin and the Earth swallow'd it in the Commission and all that were alli'd and appertain'd to them that had an hand in it And truely they may well expect strange recompences who do attempt so strange a Sacriledge as to pull stars out of Christ's own right hand from vvhence vve have his vvord that no man shall be able to pluck any but if they shine thence on their Orbs below and convert many to righteousness their light shall blaze out into glory and they shall ever dwell at his right hand To vvhich right hand He that brought again from the dead the Lord Iesus that great Shepheard and Bishop of the sheep and set him there He also bring you our Pastors and us your flock vvith you and set us vvith his sheep on his right hand To vvhom vvith the same Iesus and the Holy Ghost be ascribed all blessing honour glory and power from henceforth for ever Amen FINIS A SERMON PREACHED AT HAMPTON-COURT On the 29th of May 1662. Being the Anniversary of His Sacred Majesties Most happy Return BY RICHARD ALLESTRY D. D. and Chaplain to His MAjESTY LONDON Printed by Thomas Roycroft for Iames Allestry at the Rose and Crown in Saint Paul's Church-yard 1669. TO The Right Honourable EDWARD Earl of Clarendon Lord high Chancellour of England and Chancellour of the University of Oxford My LORD TO vouch your Lordships commands for the publishing this Discourse I might reasonably think would be to libel your judgment and the prefixing your Name to it and this mean address would look rather like revenge than homage or obedience if I did not know that low performances are due to the transcendency of such a subject as I then discours'd upon and such a Patron as I now dedicate to So I lie prostrate under my great Arguments here insufficiency is Art and Rhetorick And the truth is my Lord it was not this which made me so sollicitous to avoid your injunctions but apprehensions of the unusefulness of the Discourse itself When God's most signal methods of all sorts do not seem to have wrought much conviction vvhen neither our own dismal guilts nor miseries nor most express miracles of deliverance have made us sensible but after the equally stupendous 3 Oth of January and 29th of May and the black time that interven'd we are still the same perverse untractable people vvhen luxury is the retribution made for plenty license for liberty and Atheism for Religion vvhil'st miracles of mercy are acknowledged only by prodigies of ingrateful disobedience and on the other side vvhen factious humours swell against all Laws as they vvould either over-flow those mounds or make them yield and give way to them vvhen Declarations and Decrees which were infallible when they came only from a party of a part of a Parliament are neither of force nor esteem when they have all solemnity and obligation that just and full authority can give alas what hopes of doing any thing can a weak Harangue entertain But my Lord since you are pleas'd to command I give up both it and my understanding to your Lordship and the weaker the Discourse is so much the more pregnant testimony is it of the obsequiousness of My Lord Your Lordships most devoted and most humble Servant RICH. ALLESTRY SERMON XVII AT HAMPTON-COURT May 29. 1662. HOSEA III. 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God and David their King and shall fear the Lord and his goodness HE had said in the vvords before that the children
the Lord vvas not in the fire or in the Earth-quake but in the still small voice in the soft whispers of peace and love The Atheist he that says in his heart there is no God will not seek God you may be sure nor does he care to seek David hâ— King who is equally well under all Governments that will allow his Licences and who hath no Religion to tie him to any If he at all disliked the former it was upon reasons of Burthen or of Pride or Libertinism So much Religion though counterfeâ—t was a reproach to him and the face of such strictness was uneasie to him These are so far from seeking God that God says these did drive him out of Israel Ezek. 9. 9. And then when that hath so long been the Wit that it is now the Complexion of the Age and they who thought fit to shew their not being Hypocrites by License and â—o give it an easie word by drollery in sacred things have now made nothing to be sacred to them how shall the Lord dwell among such they are enough to exorcise God out of a Nation The Hypocrite also for all his Fasts and Prayers never did seek God for he is but a whited Sepulchre our Saviour says Now who would seek the Living God among the dead the Lord of Life sure is not to be found in Graves Golgotha was a plate to cruciâ—ie him in not worship him He takes not in the Ait of Funeral Vaults for Incense it was a Demoniack that used to be among the Tombs The subtle false and faithless men that walk in mazes never shall meet God these are the windings and the tracts of the Old Serpent and they lead onely to his habitation They that do climb as if they meant to finde God on his own Throne that follow Christ up to a pinnacle of the Temple or to the top of that exceeding high Mount whence they can over-look the glories of the World and pick and chuse these do not go to seek Christ there It is the Devil that does carry up â—nither upon his own designs Not is it possible to seek the Lord in the wavs that lead to the strange VVomans House for her House is the way to Hell Solomon says and he did know nay more Her steps take hold on Hell seise on those everlasting burnings which her foul heats kindle and begin In a word they that seek their own that turn all meerly to their advantage they cannot seek God too he will not be joynt God with Mammon And then where are the men that â—ought him that did retrive him to us or with whom does he dwell If he be not among us we do in vain flatter our selves in our prosperity and peace gawd it in all our bright appearances Have we not seen the Sun rise with a glory of day about him and mounting in his strength chase away all the little receptacles and recesses of the night not leave a cloud to shelter the least relicks of her darkness or any spot to checquer or to fleck the countenance of day when strait a small handful of vapor rais'd by that Sun it self did creep upon his face and by little and little getting strength bedasht his shine and pour'd out as full streams of storm as he had done of light till it even put out the day and shed a night upon the Earth in spight of him So may prosperity it self if the Lord and his blessing be not in it raise that which will soon overcast and benight the most glorious condition of a Nation That Wine which now makes your hearts glad may prove like that which did commit the Centaures and the Lapithae first kindle Lusts then VVars and at last onely fill a Cup of trembling and astonishment and that oyl that does make you chearful countenances may make your paths slippery and nourish flames that will devour and ruine all But God vvho is found of them that seek him not nay who himself sought the lost Sheep and carried him when with his straying he was wearied into impossibility of a return has also sought and found and brought together us and our great Shepherd For this is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes These ways of his also are so past finding out that we may well conclude they are the meer footsteps of his incomprehensible goodness and we have onely now to fear that goodness But give me leave to say Those that despise his goodness do not fear it and they whom it does not lead to repentance do despise it S. Paul says Rom. 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-sufferance not knovving that the goodness of the Lord leads thee to repentance And now O Lord what sort of men among us hath thy goodness wrought upon and made repent Those whom it was directed to convince and came on purpose to to prove by their own onely argument they had of providential Miracles they were not in the right but that destruction and misery vvere in their vvays yet these chuse rather to deny their own conclusions and resist Gods goodness then to be convinced and repent For we have seen them as bold Martyrs to their Sin as ever any to Religion signalize their resolv'd impenitence with chearful suffering as if the fire they were condemn'd to were that Triumphal Chariot in which the Prophet mounted up to Heaven Others that did not go so far in condemnation nor guilt as they and therefore think they have no reason to repent of that do they repent of what they did contribute to it Of those that lifted up their hands to swear and fight how many are there that have made them fall and smite their own thigh saying VVhat have I done Do not all rather justifie as far as they themselves proceeded and if all that were well why do not we repent of our Allegiance and Lovalty if all that were well what hath thy goodness done O Lord that hath reverst it all And for the rest those that do not partake the plenties of thy goodness murmure and repine at it are discontent at having what they prayed for what they would have died for Those that have been partakers of it have turned it into vvantonness have made it furnish them for base unworthy practices such as have not the generosity of Vice have not a noble manly wickedness are poltron sins have made it raise a cry on the Faithfullest party the best Cause and the purest Church in the World While we have debauched Gods own best Attribute made his goodness procure for our most wicked or self-ends and the face of things is so vicious in every order and degree and sex that But the Confession is onely fit for Litanies and we have need to make the burthen of ours be Lord give us some afflictions again send out thy Indignation for we do fear thy goodness it