Text but the People of whom he was King For though a wicked King shall certainly bear the burden of his Sins and though the Judgment here denounced by Samuel was after a King was anointed in Israel yet 't was denounced against the Sin of the People committed before there was a King Neither had Saul as yet displeased God he affected not the Kingdom though Israel affected to have a King They are the Israelites therefore that are threatned in the Person and misfortune of their King whom God declares he will involve in their destruction even when he is not involved in their sins and a good King is sooner cut off for the provocation of a Land than a bad but then though he falls 't is the Land that is punished though he be untimely snatcht away 't is the Nation that is judged and condemned But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King The Words consist of a Commination or Threat Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And the Case wherein the Commination or Threat shall take place If ye shall still do wickedly I begin with the Commination or Threat Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King The Commination runs high a greater cannot well be denounced 't is only to be fear'd it may suffer the fate of the vain menaces and Rhodomantadoes of men which are most despised when they sound loudest and affect to carry most terrour Ye shall be consumed both ye and your King Why certainly men will say This is some Figurative Hyperbolical Speech which carries not so much danger in it to be feared as difficulty to be understood and sends us to an Interpreter and not an Asylum or Sanctuary Was it ever known that a whole Nation was destroyed as one man Dathan and his Complices 't is true went down into the Bowels of the Earth and it clos'd its mouth upon them but they were not a whole Nation but a seditious Party only Pharaoh and the Egyptians were overwhelmed in the Sea and not one of them escaped but they again were not a King and his People but a King and his Host. The seven Nations of the Canaanites were adjudged to utter extirpation but by reason of the Sins of God's own People the Sentence was not executed with that rigour it was denounced and they were not utterly destroyed Let us see therefore how we are to understand the Commination in my Text How a King and People may be said to be totally consumed A thing may be totally consumed or destroyed two ways simul semel altogether and in a moment as Fire consumes Flax or Gunpowder so that nothing remains but the Place of them Or gradually and by degrees when 't is wasted by little and little as Liquor consumes over the Fire or as a Body is extenuated by Sickness Now though God perhaps through the greatness of his Mercy has never consumed a whole Nation in the fullest and strictest sense of either of these two Ways yet so dreadful have been his Judgments and so universal the Destruction he has wrought that there will be no cause to say There is an Hyperbole in the Commination in my Text. The first way God practised when he caused the ten Tribes and their King to be carried away captive by Shalmanezer into Assyria with a swift destruction and the other two Tribes and their King by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon This way also God practised when he gave this Nation up to the Conquest of the Normans Or as the Tragedy on this Day should rather prompt us to remember when he permitted the Bloud of our righteous Sovereign after the slaughter of many thousands of his Loyal Subjects to be spilled by the hands of execrable Villains and together with that sacred Sluce broke-up all the Floud-Gates of Impiety and suffered it to overwhelm the Land with wickedness and ruine as the World was once overwhelmed with a Deluge of Water At which time we may affirm Death or a change like Death past upon all the Rich became poor and the Poor rich the Nobles were debased and the Scum of the People exalted the Loyal were accounted Traytors and Traytors Loyal Oppression and Cruelty sat in the Seats of Justice Hypocrisie and Blasphemy in the Chair of Religion and an abject Villain in the Throne of Majesty And when the Kingdom was reduced to this State may we not say it was destroyed simul semel altogether and at once both King and People and that nothing remained of what had been but the Place and Memory The Scripture says Adam dyed on the Day he eat of the forbidden Fruit though he survived nine hundred and thirty Years after because he fell then into an evil condition and forfeited all his happiness Again the Scripture calls Damnation Eternal Death not because the Bodies and Souls of Sinners shall be extinguish'd but eternally tormented Life consisting not so much in duration as in felicity And in this sense when a Kingdom has lost its Felicity and Glory its Laws and Liberty its King and Religion though a Remnant of the People be left it may deservedly be said To be totally and utterly destroyed God practised the second way of destroying a whole Nation when he consumed the Israelites in the Wilderness by such slow and lingring paces that a new Generation was grown up by the time that the old was expired and the Children were ready to enter into the Land of Canaan as soon as their Fathers Graves were made in the Wilderness God thus punishing them after the manner they had transgressed as they had grieved him forty Years he consumed them for forty Years together And when ever a Nation is seen to decline in Piety Vertue Policy Wealth Reputation the Number of its People and the like when private interest takes place in mens hearts before the Publick when Trade Vigour and Industry languish then this lingering Curse works and ferments I may seem both ill-affected and also to intrude into a Secret that cannot be known if I should pronounce that this Kingdom lay at this present under this slow and lingering destruction as it has been more than once a miserable Instance of the other quick and total destruction But it may become me and all that hear me this day to fear and endeavour to prevent so dreadful a Judgment especially when so many and sad Symptoms of it seem to appear For not to name our Consumptions of late Years by War by Pestilence and by Fire we see the Moral and Spiritual Consumptions of Piety and Vertue and as fearful an encrease of Riot Prophaneness and Irreligion Popery gains upon the true Religion on one side and Fanaticism on the other and Atheism the Vorago of all other Sects and Schisms daily swallows up Popery and Fanaticism Again we hear plentiful Years complain'd of that the People are impoverished by the great encrease of the Land Abundance cry'd out against
and all the other endeavours that have been used for our Salvation though Christ by his Spirit by his Word and by his Example has essayed to take away our sins From us and to take them away In us I know not how they are not taken away from Among us Our Sins like Idolatry in Israel like the Groves and High-Places are continually taking away and still found remaining they vary and change according to the several Revolutions and Vicissitudes of our Condition but they are not abolished when Rebellion reigned in the Land Rapine Oppression Bloudshed Sacriledge were its complexion When this Evil by a singular Mercy was remov'd from us the Sins of Peace succeeded Ingratitude for past and Insensibleness of present Benefits Drunkenness Whoredom Irreligion Schism Faction c. So that as the Romans complained of old that after they had subdued the Nations themselves were subdued by their own Vices that these sly and silent Enemies Luxury Covetousness and Ambition revenged and retaliated the conquered World victumque ulciscitur Orbem We may in like manner complain that after the Violences and Outrages of War ceased the soft and soothing Sins of Peace crept in in their place and have tyrannized over us more fatally and destructively And who then can say our Sins are taken away when they are only transformed and have assumed new Shapes and Names when that which was Rebellion in 41. is Dissoluteness or Atheism in the Year 70 But though there be too much reason to bewail this yet I hope with the same Charity that I wish the thing that none that are guilty of the more enormous Sins I have mentioned are present in this Assembly but that it fares with my Complaint as it does with the Exhortations which are made out of the Pulpit to Non-Conformists those to whom the Speech is directed are never there So in my present Complaint of not forsaking our Sins but exchangeing them for others I do but inculcate a Doctrine to the Gracious already and that those that are otherwise are not here But if any chance to be I shall only mind them of those Words they find Psal. 10.17 Take away his ungodliness and thou shalt find none If after God has endeavoured so many ways to take away their ungodliness it shall still remain they are more incorrigible than the worst of men and their obstinacy may well fear not only what the Words in the Psalm sound but what they signifie viz. that God will not only confound their wickedness but themselves also the wicked Doers Christ was manifested in the Flesh to destroy Sin and we ought in compliance with this his gracious Design to put to all our Powers to destroy Sin in our selves that purifying our selves as he is pure we may hereafter be glorious even as he is glorious To the Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour c. The Second Sermon 1 SAM xii 25 But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King THE State and Commonwealth of Israel differed from all other States in the World it was neither Aristocracy nor yet Democracy but if rightly denominated a Theocracy or Divine Monarchy i. e. it was in subjection to no Man or Number of Men but immediately to God himself Ye have said Nay but a King shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your King v. 12. Again C. 10.19 Ye have this day rejected your God who himself saved you out of all your adversities God was the Commander Prince and Monarch of this State in his own Person But being a Spiritual King as well as a Temporal and exercising a Dominion over the Souls as well as Bodies of his Subjects though his Reign were as the Reign of Prosperity it self his Scepter not only a Scepter of righteousness but of felicity Plenty Victory and all other Blessings attending it they were impatient of it as of an intolerable and insupportable Yoke chose rather to be governed as the Nations of the Earth than even as the Angels in Heaven by a mortal than a Celestial King preferred an improsperous Condition together with a greater liberty of sinning before the most prosperous with a strict obligation to righteousness held it I say more eligible even to see their Enemies within their Gates than their God with narrow eyes continually prying into their actions God who saw this perverseness of their hearts in demanding a King punished their folly by complying with it defeated their wickedness by granting their request Ye shall says God for the future be governed as you desire after the manner of the Nations ye shall have a King the Court and the Sanctuary the Palace and the Tabernacle shall be separated my Divine Authority shall no more interpose in your making War or Peace in your marching or encamping in your Civil or Military Affairs all shall be in the power of your King But promise not your selves from hence a greater licence to sin for though I shall withdraw my former manner of Conduct from you I will have as near an inspection into your Actions as I had before and though my miraculous assistances are more rarely shewed I will visit your iniquity with Scourges Your King and new-modell'd State shall be so far from protecting you in your disobedience that they shall render your destruction only more signal and calamitous But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King In the Days in which God chiefly invited his People to Obedience by the Promises of temporal Blessings and deterred them from Disobedience by the threats of temporal Evils none were greater than those that related to their King As whether he were a Child or of grown Years a base Vpstart or the Son of Nobles one that eat in the morning or at due season for strength or for drunkenness as Solomon speaks Or as the Prophet Isaiah A wise and gracious Prince or a fierce and cruel Lord and a Fool. Again whether the Reign of a wicked King were prolonged or of a righteous cut short whether the Prince were often changed or many set up at the same time as those Words may be interpreted either way For the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof I say no higher Marks of God's favour or disfavour to a People could be shewed than in what related to their King And no wonder For undoubtedly a good King is infinitely above the encrease of the Barn and the Wine-press of the Flocks and the Herds for he is the security of all these and whatever else makes a Kingdom happy and blessed Plenty is not Plenty Possessions are not Possessions Peace is not Peace Religion is not Religion without such a Guardian and Conserver of them Well therefore might God as being the highest of Judgments threaten his rebellious People with the destruction of their King I say his rebellious People for the King is not threatned in my
to bring home to it self the dreadful Commination made in my Text against them And first As Israel desired a Change of Government only to remove God further from them so if we may judge of mens minds by their outward actions of the Secrets of their hearts by their following behaviour the passionate desire of many among us to have a King again after the fatal stroke struck this Day was on no better an account than Israel's desire to have a King We had lain a long time under a sad Oppression at home or a sadder Exile abroad ate no Bread for many Years but what came in a manner to us like Manna from the immediate hand of God and the frequent Fasts strict Devotions and holy Lives which could only promise a continuance of such favour from Heaven were as insupportable as the Holiness and Obedience God required of Israel that he might dwell among them And many desired a King not so much to deliver the Nation from Oppression and Confusion as themselves from the Paedagogy of Divine Discipline not so much I say to rescue them from the Tyranny of the Usurper as from the Tyrannies of Religion And such a Surfeit many took no less of holy Duties than of evil days that they have endeavoured since to obliterate all memory of them both as 't was the practice or at least the boast of a prophane Person That whereas others observed the Days of their Deliverance from any great danger with Fasting and Humiliation he always kept such Days with Feasting and Jollity and for this Reason To make his Soul amends for what it had suffered And such has been the deportment of some men since God restored them to their prosperity that they seem to vie by their voluptuous lives with the former miseries they suffered to make their Souls amends for the twenty Years affliction they lay under by a twenty Years or a whole future Lifes Debauchery When God restored us to our forfeited Peace and Prosperity he promised himself he had restored a People sensible of so wonderful a mercy who as he had made them to abound in all secure enjoyments would have abounded in Good Works and Gratitude to him but he has found such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I may say such an unexpected Issue among us as the Prophet Isaiah complains he did in Israel in his Days He lookt for righteousness but behold a cry When God lookt for righteousness that his Glory should have been exalted in this Land more than in any other because he had done more for it than for any other behold I know not what Cry of more than usual infidelity and wickedness What shall I say that we are fallen back again into those Sins which brought on us the calamity of this Day Nay but we have outdone all our old Sins and all that ever went before us we have not only broken God's righteous Laws and Commandments but denyed he ever gave a Law to the World we have not only denyed him by our wicked lives but even in our words to have any Being and as all Ages have been guilty of Adultery Drunkenness and the like 't is the Character of this That it affirms such things are no sins Secondly As Israel put their confidence in Flesh and Bloud believed if they could obtain a King of their own Nation he would be invincible possessed of all the Heroick Qualities they had read of their Judges and as his Character was greater so his Performances would be also greater and this of course as if God had been obliged for his own Glory to see it should be so though they never so little regarded his Glory themselves And have not we put as high a confidence in Flesh and Bloud who have lookt upon our King not only as a defence against our Enemies but even against God himself not only as a Foundation of our Peace and Felicity but of our Rebellion against Heaven Who have said in our hearts We have no need of the burthensom Duties of Religion and the severities of a holy Life now we have a King to provide against our dangers from abroad and to take care for our quiet at home Few considering in order to the Prosperity they desire what are the provocations of the Land how we stand in favour or disfavour with God But enquiring What Alliances we have made abroad What Ships we are able to set out What Money there is in the Exchequer What Supplies the Parliament will give and the like Is not this to provoke God to infatuate our Counsels and to bring our Enterprizes to nought to involve our King in a common destruction with our selves as he did this Day though he were even a Hezekiah or a David Thirdly As Israel was mutinous and rebellious upon the least occasions against their best Governours we come not behind them in this Sin witness the black disloyalty of this Day Historiographers the publick Censurers of Mankind brand every Nation of the Earth with some Vice more peculiar to them than others as to name none one with Drunkenness another with Robbery and Piracy a third with ambition and desire of Sovereignty a fourth with Whoredom and abusing themselves with Mankind c. And we of this Nation among the rest are taxt for stubbornness and proneness to Rebellion noted for a People that delight in Sedition and seditious Persons that are apt to think the most turbulent and factious the best Patriots the greatest Troublers the greatest Lovers of their Country So that as other Princes in regard of the sweet compliance of their Subjects are styled Reges Hominum Kings of Men ours are styled Reges Diabolorum Kings of Devils And 't is observable that what was the Vice of every Nation many hundred Years ago continues to be the same still Time has not altered them nor the Preaching of the Gospel reformed them But though we of this Nation should not care to wipe off the imputation that lies upon us among men nor yet fear the displeasure of God who counts Rebellion as the Sin of Witchcraft i. e. Disobedience to Governours a Degree of Apostasie from himself yet the experience alone of the former Evils which our unquiet Spirits have brought upon us and their direct tendency to bring the like again viz. to bereave us a second time of our Royal Government and to cast us under the subjection of the basest of the People may well make us abhor all seditious thoughts I say for fear lest a second time we become not only the most miserable but the most ridiculous and despicable of all People while we give the World leave to say that we that could not digest a miscarriage in the State are forc'd to digest Oppression and Tyranny that could not pass by an oversight in our Rulers are compell'd to undergo Sequestration and Banishment the Axe and the Halter perhaps a Foreign Yoke To draw to a Conclusion It is a common
our Lord for his Violent and Untimely Death I say there was nothing strange or hard to be digested by either of them in this thing For 't was the Practice of them both to sacrifice the Innocent for the Guilty the Unoffending Victimes for Offending Men Nay 't was usual among the Gentiles for the Noblest and most Sacrosanct Persons their Kings and Generals and holy Virgins to devote themselves to Death for the Preservation of their Country Why then should the Devoting of Christ for the Salvation of the Whole World be held irrational and foolish by them Why did they despise in another Religion what they held Honourable in their own And the Jews had yet less reason to be scandaliz'd especially the most Learned among them who were yet only offended who saw their Messiah daily slain before their Eyes in so many Rites and Mysteries the Paschal Lamb the Scape-Goat the Goat for the Sin-Offering in a word all their Expiatory Sacrifices were Prefigurations of Christ's Passion Beside those that were Learned were sensible That the Way of propitiating God by the Bloud of Beasts was of it self Irrational and had no Efficacy in it but as it related to the Bloud of Christ. The Jews therefore with less reason than the Gentiles disclaimed the Messiah coming in the Guise of a Sacrifice and drencht in his own Bloud when 't was his Bloud alone that sanctify'd all their Forefathers and their own Offerings and distinguisht their Temple from a common Shambles or Slaughter-house The reason that the Cross of Christ has given such Scandal in all Times and that so great a Part of the World have thought it Monstrous That a Divine Person should undergo an Ignominious Death arises from the Slight Apprehension Men generally have of Sin and their ignorance of the Malignity of its Nature they look upon it as a mere Transient Act and think that the Guilt of it passes away as soon as the Fact they have no Unkindness to their own Wicked Ways and fansie God has none neither that any Trifle will make Compensation for them or that God will pass them by without any Compensation at all But if they would weigh the Odiousness of Sin to God by its Contrariety to his Holy Nature and the fearful Judgments he has denounc'd against it and that it cannot go unpunisht if God be just and true i. e. if God be God Again if they would consider that the Greatness of an Offence arises in proportion to the Greatness of the Person Offended and then compute what would be a Competent Satisfaction for offending an Infinite and Eternal Deity they would not think it monstrous ut medela responderet morbo that a Divine Person should be found only worthy to do Right to a Divine Person Men may well be astonisht at the Goodness of God and adore his Mercy that he vouchsaf'd to give his Son to be a Ransom for Sinners but none can justly wonder that he requir'd so Honourable an Amends for the Violation of his Majesty or that a less Sanctity than Christ's was sufficient either to intercede for or to Counterpoise the Guilt of the Whole World But as there are those that despise the Cross of Christ and count the Bloud of the Covenant as the Apostle speaks an unholy thing so there are those again on the other side who are no less Enemies to it by ascribing to it what was never the Will or Meaning of our Lord that they should and these are of two Sorts Those of the Church of Rome who Superstitiously and Idolatrously Worship the Cross ascribe to it the Power of driving away Devils conferring Divine Graces and the like The others are those among us who teach That since Christ has Suffer'd all Guilt and Condemnation for Sin is taken away in respect of Believers like those in the Apostles time who affirm'd That after the Faith of Christ was once entertain'd all that was necessary for Salvation was perform'd and men need not be sollicitous for their future Behaviour whether 't were Righteous or Unrighteous But S t Paul Heb. 10.26 stops the mouths of all such as thus pervert the Grace purchas'd by Christ's Death If we sin wilfully says he after we have received the Knowledge of the Truth there remains no more Sacrifice for Sin but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation As if he would have said Although Christ cannot be Cut-off any more in his Person yet he may and will be Cut-off again in the Fruits and Benefits of his first Cutting-off from those that abuse them Which Words though spoken of Apostates to the Faith will hold true also of Subverters of the Faith And there is a Passage in this Chapter of Daniel before us well worthy the observation of all those who sin now presumptuously under the Gospel which is this When the Angel had reveal'd to Daniel the Time when the Captivity in Babylon should expire and that the People should return and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple and not only so but that the long-promis'd and much-desir'd Messiah should be given them and the Prophet thought all was now well and nothing could be added to the Felicity of the Nation immediately it follows that after so many Weeks again for the succeeding Transgressions of the People the so-long'd-for Prince and Saviour the Messiah should be cut-off as if he had never been So that he should be given in a manner and not given unto the Nation but be the Cause of a Second and Greater Destruction than the foregoing Captivity even the final Rejection of the House of Israel And 't is dreadful to consider that the giving of a Saviour to many Christians shall have the like Success that by reason of their Presumption of I know not what Favour and Election of God's and their Continuance in their Unreform'd Lives this Blessing shall be turn'd into a Curse and He that was cut-off For them shall be again cut off From them and the Private State of their Souls like the Publick State of the Jews shall be much more Calamitous after their Redemption than before And now what Use shall we make of this first Branch the Substance of the Angels Prediction the Excision of the Messiah He shall be cut off Shall I exhort you after the manner of the Church of Rome to set before you Pictures of our Lord's Passion representing his macerated and dilacerated Body hanging on the Cross between two Thieves and attended by his Virgin Mother fallen into a Swoun and expect that the like Effects of an o'r-whelming Sorrow may be seen in you No I shall rather desire that all such Pageantry and Ostentation of misplaced Grief may be remov'd far from you and as our Lord directed the Women who wept for him when he bore his Cross to Mount Calvary to spend their Tears on the right Object Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and your approaching misery So let
prophetick and presage the Vertue they ascribe and make him the Person they proclaim him S t Paul says Charity believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things i. e. those who have this Grace are easily induced to believe the good of another which they do not know to hope that which they do not believe and to suffer even when they can neither believe nor hope And if any man be not able to walk upon this profound Sea of Charity why does he like Peter rashly and unbidden cast himself into it Why does he presumptuously Intrude into his Masters company Who supported by a Divine Power shall stride Majestically o're the Waves and march through the storm in safety while the other disorder'd by every Gust and amaz'd at every Billow poorly sinks in the danger his Fancy only fram'd Will not such an one another day like him in the Parable that wanted a Wedding-Garment be speechless i. e. have nothing to say for himself when he sees his Prince as far above him in Glory as he was in his Station in this life And when 't is objected to him as 't was to Peter O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt But to proceed God set David on his holy hill of Sion Not to say that instead of one Fort of Sion God has garded our King with many strong-holds and Castles or yet to boast the Advantages of an Island above a Hill which is not only to be ascended before it can be assaulted but to be Sail'd to before it can be approach'd and fought for before it can be Sail'd to being defended by moveable Bulwarks stout Ships which must be subdu'd before the Inhabitants can be grappl'd with upon equal terms But to come to the Point in which the chiefest strength of Sion consisted in that it was a Moral and Spiritual Fortification a holy hill and God's hill If the Church of Christ be not inferior to the Old Tabernacle the Gospel to the Law the substance to the shadow when God not only set our King upon his Throne but restor'd the True Religion and plac'd him within the Protection of it he set him upon as Holy and consequently upon as strong a Hill as he set David and we may rest assur'd he delights as much to dwell here and that 't is as desperate an Enterprize to assault this his Habitation as 't was to assault Sion But alas some will say with a deep sigh Would we found these things to be so But what for a long time has been more infirm and unstable than the Condition of this Nation Not only ready to be broken in pieces by any Impression of an Enemy but even to dissolve and fall asunder of it self and the supports of Religion have been as weak as those of the Arm of Flesh. To which I answer This has not happen'd from the Weakness of the Divine Assistances which God has given us but from our neglect and contempt of them Religion does not guard men like a Palladium or Charm preserve those who have the luck only to wear it and be possess'd of it but those who practise it and live according to its Precepts they are not Sextons and Sacrists that are chiefly protected by Heaven those that keep Divine things under Lock and Key but that treasure them up in a faithful heart When David by sin dishonour'd God and defam'd Religion his fourfold Fortification little profited him but that security which the power of the Heathen united with the disaffection of his Subjects could not shake his rebellious Son alone drove him from and he fled ingloriously and left his impregnable Sion and all the Pledges of Gods favour and residence with him behind him confessing that when he had violated their Sanctity he had invalidated also their Power of Protecting and though he possess'd still the Curtains of the Tabernacle the Deity was fled from him And little will it profit us to have the Gospel among us nay to have it more purely Preacht than to any other People under the Sun if we are the worst Auditors of it of any other People under the Sun to have the Sacraments more rightly administer'd if we are the wickedst Receivers of them 'T is the holy Use of holy Ordinances that makes them a guard and defence Righteousness as 't is the Honour of the Soul so 't is the best Armour of the Body and does not only as the Psalmist says Bring peace at the last but as the Apostle teaches safety at present For who is he that shall harm you says he if you follow that which is good 'T was the Custom of the Ancient Heathen when they Besieg'd a City in the first place to endeavour to entice out the Guardian Deity by alledging the Injustice of the Inhabitants and inviting it to reside with a more holy People ut habeat te Vrbs melior acceptiorque Holding it impossible to prevail against the Out-works when this Divine Inward strength stood firm The Sanctity of a Christian is this little retir'd Deity in the Chappel which if it cannot be charm'd or entic'd out by Temptation the Malice of Earth and Hell cannot prejudice the Person in whom it dwells The Prophet Eliah was call'd The Chariots and Horsemen of Israel but much more deservedly may Justice Piety and Sanctity be styled The Chariots and Horsemen of a Kingdom And when God by the Restauration of his Majesty and true Religion gave us the Opportunity of exercising all Vertues Civil and Divine he put it also into our hands to be as safe and well fortifi'd as we cared or desir'd to be he made our Condition as secure as a Mortal condition could be made and if our Mountain be turn'd into a Wheel our Rock into a Rolling-stone 't is our sins that have unfixt and loosen'd its Roots and while we are led by Vanity what wonder is it that the Kingdom fluctuates after the manner of the Seas that surround it If we consider Lastly how great and difficult the work was to set the Kingdom again upon its Basis after it was so utterly subverted to raise up the Truth and Splendor of the Church so long a time deform'd and Opprest by Schism and Sacriledge we may allow God also as high nay a higher cause of Glorying in our behalf than for establishing the Church and State of Israel But the time suffers me not to insist on this particular neither is it very necessary to do it we having all here been Witnesses and Partakers of what was pass'd and this will be the properer Task of another Age. Instead therefore of dressing up a Triumph for God into which also our own Vanity or Spleen may be apt to insinuate it self I shall imploy the few words yet allow'd me to speak to excite our Thanks for these things And if the Benefits we have receiv'd are such as are worthy of God's Glorying undoubtedly they are Worthy of our highest acknowledgments I say of Ours
in the most General and Universal comprehension both of Prince and People not of the Prince alone as some are willing to reckon the Benefits his Majesty has receiv'd not to revere him the more for being so much in God's Favour but to make him more indebted to God than themselves as if because this is call'd the King's Day all the Mercies of it and all the Thanks for them were to be put upon his account Undoubtedly the Kings Obligations to Heaven are infinite but was he only restor'd this Day to his Crown and Country Or were not all we likewise re-call'd from the same Banishment or from Prisons and Sequestrations Dungeons and Gibbets at home to enjoy our Lives and Liberties our Religion and Estates Has all the delicious Fare of the Land been serv'd to the Kings Table All the Gold Lace been worn upon his Back Nay but I behold many at this instant standing like Kings in the presence of the King and 't is to be complain'd of that the Enjoyments of many Out vie his in their proportion Is there then no Thanks of our Own due to God We have this Obligation even more than the King has that we have him that we enjoy this Principle of Union this Bond of Peace this Foundation of Security and Prosperity O let us not forget in the loud Joys and Gaiety and Festivity of this Day the days of Sadness and Silence of Scarcity and Doubtfulness of Soul when we had no King when a Villain sat on the Throne when our Hatred and Aversion rul'd over us the Scourge of Loyalty and the Oppressor of Religion and Justice Let us not forget the Time when to be Noble was to be Guilty and to be Loyal an Enemy to the State Again when to be a Mechanick made room for the Person in the Places of Honour and a Fanatick qualify'd him for the highest Charges and Honours and our Great Ones bow'd down to these or bow'd under the saddest Misery The remembrance of these things will make us readily acknowledge the Mercies of this Day to have been General to us all and not only heighten but sanctifie our Joy make the Feast resound with Thanksgiving and Praises of God and not wholly to be spent in loose and confus'd Mirth Riot and Excess it will preserve us from falling into that Fatal Ingratitude which accompanies Prosperity and which God in the People of Israel warns all Nations of and yet which all more or less fall into The forgetfulness of the Arm that deliver'd them and the Goodness that made them Great And in the midst of our Felicity we shall remember our Duty and our Ease shall not corrupt our Manners nor our Prosperity and Affluence be snares to us And God will repeat and iterate his glorying we have heard this Day not only in the Person of our King but of his Posterity to all Ages even till all Kingdoms are swallow'd up in the Kingdom of Heaven Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Which God of the riches of his Mercy grant to whom be ascribed all Honour Glory and Thanksgiving this day forth and for evermore Amen The Eighth Sermon JOHN xvi 8 And when he is come he will reprove the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment GOD who at sundry times and in divers manners says the Apostle spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son c. as if this were his ultimus conatus the last and utmost Effort or Endeavour of his Power and Goodness to reduce the Sinful and Unbelieving World But by miserable Event it appear'd that this Means prov'd as uneffectual as the former that the World did unto Christ as they had done unto the Prophets before him slew the Son as they had slain the Servants Yet notwithstanding the unfathomable Depths and Riches of the Divine Goodness gave not over here where Reason would have given over but shew'd it self still Infinite where Humane Imagination was Finite bow'd the Heavens again and sent down the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost Pertinacia nostra exhausit Coelum the Obstinacy of Men even drain'd and exhausted Heaven Verbum Caro the Word made Flesh was not sufficient to master this Obstinacy but it must be Verbum Spiritus too the Spirit must become a Word i. e. be sent from Heaven to be a Word in the Mouth of the Apostles to reprove or as the Margent has it to convince the World of Sin And when he is come he will reprove or convince the World of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment To convince is to force the Understanding of the Opposer by strength of Argument to acknowledge the Truth that is contended for And to reprove or rebuke is again but a Moral Conviction of Sin in a person In the Words I shall consider these two things I. The Matter of the Conviction which the Spirit shall bring the World to an Acknowledgment of namely of Sin of Righteousness and of Judgment II. The Manner how he shall bring the World to this Acknowledgment viz. by convincing it by irrefragable Arguments I begin with the Matter of the Conviction Sin Râ—ghteousness and Judgment And First He shall convince the World of Sin What Sin it is which is meant here that the Spirit shall convince the World of is doubtful It may well be thought to be the Sin of Cruelty the perverse and barbarous Inhumanity the Jews shew'd when they demanded a Murderer to be releas'd unto them and kill'd the Just One. And we read in Effect Acts 2.36 that it was one of the first Works of the Spirit after his coming to bring three thousand Souls to confess this Sin and shew their Compunction for it for after S t Peter had laid before them how by wicked hands they had crucified and slain the Lord of Life they were prick'd to the heart and said Men and Brethren what shall we do i. e. to be deliver'd from the Sin of Murder or Cruelty But though this Interpretation be plausible it agrees not with the Reason Christ himself gives in the Verse immediately following my Text why the Holy Ghost should convince the World of Sin Of Sin says he because they believe not on me It should seem then it was the Sin of Unbelief that he came to reprove or convince the World of And this is the Opinion of many on the place The truth is Infidelity is a Sin highly injurious to the Deity it makes God a Lyar as S t John says He that believeth not God hath made him a Lyar. It makes him impotent and ignorant How should God perceive says the Wicked Psal. 73.11 is there knowledge in the most High And the faithless Israelites Can God prepare a Table in the Wilderness He smote the stony Rock indeed that the Water gushed out but can he give Bread also and provide Flesh for his People Nay it
he spared not the Natural Branches take heed lest he spare not you 'T is not so much the Contingency that is in the Nature of the things of this World as the Sins of Men that make them unstable the Fortunes of Kingdoms are not tost like the Waves of the Sea lift up one while to the Clouds and then carried down again to the Center by the force of Winds but according to their Righteousness or Unrighteousness God pulls down one and sets up another Neither are they governed by the Power of Stars The Jews have an excellent Saying Non est Planeta Israeli Israel has no Planet i. e. though God gave up the Heathen oft-times to be governed like the Plants of the Earth by the Influences of Stars because they trusted in such Vain things yet he orders and disposes the Affairs of his faithful People immediately himself And 't is a mere Vulgar Conceit that Comets cause Wars and Changes of States Divine Philosophy tells us Mens Sins occasion God to send Comets and to fill the Sky with Prophetick Prodigies We affect to look as far beyond our selves as we can for the Causes of our Evils but they are to be found nearer at Home and arise out of our own Breasts the Heavens are not the Authors of our Misfortunes i. e. the Conjunctions or Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies but our own Wicked Lives and the surest Prognosticks are to be made from the Innocence or Guilt of a Nation and not from the Face of the Sky Let no Man think I cast a Cloud upon the Glory of this Day Illustrious in the Birth Illustrious in the Restoration of our most Gracious King that instead of exciting I affect to damp the Publick Joy by Ill Bodings unless he also supposes that the Blessings of a Nation cannot be rightly commemorated and celebrated without Noise and Inconsideration Tumult and Riot Excess and Debauchery setting-light by Sin and forgetfulness of Religion A sad and severe Reflection on our Unthankfulness to God for the Singular Mercies of this Day with a serious Resolution of our better Acknowledging them by a future Holy Life will add more Lustre and true Joy to it than the Bravery and Feasts the Bells and Bonfires and all the other Pomps that solemnize it For let us consider That every Wise Agent works to some End or other and that not only the Words we have heard this Day explain'd but the whole Tenour of Scripture concurs in this That the End and Purpose of God's bestowing Benefits on a Nation is to make them Righteous and Holy and that the only Expedient on our part to secure a Continuation of them is to have a strict regard to our Duty that Obedience is the best Preserver of our Happiness and the Means always to keep God's Favour is always to keep his Laws The Thirteenth Sermon MARK viii 2 3. I have Compassion on the Multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat And if I send them away fasting to their own houses they will faint by the way for divers of them came from far THESE Words were the Introduction to that Illustrious Miracle by which our Lord fed four thousand Souls with seven Loaves and a few small Fishes made the bare and spare Allowance of seven Persons as some suppose sufficient to satisfie the Hunger of so great a Multitude A Miracle that baffled one of the clearest and most irrefragable Principles in Natural Reason namely That the Part is less than the Whole making it appear that when the Lord of Nature will have it so a Part shall as many times exceed the Whole as he pleases as the Bread and Fishes here encreased by being eaten and consumed multiplied by being dol'd and distributed about and the Fragments which remained exceeded seven times seven fold the Provision which at first was set before them that eat Our Lord wrought this Miracle as himself declares to relieve the Hunger of the Multitude but his principal Design here as in all his other Miracles was to create Faith in such as received Benefit by them to teach those whom he healed that he was the great Physician of the Soul and whom he fed that he was the true Bread that came down from Heaven And if We at this great Distance of time by our Meditations and Reflections on this Miracle shall make it also nourish our Souls refresh our Faith relieve and sustain our fainting Spirits ready to sink under the continual Opposition of Sin and the length of Duties we shall add yet to the Glory of it and in a Spiritual Sense make these Words spoken to us I have Compassion on the Multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat c. This Portion of Scripture is part of a larger Narrative and I shall take that Way in handling it which those do who make Remarks and Observations upon Notable Occurrents and Events in History reflect and descant on the Principal Passages in it as I conceive they may be most edifying and useful And in order to this I shall observe in the Words three things 1. Our Lord 's tender and compassionate Spirit I have Compassion 2. The Object of his Compassion the Persons to whom he shew'd it the Multitude I have compassion on the Multitude 3. The Motives of his Compassion which are exprest to be two Their present Distress they were Hungry and had nothing to eat And their future feared Danger in case they were so dismiss'd they will faint by the way I begin first with Christ's tender and compassionate Spirit I have Compassion The Great Preacher our Blessed Lord had ended his Sermon to the People and as the antient custom of the Church was at the End of the first Service to dismiss the Poenitentes and Catechumeni all such as were not qualify'd to receive the Sacrament with these Words Ite missa est Depart and void the Church So the Disciples might very fairly here have pronounc'd an Ite missa est to the Multitude Ye may be gone there is nothing more at this time to be expected the Prophet has no further words of Instruction to impart to you For as for their want of Bread whether it proceeded from Negligence or Necessity it was not chargeable on the Preacher he that ministred Spiritual things was not also to minister Temporal but in these to be ministred to But our Lord had no purpose to shift off a Work of Mercy when 't was seasonable and in his power though he might never so fairly have done it he cast not therefore in his thoughts how he might plausibly Excuse his not relieving the peoples Hunger but which way he might do it best for the Glory of God and their Comfort and Edification There were a Sort of Preachers in this Kingdom in the days of its late Troubles who when they had usurp'd the whole Revenues of the Church grudg'd to allow