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A46650 A sermon preached on the day of the publick fast, April the 11th, 1679, at St. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of Commons / by William Jane ... Jane, William, 1645-1707. 1679 (1679) Wing J456; ESTC R13564 23,060 50

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manner worn out with old Age ready to give up the Ghost and to pine away in their Calamities there appeared upon them the constant forerunners and manifest presages of ruin and desolation And whenever God decrees the final consumption of a people they may foresee it themselves without the prediction of a Prophet A general dissoluteness of manners an impudent boldness in the practice of iniquity a neglect and contempt of all the duties of Religion the loosing the joints of Government by Treasons and Conspiracies divided interests and Dissensions among the people Confusions and Divisions in the Church are as infallible symptoms of a dying State of the dissolution of a Common-wealth and the funeral of a Kingdom as if a flaming Sword had hung over it or a voice from Heaven had revealed its doom These are the gray hairs of the people in the Text. And how near we our selves resemble them I leave you to judg by comparing our condition at present with that of the Ten Tribes before their carrying into Captivity But III. Which is the worst symptom of all here is described the general senselesness of that people notwithstanding all the judgments of God either past or present a deep sleep that had seized them like Jonah in the Tempest none awakening himself to cry unto God or to pour out his supplications at the Throne of Grace This is his condition yet he knoweth it not that is he does not consider the greatness of his danger or he does not discover himself to be seriously affected with the sense of Gods judgments so as to lament and bewail and to tremble at them he does not resolve them into their proper principles nor acknowledg the Author of them which was the hand of God nor the Impulsive cause which was his own iniquity or lastly he knoweth it not that is he does not comply with the end and design of it Afflictions have not that errand upon him for which they were sent but he so behaves himself under them as if he had been wholly ignorant what had been done unto him From the words thus explained I shall consider I. The end and design of Gods judgments upon a Nation which is that they may know and consider that they may be brought to a sense of their sins to true Repentance and amendment of their lives II. The contrary effects which they often have upon a secure and a sinful people which is to make them the more incorrigible and obstinate in their sins Gods judgments are upon him yet he knoweth it not III. I shall discover some Causes of it IV. The greatness of the provocation Yet he knoweth it not This Yet hath an Emphasis an accent upon it and denotes sins under judgments to be exceeding sinful V. And lastly I shall conclude with some brief Application to our selves I begin with the first of these which is the end and design of Gods judgments upon a Nation which is that they may know c. And this will appear 1. From the intention of God in the threatning and inflicting of his judgments 2. From the natural tendency of the judgments themselves God not only threatens but sends his judgments upon a people on the same errand as the Antient Romans did their Heralds before they actually entered upon a war not peremptorily to declare our doom but to warn us to prevent it by coming in and submitting to terms of Peace and Reconcilement At what instant Jer. xviii 7 3. says God by the Prophet Jeremy I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it if that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from the evil I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them In the xxvi of Leviticus God in a Prophetical Scheme represents the sorest judgments which were to fall upon his people in succeeding Generations he lays before their eyes the Sword Pestilence and Famine expulsion from the Lords Land into a Land of Enemies and Idols the ceasing of the Sacrifices and the solemn Festivals and even all the utmost miseries of Captivity and Desolation and yet in the conclusion of that black Catalogue which seems rather an inventory of what evils the hand of God was able to inflict than what a people should suffer we have room for Repentance and a reserve of mercy Verse 41. If then their Uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity then will I remember my Covenant with Jacob and also my Covenant with Isaac and also my Covenant with Abraham will I remember and I will remember the Land We read in Joel ii of a day of darkness and gloominess such as had never been the like before Joel ii 2.10 wither should there be any after it such Armies and terrors as should make the earth quake the Heavens tremble the Sun and Moon to grow dark and the Stars to withdraw their shining And yet amidst all this distress and perplexity the Lord calls upon his people to return unto him with an intimation likewise given that he will return and repent and leave a b●essing behind him Gods wrath was never so fiercely kindled against a person or a people but if true Repentance intervened it has removed his hand or at least abated the fierceness of the blow Nay the outward and formal humiliation of an Ahab has procured a reprieve 1 Kings xxi 29. and suspended the execution It cannot be denyed but that God sometimes punishes a people in vengeance without any mixture or allay of mercy when he makes a full end of them and the consumption overflows in judgment as in the Case of the Ten Tribes under Salmanasser of the Jewish Church at the destruction of Jerusalem when the Kingdom of God was taken from them 2 Thes ii 16. and wrath came upon them to the uttermost of the seven Churches of Asia who have had their Candlestick removed and been swallowed up by the Inundation of Mahumetanism of the famous Churches of Africa which once gave light to the whole Christian world now overspred with ignorance and Barbarism with a thick darkness that may be felt But in all these Cases God never proceeds to excision and casting off till all his other corrections have proved useless and ineffectual till their iniquities are full till they are ripe for vengeance till they have neglected all the seasons of Grace and out-sinned the day of their visitation Then indeed God grows weary of repenting being prest with sin as a Cart full of sheaves This is the account which the Scripture gives us of the people of Judah when they were carried into Captivity 2 Chron. xxxvi 16 17. they mocked the messengers of God despised his word and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people till there was no remedy therefore he brought upon them the King of the Chaldces c. This
unseasonable desires And may not the same serve as a check to those amongst us who in such times as these are scraping up all that they can lay hands on making all the sordid advantages of the world that they can as tenants do of an Estate when their Lease is expiring Soul take thine ease said the rich fool in the Gospel thou hast goods laid up for many years eat drink and be merry But surely he had quite other apprehensions when he heard that dismal and surprizing voice Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee IV. The judgments of God upon a people are apt to unite their hearts in Love and Charity to one another When men are at ease in Sion Amos vi 1. and trust in the mountains of Samaria When they lie upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their Couches and eat the Lambs out of the Flock and the Calves out of the midst of the Stall When they chant to the Viol live merry and are full as they are described Amos vi It immediately follows that then they are not grieved for the afflictions of Joseph But when we begin to have a sense and feeling of Gods judgments upon our selves this must needs one would think forcibly engage us to Charity and Compassion to our Brethren We shall be sure to remember those that are in bonds when we our selves are bound with them and to help those that are in adversity when we find that we also are but flesh That which hastned and precipitated the destruction of Jerusalem and made their final ruin the more dreadful when it came was the factions and animosities which at that time broke forth among them which engaged them in such incredible slaughters and murders of one another that they never put themselves into a posture of resisting the Romans but when they saw them approaching their Walls Which they did then lest their enemies should come and take the work out of their hands and so deprive them of being the sole Authors of their own destruction And this I think to be the saddest symptom of approaching vengeance which is this day visible upon this sinful Nation The modern Romans can hardly in all probability ever enter in upon us but at that door which we our selves set open by our wide breaches and divisions And O that we could all be effectually persuaded in this our day to know the things that belong unto peace before they be hid from our eyes to lay aside all names of parties and distinctions and mind the true interest of the Protestant Religion which now lies at stake and which I am sure ought to be dearer to us than all other concernments whatsoever It was once the fate of two Reverend Martyrs for the Protestant Religion in the time of their prosperity to be uncharitably disunited and alienated to a greater height in their affections than in their judgments But when the fiery trial in Queen Maries days which for the time it lasted raged more terribly than any of the Heathen Persecutions except that of Dioclesian had so desperately threatned the Common Faith they mutually condescended quitted their animosities and both laid down their lives for their undaunted profession of the Faith of Christ And surely this would be one happy effect of the judgments of God upon this Nation if the fears which we lie under from our enemies abroad would engage us to joyn as one man for the composing our differences and dissensions at home And unless this be done we have great reason to fear that God will be so far provoked by our divisions as to give us up to be united in common sufferings who would not be persuaded upon any other terms to be reconciled to one another Let us consider how the Romanists triumph in our quarrels and how active and industrious they are in fomenting our differences and adding fuel to our flames When the Kingdom of Israel was divided by the revolt of Jeroboam then was the time for Shishak the King of Egypt to forrage the Land 2 Chronicl xii 9. and take away the treasures of the Temple of the Lord. And O that God would give us all hearts to consider this to be sensible of our own interest and true to it that so we may no longer expose our selves and our Country our lives and fortunes and the best Religion in the world to the advantages of blood-thirsty and deceitful men who have at this day conspired against us to take away both our place and Nation And assure your selves for he who is truth it self hath spoken it that a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand but is brought to desolation And while Ephraim stands divided against Manasseh and Manasseh against Ephraim and every one eats the flesh of his own arm Isa ix 12.19 20 21. and that at a time when the Syrian is before and the Philistim behind and both ready to devour Israel with open mouth we have good reason to conclude that through the wrath of the Lord the Land is darkned and infatuated that gods anger is not yet turned away but that his hand is stretched out still These are some of those ends for which Almighty God sends his judgments upon a Nation I proceed in the next place to shew The contrary effects which they often have upon a secure and a sinful people which is to make them the more incorrigible and obstinate in their sins And here we meet with some who grow worse under the rod though they feel the smart of it yet they will not hear the voice and as they have heretofore turned Gods Grace so they will now turn his Judgments into wantonness It was a dreadful sight in the City of Lyons when they were so infested with the Pestilence ut tota civitas bustum that the whole City seemed to be but one Grave the Souldiers in the Garrison dayly issued forth and committed all sorts of uncleanness with the dying and the dead The like stupidity we find in Salvian charged upon the Carthaginians who were wholly set upon their luxury and intemperance in the midst of their Cities ruines and among so many deaths which they daily beheld in the slaughter of their fellow Citizens had no apprehensions of their own However they saw Gods hand lifted up to strike it had no effectual influence upon them to turn to him that smote them unless it were by the encrease of their provocations as far as was possible to smite again Like those whom we read of Revel xvi 11. that blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains c. Assiduitas calamitatum augmentum Criminum A certain argument of the desperate condition of a people and that they have already begun their hell where at the same time men suffer and blaspheme their God And this was the state and constitution of the Christian world at that time when the Vandals Goths and Hums and other Barbarians