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           Title: The Sermons of John Owen
      Creator(s): Owen, John (1616-1683)
     Print Basis: The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1965, 1967. 1968.
   CCEL Subjects: All; Classic; Sermons
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Preface.

   The two following volumes contain, it is believed, the most complete
   collection of Dr Owen's Sermons which has ever been published.

   The first volume (vol. viii.) includes all the Discourses which were
   published during the lifetime of the author. Among these there will be
   found his "Humble Testimony to the Goodness and Severity of God;" which
   -- though, from its length, it might rank as a separate treatise -- is
   comprehended in this volume, as it was the substance of some
   discourses, and is entitled by Owen himself a Discourse. Another
   valuable sermon, which we have discovered in the "Morning Exercises
   against Popery, at Southwark," though omitted in every previous
   collection of his Sermons, and in Russell's edition of his Works, we
   have not hesitated to include in the present collection, our conviction
   that it belongs to Owen resting on the high authority of Calamy, [1]
   who must have had the best opportunities of knowing what sermons, in a
   publication so important and celebrated as the "Morning Exercises,"
   were the productions of our author. We are strengthened in this
   conviction by the circumstance, that the Rev. T. H. Horne, also, in the
   recent admirable edition of the "Morning Exercises," expressly ascribes
   this sermon to Owen. It is entitled, "The Testimony of the Church not
   the only nor the chief Reason of our Believing the Scripture to be the
   Word of God." On the contrary, we have assigned to the subsequent
   volume, which contains the Posthumous Discourses of our author, a
   sermon entitled, "Human Power Defeated," though we find it mentioned by
   Mr Orme in his list of the works which Owen himself committed to the
   press. Our reason for accounting it posthumous, is not simply that we
   have not met with it in its original form (for in a few other instances
   we have been unable to discover copies of original editions), but in
   the folio volume of Owen's Sermons, published in 1721, and edited so
   carefully by five Independent ministers, who assure us that the
   posthumous sermons contained in it were the genuine productions of
   Owen, "a great part of them having been transcribed from his own
   copies, and the rest taken from his mouth by a gentleman [2] of honour
   and known integrity," it is ranked among the posthumous sermons, which
   had then for the first time been given to the public.

   The other volume (vol. ix.) embraces all the Posthumous Sermons of our
   author, -- viz., the "Seasonable Words for English Protestants,"
   printed separately in 1690; the posthumous sermons published in 1721;
   others which issued from the press in 1756, and were prepared from the
   manuscripts of Sir John Hartopp, which his granddaughter, Mrs Cooke of
   Stoke Newington, had supplied for the purpose; and, finally, the
   sermons derived through the same channel, and published in 1760.

   An attempt has been made in this edition, by prefatory notes and
   running annotations, to connect the different sermons (especially in
   vol. viii.) with the life of Owen, and with the circumstances in which
   they were originally delivered. Much of the interest and value of a
   discourse lies in its suitableness to the occasion which called it
   forth.

   There are discourses attributed to Owen on Ps. cxvi. 12, and on 2 Sam.
   xviii. 20; and said to have been published, the former in 1742, and the
   latter in 1746. They are not mentioned by Mr Orme. There is a reference
   to them in Cooke's "Preacher's Assistant;" but after a diligent search,
   we have failed to recover them.

   The merits of Owen as a preacher have not been sufficiently
   appreciated. In this respect he seems to have stood higher in the
   estimation of his contemporaries than he has subsequently done. No
   edition of his Sermons has been published in a form and at a price
   which placed them within the reach of all classes in the community.
   Perhaps the value of his other works diverted attention from his minor
   productions; and his style of careful and elaborate, though often
   prolix and cumbrous, discussion, was deemed incompatible with the
   condensation of statement and the vigour of appeal which constitute the
   main value and charm of a good discourse. From the accounts transmitted
   to us, however, whether by his various friends and admirers, such as
   Clarkson, his colleague and successor, or by those even who were quite
   opposed to him in principle and sentiment, such as Anthony Wood, the
   ability with which Owen could secure and sustain the attention of an
   audience must have been great. [3] The effects of his preaching in some
   instances attest his usefulness in this department of his public
   labours. John Rogers, in his singular work, "The Heavenly Nymph,"
   records the cases of two individuals, Dorothy Emett and Major
   Mainwaring, who ascribed their conversion to the preaching of Owen when
   he was in Dublin. Mr Orme remarks, that the circumstance confutes a
   saying attributed to Owen, that he never knew an instance of a sinner
   converted through his instrumentality; though the saying might so far
   be true, that he himself might be ignorant of the extent of his own
   usefulness. His congregation in London after the Restoration, though,
   from the severe measures adopted against Dissent, necessarily small,
   seems to have been made up of persons altogether superior in character
   and attainments. Another source of evidence as to the popularity and
   acceptance of our author in preaching the gospel, presents itself in
   the frequency with which he was called to officiate in this capacity
   before the House of Commons. He was generally summoned to this duty in
   connection with some event or crisis of great importance. On examining
   the journals of the House, we have found that he preached before it on
   several occasions besides those on which he delivered sermons that were
   afterwards published. He usually receives the thanks, or "the hearty
   thanks," of the House, for "his great pains" taken in the discourses
   preached before them. Nor were such "orders" of the Parliament, that he
   should be thanked for his services, mere form and indiscriminate
   courtesy. There is a curious record which we may quote, as showing that
   the Parliament exercised some measure of discrimination in voting
   thanks on these occasions:--

   "Die Veneris, 14 Martii, 1650.

   "The question being propounded, That thanks be given to the ministers
   that preached yesterday before the Parliament, and the question being
   put, That that question be now put?' it passed with the negative."

   There are no means of ascertaining what ministers actually preached on
   the occasion here referred to. The ministers who had been appointed to
   preach were Mr Owen, Mr John Simson, and Mr Leigh; but it is clear from
   the journals, that Owen sometimes was not in circumstances to fulfil
   such appointments after they had been made. Perhaps, were all the facts
   known, it would have been to his credit that he had incurred what wears
   the aspect of a vote of censure from the House; although we learn, from
   certain entries elsewhere in its journals, that he was so much of a
   favourite with Parliament, that they settled "lands of inheritance of
   the clear value of -L-100 per annum in Ireland on John Owen, Doctor of
   Divinity, and his heirs."

   His Discourses themselves, however, will best illustrate the position
   and rank to which he is entitled among the lights and ornaments of the
   British pulpit. In judging of them, we must remember how often his
   singular aptitude for the management of affairs drew him into public
   business, interrupting and disturbing the leisure requisite for
   elaborate composition. The amount of time and thought expended on more
   important works might interfere with the care due to the preparation of
   a single discourse. He himself informs us that his public discourses
   were frequently delivered under some sudden call to the duty, and at
   the spur of some great emergency, when brief space was allowed him to
   prepare them carefully; so that, to use his own similitude, they were
   often "like Jonah's gourd, the offspring of a night." Although they
   cannot, therefore, be regarded as models of finished composition and
   careful preparation, they nevertheless abound in many cardinal
   excellencies. The doctrine illustrated and urged in them is commonly
   founded on a sifting and masterly exposition of that portion of
   Scripture from which the text is selected. So much was it his habit to
   investigate Scripture, with the view of ascertaining the precise import
   of its statements, that he often sheds new and striking light on other
   passages besides the one which it may be the object of the sermon to
   explain and enforce. Singular tact is evinced in eliciting the general
   truths or principles raised for consideration by the text. While there
   are many indications of haste and negligence, it may be safely
   affirmed, that there is not a paragraph of worthless or frivolous
   matter which any reader could have wished away, and passages often
   occur conceived in no common strain of eloquence; while, even amidst
   the tamest sentences, burning thoughts are found, thrown out freely and
   at random by the author, as if unconscious of the effect they would
   produce, or careless whether they produced any effect at all. The
   depths of Christian experience are admirably unfolded, and the general
   spirit and tenor of his statements are calculated to tell with power
   upon the unconverted, and to commend themselves with acceptance to the
   enlightened conscience. No feature, indeed, in his sermons is more
   prominent and remarkable, -- especially in the sermons delivered
   towards the close of his life, and which labour under the disadvantage
   of never having been intended for the press, -- than the skill with
   which he can scrutinize character and motives, till his hearers must
   have felt as if, in gauging, their inward being, the preacher had laid
   his hand, with intuitive discernment, on the deepest secrets of their
   bosom. Nor does this result from an affected refinement of metaphysical
   discussion and analysis; but from the simple adaptation of truth, so as
   to tell on the wide variety of human character. Among uninspired
   authors, it is pre-eminently true of Owen, that, by the manifestation
   of the truth, he commends himself to every man's conscience in the
   sight of God. At the same time, the highest qualities of thought and a
   rare knowledge of human nature are often evinced; and on perusing the
   sermons on Popery, "The Chamber of Imagery," and, "On the Authority of
   Scripture," the reader will be struck with the powers of sagacious and
   philosophic analysis displayed in the former, and with the logical
   point and acumen of the latter, -- stamping on them a freshness and
   value as continued and enduring as the importance of the great
   controversy itself to which they relate. The more, in short, these
   Discourses of Owen are studied, it will be found that their chief
   blemish -- if it be a blemish -- is the tendency of the author, in the
   fertility of his resources, to compress within the limits of one sermon
   what, to minds less affluent, would have furnished precious materials
   for several sermons; and though some may desiderate in them the minor
   graces of composition, it would be unwise to forget that, apart from
   any shapes of elegance and utility into which it may be fashioned by
   art, sterling gold, in the broad market of the world, will always
   command a value of its own.

   Editor.
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   [1] See Calamy's Account of Ministers Ejected, vol. ii. p. 56.

   [2] Sir John Hartopp. See vol. ix., p. 18.

   [3] See some excellent observations on his character as a pulpit
   orator, in the "Life of Owen," vol. i. p. 106.
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   Sermon I.

   A vision of unchangeable, free mercy, in sending the means of grace to
   undeserving sinners:

   wherein God's uncontrollable eternal purpose, in sending and continuing
   the gospel unto this nation, in the midst of oppositions and
   contingencies, is discovered; his distinguishing mercy in this great
   work exalted, asserted against opposers, repiners.

   whereunto is annexed

   a short defensative about church government, (with a country essay for
   the practice of church government there) toleration, and petitions
   about these things.
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Prefatory note.

   The occasion on which this sermon was delivered is mentioned in the
   "Life of Owen," vol. i., p. 34. From the title-page of the original
   edition of the sermon, Owen appears to have been "minister of the
   gospel at Coggeshall, in Essex," when it was published. By some
   inadvertency, Mr Orme, in his valuable memoir of our author, represents
   him as called to preach this sermon to the House of Commons before he
   left the parish of Fordham; a statement which can be reconciled with
   the original title-page only by the supposition that his removal to
   Coggeshall had occurred in the interval before the publication of the
   sermon. Asty, however, distinctly informs us that he was settled at
   Coggeshall when he first preached before the House of Commons.

   The sermon was preached on Wednesday the 29th of April 1646; and the
   time is important, as it was the close of the first civil war. During
   the previous month, Hopton and Astley, the last generals who kept the
   field in the interest of Charles I., had been compelled to surrender.
   "You have now done your work," said Astley to his victors, "and may go
   to play, -- unless you will fall out among yourselves." So truly was
   the work done, that Oliver Cromwell had returned to his place
   Parliament on the 22d of April, and on the following Monday the king
   left Oxford in disguise, and, after some hesitation of purpose, found
   his way to the Scots army.

   A sufficient interval had hardly elapsed to give Owen an opportunity of
   exhibiting in his sermon any reflection of these memorable events. It
   is perhaps more to his credit, that, when summoned from the obscurity
   of his pastoral duties at Coggeshall to preach the gospel in "the chief
   place of concourse," and before the rulers of the land, he seizes the
   opportunity to portray the spiritual destitution which existed in
   Wales, and large districts of England, and to make an appeal for
   "help," in a strain of holy fervour and commanding eloquence, that will
   bear comparison with the best productions of the British pulpit. The
   reasoning at the outset is somewhat abstract, -- not unsuited, perhaps,
   to an assembly of the leading men in the country; but throughout the
   discourse there is conspicuous that happy combination of argument and
   declamation which constitutes genuine oratory. Bogue and Bennett have
   remarked, "Those who are only acquainted with the general strain of
   Owen's writings, would not suppose him capable of pouring forth that
   flood of lucid, glowing, popular eloquence, which is displayed in this
   sermon." -- History of Dissenters, vol. 2, p. 228.

   In the "Defensative," or preface to the "Country Essay," etc., Owen
   assigns reasons on account of which he had not felt himself free to
   petition Parliament in reference to the establishment of an
   ecclesiastical polity for England. In the "Country Essay," etc., he
   condemns very strongly the infliction of civil penalties for religious
   belief. In the first part of it, he describes a form of church
   government which commended itself to his judgment. Owen purposely
   refrained from describing it either as Presbytery or Independency,
   deeming himself competent to satisfy all men respecting it; "unless
   such as shall be so simple or malicious as to ask whether this way be
   that of the Presbyterians or Independents." By his own admission, the
   scheme proposed in the "Essay" would not exactly agree with either of
   the two forms of church government which were then competing for
   national favour and the sanction of the state. There can be no doubt,
   however, that he was at this time undergoing the change of view which
   led him in the end to profess Congregationalism. It is simple justice
   to add, that a comparison of the "Country Essay" with his "Inquiry into
   Evangelical Churches," published towards the close of his life,
   effectually redeems his name from any charge of vacillation in regard
   to his church principles. The peculiar modifications which appear in
   the Congregationalism of Owen, are conspicuous elements in the first
   scheme of ecclesiastical polity which he ever broached. See also his
   "Review of the Nature of Schism," chap. ii., vol. xiii. -- Ed.
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   AMPLISSIMO

   SENATUI,

   INCLYTISSIMO POPULI ANGLICANI CONVENTUI,

   OB

   PRISCA ANGLO-BRITANNORUM JURA STRENUE ET FIDELITER ASSERTA;

   LIBERTATEM PATRIAM (NEFARUS QUORUNDAM MOLITONIBUS PAENE PESSUNDATAM)
   RECUPERATAM;

   JUSTITIAM FORTITER, isos, epieikos, aprosopoleptos ADMINSITRATAM;

   Archen IN ECCLESIASTICIS anieroturanniken DISSOLUTAM,

   RITUS PONTIFICIOS, NOVITIOS, ANTICHRISTIANOS ABOLITOS; PRIVILEGIA
   PLEBIS CHRISTIANAE POSTLIMINIO RESTITUTA;

   POTISSIMUM

   PROTECTIONEM DEI O. M. HIS OMNIBUS, ALUSQUE INNUMERIS, CONSILIO, BELLO,
   DOMI, FORAS GILATIOSE POTITAM;

   TOTO ORBE JURE MERITISSIMO CELEBERRIMO, TOTI HUIC INSULAE AETERNA
   MEMORIA RECOLENDO,

   VIRIS ILLUSTRIBUS, CLARISSIMUS, SELECTISSIMIS, EX ORDINE COMMUNIUM IN
   SUPREMA CURIA PARLIAM, CONGREGATIS,

   CONCIONEM HANC SACRAM, HUMILEM ILLAM QUIDEM, IPSORUM TAMEN VOTO
   JUSSUQUE PRIUS CORAM IPSIS HABITAM, NUNC LUCE DONATAM,

   D.D.C.

   JOANNES OWEN.
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   Die Mercurij 29 Aprilis, 1646.

   Ordered, by the Commons assembled in Parliament, That Mr Jenner and Sir
   Peter Wentworth do from this House give thanks to Mr Nalton and Mr Owen
   for the great pains they took in the sermons they preached this day, at
   the entreaty of this House (it being a day of public humiliation), at
   Margaret's, Westminster; and to desire them to print their sermons. And
   it is ordered that none shall presume to print their sermons without
   license under their handwriting.

   H. Elsyinge, Cler. Parl. D. Com.
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Sermon I. A vision of unchangeable, free mercy, in sending the means of grace to
undeserving sinners.

   "And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: There stood a man of
   Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help
   us." -- Acts xvi. 9.

   The kingdom of Jesus Christ is frequently in the Scripture compared to
   growing things, [4] -- small in the beginning and first appearance, but
   increasing by degrees unto glory and perfection. The shapeless stone
   [5] cut out without hands, having neither form nor desirable beauty
   given unto it, becomes a great mountain, filling the whole earth, Dan.
   ii. 35. The small vine brought out of Egypt quickly covers the hills
   with her shadow, -- her boughs reach unto the sea, and her branches
   unto the river, Ps. lxxx. 8. The tender plant [6] becomes as the cedars
   of God; and the grain of mustard-seed to be a tree for the fowls of the
   air to make their nests in the branches thereof. Mountains are made
   plains before it, every valley is filled, and the crooked paths made
   straight, that it may have a passage to its appointed period; -- and
   all this, not only not supported by outward advantages, but in direct
   opposition to the combined power [7] of this whole creation, as fallen
   and in subjection to the "god of this world," the head thereof. As
   Christ was "a tender plant," [8] seemingly easy to be broken; and "a
   root out of a dry ground," not easily flourishing, yet liveth for ever;
   [9] so his people and kingdom, -- though as a "lily among thorns," [10]
   as "sheep among wolves," [11] as a "turtledove" among a multitude of
   devourers, [12] -- yet stands unshaken, at least unshivered.

   The main ground and foundation of all this is laid out, verses 6-9 of
   this chapter, -- containing a rich discovery how all things here below,
   especially such as concern the gospel and Church of Christ, are carried
   along through innumerable varieties and a world of contingencies,
   according to the regular motions and goings forth of a free, eternal,
   unchangeable decree: as all inferior orbs, notwithstanding the
   eccentrics and irregularities of their own inhabitants, are orderly
   carried about by the first Mover.

   In verse 6, the planters of the gospel are "forbidden to preach the
   word in Asia" [13] (that part of it peculiarly so called); and, verse
   7, assaying to go with the same message into Bithynia, they are crossed
   by the Spirit in their attempts; but in my text are called to a place
   on which their thoughts were not at all fixed:-- which calling and
   which forbidding were both subservient to His free determination "who
   worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will," Eph. i.
   11.

   And no doubt but, in the dispensation of the gospel throughout the
   world, unto this day, there is the like conformity to be found to the
   pattern of God's eternal decrees; though to the messengers not made
   known aforehand by revelation, but discovered in the effects, by the
   mighty working of Providence.

   Amongst other nations, this is the day of England's visitation, "the
   Dayspring from on high" having visited this people, and "the Sun of
   righteousness" arising upon us "with healing in his wings;" [14] -- a
   man of England hath prevailed for assistance, and the free grace of God
   hath wrought us help by the gospel.

   Now, in this day three things are to be done, to keep up our spirits
   unto this duty, of brining down our souls by humiliation.

   First, To take us off the pride of our own performances, endeavours, or
   any adherent worth of our own: "Not for your sakes do I this, saith the
   Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own
   ways, O house of Israel," -- O house of England! Ezek. xxxvi. 32.

   Secondly, To root out that atheistical corruption which depresses the
   thoughts of men, not permitting them, in the highest products of
   Providence, to look above contingencies and secondary causes; -- though
   God "hath wrought all our works for us," Isa. xxvi. 12; and "known unto
   him are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18.

   Thirdly, To show that the bulk of this people are as yet in the
   wilderness, far from their resting-place, like sheep upon the
   mountains, as once Israel, Jer. l. 6, -- as yet wanting help by the
   gospel.

   The two first of these will be cleared by discovering how that all
   revolutions here below -- especially every thing that concerns the
   dispensation of the gospel and kingdom of the Lord Jesus -- are carried
   along according to the eternally fixed purpose of God, free in itself,
   taking neither rise, growth, cause, nor occasion, from any thing
   amongst the sons of men.

   The third, by laying open the helpless condition of gospel-wanting
   souls, with some particular application; to all which my text directly
   leads me.

   The words in general are the relation of a message from heaven unto
   Paul, to direct him in the publishing of the gospel, -- as to the place
   and persons wherein and to whom he was to preach. And in them you have
   these four things:--

   1. The manner of it; it was by vision -- "A vision appeared."

   2. The time of it, -- "In the night."

   3. The bringer of it, -- "A man of Macedonia."

   4. The matter of it, -- help for the Macedonians, interpreted, verse
   18, to be by preaching of the gospel.

   A little clearing of the words will make way for observations.

   1. For the manner of the delivery of this message, -- it was by vision.
   Of all the ways that God used of old to reveal himself unto any in an
   extraordinary manner, -- which were sundry and various, Heb. i. 1, --
   there was no one so frequent as this of vision. Wherein this did
   properly consist, and whereby it was distinguished from other ways of
   the discovery of the secrets of the Lord, I shall not now discuss. In
   general, visions are revelations of the mind of the Lord concerning
   some hidden things, present or future, and not otherwise to be known.
   And they were of two sorts.

   (1.) Revelations merely by word [15] or some other more internal
   species, [16] without any outward sensible appearance; which, for the
   most part, was the Lord's way of proceeding with the prophets; -- which
   transient light, or discovery of things before unknown, they called a
   vision. [17]

   (2.) Revelations accompanied with some sensible apparitions, and that
   either, --

   [1.] Of things; as usually, among the prophets, rods and pots, [18]
   wheels and trees, [19] lamps, axes, vessels, rams, goats, and the like,
   were presented unto them.

   [2.] Of persons; and those, according to the variety of them, of three
   sorts.

   1st, Of the second person of the Trinity; and this either, --

   First, In respect of some glorious beams of his Deity; as to Isa. vi.
   1, with John xii. 41; -- to Dan. x. 5, 6, -- as afterward to John, Rev.
   i. 13-15; to which you may add the apparitions of the glory of God not
   immediately designing the second person, as Ezek. i. 1.

   Secondly, With reference to his humanity to be assumed; as to Abraham,
   Gen. xviii. 1, 2; -- to Josh. v. 13-15, etc.

   2dly, Of angels; as unto Peter, Acts xii. 7; -- to the women, Matt.
   xxviii. 5; -- to John, Rev. xxii. 8, etc.

   3dly, Of men; [20] as in my text.

   Now, the several advancements of all these ways in dignity and
   pre-eminence, according as they clearly make out intellectual verity,
   or according to the honour and exaltation of that whereof apparition is
   made, are too fruitless a speculation [21] for this day's exercise.

   Our vision is of the latter sort, accompanied with a sensible
   appearance, and is called horama. There be two words in the New
   Testament signifying vision, horama and optasia, coming from different
   verbs, but both signifying to see. Some distinguish them, and say that
   optasia is a vision, -- kath' hupar, an appearance to a man awake;
   horama, -- kath' onar, an appearance to a man asleep, called sometimes
   a dream, Job xxxiii. 15, -- like that which was made to Joseph, Matt.
   ii. 19. But this distinction will not hold, our Saviour calling that
   vision which his disciples had at his transfiguration, when doubtless
   they were waking, horama, Matt. xvii. 9. So that I conceive Paul had
   his vision waking; -- and the night is specified as the time thereof,
   not to intimate his being asleep, but rather his watchfulness, seeking
   counsel of God in the night which way he should apply himself in the
   preaching of the gospel. And such I suppose was that of latter days,
   whereby God revealed to Zuinglius a strong confirmation of the doctrine
   of the Lord's supper, from Exod. xii. 11, against the factors for that
   monstrous figment of transubstantiation.

   2. For the second, or time of this vision, I need say no more than what
   before I intimated.

   3. The bringer of the message, -- aner tis en Makedon hestos, he was a
   man of Macedonia in a vision. The Lord made an appearance unto him as
   of a man of Macedonia, discovering even to his bodily eyes a man; and
   to his mind, that he was to be conceived as a man of Macedonia. This
   was, say some, [22] an angel; -- the tutelar angel of the place, say
   the popish expositors, [23] or the genius of the place, according to
   the phrase of the heathens, of whom they learned their demonology; --
   perhaps him, or his antagonist, that not long before appeared to Brutus
   [24] at Philippi. But these are pleasing dreams; -- us it may suffice
   that it was the appearance of a man, the mind of Paul being enlightened
   to apprehend him as a man [25] of Macedonia; and that with infallible
   assurance, such as usually accompanieth divine revelations in them to
   whom they are made, as Jer. xxiii. 28, -- for upon it Luke affirmeth,
   verse 10, they assuredly concluded that the Lord called them into
   Macedonia.

   4. The message itself is a discovery of the want of the Macedonians,
   and the assistance they required, which the Lord was willing should be
   imparted unto them. Their want is not expressed, but included in the
   assistance desired, and the person unto whom for it they were directed.
   Had it been to help them in their estates, they should scarcely have
   been sent to Paul, who, I believe, might for the most part say, with
   Peter, "Silver and gold have I none;" [26] -- or had it been with a
   complaint that they -- who from a province of Greece, in a corner of
   Europe, had on a sudden been exalted into the empire of the eastern
   world -- were now enslaved to the Roman power and oppression, they
   might better have gone to the Parthians, then the only state in the
   world formidable to the Romans. Paul, though a military man, yet fought
   not with Nero's legions, the then visible devil of the upper world; but
   with legions of hell, of whom the earth was now to be cleared. [27] It
   must be a soul-want, if he be entrusted with the supplying of it. And
   such this was, -- help from death, hell, Satan, from the jaws of that
   devouring lion. Of this the Lord makes them here to speak, what every
   one in that condition ought to speak, -- Help, for the Lord's sake. It
   was a call to preach the gospel.

   The words being opened, we must remember what was said before of their
   connection with the verses foregoing, -- wherein the preachers of the
   gospel are expressly hindered from above from going to other places,
   and called hither. Whereof no reason is assigned, but only the will of
   Him that did employ them; and that no other can be rendered I am
   farther convinced, by considering the empty conjectures of attempters.

   God foresaw that they would oppose the gospel, says our Beda. So, say
   I, might he of all nations in the world, had not he determined to send
   his effectual grace [28] for the removal of that opposition; besides,
   he grants the means of grace to despisers, Matt. xi. 21. -- They were
   not prepared for the gospel, says OEcumenius. As well, say I, as the
   Corinthians, whose preparations you may see, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11; or any
   other nation, as we shall afterward declare: yet to this foolish
   conjecture adhere the Papists and Arminians [29] -- God would have
   those places left for to be converted by John, says Sedulius; yet the
   church at Ephesus, the chief city of those parts, was planted by Paul,
   says Ignatius and Irenaeus. [30] -- He foresaw a famine to come upon
   those places, says Origen, from which he would deliver his own; and
   therefore, it seems, left them to the power of the devil. More such
   fancies [31] might we recount, of men unwilling to submit to the will
   of God; but upon that, as the sole discriminating cause of these
   things, we rest, and draw these three observations:--

   I. The rule whereby all things are dispensed here below, -- especially
   in the making out of the means of grace, -- is the determinate will and
   counsel of God. Stay not in Asia, go not into Bithynia, but come to
   Macedonia. "Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight."

   II. The sending of the gospel to any nation, place, or persons, rather
   than others, as the means of life and salvation, is of the mere free
   grace and good pleasure of God. "Stay not in Asia;" etc.

   III. No men in the world want help, like them that want the gospel.
   "Come and help us."

   I. Begin we with the first of these: The rule whereby, etc. All events
   and effects, especially concerning the propagation of the gospel and
   the Church of Christ, are, in their greatest variety, regulated by the
   eternal purpose and counsel of God. [32]

   All things below in their events are but the wax, [33] whereon the
   eternal seal of God's purpose hath left its own impression; and they
   every way answer unto it. It is not my mind to extend this to the
   generality of things in the world, nor to show how the creature can by
   no means deviate from that eternal rule of providence whereby it is
   guided; -- no more than an arrow can avoid the mark, after it hath
   received the impression of an unerring hand, -- or well-ordered wheels
   not turn according to the motion given them by the master-spring, -- or
   the wheels in Ezekiel's vision [34] move irregularly to the spirit of
   life that was in them. Nor yet, secondly, how that, on the other side,
   doth no way prejudice the liberty of second causes, [35] in their
   actions, agreeable to the natures they are endued withal. He who made
   and preserves the fire, and yet hinders not but that it should burn, or
   act necessarily agreeable to its nature; by his making, preserving, and
   guiding of men, hindereth not, yea, effectually causeth, that they work
   freely, agreeable to their nature. Nor yet, thirdly, to clear up what a
   straight line runs through all the darkness, confusion, and disorder in
   the world, [36] -- how absolutely, in respect of the first fountain and
   last tendency of things, there is neither deformity, fault, nor
   deviation, every thing that is amiss consisting in the transgression of
   a moral rule, which is the sin of the creature, [37] the first cause
   being free:-- as he that causeth a lame man to go, is the cause of his
   going, but not of his going lame; -- or the sun exhaling a smell from
   the kennel, is the cause of the smell, but not of its noisomeness; for
   from a garden his beams raise a sweet savour. Nothing is amiss but what
   goeth off from its own rule; which he cannot do who will do all his
   pleasure, [38] and knows no other rule.

   But omitting these things, I shall tie my discourse to that which I
   chiefly aimed at in my proposition; viz., to discover how the great
   variety which we see in the dispensation of the means of grace,
   proceedeth from, and is regulated by, some eternal purpose of God,
   unfolded in his word. To make out this, we must lay down three things.

   1. The wonderful variety in dispensing of the outward means of
   salvation, in respect of them unto whom they were granted, used by the
   Lord since the fall; -- I say, since the fall, for the grace of
   preserving from sin, and continuing with God, had been general,
   universally extended to every creature; but [as] for the grace of
   rising from sin, and coming again unto God, that is made exceeding
   various, by some distinguishing purpose.

   2. That this outward dispensation being presupposed, yet in effectual
   working upon, particular persons, there is no less variety; for "he
   hath mercy on whom he will have mercy."

   3. Discover the rules of this whole administration.

   1. For the first, The promise was at first made unto Adam, and by him
   doubtless conveyed to his issue, and preached to the several
   generations which his eyes beheld proceeding from his own loins; [39]
   but yet by the wickedness of the old world, all flesh corrupting their
   ways, we may easily collect that the knowledge of it quickly departed
   from the most; -- sin banishing the love of God from their hearts,
   hindered the knowledge of God from continuing in their minds. [40]
   After many revivings, by visions, revelations, and covenants, it was at
   length called in from the wide world, and wholly restrained to the
   house, family, and seed of Abraham, [41] with whom alone all the means
   of grace continued for thrice fourteen generations. They alone were in
   Goshen, and all the world besides in thick darkness; -- the dew of
   heaven was on them as the fleece, when else all the earth was dry. God
   "showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto
   Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation," Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20. The
   prerogative of the Jews was chiefly in this, that to them were
   committed the oracles of God, Rom. iii. 1. To them pertained "the
   adoption, and the glory, the covenants, and the giving of the law, and
   the service of God, and the promises," Rom. ix. 4. But when the fulness
   [42] of time came, the Son of God being sent in the likeness of sinful
   flesh, drew all men unto him; and God, who had before winked at the
   time of their ignorance, then called them every where to repent,
   commanding the gospel to be preached to the universality of reasonable
   creatures, and the way of salvation to be proclaimed unto all; -- upon
   which, in few years, the sound of the gospel went out into all nations,
   [43] and the Sun of righteousness displayed his beams upon the
   habitable parts of the earth. But yet once more this light, by Satan
   and his agents, persecutors and seducers, is almost extinguished, as
   was foretold, 2 Thess. ii., -- remaining but in few places, and burning
   dim where it was, -- the kingdom of the beast being full of darkness,
   Rev. xvi. 10. Yet God again raiseth up reformers, and by them kindles a
   light, we hope, never to be put out. But, alas! what a spot of ground
   doth this shine on, in comparison of the former vast extents and bounds
   of the Christian world! Now, is all this variety, think you, to be
   ascribed unto chance, as the philosopher thought the world was made by
   a casual concurrence of atoms? or hath the idol free-will, with the new
   goddess contingency, ruled in these dispensations? Truly neither the
   one nor the other, no more than the fly raised the dust by sitting on
   the chariot wheel; -- but all these things have come to pass according
   to a certain unerring rule, given them by God's determinate purpose and
   counsel.

   2. Presupposing this variety in the outward means, how is it that
   thereupon one is taken, another left? The promise is made known to Cain
   and Abel; -- one the first murderer, the other the first martyr. Jacob
   and Esau had the same outward advantages; but the one becomes Israel,
   the other Edom, -- the one inherits the promises, the other sells his
   right for a mess of pottage. At the preaching of our Saviour, some
   believed, some blasphemed; -- some said he was a good man; others said,
   nay, but he deceived the people. Have we not the word in its power this
   day, and do we not see the like various effects, -- some continuing in
   impenitency, others in sincerity closing with Jesus Christ? Now, what
   shall we say to these things? What guides these wheels? who thus steers
   his word for the good of souls? Why, this also, as I said before, is
   from some peculiarly distinguishing purpose of the will of God.

   3. To open the third thing proposed, I shall show, -- (1.) That all
   this variety is according to God's determinate purpose, and answereth
   thereunto; (2.) The particular purposes from whence this variety
   proceedeth.

   (1.) Eph. i. 11, "He worketh all things according to the counsel of his
   own will." As a man may be said to erect a fabric [44] according to the
   counsel of his will, when he frameth it before in his mind, and maketh
   all things in event answer his preconceived platform, -- all things
   (especially ta panta, all those things of which the apostle there
   treateth, gospel things) have their futurition and manner of being from
   his eternal purpose: [45] -- whence also is the idea in the mind of God
   of all things, with their circumstances, [46] that shall be; that is,
   the first mover, continuing itself immovable, giving to every thing a
   regular motion, according to the impression which from that it doth
   receive: "For known unto him are all his works from the beginning of
   the world," Acts xv. 18.

   If any attendants of actions might free and exempt them from the
   regular dependence we insist upon, they must be either contingency or
   sin; but yet for both these we have, besides general rules, clear,
   particular [47] instances. What seems more contingent and casual than
   the unadvised slaying of a man with the fall of the head of an axe from
   the helve, as a man was cutting wood by the way side? Deut. xix. 5; yet
   God assumes this as his own work, Exod. xxi. 13. The same may be said
   of free agents and their actions. And for the other, see Acts iv. 27,
   28, -- in the crucifying of the Son of God's love, -- all things came
   to pass according as his counsel had before deter -- mined that it
   should be done. Now, how in the one of these liberty is not abridged,
   the nature of things not changed in the other, sin is not countenanced,
   [48] belongs not to this discourse. "The counsel of the Lord," then,
   "standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart unto all generations,"
   Ps. xxxiii. 11. "His counsel standeth, and he will do all his
   pleasure," Isa. xlvi. 10. For he is the Lord, and he changeth not, Mal.
   iii. 6. With him is neither variableness nor shadow of turning, James
   i. 17. All things that are, come to pass in that unchangeable method in
   which he hath laid them down from all eternity.

   (2.) Let us look peculiarly upon the purposes according to which the
   dispensations of the gospel, both in sending and withholding it, do
   proceed.

   [1.] For the not sending of the means of grace unto any people, whereby
   they hear not the joyful sound of the gospel, but have in all ages
   followed dumb idols, as many do unto this day. In this chapter of which
   we treat, the gospel is forbidden to be preached in Asia and Bithynia;
   -- which restraint, the Lord by his providence as yet continues to many
   parts of the world. Now, the purpose from whence this proceedeth, and
   whereby it is regulated, you have, Rom. ix. 22, "What if God, willing
   to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much
   long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" compared
   with Matt. xi. 25, 26, "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
   prudent. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight;" and with
   Acts xiv. 16, -- he "suffered all nations to walk in their own ways."
   [49] Now, God's not sending the truth, hath the same design and aim
   with his sending the efficacy of error; viz., "that they all may be
   damned" who have it not; "there being no other name under heaven,
   whereby they may be saved," but only that which is not revealed unto
   them; -- God, in the meantime, being no more the cause [50] of their
   sins, for which they incur damnation, than the sun is the cause of cold
   and darkness, which follow the absence thereof: or he is the cause of a
   man's imprisonment for debt, who will not pay his debt for him, though
   he be no way obliged so to do. So, then, the not sending of the gospel
   to any people, is an act regulated by that eternal purpose of God
   whereby he determineth to advance the glory of his justice, by
   permitting some men to sin, to continue in their sin, and for sin to
   send them to their own place; -- as a king's not sending a pardon to
   condemned malefactors is an issue of his purpose that they shall die
   for their faults. When you see the gospel strangely, and through
   wonderful varieties and unexpected providences, carried away from a
   people, know that the spirit which moves in those wheels is that
   purpose of God which we have recounted.

   [2.] To some people, to some nations, the gospel is sent. God calls
   them to repentance and acknowledgment of the truth, -- as in my text,
   Macedonia: and England, the day wherein we breathe. Now, there is in
   this a twofold aim. 1. Peculiar, towards some in their conversion. 2.
   General, towards all, for conviction. And therefore it is acted
   according to a twofold purpose, which carries it along, and is
   fulfilled thereby.

   First, His purpose of saving [51] some in and by Jesus Christ,
   effectually to bring them unto himself, for the praise of his glorious
   grace. Upon whomsoever the seal of the Lord is stamped, that God knows
   them, and owns them as his, to them he will cause his gospel to be
   revealed. Acts xviii. 10, Paul is commanded to abide at Corinth, and to
   preach there, because God had much people in that city. Though the
   devil had them in present possession, [52] yet they were God's in his
   eternal counsel. And such as these they were for whose sake the man of
   Macedonia is sent on his message. Have you never seen the gospel hover
   about a nation, now and then about to settle, and anon scared and upon
   wing again; yet working through difficulties, making plains of
   mountains and filling valleys, overthrowing armies, putting aliens to
   flight, and at length taking firm root like the cedars of God? Truly if
   you have not, you are strangers to the place wherein you live. Now,
   what is all this but the working of the purpose of God to attain its
   proposed end, of gathering his saints to himself? In the effectual
   working of grace also for conversion and salvation, whence do you think
   it takes its rule and determination, in respect of particular objects,
   that it should be directed to John, not Judas, -- Simon Peter, not
   Simon Magus? Why, only from this discriminating [53] counsel of God
   from eternity, to bring the one and not the other to himself by Christ.
   "The Lord added to the church such as should be saved," Acts ii. 47.
   The purpose of saving is the rule of adding to the church of believers.
   And Acts xiii. 48, "As many believed as were ordained to eternal life."
   Their fore-ordaining to life eternal gives them right to faith and
   belief. The purpose of God's election is the rule of dispensing saving
   grace.

   Secondly, His purpose of leaving some inexcusable [54] in their sins,
   for the farther manifestation of his glorious justice, is the rule of
   dispensing the word unto them. Did you never see the gospel sent or
   continued to an unthankful people, [55] bringing forth no fruits meet
   for it? Wherefore it is so sent, see Isa. vi. 9, 10; -- which prophecy
   you have fulfilled, John xii. 37-41; in men described, Jude 4, and 1
   Pet. ii. 8. But here we must strike sail, the waves swell, and it is no
   easy task to sail in this gulf. The righteousness of God is a great
   mountain, easy to be seen; but his judgments are like the great deep:
   who can search into the bottom thereof? Ps. xxxvi. 6. And so I have, I
   hope, discovered how all things here below, concerning the promulgation
   of the gospel, are, in their greatest variety, straightly regulated by
   the eternal purposes and counsel of God.

   The uses of it follow.

   Use 1. To discover whence it is that the work of reforming the worship
   of God, and settling the almost departing gospel, hath so powerfully
   been carried along in this nation; -- that a beautiful fabric is seen
   to arise in the midst of all oppositions, with the confusion of axes
   and hammers sounding about it, though the builders have been forced
   oftentimes, not only with one hand, but with both, to hold the weapons
   [56] of war; -- that although the wheels of our chariots have been
   knocked off, and they driven heavily, yet the regular motions of the
   superior wheels of providence have carried on the design towards the
   resting-place aimed at; -- that the ship hath been directed to the
   port, though the storm had quite puzzled the pilots and mariners:--
   even from hence, that all this great variety was but to work out one
   Certain fore-appointed end, proceeding in the tracts and paths which
   were traced out for it from eternity; which, though they have seemed to
   us a maze or labyrinth, such a world of contingencies and various
   chances hath the work passed through, yet, indeed, all the passages
   thereof have been regular and straight, answering the platform laid
   down for the whole in the counsel of God. Dan. ix. 1, makes his
   supplication for the restoration of Jerusalem; verse 23, an angel is
   sent to tell him, that "at the beginning of his supplication the
   commandment came forth," -- viz., that it should be accomplished. It
   was before determined, and is now set on work; but yet what mountains
   [57] of opposition, what hinderances lay in the way! Cyrus must come to
   the crown by the death or slaughter of Darius, [58] -- his heart be
   moved to send some to the work: in a short time Cyrus is cut off. Now,
   difficulties arise from the following kings:-- what their flattering
   counsellors, what the malignant nations about them conspired, the books
   of Nehemiah and Ezra sufficiently declare. Whence, verse 25, the angel
   tells Daniel, that from "the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem
   unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks; the
   street shall be built again, and the wall, in troublesome times;" that
   is, it shall be seven weeks to the finishing of Jerusalem, and thence
   to Messiah the Prince sixty-two weeks; -- seven weeks, that is,
   forty-nine years; for so much it was from the decree of Cyrus [59] to
   the finishing of the wall by Nehemiah: of which time the temple, as the
   Jews affirmed, was all but three years in building, John ii. 20. During
   which space, how often did the hearts of the people of God faint in
   their troubles, as though they should never have seen an end! And
   therefore, ever and anon they were ready to give over, as Hag. i. 2.
   But yet we see the decree was fixed, and all those varieties did but
   orderly work in an exact method for the glorious accomplishment of it.

   England's troubles have not yet endured above half the odd years of
   those reformers' task; yet, good God! how short-breathed are men! What
   fainting is there! what repining, what grudging against the ways of the
   Lord! But let me tell you, that as the water in the stream will not go
   higher than the head of the fountain, no more will the work in hand be
   carried one step higher or beyond the aim of its fountain, the counsel
   of God, from whence it hath its rise. And yet, as a river will break
   through all oppositions, and swell to the height of mountains, to go to
   the sea from whence it came; so will the stream of the gospel, when it
   comes out from God, break down all mountains of opposition, and not be
   hindered from resting in its appointed place. It were an easy thing to
   recall your minds to some trembling periods of time, when there was
   trembling in our armies, and trembling in our councils, -- trembling to
   be ashamed, to be repented of, -- trembling in the city and in the
   country; and men were almost at their wits' end for the sorrows and
   fears of those days: and yet we see how the unchangeable purpose of God
   hath wrought strongly through all these straits, from one end to
   another, that nothing might fall to the ground of what he had
   determined. If a man, in those days, had gone about to persuade us that
   all our pressures were good omens, that they all wrought together for
   our good, we could have been ready to cry, with the woman who, when she
   had recounted her griefs to the physician, and he still replied they
   were good signs, oi moi agathon apollumai, "Good signs have undone me,"
   -- These good signs will be our ruin: yet, behold, we hope the
   contrary. Our day hath been like that mentioned, Zech. xiv. 6, 7, -- a
   day whose light is neither clear nor dark, -- a day known only to the
   Lord, seeming to us to be neither day nor night. But God knew all this
   while that it was a day, -- he saw how it all wrought for the appointed
   end; and in the evening, in the close, it will be light, so light as to
   be to us discernible. In the meantime we are like unskilful men, [who]
   going to the house of some curious artist, so long as he is about his
   work, despise it as confused; but when it is finished, admire it as
   excellent:-- whilst the passages of providence are on us, all is
   confusion; but when the fabric is reared, glorious.

   Use 2. Learn to look upon the wisdom of God in carrying all things
   through this wonderful variety, exactly to answer his own eternal
   purpose; -- suffering so many mountains to lie in the way of reforming
   his churches and settling the gospel, that his Spirit may have the
   glory, and his people the comfort in their removal. It is a high and
   noble contemplation, to consider the purposes of God, so far as by the
   event revealed, and to see what impressions his wisdom and power do
   leave upon things accomplished here below, -- to read in them a
   temporary history of his eternal counsels. Some men may deem it
   strange, that his determinate will, which gives rule to these things,
   and could in a word have reached its own appointment, should carry his
   people so many journeys in the wilderness, and keep us thus long in so
   low estate. I say, -- not to speak of his own glory, which hath
   sparkled forth of this flinty opposition, -- there be divers things,
   things of light, for our good, which he hath brought forth out of all
   that darkness wherewith we have been overclouded. Take a few instances.

   (1.) If there had been no difficulties, there had been no deliverances.
   And did we never find our hearts so enlarged towards God upon such
   advantages, as to say, Well, this day's temper of spirit was cheaply
   purchased by yesterday's anguish and fear; -- that was but a being sick
   at sea?

   (2.) Had there been no tempests and storms, we had not made out for
   shelter. Did you never run to a tree for shelter in a storm, and find
   fruit which you expected not? Did you never go to God for safeguard in
   these times, [60] driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected
   fruit, the "peaceable fruit of righteousness," [61] that made you say,
   Happy tempest, which cast me into such a harbour? It was a storm [62]
   that occasioned the discovery of the golden mines of India; -- hath not
   a storm driven some to the discovery of the richer mines of the love of
   God in Christ?

   (3.) Had not Esau come against him with four hundred men, Jacob had not
   been called Israel; -- he had not been put to it to try his strength
   with God, and so to prevail. Who would not purchase with the greatest
   distress that heavenly comfort which is in the return of prayers? The
   strength of God's Jacobs in this kingdom had not been known, if the
   Esaus had not come against them. Some say, this war hath made a
   discovery of England's strength, what it is able to do. I think so
   also, -- not what armies it can raise against men, but with what armies
   of prayers and tears it is able to deal with God. Had not the brethren
   strove in the womb, Rebekah had not asked, "Why am I thus?" -- nor
   received that answer, "The elder shall serve the younger." Had not two
   sorts of people struggled in the womb of this kingdom, we had not
   sought, nor received, such gracious answers. Thus do all the various
   motions of the lower wheels serve for our good, and exactly answer the
   impression they receive from the master-spring, the eternal purpose of
   God. Of this hitherto.

   II. The sending of the gospel to any one nation rather than another, as
   the means of life and salvation, is of the mere free grace and good
   pleasure of God.

   Now; before I come to make out the absolute independency and freedom of
   this distinguishing mercy, I shall premise three things.

   1. That the not sending of the gospel to any person or people is of
   God's mere good pleasure, [63] and not of any peculiar distinguishing
   demerit in that person or people. No man or nation doth "majorem ponere
   obicem," lay more or greater obstacles against the gospel than another.
   There is nothing imaginable to lay a block in the passage thereof but
   only sin. Now, these sins are, or may be, of two sorts; -- either,
   first, Against the gospel itself, which may possibly hinder the
   receiving of the gospel, but not the sending of it, which it
   presupposeth: secondly, Against the covenant they are under, and the
   light they are guided by, before the beams of the gospel shine upon
   them. Now, in these generally all are equal, [64] all having sinned and
   come short of the glory of God; and in particular sins against the law
   and light of nature, no nations have gone farther than they which were
   soonest enlightened with the word, as afterward will appear: so that
   the sole cause of this is the good pleasure of God, as our Saviour
   affirmeth, Matt. xi. 25, 26.

   2. That sins against the covenant of works, which men are under before
   the gospel [65] comes unto them, cannot have any general demerit, that
   the means of life and salvation by free grace should not be imparted to
   them. It is true, all nations have deserved to be turned into hell, and
   a people that have had the truth, and detained it in ungodliness,
   deserve to be deprived of it; -- the first, by virtue of the sanction
   of the first broken covenant; the other, by sinning against that which
   they had of the second. But that men in a fallen condition, and not
   able to rise, should hereby deserve not to be helped up, needeth some
   distinction to clear it.

   There is, then, a twofold demerit and indignity; -- one merely
   negative, or a not deserving to have good done unto us; the other
   positive, deserving that good should not be done unto us. The first of
   these is found in all the world, in respect of the dispensation of the
   gospel. If the Lord should bestow it only on those who do deserve it,
   he must for ever keep it closed up in the eternal treasure of his own
   bosom. The second is found directly in none, in respect of that
   peculiar way which is discovered in the gospel, because they had not
   sinned against it; which, rightly considered, gives no small lustre to
   the freedom of grace.

   3. That there is a right in the gospel, and a fitness in that gracious
   dispensation to be made known to all people in the world; that no
   singular portion of the earth should be any longer a holy land, or any
   mountain of the world lift up its head above its fellows. And this
   right hath a double foundation.

   (1.) The infinite value and worth of the blood of Christ, giving
   fulness [66] and fitness to the promises founded thereon to be
   propounded to all mankind; for through his blood remission of sins is
   preached to whosoever believes on him, Acts x. 43, -- "to every
   creature," Mark xvi. 15. God would have a price of that infinite value
   for sin laid down, as might justly give advantage to proclaim a pardon
   infinitely to all that will come in and accept of it, -- there being in
   it no defect at all (though intentionally only a ransom for some), but
   that by it the world might know that he had done whatsoever the Father
   commanded him, John xiv. 31.

   (2.) In that economy and dispensation of the grace of the new covenant,
   breaking forth in these latter days, whereby all external distinction
   of places and persons, [67] people and nations, being removed, Jesus
   Christ taketh all [68] nations to be his inheritance, dispensing to all
   men the grace of the gospel, bringing salvation, as seemeth best to
   him, Tit. ii. 11, 12. For being lifted up, he drew all unto him, having
   redeemed us with his blood, "out of every kindred and tongue, people
   and nation," Apoc. v. 9. And on these two grounds it is that the gospel
   hath in itself a right and fitness to be preached to all, even as many
   as the Lord our God shall call.

   These things being premised, I come to the proof of the assertion.

   Deut. vii. 7, 8. Moses is very careful in sundry places to get this to
   take an impression upon their spirits, that it was mere free grace that
   exalted them into that condition and dignity wherein they stood, by
   their approach unto God, in the enjoyment of his ordinances; -- in this
   most clearly rendering the cause of God's love in choosing them,
   mentioned, verse 7, to be only his love. Verse 8, his love towards them
   is the cause of his love, -- his free love eternally determining, his
   free love actually conferring, those distinguishing mercies upon them.
   It was not for their righteousness, for they were a stiff-necked
   people, Deut. ix. 6.

   Matt. xi. 25, 26: Our Saviour laying both these things together, the
   hiding of the mysteries of salvation from some, and revealing them to
   others, renders the same reason and supreme cause of both, of which no
   account can be rendered, only the good pleasure of God: "I thank thee,
   O Father." And if any will proceed higher, and say, Where is the
   justice of this, that men equally obnoxious should be thus unequally
   accepted? we say, with Paul, "That he will have mercy on whom he will
   have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. And who art thou, O man,
   that disputest against God?" "Si tu es homo, et ego homo, audiamus
   dicentem, O homo, Tu quis?" [69] To send a pardon to some that are
   condemned, suffering the rest to suffer, hath no injustice. If this
   will not satisfy, let us say, with the same apostle, O bathos, Rom. xi.
   33, "O the depth," etc.

   Yea, so far is it from truth, that God should dispense and grant his
   word and means of grace by any other rule, or upon any other motive,
   than his own will and good pleasure, [70] that we find in Scripture the
   direct contrary to what we would suppose, even mercy showed to the more
   unworthy, and the more worthy passed by; reckoning worthiness and
   unworthiness by less or greater sin, with less or more endeavours.
   Christ preaches to Chorazin and Bethsaida, which would not repent; and
   at the same time denies the word to Tyre and Sidon, which would have
   gotten on sackcloth and ashes, when the other continued delicate
   despisers, Matt. xi. 21. Ezekiel is sent to them that would not hear
   him, passing by them that would have hearkened, chap. iii. 5; which is
   most clear, Rom. ix. 30, 31, "The Gentiles, which followed not after
   righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness
   which is of faith; but Israel, which followed after the law of
   righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness." If, in
   the dispensation of the gospel, the Lord had had any respect to the
   desert of people, Corinth, that famous place of sinning, had not so
   soon enjoyed it, -- the people whereof, for worship, were led away with
   dumb idols, 1 Cor. xii. 2; and for their lives, you have them drawn to
   the life, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11, "Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers;
   effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous,
   drunkards, revilers, extortioners," kai tauta tines ete, which is to be
   repeated, apo tou koinou, -- "Some of you were fornicators, some
   idolaters; but ye are sanctified." Seem not these to the eye of flesh
   goodly qualifications for the gospel of Jesus Christ? Had these men
   been dealt withal according as they had disposed themselves, not fitter
   fuel for hell could the justice of God require; but yet ye see to these
   the gospel comes with the first, "a light shines to them that sit in
   darkness and in the shadow of death."

   If God send or grant the gospel, which is the means of grace, upon any
   other ground but his mere good pleasure, then it must be an act of
   remunerative justice. [71] Now, there is no such justice in God towards
   the creature, but what is founded upon some preceding covenant, or
   promise of God to the creature, -- which is the only foundation of all
   relation between God and man, -- but only those that attend creation
   and sovereignty. Now, what promise do you find made to, or covenant
   with, a people as yet without the gospel; -- I mean conditional
   promises, inferring any good to be bestowed on any required performance
   on their part? Free, absolute promises there are innumerable, that
   light should shine to them that were in darkness, and those be called
   God's people which were not his people; but such as depend on any
   condition on their part to be fulfilled, we find none. God bargains
   [72] not with the creature about the gospel, knowing how unable he is
   to be merchant for such pearls. If a man had all that goodness which
   may be found in man without Jesus Christ, they would not in the least
   measure procure a discovery of him.

   I deny not but God may, and perhaps sometimes doth, reveal himself to
   some in a peculiar and extraordinary manner. Whereunto tends that story
   in Aquinas, [73] of a corpse taken up in the days of Constantine and
   Irene, with a plate of gold, and this inscription on it, "Christus
   nascetur ex virgine, ego credo in illum. O sol sub Irenae et
   Constantini temporibus iterum me videbis." But that this should be
   regular unto men living, meta logou, in Justin Martyr's phrase, [74] or
   using their naturals aright (which is impossible they should, the right
   use of naturals depending on supernaturals), is wide from the word.

   If there be any outward motive of granting the gospel unto any, it is
   some acceptable performances of theirs, holding up to the rule and will
   of God. Now, this will and rule having no saving revelation but by the
   gospel, which should thus be procured by acts agreeable unto it, makes
   up a flat contradiction, -- supposing the revelation of the gospel
   before it be revealed. Doubtless, according to all rules of justice to
   us made known, it is an easier thing to deserve heaven by obedience now
   under the covenant of works, than being under that covenant, to do any
   thing that might cause a new way of salvation, such as the gospel is,
   to be revealed.

   With some observations I descend to application.

   [1.] There is the same reason of continuing the gospel unto a people as
   of sending it; especially if oppositions rise high, apt and able in
   themselves for its removal. Never nation as yet enjoyed the word that
   deserved the continuance of the word. God hath always [75] something
   against a people, to make the continuing of his grace to be of grace,
   the not removing of his love to be merely of love, and the preaching of
   the gospel to be a mercy of the gospel, free and undeserved. Though
   there be work, and labour, and patience for Christ's sake at Ephesus;
   yet there is somewhat against Ephesus, Rev. ii. 4, 5, for which he
   might justly remove his candlestick; and if he doth it not, it is of
   the same mercy that first set it there. As God lays out goodness and
   grace in the entrance; so patience, long-suffering, and forbearance in
   the continuance. He bears with our manners, whilst we grieve his
   Spirit. Look upon the face of this kingdom, and view the body of the
   people; think of the profaneness, villany, trampling upon the blood of
   Jesus, ignorance, contempt of God and his ways, despising his
   ordinances, reviling his servants, branding and defaming the power of
   godliness, persecuting and tearing one another, -- and yet hear the
   joyful sound of the word in every corner; and you will quickly
   conclude, that you see a great fight of God's love against our sins,
   and not of our goodness for his love.

   [2.] There is the same reason of the reformation and the doctrine of
   the gospel corrupted with error, and of the worship of God collapsed
   with superstition, as of the first implantation of the gospel. God, in
   his just judgment of late ages, had sent upon the western world the
   efficacy of error, that they should believe lies, because they received
   not the love of the truth; as he foretold, 2 Thess. ii. 1. Now, whence
   is it that we see some of the nations thereof as yet suffered to walk
   in their own ways, others called to repentance, -- some wildernesses
   turned into green pastures for the flock of God, and some places made
   barren wildernesses for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? How
   comes it that this island glories in a reformation, and Spain sits
   still in darkness? Is it because we were better than they, or less
   engaged in antichristian delusions? Doubtless no. No nation in the
   world drank deeper of that cup of abomination. It was a proverbial
   speech amongst all, "England was our good ass" (a beast of burden) for
   (Antichrist whom they called) the Pope. Nothing but the good pleasure
   of God and Christ, freely coming to refine us, Mal. iii. 1-4, caused
   this distinction.

   [3.] Though men can do nothing towards the procuring of the gospel, yet
   men may do much for the expulsion of the gospel. If the husbandmen
   prove idle or self-seekers, the vineyard will be let to others; and if
   the people love darkness more than light, the candlestick will be
   removed. Let England beware! Now this men may do, either upon the first
   entrance of the gospel, or after some continuance of it. The gospel
   spreading itself over the earth, finds entertainment, like that of
   men's seeking plantations amongst barbarous nations; sometimes kept out
   with hideous outcries at the shore, -- sometimes suffered to enter with
   admiration, and a little after violently assaulted.

   1st, In the first way, how do we find the Jews putting far from them
   the word of life, and rejecting the counsel of God at its first
   entrance, -- calling for night at the rising of the sun! Hence, Acts
   xiii. 41, Paul concludes his sermon to thorn with, "Behold, ye
   despisers, and wonder, and perish;" -- and verse 46, it was necessary
   the word should be preached to them; but seeing they judged themselves
   unworthy, they were forsaken; -- and verse 51, they shake off the dust
   of their feet against them, -- a common symbol in those days of the
   highest indignation and deepest curse. The like stubbornness we find in
   them, Acts xxviii.; whereupon the apostle wholly turned himself to the
   Gentiles, verse 28. How many nations of Europe, at the beginning of the
   Reformation, rejected the gospel of God, and procured Christ, with the
   Gadarenes, to depart as soon as he was entered, will be found at the
   last day written with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus that suffered
   amongst them!

   2dly, After some continuance. So the Church of Laodicea, having for a
   while enjoyed the word, fell into such a tepid condition, -- so little
   moved with that fire that Christ came to send upon the earth, Rev. iii.
   15, 16, -- that the Lord was even sick and weary with bearing them. The
   Church of Rome, famous at the first, yet quickly, by the advantage of
   outward supportments and glorious fancies, became head of that fatal
   rebellion against Jesus Christ, [76] which spread itself over most of
   the churches in the world; -- God hereupon sending upon them the
   "efficacy of error to believe a lie, that they all might be damned that
   believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness," 2 Thess.
   ii. 1, -- suffering them to retain the empty names of Church and
   Gospel; which, because they usurp only for their advantage here, to
   appear glorious, the Lord will use for the advancing of his justice
   hereafter, to show them inexcusable. O Lord, how was England of late,
   by thy mercy, delivered from this snare! A captain being chosen for the
   return of this people into Egypt, O how hath thy grace fought against
   our backsliding! And let none seek to extenuate this mercy, by
   catalogues of errors still amongst us: there is more danger of apostasy
   against Christ, and rebellion against the truth, in one Babylonish
   error, owned by men pretending to power and jurisdiction over others,
   than in five hundred scattered amongst inconsiderable, disunited
   individuals. I would to God we could all speak and think the same
   things, -- that we were all of one mind, even in the most minute
   differences that are now amongst us. But yet the truth is, the kingdom
   of Jesus Christ never shakes amongst a people until men, pretending to
   act with a combined mixed power of heaven and earth, unto which all
   sheaves must bow or be thrashed, do, by virtue of this trust, set up
   and impose things or opinions deviating from the rule. As it was in the
   Papacy, errors owned by mixed associations, civil and ecclesiastical,
   are for the most part incurable, be they never so absurd and foolish;
   of which the Lutheran ubiquities and consubstantiation are a tremendous
   example. These things being presupposed, --

   Use 1. Let no flesh glory in themselves, but let every mouth be
   stopped; for we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Who
   hath made the possessors of the gospel to differ from others? or what
   have they that they have not received? 1 Cor. iv. 7. Why are these
   things hidden from the great and wise of the world, and revealed to
   babes and children, but because, O Father, so it pleased thee? Matt.
   xi. 26. "He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he
   hardeneth," Rom. ix. 18. Ah, Lord, if the glory and pomp of the world
   might prevail with thee to send thy gospel, it would supply the room of
   the cursed Alkoran, and spread itself in the palaces of that strong
   lion of the east who sets his throne upon the necks of kings; but,
   alas! Jesus Christ is not there. If wisdom, learning, pretended
   gravity, counterfeit holiness, real policy, were of any value in thine
   eyes to procure the word of life, it would be as free and glorious at
   Rome as ever; but, alas! Antichrist hath his throne there. Jesus Christ
   is not there. If will-worship and humilities, neglect of the body,
   macerations, superstitions, beads, and vainly-repeated prayers, had any
   efficacy before the Lord, the gospel, perhaps, might be in the cells of
   some recluses and monks; but, alas! Jesus Christ is not there. If moral
   virtues to an amazement, exact civil honesty and justice, that soul of
   human society, could have prevailed aught, the heathen worthies in the
   days of old had had the promises; but, alas! Jesus Christ was far away.
   Now, if all these be passed by, to whom is the report of the Lord made
   known? to "whom is his arm revealed?" Why, to a handful of poor sinners
   amongst the nations formerly counted fierce and barbarous. [77] And
   what shall we say to these things? -- O bathos, "O the depth," etc.

   Use 2. Let England consider with fear and trembling the dispensation
   that it is now under; -- I say, with fear and trembling, for this day
   is the Lord's day, wherein he will purge us or burn us, according as we
   shall be found silver or dross:-- it is our day, wherein we must mend
   or end. Let us look to the rock from whence we were hewed, and the hole
   of the pit from whence we were digged. Was not our father an Amorite,
   and our mother an Hittite? Are we not the posterity of idolatrous
   progenitors? [78] -- of those who worshipped them who by nature were no
   gods? How often, also, hath this land forfeited the gospel! God having
   taken it twice away, who is not forward to seize upon the forfeiture.
   In the very morning of the gospel, the Sun of righteousness shone upon
   this land; and they say the first potentate on the earth that owned it
   was in Britain. [79] But as it was here soon professed, so it was here
   soon abused; that part of this island which is called England being the
   first place I read of which was totally bereaved of the gospel, -- the
   sword of the then pagan Saxons fattening the land with the blood of the
   Christian inhabitants, [80] and in the close wholly subverting the
   worship of God. Long it was not ere this cloud was blown over; and
   those men who had been instruments to root out others submitted their
   own necks to the yoke of the Lord; and, under exceeding variety in
   civil affairs, enjoyed the word of Mace, until, by insensible degrees,
   like summer unto winter, or light unto darkness, it gives place to
   antichristian superstition, and left the land in little less than a
   paganish darkness, drinking deep of the cup of abominations mingled for
   it by the Roman harlot. And is there mercy yet in God to recover a
   twice over lost backsliding people? Might not the Lord have said unto
   us, What shall I do unto thee, O island? How shall I make thee as
   Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? But his heart is turned within
   him, his repentings are kindled together: the dry bones shall live, and
   the fleece shall be wet, though all the earth be dry. God will again
   water his garden, once more purge his vineyard, -- once more of his own
   accord he will take England upon liking, though he had twice deservedly
   turned it out of his service. So that, "coming as a refiner's fire, and
   as fuller's soap, to purify the sons of Levi, to purge them as gold and
   silver, to offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness," to reform
   his churches, England, as soon as any, hath the benefit and comfort
   thereof. Nay, the reformation of England shall be more glorious than of
   any nation in the world, being carried on neither by might nor power,
   but only by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts. But is this the utmost
   period of England's sinning, and God's showing mercy, in continuing and
   restoring of the gospel? No, truly: we again in our days have made
   forfeiture of the purity of his worship, by an almost universal
   treacherous apostasy; from which the free grace and good pleasure of
   God hath made a great progress again towards a recovery.

   There are two sorts of men that I find exceedingly ready to extenuate
   and lessen the superstition and popish tyranny of the former days, into
   which we were falling.

   (1.) Such as were industriously instrumental in it, whose suffrages had
   been loud for the choice of a captain to return into Egypt, -- men
   tainted with the errors and loaded with the preferments of the times;
   with all those who blindly adhere to that faction of men who as yet
   covertly drive on that design:-- to such as these all was nothing, and
   to them it is no mercy to be delivered. And the truth is, it is a
   favour to the lamb, and not the wolf, to have him taken out of his
   mouth; but these men have interest by those things which have no ears,
   against which there is no contending.

   (2.) Such as are disturbed in their optics, or have gotten false
   glasses, [81] representing all things unto them in dubious colours.
   Which way soever they look, they can see nothing but errors, -- errors
   of all sizes, sorts, sects, and sexes, -- errors and heresies from the
   beginning to the end; which have deceived some men, not of the worst,
   and made them think that all before was nothing, in comparison of the
   present confusion. A great sign they felt it not, or were not troubled
   at it; as if men should come into a field, and seeing some red weeds
   and cockle among the corn, should instantly affirm there is no corn
   there, but all weeds, and that it were much better the hedges were
   down, and the whole field laid open to the boars of the forest: but the
   harvest will one day show the truth of these things. But that these
   apprehensions may not too much prevail, to the vilifying and
   extenuating of God's mercy, in restoring to us the purity and liberty
   of the gospel, give me leave, in a few words, to set out the danger of
   that apostasy from which the good pleasure of God hath given us a
   deliverance. I shall instance only in a few things. Observe then, that,
   --

   [1.] The darling errors of late years were all of them stones of the
   old Babel, closing and coupling with that tremendous fabric which the
   man of sin had erected to dethrone Jesus Christ, -- came out of the
   belly of that Trojan horse, that fatal engine, which was framed to
   betray the city of God. They were popish errors, such as whereof that
   apostasy did consist which only is to be looked upon as the great
   adverse state of the kingdom of the Lord Christ. For a man to be
   disorderly in a civil state, yea, oftentimes through turbulency to
   break the peace, is nothing to an underhand combination with some
   formidable enemy for the utter subversion of it. Heedless and headless
   errors may breed disturbance enough, in scattered individuals, unto the
   people of God; but such as tend to a peace and association "cum
   ecclesia malignantium," tending to a total subversion of the sacred
   state, are far more dangerous. Now, such were the innovations of the
   late hierarchists. In worship, their paintings, [82] crossings,
   crucifixes, bowing, cringings, altars, tapers, wafers, organs, anthems,
   litany, rails, images, copes, vestments, -- what were they but Roman
   varnish, an Italian dress for our devotion, to draw on conformity with
   that enemy of the Lord Jesus? In doctrine, the divinity of Episcopacy,
   auricular confession, free-will, predestination on faith, yea, works
   foreseen, "limbus patrum," justification by works, falling from grace,
   authority of a church, which none knew what it was, canonical
   obedience, holiness of churches, and the like innumerable, -- what were
   they but helps to Sancta Clara, to make all our articles of religion
   speak good Roman Catholic? How did their old father of Rome refresh his
   spirit, to see such chariots as those provided to bring England again
   unto him! This closing with Popery was the sting in the errors of those
   days, which cause pining, if not death, in the episcopal pot.

   [2.] They were such as raked up the ashes of the ancient worthies,
   whose spirits God stirred up to reform his church, and rendered them
   contemptible before all, especially those of England, the most whereof
   died in giving their witness against the blind figment of the real
   presence, [83] and that abominable blasphemy of the cursed mass. In
   especial, how did England, heretofore termed ass, turn ape to the pope,
   having set up a stage, and furnished it with all things necessary for
   an unbloody sacrifice, [84] ready to set up the abomination of a
   desolation, and close with the god Maozim [mzym? Mauzzim, god of
   forces, Dan. xi. 38], who hath all their peculiar devotion at Rome?

   [3.] They were in the management of men which had divers dangerous and
   pernicious qualifications: as, --

   1st, A false repute of learning; I say, a false repute for the greater
   part, especially of the greatest. And yet, taking advantage of vulgar
   esteem, they bare out as though they had engrossed a monopoly of it, --
   though I presume the world was never deceived by more empty pretenders,
   especially in respect of any solid knowledge in divinity or antiquity;
   but yet their great preferments had got them a great repute of great
   deservings, -- enough to blind the eyes of poor mortals adoring them at
   a distance, and to persuade them, that all was not only law, but gospel
   too, which they broached: and this rendered the infection dangerous.

   2dly, A great hatred of godliness in the power thereof, or any thing
   beyond a form, in whomsoever it was found; yea, how many [85] odious
   appellations were invented for bare profession, to render it
   contemptible! -- especially in the exercise of their jurisdiction,
   thundering their censures against all appearance of zeal, and closing
   with all profane impieties; for were a man a drunkard, a swearer, a
   Sabbath-breaker, an unclean person, so he were no Puritan, and had
   money, -- "patet atri janua ditis," the Episcopal heaven was open for
   them all. Now, this was a dangerous and destructive qualification,
   which, I believe, is not professedly found in any party amongst us.

   3dly, Which was worst of all, they had centred in their bosoms an
   unfathomable depth of power, civil and ecclesiastical, to stamp their
   apostatical errors with authority, -- giving them not only the
   countenance of greatness, but the strength of power, violently urging
   obedience; and to me the sword of error never cuts dangerously but when
   it is managed with such a hand. This I am sure, that errors in such are
   not recoverable, without the utmost danger of the civil state.

   Let now, I beseech you, these and the like things be considered,
   especially the strong combination that was throughout the [86] papal
   world for the seducing of this poor nation (that I say nothing how this
   vial was poured out upon the very throne [87] ), and then let us all be
   ashamed and confounded in ourselves, that we should so undervalue and
   slight the free mercy of God in breaking such a snare, and setting the
   gospel at liberty in England. My intent was, having before asserted
   this restoration of Jerusalem to the good pleasure of God, to have
   stirred you up to thankfulness unto him, and self-humiliation in
   consideration of our great undeserving of such mercy; but, alas! as far
   as I can see, it will scarce pass for a mercy; and unless every man's
   persuasion may be a Joseph's sheaf, the goodness of God shall scarce be
   acknowledged. But yet let all the world know, and let the house of
   England know this day, that we lie unthankfully under as full a
   dispensation of mercy and grace as ever nation in the world enjoyed,
   and that without a lively acknowledgment thereof, with our own
   unworthiness of it, we shall one day know what it is (being taught with
   briers and thorns) to undervalue the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus.
   Good Lord! what would helpless Macedonians give for one enjoyment? O
   that Wales! O that Ireland! O that France! -- where shall I stop? I
   would offend none, but give me leave to say, O that every, I had almost
   said, O that any, part of the world had such helps and means of grace
   as these parts of England have, which will scarce acknowledge any mercy
   in it! The Lord break the pride of our spirits before it break the
   staff of our bread and the help of our salvation. O that the bread of
   heaven and the blood of Christ might be accounted good nourishment,
   though every one hath not the sauce he desireth! I am persuaded that if
   every Absalom in the land, that would be a judge for the ending of our
   differences, were enthroned (he spoke the people's good, though he
   intended his own power), the case would not be much better than it is.
   Well, the Lord make England, make this honourable audience, make us
   all, to know these three things:--

   First, That we have received such a blessing, in setting at liberty the
   truths of the gospel, as is the crown of all other mercies, yea,
   without which they were not valuable, yea, were to be despised; for
   success without the gospel, is nothing but a prosperous conspiracy
   against Jesus Christ.

   Secondly, That this mercy is of mercy; this love, of free love; and the
   grace that appeareth, of the eternal, hidden, free grace of God. He
   hath showed his love unto us because he loved us, and for no other
   reason in the world; this people being guilty of blood and murder of
   soul and body, adultery, and idolatry, and oppression, with a long
   catalogue of sins and iniquities.

   Thirdly, That the height of rebellion against God is the despising of
   spiritual gospel mercies. Should Mordecai have trodden the robes under
   his feet that were brought him from the king, would it not have been
   severely revenged? Doth the King of heaven lay open the treasures of
   his wisdom, knowledge, and goodness for us, and we despise them? What
   shall I say? I had almost said, hell punishes no greater sin: the Lord
   lay it not to our charge! O that we might be solemnly humbled for it
   this day, before it be too late!

   Use 3. To discover unto us the freedom of that effectual grace which is
   dispensed towards the elect, under and with the preaching of the word;
   for if the sending of the outward means be of free, [88] undeserved
   love, surely the working of the Spirit under that dispensation for the
   saving of souls is no less free; for "who hath made us differ from
   others? and what have we that we have not received?" O that God should
   say unto us in our blood, Live; -- that he should breathe upon us when
   we were as dry bones, dead in trespasses and sins! Let us remember, I
   beseech you, the frame of our hearts and the temper of our spirits, in
   the days wherein we knew not God and his goodness, but went on in a
   swift [89] course of rebellion. Can none of you look back upon any
   particular days or nights, and say, Ah, Lord, that thou shouldst be so
   patient and so full of forbearance, as not to send me to hell at such
   an instant! But, O Lord, that thou shouldst go farther, and blot out
   mine iniquities, for thine own sake, "when I made thee serve with my
   sins! "-- Lord, what shall I say it is? It is the free grace of my God!
   What expression transcendeth that, I know not.

   Use 4. Of caution. England received the gospel of mere mercy; let it
   take heed lest it lose it by justice; -- the placer of the candlestick
   can remove it. The truth is, it will not be removed unless it be
   abused; and woe to them from whom mercies are taken for being abused,
   -- from whom the gospel is removed for being despised! It had been
   better for the husbandmen never to have had the vineyard, than to be
   slain for their ill using of it: there is nothing left to do them good
   who are forsaken for forsaking the gospel.

   The glory of God was of late by many degrees departing from the temple
   in our land. That was gone to the threshold, yea, to the mount. If now
   at the return thereof, it find again cause to depart, it will not go by
   steps, but all at once. This island, or at least the greatest part
   thereof, as I formerly intimated, hath twice lost the gospel; -- once,
   when the Saxons wrested it from the Britons, -- when, if we may believe
   their own doleful, moaning [90] historian, they were given over to all
   wickedness, oppression, and villainy of life; which doubtless was
   accompanied with contempt of the word; though for faith and persuasion
   we do not find that they were corrupted, and do find that they were
   tenacious enough of antique discipline, as appeared in their following
   oppositions to the Roman tyranny, as in Beda. Secondly, It was lost in
   regard of the purity and power thereof, by blind superstition and
   antichristian impiety, accompanied also with abominable lewdness,
   oppression, and all manner of sin, in the face of the sun; so that
   first profaneness working a despising of the gospel, then superstition
   ushering in profaneness, have in this land showed their power for the
   extirpation of the gospel. Oh, that we could remember the days of old,
   that we could "consider the goodness and severity of God; -- on them
   which fell severity, but towards us goodness, if we continue in that
   goodness; for otherwise even we also shall be cut off!" Yet here we may
   observe, that though both these times there was a forsaking in the
   midst of the land, yet there was in it a tenth for to return "as a
   teil-tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast
   their leaves;" so was the holy seed the substance thereof, Isa. vi. 13.
   As in the dereliction of the Jews, so of this nation, there was a
   remnant that quickly took root, and brought forth fruit, both in the
   one devastation and the other. Though the watcher and the holy one from
   heaven had called to cut down the tree of this nation, and to scatter
   its branches from flourishing before him; yet the stump and root was to
   be left in the earth with a band of iron, that it might spring again.
   Thus twice did the Lord come seeking fruit of this vine, doing little
   more than pruning and dressing it, although it brought forth wild
   grapes; but if he come the third time and find no fruit, the sentence
   will be, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" Now, to prevent
   this, I shall not follow all those gospel-supplanting sins we find in
   holy writ, only I desire to cautionate you and us all in three things.

   (1.) Take heed of pretending or holding out the gospel for a covert or
   shadow for other things. God will not have his gospel made a
   stalking-horse for carnal designs. Put not in that glorious name, where
   the thing itself is not clearly intended. If in any thing it be, let it
   have no compeer; if not, let it not be named. If that you aim at be
   just, it needs no varnish; if it be not, it is the worse for it. Gilded
   pills lose not their bitterness, and painted faces are thought to have
   no native beauty. All things in the world should serve the gospel; and
   if that be made to serve other things, God will quickly vindicate it
   into liberty.

   From the beginning of these troubles, right honourable, you have held
   forth religion and the gospel, as whose preservation and restoration
   was principally in your aims; and I presume malice itself is not able
   to discover any insincerity in this. The fruits we behold proclaim to
   all the conformity of your words and hearts. Now, the God of heaven
   grant that the same mind be in you still, in every particular member of
   this honourable assembly, in the whole nation, especially in the
   magistracy and ministry of it; -- that we be not like the boatmen, --
   look one way, and row another; -- cry "Gospel," and mean the other
   thing, -- "Lord, Lord," and advance our own ends; -- that the Lord may
   not stir up the staff of his anger and the rod of his indignation
   against us, as a hypocritical people.

   (2.) Take heed of resting upon and trusting to the privilege, however
   excellent and glorious, of the outward enjoyment of the gospel. When
   the Jews cried, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord," the
   time was at hand that they should be destroyed. Look only upon the
   grace that did bestow, and the mercy that doth continue it. God will
   have none of his blessings rob him of his glory; and if we rest at the
   cistern, he will stop at the fountain.

   (3.) Let us all take heed of barrenness under it: "For the earth that
   drinks in the rain that cometh upon it, and beareth thorns and briers,
   is rejected, and nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned," Heb.
   vi. 7, 8. Now, what fruits doth it require? Even those reckoned, Gal.
   v. 22, 23, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
   long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." O
   that we had not cause to grieve for a scarcity of these fruits, and the
   abundant plenty of those works of the flesh recounted, verses 19-21! O
   that that wisdom which is an eminent fruit of the gospel might flourish
   amongst us! -- it is "first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be
   entreated;" -- that we might have less writing, and more praying! --
   less envy, and more charity! that all evil surmisings, which are works
   of the flesh, might have no toleration in our hearts, but be banished
   for nonconformity to the golden rule of love and peace! James iii. 17.
   But apecho. Come we now to the last proposition.

   III. No men in the world want help like them that want the gospel; or,
   of all distresses, want of the gospel cries the loudest for relief.

   Rachel wanted children, and she cries, "Give me children, [91] or I
   die;" -- but that was her impatience; she might have lived, and have
   had no children; yea, see the justice of God, -- she dies so soon as
   ever she hath children. Hagar [92] wants water for Ishmael, and she
   will go far from him, that she may not see him die; -- a heavy
   distress; and yet if he had died, it had been but an early paying of
   that debt which in a few years was to be satisfied. But they that want
   the gospel may truly cry, Give us the gospel, or we die; and that not
   temporally with Ishmael, for want of water, but eternally in flames of
   fire.

   A man may want liberty, and yet be happy, as Joseph was; a man may want
   peace, and yet be happy, as David was; a man may want children, and yet
   be blessed, as Job was; a man may want plenty, and yet be full of
   comfort, as Micaiah was; -- but he that wants the gospel, wants every
   thing that should do him good. A throne without the gospel is but the
   devil's dungeon. Wealth without the gospel is fuel for hell.
   Advancement without the gospel is but a going high to have the greater
   fall.

   Abraham [93] wanting a child, complains, "What will the Lord do for me,
   seeing I go childless, and this Eliezer of Damascus must be my heir?"
   Much more may a man without the means of grace complain, What shall be
   done unto me, seeing I go gospel-less; and all that I have is but a
   short inheritance for this lump of clay, my body?

   When Elisha [94] was minded to do something for the Shunammite who had
   so kindly entertained him, he asks her whether he should speak for her
   to the king or the captain of the host. She replies, she dwelt in the
   midst of her own people, she needeth not those things; but when he
   finds her to want a child, and tells her of that, she is almost
   transported. Ah! how many poor souls are there who need not our word to
   the king or the captain of the host; but yet being gospel-less, if you
   could tell them of that, would be even ravished with joy!

   Think of Adam [95] after his fall, before the promise, hiding himself
   from God, and you have a perfect portraiture of a poor creature without
   the gospel. Now this appeareth, --

   1. From the description we have of the people that are in this state
   [96] and condition -- without the gospel. They are a people that sit in
   darkness, yea, in the region and shadow of death, Matt. iv. 16, 17;
   they are even darkness itself, John i. 5, -- within the dominion and
   dreadful darkness of death. Darkness was one of Egypt's plagues; but
   yet that was a darkness of the body, a darkness wherein men lived; --
   but this is a darkness of the soul, a darkness of death; for these men,
   though they live, yet are they dead. They are fully described, Eph. ii.
   12, "Without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers
   from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the
   world." Christless men, and Godless men, and hopeless men, -- and what
   greater distress in the world? Yea, they are called dogs, and unclean
   beasts. The wrath of God is upon them; they are the people of his curse
   and indignation. In the extreme north, one day and one night divide the
   year; but with a people without the gospel it is all night, -- the Sun
   of righteousness shines not upon them; it is night whilst they are
   here, and they go to eternal night hereafter. What the men of China say
   concerning themselves and others, that they have two eyes, the men of
   Europe one, and all the world besides is blind, may be inverted too.
   The Jews had one eye, sufficient to guide them; they who enjoy the
   gospel have two eyes; but the men of China, with the rest of the
   nations that want it, are stark blind, and reserved for the chains of
   everlasting darkness.

   2. By laying forth what the men that want the gospel do want with it.

   (1.) They want Jesus Christ, for he is revealed only by the gospel.
   Austin refused to delight in Cicero's "Hortensius," because there was
   not in it the name of Jesus Christ. [97] Jesus Christ is all, and in
   all; and where he is wanting there can be no good. Hunger cannot truly
   be satisfied without manna, the bread of life, which is Jesus Christ;
   [98] -- and what shall a hungry man do that hath no bread? Thirst
   cannot be quenched without that water or living spring, which is Jesus
   Christ; -- and what shall a thirsty soul do without water? A captive,
   as we are all, cannot be delivered without redemption, [99] which is
   Jesus Christ; -- and what shall the prisoner do without his ransom?
   Fools, as we are all, cannot be instructed without wisdom, which is
   Jesus Christ; -- without him we perish in our folly. All building
   without him is on the sand, which will surely fall. All working without
   him is in the fire, where it will be consumed. All riches without him
   have wings, and will away. "Mallem ruere cum Christo, quam regnare cum
   Caesare," said Luther. A dungeon with Christ, is a throne; and a throne
   without Christ, a hell. Nothing so ill, but Christ [100] will
   compensate. The greatest evil in the world is sin, and the greatest sin
   was the first; and yet Gregory feared not to cry, "O felix culpa, quae
   talem meruit redemptorem!" -- "O happy fault, which found such a
   Redeemer!" All mercies without Christ are bitter; and every cup is
   sweet that is seasoned but with a drop of his blood; -- he truly is
   "amor et deliciae humani generis," -- the love and delight of the sons
   of men, -- without whom they must perish eternally; "for there is no
   other name given unto them, whereby they may be saved, Acts iv. 12. He
   is the Way; [101] men without him are Cains, wanderers, vagabonds:-- he
   is the Truth; men without him are liars, like the devil, who was so of
   old:-- he is the Life; [102] without him men are dead, dead in
   trespasses and sins:-- he is the Light; without him men are in
   darkness, and go they know not whither:-- he is the Vine; those that
   are not grafted in him are withered branches, prepared for the fire:--
   he is the Rock; men not built on him are carried away with a flood:--
   he is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the author and the
   ender, the founder and the finisher of our salvation. He that hath not
   him, hath neither beginning of good, nor shall have end of misery. O
   blessed Jesus! how much better were it not to be, than to be without
   thee! -- never to be born, than not to die in thee! A thousand bells
   come short of this, eternally to want Jesus Christ, as men do that want
   the gospel.

   (2.) They want all holy communion with God, wherein the only happiness
   of the soul doth consist. He is the life, light, joy, and blessedness
   of the soul; -- without him the soul in the body is but a dead soul in
   a living sepulchre. It is true, there be many that say, "Who will show
   us any good?" [103] but unless the Lord lift up the light of his
   countenance upon us, we perish for evermore. "Thou hast made us for
   thyself, O Lord; and our heart is unquiet until it come to thee." You
   who have tasted how gracious the Lord is, who have had any converse and
   communion with him in the issues and goings forth of his grace, those
   delights of his soul with the children of men, would you live -- would
   not life itself, with a confluence of all earthly endearments, be a
   very hell -- without him? Is it not the daily language of your hearts,
   "Whom have we in heaven but thee? and on earth there is nothing in
   comparison of thee?" The soul of man is of a vast, boundless
   comprehension; so that if all created good were centred into one
   enjoyment, and that bestowed upon one soul, because it must needs be
   finite and limited, as created, it would give no solid contentment to
   his affections, nor satisfaction to his desires. In the presence and
   fruition of God alone there is joy for evermore; at his right hand are
   rivers of pleasure, the well-springs of life and blessedness. Now, if
   to be without communion with God in this life, wherein the soul hath so
   many avocations from the contemplation of its own misery (for earthly
   things are nothing else), is so unsupportable a calamity; ah! what
   shall that poor soul do that must want him for eternity? -- as all they
   must do who want the gospel.

   (3.) They want all the ordinances of God, -- the joy of our hearts
   [104] and comfort of our souls. Oh! the sweetness of a Sabbath! the
   heavenly raptures of prayer! -- oh! the glorious communion of saints,
   which such men are deprived of! If they knew the value of the hidden
   pearl, and these things were to be purchased, what would such poor
   souls not part with for them?

   (4.) They will at last want heaven and salvation. They shall never come
   to the presence of God in glory, never inhabit a glorious mansion; --
   they shall never behold Jesus Christ, but when they shall call for
   [105] rocks and mountains to tall upon them, to hide them from his
   presence; -- they shall want [106] light in utter darkness, want life
   under the second death, want refreshment in the midst of flames, want
   healing under gnawing of conscience, want grace continuing to
   blaspheme, want glory in full misery; -- and, which is the sum of all
   this, they shall want an end of all this; for "their worm dieth not,
   neither is their fire quenched."

   3. Because being in all this want, they know not that they want any
   thing, and so never make out for any supply. Laodicea knew much; but
   yet because she knew not her wants, [107] she had almost as good have
   known nothing. Gospel-less men know not that they are blind, and seek
   not for eye-salve; they know not that they are dead, and seek not for
   life. Whatever they call for, not knowing their wants, is but like a
   man's crying for more weight to press him to death; and therefore, when
   the Lord comes to any with the gospel, he is "found of them that sought
   him not, and made manifest to them that asked not after him," Rom. x.
   20. This is a seal upon their misery, without God's free mercy, like
   the stone laid upon the mouth of the cave by Joshua, to keep in the
   five kings, until they might be brought out to be hanged." [108] All
   that men do in the world is but seeking to supply their wants; --
   either their natural wants, that nature may be supplied; or their
   sinful wants, that their lusts may be satisfied; or their spiritual
   wants, that their souls may be saved. For the two first, men without
   the gospel lay out all their strength; but of the last there is amongst
   them a deep [109] silence. Now this is all one as for men to cry out
   that their finger bleeds, whilst a sword is run through their hearts,
   and they perceive it not; -- to desire a wart to be cured, whilst they
   have a plague-sore upon them. And hence perhaps it is that they are
   said to go to [110] hell "like sheep," Ps. xlix. 14, -- very quietly,
   without dread, as a bird hasting to the snare, and not knowing that it
   is for his life, Prov. vii. 23, -- and there lie down in utter
   disappointment and sorrow for evermore.

   4. Because all mercies are bitter judgments to men that want the
   gospel; -- all fuel for hell, -- aggravations of condemnation; -- all
   cold drink to a man in a fever, pleasant at the entrance, but
   increasing its torments in the close; -- like the book in the
   Revelation, sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. When God shall
   come to require his bread and wine, his flax and oil, peace and
   prosperity, liberty and victories of gospel-less men, they will curse
   the day that ever they enjoyed them. So unspiritual are many men's
   minds, and so unsavoury their judgments, that they reckon men's
   happiness by their possessions, and suppose the catalogue of their
   titles to be a roll of their felicities, calling the proud happy, and
   advancing in our conceits "them that work wickedness," Mal. iii. 15;
   but God will one day come in with another reckoning, and make them know
   that all things without Christ are but as ciphers without a figure, --
   of no value. In all their banquets, where Christ is not a guest, "their
   vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the field of Gomorrah; their
   grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter," Deut. xxxii. 32,
   33; -- their palaces, where Christ is not, are but habitations of ziim
   and ochim, dragons and unclean beasts; -- their prosperity is putting
   them into full pasture, that they may be fatted for the day of
   slaughter, the day of consumption decreed for all the bulls of Bashan.
   The gospel bringing Christ, is the salt that makes all other things
   savoury.

   Use 1. To show us the great privilege and pre-eminence which, by the
   free grace of God, many parts of this island do enjoy. To us that sat
   in darkness and in the shadow of death a great light is risen, to guide
   us into the ways of peace. Let others recount the glories, benefits,
   profits, outward blessings of this nation; let us look only upon that
   which alone is valuable in itself, and makes other things so to be, --
   the gospel of Christ. It is reported of the heralds of our neighbour
   monarchs, that when one of them had repeated the numerous titles of his
   master of Spain, the other often repeated, France, France, France!
   intimating that the dominion which came under that one denomination
   would counterpoise the long catalogue of kingdoms and dukedoms
   wherewith the other flourished. Were we to contend with the grand
   seignior of the east about our enjoyments, we might easily bear down
   his windy, pompous train of titles with this one, -- which "millies
   repetitum placebit," -- The gospel, the gospel! Upon all the other
   things you may put the inscription in Daniel, "Mene, mene, tekel," they
   are "weighed in the balances, and found wanting;" but proclaim before
   those that enjoy the gospel, as Haman before Mordecai, "Lo, thus shall
   it be done to them whom the Lord will honour!" The fox in the fable had
   a thousand wiles to save himself from the hunters; but the cat knew
   "unum magnum," "one great thing" that would surely do it. Earthly
   supports and contentments are but a thousand failing wiles, which will
   all vanish in the time of need; the gospel, and Christ in the gospel,
   is that" unum magnum," that "unum necessarium," which alone will stand
   us in any stead. In this, this island is as the mountain of the Lord,
   -- exalted above the mountains of the earth. It is true, many other
   nations partake with us in the same blessing. Not to advance our own
   enjoyments in some particulars, -- wherein perhaps we might justly do
   it, -- but take all these nations with us, and what a molehill are we
   to the whole earth, overspread with Paganism, Mohammedanism,
   Antichristianism, with innumerable foolish heresies! And what is
   England, that it should be amongst the choice branches of the vineyard,
   the top-boughs of the cedars of God?

   Use 2. Shows that such great mercies, if not esteemed, if not improved,
   if abused, will end in great judgments. Woe be to that nation, that
   city, that person, that shall be called to an account for despising the
   gospel! Amos iii. 2, "You only have I known of all the families of the
   earth." What then? surely some great blessing is coming to that people
   whom God thus knows, so owns, as to make himself known unto them. No;
   but, "therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities." However
   others may have some ease or mitigation in their punishments, do you
   expect the utmost of my wrath. Luther said, he thought hell was paved
   with the bald skulls of friars. I know nothing of that; yet of this
   sure I am, that none shall have their portion so low in the nethermost
   hell, none shall drink so deep of the cup of God's indignation, as they
   who have refused Christ in the gospel. Men will curse the day to all
   eternity wherein the blessed name of Jesus Christ was made known unto
   them, if they continue to despise it. He that abuseth the choicest of
   mercies, shall have judgment without mercy. What can help them who
   reject the counsel of God for their good? If now England has received
   more culture from God than other nations, there is more fruit expected
   from England than other nations. A barren tree in the Lord's vineyard
   must be cut down for cumbering the ground; the sheep of God must "every
   one bear twins, and none be barren amongst them," Cant. iv. 2. If,
   after all God's care and husbandry, his vineyard brings forth wild
   grapes, he will take away the hedge, break down the wall, and lay it
   waste. For the present, the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house
   of England; and if it be as earth which, when the rain falls upon it,
   brings forth nothing but thorns and briers, it is nigh unto cursing,
   and the end thereof is to be burned, Heb. vi. 8. Men utterly and for
   ever neglect that ground which they have tried their skill about, and
   laid out much cost upon, if it bring not forth answerable fruits. Now
   here give me leave to say, and the Lord avert the evil deserved by it!
   that England (I mean these cities and those other places which since
   the beginning of our troubles have enjoyed the gospel in a more free
   and plentiful manner than heretofore) hath showed itself not much to
   value it.

   (1.) In the time of straits, though the sound of the gospel passed
   through all our streets, our villages enjoying them who preached peace
   and brought glad tidings of good things, so that neither we, nor our
   fathers, nor our fathers' fathers, ever saw the like before us, --
   though manna fell round about our tents every day; yet, as though all
   were lost, and we had nothing, manna was loathed as light bread, -- the
   presence of Christ made not recompense for the loss of our swine, --
   men had rather be again in Egypt, than hazard a pilgrimage in the
   wilderness. If there be any here that ever entertained thoughts to give
   up the worship of God to superstition, his churches to tyranny, and the
   doctrine of the gospel to episcopal corruptions, in the pressing of any
   troubles, let them now give God the glory, and be ashamed of their own
   hearts, lest it be bitterness in the end.

   (2.) In the time of prosperity, by our fierce contentions about mint
   and cummin, whilst the weightier things of the gospel have been
   undervalued, languishing about unprofitable questions, etc.; but I
   shall not touch this wound, lest it bleed.

   Use 3. For exhortation, that every one of us, in whose hand there is
   any thing, would set in for the help of those parts of this island that
   as yet sit in darkness, yea, in the shadow of death, and have none to
   hold out the bread of life to their fainting souls. Doth not Wales cry,
   and the north cry, yea, and the west cry, Come and help us? -- we are
   yet in a worse bondage than any by your means we have been delivered
   from; -- if you leave us thus, all your protection will but yield us a
   more free and jovial passage to the chambers of death. Ah! little do
   the inhabitants of Goshen know, whilst they are contending about the
   bounds of their pasture, what darkness there is in other places of the
   land; how their poor starved souls would be glad of the crumbs that
   fall from our tables! O that God would stir up the hearts, --

   (1.) Of ministers, to cast off all by-respects, and to flee to those
   places where, in all probability, the harvest would be great, and the
   labourers are few or none at all! I have read of a heretic that swam
   over a great river in a frost to scatter his errors; the old Jewish,
   and now popish Pharisees, compass sea and land to make proselytes; the
   merchants trade not into more countries than the factors of Rome do to
   gain souls to his holiness. East and west, far and wide, do these
   locusts spread themselves, not without hazard of their lives as well as
   the loss of their souls, to scatter their superstitions; -- only the
   preachers of the everlasting gospel seem to have lost their zeal. O
   that there were the same mind in us that was in Jesus Christ, who
   counted it his meat and drink to do his Father's will, in gaining
   souls!

   (2.) Of the magistrates, -- I mean, of this honourable assembly, -- to
   turn themselves every lawful way for the help of poor Macedonians. The
   truth is, in this I could speak more than I intend; for perhaps my zeal
   and some men's judgments would scarce make good harmony This only I
   shall say, that if Jesus Christ might be preached, though with some
   defects in some circumstances, I should rejoice therein. O that you
   would labour to let all the parts of the kingdom taste of the sweetness
   of your successes, in carrying to them the gospel of the Lord Jesus;
   that the doctrine of the gospel might make way for the discipline of
   the gospel, without which it will be a very skeleton! When manna fell
   in the wilderness from the hand of the Lord, every one had an equal
   share. I would there were not now too great an inequality in the
   scattering of manna, when secondarily in the hand of men; whereby some
   have all, and others none; -- some sheep daily picking the choice
   flowers of every pasture, others wandering upon the barren mountains,
   without guide or food. I make no doubt but the best ways for the
   furtherance of this are known full well unto you; and you therefore
   have as little need to be petitioned in this as other things. What,
   then, remains, but that for this, and all other necessary blessings, we
   all set our hearts and hands to petition the throne of grace?
     __________________________________________________________________

   [4] "Ecclesia sicut luna defectus habet, et ortus frequentes; sed
   defectibus suis crevit, etc. Haec est vera Luna, quae de fratris sui
   luce perpetua, lumen sibi immortalitatis et gratiae mutuatur." -- Amb.
   Hex., lib. iv. cap. 2. Ps. lxviii. 13.

   [5] Isa. liv. 11; Zech. iv. 7.

   [6] Isa. liii. 2-5.

   [7] 1 John iii. 13; Rev. ii. 10; 2 Cor. iv. 4.

   [8] Isa. liii. 2.

   [9] Heb. vii. 25.

   [10] Cant. ii. 2.

   [11] Matt. x. 16.

   [12] Ps. lxxiv. 19.

   [13] "Eo ipso tempore, quo ad omnes gentes praedicatio Evangelii
   mittebatur, quaedam loca apostolis adire prohibebatur ab eo qui vult
   omnes homines salvos fieri.'?" -- Prosp. Ep. ad Rufin. [cap. xv]. Dios
   eteleieto boule. -- Hom. i. 5.

   [14] Mal. iv. 2.

   [15] Isa. i. 1.

   [16] Amos i. 1.

   [17] Nahum i. 1; Obad. 1.

   [18] Jer. i. 11, 13.

   [19] Ezek. i. 5-7; Zech. i. 8, iii. 9, 10, etc.; Dan. vii. 8, 9.

   [20] Zech. ii. 1.

   [21] Vid. Aquin. 2, 2, q. 174, art. 3, 4. Scot. in dist. tert.

   [22] Mede, Apost. of Later Times.

   [23] A Lapide, Sanctius in locum, etc.

   [24] Plutarch. in Vit. Bruti.

   [25] Calvin. in locum. "Dicebat se discernere (nescio quo sapore, quem
   verbis explicare non poterat) quid interesset inter Deum revelantem,"
   etc. -- Aug. Confes.

   [26] Acts iii. 6.

   [27] Plutarch de Defect. Oracu.

   Hebraios keletai me pais makaressin anasson,

   Ton de domon prolipein kai hodon palin authis hikesthai.
   Respons. Apoll. apud Euseb. Niceph.

   [28] "A nullo duro corde resistitur, quia cor ipsum emollit." -- Aug.,
   Ezek. xxxvi. 26; Deut. xxx. 6.

   [29] Lapide. Sanctius in loc. Rom. Script. Synd. ar. 1.

   [30] Humeis men oun este toioutoi, hupo toionde paideuton
   stoicheiothentes, Paulou tou Christophorou. -- Ignat. Epist. ad Eph.;
   Iren., lib. iii. cap. 3.

   [31] "Qui causam quae sit voluntatis divinae, aliquid majus eo
   quaerit." -- Aug. "Voluntas Dei nullo modo causam habet." -- Aquin, p.
   q. 12, a. 5.

   [32] Theia panton arche, di' hes a panta kai esti, kai diamenei.
   Theophrast. apud Picum de Provid.

   [33] "Providentia est ratio ordinis rerum ad finem." -- Th. p. q. 22,
   a. 1, 6.

   [34] Ezek. i. 1.

   [35] Non tantum res, sed rerum modos.

   [36] "Videtur ergo quod non sit aliqua deordinatio, deformitas, aut
   peccatum simpliciter in toto universo, sed tantummodo respectu
   interiorum causarum, ordinationem superioris causae volentium, licet
   non valentium, perturbare." -- Brad. de Caus. Dei, lib. i. cap. 34.

   [37] Hehamartia estin he anomia.

   [38] "Adeo summa justitiae regula est Dei voluntas, ut quicquid vult,
   eo ipso quod vult, justum habendum sit." -- Aug., Isa. xlvi. 10.

   [39] Gen. iii. 15, v. 26.

   [40] Gen. vi. 5.

   [41] Gen. v. 24, vi. 18, xii. 1, xviii. 1, 2; Ps. lxxvi. 1, 2; John iv.
   22.

   [42] Gal. iv. 4; John xii. 32; Acts xvii. 30; Mark xvi. 15; Mal. iii.
   4; Prov. viii. 31.

   [43] See Tertullian, Lib. ad Jud., reckoning almost all the known
   nations of the world, and affirming that they all, -- that is, some in
   them, -- in his days, submitted to the sceptre of Christ. He lived in
   the end of the second century.

   [44] Piscat. in loc.

   [45] Panta de lego ta ouk eph' hemin, ta gar eph' hemin, ou hemin
   pronoias, alla tou hemeterou autexousiou. -- Damascen. Satis impie.

   [46] Matt. x. 29; Job xiv. 5; Prov. xvi. 33, xxi. 1, 30, xix. 21.
   "Nihil fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit, vel ipse faciendo, vel sinendo
   ut fiat." -- Aug.

   [47] Gen. iv. 5-7, 1 Kings xxii. 19-21; 2 Kings v. 18, 19; Ps. lxxvi.
   10; Eccles. vii. 26; Isa. vi. 9-11, etc.

   [48] "Deus non operatur in malis, quod ei displicet; sed operatur per
   eos quod ei placet, recipientur veto non pro eo, quod Deus bene usus
   est ipsorum operibus malis, sed pro eo, quod ipsi male abusi sunt Dei
   operibus bonis." -- Fulgent. ad Monim.

   [49] 2 Thess. ii.; Acts iv.

   [50] "Liberatur pars hominum, parte pereunte. Sed cur horum sit
   misertus Deus -- illorum non misertus, quae scientia comprehendere,
   quae potest investigare sapientia? Latet discretionis istius ratio, sed
   non latet ipsa discretio." -- Prosp. de Vocat. Gen., [lib. i. cap. 15.]

   [51] Rom. viii. 28, 29, Eph. i. 4, 2 Tim. ii. 19.

   [52] Eph. ii. 1, 11.

   [53] "Non ob aliud dicit, non vos me elegistis, sed ego vos elegi, nisi
   quia non elegerunt eum, ut eligeret eos; sed ut eligerent eum, elegit
   eos. Non quia praescivit eos credituros, sed quia facturus ipse fuerit
   credentes. Electi sunt itaque ante mundi constitutionem, ea
   praedestiuatione, qua Deus ipse sua futura facta praevidit: electi sunt
   autem de mundo, ea vocatione, qua Deus id, quod praedestinavit,
   implevit." -- August. de Praedest. Sanctorum. cap. xvi., xvii.

   [54] Matt. xi. 21; Acts xiii. 46.

   [55] Luke ii. 34; 1 Pet. ii. 7; Ezek. ii. 5; Matt. xxiv. 14; Rom. ix.
   22, 23.

   [56] Neh. iv. 17.

   [57] Zech. iv. 7.

   [58] Scal. de Emend. Temp.

   [59] I follow in this the vulgar or common account, otherwise there is
   no part of Scripture chronology so contended about as these weeks of
   Daniel; most concluding that they are terminated in the death of
   Christ, happening about the midst of the last week. But about their
   original, or rise, there is no small debate. Of the four decrees made
   by the Persian kings about the building of Jerusalem, -- viz., 1st, by
   Cyrus, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23; 2dly, by Darius, Ezra vi. 8, 3dly, by
   Artaxerxes, Ezra vii.; of the same to Nehemiah chap. ii., -- following
   the account of their reign set down in profane stories, the last only
   holds exactly. Tertullian ad Jud. begins it from Darius, when this
   vision appeared to Daniel, whom, it seems, he conceived to be Darius
   Hystaspes, that followed the Magi, and not Medus, that was before
   Cyrus; and so with a singular kind of chronology makes up his account.
   -- Vid. Euseb. Demon. Evan., lib. viii. cap. Func. Com. in Chron.
   Beroald. Chron., lib. iii. cap. 7, 8. Montacut. Apparat.

   [60] Prov. xviii. 10.

   [61] Heb. xii. 11.

   [62] Pet. Mart. de Relig. Jud. decad, i. lib. 1.

   [63] "Qui liberatur, gratiam diligat, qui non liberatur, debitum
   agnoscat." -- Aug. de Bon. Persev., cap. viii. "Ex nequissimis in ipso
   vitae exitu gratia invenit quos adoptet, cum tamen multi, etiam qui
   minus nocentes videantur, doni hujus alieni sunt." -- Pros. de Voc.
   Gen., lib. i. cap. 17.

   [64] 1 Cor. i. 25, 26.

   [65] Acts xiv. 16, 17, xvii. 30, 31.

   [66] Rom. viii. 32; Joel ii. 28; John xvii. 22; Rom. i. 5, xvi. 26.

   [67] Rom. ix. 13.

   [68] Eph. iii. 14, 15; Matt. xxvii. 19.

   [69] August.

   [70] "Si hoc voluntatum meritis voluerimus ascribere, ut malos
   neglexisse gratia, bonos autem elegisse videatur, resistet nobis
   innumerabilium causa populorum, quibus per tot secula, nulla coelestis
   doctrinae annunciatio corruscavit. Nec meliores fuisse eorum posteros
   possumus dicere, de quibus scriptum est, Gentium populus qui sedebat in
   tenebris, lucem vidit magnam.'?" -- Prosp. de Voc. Gen., lib. i. cap.
   15.

   [71] "Si de debito quaeratur respectu creaturae, in Deum cadere non
   potest, nisi ex aliqua suppositione ipsi Deo voluntaria, quae non
   potest esse nisi promisso aut pacto aliquo, ex quibus fidelitatis aut
   justitiae debitum oriri solet." -- Suarez. de Libert. Div. Vol., disp.
   1, sect. 2, num. 5.

   [72] "Deus nulla obligatione tenetur, autequam ipse fidem suam
   astringat, ergo ante promissionem nulla justitia distributiva in Deo
   reperitur." -- Vasq. in q. 21, a. 1, disp. 86.

   [73] Aquin. 2, 2, q. 2, art. 7.

   [74] Kai ohi meta logou biosantes Christianoi eisi. -- Justin., Apol.
   ii.

   [75] Hos. xi. 8, 9.

   [76] Nun de estin apostasia, apeStesan gar hoi anthropoi tes orthes
   pisteos. Cyrillus Hieros. Katechesis.

   [77] "Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." --
   Tertul.

   [78] "Britanniam in Christianam consentire religionem." -- Origen. Hom.
   iv. in Ezek.

   [79] Niceph., lib. ii. cap. 40. Epist. Eleuth. ad Lucium, an. 169, apud
   Bar.

   [80] Anno 469 the Saxons entered.

   [81] "Nunc igitur si nominis odium est, quis nominum reatus? quae
   accusatio vocabulorum? nisi aut, barbarum sonat aliqua vox nominis, aut
   maledicum aut impudicum." -- Tertul. Apol. ad Gen., cap. iii.

   [82] See Canterburian self-conviction. See Ld. Dee. Coll., etc.

   [83] Coal from the Altar.

   [84] Altare Christianum. Antidotum Lincoln. Case of Greg.

   [85] Sapientior sis Socrate; doctior Augustino, etc.; Calvinianus si
   modo dicare clam vel propalam, mox Tartaris, Moscis, Afris, Turcisque
   saevientibus, et jacebis execratior, etc.

   [86] Rome's Master-piece.

   [87] Royal favourite.

   [88] "Non libertate gratiam, sed gratia libertatem consequimur." --
   Aug.

   [89] Ezek. xxxvi. 26; Acts xvi. 14; Phil. i. 29, ii. 13.

   [90] Gildas de Excid. Britanniae. "Omnia quae Deo placebant, et
   displicebant, aequali lance pendebantur, non igitur admirandum est
   degeneres tales patriam illam amittere, quam praedicto modo
   maculabant." -- Hist. M.S., apud Foxum.

   [91] Gen. xxx. 1, xxxv. 18.

   [92] Gen. xxi. 16.

   [93] Gen. xv. 2.

   [94] 2 Kings iv. 13, 14.

   [95] Gen. iii. 8.

   [96] Matt. vi. 23; Luke i. 79; Acts xxvi. 18; Rom. ii. 19; Eph. v. 8;
   Col. i. 13; 1 Pet. ii. 9.

   [97] Nomen Jesu non erat ibi.

   [98] John vi. 50; Rev. ii. 17; John iv. 14; Cant. iv. 12.

   [99] John vii. 37, 38; 1 Cor. i. 30.

   [100] "Pauca igitur de Christo." -- Tertul.

   [101] John xiv. 6.

   [102] John i. 3-5; Eph. iv. 18; John xv. 5; Matt. vii. 26, 27; Matt.
   xvi. 18.

   [103] Ps. iv. 6.

   [104] Ps. xlii. 1, 2, xxxiv. 1-4, etc.

   [105] Rev. vi. 16.

   [106] Matt. xxii. 13; Luke xvi. 24; Mark ix. 43, 44; Isa. lxvi. 24.

   [107] Rev. iii. 17.

   [108] Josh. x. 18.

   [109] "Ego propero ad inferos, nec est ut aliquid pro me agas." --
   Advocatus quidam moriens, apud Bel. de arte mor., lib. ii. cap. 10.

   [110] ls'vl?.
     __________________________________________________________________

A short defensative about church government, toleration, and petitions about
these things.

   Reader,

   This, be it what it will, thou hast no cause to thank or blame [111] me
   for. Had I been mine own, it had not been thine; my submission unto
   others' judgments being the only cause of submitting this unto thy
   censure. The substance of it is concerning things now doing, in some
   whereof I heretofore thought it my wisdom modestly haesitare (or at
   least not with the most, peremptorily to dictate to others my
   apprehensions), as wiser [112] men have done in weightier things; and
   yet this not so much for want of persuasion in my own mind, as out of
   opinion that we have already had too many needless and fruitless
   discourses about these matters. Would we count agree to spare perishing
   paper! [113] and for my own part, had not the opportunity of a few
   lines in the close of this sermon, and the importunity of not a few
   friends, urged, I could have slighted all occasions and accusations
   provoking to publish those thoughts which I shall now impart. The truth
   is, in things concerning the church (I mean things purely external, of
   form, order, and the like), so many ways have I been spoken, that I
   often resolved to speak myself, desiring rather to appear (though
   conscious to myself of innumerable failings) what indeed I am, than
   what others incuriously suppose. But yet the many I ever thought
   unworthy of an apology, and some of satisfaction, -- especially those
   who would make their own judgments a rule for themselves and others,
   impatient that any should know what they do not, or conceive otherwise
   than they of what they do, in the meantime, placing almost all religion
   in that which may be perhaps a hindrance of it, -- and being so valued,
   or rather overvalued, -- is certainly the greatest, Nay, would they
   would make their judgments only so far as they are convinced, and are
   able to make out their conceptions to others, and not also their
   impotent desires, to be the rule; that so they might condemn only that
   which complies not with their minds, and not all that also which they
   find to thwart their aims and designs! But so it must be. Once more
   conformity is grown the touchstone (and that not in practice, but
   opinion) amongst the greatest part of men, however otherwise of
   different persuasions. Dissent is the only crime; [114] and where that
   is all that is culpable, it shall be made all that is so. From such as
   these, who almost hath not suffered? but towards such the best defence
   is silence. Besides, my judgment commands me to make no known quarrel
   my own; but rather if it be possible, and as much as in me lieth, live
   peaceably with all men. Hieron polemon, I proclaim to none but men
   whose bowels are full of gall. In this spring of humours, lenitives for
   our own spirits may perhaps be as necessary as purges for others'
   brains. Farther, I desire to provoke [115] none; more stings than combs
   are got at a nest of wasps; even cold stones, smitten together, sparkle
   out fire: "The wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood." Neither do I
   conceive it wisdom, in these quarrelsome days, to intrust more of a
   man's self with others than is very necessary. The heart of man is
   deceitful; some that have smooth tongues have sharp teeth: such can
   give titles on the one side and wounds on the other. Any of these
   considerations would easily have prevailed with me "stultitia hac
   caruisse," had not mine ears been filled, presently after the preaching
   of the precedent sermon, with sad complaints of some, and false reports
   of others, neither of the lowest rank of men, as though I had helped to
   open a gate for that which is now called a Trojan horse; though
   heretofore counted an engine likelier to batter the walls of Babylon
   than to betray the towers of Zion. This urged some to be urgent with me
   for a word or two about church government, according to the former
   suggestions, undermined, and a toleration of different persuasions, as
   they said, asserted. Now, truly, to put the accusers to prove the
   crimination -- for so it was, and held forth a grievous crime in their
   apprehensions (what is really so God will judge) -- had been
   sufficient. [116] But I could not so evade; and therefore, after my
   sermon was printed to the last sheet, I was forced to set apart a few
   hours, [117] to give an account of what hath passed from me in both
   these things, which have been so variously reported; hoping that the
   reading may not be unuseful to some, as the writing was very necessary
   to me. And here, at the entrance, I shall desire at the hands of men
   that shall cast an eye on this heap of good meaning, these few, as I
   suppose, equitable demands:--

   First, Not to prosecute men into odious appellations, and then
   themselves, who feigned the crime, pronounce the sentence, -- like him
   who said of one brought before him, If he be not guilty, it is fit he
   should be; -- involving themselves in a double guilt, of falsehood and
   malice; and the aspersed parties in a double misery, of being belied in
   what they are, and hated for what they are not. If a man be not what
   such men would have him, it is odds but they will make him what he is
   not; -- if what he really is do not please, and that be not enough to
   render him odious, he shall sure enough be more. Ithacius will make all
   Priscillianists who are any thing more devout than himself. [118] If
   men do but desire to see with their own eyes, presently they are
   enrolled of this or that sect; every mispersuasion being beforehand, in
   petitions, sermons, etc., rendered odious and intolerable; -- in such a
   course, innocency itself cannot go long free. Christians deal with one
   another in earnest, as children in their plays clap another's coat upon
   their fellow's shoulders, and pretending to beat that, cudgel him they
   have clothed with it. "What shall be given unto thee, thou false
   tongue?" If we cannot be more charitable, let us be more ingenuous.
   Many a man hath been brought to a more favourable opinion of such as
   are called by dreadful names than formerly, by the experience of false
   impositions on himself.

   Secondly, Not to clothe our differences with expressions fitting them
   no better than Saul's armour did David; nor make them like a little man
   in a bombast coat upon stilts, walking about like a giant. Our little
   differences may be met at every stall, and in too many pulpits, swelled
   by unbefitting expressions into such a formidable bulk as poor
   creatures are even startled at their horrid looks and appearance;
   whilst our own persuasions are set out rhemasi bussinois, [119] with
   silken words and gorgeous apparel, as if we sent them into the world
   a-wooing. Hence, whatever it is, it must be temple building, -- God's
   government, -- Christ's scepter, throne, kingdom, -- the only way, that
   for want of which, errors, heresies, sins, spring among us, plagues,
   judgments, punishments come upon us. To such things as these all
   pretend, who are very confident they have found out the only way. Such
   big words as these have made us believe that we are mortal adversaries
   (I speak of the parties at variance about government), -- that one
   kingdom, communion, heaven cannot hold us. Now, truly, if this course
   be followed, -- so to heighten our differences, by adorning the truth
   we own with such titles as it doth not merit, and branding the errors
   we oppose with such marks as in cold blood we cannot think they
   themselves, but only in their (by us supposed) tendence, do deserve, --
   I doubt not but that it will be bitterness unto us all in the end. And,
   query, whether by this means many have not been brought to conceive the
   kingdom of Jesus Christ, which himself affirms to be within us, to
   consist in forms, outward order, positive rules, and external
   government. I design none, but earnestly desire that the two great
   parties at this day litigant in this kingdom, would seriously consider
   what is like to be the issue of such proceedings; and whether the
   mystery of godliness, in the power thereof, be like to be propagated by
   it. Let not truth be weighed in the balance of our interest. Will not a
   dram of that turn the scale with some against many arguments? Power is
   powerful to persuade.

   Thirdly, Not to measure men's judgments by their subscribing or
   refusing to subscribe petitions in these days about church government.
   For subscribers, would that every one could not see, with what a
   zealous nescience and implicit judgment many are led! And for refusers,
   though perhaps they could close with the general words wherewith
   usually they are expressed, yet there are so many known circumstances
   restraining those words to particular significations, directing them to
   by and secondary tendencies, as must needs make some abstain. For mine
   own part, from subscribing late petitions about church government, I
   have been withheld by such reasons as these:--

   1. I dare not absolutely assert, maintain, and abide by it (as rational
   men ought to do every clause in any thing owned by their subscription),
   that the cause of all the evils usually enumerated in such petitions is
   the want of church government, taking it for any government that ever
   yet was established amongst men, or in notion otherwise made known unto
   me; yea, I am confident that more probable causes in this juncture of
   time might be assigned of them. Neither can any be ignorant how
   plentifully such evils abounded when church discipline was most
   severely executed. [120] And, lastly, I am confident that whoever lives
   to see them suppressed by any outward means (when spiritual weapons
   shall be judged insufficient), will find it to be, not any thing either
   included in, or necessarily annexed unto, church discipline that must
   do it; but some other thing, not unlike that which, in days of yore,
   when all the world wondered after the beast, suppressed all truth and
   error, but only what the arch enemy of Jesus Christ was pleased to hold
   out to be believed. But of this afterward.

   2. I dare not affirm that the Parliament hath not established a
   government already, for the essentials of it; themselves affirming that
   they have, [121] and their ordinances about rulers, rules, and persons
   to be ruled (the "requisita" and materials of government), being long
   since extant. Now, to require a thing to be done by them who affirm
   that they have already done it, argues either much weakness or supine
   negligence in ourselves, not to understand what is effected; or a
   strong imputation on those that have done it, either fraudulently to
   pretend that which is false, or foolishly to aver what they do not
   understand. Yet, though I have learned to obey, as far as lawfully I
   may, my judgment is exceedingly far from being enslaved; and according
   to that, by God's assistance, shall be my practice; which, if it run
   cross to the prescriptions of authority, it shall cheerfully submit to
   the censure thereof. In the meantime, all petitioning of any party
   about this business seems to thwart some declarations of the House of
   Commons, whereunto I doubt not but they intend for the main inviolably
   and unalterably to adhere. Add hereunto, that petitioning in this kind
   was not long since voted breach of privilege, in them who might justly
   expect as much favour and liberty in petitioning as any of their
   brethren in the kingdom; and I have more than one reason to suppose
   that the purpose and design of theirs and others was one and the same.

   3. There are no small grounds of supposal that some petitions have not
   their rise from amongst them by whom they are subscribed, but that the
   spring and master-wheels giving the first motion to them are distant
   and unseen; myself having been lately urged to subscription upon this
   ground, that directions were had for it from above (as we used to speak
   in the country); -- yea, in this I could say more than I intend, aiming
   at nothing but the quieting of men's spirits, needlessly exasperated;
   only I cannot but say, that honest men ought to be very cautious how
   they put themselves upon any engagement that might make any party or
   faction in the kingdom suppose that their interest, in the least
   measure, doth run cross to that of the great Council thereof; thereby
   to strengthen the hands or designs of any, by occasioning an opinion
   that, upon fresh or new divisions, (which God of his mercy prevent!) we
   would not adhere constantly to our old principles, walking according to
   which we have hitherto found protection and safety. And I cannot but be
   jealous for the honour of our noble Parliament, whose authority is
   every day undermined, and their regard in the affections of the people
   shaken, by such dangerous insinuations; as though they could in an hour
   put an end to all our disturbances, but refuse it. This season, also,
   for such petitions seems to be very unseasonable, the greatest
   appearing danger impendent to this kingdom being from the contest about
   church government; which, by such means as this, is exceedingly
   heightened, and animosity added to the parties at variance.

   4. A particular form of church discipline is usually, in such
   petitions, either directly expressed or evidently pointed at and
   directed unto, as that alone which our covenant engageth us to embrace;
   yea, as though it had long since designed that particular way, and
   distinguished it from all others, the embracing of it is pressed, under
   the pain of breach of covenant, -- a crime abhorred of God and man.
   Now, truly, to suppose that our covenant did tie us up absolutely to
   any one formerly known way of church discipline, -- the words formally
   engaging us into a disquisition out of the word of that which is
   agreeable to the mind and will of God, -- is to me such a childish,
   ridiculous, selfish conceit, as I believe no knowing men will once
   entertain, unless prejudice, begotten by their peculiar interest, hath
   disturbed their intellectuals. For my part, I know no church government
   in the world already established amongst any sort of men, of the truth
   and necessity whereof I am convinced in all particulars; especially if
   I may take their practice to be the best intepreter of their maxims.

   Fourthly, Another "postulatum" is, that men would not use an
   overzealous speed, upon every small difference, to characterize men
   (otherwise godly and peaceable) as sectaries; knowing the odiousness of
   the name, [122] among the vulgar, deservedly or otherwise imposed, and
   the evil of the thing itself, rightly apprehended, whereunto lighter
   differences do not amount. Such names as this I know are arbitrary, and
   generally serve the wills of the greater number. They are commonly
   sectaries who, "jure aut injuria," are oppressed. Nothing was ever
   persecuted under an esteemed name. Names are in the power of many;
   things and their causes are known to few. There is none in the world
   can give an ill title to others, which from some he doth not receive.
   The same right which in this kind I have towards another, he hath
   towards me; unless I affirm myself to be infallible, not so him. Those
   names which men are known by when they are oppressed, they commonly use
   against others whom they seek to oppress. I would, therefore, that all
   horrid appellations, as increasers of strife, kindlers of wrath,
   enemies of charity, food for animosity, were for ever banished from
   amongst us. Let a spade be called a spade, so we take heed Christ be
   not called Beelzebub. I know my profession to the greatest part of the
   world is sectarism, as Christianity; amongst those who profess the name
   of Christ, to the greatest number I am a sectary, because a Protestant;
   [123] amongst Protestants, at least the one half account all men of my
   persuasion Calvinistical, sacramentarian sectaries; amongst these,
   again, to some I have been a puritanical sectary, an Arian heretic,
   because anti-prelatical; yea, and amongst these last, not a few account
   me a sectary because I plead for presbyterial government in churches:
   and to all these am I thus esteemed, as I am fully convinced,
   causelessly and erroneously. What they call sectarism, I am persuaded
   is "ipsissima veritas," the "very truth itself," to which they also
   ought to submit; that others also, though upon false grounds, are
   convinced of the truth of their own persuasion, I cannot but believe:
   and therefore, as I find by experience that the horrid names of
   heretic, schismatic, sectary, and the like, have never had any
   influence or force upon my judgment, nor otherwise moved me, unless it
   were unto retaliation, so I am persuaded it is also with others; for
   "homines sumus:" forcing them abroad in such liveries doth not at all
   convince them that they are servants to the master of sects indeed, but
   only makes them wait an opportunity to cast the like mantle on their
   traducers. And this usually is the beginning of arming the more against
   the few with violence, impatient of bearing the burdens which they
   impose on others' shoulders; by means whereof Christendom hath been
   made a theatre of blood, and one amongst all, after that by cruelty and
   villany he had prevailed above the rest, took upon him to be the only
   dictator in Christian religion. But of this afterward.

   Now, by the concession of these, as I hope, not unequitable demands,
   thus much at least I conceive will be attained, viz., that a peaceable
   dissent in some smaller things, disputable questions, not absolutely
   necessary assertions, deserves not any rigid censure, distance of
   affections, or breach of Christian communion and amity. In such things
   as these, "veniam petimusque damusque vicissim:" if otherwise, I
   profess I can hardly bring my mind to comply and close in with them
   amongst whom almost any thing is lawful but to dissent.

   These things being premised, I shall now set down and make public that
   proposal which heretofore I have tendered, as a means to give some
   light into a way for the profitable and comfortable practice of church
   government; drawing out of general notions what is practically
   applicable, so circumstantiated as of necessity it must be. And herein
   I shall not alter any thing, or in the least expression go off from
   that which long since I drew up at the request of a worthy friend,
   after a discourse about it; and this, not only because it hath already
   been in the hands of many, but also because my intent is not, either to
   assert, dispute, or make out any thing farther of my judgment in these
   things than I have already done (hoping for more leisure so to do than
   the few hours assigned to the product of this short appendix will
   permit), but only, by way of a defensative, to evince that the rumours
   which have been spread by some, and entertained by others too greedily,
   about this matter, have been exceeding causeless and groundless; so
   that though my second thoughts have, if I mistake not, much improved
   some particulars in this essay, yet I cannot be induced, because of the
   reason before recounted (the only cause of the publication thereof), to
   make any alteration in it; only I shall present the reader with some
   few things which gave occasion and rise to this proposal. As, --

   (1.) A fervent desire to prevent all farther division and separation,
   -- disunion of minds amongst godly men, -- suspicions and jealousies in
   the people towards their ministers, as aiming at power and unjust
   domination over them, -- fruitless disputes, languishings about
   unprofitable questions, breaches of charity for trifles, exasperating
   the minds of men one against another; -- all which growing evils,
   tending to the subversion of Christian love and the power of godliness,
   with the disturbance of the state, are too much fomented by that sad
   breach and division which is here attempted to be made up.

   (2.) A desire to work and draw the minds of all my brethren (the most,
   I hope, need it not) to set in for a thorough reformation, and for the
   obtaining of holy communion, -- to keep off indifferently the unworthy
   from church privileges and profaning of holy things. Whereunto I
   presumed the discovery of a way whereby this might be effected, without
   their disturbance in their former station, would be a considerable
   motive.

   (3.) A consideration of the paucity of positive rules in the Scripture
   for church government, with the great difficulty of reducing them to
   practice in these present times (both sufficiently evidenced by the
   endless disputes and irreconcilable differences of godly, precious, and
   learned men about them), made me conceive that the practice of the
   apostolical churches, doubtless for a time observed in those
   immediately succeeding, would be the best external help for the right
   interpretation of those rules we have, and pattern to draw out a church
   way by. Now, truly, after my best search and inquiry into the first
   churches and their constitution, framing an idea and exemplar of them,
   this poor heap following seems to me as like one of them as any thing
   that yet I have seen; nothing at all doubting but that if a more
   skilful hand had the limning of it, [124] the proportions, features,
   and lines would be very exact, equal and parallel; yea, did not extreme
   haste now call it from me, so that I have no leisure so much as to
   transcribe the first draught, I doubt not but by God's assistance it
   might be so set forth as not to be thought altogether undesirable, if
   men would but a little lay aside beloved pre-conceptions. But the
   printer stays for every line; only I must entreat every one that shall
   cast a candid eye on this unwillingly-exposed embryo and rude abortion,
   that he would assume in his mind any particular church mentioned in the
   Scripture, as of Jerusalem, Corinth, Ephesus, or the like; consider the
   way and state they were then and some ages after, in respect of outward
   immunities and enjoyments, and tell me whether any rational man can
   suppose that either there were in those places sundry particular
   churches, with their distinct, peculiar officers, acting in most
   pastoral duties severally in them, as distinguished and divided into
   entire societies, but ruling them in respect of some particulars
   loyally in combination, considered as distinct bodies; or else that
   they were such single congregations as that all that power and
   authority which was in them may seem fitly and conveniently to be
   intrusted with a small handful of men, combined under one single
   pastor, with one, two, or perhaps no associated elders. More than this
   I shall only ask, whether all ordinary power may not, without danger,
   be asserted to reside in such a church as is here described, reserving
   all due right and authority to councils and magistrates? Now, for the
   fountain, seat, and rise of this power, for the just distribution of it
   between pastors and people, this is no place to dispute; these
   following lines were intended merely to sedate and bury such contests,
   and to be what they are entitled, --
     __________________________________________________________________

   [111]

   "Laudatur ab his, culpatur ab illis."
   [Hor. Sat., lib. i. 2, 11.]

   [112] See August., Ep. 7, 28, 157, De Orig. Anim.

   [113]

   "Deferar in vicum vendentem thus et odores,

   Et piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis."
   [Hor. Epist., lib. ii. 1.]

   "Occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros."
   [Juv.]

   "Semper ego auditor tantum?"
   [Juv. Sat. i.]

   [114]

   "Immortale odium et nunquam sanabile vulnus,

   Ardet adhuc, Ombos et Tentyra. Summus utrinque

   Inde furor vulgo, quad numina vicinorum

   Odit uterque locus."
   Juven., [xv. 35.]"Graece scire, aut polite loqui, apud illos haeresis
   est." -- Eras. de Scholiast.

   [115] "Noli irritare crabrones. Si lapides teras nonne ignis erumpit?"
   -- Ambros., lib. i. cap. 21; Prov. xxx. 33; Job xiii. 13; Prov. xxv.
   18. Vid. Remed. contra Gravam. Nationis Germanicae. Luth. praefat, ad
   Lib. de Concil. Protest. 34 ministrorum. 4. Conclus. And generally all
   writers at the beginning of the Reformation.

   [116] Si accusasse sufficiet, quis erit innocens?

   [117]

   "Nec nos obniti contr`a, nec tendere tantum

   Sufficimus."
   [Virg. AE. v. 21.]

   [118] Sulp. Sever. Epist. Hist. Eccles.

   [119] Plut. Apophth.

   [120] Vid. catal. haeret, apud Tertul. de praescript. Epiphan. Aug.
   Vincent.

   [121] "Ego ancillae tuae fidem habui: nonne tu impudens, qui nec mihi
   ipsi credis?" -- Philos. apud Plut. Apophth.

   [122] "Nunc vero si nominis odium est, quis nominum reatus? quae
   accusatio vocabulorum? nisi aut Barbarum sonat aliqua vox nominis, aut
   maledicum, aut impudicum?" -- Tertul. Apol.

   [123] Acts xxiv. 14, xxviii. 22. -- "Haeresis Christianorum." Tertul.,
   -- "Secta Christ." Id., -- "Haeresis catholica, et haeresis
   sanctissima," Constant. Epist. Chr. Syriac. Tileni Syntagma, -- quo
   probate conatur Calvinianos esse haereticos, Hun. Calv. Tur. Andrews.
   Epist. ad Molin.

   [124] Hamerai d' epiloipoi martures sophotatoi. -- Pind., Od. i. Olym.,
   54, 55.
     __________________________________________________________________

A country essay for the practice of church government there.

   Our long expectation of some accommodation [125] between the dissenting
   parties about church government being now almost totally frustrate, --
   being also persuaded, partly through the apparent fruitlessness of all
   such undertakings, partly by other reasons not at this time seasonable
   to be expressed, that all national disputes tending that way will prove
   birthless tympanies, -- we deem it no ungrateful endeavour, waiving all
   speculative ideas, to give an essay, in such expressions as all our
   country friends concerned in it may easily apprehend, of what we
   conceive amongst us may really be reduced to comfortable and useful
   practice: concealing for a while all arguments for motives and
   inducements unto this way, with all those rocks and shelves, appearing
   very hideous in former proposals, which we strive to avoid; until we
   perceive whether any of our giants in this controversy will not come
   and look, and so overcome it, that at first dash the whole frame be
   irrecoverably ruined.

   Neither would we have any expect our full sense to each particular
   imaginable in this business, -- it being only a heap of materials,
   mostwhat unhewed, that we intend, and not a well-compacted fabric; and
   if the main be not condemned, we are confident no difference will ensue
   about particulars, which must have their latitude. However, if it be
   received as candidly as it is offered, no inconvenience will ensue.
   Now, that the whole may be better apprehended, and the reasons, if not
   the necessity, of this undertaking intimated, we shall premise some
   things concerning the place and persons for whose use is this proposal.

   First, For ministers. The place having all this while, through the
   goodness of God, been preserved in peace and quietness; and by the rich
   supply of able men sent hither by Parliament, there are in many
   parishes godly, orthodox, peace-loving pastors.

   Secondly, For the people.

   1. Very many, as in most other places, extremely ignorant, worldly,
   profane, scandalously vicious.

   2. Scarcely any parish where there are not some visibly appearing, of
   all ages, sexes, and conditions, fearing God, and walking unblamably
   with a right foot, as beseemeth the gospel; though in some places they
   are but like the berries after the shaking of an olive-tree.

   3. Amongst these, very few gifted, fitted or qualified for government.

   4. Many knowing professors, and such of a long standing, inclined to
   separation, unless some expedient may be found for comfortable
   communions; and in this resolution seem to be settled, to a contempt of
   allurements and threatenings.

   5. Seducers everywhere lying in wait to catch and deceive well-meaning
   souls, any thing discontented with the present administration of church
   affairs.

   6. Upon all which it appears, that comfortable communion is not to be
   attained within the bounds of respective parishes.

   Farther to carry on our intentions, we would desire of authority, --

   1. That our divisions may not be allotted out by our committees, --
   who, without other consideration, have bounded us with the precincts of
   high constables, -- but be left to the prudence of ministers, and other
   Christians, willingly associating themselves in the work.

   2. That men placed in civil authority may not, by virtue of their
   authority, claim any privilege in things purely ecclesiastical.

   In the several parishes let things be thus ordered:--

   1. Let every minister continue in his station, taking especial care of
   all them that live within the precincts of his parish; preaching,
   exhorting, rebuking, publicly, and from house to house; warning all, --
   using all appointed means to draw them to Jesus Christ and the faith of
   the gospel; waiting with all patience on them that oppose themselves,
   until God give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and
   in so doing, rest upon the calling he hath already received.

   2. Let the respective elders of the several parishes, to be chosen
   according to the ordinance of Parliament (annually, or otherwise), join
   with the ministers in all acts of rule and admonition, with those other
   parts of their charge which the parochial administration doth require.

   3. Let all criminal things, tending to the disturbance of that church
   administration which is amongst them be by the officers orderly delated
   to such as the civil magistrate shall appoint to take cognizance and
   determine of such things.

   And thus far have we proposed nothing new, nothing not common; neither
   in that which follows is there any thing so indeed, may it be but
   rightly apprehended.

   For the several combinations of ministers and people:--

   1. Let the extremes of the division not be above eight or ten miles
   distant and so the middle or centre not more than four or five miles
   from any part of it, -- which is no more than some usually go to the
   preaching of the word, and in which space Christians are generally as
   well known to one another in the country as almost at the next door in
   cities; but yet this may be regulated according to the number of
   professors fit for the society intended, -- which would not be above
   five hundred, nor under one hundred.

   2. In this division let there be, in the name of Christ and the fear of
   God, a gathering of professors (visible saints, men and women of good
   knowledge and upright conversation, -- so holding forth their communion
   with Christ), by their own desire and voluntary consent, into one body,
   -- uniting themselves, by virtue of some promissory engagement or
   otherwise, to perform all mutual duties, to walk in love and peace,
   spiritual and church communion, as beseemeth the gospel.

   3. Let every one so assembling have liberty, at some of the first
   meetings, to except against another, whether minister or others, so it
   be done with a spirit of meekness, and submission of judgment; or to
   demand such questions for satisfaction as shall be thought fit to be
   propounded.

   4. When some convenient number are thus assembled, let the ministers,
   if men of approved integrity and abilities, be acknowledged as elders
   respectively called to teach and rule in the church by virtue of their
   former mission, and be assumed to be so to this society by virtue of
   their voluntary consent and election.

   5. Let the ministers engage themselves in a special manner to watch
   over this flock, every one according to his abilities, both in
   teaching, exhorting, and ruling, so often as occasion shall be
   administered, for things that contain ecclesiastical rule and church
   order; acting jointly and as in a classical combination, and putting
   forth all authority that such classes are entrusted with.

   6. If it be judged necessary that any officers be added to them for the
   purpose before named, let them be chosen by the consent of the
   multitude.

   7. If not, let the ministers have the whole distributed among
   themselves respectively, according to the difference of their gifts, --
   reserving to the people their due and just privileges.

   8. Let this congregation assemble at the least once in a month, for the
   celebration of the communion, and other things them concerning; the
   meeting of the ministers may be appointed by authority, for those of a
   classis.

   9. If any one after his admission be found to walk unworthily, let him,
   after solemn, repeated admonition, be by joint consent left to his
   former station.

   10. Let any person, in any of the parishes combined as before, that is
   desirous to be admitted into this society, as is thought fit, be
   received at any time.

   11. If the number in process of time appear to be too great, let it be
   divided and subdivided, according to conveniency.

   12. Any one of the ministers may administer the sacrament, either to
   some or all of these, in their several parishes or at the common
   meeting, as opportunity shall serve.

   13. Let the rules of admission into this society and fellowship be
   scriptural, and the things required in the members only such as all
   godly men affirm to be necessary for every one that will partake of the
   ordinances with profit and comfort, -- special care being taken that
   none be excluded who have the least breathings of soul in sincerity
   after Jesus Christ.

   Now, beyond these generals for the present we judge it needless to
   express ourselves, or otherwise to confirm what we have proposed, each
   assertion almost directly pointing out unto what, in that particular,
   we do adhere; which being sufficiently confirmed by others, were but a
   superfluous labour to undertake. Neither shall we trouble you with a
   catalogue of conveniences, -- whereof men are put upon an express
   annumeration, when otherwise they do not appear, -- but commit the
   consideration of the tendence of the whole to every one's judgment, and
   conclude with the removal of a few obvious objections; being resolved
   hereafter, by God's assistance, to endeavour satisfaction about this
   way unto all, -- unless to such as shall be so simple or malicious as
   to ask whether this way be that of the Presbyterians or Independents.

   Obj. 1. By this means parishes will be unchurched.

   Ans. 1. If by churches you understand such entire societies of
   Christians as have all church power, both according to right and
   exercise, in and amongst themselves, as Independents speak of
   congregations; then they were never churched by any.

   2. If only civil divisions of men that may conveniently be taught by
   one pastor, and ruled by elders, whereof some may be fit to partake of
   all the ordinances, some not, as Presbyterians esteem them; then by
   this way they receive no injury, nor are abridged of any of their
   privileges.

   Obj. 2. This is to erect churches amongst churches, and against
   churches.

   Ans. No such thing; but a mere forming of one church with one
   presbytery.

   Obj. 3. It is against the Parliament's ordinance to assume a power of
   admitting and excluding of church members not exactly according to
   their rule, nor subordinate to the supervising of such as are appointed
   by them.

   Ans. 1. For the rules set out by ordinance, we conceive that the church
   officers are to be interpreters of them, until appeal be made from
   them, unto which we shall submit; and if it be so determined against
   us, that any be put on our communion "ipsi viderint," we shall labour
   to deliver our own souls.

   2. Though the Parliament forbid any but such authoritatively to be
   excluded, yet it doth not command that any be admitted but such as
   desire it; and we shall pray for such a blessing upon the work of our
   ministry as will either prepare a man for it or persuade them "pro
   tempore" from it; unless they be stubbornly obstinate, or openly
   wicked, -- against whom we hope for assistance. To objections arising
   from trouble and inconvenience, we answer, It cost more to redeem their
   souls.

   The God of peace and unity give the increase!


   "-- Si quid novisti rectius istis,

   Candidus imperti, si non, his utere."

   [Hor. Ep., i. 6, 67, 68.]

   And this is all which, for the present, I shall assert in this
   business; and this also is my own vindication. Time and leisure may
   give me advantage hereafter (if God permit) to deal seriously in this
   cause. In the meantime, it is not unknown to many, that so much as this
   was necessary for me to do; and I will not add now any thing that is
   not necessary.

   Now for the other head of the accusation, about toleration of errors,
   "philosophare volo, sed paucis." Something I shall add of my own
   present judgment in this matter; but with willing, express submission
   unto those whom the use and experience of things, with knowledge of
   foreign parts, skill in the rules of commonwealths, acquaintedness with
   the affections and spirits of men, have enabled to look punctually into
   the issues and tendencies of such a toleration. The main prejudice
   against it arises from the disturbances which it naturally (they say)
   produceth in civil states. I conceive no sort of men more unfit to
   judge of this than those whose abilities of learning do properly put
   them upon the discussing of this, and other controversies, as far as
   they are purely ecclesiastical, -- no men more frequently betraying
   narrowness of apprehension and weakness in secular affairs. For other
   consequences, I shall not be much moved with them, until it be clearly
   determined whether be worse, heretics or hypocrites, into maintain an
   error or counterfeit the truth; and whether profession upon compulsion
   be acceptable to God or man. [126] Laying those aside, let the thing
   itself be a little considered.

   Peace ecclesiastical, quiet among the churches (which without doubt
   would be shaken by a universal toleration), is that which most men aim
   at and desire. And truly he that doth not, scarcely deserves the name
   and privilege of a Christian. Unity in the Scripture is so pressed, so
   commanded, and commended, that not to breathe after it argues a heart
   acted by another spirit than that which moved the holy penmen thereof.
   But yet every agreement and consent amongst men professing the name of
   Christ, is not the unity and peace commended in the Scripture. That
   which some think to be Christ's order, may perhaps be anti-Christian
   confusion; the specious name of unity may be a cloak for tyranny.
   Learned men have reckoned up a sevenfold unity [127] in the Papacy; all
   which, notwithstanding, are far enough from that true evangelical unity
   which we are bound to labour for. Again, that which is good must be
   sought in a right manner, Or it will not be so to us. Peace and quiet
   is desirable; but there must be good causes and very urgent, to make us
   build our habitations out of others' ruins, and roll our pillows in
   their blood. I speak of things ecclesiastical. The historian [128]
   makes it a part of the oration spoken by Galgacus, the chieftain of the
   British forces, to stir them up against the Roman insolency, that when
   they had finished their depopulations, then they said they had peace.
   The same men have set up bishoprics in the Indies, as their forefathers
   did colonies here and elsewhere, with fire and sword. I know not how it
   comes to pass, but so it is, this proceeding with violence in matters
   of religion hath pleased and displeased all sorts of men, however
   distinguished by a true or false persuasion, who have enjoyed a
   vicissitude of the supreme power in any place, in supporting or
   suppressing of them. "Ure, seca, occide," is the language of men backed
   with authority: "Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris," say the
   same men under oppression. To give particular instances, were to lay
   open that nakedness which I suppose it my duty rather to coven What,
   then, you will say; shall every one be suffered to do what he pleaseth?
   [129] You mean, think or believe what he pleaseth, or that which he is
   convinced to be a truth. Must all sorts of men and their opinions be
   tolerated? -- These questions are not in one word to be resolved: many
   proposals are to be confirmed, many notions distinguished and retained,
   before a positive answer can be given. Take them in their whole
   latitude, and they may serve all men's turns. A negative universal
   resolution may tantamount unto, -- "The many intrusted with authority,
   or having that to back them, ought not to tolerate any of different
   persuasions from them, if they suppose them erroneous." Now truly, for
   my part, were I in Spain or Italy, a native of those places, and God
   should be pleased there to reveal that truth of his gospel unto me
   which he hath done in England, I believe those states ought to tolerate
   me, though they were persuaded that I were the most odious heretic
   under heaven; and what punishment soever they should impose on me for
   my profession would be required at their hands; -- unless they can
   convince me that God allows men to slay his servants for professing the
   gospel, if they believe them to be heretics: and so also excuse the
   Jews in crucifying his dear Son, because they esteemed him as an
   impostor. Christ was once crucified amongst thieves: he may be again,
   in them that are so supposed. I shall therefore summarily set down what
   I conceive in answer to these questions, premising a few things, if I
   mistake not, universally granted.

   And yet a word or two concerning toleration itself, that some guess may
   be given at what we aim and intend, must interpose. Much discourse
   about toleration hath been of late days amongst men; some pleading for
   it, more against it, was it always must be. Toleration is the alms of
   authority; yet men that beg for it, think so much at least their due.
   Some say it is a sin to grant it; others, that it is no less to deny
   it. Generally, the pleaders of each side have their interest in the
   cause. I never knew one contend earnestly for a toleration of
   dissenters, but was so himself; nor any for their suppression, but were
   themselves of the persuasion which prevaileth: for if otherwise, this
   latter would argue a Circumcellion [130] fury, willfully to seek their
   own ruin; the former so much charity, and commiseration of the
   condition of mortality as in these days would procure of the most no
   other livery but a fool's coat. Who almost would not admire at such
   new-discovered antipodes as should offer to assert an equal regiment of
   Trojans and Tyrians, [131] -- a like regard and allowance from
   authority for other sects as for that whereof themselves are a share?
   Now, amongst these contesters, few (nay, not any) have I found, either
   on the one side or the other, clearly and distinctly to define what
   they mean by toleration, or what is the direct purpose, signification,
   and tendency of non-toleration (a word in its whole extent written only
   in the forehead of the man of sin), -- what bounds, what terriers are
   to be assigned to the one or to the other, -- unto what degrees of
   longitude [132] or latitude their pole is to be elevated. Some,
   perhaps, by a toleration understand a universal, uncontrolled license,
   "vivendi ut velis," in things concerning religion; that every one may
   be let alone, and not so much as discountenanced in doing, speaking,
   acting, how, what, where, or when he pleaseth, "in agendis et credendis
   fidei," in all such things as concern the worship of God, articles of
   belief, or generally any thing commanded in religion; and in the
   meantime the parties at variance, and litigant about differences,
   freely to revile, reject, and despise one another, according as their
   provoked genius shall dispose their minds thereunto. Now truly, though
   every one of this mind pretends to cry for mercy to be extended unto
   poor afflicted truth, yet I cannot but be persuaded that such a
   toleration would prove exceeding pernicious to all sorts of men, and at
   last end in a dispute, like that recounted by Juvenal between two
   cities in Egypt, about their differences between their garden and river
   deities; [133] or like the contest related by Vertomannus in his
   travels amongst the Mohammedans, about Haly and Homar, the pretended
   successors to their grand impostor, where every one plied his
   adversary, "Hastisque clypeisque et saxis grandibus," cleaving their
   skulls, and making entrance for their arguments by dint of sword: and I
   wish experience did not sufficiently convince us that the profession of
   Christianity, where the power of godliness is away, will not prevent
   these evils: "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum."

   Others there are that press for a non-toleration of any thing that
   opposes or contradicts the truth in any part, themselves being in their
   own judgments fully possessed of all, -- their tenets being unto them
   the only form of wholesome words. Moreover (for these things recounted
   make not the difference, for it is so with all sects of men), the
   magistrates, or those who are intrusted with all the power over men
   which, for the preservation of human society, God hath been pleased to
   make out from himself, are also of the same persuasion with them. These
   they supplicate that an effectual course may be taken (asserting not
   only that they are intrusted with power from above so to do, but also
   that it is their great sin if they do it not) whereby all sectaries and
   erroneous persons may not only not be countenanced or kept within
   bounds, and not be forborne in any disturbing, insolent miscarriage;
   but also, that all that doctrine which is not publicly owned may be
   sure to be supplanted by the restraint and punishment of the
   dissenters, whether unto imprisonment, confiscation of goods, or death
   itself; for they must not cease, nay (if the thing is to be effected),
   they cannot rationally assign where to stay in punishing, before they
   come to the period of all, death itself, which is the point and centre
   wherein all the lines of this sentence meet; [134] wherein, to me,
   truly there is nothing but "luctus ubique, pavor, et plurima mortis
   imago." I know it is coloured with fair pretences; [135] but "quid ego
   verba audiam, facta cum video?" It is written with red letters, and the
   pens of its abettors are dipped in the blood of Christians. Doubtless
   between these extremes lies the way.

   Again, some by a toleration understand a mutual forbearance in
   communion, though there be great differences in opinion; and this the
   generality of the clergy (as heretofore they were called) did usually
   incline unto, -- viz., that any men almost might be tolerated, whilst
   they did not separate. And these lay down this for a ground, that there
   is a latitude in judgment to be allowed; so that the communion may be
   held by men of several persuasions, in all things, with an allowance of
   withdrawing in those particulars wherein there is dissent amongst them:
   and this the Belgic Remonstrants pressed hard for, before they were
   cast out by the Synod of Dort.

   Others plead for a toleration out of communion; that is, that men
   renouncing the communion of those whose religion is owned and
   established by authority, may yet peaceably be suffered to enjoy the
   ordinances in separation.

   Moreover, by communion some understand one thing, some another. Some
   think that is preserved sufficiently, if the dissenters do acknowledge
   those from whom they do dissent to be true churches, to enjoy the
   ordinances of Christ, to have the means of life and salvation in them,
   closing with them in all substantials of doctrine; but yet, because of
   some disorders in and amongst them, they dare not be as of them, -- but
   yet only separate from those disorders.

   Others, again, think that communion is utterly dissolved if any
   distinctions of persons be made, more than all acknowledge ought to be,
   -- any differences in the administration of the ordinances, -- any
   divisions in government at all.

   Now, all these things, and many more that might be added, must clearly
   be distinguished and determined by him that would handle his matter at
   large and exactly, that we may know what he means by those ambiguous
   words, and in what acceptation he owns them. Until this be done, a man
   may profess to oppose both toleration and non-toleration without any
   contradiction at all, because in their several senses they do not
   always intend the same.

   For my part, as on the one side; -- if by toleration you mean
   "potestatem vivendi ut velis" (as the Stoics defined liberty), a
   universal concession of an unbounded liberty, [136] or rather, bold,
   unbridled licentiousness, for every one to vent what he pleaseth, and
   to take what course seems good in his own eyes, in things concerning
   religion and the worship of God, I cannot give my vote for it; -- so,
   if by non-toleration you mean that which the gloss upon that place,
   "Haereticum hominem de vita," intended by adding "supple tolle," [137]
   to make up the sense, -- as if they were not to be endured in any place
   who dissent only in not-fundamentals from that which is established,
   but to be hated "ad furcas et leones," as the Christians of old, or to
   have their new derided lights extinguished in that light, "qua stantes
   ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant," in a Nero's bonfire, -- into the
   secrets of them that are thus minded let not my soul descend. "In their
   anger they will slay a man, and in their self-will they dig down a
   wall.

   Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; and their wrath, for it is
   cruel." These things, then, being so ambiguous, doubtful, and
   uncertain, we dare not be too peremptorily dogmatical, nor positively
   assert but only what is certainly true; as are these following:--

   1. That heresies and errors ought not to be tolerated; -- that is, men
   ought not to connive at, or comply with, those ways and opinions which
   they are convinced to be false, erroneous, contrary to sound doctrine,
   and that form of wholesome words which is delivered unto us as (next
   unto Christ) the greatest treasure of our souls, -- especially if
   credibly supposed to shake any fundamentals of the common faith; but
   with all their strength and abilities, in all lawful ways, upon every
   just call, to oppose, suppress, and overthrow them, -- rote root them
   up and east them out, that they may not, as noxious weeds and tares,
   overgrow and choke the good corn, amongst which they are covertly
   scattered. All predictions of "false Christs, false prophets, false
   teachers to come," and "to be avoided," all cautions to "try spirits,
   avoid heretics, beware of seducers, keep close to the truth received,
   -- to hate the doctrine of Nicolaitanes, to avoid endless disputes,
   strife of words, old fables, languishing about unprofitable questions,"
   -- the epithets given to, and descriptions made of, heresies, that they
   are "pernicious, damnable, cankers, works of the flesh," and the like,
   -- are all incitations and encouragements for the applying of all
   expedient means for the taking out of the way these stumbling-blocks.
   Let, then, the Scriptures be searched, and all ways embraced which the
   gospel holdeth forth, for the discovering, convincing, silencing,
   reproving, confuting of errors and persons erring, by admonitions,
   reproofs, mighty Scripture convictions, evidencing of the truth, with
   fervent prayers to Almighty God, the God of truth, that he would give
   us one heart and one way; and if these weapons of our warfare do not
   prevail, we must let them know that one day their disobedience will be
   revenged with being cut off, and "cast out as unprofitable branches,
   fit to be cast into the fire."

   2. That any doctrine tending undeniably in its own nature (and not by
   strained consequences) to the disturbance of the civil state may be
   suppressed, by all such means as are lawfully to be used for the
   conservation of the peace and safety of the state. Jesus Christ, though
   accused of sedition, taught none, practised none. His gospel gives not
   control to magistracy, righteous laws, or any sort of lawful government
   established amongst men; and therefore they whose faith is faction, and
   whose religion is rebellion, -- I mean Jesuits and Jesuitical Papists,
   -- some of the articles of whose creeds are directly repugnant to the
   safety, yea, being, of any commonwealths, wherein themselves and men of
   their own persuasion do not domineer and rule, may be proceeded against
   by them who bear not the sword in vain. The like may be said of men
   seditious, under any pretences whatsoever, -- like the Anabaptists at
   Munster.

   3. That such heresies or mispersuasions as are attended with any
   notorious sin in practice (I mean, not in consequences, but owned by
   their abettors, and practised accordingly, beyond Epicurus, whose
   honest life was not corrupted by his foul, dishonest opinion), -- like
   the Nicolaitanes, teaching, as most suppose, promiscuous lust; and the
   Papists' express abominable idolatry, -- may be in their authors more
   severely punished than such crimes not owned and maintained do singly
   deserve. To pretend conscience in such a case will not avail; "the
   works of the flesh are manifest," easy to be discerned, known to all.
   Apologies for such, argue searedness, not tenderness: such "evil
   communication" as "corrupteth good manners," is not to be tolerated.

   4. No pretences whatsoever, nor seeming colour, should countenance men
   dissenting from what is established, to revile, traduce, deride, or
   otherwise expose to vulgar contempt, by words or actions, the way owned
   by authority (if not evidently fallen off from Jehovah to Baal), or
   fasten bitter, uncharitable appellations on those who act according to
   that way; that is, the public ministers and ministry, acknowledged,
   owned, and maintained by the supreme magistrate, where they both are.
   Here, by the way, I cannot but complain of want of ingenuity and candid
   charity in those men who, having a comfortable maintenance arising
   another way, do yet, "ad faciendum populum," continually, in pulpits
   and other public places, inveigh against that way of maintenance which
   is allowed by the magistrate, and set apart for those that labour in
   the word and doctrine; unto whom I wish no farther evil, but only
   forced patience when their neighbouring tradesmen shall have persuaded
   the people about them that preachers of the gospel ought to live by the
   work of their hands, and so the contribution for their maintenance be
   subducted.

   Such men as these do show of what spirit they are, and what they would
   do if they were lions; seeing they bark so much, being but snarling
   dogs. And therefore, truly, if some severe course were used for the
   restraint of those who in our days strive to get themselves a name, and
   to build up their repute, by slighting, undervaluing, and, by all
   uncharitable, malicious ways, rendering odious those from whom they
   dissent, I should not much intercede for them: these are evil works,
   fruits of the flesh, evident to all. Now these, and such things as
   these, are acknowledged by all even-spirited men. Some few I shall now
   add, I hope not unlike them. As, --

   5. That it is a most difficult undertaking to judge of heresies and
   heretics, -- no easy thing to show what heresy is in general; --
   whether this or that particular error be a heresy or no, -- whether it
   be a heresy in this or that man; especially if such things as
   stubbornness, and pertinacy upon conviction, with the like, be required
   to make a man a heretic, -- for such things cannot be evidenced or made
   out, but only (for the most part) by most obscure conjectures, and such
   as will scarcely satisfy a charitable judgment. Papists, indeed, who
   have laid it down for a principle, that a contradiction of the doctrine
   of the church, known to be so, and continued in after admonition, doth
   infallibly make a man a heretic, are very clear, uniform, and settled
   in that which they have made the ground, warrant, and foundation of
   slaying millions of men professing the name of Christ: but for all
   other Christians, who acknowledge an infallibility in the rule, but no
   infallibility in any for the discovery of the truth of that rule
   (though exceeding clear and perspicuous in things necessary), -- for
   them, I say, understanding and keeping close to their own principles,
   it is a most difficult thing to determine of heresy, with an assurance
   that they are so out of danger of erring in that determination as to
   make it a ground of rigorous proceedings against those of whom they
   have so concluded. Some things, indeed, are so clearly in the Scripture
   laid down and determined, that to question or deny them bespeaks a
   spirit self-condemned in that which he doth profess. That twice two
   makes four, that he that runneth moveth, are not things more evident to
   reason than many things in the Scripture are to every captivated
   understanding; -- a wilful deviation in such, merits no charity. But
   generally, errors are about things hard to be understood, not so
   clearly appearing, and concerning which it is very difficult to pass
   the sentence of heresy. No judge of heresy since the apostles' days,
   but hath been obnoxious to error in that judgment; and those who have
   been forwardest to assume a judicature and power of discerning between
   truth and error, so as to have others regulated thereby, have erred
   most foully. Of old it was generally conceived to be in councils. Now,
   I should acknowledge myself obliged to any man that would direct me to
   a council since that Acts xv. 1 -- which I may not be forced from the
   word to assert that it, in some thing or other, went astray.

   Luther feared not to affirm of the first and best of general synods,
   that he "understood not the Holy Ghost to speak in it;" and that the
   canons thereof were but plain hay and stubble; [138] -- yea, and Beza,
   that such was the "folly, ignorance, ambition, wickedness of many
   bishops in the best times, that you would suppose the devil to have
   been president in their assemblies;" [139] insomuch as Nazianzen
   complained that he never saw a [140] good end of any, and affirmed that
   he was resolved never to come at them more. And in truth, the fightings
   and brawls, diabolical arts of defamation and accusing one another,
   abominable pride, ambition, and affectation of pre-eminence, which
   appeared in most of them, did so far prevail, that in the issue they
   became (as one was entitled) dens of thieves, rather than conventions
   of humble and meek disciples of Jesus Christ, until at length, the holy
   dove being departed, an ominous owl overlooked the Lateran fathers; and
   though with much clamour they destroyed the appearing fowl, yet the
   foul spirit of darkness and error wrought as effectually in them as
   ever. But to close this discourse. Ignorance of men's invincible
   prejudices, of their convictions, strong persuasions, desires, aims,
   hopes, fears, inducements, -- sensibleness of our own infirmities,
   failings, misapprehensions, darkness, knowing but in part, should work
   in us a charitable opinion of poor erring creatures, that do it perhaps
   with as upright, sincere hearts and affections as some enjoy truth.
   Austin [141] tells the Manichees, the most paganish heretics that ever
   were, that they only raged and were high against them who knew not what
   it was to seek the truth and escape error. With what ardent prayers the
   knowledge of truth is obtained! And how tender is Salvian [142] in his
   judgment of the Arians! "They are," saith he, "heretics, but know it
   not, -- heretics to us, but not to themselves; nay, they think
   themselves so catholic that they judge us to be heretics: what they are
   to us, that are we to them. They err, but with a good mind; and for
   this cause God shows patience towards them."

   Now, if any should dissent from what I have before asserted concerning
   this particular, I would entreat him to lay down some notes whereby
   heresies may infallibly be discerned to be such; and he shall not find
   me repugning.

   6. That great consideration ought to be had of that sovereign dictate
   of nature, the sum of all moral duties. "Quod tibi fieri non vis,
   alteri ne feceris;" -- "Do not that unto others which you would not
   have done to you, were you in the mine condition with them." In the
   business in hand, we are supposed by others to be in that estate
   wherein we suppose those to be of whom we speak; those others being to
   us what we are to them. Now truly, if none of the former inconveniences
   and iniquities which we recounted (assertion 2, 3, 4, or the like), do
   accompany erring persons, it will be something difficult to make it
   appear how we may, if enjoying authority over them, impose any
   coercion, restraint, or punishment on them, which we would not
   acknowledge to be justly laid on us by others (supposing it should be
   laid) having authority over us, convinced that our persuasion differing
   from them is false and erroneous. No sort of Christians but are
   heretics and schismatics to some Christians in authority; and it may be
   their lot to live under the power and jurisdiction of men so persuaded
   of them, where they ought to expect that the same measure will be given
   unto them which, in other places, they have consented to mete out to
   others.

   But men will say, and all men pleading the cause of non-toleration in
   its full extent do say, That they are heretics and erroneous persons
   whom we do oppose: we ourselves are orthodox; and no law of nature, no
   dictate of the Scriptures, requires that we should think it just to
   render unto them that are orthodox as unto them that are heretics,
   seducers, and false teachers. Because thieves are punished, shall
   honest men fear that they shall be so too? -- But a thief is a thief in
   all the world, unto all men: in opinions it is not so. -- He is a
   heretic that is to be punished. -- But to whom? in whose judgment? in
   his own? -- no more than we are in ours. -- But he is so to them that
   judge him. -- True. Put the case, a Protestant were to be judged by a
   Papist, as a thousand saints have been: is he not the worst of heretics
   to his judge? These things turn in a circle: what we are to ourselves,
   that he is to himself: what he is to us, that we are unto others that
   may be our judges. But however, you will say, we are in the truth, and
   therefore ought to go free. Now, truly, this is the same paralogism:
   who says we are in the truth? others? no, ourselves. Who says erroneous
   persons (as so supposed) are heretics, or the like? they themselves?
   no, but we: and those that are to us as we are to them, say no less of
   us. Let us not suppose that all the world will stoop to us, because we
   have the truth, as we affirm, but they do not believe. If we make the
   rule of our proceedings against others to be our conviction that they
   are erroneous; others will, or may, make theirs of us to be their rule
   of proceeding against us. We do thus to them, because we so judge of
   them; will not others, who have the same judgment of us as we of them,
   do the like unto us? Now here I profess that I do not desire to extend
   any thing in this discourse to the patronizing of any error whatsoever,
   -- I mean, any thing commonly so esteemed in the reformed churches, --
   as myself owning any such; much less to the procuring of a licentious
   immunity for every one in his way; and least of all, to countenance men
   walking disorderly in any regard, especially in the particulars before
   recounted; -- but only to show how warily, and upon what sure
   principles, that cannot be retorted on us, we ought to proceed, when
   any severity is necessarily required, in case of great danger; and how
   in lesser things, if the unity of faith may in some comfortable measure
   be kept, then to assert the proposition in its full latitude, urging
   and pleading for Christian forbearance, even in such manner to be
   granted as we would desire it from them whom we do forbear; for truly
   in those disputable things, we must acknowledge ourselves in the same
   series with other men, unless we can produce express patents for our
   exemptions. But some, perhaps, will say, that even in such things as
   these Gamaliel's counsel is not good; better all go on with punishing
   that can; truth will not be suppressed, but error will. Good God! was
   not truth oppressed by antichristian tyranny? was not outward force the
   engine that for many generations kept truth in corners? But of this
   afterward.

   Now, I am mistaken if this principle, that the civil magistrate ought
   to condemn, suppress, and persecute every one that he is convinced to
   err, though in smaller things, do not at length, in things of greater
   importance, make Christendom a very theatre of bloody murders, killing,
   slaying, imprisoning men round in a compass; until the strongest
   becomes dictator to the rest, and he alone be supposed to have
   infallible guidance, -- all the rest to be heretics, because overcome
   and subdued. (When I speak of death and killing in this discourse, I
   understand not only forcible death itself, but that also which is
   equivalent thereunto, as banishment, or perpetual imprisonment.) I had
   almost said, that it is the interest of mortality to consent generally
   to the persecution of a man maintaining such a destructive opinion.

   7. That whatsoever restraint or other punishment may be allowed in case
   of grosser errors, yet slaying of heretics for simple heresy, as they
   call it, for my part I cannot close withal; nor shall ever give my vote
   to the burning, hanging, or killing of a man, otherwise upright,
   honest, and peaceable in the state, merely because he misbelieveth any
   point of Christian faith. Let what pretences you please be produced, or
   colours flourished, I should be very unwilling to pronounce the
   sentence of blood in the case of heresy. I do not intend here to
   dispute; but if any one will, upon Protestant principles and Scripture
   grounds, undertake to assert it, I promise (if God grant me life) he
   shall not want a convert or an antagonist. I know the usual pretences:
   Such a thing is blasphemy. -- But search the Scripture, look upon the
   definitions of divines, and by all men's consent you will find heresy,
   in what head of religion soever it be, and blasphemy properly so
   called, to be exceedingly distant. Let a blasphemer undergo the law of
   blasphemy; but yet I think we cannot be too cautious how we place men
   in that damnable series calling heaven and earth to witness the
   contrary. But again: To spread such errors will be destructive to
   souls. -- So are many things, which yet are not punishable with
   forcible death. Let him that thinks so go kill Pagans and Mohammedans.
   As such heresy is a canker, but a spiritual one, let it be prevented by
   spiritual means. Cutting off men's heads is no proper remedy for it. If
   state physicians think otherwise, I say no more, but that I am not of
   the college, and what I have already said I submit to better judgments.

   8. It may be seriously considered, upon a view of the state and
   condition of Christians, since their name was known in the world,
   whether this doctrine of punishing erring persons with death,
   imprisonment, banishment, and the like, under the name of heretics,
   hath not been as useful and advantageous for error as truth; nay,
   whether it hath not appeared the most pernicious invention that ever
   was broached. In the first, second, and third ages, we hear little of
   it, -- nothing for it, -- something against it:-- much afterward
   against it, in Austin and others. [143] Marlinus, the famous French
   bishop, rejected the communion of a company of his associate bishops,
   because they had consented, with Maximus the emperor, unto the death of
   the Priscillianists, -- as vile heretics as ever breathed. At the end
   of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, when the Arians and
   orthodox had successively procured the supreme magistrate to join with
   them, men were killed and dismembered like beasts: banishments,
   imprisonments, plunderings, especially by the Arians, were as frequent
   as in new subdued kingdoms. But never was this tragedy so acted to the
   life, as by the worshippers of images on the one side, and their
   adversaries on the other: [144] which difference rose about the year
   130, and was carried on with that barbarous outrage on both sides,
   especially by the Iconolatrae (as the worst were ever best at such
   proceedings), as is wonderful to consider. Now, excepting only those
   idolatrous heretics in the last, who were paid home in their own coin
   for a thousand years together, this doctrine was put in practice
   against none almost but the martyrs of Jesus. The Roman stories of the
   killing of heretics, are all martyrologies; thousands slain for
   heretics now lie under the altar, crying for vengeance, and shall one
   day sit upon thrones, judging their judges. So that where one man hath
   suffered for an error, under the name of a heretic, five hundred under
   the same notion have suffered for truth; a principle would seem more
   befitting Christians to spare five hundred for the saving of one
   guiltless person. Truth hath felt more of the teeth of this scorpion
   than error; and clearly it grew up by degrees, with the whole mystery
   of iniquity. In the gospel we have nothing like it: the acts of Christ
   purging the temple, Peter pronouncing the fate of Ananias, and Paul
   smiting Elymas with blindness, seem to me heterogeneous. The first laws
   of Constantine speak liberty and freedom. [145] Pecuniary mulcts
   afterward were added, and general edicts against all sects; and so it
   is put over into the hands of the Arians, who exceedingly cherished it:
   yet for a good while pretences must be sought out, -- Eustathius of
   Antioch must be accused of adultery, Athanasius of sedition, magic, and
   I know not what, that a colour might be had for their persecution.
   [146] The Arian kings in Africa were the first that owned it, gugne
   kephale, and acted according to their persuasions. Methinks I hear the
   cries of poor dismembered, mangled creatures, for the faith of the holy
   Trinity! Next to these, through a few civil constitutions of some weak
   emperors, it wholly comes to reside in the hands of the pope; kings and
   princes are made his executioners, and he plays his game to the
   purpose. Single persons serve not this Bel and dragon, -- whole nations
   [147] must be slaughtered, that he may be drunk with blood. He sends
   whole armies to crucify Christ afresh, -- he gives every one of his
   soldiers a cross; hence followed cruel sights, bloody battles, wasting
   of kingdoms, raging against the names, ashes, sepulchres of the dead,
   with more than heathenish cruelty. Such evil fruits hath this bitter
   root sent forth, the streams of this fountain have all been blood; so
   that it cannot be denied but that a judicature of truth, and the
   contrary assumed, with a forcible backing of the sentence, was the
   bottom-stone in the foundation and highest in the corner of the tower
   of Babel: and I believe that upon search it will appear, that error
   hath not been advanced by any thing in the world so much as by usurping
   a power for its suppression. In divers contests that the pope had with
   others, the truth was on his side (as in the business of Athanasius and
   others in the east deposed by the Arians [148] ). Now, who would not
   have thought, that his standing up with all earnestness for the truth
   would not have been the ruin of the devil's kingdom of darkness, and
   almost have spoiled the plot of the mystery of iniquity? when the truth
   is, the largest steps that ever the man of sin took towards his throne
   was by usurping of power to suppress errors and heresies. It would be a
   great encouragement to use that way for the extirpation of errors (if
   any such be, besides the preaching of the gospel, and convictions from
   thence), which any one could produce and give assurance that it hath
   not been tried, or been tried and proved ineffectual for the
   supplantation of truth; and if such a way be not produced, what if both
   should grow together until harvest?

   9. Let us not be too hasty in pressing any opinion arising and divulged
   with odious consequences of sedition, turbulency, and the like, because
   tumults and troubles happen in the commonwealth where it is asserted. A
   coincidence of events is one of the principal causes of error and
   misjudgings in the world: because errors and tumults arise together,
   therefore one is the cause of the other, may be an argument "a baculo
   ad angulum." It is a hard thing to charge them with sedition who
   protest against it, and none can make it appear that it is "contraria
   factis" by any of their actions, but only because it is fit they should
   bear the blame of what happeneth evilly in their days. Upon every
   disaster in the empire, the noise of old was, "Christianos ad leones."
   [149] For our part, we ought to remember that we were strangers in
   Egypt. It is but little more than a hundred years since all mouths were
   opened and filled with reproaches against that glorious Reformation
   wherein we rejoice. Was it not the unanimous voice of all the
   adversaries thereof, that a new religion was brought in, tending to the
   immediate ruin of all states and commonwealths, -- attended with
   rebellion, the mother of sedition? Have we not frequent apologies of
   our divines for the confutation of such false, malicious, and putid
   criminations? It is true, indeed, the light of the gospel breaking out
   was accompanied with war, and not peace (according to the prediction of
   our Saviour); whereof the gospel was no more the cause, than John
   Diazius was of that horrible murder, when his brains were chopped out
   with an axe by his brother Alphonsus, [150] because he professed the
   gospel. Hence Luther, the vehemency of whose spirit gave no way to
   glosses and temporizing excuses, plainly affirms those tumults to be
   such necessary appendices of the preaching of the gospel, that he
   should not believe the word of God to be abroad in the world, if he saw
   it not accompanied with tumults; which he had rather partake in, than
   perish under the wrath of God in an eternal tumult. [151] The truth
   must go on, though thereby the world should be reduced to its primitive
   chaos and confusion. Were it not a perpetual course, for men of every
   persuasion to charge sedition, and the like, upon that which they would
   have suppressed, knowing that no name is more odious unto them who have
   power to effect their desire; and did I not find that some, who have
   had much ado, whilst they were sheep, to keep off that imputation from
   themselves, within a few years, becoming lions, have laid it home upon
   others as peaceable as they; I might perhaps be more rigid than now
   these discoveries will suffer me to be. Far be it from me to apologize
   for truth itself, if seditious; -- only I abhor those false, malicious
   criminations, whereby God's people in these days wherein we live have
   exceedingly suffered. It hath pleased God so to order things in this
   kingdom, that the work of recovering his worship to its purity, and
   restoring the civil state to its liberty, should be both carried on at
   the same time by the same persons. Are there none now in this kingdom
   to whom this reforming is an almost everting of God's worship? And are
   there none that have asserted that our new religion hath caused all
   those tumults and bloodshed? And doth not every unprejudiced man see
   that these are hellish lies and malicious accusations, having indeed
   neither ground nor colour, but only their coincidence in respect of
   time? Is any wise man moved with their clamours? Are their aspersions
   considerable? Are we the only men that have been thus injuriously
   traduced? Remember the difference between Elijah and Ahab, -- what was
   laid to the charge of Paul; see the apologies of the old Christians,
   and speak what you find.

   Much might here be added concerning the qualifications, carriages,
   humility, peaceableness, of erring persons; all which ought to be
   considered, and our proceedings towards them to be, if not regulated,
   yet much swayed by such considerations. Some I have known myself, that
   I dare say the most curious inquirer into their ways, that sees with
   eyes of flesh, would not be able to discover any thing but mere
   conviction and tenderness of conscience that causeth them to own the
   opinions which, different from others, they do embrace. Others, again,
   so exceeding supercilious, scorning, proud, selfish, -- so given to
   contemning of all others, reviling and undervaluing of their
   adversaries, -- that the blindest pity cannot but see much carnalness
   and iniquity in their ways. These things, then, deserve to be weighed,
   all passion and particular interest being set aside. And then, if the
   die be cast, and we must forward, let us take along with us these two
   cautions:--

   (1.) So to carry ourselves in all our censures, every one in his sphere
   (ecclesiastical discipline being preserved as pure and unmixed from
   secular power as possible), that it may appear to all that it is the
   error which men maintain which is so odious unto us, and not the
   consequent or their dissent from us, whether by subducting themselves
   from our power or withdrawing from communion. For if this latter be
   made the cause of our proceeding against any, there must be one law for
   them all, -- all that will not bow, to the fiery furnace! Recusancy is
   the fault; and that being the same in all, must have the same
   punishment, -- which would be such an unrighteous inequality as is fit
   for none but Antichrist to own.

   (2.) That nothing be done to any, but that the bound and farthest end
   of it be seen at the beginning, and not leave way and room for new
   persecution upon new pretences. "Cedo alteram et alteram," one stripe
   sometimes makes way for another, and how know I that men will stay at
   thirty-nine? "Principiis obsta."

   All these things being considered, I cannot so well close with them who
   make the least allowance of dissent to be the mother of abominations.
   Words and hated phrases may easily be heaped up to a great number, to
   render any thing odious which we have a mind to oppose; but the proving
   of an imposed evil or absurdity is sometimes a labour too difficult for
   every undertaker. And so I hope I have said enough to warrant my own
   hesitancy in this particular. Some might now expect that I should here
   positively set down what is my judgment concerning errors and erroneous
   persons dissenting from the truth received and acknowledged by
   authority, with respect unto their toleration: unto whom I answer, That
   to consider the power of the magistrate about things of religion, and
   over consciences; the several restraints that have been used in this
   case, or are pleaded for; -- the difference between dangerous
   fundamental errors and others; -- the several interests of men, and
   ways of disengaging; -- the extent of communion, and the absolute
   necessity of a latitude to be allowed in some things; -- with such
   other things as would be requisite for a full handling of the matter in
   hand, -- ask a longer discourse, and more exactness, than the few hours
   allotted to this appendix can afford. Only for the present I ask, if
   any will take the pains to inform me, -- 1. What they mean by a
   non-toleration? whether only a not countenancing nor holding communion
   with them; or if crushing and punishing them, then how? to what degree?
   by what means? where they will undoubtedly bound? 2. What the error is
   concerning which the inquiry is made? the clear opposition thereof to
   the word of God? the danger of it? the repugnancy that is in it to
   peace, quietness, and the power of godliness? 3. What or who are the
   erring persons? how they walk? in what manner of conversation? what is
   their behaviour towards others not of their own persuasion? what gospel
   means have been used for their conviction? what may be supposed to be
   their prejudices, motives, interests, and the like? And then, if it be
   worth asking, I shall not be backward to declare my opinion. And truly,
   without the consideration of these things, and other such
   circumstances, how a right judgment can be passed in this case, I see
   not.

   And so, hoping the courteous reader will look with a candid eye upon
   these hasty lines, rather poured out than written; and consider that a
   day's pains in these times may serve for that which is but for a day's
   use; the whole is submitted to his judgment by him who professeth his
   all in this kind to be, -- the love of truth and peace.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [125] The form being given to this essay at the first, I thought not
   good to alter any thing about it.

   [126] "Hostiae ab animo libenti accipiuntur." -- Tertul.

   [127] "1. Satanica; 2. Ethnica; 3. Belluina; 4. Iscariotica; 5.
   Tyrannica; 6. Herodiana; 7. Ventris causa." -- Illyricus, de Variis
   Sectis ap. Papistas.

   [128] "Solitudinem ubi faciunt, pacem appellant." -- Tacitus Vita Agr.
   cap. x.

   [129] "Humani juris, et naturalis potestatis est, unicuique quod
   putaverit colere." -- Tertul. "Quis imponet mihi necessitatem aut
   credendi quod nolim, aut quod velim non credendi!" -- Lactan.

   [130] The Circumcelliones, from which this epithet is derived, were
   fanatics in North Africa, who, in the course of the fourth century,
   prowled around the huts (circum cellas) of the peasantry, despising
   labour, and subsisting on alms. They were much under the influence of
   the Donatists, and often, by their rash demolition of pagan idols,
   exposed themselves to martyrdom. --Ed.

   [131] "Tros, Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur." -- [Virg. AE., i.
   578.]

   [132]

   "Late sibi summovet omne

   Vulgus ut in vacua regnet Basiliscus arena"
   [Lucan, i. 9, 725.]

   [133]

   "O Sanctas genres quibus haec nascantur in hortis

   Numina!"
   [Sat. xv. 10]

   [134]

   "Inventus, Chrysippe, mi finitor acervi."
   [Persi, vi. 80.]

   [135]

   Echthros gar moi' keinos homos aidao pulesin,

   Hos ch' heteron men keuthei eni phresin, allo de bazei.
   [Hom. Il., ix. 312, 313.]

   [136] Exousia autopragias? -- [Diog. Laert. in Stoic. Dogm., rendered
   as above by Cicer. Paradox. Sto. v. 1.]

   [137] Tolle de vita.

   [138] "Hic prorsus non intelligo Sanctum Spiritum in hoc concilio: hi
   omnes articuli faenum, stramen, ligna, stipulae fuerunt." -- Luth.

   [139] "In optimis illis temporibus, ea fuit nonnullorum episcoporum,
   partim ambitio, partim futilitas et ignorantia," etc. -- Beza, praefat,
   ad Nov. Testa.

   [140] "Ego, si vera scribere oportet, ita animo affectus sum, ut omnia
   episcoporum concilia fugiam, quoniam nullius concilii finem laetum
   faustumque vidi: nec quod depulsionem malorum potius quam accessionem
   et incrementum habuerit." -- Greg. Naz. Ep. ad Procop.

   [141] "Illi in vos saeviunt, qui nesciunt cum quo labore inveniantur,
   et quam difficile caveantur errores," etc. -- Aug.

   [142] "Apud nos sunt haeretici, apud se non sunt: quod ergo illi nobis
   sunt, hoc nos illis," etc. -- Salv. de Prov. etc.

   [143] Tous misountas ton Theon, misein chre kai humas, kai epi tois
   echthrois autou ektekesthai; ou men kai tuptein autous e diokein,
   kathos ta ethne ta me eidota ton Kurion kai Theon; all' echthrous men
   hegeisthai, kai chorizesthai ap' auton. -- Ignat. Epist. ad Philad.

   [144] Theophanes. Histor. Miscel., lib. xxii. cap. 30.

   [145] Euseb. Vit. Const., lib. ii. cap. 27.

   [146] Socrat. Evag. Rufinus. Sozom.

   [147] Albigenses, Waldenses, Bohemians.

   [148] Socrat., lib. ii. cap. 11.

   [149] Arnob.

   [150] Sleid. Com.

   [151] "Ego nisi tumultus istos viderem, verbum Dei in mundo non esse
   dicerem. Praeeligimus temporali tumultu collidi, quam aeterno tumultu
   sub ira Dei conteri." -- Luth. de Ser. Arb. cap. xxxii.-xxxiv.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon II.

   Ebenezer:

   a memorial of the deliverance

   of

   Essex county, and committee.

   In two sermons
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   The ancient town of Colchester, which had at an early period in the
   civil wars declared in favour of the Parliament, was besieged and
   obliged to surrender to the Royal forces. Lord Fairfax, the general of
   the Parliamentary army, and a nobleman of high reputation, whom both
   Milton and Hume unite in praising, after an ineffectual attempt to
   regain the town by storm, changed his tactics into a rigorous blockade.
   The Royalists maintained the defence with signal gallantry for nearly
   eleven weeks, till all their provisions were spent, and they had
   nothing on which to subsist but horses, dogs, and other animals. At
   length they surrendered at discretion, when two of their officers, Sir
   Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, suffered military execution on the
   spot. A fine of -L-14,000 was imposed on the town.

   Owen, at this time pastor of an Independent congregation at Coggeshall,
   which is not far from Colchester, and which was the head-quarters of
   Fairfax during the siege, seems to have officiated as chaplain to the
   Parliamentary general; and on the fall of the town, a day of
   thanksgiving was observed, when he preached before Fairfax and his
   victorious army, from Hab. iii. 1-9. A committee of Parliament bad been
   sitting at Colchester when the Royalists seized it, and had been under
   imprisonment during the siege. They also engaged in the same exercise
   of thanksgiving for their deliverance at Rumford, on September 28,
   1648. Owen preached to them another discourse from the same text. Both
   discourses were published as one. They take the shape of a running
   comment upon a very sublime passage of Scripture. The verses are
   expounded in order, and the author educes from them a series of general
   principles or observations, which he illustrates with tact and power.
   Exegetic statements are made the basis of important principles, and
   relieved by eloquent expressions, and maxims of practical wisdom.
   Though necessarily brief, some of the appeals interwoven with the
   details of exposition are specimens of close and urgent dealing with
   the conscience.

   Objection has been taken by Mr Orme to the warlike tone of the preacher
   in some parts of the discourse. There is certainly but slight reference
   to the evils and horrors of war. Regret might have been expressed that
   no course was open to the nation in the pending quarrel with its king,
   but the stern arbitration of the sword. Still, the objection is hardly
   just. The audience of Owen consisted of men who, at the call of duty,
   had been hazarding their lives for the best interests of the nation,
   and except on the principle that all war is unlawful, the preacher
   could not be expected to utter sentiments which might have sounded in
   their ears as a condemnation of their conduct. Moreover, while he could
   not but allude to military operations, he abstains from all fulsome
   eulogy of the skill and valour of the conquerors, and ascribes the
   praise of the victory and deliverance to God; so much so, that he has
   been charged with committing himself in this discourse to the erroneous
   principle of inferring the goodness of a cause from the success that
   may have attended it. Mr Orme conclusively repels the insinuation, by
   quoting Owen's own explicit disclaimer of the sentiment thus imputed to
   him:-- "A cause is good or bad before it hath success, one way or
   other; and that which hath not its warrant in itself, can never obtain
   any from its success. The rule of the goodness of any cause is the
   eternal law of reason, with the legal rights and interests of men." See
   Owen's "Reflections on a Slanderous Libel," vol. xvi. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

To his Excellency, Thomas Lord Fairfax, etc.

   Sir,

   Almighty God having made you the instrument of that deliverance and
   peace which in the county of Essex we do enjoy, next to his own
   goodness, the remembrance thereof is due unto your name. "Those who
   honour him he will honour; and those who despise him shall be lightly
   esteemed," 1 Sam. ii. 30. Part of these ensuing sermons being preached
   before your excellency, and now by providence called forth to public
   view, I am emboldened to dedicate them unto your name, as a small mite
   of that abundant thankfulness, wherein all peace-loving men of this
   county stand obliged unto you.

   It was the custom of former days, in the provinces of the Roman empire:
   to erect statues and monuments of grateful remembrance [152] to those
   presidents and governors who, in the administration of their authority,
   behaved themselves with wisdom, courage, and fidelity; yea, instruments
   of great deliverances and blessings, through corrupted nature's folly,
   became the Pagans' deities.

   There is scarce a county in this kingdom wherein, and not one from
   which, your excellency hath not deserved a more lasting monument than
   ever was erected of Corinthian brass. But if the Lord be pleased that
   your worth shall dwell only in the praises of his people, it will be
   your greater glory, that being the place which himself hath chosen to
   inhabit. Now, for a testification of this is this only intended. Beyond
   this towards men, God pleading for you, you need nothing but our
   silence; the issue of the last engagements, whereunto you were called
   and enforced, answering, yea, outgoing, your former undertakings,
   giving ample testimony of the continuance of God's presence with you in
   your army, having stopped the mouths of many gainsayers, and called to
   the residue in the language of the dumb-speaking Egyptian hieroglyphic,
   O ginomenoi kai apoginomenoi, Theos misei anai.deian, [153] -- "Men of
   all sorts know that God hateth impudence."

   It was said of the Romans, in the raising of their empire, that they
   were "saepe praelio victi, bello nunquam." So naked hath the bow of God
   been made for your assistance, that you have failed neither in battle
   nor war.

   Truly, had not our eyes beheld the rise and fall of this latter storm,
   we could not have been persuaded that the former achievements of the
   army under your conduct could have been paralleled. But He who always
   enabled them to outdo not only others but themselves, hath in this
   carried them out to outdo whatever before himself had done by them,
   that they might show more kindness and faithfulness in the latter end
   than in the beginning. The weary ox treadeth hard; -- dying bites are
   often desperate; -- half-ruined Carthage did more perplex Rome than
   when it was entire; -- hydra's heads in the fable were increased by
   their loss, and every new stroke begat a new opposition. Such seemed
   the late tumultuating of the exasperated party in this nation.

   In the many undertakings of the enemy, -- all which themselves thought
   secure, and others esteemed probable, -- if they had prevailed in any
   one, too many reasons present themselves to persuade they would have
   done so in all. But to none of those worthies which went out under your
   command to several places in the kingdom, can you say, with Augustus to
   Varus, upon the slaughter of his legions by Arminius in Germany,
   "Quintile Vare, redde legiones," God having carried them all on with
   success and victory.

   One especially, in his northern expedition, I cannot pass over with
   silence, who although he will not, dare not, say of his undertakings,
   as Caesar of his Asian war, "Veni, vidi, vici," knowing who works all
   his works for him; nor shall we say of the enemy's multitude, what
   Captain Gam did of the French, being sent to spy out their numbers
   before the battle of Agincourt, that there were of them enough to kill,
   and enough to take, and enough to run away; yet of him and them both he
   and we may freely say, "It is nothing with the Lord to help, either
   with many, or with them that have no power."

   The war being divided, and it being impossible your excellency should
   be in every place of danger, according to your desire, the Lord was
   pleased to call you out personally unto two of the most hazardous,
   dangerous, and difficult undertakings; [154] where, besides the travel,
   labour, watching, heat and cold, by day and night, whereunto you were
   exposed, even the life of the meanest soldier in your army was not in
   more imminent danger than oftentimes was your own. And indeed, during
   your abode at the leaguer amongst us, in this only were our thoughts
   burdened with you, -- that self-preservation was of no more weight in
   your counsels and undertakings. And I beseech you pardon my boldness,
   in laying before you this expostulation of many thousands (if we may
   say to him who hath saved a kingdom what was sometime said unto a
   king), "Know you not that you are worth ten thousands of us? why should
   you quench such a light in Israel?"

   Sir, I account it among those blessings of Providence wherewith the
   days of my pilgrimage have been seasoned, that I had the happiness for
   a short season to attend your excellency, in the service of my master,
   Jesus Christ; as also, that I have this opportunity, in the name of
   many, to cast in my chaire into the kingdom's congratulations of your
   late successes. What thoughts concerning your person my breast is
   possessed withal, as in their storehouse they yield me delightful
   refreshment, so they shall not be drawn out, to the disturbance of your
   self-denial. The goings forth of my heart, in reference to your
   excellency, shall be chiefly to the Most High, that, being more than
   conqueror in your spiritual and temporal warfare, you may be long
   continued for a blessing to this nation, and all the people of God.

   Sir,

   Your Excellency's

   Most humble and devoted Servant,

   John Owen.

   Coggeshall, Essex,
   Oct. 5, 1648.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [152] Lubens meritoque.

   [153] Plut. de Iside et Osir.

   [154] Kent, Essex.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the worthy and honoured Sir William Masham, Sir William Rowe, with the rest
of the gentlemen of the committee lately under imprisonment by the enemy in
Colchester; as also, to the honoured Sir Henry Mildmay of Wansted, Col. Sir
Thomas Honeywood, with the rest of the gentlemen and officers, lately acting and
engaged against the same enemy.

   Sirs,

   The righteous judgments of God having brought a disturbance and noise
   of war, for our security, unthankfulness, murmuring, and devouring one
   another, upon our country, those who were intrusted with the power
   thereof turned their streams into several channels. Troublous times are
   times of trial.

   "Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked
   shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the
   wise shall understand," Dan. xii. 10. Some God called out to suffer,
   some to do, -- leaving "treacherous dealers to deal treacherously."

   Of the two first sorts are you. This honour have you received from God,
   either with patience and constancy to undergo, involuntarily a
   dangerous restraint; or with resolution and courage voluntarily to
   undertake a hazardous engagement, to give an example that faith and
   truth, so shamefully despised in these evil days, have not altogether
   forsaken the sons of men.

   It is not in my thoughts to relate unto yourselves what some of you
   suffered, and what some of you did, -- what difficulties and
   perplexities you wrestled withal, within and without the walls of your
   enemies (the birds in the cage and the field having small cause of
   mutual emulation); for that which remains of these things is only a
   returnal of praise to Him by whom all your works are wrought.

   It cannot be denied but that Providence was eminently exalted in the
   work of your protection and delivery; yet truly, for my part, I cannot
   but conceive that it vails to the efficacy of grace, in preventing you
   from putting forth your hands unto iniquity, in any sinful compliance
   with the enemies of our peace. The times wherein we live have found the
   latter more rare than the former. What God wrought in you hath the
   pre-eminence of what he wrought for you; -- as much as to be given up
   to the sword is a lesser evil than to be given up to a treacherous
   spirit.

   What God hath done for you all, all men know; -- what I desire you
   should do for God, I know no reason why I should make alike public, --
   the general and particular civilities I have received from all and
   every one of you advantaging me to make it out in another way. I shall
   add nothing, then, to what you will meet withal in the following
   discourse, but only my desire, that you would seriously ponder the
   second observation, with the deductions from thence. For the rest, I no
   way fear but that that God who hath so appeared with you, and for you,
   will so indulge to y spirits the presence and guidance of his grace, in
   these shaking times, that if any speak evil of you as of evil-doers,
   they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in
   Christ, and glorify God in the day of visitation.

   For these following sermons, one of them was preached at your desire,
   and is now published upon your request. The first part of the labour I
   willingly and cheerfully underwent; -- the latter, merely in obedience
   to your commands, being acted in it more by your judgments than mine
   own. You were persuaded (mean as it was) it might be for the glory of
   God to have it made public; whereupon my answer was, and is, That for
   that, not only it, but myself also, should, by his assistance, be ready
   for the press. The failings and infirmities attending the preaching and
   publishing of it (which the Lord knows to be very many) are mine; --
   the inconveniences of publishing such a tractate from so weak a hand,
   whereof the world is full, must be yours; -- the fruit and benefit both
   of the one and other is His, for whose pardon of infirmities, and
   removal of inconveniences, shall be, as for you, and all the church of
   God, the prayer of,

   Sirs,

   Your most humble and obliged Servant

   In the work of the Lord,

   John Owen.

   Coggeshall, Oct. 5, 1648.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon II. A memorial of the deliverance of Essex county, and committee.

   "A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth. O Lord, I have heard
   thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the
   years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
   God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His
   glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And
   his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand:
   and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence,
   and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood, and measured the
   earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting
   mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are
   everlasting. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains
   of the land of Midian did tremble. Was the Lord displeased against the
   rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the
   sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses, and thy chariots of
   salvation? Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the
   tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers."
   -- Hab. iii. 1-9.

   Of this chapter there are four parts.

   First, The title and preface of it, verse 1.

   Secondly, The prophet's main request in it, verse 2.

   Thirdly, Arguments to sustain his faith in that request, from verse 3
   to 17.

   Fourthly, A resignation of himself, and the whole issue of his desires
   unto God, from verse 17 to the end.

   We shall treat of them in order.

   The prophet [155] having had visions from God, and pre-discoveries of
   many approaching judgments, in the first and second chapters, in this,
   by faithful prayer, sets himself to obtain a sure footing and quiet
   abode in those nation-destroying storms.

   Verse 1. "A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet;" that is the title of it.

   And an excellent prayer it is, full of arguments to strengthen faith,
   -- acknowledgment of God's sovereignty, power, and righteous judgments,
   -- with resolutions to a contented, joyful, rolling him upon him under
   all dispensations.

   Observation I. Prayer is the believer's constant, sure retreat in an
   evil time, in a time of trouble.

   It is the righteous man's wings to the "name of the Lord," which is his
   "strong tower," Prov. xviii. 10, -- a Christian [156] soldier's sure
   reserve in the day of battle: if all other forces be overthrown, here
   he will abide by it, -- no power under heaven can prevail upon him to
   give one step backward. Hence that title of Ps. cii. 1, "A prayer of
   the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed." 'Tis the overwhelmed man's
   refuge and employment: when "he swooneth with anguish" (as in the
   original), this fetches him to life again. So also, Ps. lxi. 2, 3. In
   our greatest distresses let neither unbelief nor self-contrivances
   jostle us out of this way to the rock of our salvation.

   II. Observation. Prophets' discoveries of fearful judgments must be
   attended with fervent prayers.

   That messenger hath done but half his business who delivers his errand,
   but returns not an answer. He that brings God's message of threats unto
   his people, must return his people's message of entreaties unto him.
   Some think they have fairly discharged their duty when they have
   revealed the will of God to man, without labouring to reveal the
   condition and desires of men unto God. He that is more frequent in the
   pulpit to his people than he is in his closet for his people, is but a
   sorry watchman. Moses did not so, Exod. xxxii. 31; -- neither did
   Samuel so, 1 Sam. xii. 23; -- neither was it the guise of Jeremiah in
   his days, chap. xiv. 17. If the beginning of the prophecy be (as it is)
   "The burden of Habakkuk," -- the close will be (as it is) "The prayer
   of Habakkuk." Where there is a burden upon the people, there must be a
   prayer for the people. Woe to them who have denounced desolations, and
   not poured out supplications! Such men delight in the evil which the
   prophet puts far from him, Jer. xvii. 16, "I have not desired the
   woeful day, [O Lord], thou knowest."

   Now this prayer is "upon Shigionoth;" that is, -- 1. It is turned to a
   song; 2. Such a song.

   1. That it is a song, penned in meter; and how done so. (1.) To take
   the deeper impression; (2.) To be the better retained in memory; (3.)
   To work more upon the affections; (4.) To receive the ingredients of
   poetical loftiness for adorning the majesty of God with; (5.) The use
   of songs in the old church; (6.) And for the present; (7.) Their times
   and seasons, as among the people of God, so all nations of old. Of all,
   or any of these, being besides my present purpose, I shall not treat.

   2. That it is "upon Shigionoth," a little may be spoken. The word is
   once in another place (and no more) used, in the title of a song, and
   that is Ps. vii., "Shigionoth of David;" and it is variously rendered.
   It seems to be taken from the word sgh?, "erravit," to err, or wander
   variously, Prov. v. 19. The word is used for delight, to stray with
   delight: "In her love (tsgh?) thou shalt err with delight," -- we have
   translated it, "be ravished;" noting affections out of order. The word,
   then, holds out a delightful wandering and variety; -- and this
   literally, because those two songs, Ps. vii. and Hab. iii., are not
   tied to any one certain kind of metre, but have various verses, for the
   more delight; which, though it be not proper to them alone, yet in them
   the Holy Ghost would have it especially noted.

   But now surely the kernel of this shell is sweeter than so. Is not this
   written also for their instruction who have no skill in Hebrew songs?
   The true reason of their meter is lost to the most learned. Are not,
   then, God's variable dispensations towards his held out under these
   variable tunes, -- not all fitted to one string? not all alike pleasant
   and easy? Are not the several tunes of mercy and judgment in these
   songs? Is not here affliction and deliverance, desertion and recovery,
   darkness and light in this variously? Doubtless it is so.

   III. Observation. God often calls his people unto songs upon
   Shigionoth.

   [157] He keeps them under various dispensations, that so, drawing out
   all their affections, their hearts may make the sweeter melody unto
   him. They shall not have all honey, nor all gall; -- all judgment, lest
   they be broken; nor all mercy, lest they be proud. "Thou answeredst
   them, O Lord our God: thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou
   tookest vengeance of their inventions," Ps. xcix. 8. Here is a song
   upon Shigionoth! They are heard in their prayers, and forgiven; --
   there is the sweetest of mercies. Vengeance is taken of their
   inventions, -- there's tune of judgment. "By terrible things in
   righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation," Ps. lxv. 5;
   [which] is a song of the same tune. To be answered in righteousness,
   what sweeter mercy in the world? Nothing more refreshes the panting
   soul than an answer of its desires; but to have this answer by terrible
   things, -- that string strikes a humbling, a mournful note. Israel hear
   of deliverance by Moses, [158] and at the same time have their bondage
   doubled by Pharaoh, -- there's a song upon Shigionoth. Is it not so in
   our days? -- precious mercies and dreadful judgments jointly poured out
   upon the land? We are clothed by our Father, like Joseph by his, in a
   party-coloured coat, Gen. xxxvii. 3; -- here a piece of unexpected
   deliverance, and there a piece of deserved correction. At the same hour
   we may rejoice at the conquest of our enemies, and mourn at the close
   of our harvest, -- victories for his own name's sake, and showers for
   our sins' sake; both from the same hand at the same time. The cry of
   every soul is like the cry of the multitude of old and young at the
   laying the foundation of the second temple: many shouted aloud for joy,
   and many wept with a loud voice; so that it was a mixed noise, and the
   several noises could not be distinguished, Ezra iii. 12, 13. A mixed
   cry is in our spirits, and we know not which is loudest in the day of
   our visitation. I could instance in sundry particulars, but that every
   one's observation will save me that easy labour. And this the Lord
   doth, --

   1. To fill [159] all our sails towards himself at once, -- to exercise
   all our affections. I have heard that a full wind behind the ship
   drives her not so fast forward as a side wind, that seems almost so
   much against her as with her; and the reason, they say, is, because a
   full wind fills but some of her sails, which keep it from the rest that
   they are empty; when a side wind fills all her sails, and sets her
   speedily forward. Which way ever we go in this world, our affections
   are our sails; and according as they are spread and filled, so we pass
   on, swifter and slower, whither we are steering. Now, if the Lord
   should give us a full wind, and continual gale of mercies, it would
   fill but some of our sails, some of our affections, -- joy, delight,
   and the like; but when he comes with a side wind, -- a dispensation
   that seems almost as much against us as for us, then he fills all our
   sails, takes up all our affections, making his works wide and broad
   enough to entertain them every one; -- then are we carried freely and
   fully towards the haven where we would be. [160] A song upon Shigionoth
   leaves not one string of our affections untuned. It is a song that
   reacheth every line of our hearts, to be framed by the grace and Spirit
   of God. Therein hope, fear, reverence, with humility and repentance,
   have a share; as well as joy, delight, and love, with thankfulness.
   Interchangeable dispensations take up all our affections, with all our
   graces; for they are gracious affections, exercised and seasoned with
   grace, of which we speak. The stirring of natural affections, as merely
   such, is but the moving of a dunghill to draw out a stinking steam, --
   a thing the Lord neither aimeth at nor delighteth in. Their joys are
   his provocation, and he laugheth in the day of their calamity, when
   their fear cometh, Prov. i. 26, 27.

   2. To keep them in continual [161] dependence upon himself. He hath
   promised his own daily bread, -- not goods laid up for many yearn Many
   children have been undone by their parents giving them too large a
   stock to trade for themselves; it has made them spendthrifts, careless,
   and wanton. Should the Lord intrust his people with a continued stock
   of mercy, perhaps they would be full, and deny him, and say, "Who is
   the Lord?" Prov. xxx. 9. Jeshurun did so, Deut. xxxii. 14, 15. Ephraim
   "was filled according to their pasture, and forgot the Lord," Hos.
   xiii. 6. Neither, on the other side, will he be always chiding. "His
   anger shall not burn for ever" -- very sore. It is our infirmity at the
   least, if we my, God hath forgotten to be gracious, and shut up his
   tender mercies in displeasure, Ps. lxxvii. 9. But laying one thing
   against another, he keeps the heart of his in an even balance, in a
   continual dependence upon himself, that they may neither be wanton
   through mercy, nor discouraged by too much oppression. Our tender
   Father is therefore neither always feeding nor always correcting. "And
   it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear,
   nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not
   day nor night; but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall
   be light," saith the prophet Zech. xiv. 6, 7, seeking out God's
   dispensations towards his, ending in joy and light in the evening.

   Use. Labour to have your hearts right tuned for songs on Shigionoth,
   sweetly to answer all God's dispensations in their choice variety. That
   instrument will make no music that hath but some strings in tune. If
   when God strikes with mercy upon the string of joy and gladness, we
   answer pleasantly; but when he touches upon that of [162] sorrow and
   humiliation, we suit it not; -- we are broken instruments, that make no
   melody unto God. We must know how to receive good and evil at his hand.
   "He hath made every thing beautiful in its time," Eccles. iii. 11, --
   every thing in that whole variety which his wisdom hath produced. A
   well-tuned heart must have all its strings, all its affections, ready
   to answer every touch of God's finger, to improve judgments and mercies
   both at the same time. Sweet harmony ariseth out of some discords. When
   a soul is in a frame to rejoice with thankful obedience for mercy
   received, and to be humbled with soul-searching, amending repentance
   for judgments inflicted at the same time, -- then it sings a song on
   Shigionoth, then it is fit for the days wherein we live. Indeed, both
   mercies and judgments aim at the same end, and should be received with
   the same equal temper of mind. A flint is broken between a hammer and a
   pillow; -- an offender is humbled between a prison and a pardon; -- a
   hard heart may be mollified and a proud spirit humbled between those
   two. In such a season the several rivulets of our affections flow
   naturally in the same stream. When hath a gracious soul the soundest
   joys, but when it hath the deepest sorrows? "Habent et gaudia vulnus."
   When hath it the humblest melting, but when it hath the most ravishing
   joys? Our afflictions, which are naturally at the widest distance, may
   all swim in the same spiritual channel Rivulets rising from several
   heads are carried in one stream to the ocean. As a mixture of several
   colours make a beautiful complexion for the body; so a mixture of
   divers affections, under God's various dispensations, gives a comely
   frame unto the soul. Labour, then, to answer every call, every speaking
   providence of God, in its right kind, according to the intention
   thereof; and the Lord reveal his mind unto us, that so we may do.

   Having passed the title, let us look a little on those parts of the
   prayer itself that follow.

   Verse 2. The beginning of it in verse 2 hath two parts.

   1. The frame of the prophet's spirit in his address to God: "O Jehovah,
   I have heard thy speech, and was afraid."

   2. His request in this his condition: "O Lord, revive thy work in the
   midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath
   remember mercy."

   1. In the first you have, --

   (1.) Particularly his frame; -- he was afraid, or trembled; which he
   wonderfully sets out, verse 16, "When I heard, my belly trembled; my
   lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I
   trembled in myself."

   (2.) The cause of this fear and trembling; -- he "heard the speech of
   God."

   If you will ask what speech or report this was that made the prophet
   himself so exceedingly quake and tremble, I answer, it is particularly
   that which you have, chap. i. 5-11, -- containing a dreadful
   denunciation of the judgments of God against the people of Israel, to
   be executed by the proud, cruel, insulting Chaldeans. This voice, this
   report of God, makes the prophet tremble.

   IV. Observation. An appearance of God in anger and threats against a
   people, should make his choicest secret ones among them to fear, to
   quake, and tremble.

   Trembling of man's heart must answer the shaking of God's hand. At the
   delivery of the law with all its attending threats, so terrible was the
   sight, that Moses himself (though a mediator then) did "exceedingly
   fear and quake," Heb. xii. 21. God will be acknowledged in all his
   goings. If men will not bow before him, he will break them. They who
   fear not his threatenings, shall feel his inflictings; if his word be
   esteemed light, his hand will be found heavy. -- For,

   1. In point of deserving who can say, [163] I have purged my heart, I
   am clean from sin? None ought to be fearless, unless they be senseless.
   God's people are so far from being always clear of procuring national
   judgments, that sometimes [164] judgments have come upon nations for
   the sins of some of God's people amongst them; -- as the plague in the
   days of David.

   2. And in point of [165] suffering, who knows but they may have a deep
   share? The prophet's book is written within as well as without, with
   "lamentation, mourning, and woe," Ezek. ii. 10. If "the lion roars, who
   can but fear?" Amos iii. 8, -- fear, to the rooting out of security,
   not the shaking of faith, -- fear, to the pulling down of carnal
   presidence, not Christian confidence, -- fear, to draw out our souls in
   prayer, not to swallow them up in despair, fear, to break the arm of
   flesh, but not to weaken the staff of the promise, fear, that we may
   draw nigh to God with reverence, not to run from him with diffidence;
   in a word, to overthrow faithless presumption, and to increase gracious
   submission.

   2. Here is the prophet's request. And in this there are these two
   things:--

   (1.) The thing he desireth: "The reviving God's work, the remembering
   mercy."

   (2.) The season he desireth it in: "In the midst of the years."

   (1.) For the first, -- that which in the beginning of the verse he
   calls God's work, in the close of it he termeth mercy; and the reviving
   his work is interpreted to be a remembering mercy. These two
   expressions, then, are parallel. The reviving of God's work towards his
   people is a reacting of mercy, a bringing forth the fruits thereof, and
   that in the midst of the execution of wrath; as a man in the midst of
   another, remembering a business of more importance, instantly turneth
   away, and applieth himself thereunto.

   V. Observation. Acts of mercy are God's proper work towards his people,
   which he will certainly awake, and keep alive in the saddest times.

   Mercy, you see, is his work, his proper work, as he calleth "judgment
   his strange act," Isa. xxviii. 21. "He retaineth not his anger for
   ever, because he delighteth in mercy," Mic. vii. 18. This is his proper
   work. Though it seem to sleep, he will awake it; though it seem to die,
   he will revive it. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she
   should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may
   forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the
   palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me," Isa. xlix. 15,
   16.

   (2.) For the season of this work, -- he prays that it may be
   accomplished "in the midst of the years;" upon which you may see what
   weight he lays, by his repetition of it in the same verse. It is
   something doubtful what may be the peculiar sense of these words; --
   whether "the midst of the years" [166] do not denote the whole time of
   the people's bondage under the Chaldeans (whence Junius renders the
   words "interea temporis," noting this manner of expression, "the midst
   of the years," for a Hebraism), during which space he intercedes for
   mercy for them; or whether "the midst of the years" do not denote some
   certain point of time, as the season of their return from captivity,
   about the midst of the years between their first king and the coming of
   the Messiah, putting a period to their church and state. Whether of
   these is more probable is not needful to insist upon: this is certain,
   that a certain time is pointed at; which will yield us, --

   VI. Observation. The church's mercies and deliverance have their
   appointed season.

   In the midst of the years it shall be accomplished. As there is a
   decree bringing forth the wicked's destruction, Zeph. ii. 1, 2; so
   there is a decree goes forth in its appointed season for the church's
   deliverance, which cannot be gainsaid, Dan. ix. 23. Every "vision is
   for its appointed" season and time, Hab. ii. 3; then "it will surely
   come, it will not tarry." There is a determination upon the weeks and
   days of the church's sufferings and expectations, Dan. ix. 24, "Seventy
   weeks are determined upon thy people." As there are three
   transgressions, and four, of rebels, for which God "will not turn away
   their punishment," Amos i. 3; so three afflictions, and four, of the
   people of God, after which he will not shut out their supplications.
   Hence that confidence of the prophet, Ps. cii. 13, 14, "Thou shalt
   arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for," saith he, "the time to favour
   her, yea, the set time, is come." There is a time, yea, a set time, for
   favour to be showed unto Zion: as a time to break down, so a time to
   build up, -- an acceptable time, a day of salvation. "It came to pass,
   at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it
   came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out of Egypt," Exod.
   xii. 41. As a woman with child goes not beyond her appointed months,
   but is pained to be delivered, -- no more can the fruitful decree cease
   from bringing forth the church's deliverance in the season thereof.

   1. Because there is an appointed period of the church's humiliation and
   bearing of her iniquities. Israel shall bear their iniquities in the
   wilderness; but this is exactly limited to the space of forty years.
   When their iniquity is pardoned, their warfare is accomplished, Isa.
   xl. 2. They say some men will give poison that shall work insensibly,
   and kill at seven years' end. The great Physician of his church knows
   how to give his sin-sick people potions that shall work by degrees, and
   at such an appointed season take away all their iniquity: then they can
   no longer be detained in trouble. God will not continue his course of
   physic unto them one day beyond health recovered. This is all the fruit
   of their afflictions, to take away their iniquities, Isa. xxvii. 9; and
   when that is done, who shall keep bound what God will loose? When sin
   is taken away from within, trouble must depart from without.

   2. Because the church's sorrows are commensurate unto, and do
   contemporize with, the joys and prosperity of God's enemies and hers.
   Now, wicked men's prosperity hath assured bounds: "The wickedness of
   the wicked shall come to an end." There is a time when the "iniquity of
   the Amorites comes to the full," Gen. xv. 16. It comes up to the brim
   in the appointed day of slaughter. When their wickedness hath filled
   the ephah, a talent of lead is laid upon the mouth thereof, and it is
   carried away on wings, Zech. v. 6-8, swiftly, certainly, irrecoverably.
   If, then, the church's troubles contemporize, rise and fall with their
   prosperity, and her deliverance with their destruction, -- if the fall
   of Babylon be the rise of Zion, -- if they be the buckets which must go
   down when the church comes up, -- if they be the rod of the church's
   chastisement, -- their ruin being set and appointed, so also must be
   the church's mercies.

   Use. In every distress learn to wait with patience for this appointed
   time. "He that believeth will not make haste." "Though it tarry, wait
   for it, it will surely come." He that is infinitely good hath appointed
   the time; and therefore it is best. He that is infinitely wise hath
   determined the season; and therefore it is most suitable. He who is
   infinitely powerful hath set it down; and therefore it shall be
   accomplished. Wait for it believing, wait for it praying, -- wait for
   it contending. Waiting is not a lazy hope, a sluggish expectation. When
   Daniel knew the time was come, he prayed the more earnestly, Dan. ix.
   2, 3. You will say, perhaps, What need he pray for it, when he knew the
   time was accomplished? I answer, The more need. Prayer helps the
   promise to bring forth. Because a woman's time is come, therefore shall
   she have no midwife? nay, therefore give her one. He that appointed
   their return, appointed that it should be a fruit of prayer. Wait,
   [167] contending also in all ways wherein you shall be called out; and
   be not discouraged that you know not the direct season of deliverance.
   "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine
   hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that,
   or whether they both shall be alike good," Eccles. xi. 6.

   But proceed we with the prophet's prayer.

   From verse 3 to 17, he layeth down several arguments, taken from the
   majesty, power, providence, and former works of God, for the supporting
   of his faith to the obtaining of those good things and works of mercy
   which he was now praying for. We shall look on them, as they lie in our
   way.

   Verse 3. "God came from Teman, the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah.
   His glory covered the heavens, the earth was full of his praise."

   Teman [168] was a city of the Edomites, whose land the people of Israel
   compassed in the wilderness, when they were stung with fiery serpents,
   and healed with looking on a brazen serpent, set up to be a type of
   Christ. Teman is put up for the whole land of Edom; and the prophet
   makes mention of it for the great deliverance and mercy granted there
   to the people when they were almost consumed; -- that's God's coming
   from Teman. See Num. xxi. 5-9. When they were destroyed by fiery
   serpents, he heals them by a type of Christ, -- giving them corporeal,
   and raising them to a faith of spiritual, salvation.

   Paran, [169] the next place mentioned, was a mountain in the land of
   Ishmael, near which Noses repeated the law; and from thence God carried
   the people immediately to Canaan; -- another eminent act of mercy.

   Unto these he addeth the word Selah; as it is a song, a note of
   elevation in singing; as it respects the matter, not the form, a note
   of admiration and special observation. Selah, -- consider them well,
   for they were great works indeed. Special mercies must have special
   observation.

   Now, by reason of these actions the prophet affirms that the glory of
   God covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise; -- lofty
   expressions of the advancement of God's glory, and the fulness of his
   praise amongst his people of the earth, which attended that merciful
   deliverance and gracious assistance. Nothing is higher or greater than
   that which covers heaven, and fills earth. God's [170] glory is
   exceedingly exalted, and his praise increased everywhere, by acts of
   favour and kindness to his people.

   That which I shall choose, from amongst many others that present
   themselves, a little to insist upon, is, that --

   VII. Observation -- Former mercies, with their times and places, are to
   be had in thankful remembrance unto them who wait for future blessings.

   Faith is to this end separated by them. "Awake, awake, put on strength,
   O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of
   old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? art
   thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep;
   that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass
   over?" Isa. li. 9, 10. The breaking of Rahab, -- that is, Egypt, so
   called here, and Ps. lxxxvii. 4, lxxxix. 10, for her great strength,
   which the word signifies, -- and the wounding of the dragon, that great
   and crooked afflicter, Pharaoh, is remembered, and urged for a motive
   to a new needed deliverance. So Ps. lxxiv. 13, 14, "Thou brakest the
   heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people
   inhabiting the wilderness." Leviathan, -- the same dragon, oppressing,
   persecuting Pharaoh, -- thou brakest his heads, his counsels, armies,
   power; and gavest him for meat, that the people for forty years
   together might be fed, sustained, and nourished with that wonderful
   mercy. "Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came forth
   sweetness."

   In this reciprocation God walketh with his people. Of free grace he
   bestoweth mercies and blessings on them; by grace works the returns of
   remembrance and thankfulness unto himself for them; then showers that
   down again in new mercies. The countries which send up no vapours,
   receive down no showers. Remembrance with thankfulness of former
   mercies is the matter, as it were, which by God's goodness is condensed
   into following blessings. For, --

   1. Mercies have their proper end, when thankfully remembered. What more
   powerful motive to the obtaining of new, than to hold out that the old
   were not abused? We are encouraged to cast seed again into that ground
   whose last crop witnesseth that it was not altogether barren. That sad
   spot of good Hezekiah, that he rendered not again according to the
   benefit done unto him, is set down as the opening a door of wrath
   against himself, Judah, and Jerusalem, 2 Chron. xxxii. 25. On the other
   side, suitable returns are a door of hope for farther mercies.

   2. The remembrance of them strengthens faith, and keeps our hands from
   hanging down in the time of waiting for blessings. When faith is
   supported, the promise is engaged, and a mercy at any time more than
   half obtained. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for," Heb. xi.
   1. "God," saith the apostle, "hath delivered us from so great a death,
   and doth deliver." Now, what conclusion makes he of this experience? --
   "In whom we trust that he will yet deliver us," 2 Cor. i. 10. It was a
   particular mercy with its circumstances, as you may see verse 9, which
   he made the bottom of his dependence. In the favours of men we cannot
   do so; they may be weary of helping, or be drawn dry, and grow
   helpless. Ponds may be exhausted, but the ocean never. The infinite
   fountains of the Deity cannot be sunk one hair's breadth by everlasting
   flowing blessings. Now, circumstances of actions, time, place, and the
   like, ofttimes make deep impressions; mercies should be remembered with
   them. So doth the apostle again, 2 Tim. iv. 17, 18, "He did deliver me
   from the mouth of the lion," -- Nero, that lion-like tyrant. And what
   then? "He shall deliver me from every evil work." David esteemed it
   very good logic, to argue from the victory God gave him over the lion
   and the bear, to a confidence of victory over Goliath, 1 Sam. xvii. 37.

   Use. The use of this we are led unto, Isa. xliii. 16-18, "Thus saith
   the Lord, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty
   waters; which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army, and the
   power; They shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are
   extinct, they are quenched as tow. Remember ye not the former things,
   neither consider the things of old." Let former mercies be an anchor of
   hope in time of present distresses. Where is the God of Marston Moor,
   and the God of Naseby? is an acceptable expostulation in a gloomy day.
   O what a catalogue of mercies hath this nation to plead by in a time of
   trouble! God came from Naseby, and the Holy One from the west. Selah.
   "His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise."
   He went forth in the north, and in the east he did not withhold his
   hand. I hope the poor town wherein [171] I live is more enriched with a
   store-mercy of a few months, than with a full trade of many years. "The
   snares of death compassed us, and the floods of ungodly men made us
   afraid," Ps. xviii. 4; but "the Lord thundered in the heavens, the
   Highest gave his voice; hailstones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out
   his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and
   discomfited them. He sent from above, he took us, he drew us out of
   many waters. He delivered us from our strong enemy, and from them which
   hated us: for they were too strong for us," verses 13, 14, 16, 17. How
   may we say with the same Psalmist, in any other distress, "O my God, my
   soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the
   land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar!" Ps. xlii.
   6. "Where is the Lord God of Elijah," -- who divides anew the waters of
   Jordan? 2 Kings ii. 14.

   The following verses set forth the glory and power of God, in the
   accomplishment of that great work of bringing his people into the
   promised land, with those mighty things he performed in the wilderness.

   Verse 4, if I mistake not, sets out his glorious appearance on Mount
   Sinai; of which the prophet affirms two things:--

   1. That "his brightness was as the light."

   2. That "he had horns coming out of his hand, and there was the hiding
   of his power."

   1. For the first. Is it not that brightness which appeared when the
   mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, Deut. iv. 11, -- a
   glorious fire in the midst of clouds and thick darkness? The like
   description you have of God's presence, Ps. xviii. 11, 12, "He made
   darkness his secret place," and brightness was before him: as the
   light, the sun, the fountain and cause of it, called "light," Job xxxi.
   26. Now, this glorious appearance holds out the kingly power and
   majesty of God in governing the world, which appeareth but unto few.
   "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice. Clouds and darkness are
   round about him. A fire goeth before him; his lightnings enlightened
   the world," Ps. xcvii. 1-4.

   2. "He had horns coming out of his hand." So the words most properly,
   though by some otherwise rendered. That horns in Scripture are taken
   for strength and power, [172] needs no proving. The mighty power of
   God, which he made appear to his people, in that glorious
   representation of his majesty on Mount Sinai, is by this phrase
   expressed. There his chariots were seen to be twenty thousand, even
   many thousands of angels; and the Lord among them in that holy place,
   Ps. lxviii. 17. There they perceived that "he had horns in his hand;"
   -- an almighty power to do what he pleased. Whence it is added, "And
   there was the hiding of his power." Though the appearance of it was
   very great and glorious, yet it was but small to the everlasting hidden
   depths of his omnipotency. The most glorious appearance of God comes
   infinitely short of his own eternal majesty as he is in himself; -- it
   is but a discovery that there is the hiding of infinite perfection; or,
   there his power appeared to us, which was hidden from the rest of the
   world.

   VIII. Observation. When God is doing great things, he gives glorious
   manifestations of his excellencies to his secret ones.

   The appearance on Sinai goes before his passage into Canaan: "Surely
   the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
   servants the prophets," Amos iii. 7. When he is to send Moses for the
   deliverance of his people, he appears to him in a burning, unconsumed
   bush, Exod. iii. 2, -- a sign manifesting the presence of his power to
   preserve his church unconsumed in the midst of burning, fiery
   afflictions. Unto this very end were all the visions tint are recorded
   in the Scripture, all of them accommodated to the things which God was
   presently doing. And this he doth, --

   1. That they may thereby be prepared to follow him, and serve him in
   the great works he hath for them to do. Great works are not to be done
   without great encouragements. If God appears not in light, who can
   expect he should appear in operation? He that is called to serve
   Providence in high things, without some especial discovery of God,
   works in the dark, [173] and knows not whither he goes, nor what he
   doth. Such a one travels in the wilderness without a directing cloud.
   Clear shining from God must be at the bottom of deep labouring with
   God. What is the reason that so many in our days set their hands to the
   plough, and look back again? -- begin to serve Providence in great
   things, but cannot finish? -- give over in the heat of the day? They
   never had any such revelation of the mind of God upon their spirits,
   such a discovery of his excellencies, as might serve for a bottom of
   such undertakings. Men must know that if God hath not appeared to them
   in brightness, and showed them "the horns in his hand," hid from
   others, though they think highly of themselves, they'll deny God twice
   and thrice before the close of the work of this age. If you have no
   great discoveries, you will wax vain in great undertakings. New
   workings on old bottoms, are like new wine in old bottles, -- both are
   spoiled and lost. The day is the time of work, and that because of the
   light thereof; -- those who have not light may be spared to go to bed.

   2. That they may be the better enabled to give him glory, when they
   shall see the sweet harmony that is between his manifestations and his
   operations, -- when they can say with the Psalmist, "As we have heard,
   so have we seen," Ps. xlviii. 8. As he revealeth himself, so he
   worketh. When his power and mercy answer his appearance in the bush, it
   is a foundation to a prayer: "The good-will of him that dwelt in the
   bush bless thee." When a soul shall find God calling him forth to
   employments, perhaps great and high, yet every way suiting that light
   and gracious discovery which he hath given of himself, one thing
   answering another, it sets him in a frame of honouring God aright.

   This might be of rich consideration could we attend it. For, --

   Use 1. Hence, as I said before, is apostasy from God's work. He appears
   not unto men; -- how can they go upon his employment. Men that have no
   vision of God, are in the dark, and know not what to do. I speak not of
   visions beyond the Word; but answers of prayers, gracious applications
   of providences, with wise consideration of times and seasons. Some drop
   off every day, some hang by the eyelids, and know not what to do: the
   light of God is not sent forth to lead and guide them, Ps. xliii. 3.
   Wonder not at the strange backslidings of our days: many acted upon by
   engagements, and for want of light, know not to the last what they were
   a-doing.

   Use 2. Hence also is the suiting of great light and great work in our
   days. Let new light be derided whilst men please, he will never serve
   the will of God in this generation, who sees not beyond the line of
   foregoing ages.

   Use 3. And this, thirdly, may put all those whom God is pleased to
   employ in his service upon a diligent inquiry into his mind. Can a
   servant do his master's work without knowing his pleasure? We live for
   the most part from hand to mouth, and do what comes next; few are
   acquainted with the designs of God.

   The going forth of the Lord with his people towards their rest, with
   reference to his harbingers, is described, verse 5.

   Verse 5. "Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth
   at his feet."

   "Before him," -- at his face. "The pestilence:" This is often reckoned
   amongst the weapons wherewith God fighteth with any people to consume
   them; [174] and as speeding an instrument of destruction it is as any
   the Lord ever used towards the children of men. "At his feet went forth
   burning coals;" -- a redoubling, say some, of the same stroke, --
   burning coals for burning diseases. When one blow will not do the work
   appointed, God redoubles the stroke of his hand, Lev. xxvi. 22-25. Or,
   burning, coals, dreadful judgments, mortal weapons, as fire and flames,
   are often taken in other descriptions of God's dealing with his
   enemies, Ps. xi. 6, xviii. 8. Prevailing fire is the most dreadful
   means of destruction, Heb. xii. 29; Isa. xxxiii. 14. In Exod. xxiii.
   28, God threateneth to send the hornet upon the Canaanites, before the
   children of Israel; some stinging judgments, either on their
   consciences or bodies, or both:-- something of the same kind is
   doubtless here held out. He sent plagues and diseases among them, to
   weaken and consume them, before his people's entrance. His presence was
   with Israel; and the pestilence consuming the Canaanites before their
   entrance is said to be lphnyv?, -- "at his faces," or appearances,
   before him, before the entrance of the presence of his holiness. And
   the following judgments, that quite devoured them, were "the coals
   going out at his feet," which he sent abroad when he entered their land
   with his own inheritance, to cast out those "malae fidei possessores."
   Sicknesses, diseases, and all sorts of judgments, are wholly at God's
   disposal. "Affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth
   trouble spring out of the ground; yet man is born to trouble, as the
   sons of the burning coal lift up in flying," Job v. 6, 7. When God
   intends the total destruction of a people, he commonly weakens them by
   some previous judgments. Let the truth of this be found upon them that
   hate us, and the interpretation thereof be to the enemies of this
   nation; but the Lord knows all our hearts may well tremble at what will
   be the issue of the visitations of the last year.

   IX. Observation. God never wants instruments to execute his anger, and
   ruin his enemies.

   His treasury of judgments can never be exhausted. If Israel be too weak
   for the Amorites, he will call in the pestilence and burning diseases
   to their assistance. What creature hath not this mighty God used
   against his enemies? An angel destroys Sennacherib's host, Isa. xxxvii.
   36, and smites Herod with worms, Acts xii. 23. Heaven above sends down
   a hell of fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah; Gen. xix. 24. The
   stars in their courses fought against Sisera, Judges v. 20. Devils do
   his will herein; he sent evil angels among the Egyptians, Ps. lxxviii.
   49. Fire consumes persecuting Ahaziah's companies, 2 Kings i. 10, 11.
   The water drowns Pharaoh and his chariots, Exod. xiv. 28. Earth
   swallows up Korah, with his fellow-rebels, Num. xvi. 32. Bears rend the
   children that mocked Elisha, 2 Kings ii. 24. Lions destroy the strange
   nations in Samaria, 2 Kings xvii. 25. Frogs, lice, boils, hail, rain,
   thunder, lightning, destroy the land of Egypt, Exod. viii. 9, 10.
   Locusts are his mighty army to punish Israel, Joel ii. 25. Hailstones
   destroy the Canaanites, Josh. x. 11. Stones of the wall slay the
   Syrians, 1 Kings xx. 30. Pestilence and burning diseases are his
   ordinary messengers. In a word, all creatures serve his providence, and
   wait his commands for the execution of his righteous judgments. Neither
   the beasts of the field nor the stones of the earth will be any longer
   quiet than he causeth them to hold a league with the sons of men.

   Use 1. To teach us all to tremble before this mighty God. Who can stand
   before him, -- "qui tot imperat legionibus?" If he will strike, he
   wants no weapons; if he will fight, he wants no armies. All things
   serve his will. He saith to one, Come, and it cometh; to another, Go,
   and it goeth; to a third, Do this, and it doth it. He can make use of
   ourselves, our friends, our enemies, heaven, earth, fire, water, any
   thing, for what end he pleaseth. There is no standing before his
   armies, for they are all things, and himself to make them effectual.
   There is no flying from his armies, for they are every where, and
   himself with them. Who would not fear this King of nations? He that
   contends with him shall find "as if a man did flee from a lion, and a
   bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall,
   and a serpent bit him," Amos v. 19. No flying, no hiding, no
   contending. Worms kill Herod; a fly choked Adrian, etc.

   Use 2. To be a bottom of confidence and dependence in an evil day. He
   that hath God on his side, hath also all things that are seen, and that
   are not seen. The mountain is full of fiery chariots for Elisha's
   defence, when outwardly there was no appearance, 2 Kings vi. 17. All
   things wait their Master's beck, to do him service, -- as for the
   destruction of enemies, so for the deliverance of his. What though we
   had no army in the time of war? God hath millions, many thousands of
   angels, Ps. lxviii. 17, -- one whereof can destroy so many thousands of
   men in a night, Isa. xxxvii. 36. He can choose (when few others will
   appear, with him against the mighty, as in our late troubles) "foolish
   things to confound the wise, and weak things to confound the strong."
   Sennacherib's angel is yet alive, and the destroyer of Sodom is not
   dead: and all those things are at our command, if their help may be for
   our good. "Judah ruleth with God," Hos. xi. 12, -- hath a rule by
   faithful supplications over all those mighty hosts. Make God our
   friend, and we are not only of the best, but also the strongest side.
   You that would be on the safest side, be sure to choose that which God
   is on. Had not this mighty, all-commanding God, been with us, where had
   we been in the late tumults? So many thousands in Kent, so many in
   Wales, so many in the north, so many in Essex, -- shall they not speed?
   shall they not divide the prey? is not the day of those factious
   Independents come? was the language of our very neighbours. The snare
   is broken, and we are delivered.

   The Lord having sent messengers before him into Canaan, stands himself
   as it were upon the borders, and takes a view of the land.

   Verse 6. "He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove
   asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the
   perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting."

   Two things are here considerable:--

   1. The Lord's exact foreview of the promised land: "He stood, and
   measured the earth, and beheld the nations."

   2. His operation at that time: "He drove asunder the nations," etc.

   1. "He stood and measured:" The prophet here representeth the Lord on
   the frontier of Canaan, as one taking view of a piece of land, and
   exactly measuring it out, as intending it for his own; weighing and
   considering the bounds and limits of it, to see if it will answer the
   end for which he purposeth it. God's exact notice and knowledge of his
   people's possession is in those words held out. He views where the
   lines of every tribe shall run. Nothing happens or is made out to any
   of God's people, without his own careful providential predisposition.
   He views the circuit of the whole, where and how divided, and separated
   from the dwellings of the unclean, and habitations of the
   uncircumcised. Fixed bounds, measured limits of habitation is a
   necessary ingredient to the making up of a national church.

   2. What he did, which is two ways expressed: (1.) In reference to the
   inhabitants; (2.) To the land itself.

   (1.) For the inhabitants: He drove them asunder, vytr? "and he made to
   leap" out of their old channels. Those nations knit and linked together
   amongst themselves, by leagues and civil society, he separated,
   disturbed, divided in counsels and arms (as in the case of the
   Gibeonites [175] ), persecuted by the sword, that they suddenly leaped
   out of their habitations, the residue wandering as no people. God's
   justly nation-disturbing purposes are the bottom of their deserved
   ruin.

   (2.) For the land: "The everlasting mountains," etc., those strong,
   firm, lasting mountains of Canaan, not like the mountains of sand in
   the desert where the people were, but to continue firm to the world's
   end, as both the words here used, d? and vlm?, "perpetuity" and
   "everlasting," do in the Scripture frequently signify. Now, these are
   said to be scattered, and to bow, because of the destruction of the
   inhabitants of those lasting hills, being many of them high and mighty
   ones, [176] like perpetual mountains; they being given in possession to
   the sons of Israel, even "the chief things of the ancient mountains,
   and the precious things of the lasting hills," Deut. xxxiii. 15.

   X. Observation. God takes an exact foreview of his people's portion and
   inheritance.

   Like a careful father, he knows beforehand what he intends to bestow
   upon them. He views it, measures it, prepares it to the utmost bounds.
   They shall not have a hair's breadth which he hath not allotted them,
   nor want the least jot of their designed portion.

   Use. Learn to be contented with your lot. He is wise also who took a
   view of it, and measured it, and found it just commensurate to your
   good:-- had he known that a foot's breadth more had been needful, you
   would have had it. Had he seen it good, you had had no thorns in your
   lands, no afflictions in your lives. O how careful, how solicitous are
   many of God's people! how full of desires! -- Oh, that it were with me
   thus or thus! Possess your souls in patience; as you cannot add to, no
   more shall any take from your proportion. He took the measure of your
   wants and his own supplies long since. That which be hath measured out
   he will cut off for you. He knows how to suit all his children.

   XI. Observation. It is dangerous encroaching, for any of the sons of
   men, upon God's people's portion, lot, privileges, or inheritance.

   God hath measured it out for them, and he will look that they enjoy it.
   Shall men remove his bounds and land-marks, [177] and be free? will it
   be safe trespassing upon the lands of the Almighty? will it be easy and
   cheap? will he not plead his action with power, -- especially seeing he
   hath given them their portion? If he hath given Seir to Edom, what doth
   he vexing and wasting Jacob? Shall they not possess what the Lord their
   God gives them to possess? Judges xi. 24. He hath cautioned all the
   world, kings and others, in this kind, "Touch not mine anointed, do my
   prophets no harm," Ps. cv. 14, 15. Touch them not, nor any thing that
   is theirs: harm them not in any thing I bestow on them. They have
   nothing but what their Father gives them, and Christ hath bought for
   them. Will a tender father, think you, contentedly look on, and see a
   slave snatch away his children's bread? If a man hath engaged himself
   to give a jewel to a dear friend, will he take it patiently to have an
   enemy come and snatch it away before his face? God is engaged to his
   people for all their enjoyments, and will he quietly suffer himself to
   be robbed, and his people spoiled? Shall others dwell quietly in the
   land which he hath measured for his own?

   Use 1. See whence the great destructions of people and nations in these
   latter ages have come. Is it not for touching these forbidden things?
   The holy vessels of the temple at Jerusalem ruined Babylon. Is not the
   wasting of the western nations at this day from hence, that they have
   served the whore to deck herself with the spoils of the spouse? helped
   to trim her with the portion of God's people, taking away their
   liberties, ordinances, privileges, lives, to lay at her feet? Doubtless
   God is pleading with all these kingdoms for their encroaching. They who
   will not let him be at peace with his, shall have little quiet of their
   own. The eagle that stole a coal from the altar fired her nest I know
   how this hath been abused to countenance the holding of Babylonish
   wedges. God will preserve to his people his own allowance, not Rome's
   supplement. This nation hath yet itching fingers, and a hankering mind
   after the inheritance of God's people. Let them take heed; he hath
   knocked off their hands a hundred times, and sent them away with bloody
   fingers. O that we were wise, that we be not quite consumed! Of you I
   hope better things, and such as accompany salvation; yet give me leave
   to cautionate you a little.

   (1.) As to privileges and liberties of this life. Their liberties and
   estates are not as other men's, but more exactly measured for their
   good, and sanctified to them in the blood of Christ. If in these things
   God hath called you to the defence and protection of his, he will
   expect a real account, You had better give away a kingdom that belongs
   to others, than the least of that which God hath made for his saints.
   Think not any thing small which God accounts worthy to bestow on his.
   If he hath meted out liberty for them, and you give them slavery, you
   will have a sad reckoning.

   (2.) In point of ordinances, and Christ-purchased privileges. Here it
   is dangerous encroaching indeed. [178] God exactly measured Canaan,
   because it was to be the seat of a national church, If you love your
   lives, if you love your souls, be tender on this point. Here if you
   meddle with that which belongs not unto you, were you kings, all your
   glory would be laid in the dust, 2 Chron. xxvi. 18. Woe to them who cut
   short the saints of God in the least jot of what he hath allotted to
   them in spirituals! Is it for any of you, O ye sons of men! to measure
   out God's children's portion, long since bequeathed them by Christ? Let
   them alone with what is given them. If God call Israel out of Egypt to
   serve him, shall Pharaoh assign who, and how they shall go, -- first
   men only, then all, without their cattle? "Nay," says Moses, "we will
   go as God calls," Exod. x. 26.

   Was not one main end of the late tumults to rob God's people of their
   privileges, -- to bring them again under the yoke of superstition What
   God brake in war, do not think he will prosper in peace. If you desire
   to thrive, do not the same, nor any thing like it. Take they any thing
   of yours that belongs to Caesar, the civil magistrate, restrain them,
   keep them within bounds; but if they take only what Christ hath given
   them, -- O touch them not, harm them not! The heap is provided for
   them, let them take for themselves. Think it not strange that every one
   should gather his own manna. The Lord forbid that I should ever see the
   magistrates of England taking away liberties, privileges, ordinances,
   or ways of worship, from them to whom the Almighty hath made a free
   grant of them!

   (3.) If in taking what God hath measured out for them, they should not
   all comply with you in the manner and measure of what they take, do
   them no harm, impoverish not their families, banish them not, slay them
   not. Alas! [179] your judgments, were you kings and emperors, is not a
   rule to them. They must be tried by their own faith. Are their souls,
   think you, more precious to you than themselves? You say they take
   amiss; -- they say, No, and appeal to the Word. [180] Should you now
   smite them? Speak, blood; is that the way of Jesus Christ? Should it be
   as you affirm, you would be puzzled for your warrant. To run when you
   are not sent, surely in this case is not safe. But what if it should
   prove, in the close, that they have followed divine directions? Do you
   not then fight against God, wound Jesus Christ, and prosecute him as an
   evil-doer? I know the usual colours, the common pleas, that are used
   for the instigation of authority to the contrary. They are the very
   same, and no other, that have slain the saints of God this twelve
   hundred years. Arguments for persecution are dyed in the blood of
   Christians for a long season; -- ever since the dragon gave his power
   to the false prophet, they have all died as heretics and schismatics.
   Suppose you saw in one view all the blood of the witnesses of Christ,
   which had been let out of their veins by vain pretences, -- that you
   heard in one noise the doleful cry of all pastorless churches, dying
   martyrs, harbourless children of parents inheriting the promise,
   wilderness-wandering saints, dungeoned believers, wrested out by
   pretended zeal to peace and truth; -- and perhaps it may make your
   spirits tender as to this point.

   Use 2. See the warrantableness of our contests for God's people's
   rights. It was Jephthah's only argument against the encroaching
   Ammonites, Judges xi. 1. By God's assistance they would possess what
   the Lord their God should give them. If a grant from heaven will not
   make a firm title, I know not what will. Being called by lawful
   authority, certainly there is not a more glorious employment than to
   serve the Lord in helping to uphold the portion he hath given his
   people. If your hearts be upright, and it is the liberties, the
   privileges of God's saints, conveyed from the Father, purchased by
   Christ, you contend for, -- go on and prosper, the Lord is with you.

   XII. Observation. The works and labours of God's people are transacted
   for them in heaven, before they once undertake them.

   The Israelites were now going to Canaan: God doth their work for them
   beforehand; they did but go up and take possession. Joshua and Caleb
   tell the people, not only that their enemies' defence was departed from
   them, but that they were but bread for them, Num. xiv. 9, -- not corn
   that might be prepared, but bread, ground, made up, baked, ready to
   eat. Their work was done in heaven. "Known unto God are all his works
   from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18. All that is done here
   below, is but the writing of a visible copy, for the sons of men to
   read, out of the eternal lines of his own purpose.

   Use. Up and be doing, you that are about the work of the Lord. Your
   enemies are bread ready to be eaten and yield you refreshment. Do you
   think if our armies had not walked in a trodden path, they could have
   made such journeys as they have done of late? Had not God marched
   before them, and traced out their way from Kent to Essex, from Wales to
   the north, their carcasses had long ere this been cast into the field.
   Their work was done in heaven before they began it. God was gone over
   the mulberry-trees, 2 Sam. v. 24. The work might have been done by
   children, though he was pleased to employ such worthy instruments. They
   see, I doubt not, their own nothingness in his all-sufficiency. Go on,
   then; but with this caution, search by all ways and means to find the
   footsteps of the mighty God going before you.

   The trembling condition of the oppressing nations round about, when God
   appeared so gloriously for his people, is held out, verse 7.

   Verse 7. "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: the curtains of the
   land of Midian did tremble."

   You have here three things considerable.

   1. The mention of two nations, enemies of the church: Cushan and
   Midian.

   2. The state and condition of those nations: the tents of the one in
   affliction, and the curtains of the other in trembling.

   3. The view the prophet had of this, -- I saw it, saith he: "I saw,"
   etc.

   1. For the first; -- these two nations, Cushan and Midian, were the
   neighbouring people to the Israelites, being in the wilderness when God
   did such great things for them.

   (1.) Cushan; that is, the tent-dwelling Arabians on the south side,
   towards Ethiopia, -- being, as the Ethiopians, of the posterity of Cush
   (thence called Cushan), the eldest son of scoffing Ham, Gen. x. 6;
   enemies and opposers of the church (doubtless) all the way down from
   their profane ancestors. [181] These now beheld the Israelites going to
   root out their allies and kindred, the Amorites of Canaan, the
   posterity of Canaan, the younger brother of their progenitor Cush, Gen.
   x. 6.

   (2.) Midian was a people inhabiting the east side of Jordan, on the
   borders of Moab; so called from their forefather, Midian, the son of
   Abraham by Keturah, Gen. xxv. 2. These obtained a temporal blessing for
   a season, from the love borne to their faithful progenitor. In the days
   of Jacob they were great merchants, Gen. xxxvii. 28. At this time, in
   less than four hundred years, they were so multiplied, that they had
   five kings of their nation, Num. xxxi. 8. Some knowledge of the true
   God was retained, as it should seem, until now, amongst some of them,
   being received by tradition from their fathers. Moses' father-in-law
   was a priest of this country, Exod. ii. 15, 16, -- not altogether
   unacquainted with Jehovah, Exod. xviii. 1, -- and was himself, or his
   son, persuaded to take up his portion in Canaan, Num. x. 29, 30. But
   for the generality of the nation, being not heirs of the promise, they
   were fallen off to superstition and idolatry. Exceeding enemies they
   were to the people in the wilderness, vexing them with their wiles, and
   provoking them to abominations, that the Lord might consume them, Num.
   xxv. 18. None so vile enemies to the church as superstitious apostates.
   These two nations then set out all manner of opposers; -- gross
   idolaters, as Cushan; and superstitious, envious apostates, as Midian.

   2. Their state and condition severally.

   (1.) "The tents of Cushan" were in affliction; the tents, the Arabian
   Ethiopians of Cush, dwelling in tents, the habitation for the
   inhabitant, by a hypallage. They were "in affliction, under vanity,
   under iniquity, the place of vanity," so variously are the words
   rendered, tcht 'vn?, "under affliction, vanity, or iniquity." Sin and
   the punishment of it are frequently in the Scripture of the same name,
   so near is the relation. 'vn? is properly and most usually iniquity;
   but that it is here taken for the consequent of it, -- a consuming,
   perplexed, vexed condition, -- can be no doubt. The Cushanites, then,
   were in affliction, full of anguish, fear, dread, vexation, to see what
   would be the issue of those great and mighty things which God was doing
   in their borders for his people: [182] -- afflicted with Israel's
   happiness and their own fears; as is the condition of all wicked
   oppressors.

   (2.) "The curtains of the land of Midian," for the Midianites dwelling
   in curtained tabernacles, by the same figure as before. They trembled,
   -- yrgzvn?, "moved themselves, were moved;" that is, shaken with fear
   and trembling, as though they were ready to run from the appearance of
   the mighty God with his people. The story of it you have in the Book of
   Numbers, [183] as it was prophetically foretold by Moses concerning
   other nations, Exod. xv. 14-16, "The people shall hear, and be afraid:
   sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestine. Then the dukes
   of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab," etc. God filled those
   nations with anguish, sorrow, and amazement, at the protection he
   granted his people.

   3. The prophet's view of all this: "I saw" it, or "I see" it. Though it
   were eight hundred and seventy years before, supposing him to prophesy
   about the end of Josiah or beginning of Jehoiakim, yet, taking it under
   the consideration of faith, he makes it present to his view.

   Faith looketh backwards and forwards, -- to what God hath done, and to
   what he hath promised to do. Abraham saw the day of Christ, so many
   ages after, because he found it by faith in the promise. Habakkuk saw
   the terrors of Cushan and Midian so many days before, because faith
   found it recorded among the works of God, to support itself in seeking
   the like mercies to be renewed. So that this is the sum of this verse:
   "O Lord, faith makes it evident, and presents it before my view, how in
   former days, when thou wast doing great things for thy people, thou
   filledst all thine and their enemies with fear, vexation, trembling,
   and astonishment."

   XIII. Observation. Faith gives a present subsistence to forepast works
   as recorded, and future mercies as promised, to support the soul in an
   evil day.

   I have made the doctrine, by analogy, look both ways, though the words
   of the text look but one.

   The apostle tells us, that "faith is the substance of things hoped for,
   the evidence of things not seen," Heb. xi. 1.

   1. "Of things hoped for." It looks forward to the promises, and so
   gives the substance of them in present possession, confirming our minds
   and hearts, that they may have a subsistence, as it were, within us,
   though not actually made out unto us.

   2. It is "the evidence of things not seen." It extends itself not only
   to things promised, but, taking for its object the whole word of God,
   it makes evident and present things that are past also. The faith
   commended, verse 3, is of things long since done, -- even the "making
   of the things that are seen of the things that do not appear." "Abraham
   saw my day," saith our Saviour, John viii. 56. He saw it as Habakkuk
   saw the tents of Cushan in affection; -- faith made it present to him;
   all the ages between him and his promised seed were as nothing to his
   keen-sighted faith. Hence the apostle puts the mercies of the promise
   all in one form and rank, as already wrought, though some of them were
   enjoyed, and some of them in this life cannot be, Rom. viii. 30, "Whom
   he hath justified, them he hath glorified:" he hath done it for them
   already, because he hath made them believe it, and that gives it a
   present subsistence in their spirit. And for forepast works, they are
   still mentioned by the saints as if they had been done in their days,
   before their eyes. Elisha calls up to remembrance a former miracle, to
   the effecting the like, 2 Kings ii. 14.

   There be three things in the past or future mercies which faith makes
   present to the soul, giving, in the substance of them, -- (1.) Their
   love; (2.) Their consolation; (3.) Their use and benefit.

   (1.) The love of them. The love that was in former works, and the love
   that is in promised mercies, that faith draws out, and really makes
   ours. The love of every recorded deliverance is given to us by faith.
   It looks into the good-will, the free grace, the loving-kindness of
   God, in every work that ever he did for his, and cries, Yet this is
   mine:-- this is the kernel of that blessing, and this is mine; for the
   same good-will, the same kindness he hath towards me also. Were the
   same outward actings needful, I should have them also. The free love of
   every mercy is faith's proper object. It makes all Joshua's great
   victories present to every one of us. The promise that had the love and
   grace in it, which ran through them all, is given him, Josh. i. 5, "I
   will be with thee, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." Now the
   apostle tells us that the truth and love of this promise is ours, Heb.
   iv. 8. Faith may, doth assure itself, that what good-will soever was in
   all the great mercies which Joshua received upon that promise, is all
   ours. All the good-will and choice love of, "I will never leave thee
   nor forsake thee," is mine and thine, if we are believers. He that hath
   this present, hath all Joshua's victories present. The very glory of
   the saints in heaven is ours in the love of it. We enjoy that love
   which gave them glory, and will crown us also in due time.

   (2.) In their comforts and refreshments: "Thou gavest leviathan to be
   meat to the people in the wilderness," Ps. lxxiv. 14. They fed their
   souls full of the sweetness of that mercy, the destruction of their
   oppressing tyrant; we chew the cud upon the blessings of former ages.
   Who hath not, with joy, delight, and raised affections, gone over the
   old preservations of the church in former years? How does David run
   them over with admiration, closing every stop with, "His mercy endureth
   for ever!" Ps. cxxxvi. And for things, to come, as yet in the promise
   only, -- whether general to the whole church, as the calling of the
   Jews, the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles, the breaking out of
   light, beauty, and glory upon the churches and saints, the confusion of
   nations not subjecting themselves to the standard of the gospel, etc.,
   -- or in particular, farther assurance of love than at present enjoyed,
   nearer communion with Father and Son, being with Christ, freed from
   misery and corruption, dwelling with God for ever; -- how does faith
   act over these and the like things in the heart, leaving a savour and
   relish of their sweetness continually upon the soul? O how sweet are
   the things of the world to come unto poor believers! Christ leads the
   soul by faith, not only into the chambers of present enjoyed loves, but
   also into the fore-prepared everlasting mansions in his Father's house.
   Thus it gives poor mortal creatures a sweet relish of eternal joys; --
   brings heaven into a dungeon, glory into a prison, a crown into a
   cottage, Christ into a slaughter-house. And this arises, --

   [1.] From the nature of faith. Though it do not make the thing believed
   to be (the act cannot create its own object), yet applying it, it makes
   it the believer's. It is the bond of union between the soul and the
   thing promised. He that believes in Christ, by that believing receives
   Christ, John i. 12; -- he becomes his. It is a grace uniting its
   subject and object, -- the person believing and the thing believed.
   There needs no ascending into heaven, or descending; the word of faith
   makes all things nigh, even within us, Rom. x. 6-8. Some glasses will
   present things at a great distance very near; faith looking through the
   glass of the gospel, makes the most remote mercies to be not only in a
   close distance, but in union. It "is the subsistence of things hoped
   for;" -- that which they have not in themselves, it gives them, -- in
   the full-assured minds of believers.

   [2.] From the intendment of all mercies. They are for every believer.
   All things are theirs, -- "world, life, death, things present, things
   to come," 1 Cor. iii. 22. All promises being made to every believer,
   and all mercies being the fruit of these promises, they must all belong
   to every believer. Now, if all these should be kept from us, at that
   distance wherein they fail in their accomplishment in respect of time,
   what would they avail us? God, therefore, hath appointed that they
   shall have a real, though not a natural presence and subsistence at all
   times, to all believers.

   Use 1. See hence what use you make of past mercies, deliverances,
   blessings, with promised incomings; -- carry them about you by faith,
   that you may use them at need. "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"
   "Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord!" etc. "I saw the tents of Cushan."
   Take store mercies along with you in every trial. Use them, or they
   will grow rusty, and not pass in heaven. Learn to eat leviathan many
   years after his death. Forget not your perils; -- scatter not away your
   treasure; -- be rich in a heap of mercies, -- faith will make you so.
   The love, the comfort, the benefit, of all former and future blessings
   are yours, if you know how to use them. Oh, how have we lost our
   mercies in every hedge and ditch! Have none of us skill to lay up the
   last eminent deliverance against a rainy day?

   Use 2. Learn how to make the poorest and most afflicted condition
   comfortable and full of joy. Store thy cottage, thy sick-bed, by faith,
   with all sorts of mercies; they are the richest furniture in the world.
   Gather up what is already cast out, and fetch the rest from heaven.
   Bring the first-fruits of glory into thy bosom. See the Jews called, --
   the residue of opposers subdued, the gospel exalted, -- Christ
   enthroned, -- all thy sins pardoned, -- corruption conquered, -- glory
   enjoyed. Roll thyself in those golden streams every day. Let faith
   fetch in new and old; -- ancient mercies for thy supportment,
   everlasting mercies for thy consolation. He that hath faith, hath all
   things.

   XIV. Observation. God's dealing with his enemies in the season of his
   church's deliverance is of especial consideration.

   "I saw the tents," etc. So did the Israelites behold the Egyptians dead
   on the shore, Exod. xiv. 30, 31. "The heathen raged, the kingdoms were
   moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is
   with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the works
   of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth," Ps. xlvi.
   6-8. The enemies' undertaking, verse 6, -- God's protection to his
   people, verse 7, -- a view of the adversaries' desolation, verse 8, --
   are all orderly held out.

   The Lord tells Moses that he will harden the heart of Pharaoh, that he
   might show his power; to this very end, that it might be considered,
   and told to one another, Exod. x. 2, 3. How many psalms have we, that
   are taken up in setting forth God's breaking, yoking, befooling,
   terrifying his adversaries at such a season! The remembrance of the
   slaughter of the firstborn of Egypt was an ingredient in the chiefest
   ordinance the ancient church enjoyed, Exod. xii. The reasons of this
   are, --

   1. Much of the greatness and intenseness of God's love to his own is
   seen in his enemies' ruin, Isa. xliii. 3, 4, "I gave Egypt for thy
   ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
   sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee; therefore will
   I give men for thee, and people for thy life." When God gives such
   mighty kingdoms for a small handful, it appears they are precious to
   him: "Whosoever shall gather together against thee, shall fall for thy
   sake," Isa. liv. 15. When God will maintain a quarrel with all the
   world, -- swear that he will never have peace with Amalek until he be
   consumed, -- break nations, kings, and kingdoms, -- stretch out his
   hand in judgment round about, -- and all to save, preserve, prosper,
   protect a small handful; -- surely he hath endeared affections for
   them. In the days wherein we live, can we look and see wise men
   befooled, mighty warriors vanquished, men of might become as children,
   their persons slain and trodden down in the field, -- can we but cry,
   "Lord, what are we, and what is our house, that thou shouldst do such
   things for us?" A serious view of what God hath done in this nation of
   late, -- what armies he hath destroyed, what strongholds demolished,
   what proud, haughty spirits defeated, what consultations made vain, --
   is enough to make us admire the riches of his love all our days. We may
   know what esteem a man sets upon a jewel, by the price he gives for it.
   Surely God values them for whom he hath given the honours, the parts,
   the polities, the lives of so many tall cedars, as of late he hath
   done. The loving-kindness of God to his church is seen, as in a glass,
   in the blood of their persecutors.

   2. The manifestation of God's sovereignty, power, and justice, is as
   dear to him as the manifestation of his mercy. The properties he lays
   out in destruction are equally glorious with those he lays out in
   preservation.

   In the proclamation of his glorious name he omits them not, Exod.
   xxxiv. 6, 7. In these he triumpheth gloriously when he hath overthrown
   the horse and his rider in the sea, Exod. xv. 1.

   Use. Let not our eyes in the late deliverance be always on the light
   side of the work, our own mercies; -- the dark side of terror and
   judgment is not without its glory. The folly that was in their
   counsels, the amazement that was in their armies, the trembling that
   accompanied all their undertakings, the tympanous products of all their
   endeavours, do all cry out, "Digitus Dei est h`ic." Had not God showed
   infinite wisdom, they had not been so abundantly foolish: had not he
   been infinite in power, the many thousands of enemies had not been so
   weak.

   In the late engagement in this country, when God stirred us up, with
   some others in these parts, to make some opposition to the enemy
   gathering at Chelmsford, what were, think you, the workings of God's
   providences against them? How came it to pass that we were not
   swallowed up by them? For, --

   1. They were desirous to ruin us, if we may judge their desires to
   answer their interest; or their expressions, with the language of their
   friends round about us, to answer their desires.

   2. They were able to do it. They had from the beginning, and so all
   along, near as many thousands as we had hundreds; -- of them very many
   old, experienced soldiers; with us not three men that had ever seen any
   fighting.

   3. They were resolved to do it. Witness their own confessions, and
   frequent declarations of their purposes, whilst the business was in
   agitation.

   4. They were provoked to it. For the first and only considerable
   opposition was made to them in this place; -- first, By hindering their
   assistance from Colchester; which how much they valued, witness the
   senseless letter they would have forced the committee to subscribe, to
   persuade us not to disturb their levies there; -- secondly, Suppressing
   and discouraging all those affected to them and their designs in these
   parts of the country; restraining some, disarming others, awing all; --
   thirdly, Hastening the coming of the army, lest their friends should
   suffer; -- fourthly, Encouraging their coming, by declaring that they
   had friends here: by which, and the like, they were abundantly
   provoked.

   5. That they were also invited to it, though by persons somewhat
   inconsiderable, with promises of a full party of friends to assist
   them, which they might have had, and a rich booty from their enemies to
   support them, which they might have found, is too apparent.

   Now, being thus advantaged, thus encouraged, thus provoked and
   resolved, why did they not attempt it, why did they not accomplish
   their desires? Is it not worth the while to consider how they were
   restrained? [184] Was not much of God's wisdom seen in mixing a spirit
   of giddiness and error in the midst of them, that they knew not well
   how to determine, nor at all to execute their determinations? Was not
   his power seen in causing experienced soldiers, as they were, with
   their multitudes, to be afraid of a poor handful of unskilful men,
   running together because they were afraid to abide in their houses? Was
   not his justice exalted in keeping them only for the pit which they had
   digged for others? Doubtless the hand of God was lifted up. O that we
   could all learn righteousness, peculiarly amongst ourselves of this
   place! Is there nothing of God to be discerned in the vexations,
   birthless consultations, and devices of our observers? -- nothing of
   power in their restraint? -- nothing of wisdom in the self-punishment
   of their anxious thoughts? -- nothing of goodness, that after so long
   waiting for advantage, they begin themselves to think that neither
   divination nor enchantment will prevail?

   XV. Observation. The measuring out of God's people's portion fills
   Cushan with affliction and Midian with trembling.

   Their eye is evil, because God is good. Israel's increase is Pharaoh's
   trouble, Exod. i. 10. When Nehemiah comes to build the walls of
   Jerusalem, it grieved the enemy exceedingly "that there was come a man
   to seek the welfare of the children of Israel," Neh. ii. 10. This is
   the season of that dispensation which you have mentioned, Isa. lxv.
   13-15, "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye
   shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be
   thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed:
   behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for
   sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. And ye shall,"
   etc.

   The reasons of this are taken, -- 1. From their envy; 2. From their
   carnal fear; -- the two principles whereby they are acted in reference
   to the saints of God.

   1. Their envy. They have a devouring envy at them, [185] which at
   length shall shame them and consume them, Isa. xxvi. 11. They are of
   their father the devil, and he (through envy) was a "murderer from the
   beginning," John viii. 44. The portion God measureth out unto his
   people is in distinguishing mercies, differencing blessings, -- in such
   things as the world hath not, giveth not. Now, this is that which envy
   takes for its proper object. That others should have enjoyments above
   them, beyond them, this envious men cannot bear. God accepts Abel, not
   Cain; presently Cain is wroth, and his countenance falls, Gen. iv. 6.
   Jacob gets the blessing, and this fills the heart of Esau with
   murderous revenge, Gen. xxvii. 41. Upon all God's appearances with the
   apostles, how were the Jews cut to the heart, vexed, perplexed! God
   gives distinguishing mercies to his people, such protections, such
   deliverances; -- this Cushan and Midian cannot bear.

   2. Their carnal fear. They have all of them that conclusion in their
   breasts which Haman's wise men and wife made to him, Esth. vi. 13. If
   they begin to fall before the seed of the Jews, utter ruin will follow.
   When God begins to own his people, as them in the Acts v. 24, "they
   doubt whereunto this will grow;" -- their hearts tell them secretly
   they are usurpers of all they have, and when God owns any, they
   instantly fear lest for their sakes they should be called to account.
   When a distinction begins to be made in ordinances, privileges,
   deliverances, protections, evidently given to some peculiar ones, they
   tremble within that they are set apart for no good. This picking and
   choosing of men by the Lord, Ps. iv. 3, they cannot bear with. Such
   mighty works attend the Israelites! what, thinks Midian, will be the
   end of this? It is true, their pride calls on them to act openly more
   of their malice than their fear; but yet this lies at the bottom, like
   a boasting Atheist's nightly thoughts. [186] The chief priests and
   Pharisees having gotten the apostles before them, -- what big words
   they use to countenance the business! "Who gave you this power?" Acts
   iv. 7. But when they are by themselves, they cry, "What shall we do?"
   and, "Whereunto will this grow?" This lies at the bottom with many at
   this day; -- though they boast, and lift up their mouth to heaven,
   their hearts do tremble as an aspen leaf.

   Use. Learn not to be troubled at the great tumultuating which is
   amongst many against the ways of God at this day. God is measuring out
   his children's portion, giving them their bread in season, viewing for
   them the lot of their inheritance. Men of the world, profane
   Cushanites, superstitious, apostatical Midianites, will not, cannot be
   quiet. Vexed they are, envious, and afraid, and will act according to
   those principles. Cushanites see religion owned, Midianites theirs
   disclaimed, and both are alike provoked. The Lord convert them, or
   rebuke them; or the one will have the armies, the other their wiles.
   Only judge not their hearts by the outward appearance always. They seem
   gallant to you; -- indeed they are frighted, galled, vexed. I have seen
   a galled horse, under dressing, leap and curvet as though it had been
   out of mettle and spirit, when indeed it was pain and smart that made
   him do it. They pretend to despise us, when they envy us. They look
   like contemners, but are tremblers. Be not troubled at their outward
   appearance, they have inward anguish; -- they bite others, but are
   lashed themselves.

   XVI. Observation. The season of the church's deliverance being come,
   Cushan and Midian must wax vain, and perish.

   That there is such a season, I told you before. When four hundred and
   thirty years are expired, Egypt must be destroyed, the Amorites rooted
   out, and all the nations round made to tremble. When seventy years of
   captivity expire, Babylon must be ruined, and the Chaldean monarchy
   quite wasted, that the Jews may return. The church being to be
   delivered, Haman must be hanged. This you have fully set out, Rev. vi.
   12-17. It is the fall of heathenish tyranny, by the prevailing of the
   gospel, which you have there described. Rome and Constantinople, Pope
   and Turk, are preserved for a day and an hour wherein they shall fall,
   and be no more. If the season of enjoying ordinances and privileges be
   come to this nation, that the tabernacle of God will be here amongst
   men; woe be to Cushanites! woe be to Midianites! -- open opposers, and
   secret apostates. They shall not be able to be quiet, nor to prevail;
   God will not let them rest, nor obtain their purposes. The story of
   Haman must be acted over again; their hearts shall be stirred up to
   their own ruin, Rev. xx. 8. This is the frame of perishing Babylonians
   in the day of Zion's restoration. The reasons are:--

   1. Because at the deliverance of his people, God will plead with their
   enemies for their oppressions. "It is the day of the Lord's vengeance,
   the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion," Isa. xxxiv. 8. It
   is the vengeance of the Lord and his temple that lights upon them in
   that day, Jer. l. 28. "The violence done to me and my flesh be upon
   Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood upon the
   inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say," Jer. li. 35. In this day
   great Babylon must come into remembrance, Rev. xvi. 19, 20.

   2. The discerning trial that shall and doth come along with the
   church's vindication, will cut off all superfluous false professors, so
   that they also shall perish, Mal. iii. 2, 3. Christ comes with a fan,
   to send away the chaff in the wings of the wind. Have we not seen this
   end of many zealots?

   3. The Amorites live in Canaan, and must be removed. Oppressors and
   hypocrites enjoy many rites of the church, which must be taken from
   them. Rome and her adherents shall not have so much left as the name or
   title, appearance or show of a church. The outward court, which they
   have trodden down and defiled, shall be quite left out in the measuring
   of the temple, Rev. xi. 2.

   Use. Bring this observation home to the first from this verse, and it
   will give you the use of it: proceed we to the next verse.

   Verse 8. "Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? was thine anger
   against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride
   upon thine horses, and thy chariots of salvation?"

   "Was the Lord displeased?" chrh? "kindled," did he burn? -- that is, in
   wrath. Heat is a great ingredient in the commotion of anger in us, here
   alluded to, or because the effects of anger are so often compared to
   fire. "Against the rivers" or floods? Again: "Was thine anger?" 'pk?
   "thy nose or face, or thine anger," 'ph? signifies both. The face [187]
   is the seat of anger's appearance: fury comes up into the face. "Was
   thine anger, thy troubling anger" (so the word) "against the sea," --
   the Red sea, through which thy people passed; "that thou didst ride
   upon thy horses, and thy chariots of salvation?" or, "thy chariots were
   salvation, -- currus salutares,' thy safety-bringing chariots."

   The words are an admiring expostulation about the mighty works of the
   Lord for his people, upon the sea, rivers, and inanimate creatures.

   1. The rivers:-- Jordan and its driving back is doubtless especially
   intended. The Lord showed his power in disturbing that ancient river in
   his course, and making his streams run backward. The story of it you
   have Josh. iii. 15, 16. The people being to enter into Canaan, the Lord
   divides the waters of that river, making them beneath to sink away, and
   those above to stand on a heap. This the prophet magnifies, Ps. cxiv.
   5, "What ailed thee, O Jordan, that thou wast driven back?" What
   marvellous, powerful, disturbing thing is happened to thee, that,
   contrary to thy ancient natural course, thy streams should be frighted,
   and run back to the springs from whence they came?

   2. The sea:-- that is, the Red sea, which, in like manner, was divided,
   Exod. xiv. 21; which the prophet also admires in the fore-cited psalm:
   "The sea saw it, and fled. What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou
   fleddest?" What strong, mighty impression of power was on thee, that
   the multitudes of thy waters should be parted, and thy channel
   discovered dry to the bottom?

   3. "That thou didst ride upon thine horses, and thy chariots of
   salvation" This you have again, verse 15, "Thou didst walk through the
   sea with thine horses." These were those clouds and winds which the
   Lord sent before the Israelites, to the sea and Jordan, to drive them
   back. "He maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of
   the wind," Ps. civ. 3. So Ps. xviii. 10, "He did fly upon the wings of
   the wind." After the manner of men, God is represented as a mighty
   conqueror, riding before his armies and making way for them. The power
   and majesty of God was with and upon those clouds and winds which went
   before his people, to part those mighty waters, that they might pass
   dry; and therefore they are called his saving chariots, because by them
   his people were delivered. Or by horses and chariots here you may
   understand the angels, who are the host of God. Ps. lxviii. 17, "The
   chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels." They
   have appeared as horses and chariots of fire, 2 Kings vi. 17. And their
   ministry, no doubt, the Lord used in these mighty works of drying
   rivers and dividing seas. Either way, the glorious power and majesty of
   God, in his delivering instruments, is set forth.

   Thus the words severally; -- now jointly.

   This admiring interrogation includes a negation. "Was the Lord kindled
   against the rivers? was thy face against the rivers," etc. Was it that
   the deep had offended the Most High, that, by thine angels, winds, and
   clouds, thou didst so disturb the floods in their ancient course, and
   madest naked their hidden channels, until the hoary deep cried out for
   fear, and lifted up his aged hands to the Almighty, as it were, for
   pity? verse 10. No, surely, no such thing. All those keep the order by
   thee unto them appointed; it was all for the salvation and deliverance
   of thy people. God was not angry with Jordan when he drove it back, nor
   with the sea when he divided it; but all was effected for Israel's
   deliverance.

   XVII. Observation. The very senseless creatures are, as it were,
   sensible of the wrath and power of the Almighty.

   Effects of anger being in and upon the deep, "he utters his voice, and
   lifts up his hands on high," verse 10. God often in the Scripture sets
   forth his power and majesty by the trembling of heaven and the shaking
   of the earth, the vanishing of mountains and the bowing of perpetual
   hills, the professed humble subjection of the most eminent parts of the
   creation. The sea shall fly, as afraid; the rocks, as weak, rend and
   crumble; the heavens be darkened; the mountains skip like rams, and the
   little hills like young sheep, Ps. cxiv. 4.


   Tremei d' ore, kai pelorios

   Buthos thalasses, koreon hupsos mega,

   Hotan epeblepse gorgon omma despotou.

   AEsch. apud Justin., Apol. ii.

   "The earth shook, the heavens dropped at the presence of God," Ps.
   lxiii. 8. The almighty Creator holds the whole frame of the building in
   his own hand, and makes what portion he pleaseth, and when he pleaseth,
   to tremble, consume, and vanish before him. Though many things are not
   capable of sense and reason, yet he will make them do such things as
   sense and reason should prompt the whole subjected creation unto, to
   teach that part their duty who were endued therewith. A servant is
   beat, to make a child learn his duty.

   Use. See hence the stoutness of sinful hearts, -- more stubborn than
   the mountains, more flinty than the rocks, more senseless than the
   great deep. Friend, art thou stronger than Horeb? yet that trembled at
   the presence of this mighty God, whom it never had provoked. Are thy
   lusts like the streams of Jordan? yet they ran back from his chariots
   of salvation. Are thy corruption? more firmly seated on thy soul than
   the mountains on their bases? yet they leaped like frighted sheep
   before that God against whom they had not sinned. And wilt thou, a
   small handful of sinful dust, that hast ten thousand times provoked the
   eyes of his glory, not tremble before him, coming on his horses and
   chariots of salvation, -- his mighty works and powerful word? Shall a
   lion tremble, and thou not be afraid, who art ready to tremble with a
   thought of that poor creature? Shall the heavens bow, the deep beg for
   mercy, and thou be senseless? Shall all creatures quake for the sin of
   man, and sinful man be secure? Know you not that the time is coming
   wherein such men will desire the trembling rocks to be a covert to
   their more affrighted souls?

   XVIII. Observation. No creatures, seas nor floods, greater or lesser
   waters, shall be able to obstruct or hinder God's people's deliverance,
   when he hath undertaken it.

   Is the sea against them? it shall be parted. Is Jordan in the way? it
   shall be driven back. Both sea and Jordan shall tremble before him.
   Euphrates shall be dried up, to give the kings of the east a passage,
   Rev. xvi. 12. Waters in the Scriptures are sometimes afflictions,
   sometimes people and nations. Be they seas (kings and princes), or be
   they rivers (inferior persons), they shall not be able to oppose. God
   has decked his house, and made it glorious with the spoils of all
   opposers. There you have the spoils of Pharaoh, gathered up on the
   shore of the Red sea, and dedicated in the house of God, Exod. xv. 1.
   There you have all the armour of Sennacherib's mighty host, with the
   rest of their spoils, hung up to show, 2 Chron. xxxii. 21. There you
   have the glory, and throne, and dominion of Nebuchadnezzar, himself
   being turned into a beast, Dan. iv. 33. There you shall have the
   carcasses of Gog and Magog, with all their mighty hosts, for coming to
   encamp against the city of God, Ezek. xxxix. 1. There you have the
   imperial robes of [188] Diocletian and his companion, abdicating them
   -- selves from the empire for very madness that they could not prevail
   against the church. Kings of armies shall fly apace; and she that
   tarries at home shall divide the spoil, Ps. lxviii. 12. All opposers,
   though nations and kingdoms, shall perish and be utterly destroyed,
   Isa. lx. 12, Rev. xix. 18.

   God will not exalt any creature unto a pitch of opposition to himself,
   or to stand in the way of his workings. The very end of all things, in
   their several stations, is to be serviceable to his purposes towards
   his own. Obedience in senseless creatures is natural, even against the
   course of nature, in the season of deliverance. "Sun, stand thou still
   upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon," Josh. x. 12.
   "Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a
   plain," Zech. iv. 7. The most mountainous opposers shall be levelled,
   when the Spirit of God sets in for that purpose. There is a strength in
   every promise and engagement of God unto his people, that is able to
   carry the whole frame of heaven and earth before it. If they can
   believe, all things are possible to them that believe. When the decree
   is to bring forth the fruit of the promise, it will overturn empires,
   destroy nations, divide seas, ruin armies, open prisons, break chains
   and fetters, and bear down all before it; as the wind shut up in the
   earth will shake the pillars, as it were, of its mighty body, but it
   will find or make a passage. The least promise of deliverance, if the
   season thereof be come, though it were shut up under strong and mighty
   powers, crafty counsels, dungeons, and prisons, like the doors and
   lasting bars of the earth, the truth and power of God shall make them
   all to tremble, and give birth to his people's deliverance.

   Use 1. Have we seen nothing of this in our days? -- no seas divided? no
   Jordans driven back? no mountains levelled? no hills made to tremble?
   Whence, then, was the late confusion of armies? casting down of mighty
   ones? reviving of dead bones? opening of prison doors? bringing out the
   captives appointed to be slain? Is it not from hence, that nothing can
   stand against the breaking out of a promise in its appointed season?
   "Was the Lord displeased with the rivers?" was his anger against the
   walls and houses, "that he rode upon his horses, and chariots of
   salvation?"

   Use 2. Let faith be strengthened in an evil time. Poor distressed soul,
   all the difficulty of thy deliverance lies in thine own bosom! If the
   streams of thy unbelief within be not stronger than all seas of
   opposition without, all will be easy. O learn to stand still with
   quietness, between a host of Egyptians and a raging sea, to see the
   salvation of God! Be quiet in prison, between your friends' bullets and
   your enemies' swords; God can, God will, make a way. If it were not
   more hard with us to believe wonders than it is to the promise to
   effect wonders for us, they would be no wonders, so daily, so
   continually, would they be wrought.

   XIX. Observation. God can make use of any of his creatures to be
   chariots of salvation.

   This is the other side of that doctrine which we gathered from verse 5,
   "Winds and clouds shall obey him." Ravens [189] shall feed Elijah, that
   will not feed their own young. The sea shall open for Israel, and
   return upon the Egyptians. And this both in an ordinary way, as Hos.
   ii. 21, 22; and in an extraordinary way, as before. So many creatures
   as God hath made, so many instruments of good hath he for his people.
   This is farther confirmed, verse 9.

   Verse 9. "Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the
   tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers."

   "With nakedness thy bow was made naked." The rest is elliptical, and
   well supplied in the translation.

   The verse hath two parts.

   1. A general proposition: "Thy bow was made naked," etc.

   2. A particular confirmation of that proposition by instance: "Thou
   didst cleave the earth with rivers."

   1. The proposition holds out two things.

   (1.) What God did: "He made his bow quite naked."

   (2.) The rule he proceeded by herein: "According to the oaths of the
   tribes, even his word."

   The assertion of this verse is not of some particular act or work, as
   the former, but a general head or fountain of those particular works
   which are enumerated in the following verses.

   (1.) A bow is a weapon of war, an instrument of death; and being
   ascribed to God, after the manner of men, holds out his strength,
   power, might, and efficacy, to do whatever he pleaseth. And this is
   said to be quite naked. When a man goes about to use his bow, he pulls
   it out of his quiver, [190] and so makes it naked. The exercising of
   God's power is the making naked of his bow. This he did in all those
   wonders wherein he stretched out his hand, in bringing his people into
   the promised land, here pointed at. And it is said that with nakedness
   it was made naked, because of those very high dispensations and
   manifestations of his almighty power. This is the making naked of his
   bow.

   (2.) For the rule of this, it is "the oaths of the tribes;" or as
   afterward, "his word," -- the oaths of the tribes, that is, the oaths
   made to them, -- the word he stood engaged to them in. The promise God
   made by oath unto Abraham, that he would give him the land of Canaan
   for an inheritance, even to him and his posterity, Gen. xiii. 14-17, is
   here intimated. This promise was often renewed to him and the following
   patriarchs. Hence it is called oaths, though but the same promise often
   renewed: and it had the nature of an oath, because it was made a
   covenant. Now, it was all for the benefit of the several tribes, in
   respect of actual possession, and was lastly renewed to them, Exod.
   iii. 17; hence called "the oaths of the tribes," not which they sware
   to the Lord, but that which the Lord sware to them. So afterward it is
   called his word, -- "Thy word." This, then, is the purport of this
   general proposition, "O Lord, according as thou promisedst, and
   engagedst thyself by covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their
   posterity, that thou wouldst give them the land of Canaan to be theirs
   for an inheritance; so by the dispensation of thy mighty power thou
   hast fully accomplished it." And this he layeth down for the
   supportment of faith in a time of trouble.

   The words would afford many observations; I shall insist only on one.

   XX. Observation. The Lord will certainly make good all his promises and
   engagements to his people, though it cost him the making of his bow
   quite naked, -- the manifestation of his power in the utmost
   dispensations thereof.

   God's workings are squared to his engagements. This is still the close
   of all gracious issues of providence, -- God hath done all according
   "as he promised," Josh. xxii. 4; 2 Sam. vii. 21. He brought out his
   people of old with a mighty hand, with temptations, signs, and wonders,
   and a stretched-out arm; and all because he would keep the oath which
   he had sworn, and the engagement which he had made to their fathers,
   Deut. vii. 8. What obstacles soever may lie in the way, he hath done
   it, he will do it. Take one instance; particular places are too many to
   be insisted on. It was the purpose of his heart to bring his elect home
   to himself, from their forlorn condition. This he engageth himself to
   do, Gen. iii. 15, -- assuring Adam of a recovery from the misery he was
   involved in by Satan's prevalency. This, surely, is no easy work. If
   the Lord will have it done, he must lay out all his attributes in the
   demonstration of them to the uttermost. His wisdom and power must bow
   their shoulders, as it were, in Christ unto it. He was "the power of
   God, and the wisdom of God;" [191] his engaged love must be carried
   along through so many secret, mysterious marvels, as the angels
   themselves "desire to look into," [192] and shall for ever adore.
   Though the effecting of it required that which man could not do, and
   God could not suffer; yet his wisdom will find out a way, that he shall
   both do it and suffer it who is both God and man. To make good his
   engagement to his elect, he spared not his only Son: and in him were
   hid, and by him laid out, "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
   [193]

   Now, this is a precedent of God's proceeding in all other engagements
   whatsoever. Whatever it cost him, he will spare nothing to make them
   good to the uttermost. He is our rock, and his work is perfect. A good
   man, if he want not power, will go through with his serious promises,
   though he be engaged to his own hurt, Ps. xv. 4. The power of the
   mighty God is serviceable to his will to the uttermost. He cannot will
   what he cannot do: his will and power are essentially the same. And his
   power shall not be wanting to execute what his goodness hath moved him
   to engage unto for his own glory. The reasons of this are, --

   1. Deut. xxxii. 4, "He is the Rock, his work is perfect; all his ways
   are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity." Here are many
   attributes of God to make good this one thing, that his work is
   perfect, -- this autarkeia, self-sufficiency, perfection,
   righteousness. I will pitch on one, -- he is a God of truth. So he is
   again called, Ps. xxxi. 5, and in other places. The truth of God in his
   promises and engagements requires an accomplishment of them, whatever
   it cost, what power soever is required thereunto. This the saints make
   their bottom to seek it: "Where are thy loving-kindnesses, which thou
   swarest in thy truth," Ps. lxxxix. 49. It is impossible but that should
   come to pass which thou hast sworn in thy truth. No stronger plea than
   "Remember the word wherein thou hast caused thy servants to put their
   trust." Jacob says, he is less than all the mercy and all the truth of
   God, Gen. xxxii. 10. He sees God's truth in all his mercy, by causing
   all things to come to pass which he hath promised him. It is true, some
   particular promises have their conditions, whose truth consists not in
   the relation between the word and the thing, unless the condition
   intercede. But the great condition under the gospel being only the good
   of them to whom any engagement is made, we may positively lay down,
   that God's truth requires the accomplishment of every engagement for
   his people's good, Rom. viii. 28. It is neither mountain nor hill,
   king, kingdom, nor nation, hell nor mortality, nor all combined, that
   can stand in the way to hinder it, Matt. xvi. 18.

   2. His people stand in need of all that God hath engaged himself to
   them for. God's promises are the just measure of his people's wants.
   Whatever he hath promised, that his people do absolutely want; and
   whatsoever they want, that he hath promised:-- our wants and his
   promises are every way commensurate. If thou knowest not what thou
   standest in need of, search the promises and see: whatever God hath
   said he will do for thee, that thou hast absolute need should be done.
   Or if thou art not so well acquainted with the promises, search thine
   own wants: what thou standest absolutely in need of for thy good, that
   assuredly God hath promised. If, then, this be the case of engagements,
   they shall all be made good. Think you, will God let his people want
   that which they have absolute necessity of? By absolute necessity I
   mean such as is indispensable, as to their present estate and
   occasions. That may be of necessity in one generation which is not in
   another, according to the several employments we are called to. Does
   God call forth his saints "to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and
   punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their
   nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment
   written," as Ps. cxlix. 7-9? -- doth he bring them forth to burn the
   whore, to fight with the beast, and overcome him and his followers? --
   it is of indispensable necessity that he give them glorious assistance
   in their undertakings. They shall be assisted, protected, carried on,
   though it cost him the making of his bow quite naked. According to the
   several conditions he calls them to, the several issues of providence
   which he will have them serve in, so want they his appearance in them,
   with them, for them; and it shall be present. Let them be assured they
   are in his way, and then, though some prove false and treacherous, some
   base and cowardly, -- though many combine and associate themselves
   against them in many places, in all places, -- though whole kingdoms
   and mighty armies appear for their ruin, -- be they reviled and
   clamoured by all round about them, -- all is one; help they need, and
   help they shall have, or God will make his bow quite naked.

   Use. 1. This day is this doctrine fulfilled before us. God's bow is
   made quite naked, according to his word. We are less than all the truth
   he hath showed unto us. Though great working and mighty power hath been
   required, such as he hath not shown in our days, nor in the days of our
   fathers; yet the Lord hath not stood at it, for his word's sake,
   wherein he hath made us to put our trust. I speak of the general
   mercies we have received. The surrender of Colchester, the particular
   celebrated this day, though marching in the rear for time, is for the
   weight in the van, -- a mercy of the first magnitude. Essex hath seen
   more power in a three months' recovery than in the protection of six
   years. That the mouths of men are stopped, and their faces filled with
   shame, who made it their trade to revile and threaten the saints of
   God; -- that the adverse strength, which hath lain hid these seven
   years, should be drawn forth, united, and broken to pieces; -- that the
   people of God, divided, and naturally exasperated through their abuse
   of peace, should, by the sword of a common enemy and the help of a
   common friend, have their wrath abated, their counsels united, and
   their persons set in a hopeful way of closing or forbearance; -- that
   God by their own counsels should shut up men, collected from sundry
   parts to ruin others, in a city with gates and walls, for their own
   ruin; -- that they should deny peace tendered upon such conditions,
   because of the exigencies of the time, as might have left them power as
   well as will for a farther mischief; -- that such salvation should go
   forth in other parts as that the proceedings here should not be
   interrupted; -- that the bitter service which men here underwent should
   ever and anon be sweetened with refreshing tidings from other places,
   to keep up their spirits in wet, watching, cold, and loss of blood:--
   all these, I say, and sundry other such-like things as these, are "the
   Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes."

   Especially let us remember how in three things the Lord made his bow
   quite naked in his late deliverance.

   (1.) In leavening the counsels of the enemy with their own folly.

   (2.) In ordering all events to his own praise.

   (3.) By controlling with his mighty power the issue of all
   undertakings.

   (1.) In leavening their counsels with their own folly. God's [194]
   power and the efficacy of his providence is not more clearly manifested
   in any thing than in his effectual working in the debates, advices,
   consultations, and reasonings of his enemies, compassing his ends by
   their inventions. When God is in none of the thoughts of men by his
   fear, he is in them all by his providence. The sun is operative with
   his heat where he reacheth not with his light, and hath an influence on
   precious minerals in the depths and dark bottoms of rocks and
   mountains. The all-piercing providence of God dives into the deep
   counsels of the hearts of the sons of men, and brings out precious gold
   from thence, where the gracious light of his countenance shines not at
   all. Men freely advise, debate, use and improve their own reasons,
   wisdom, interests, not once casting an eye to the Almighty; and yet all
   this while do his work more than their own. All the counselings,
   plottings of Joseph's brethren, -- all the transactions of the Jews,
   Herod, and Pilate, about the death of Christ, with other the like
   instances, abundantly prove it. [195] Take a few instances wherein God
   "made his bow quite naked" in the counsels of his and our enemies.

   In general, they consult to take arms, wherein God had fully appeared
   against them, -- when, in all probability, their work would have been
   done without them. Had they not fought, by this time they had been
   conquerors. One half-year's peace more, -- which we desired on any
   terms, and they would on no terms bear, -- in all likelihood had set
   them where they would be. Their work went on, as if they had hired the
   kingdom to serve them in catching weather. What with some men's folly,
   others' treachery, all our division, -- had not their own counsels set
   them on fighting, -- I think we should suddenly base chosen them and
   theirs to be umpires of our quarrels. God saw when it was time to deal
   with them. In their undertaking in our own county, I could give sundry
   instances how God mixed a perverse spirit of folly and error in all
   their counsels. A part of the magistracy of the county is seized on.
   Therein their intention towards the residue is clearly discovered; yet
   not any attempt made to secure them, -- which they might easily have
   accomplished, -- although they could not but suppose that there were
   some gentlemen of public and active spirits left that would be
   industrious in opposition unto them. Was not the Lord in their counsels
   also, when they suffered a small, inconsiderable party, in a little
   village within a few miles of them, to grow into such a body as at
   length they durst not attempt, when they might have broken their whole
   endeavour with half a hundred of men? Doubtless, of innumerable such
   things as these we may say, with the prophet, "The princes of Zoan are
   become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced"
   the people, "even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof. The
   Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof; and they have
   caused" the people "to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man
   staggereth in his vomit," Isa. xix. 13, 14. Doubtless the wrath of man
   shall praise the Lord, and the remainder of it will he restrain.

   (2.) In ordering all events to his own praise. The timing of the
   enemies' eruptions in several places is that which fills all hearts
   with wonder, and all mouths with discourse, in these days. From the
   first to the last they had their season. Had they come together, to the
   eyes of flesh the whole nation had been swallowed up in that deluge. In
   particular, let Essex take notice of the goodness of God. The high
   thoughts and threats of men, which made us for divers weeks fear a
   massacre, were not suffered to break out into open hostility until the
   very next day after their strength was broken, in the neighbour county
   of Kent; -- as if the Lord should have said, "I have had you in a chain
   all this while: though you have showed your teeth, you have not
   devoured; now go out of my chain, -- I have a net ready for you." For
   the armies coming to our assistance, I cannot see how we needed them
   many days sooner, or could have wanted them one day longer. Farther,
   these home-bred eruptions were timely seasoned, to rouse the
   discontented soldiery and divided nation to be ready to resist the
   Scottish invasion; -- God also being magnified in this, that in this
   sweet disposal of events unto his glory, the counsels of many of those
   in whom we thought we might confide ran totally cross to the appearance
   of God in his providence. What shall we say to these things? If the
   Lord be for us, who shall be against us? All these things came forth
   from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in
   operation, Isa. xxviii. 29. Whoso is wise will ponder them, and they
   shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.

   (3.) In controlling mighty actions, -- I mean, giving success to his
   people in all their undertakings. The commander-in-chief of all the
   forces in this kingdom, since his sitting down before Colchester, was
   proffered a pass to go beyond the seas for his security. Whence is it
   that he hath now the necks of his enemies, and hath given any of them
   their lives at their entreaty? Greater armies than this have been
   buried under lesser walls. Did not the number of the besieged at first
   exceed the number of the besiegers? were not their advantages great?
   their skill in war, amongst men of their own persuasion, famous and
   renowned? so that the sitting down before it was judged an action meet
   only for them who could believe they should see the bow of God made
   quite naked. It had been possible, doubtless, to reason's eye, that
   many of those fictions wherewith a faction in the great city fed
   themselves, -- of the many routings, slaughters, and destructions of
   the army, -- might have been true. Some of them, I say; for some were
   as childish as hellish. In brief, they associated themselves, and were
   broken in pieces; -- high walls, towering imaginations, lofty threats,
   -- all brought down. "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let
   them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might;" and
   let the land have rest for many years, Judges v. 31.

   Use 2. This will discover unto us the bottom and rise of all God's
   appearances for his people, -- even the engaging of his own free grace.
   He doth not "make his bow quite naked," according to their deservings,
   but his own word; not because they of themselves are better than
   others, but because he loves them more than others. Were God's
   assistances suited to our walkings, they would be very uneven; but his
   good-will is constant; so are our deliverances.

   Use 3. Be exhorted to thankfulness; not verbal, [196] but real; not the
   exultation of carnal affections, but the savoury obedience of a sound
   mind. There are many ingredients in thanksgiving; -- suitable and
   seasonable obedience to answer the will of God in his mercies is
   doubtless the crown of all. Look, then, under the enjoyment of
   blessings in general, to close walking with God in the duties of the
   covenant, -- and in particular, to the especial work of this your
   generation, -- and you are in the way to be thankful.

   Use 4. Be sedulously careful to prevent that which God hath mightily
   decried by our late mercies, -- viz., mutual animosities, strife,
   contention, and violence against one another; [197] I mean, of those
   that fear his name. God hath interposed in our quarrels from heaven The
   language of our late deliverance is, Be quiet, "lest a worse thing
   happen unto you." Our poor brethren of Scotland would not see the
   hatefulness of their animosities towards their friends, until God
   suffered that very thing to be the means to deliver them up to the
   power of their enemies. The weapons they had formed were used against
   themselves. Let us learn betimes to agree about our pasture, lest the
   wolves of the wilderness devour us. Persecution and idolatry have
   ruined all the states of the Christian world.

   2. Of the assertion we have spoken hitherto: come we now to the
   particular confirmation of it by instance. "Thou didst cleave the earth
   with rivers," -- cleave the earth, or make channels in the earth, for
   waters to flow in.

   Another most eminent work of almighty power is here set forth, --
   eminent in itself, and eminent in its typical signification. And the
   same thing being twice done, hath a plural expression, -- "rivers."

   (1.) Eminent of itself. The bringing of streams of waters from the
   rock, for the thirsty people in the wilderness, is that which is here
   celebrated. Now this the Lord did twice:-- First, Exod. xvii. 6, when
   the people were in Rephidim, in the first year after their coming from
   Egypt, they fainted in their journeys for want of water, and (according
   to the wonted custom of that rebellious people) complained with
   murmuring. So they extorted all their mercies; and therefore they were
   attended with such sore judgments. Whilst the meat was in their mouths,
   the plague was on their bones. Mercies extorted by murmurings,
   unseasoned with loving-kindness, though they may be quails in the
   mouth, will be plagues in the belly. Let us take heed lest we repine
   the Almighty into a full harvest and lean soul, Ps. cvi. 15. Get and
   keep mercies in God's way, or there is death in the pot.

   Forty years after this, when the first whole evil generation was
   consumed, the children, who were risen up in their fathers' stead, fall
   a murmuring for water in the wilderness of Zin, and, with a profligacy
   of rebellion, wish they had been consumed with others in the former
   plagues, Num. xx. 4. Here also the Lord gives them water, and that in
   abundance, verse 11. Now, of this observe, --

   [1.] The places from whence this water marvellously issued. They were
   rocks that, in all probability, never had spring from the creation of
   the world. Farther, they are observed to be rocks of flint, Ps. cxiv.
   8, "Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a
   fountain of waters:" so Deut. viii. 15. A rock into a pool, and a flint
   into a stream, is much beyond Samson's riddle of sweetness from the
   eater.

   [2.] The abundance of waters that gushed out, -- waters to satisfy that
   whole congregation, with all their cattle, consisting of some millions.
   Yea, and not only they, but all the beasts of that wilderness were
   refreshed thereby also, Isa. xliii. 20, "The beast of the field shall
   honour me, the dragon and the owl; because I give waters in the
   wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my
   chosen." The very worst of the sons of men, dragons and owls, fare the
   better for God's protecting providence towards his own. [198]

   And all this was in such abundance, that it was as plentiful as a sea.
   "He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of
   the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused
   waters to run down like rivers," Ps. lxxviii. 15, 16. So also it is
   celebrated, Isa. xli. 18, xlviii. 21, Hos. xiii. 5, and in many other
   places. Great deliverances call f or frequent remembrances.

   Thus were rivers brought out of the rocks, and with or for these rivers
   God did cleave the earth; -- that is, either he provided channels for
   those streams to run in, that they might not be wasted on the surface
   of that sandy wilderness, but preserved for the use of his people; or
   else the streams were so great and strong, that they pierced the earth,
   and parted channels for themselves. Great rivers of water, brought out
   of flinty rocks, running into prepared channels, to refresh a sinful,
   thirsty people, in a barren wilderness, I think, is a remarkable mercy.

   (2.) As it was eminent in itself, so likewise is it exalted in its
   typical concernment. Is there nothing but flints in this rock? nothing
   but water in these streams? nothing but the rod of Moses in the blows
   given to it? Did the people receive no other refreshment, but only in
   respect of their bodily thirst? Yes, saith the apostle, "They drank of
   that spiritual rock which followed them; and that rock was Christ," 1
   Cor. x. 4. Was not this rock a sign of that Rock of Ages on which the
   church is built? Matt. xvi. 18. Did not Moses' smiting hold out his
   being smitten with the rod of God? Isa. liii. 4, 5. Was not the pouring
   out of these plentiful streams as the pouring out of his precious
   blood, in a sea of mercy, abundantly sufficient to refresh the whole
   fainting church in the wilderness? "Latet Christus in petra;" -- "Here
   is Christ in this rock." Had Rome had wisdom to build on this Rock,
   though she had not had an infallibility as she vainly now pretends, she
   might have had an infallibility (if I may so speak), yea, she had never
   quite failed. Give me leave to take a few observations from hence. As,
   --

   [1.] Sinners must be brought to great extremities, to make them desire
   the blood of Jesus; -- weary and thirsty, before rock-water come.
   Thirst is a continually galling pressure. When a soul gaspeth like a
   parched land, and is as far from self-refreshment as a man from drawing
   waters out of a flint, then shall the side of Christ be opened to him.
   You that are full of your lusts, drunk with the world, here is not a
   drop for you. If you never come into the wilderness, you shall never
   have rock-water.

   [2.] Mercy to a convinced sinner seems ofttimes as remote as rivers
   from a rock of flint. The truth is, he never came near mercy, who
   thought not himself far from it. When the Israelites cried, We are
   ready to die for thirst, then stood they on the ground where rivers
   were to run.

   [3.] Thirsty souls shall want no water, though it be fetched for them
   out of a rock. Panters after the blood of Jesus shall assuredly have
   refreshment and pardon, through the most unconquerable difficulties.
   Though grace and mercy seem to be locked up from them, like water in a
   flint, -- whence fire is more natural than water; yet God will not
   strike the rock of his justice and their flinty hearts together, to
   make hell-fire sparkle about their ears; but with a rod of mercy on
   Christ, that abundance of water may be drawn out for their refreshment.

   [4.] The most eminent temporal blessings, and suitable refreshment
   (water from a rock for them that are ready to perish), is but an
   obscure representation of that love of God, and refreshment of souls,
   which is in the blood of Jesus. Carnal things are exceeding short of
   spiritual, -- temporal things of eternal.

   [5.] The blood of Christ is abundantly sufficient for his whole church
   to refresh themselves, -- streams, rivers, a whole sea.

   These, and the like observations, flowing from the typical relation of
   the blessing intimated, shall not farther be insisted on; -- one only I
   shall take from the historical truth.

   XXI. Observation. God sometimes bringeth plentiful deliverances and
   mercies for his people from beyond the ken of sense and reason; yea,
   from above the ordinary reach of much precious faith.

   I mean not what it ought to reach, which is all the omnipotency of God;
   but what ordinarily it doth, as in this very business it was with
   Moses. I say, plentiful deliverances, mercies like the waters that
   gushed out in abundant streams, until the earth was cloven with rivers,
   -- that the people should not only have a taste and away, but drink
   abundantly, and leave for the beasts of the field, -- from beyond the
   ken of sense and reason, by events which a rationally wise man is no
   more able to look into, than an eye of flesh is able to see water in a
   flint; or a man probably suppose that divers millions of creatures
   should be refreshed with waters out of a rock where there was never any
   spring from the foundation of the world.

   Now, concerning this, observe, --

   1. That God hath done it.

   2. That he hath promised he wall yet do it.

   3. Why he will so do.

   1. He hath done it. I might here tire you with precedents. I could lead
   you from that mother deliverance, the womb of all others, the
   redemption that is in the blood of Jesus, down through many
   dispensations of old and of late, holding out this proposition to the
   full One shall suffice me; and if some of you cannot help yourselves
   with another, you are very senseless.

   Look upon Peter's deliverance, Acts xii. 1. The night before he was to
   be slain, he was kept safe in a prison, -- a prison he had neither will
   nor power to break. He was bound with two chains, beyond his skill to
   unloose or force asunder. Kept he was by sixteen soldiers, doubtless
   men of blood and vigilancy, having this to keep them waking, that if
   Peter escaped with his head, they were to lose theirs. Now, that his
   deliverance was above sense and reason himself intimates, verse 11, "He
   hath delivered me from the expectation of the Jews." The wise, subtle
   Jews, concluded the matter so secure, that, without any doubts or
   fears, they were in expectation of his execution the next day. That it
   was also beyond the ready reach of much precious faith, you have an
   example in those believers who were gathered together in the house of
   Mary, verse 12, calling her mad who first affirmed it, verse 15, and
   being astonished when their eyes beheld it, verse 16; -- the whole
   seeming so impossible to carnal Herod, after its accomplishment, that
   he slays the keepers as false in their hellish trust; -- a just
   recompense for trusty villains.

   The time would fail me to speak of Isaac, [199] and Joseph, Gideon,
   Noah, Daniel, and Job, -- all precedents worthy your consideration.
   View them at your leisure; and you will have leisure, if you intend to
   live by faith.

   2. He hath said it. It is a truth abounding in promises and
   performances. I shall hold out one or two; it will be worth your while
   to search for others yourselves. He that digs for a mine finds many a
   piece of gold by the way.

   Isa. xli. 14-16, "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye few men of Israel.
   Behold, I will make thee a new sharp thrashing instrument having teeth:
   thou shalt thrash the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make
   the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them," etc. To make a worm a
   thrashing instrument with teeth, to cause that instrument to beat
   mountains and hills into chaff, that chaff to be blown away with the
   wind, that that worm may rejoice in God; -- to advance a small handful
   of despised ones to the ruin of mountainous empires and kingdoms, until
   they be broken and scattered to nothing, -- is a mercy that comes from
   beyond the ken of an ordinary eye. Ezek. xxxvii. 3, the prophet
   professeth that the deliverance promised was beyond his apprehension:
   "Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
   knowest." The Lord intimates in the following verses that he will
   provide a means for his church's recovery when it seemeth as remote
   therefrom as dry bones scattered upon the face of the earth are from a
   mighty living army. This he calls opening their graves, verses 12, 13.

   3. The reasons of this are, --

   (1.) Because he would have his people wholly wrapt up in his
   all-sufficiency, not to straiten themselves with what their faith can
   ken in a promise, much less to what their reason can perceive in
   appearance. In the application of promises to particular trials and
   extremities, faith oftentimes is exceedingly disturbed, either in
   respect of persons, or things, or seasons; but when it will wholly
   swallow up itself in all-sufficiency, the fountain of all promises,
   there is no place for fear or disputing. Have your souls in spiritual
   trials never been driven from all your out-works unto this main fort?
   Hath not all hold of promises in time of trial given place to
   temptations, until you have fallen down in all-sufficiency, and there
   found peace? God accounts a flight to the strong tower of his name to
   be the most excellent valour. This is faith's first, proper, and most
   immediate object. To particular promises it is drawn out on particular
   occasions; here is, or should be, its constant abode, Gen. xvii. 1.
   And, indeed, the soul will never be prepared to all the will of God,
   until its whole complacency be taken up in this sufficiency of the
   Almighty. Here God delights to have the soul give up itself to a
   contented losing of all its reasonings, even in the infinite
   unsearchableness of his goodness and power. Therefore will he sometimes
   send forth such streams of blessings as can flow from no other
   fountain, that his may know where to lie down in peace. Here he would
   have us secure our shallow bottoms in this quiet sea, this infinite
   ocean, whither neither wind nor storm do once approach. Those
   blustering temptations which rage at the shore, when we were half at
   land and half at sea, -- half upon the bottom of our own reason and
   half upon the ocean of providence, -- reach not at all unto this deep.
   Oh, if we could in all trials lay ourselves down in these arms of the
   Almighty, his all-sufficiency in power and goodness! Oh, how much of
   the haven should we have in our voyage, how much of home in our
   pilgrimage, -- how much of heaven in this wretched earth! Friends,
   throw away your staves, break the arm of flesh, lie down here quietly
   in every dispensation, and you shall see the salvation of God. I could
   lose myself in setting out of this, wherein I could desire you would
   lose yourselves in every time of trouble. "Hast thou not known, hast
   thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the
   ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no
   searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to
   them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall
   faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that
   wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with
   wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and
   not faint," Isa. xl. 28-31.

   (2.) To convince the unbelieving world itself of his power, providence,
   and love to them that put their trust in him, that they may be found to
   cry, "Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily he is a God
   that judgeth in the earth," Ps. lviii. 11.

   When the Egyptian magicians see real miracles, beyond all their
   juggling pretences, they cry out, "This is the finger of God," Exod.
   viii. 19.

   Profane Nebuchadnezzar, beholding the deliverance of those three
   worthies from the fiery furnace, owns them for the "servants of the
   most high God," Dan. iii. 26. Daniel being preserved in the lions' den,
   Darius acknowledgeth the power and kingdom of "the living God," Dan.
   vi. 26.

   Glorious appearances of God for his people, beyond the reach of reason,
   wrest from the world amazement or acknowledgment; and in both God is
   exalted. He will appear in such distresses, as that he win be seen of
   his very enemies. They shall not be able, with the Philistines, to
   question whether it be his hand or a chance happened to them, 1 Sam.
   vi. 9; but conclude, with the Egyptians, that fly they must, for God
   fights for his people, Exod. xiv. 25. If God should never give
   blessings but in such a way as reason might discover their dependence
   on secondary causes, men would not see his goings, nor acknowledge his
   operations. But when he mightily makes bare his arm, in events beyond
   their imaginations, they must vail before him.

   Use 1. Consider whether the mercy celebrated this day ought not to be
   placed in this series of deliverances, brought from beyond the ken of
   sense and reason, from above the reach of much precious faith. For the
   latter, I leave it to your own experience; -- to the former let me for
   the present desire your consideration of these five things.

   (1.) By whom you were surprised and put under restraint. Now these were
   of two sorts: [1.] The heads and leaders; [2.] The tumultuous
   multitude.

   [1.] For the first, some of them being dead, and some under durance, I
   shall not say any thing. "Nullum cum victis certamen, et aethere
   cassis." I leave the stream from the flint to your own thoughts.

   [2.] For the multitude, -- an enraged, headless, lawless, godless
   multitude, gathered out of inns, taverns, alehouses, stables, highways,
   and the like nurseries of piety and pity. Such as these having got
   their superiors under their power, governors under their disposal,
   their restrainers under their restraint, their oppressors, as they
   thought, under their fury, -- what was it that kept in their fury and
   their revenge, which upon the like occasions and advantages hath almost
   always been executed? Search your stories, -- you will not find many
   that speak of such a deliverance. For a few governors prevailed on unto
   durance, by a godless rout, in an insurrection, and yet come off in
   peace and safety, is surely a work of more than ordinary providence.

   (2.) Consider the season of your surprisal; -- when all the kingdom was
   in an uproar, and the arm of flesh almost quite withered as to supply,
   -- the north invaded, the south full of insurrections, Wales unsubdued,
   [200] the great city at least suffering men to lift up their hands
   against us; so that, to the eye of reason, the issue of the whole was,
   if not lost, yet exceedingly hazardous, and so your captivity endless.
   Had they gone on, as was probable they would, whether you had this day
   been brought out to execution, or thrust into a dungeon, or carried up
   and down as a pageant, I know not; but much better condition, I am
   sure, rationally you could not expect.

   (3.) The end of your surprisal. Amongst others, this was apparently
   one, to be a reserve for their safety who went on in all ways of ruin.
   You were kept to preserve them in those ways wherein they perished.
   Whether could reason reach this or no, that you being in their power,
   kept on purpose for their rescue if brought to any great strait, with
   the price of your heads to redeem their own, -- that they should be
   brought to greater distress than ever any before in this kingdom, and
   you be delivered, without the least help to them in their need? It was
   beyond your friends' reason, who could not hope it; -- it was beyond
   our enemies' reason, who never feared it: if you believed it, you have
   the comfort of it.

   (4.) The refusal of granting an exchange for such persons as they
   accounted more considerable than yourselves, and whose enlargement
   might have advantaged the cause they professed to maintain exceedingly
   more than your restraint, -- what doth it but proclaim your intended
   ruin?

   This was the way of deliverance which for a long season reason chiefly
   rested on, the main pillar of all its building; -- which, when it was
   cut in two, what could be seen in it but desolation.

   (5.) The straits you were at length reduced to, between your enemies'
   swords and your friends' bullets, which, intended for your deliverance,
   without the safeguard of Providence might have been your ruin, piercing
   more than once the house wherein you were. Surely it was, then, an
   eminent work of faith, to "stand still, and see the salvation of God."

   The many passages of Providence, evidently working for your
   preservation, which I have received from some of yourselves, I
   willingly pass over. What I have already said is sufficient to declare
   that to reason's eye you were as dead bones upon the earth. For our
   parts, who were endangered spectators at the best, we were but in the
   prophet's frame; and to any question about your enlargement, could
   answer only, The Lord alone knows. And now, behold, the Lord hath
   chosen you out to be examples of his loving-kindness, in fetching mercy
   for you from beyond the ken of reason; yea, from above the reach of
   much precious faith. He hath brought water for you out of the flint.
   Reckon your deliverance under this head of operations, and I hope you
   will not be unthankful.

   Use 2. You that have received so great mercy, we that have seen it, and
   all who have heard the doctrine confirmed, let us learn to live by
   faith Live above all things that are seen; subject them to the cross of
   Christ. Measure your condition by your interest in God's
   all-sufficiency. Do not in distress calculate what such and such things
   can effect; but what God hath promised. Reckon upon that, for it shall
   come to pass. If you could get but this one thing by all your
   sufferings and dangers, to trust the Lord to the utmost extent of his
   promises, it would prove a blessed captivity. All carnal fears would
   then be conquered, all sinful compliances with wicked men removed, etc.

   Use 3. Be exhorted to great thankfulness, [201] you that have been made
   partakers of great deliverances. In great distresses very nature
   prompts the sons of men to great promises. You have heard the
   ridiculous story of him who in a storm at sea promised to dedicate a
   wax candle to the blessed Virgin as big as the mast of his ship, which
   he was resolved when he came on shore to pay with one of twelve in the
   pound! Let not the moral of that fable be found in any of you. Come not
   short of any of your engagements. No greater discovery of a
   hypocritical frame, than to flatter the Lord in trouble, and to decline
   upon deliverance, in cold blood. The Lord of heaven give you strength
   to make good all your resolutions:-- as private persons, in all
   godliness and honesty, following hard after God in every known way of
   his; -- as magistrates, in justice, equity, and faithful serving the
   kingdom of Christ. Especially, let them never beg in vain for help at
   your hands, who did not beg help in vain for you at the hands of God.

   Use 4. Consider, if there be so much [202] sweetness in a temporal
   deliverance, oh! what excellency is there in that eternal redemption
   which we have in the blood of Jesus! If we rejoice for being delivered
   from them who could have killed the body, what unspeakable rejoicing is
   there in that mercy whereby we are freed from the wrath to come! Let
   this possess your thoughts, let this fill your souls, -- let this be
   your haven from all former storms. And here strike I sail, in this to
   abide with you and all the saints of God forever.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [155] The time of this prophecy is conceived to be about the end of
   Josiah's reign, not long before the first Chaldean invasion.

   [156] "Preces et lacrymae sunt arma ecclesiae." -- Tertul.

   [157] "Graviter in eum decernitur, cui etiam ipsa conneetlo denegatur."
   -- Prosp. Sent.

   [158] Duplicantur lateres quando venit Moses.

   [159]

   "Namque bonos non blanda inflant, non aspera frangunt,

   Sed fidei invictae gaudia vera juvant."
   Prosp. Epig. in Sent. August.

   [160] Ps. cxix. 67; Hos. v. 15; Heb. xii. 10, 11; 1 Pet. i. 6.

   [161] "In caelo non in terra mercedem promisit reddendam. Quid alibi
   poscis, quod alibi dabitur!" -- Ambros. Offic., lib. i. cap. 16.

   [162] "Cum vexamur ac premimur, tum maxime gratias agimus
   iudulgentissimo patri, quod corruptelam nostram non patitur longius
   procedere: hinc intelligimus nos esse Deo curae." -- Lactan.

   [163] Job xiv. 4, xv. 15, 16; Prov. xvi. 2, xx. 9.

   [164] 2 Sam. xxiv. 15; 2 Chron. xxxii. 25.

   [165] "Omnes seculi plagae, nobis in admonitionem, vobis in
   castigationem `a Deo veniunt." -- Tertul. Apol., cap. xlii.

   [166] bqrv snym?, in the inward of years

   [167] "Bonum agonem subituri estis, in quo agonothetes Deus vivus est:
   Christarchos Spiritus Sanctus, corona aeternitatis brabium, epithetes
   Jesus Christus." -- Tertul. ad Mar.

   [168] Gen. xxxvi. 15; Jer. xlix. 7; Obad. 9.

   [169] Deut. i. 1.

   [170] "Gloria est frequens de aliquo fama cum laude." -- Cic. lib. ii.,
   De Inv. "Consentiens laus bonorum, incorrupta vox bene judicantium de
   excellente virtute." -- Idem. Tusc., lib. iii.

   [171] No place in the county so threatened; no place in the county so
   preserved: small undertakings there blessed; great opposition blasted.
   Non nobis, Domine, non nobis.

   [172] Deut. xxxiii. 17; Ps. lxxv. 10; Zech. i. 18.

   [173] John xii. 35; Rev. xvi. 10.

   [174] Exod. ix. 15; Lev. xxvi. 25; 2 Sam. xxiv. 13; Ezek. xiv. 19;
   Matt. xxiv. 7.

   [175] Josh. ix. 3.

   [176] Numb. xiii. 33.

   [177] Vid. Tertul. ad Scapulam, de persecutione.

   [178] "Nero primus in Christianos ferociit, tali dedicatore damnationis
   nostrae etiam gloriamur, qui enim scit ilium, intelligere potest, non
   nisi aliquod bonum grande `a Nerone damnatum." -- Tertul. Apol.

   [179] "Nova et inaudita est ista praedicatio, quae verberibus exigit
   fidem." -- Greg., Epist. lii.

   [180] Magistrum neminem habemus nisi solum Deum; hic ante te est, nec
   abscondi potest, sed cui nihil facere possis.

   [181] 2 Kings xix. 9; Jer. xiii. 23; Joseph. Antiq.; Isa. xxxvii. 9.

   [182] "Tantos invidus habet poena justa tortores, quantos invidiosus
   habuerit laudatores." -- Prosp. de Vita Contemplativa.

   [183] Numb. xxv., xxxi.

   [184] Gen. xx. 6; Ps. lxxvi. 10.

   [185] "Quis facile potest, quale sit hoc malum, verbis exprimere, quo
   invidus odio hominis persequitur divinum munus in homine?" -- Pros.
   Vit. Cont. "Invidia est tristitia de bono proximi, prout proprium malum
   aestimatur et est diminutivum proprii boni." -- Aq 22, ae. q. 36, A. 1,
   c.

   [186] Noctu dubitant.

   [187] "Caetera licet abscondere, et in abdito alere; ira se profert, et
   in faciem exit." -- Senec. de ira.

   [188] Euseb. Vit. Con. Const. Orat.

   [189] Echballei tous neottous ho chorax. -- Arist. Hist. Anima., vi.
   "Pellunt nidis pullos sicut et Corvi." -- Plin. Nat. Hist.

   [190] [The gorytus or bow-case; so explained by Grotius, Drusius, etc.
   Sir J. Chardin states, that the oriental bows were usually carried in a
   case of cloth or leather attached to the girdle. -- Harmer, ii. 513.
   Vid. Hom. Odys., xxi. 53, 54.]

   [191] 1 Cor. i. 24.

   [192] 1 Pet. i. 12.

   [193] Col. ii. 3.

   [194] "Quod homines peccant eorum est, quod peccando hoc vel illud
   agant ex virtute Dei est, tenebras prout visum est dividentis." --
   Aug., de Praed. "Oportet haereses esse, sed tamen non ideo bonum
   haereses, quia eas esse oportebat, quasi non et malum oportuerit esse;
   nam et Dominum tradi oportebat, sed vae traditori!" -- Tertul., Praef.
   ad Haer.

   [195] Gen. xlv. 7, l. 20; Acts iv. 27, 28.

   [196] "In beneficio reddendo plus animus, quam census operatur." --
   Ambr. Offi., lib. i. cap. 32.

   [197] He diaphonia tes nesteias, ten homonoian tes pisteos sunistesin.
   -- Iren. Epist. ad Vict. apud Euseb., lib. v. cap. 23. Philonikoi este
   adelphoi kai zelotai peri me anekonton eis soterian. -- Clem. Ep. ad
   Cor.

   [198] "Vir bonus commune bonum." -- Gen. xxxi. 3.

   [199] Gen. xxii. 14, xxxix. 1, etc.

   [200] "Idem huic urbi dominandi finis erit, qui parendi fuerit." --
   Senec. de Rom.

   [201] "Erunt homicidae, tyranni, fures, adulteri, raptores, sacrilegi,
   proditores; infra ista omnia, ingratus est." -- Senec. Benef., lib. i.
   "Gratiarum cessat decursus, ubi recursus non fuerit." -- Bern. Serm 50.

   [202] "Si tanti vitrum, quanti Margaritum?" -- Tertul.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon III.

   Righteous Zeal Encouraged

   by

   divine protection:

   with

   a discourse about toleration, and the duty of the civil magistrate
   about religion, thereunto annexed.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   The following sermon was preached before the House of Commons on
   January 31, 1648, which had been appointed as a day of solemn
   humiliation in connection with the event of the preceding day, -- the
   decapitation of Charles I. Accordingly, no sermon of Owen has excited
   keener discussion. Because he consented to preach in these
   circumstances, he is held to have connived at a great crime, and
   actually invested it with the sanctions of religion. In the opinion of
   Dr M'Crie (see "Miscellaneous Writings," p. 501), his conduct in this
   instance was "the greatest blot on his public life," and both his text
   and the title of his sermon could not fail to be interpreted as
   encouragement to those who had been accessory to the destruction of the
   unhappy monarch. On the other hand, some, like Mr Orme, urge that Owen
   preached by command; that no sentiment of the sermon can be construed
   as approval of the regicide; and that the very passages (see paragraph
   at the foot of p. 134 and on p. 136) adduced in proof that Owen
   concurred in it, indicate his desire to keep free and aloof from the
   expression of any positive opinion on the subject. A bolder line of
   defence has been instituted, according to which Owen, like Milton,
   might have regarded the death of Charles as only the appropriate
   penalty for a long career of violence and duplicity, during which he
   had made the blood of the best subjects in the realm to flow like
   water; and that our author, in preaching on this occasion, might have
   acted under a sense of duty, while discharging a task solemn and
   painful certainly, but still a task to which he might feel himself
   bound by higher considerations than mere regard to the authority which
   enjoined it. The argument to this effect is stated with great point and
   ability in his "Life," etc., vol. i., p. 40. This much is clear, that
   after the Restoration he was never called to account for his public
   appearance on this occasion by a government whose measures of
   vindictive retaliation against the Puritans are notorious. Asty's
   explanation of the fact has obvious weight:-- "His discourse was so
   modest and inoffensive, that his friends could make no just exception,
   nor his enemies take an advantage of his words another day." --
   Memoirs, p. 8. The only public expression of displeasure at this sermon
   was given in 1683, about a month before the grave closed over its
   author. In the school quadrangle of the University, -- not too rich in
   honours to repudiate without serious loss the lustre shed upon it from
   the name of its great Puritan Vice-Chancellor, -- a document containing
   some positions, extracted from the sermon and denounced as pernicious
   and damnable, was publicly burned. He suffered in good company; for
   propositions from the works of Knox, Buchanan, Baxter, and others, were
   condemned in the same decree, and committed to the same flames. Some
   reparation for the insult offered in this mean revenge was made, too
   late to soothe his feelings, had he needed solace under the affront,
   but tending so far to rescue his memory from unjust reproach, when, in
   1710, by an order from the House of Lords, the Oxford decree was burned
   by the hands of the common hangman.

   It is strange, that the appendix to a sermon preached, as some think,
   in the very consummation of license and misrule, should be an earnest
   and able pleading for toleration, in a tone of calmness and moderation
   rare at any time in controversy, and especially rare in the
   controversies of that stormy age.

   The entire body of the Independents have been blamed for consenting to
   the death of Charles I., because Owen, the chief ornament of their
   denomination, was called, in such critical and delicate circumstances,
   to preach before the House of Commons. Mr Orme successfully disproves
   the justice of the charge. Whatever offence Owen may thus have
   committed, to visit it upon the religious body with which he generally
   acted, is in accordance neither with the principles of justice nor the
   facts of history. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Die Mercurii, 31 Januarii 1648.

   Ordered by the Commons assembled in Parliament, That Mr Allen do give
   the thanks of this House to Mr Owen for the great pains he took in his
   sermon preached before the House this day at Margaret's, Westminster;
   and that he be desired to print his sermon at large; wherein he is to
   have the like privilege of printing it as others in the like kind
   usually have had.

   Hen. Scobell, Cler. Parl. Dom. Com.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the right honourable the Commons of England, assembled in Parliament.

   Sirs,

   It hath always suited the wisdom of God to do great things in difficult
   seasons. He sets up walls in troublous times, Dan. ix. 25. His builders
   must hold swords and spears, as well as instruments of labour, Neh. iv.
   16. Yea, while sin continueth in its course here (which began in
   heaven, and, having contemporized with the earth, shall live forever in
   hell), great works for God will cause great troubles amongst men. The
   holy, harmless Reconciler of heaven and earth bids us expect the sword
   to attend his undertakings for and way of making peace, Matt. x. 34.
   All the waves in the world arise to their height and roaring from the
   confronting of the breath of God's Spirit and the vapours of men's
   corruptions. Hence seasons receive their degrees of difficulty
   according to the greatness and weight of the works which in them God
   will accomplish. To their worth and excellency is man's opposition
   proportioned. This the instruments of his glory in this generation
   shall continually find true, to their present trouble and future
   comfort.

   As the days approach for the delivery of the decree, to the shaking of
   heaven and earth, [203] and all the powers of the world, to make way
   for the establishment of that kingdom which shall not be given to
   another people (the great expectation of the saints of the Most High
   before the consummation of all); so tumults, troubles, vexations, and
   disquietness, must certainly grow and increase among the sons of men.

   A dead woman (says the proverb) will not be carried out of her house
   under four men. Much less will living men of wisdom and power be easily
   and quietly dispossessed of that share and interest in the things of
   Christ which long-continued usurpation hath deluded them into an
   imagination of being their own inheritance. This, then, being shortly
   to be effected, and the scale being ready to turn against the man of
   sin, notwithstanding his balancing it, in opposition to the witness of
   Jesus, with the weight and poise of earthly power; no wonder if heaven,
   earth, sea, and dry land, be shaken, in their giving place to the
   things that cannot be moved. God Almighty having called you forth,
   right honourable, at his entrance to the rolling up of the nation's
   heavens like a scroll, [204] to serve him in your generation in the
   high places of Armageddon, [205] you shall be sure not to want
   experience of that opposition which is raised against the great work of
   the Lord, which generally swells most against the visible instruments
   thereof.

   And would to God you had only the devoted sons of Babel to contend
   withal, -- that the men of this shaking earth were your only
   antagonists, -- that the malignity of the dragon's tail had had no
   influence on the stars of heaven, to prevail with them to fight in
   their courses against you! [206] But "jacta est alea," -- the
   providence of God must be served, according to the discovery made of
   his own unchangeable will, and not the mutable interests and passions
   of the sons of men. For verily "the Lord of hosts hath purposed to
   pollute the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the
   honourable of the earth," Isa. xxiii. 9.

   The contradictions of sinners against all that walk in the paths of
   righteousness and peace, with the supportment which their spirits may
   receive (as being promised) who pursue those ways, notwithstanding
   those contradictions, are in part discovered in the ensuing sermon. The
   foundation of that whole transaction of things which is therein held
   out, in reference to the present dispensations of Providence, -- being
   nothing but an entrance into the unravelling of the whole web of
   iniquity, interwoven of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, in opposition
   to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, -- I chose not to mention. Neither
   shall I at present add any thing thereabout, but only my desire that it
   may be eyed as the granted basis of the following discourse. Only, by
   your very favourable acceptation of the making out those thoughts, --
   which were the hasty conception, and, like Jonah's gourd, the child of
   a night or two (which, with prayer for a rooting in the hearts of them
   to whom they were delivered, had certainly withered in their own
   leaves, had they not received warmth and moisture from your commands in
   general, and the particular desires of many of you, to give them a life
   of a few days longer), -- I am encouraged to the annexing of a few
   lines, as a free-will offering to attend the following product of
   obedience.

   Now, this shall not be as to the opposition which you do and shall yet
   farther meet withal; but as to the causes, real or pretended, which are
   held forth as the bottom of that contradiction wherewith on every side
   you are encompassed.

   The things in reference whereunto your procedence is laden with such
   criminations as these sad days of recompense have found to be comets
   portending no less than blood, are first civil, then religious.

   For the first, as their being beyond the bounds of my calling gives
   them sanctuary from being called forth to my consideration; so neither
   have I the least thoughts with Absalom of a more orderly carrying on of
   affairs, might my desires have any influence into their disposal.
   Waiting at the throne of grace, that those whom God hath intrusted
   with, and enabled for, the transaction of these things, may be directed
   and supported in their employment, is the utmost of my undertaking
   herein.

   For the other, or religious things, the general interest I have in them
   as a Christian, being improved by the superadded title of a minister of
   the gospel (though unworthy the one name and the other), gives me not
   only such boldness as accrueth from enjoyed favour, but also such a
   right as will support me to plead concerning them before the most
   impartial judicature.

   And this I shall do (as I said before) merely in reference to those
   criminations which are laid by conjectural presumptions on your
   honourable assembly, and made a cause of much of that opposition and
   contradiction you meet withal. Now, in particular, it is the toleration
   of all religions, or invented ways of worship, -- wherein your
   constitutions are confidently antedated in many places of the nation;
   the thing itself, withal, being held out as the most enormous
   apprehension, and desperate endeavour, for the destruction of truth and
   godliness, that ever entered the thoughts of men professing the one and
   the other. The contest hereabout being "adhuc sub judice," and there
   being no doubt but that the whole matter, commonly phrased as above,
   hath (like other things) sinful and dangerous extremes, I deemed it not
   amiss to endeavour the pouring a little cold water upon the common
   flames which are kindled in the breasts of men about this thing. And
   who knows whether the words of a weak nothing may not, by the power of
   the Fountain of beings, give some light into the determination and
   establishment of a thing of so great concernment and consequence as
   this is generally conceived to be? What is in this my weak undertaking
   of the Lord, I shall beg of him that it may be received; -- what is of
   myself, I beg of you that it may be pardoned. That God Almighty would
   give you to prove all things that come unto you in his way, and to hold
   fast that which is good, granting you unconquerable assistance in
   constant perseverance, is the prayer of,

   Your devoted Servant

   In our dearest Lord,

   John Owen.

   Coggeshall, Feb. 28.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [203] Heb. xii. 26, 27; Dan. vii. 27. "Ego nisi tumultus istos viderem,
   verbum Dei in mundo non esse dicerem." -- Luth.

   [204] Isa. xxxiv. 4, 5.

   [205] Rev. xvi. 16.

   [206] Rev. xii. 4.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon III. Righteous zeal encouraged by divine protection.

   "Let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them. And I will
   make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall; and they shall fight
   against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with
   thee to save thee, and to deliver thee, saith the Lord." -- Jer. xv.
   19, 20.

   The words of my text having a full dependence upon, and flowing out
   from, the main subject-matter of the whole chapter, I must of necessity
   take a view thereof, and hold out unto you the mind of God contained
   therein, before I enter upon the part thereof chiefly intended. And
   this I shall do with very brief observations, that I may not anticipate
   myself from a full opening and application of the words of my text.

   And this the rather are my thoughts led unto, because the whole
   transaction of things between the Lord and a stubbornly sinful nation,
   exceedingly accommodated to the carrying on of the controversy he is
   now pleading with that wherein we live, is set out (as we say) to the
   life therein.

   Of the whole chapter there be these five parts:--

   First, The denunciation of fearful wasting, destroying judgments
   against Judah and Jerusalem, verse 3, and so on to verse 10.

   Secondly, The procuring, deserving cause of these overwhelming
   calamities, verses 4 and 6.

   Thirdly, The inevitableness of these judgments, and the inexorableness
   of the Lord as to the accomplishment of all the evils denounced, verse
   1.

   Fourthly, The state and condition of the prophet, with the frame and
   deportment of his spirit under those bitter dispensations of
   Providence, verse 10, and 15-18.

   Fifthly, The answer and appearance of God unto him upon the making out
   of his complaint, verses 11-14, and 19-21.

   My text lieth in the last part, but yet with such dependence on the
   former as enforceth to a consideration of them.

   First. There is the denunciation of fearful wasting, destroying
   judgments, to sinful Jerusalem, verse 2, and so onwards, with some
   interposed ejaculations concerning her inevitable ruin, as verses 5, 6.

   Here's death, sword, famine, captivity, verse 2; -- banishment, verse
   4; -- unpitied desolation, verse 5; -- redoubled destruction,
   bereaving, fanning, spoiling, etc., verses 6-9. That universal
   devastation of the whole people which came upon them in the Babylonish
   captivity is the thing here intended, -- the means of its
   accomplishment by particular plagues and judgments, in their several
   kinds (for the greater dread and terror), being at large annumerated,
   -- the faithfulness of God, also, being made hereby to shine more clear
   in the dispersion of that people; -- doing not only for the main what
   before he had threatened, but in particular executing the judgments
   recorded, Luke xxi. 24, etc.; Deut. xxviii. 15-57, -- fulfilling hereby
   what he had devised, accomplishing the word he had commanded in the
   days of old, Lam. ii. 17.

   That which hence I shall observe is only from the variety of these
   particulars, which are held out as the means of the intended
   desolation.

   Observation. God's treasures of wrath against a sinful people have
   sundry and various issues for the accomplishment of the appointed end.

   When God walks contrary to a people, it is not always in one path; he
   hath seven ways to do it, and will do it seven times, Lev. xxvi. 24. He
   strikes not always with one weapon, nor in one place. As there is with
   him poikile charis, "manifold and various grace," 1 Pet. iv. 10, --
   love and compassion making out itself in choice variety, suited to our
   manifold indigencies; so there is orge tethesaurismene, Rom. ii. 5, --
   stored, treasured wrath, suiting itself in its flowings out to the
   provocations of stubborn sinners.

   The first emblem of God's wrath against man was a "flaming sword
   turning itself every way," Gen. iii. 24. Not only in one or two, but in
   all their paths he meeteth them with his flaming sword. As a wild beast
   in a net, [207] so are sinners under inexorable judgments; the more
   they strive, the more they are enwrapped and entangled; they shuffle
   themselves from under one calamity, and fall into another: "As if a man
   did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and
   leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him," Amos v. 19. Oh!
   remove this one plague, saith Pharaoh. [208] If he can escape from
   under this pressure, he thinks he shall be free; -- but when he fled
   from the lion, still the bear met him; and when he went into the house,
   the serpent bit him. And as the flaming sword turns every way, so God
   can put it into every thing. To those that cry, Give me a king, God can
   give him in his anger; and from those that cry, Take him away, he can
   take him away in his wrath, Hos. xiii. 10, 11.

   Oh, that this might seal up instruction to our own souls! What variety
   of calamities have we been exercised withal, for sundry years! What
   Pharaoh-like spirits have we had under them! Oh, that we were delivered
   this once, and then all were well! How do we spend all our thoughts to
   extricate ourselves from our present pressures! If this hedge, this pit
   were passed, we should have smooth ground to walk on; -- not
   considering that God can fill our safest paths with snares and
   serpents. Give us peace, give us wealth, -- give us as we were, with
   our own, in quietness. Poor creatures! suppose all these desires were
   in sincerity, and not, as with the most they are, fair colours of foul
   and bloody designs; yet if peace were, and wealth were, and former
   things were, and God were not, what would it avail you? Cannot he
   poison your peace, and canker your wealth? and when you were escaped
   out of the field from the lion and the bear, appoint a serpent to bite
   you, leaning upon the walls of your own house? In vain do you seek to
   stop the streams, while the fountains are open; turn yourselves whither
   you will, bring yourselves into what condition you can, nothing but
   peace and reconciliation with the God of all these judgments can give
   you rest in the day of visitation. You see what variety of plagues are
   in his hand. Changing of condition will do no more to the avoiding of
   them, than a sick man's turning himself from one side of the bed to
   another; during his turning, he forgets his pain by striving to move,
   -- being laid down again, he finds his condition the same as before.

   This is the first thing, -- we are under various judgments, from which
   by ourselves there is no deliverance.

   Secondly. The second thing here expressed is, the procuring cause of
   these various judgments, set down, verse 4, "Because of Manasseh, son
   of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem."

   The sins of Manasseh filled the ephah of Judah's wickedness, and caused
   the talent of lead to be laid on the mouth thereof. [209] Oftentimes in
   the relation of his story doth the Holy Ghost emphatically express
   this, that for his sin Judah should be destroyed, 2 Kings xxi. 11. Yea,
   when they had a little reviving under Josiah, and the bowels of the
   Lord began to work in compassion towards them; yet, as it were
   remembering the provocation of this Manasseh, he recalls his thoughts
   of mercy, 2 Kings xxiii. 26, 27. The deposing of divine and human
   things is oftentimes very opposite. [210] God himself proceeds with
   them in a diverse dispensation. In the spiritual body the members
   offend, and the Head is punished: "The iniquity of us all did meet on
   him," Isa. liii. 1. In the civil politic body the head offends, and the
   members rue it: Manasseh sins, and Judah must go captive.

   Three things present themselves for the vindication of the equity of
   God's righteous judgments, in the recompensing the sins of the king
   upon the people.

   1. The concurrence and influence of the people's power into their rule
   and government: they that set him up may justly be called to answer for
   his miscarriage. The Lord himself had before made the sole bottom of
   that political administration to be their own wills: "If thou wilt have
   a king, after the manner of the nations," Deut. xvii. 14; 1 Sam. viii.
   7. Though for particulars, himself (according to his supreme
   sovereignty) placed in many [appointed many of the kings], by peculiar
   exemption; otherwise his providence was served by their plenary
   consent, or by such dispensation of things as you have related, 1 Kings
   xvi. 21, 22, "Then were the people of Israel divided into two parts:
   half of the people followed Tibni, the son of Ginath, to make him king;
   and half followed Omri. But the people that followed Omri prevailed
   against the people that followed Tibni; so Tibni died, and Omri
   reigned." Now, they who place men in authority to be God's vicegerents,
   do undertake to God for their deportment in that authority, and
   therefore may justly bear the sad effects of their sinful miscarriages.

   2. Because, for fear of Manasseh's cruelty, or to flatter him in his
   tyranny for their own advantage, the greatest part of the people had
   apostatized from the ways and worship of Hezekiah, to comply with him
   in his sin; as at another time "they willingly walked after the
   commandment," Hos. v. 11. And this is plainly expressed, 2 Kings xxi.
   9, "Manasseh seduced the people to do more evil than the nations." When
   kings turn seducers, they seldom want good store of followers, Now, if
   the blind lead the blind, both will, and both justly may, fall into the
   ditch. When kings command unrighteous things, and people suit them with
   willing compliance, none doubts but the destruction of them both is
   just and righteous. See verse 6 of this chapter.

   3. Because the people, by virtue of their retained sovereignty, did not
   restrain him in his provoking ways So Zuinglius, Artic. 42, "Qui non
   vetat, cum potest, jubet." When Saul would have put Jonathan to death,
   the people would not suffer him so to do, but delivered Jonathan, that
   be died not, 1 Sam. xiv. 45. When David proposed the reducing of the
   ark, his speech to the people was, "If it seem good unto you, let us
   send abroad to our brethren everywhere, that they may gather themselves
   to us: and all the congregation said that they would do so: because the
   thing was fight in the eyes of all the people," 1 Chron. xiii. 2, 4. So
   they bargain with Rehoboam about their subjection, upon condition of a
   moderate rule, 1 Kings xii. By virtue of which power, also, they
   delivered Jeremiah from the prophets and priests that would have put
   him to death, Jer. xxvi. 16. And on this ground might they justly feed
   on the fruit of their own neglected duty. See Bilson on Obed., part 3,
   page 271.

   Be it thus, or otherwise, by what way soever the people had their
   interest therein, certain it is, that for the sins of Manasseh, one way
   or other made their own, they were destroyed. And therefore, these
   things being written for our example, it cannot but be of great
   concernment to us to know what were those sins which wrapped up the
   people of God in irrevocable destruction Now, these the Holy Ghost
   fully manifesteth in the story of the life and reign of this Manasseh,
   and they may all be reduced unto two chief heads.

   (1.) False worship or superstition: "He built high places, made altars
   for Baal, and a grove, as did Ahab," 2 Kings xxi. 3.

   (2.) Cruelty: "He shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled
   Jerusalem with blood from one end of it to another," verse 16.

   Whether this cruelty be to be ascribed to his tyranny in civil affairs,
   and so the blood shed is called innocent because not of malefactors; or
   to his persecution in subordination to his false worship, instituted as
   before (as the pope and his adherents have devoured whole nations "in
   ordine ad spiritualia"), is not apparent; but this is from hence and
   other places most evident, that superstition and persecution,
   will-worship and tyranny, are inseparable concomitants. [211]

   Nebuchadnezzar sets up his great image, and the next news you hear, the
   saints are in the furnace, Dan. iii. 20. You seldom see a fabric of
   human-invented worship, but either the foundation or top-stone is laid
   in the blood of God's people. "The wisdom" (religion, or way of
   worship) "that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
   easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without
   partiality, and without hypocrisy," James iii. 17; -- when the other is
   "earthly, sensual, devilish, bringing along envying, strife, confusion,
   and every evil work," verse 16. Persecution and blood is the genuine
   product of all invented worship. I might from hence name and pursue
   other observations, but I shall only name one, and proceed.

   Observation. When false worship, with injustice by cruelty, have
   possessed the governors of a nation, and wrapped in the consent of the
   greatest part of the people who have been acquainted with the mind of
   God; that people and nation, without unprecedented mercy, is obnoxious
   to remediless ruin.

   Those two are the Bel and dragon that, what by their actings, what by
   their deservings, have swallowed that ocean of blood which has flowed
   from the veins of millions slain upon the face of the earth. Give me
   the number of the witnesses of Jesus whose souls under the altar cry
   for revenge against their false worshipping murderers [212] and the
   tale of them whose lives have been sacrificed to the insatiable
   ambition and tyranny of blood-thirsty potentates, with the issues of
   God's just vengeance on the sons of men for compliance in these two
   things; and you will have gathered in the whole harvest of blood,
   leaving but a few straggling gleanings upon other occasions. And if
   these things have been found in England, and the present administration
   with sincere humiliation do not run across to unravel this close-woven
   web of destruction, all thoughts of recovery will quickly be too late.
   And thus far sin and providence drive on a parallel.

   Thirdly. The inevitableness of the desolation threatened, and the
   inexorableness of God in the execution of it, verse 1, is the third
   thing considerable: "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my
   mind could not be toward this people."

   Should I insist upon this, it would draw me out unto Scripture
   evidences of a nation's travelling in sin beyond the line of God's
   patience, and so not to be exempted from ruin; but, instead thereof, I
   shall make it a part of my daily supplications, that they may be to our
   enemies, if God's enemies, and the interpretation of them to those that
   hate us.

   In brief, the words contain an impossible supposition, and yet a
   negation of the thing for whose sake it is supposed. Moses and Samuel
   were men who, in the days of their flesh, offered up strong
   supplications, and averted many imminent judgments from a sinful
   people. As if the Lord should say, All that I can do, in such a case as
   this, I would grant at the intercession of Moses and Samuel, or others
   interceding in their spirit and zeal; but now the state of things is
   come to that pass, the time of treaty being expired, the black flag
   hung out, and the "decree having brought forth," Zeph. ii. 2, that,
   upon their utmost entreaty, it cannot, it shall not, be reversed.

   Observation. There is a time when sin grows ripe for ruin: "For three
   transgressions, and for four, the Lord will not turn away the iniquity
   of a people," Amos i. 9.

   When the sin of the Amorites hath filled the cup of vengeance, they
   must drink it, Gen. xv. 16. England, under several administrations of
   civil government, hath fallen twice, yea thrice, into nation-destroying
   sins. Providence hath once more given it another bottom; if you should
   stumble (which the Lord avert) at the same block of impiety and
   cruelty, there is not another sifting to be made, to reserve any grains
   from the ground. I doubt not but our three transgressions, and four,
   will end in total desolation. The Lord be your guide; -- poor England
   lieth at stake.

   Observation. The greatest difficulty that lieth in bringing of total
   destruction upon a sinful people, is in the interposition of Moses and
   Samuel.

   If Moses would but have stood out of the gap, and let the Almighty go,
   he had broken in upon the whole host of Israel, Exod. xxxii. 9, 10. And
   let it by the way be observed, of the spirit of Samuel, that when the
   people of God were most exorbitant, he crieth, "As for me, God forbid
   that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you," 1 Sam.
   xii. 23. Scarce answered by those who, if their interest be not served,
   or at least their reason satisfied, will scarce yield a prayer for,
   yea, pour out curses against, their choicest deliverers. The Lord lay
   it not to their charge! For us, seeing that praying deliverers are more
   prevalent than fighting deliverers (it is, Though Moses and Samuel, not
   Gideon and Samson, stood before me), as some decay, let us gather
   strength in the Lord, that he may have never the more rest for their
   giving over, until he establish mount Zion a praise in the earth.

   Fourthly. Come we now to the fourth thing in this chapter, the
   prophet's state and condition, with the frame and deportment of his
   heart and spirit under these dispensations. And here we find him
   expressing two things of himself:--

   1. What he found from others, verse 10.

   2. What he wrestled withal in his own spirit, verses 15-18.

   1. What he found from others. He telleth you it was cursing and
   reproach, etc.: "I have neither lent on usury, nor have men lent to me
   on usury, yet every one of them doth curse me," verse 10.

   Now this return may be considered two ways.

   (1.) In itself: "Every one (saith he) of this people doth curse me."

   (2.) In reference to his deportment: "I have neither borrowed nor lent
   on usury, yet they curse me."

   (1.) From the first, observe:--

   Observation. Instruments of God's greatest works and glory are
   oftentimes the chiefest objects of a professing people's cursings and
   revenges.

   The return which God's labourers meet withal in this generation is in
   the number of those things whereof there is none new under the sun. Men
   that, under God, deliver a kingdom, may have the kingdom's curses for
   their pains.

   When Moses had brought the people of Israel out of bondage, by that
   wonderful and unparalleled deliverance, being forced to appear with the
   Lord for the destruction of Korah and his associates, who would have
   seduced the congregation to its utter ruin, he receives at length this
   reward of all his travail, labour, and pains, -- all the congregation
   gathered themselves against him and Aaron, laying murder and sedition
   to their charge; telling them they had "killed the people of the Lord,"
   Num. xvi. 41, 42; -- a goodly reward for all their travails. If God's
   works do not suit with the lusts, prejudices, and interests of men,
   they will labour to give his instruments the devil's wages. Let not
   upright hearts sink because they meet with thankless men. "Bona agere,
   et mala pati, Christianorum est." A man may have the blessing of God
   and the curse of a professing people at the same time. "Behold, I and
   the children whom God hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in
   Israel," Isa. viii. 18. "Cum ab hominibus damnamur, a Deo absolvimur."
   [213] Man's condemnation and God's absolution do not seldom meet upon
   the same persons, for the same things. If you labour to do the work of
   the Lord, pray think it not strange if among men curses be your reward,
   and detestation your wages.

   (2.) In reference to the prophet's deportment: "He had neither lent,
   nor had any lent to him, upon usury." He was free from blame among
   them, -- had no dealings with them in those things which are usually
   attended with reproaches; as he shows by an instance in usury, a thing
   that a long time hath heard very ill.

   Observation. Men every way blameless, and to be embraced in their own
   ways, are oftentimes abhorred and laden with curses for following the
   Lord in his ways.

   "Bonus vir Caius Sejus, sed malus quia Christianus." What precious men
   should many be, would they let go the work of God in this generation!
   No advantage against them but in the matter of their God; -- and that
   is enough to have them to the lions, Dan. vi. 5. He that might be
   honoured for compassing the ends suiting his own worldly interest, and
   will cheerfully undergo dishonour for going beyond, to suit the design
   of God, hath surely some impression upon his spirit that is from above.

   2. You have the prophet's deportment, and the frame of his spirit
   during those transactions between the Lord and that sinful people; and
   this he holds out, in many pathetical complaints, to be fainting,
   decaying, perplexed, weary of his burden, not knowing how to ease
   himself, as you may see at large, verses 15-18.

   Observation. In dark and difficult dispensations of providence, God's
   choicest servants are oftentimes ready to faint under the burden of
   them.

   How weary was David when he cried out in such a condition, "Oh that I
   had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest," Ps.
   lv. 6. Long had he waited for a desired issue of his perplexed state,
   and had perhaps oftentimes been frustrated of his hope of drawing to a
   period of his miseries; and now, finding one disappointment to follow
   on the neck of another, he is weary, and cries, What! nothing but this
   trouble and confusion still? "Oh that I had wings like a dove!" -- a
   ship to sail to a foreign nation (or the like), there to be at peace.
   In the like strait another time, see what a miserable conclusion he
   draws of all his being exercised under the hand of God; Ps. lxxii. 13,
   "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in
   innocency." And again, Ps. cxvi. 11, he saith, in the perturbation of
   his mind, "All men are liars;" that all the promises, all the
   encouragements, which in his way he had received from God, should fail
   of their accomplishment.

   It is not with them as it was with that wicked king of Israel, who,
   being disappointed of peace and deliverance in his own time, cries out,
   "This evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?"
   2 Kings vi. 33. The season of deliverance suited not his expectation;
   therefore he quite throweth off the Lord and his protection:-- not
   unlike many among ourselves, whose desires and expectations being not
   satisfied in the closing of our distractions, according to the way
   which themselves had framed for the Lord to walk in, are ready to cast
   off his cause, his protection, to comply with the enemies of his name,
   "Si Deus homini non placuerit, Deus non erit." But it may be observed,
   that deliverance came not to that people until Jehoram was weary of
   waiting, and then instantly God gives it in. When God hath tired the
   patience, of corrupted men, he will speak peace to them that wait for
   him. Thus it is not with the saints of God; only, being perplexed in
   their spirits, dark in their apprehensions, and fainting in their
   strength, they break out ofttimes into passionate complaints (as
   Jeremiah for a cottage in the wilderness), but yet for the main holding
   firm to the Lord.

   And the reasons of this quailing are, --

   (1.) The weakness of faith, when the methods of God's proceedings are
   unfathomable to our apprehensions. While men see the paths wherein the
   Lord walketh, they can follow him through some difficulties; but when
   that is hid from them, though providence so shut up all other ways that
   it is impossible God should be in them, yet if they cannot discern (so
   proud are they) how he goeth in that wherein he is, they are ready to
   faint and give over. God is pleased sometimes to make darkness his
   pavilion and his secret place. "A fire devours before him, and it is
   very tempestuous round about him," Ps. l. 3. When once God is attended
   with fire, darkness, and tempest, because we cannot so easily see him,
   we are ready to leave him. Now, this the Lord usually doth in the
   execution of his judgments, "Thy righteousness is like the great
   mountains; thy judgments are a great deep," Ps. xxxvi. 6. His
   righteousness, his kindness, is like a great mountain that is easy to
   be seen, -- a man cannot overlook it, unless he wilfully shut his eyes;
   but his judgments are like the great deep. Who can look into the bottom
   of the sea, or know what is done in the depths thereof? God's works in
   their accomplishment are oftentimes so unsuited to the reasons and
   apprehensions of men, that very many who have been strong in their
   desires, and great in expectation of them, upon their bringing forth to
   light, have quite rejected and opposed them as none of his, because
   distant from what they had framed to themselves. It is evident from the
   gospel, that the people of the Jews were full of expectation and
   longing for the great work of the coming of the Messiah just at the
   season wherein he came; yet being come, because not accommodated to
   their pre-imaginations, they rejected him, as having neither form nor
   comeliness in him to be desired, Isa. liii. 2. And the prophet Amos
   telleth many who desired the day of the Lord, that that day should be
   darkness to them, and not light, Amos v. 18, 20. So in every generation
   many desirous of the accomplishment of God's work are shaken off from
   any share therein, by finding it unsuited to their reasons and
   expectations.

   Now, when the Lord is pleased thus to walk in darkness, many not being
   able to trace him in his dispensations, are ready to lie down and sink
   under the burden. David seems to profess that he had nothing at such a
   time to uphold him but this, that God must be there, or nowhere. I had
   said (saith he) that it was in vain to walk as I do, but that I should
   have condemned the generation of thy children, Ps. lxxiii. 15. And
   truly God never leaves us without so much light, but that we may see
   clearly where he is not; and so, by recounting particulars, we may be
   rolled where he is, though his goings there be not so clear. Ask if God
   be in the counsels of men who seek themselves, and in the ways of those
   who make it their design to ruin the generation of the just. If you
   find him there, seek no farther; if not, let that give you light to
   discern where he makes his abode, that you turn not aside to the flocks
   of others.

   (2.) A reducing the works of Providence to inbred rules of their own.
   But this I cannot pursue.

   Be tender toward fainters in difficult seasons. If they leave waiting
   on the Lord because the evil is of him, -- if they cast in their lot
   with the portion of the ungodly, -- they will in the end perish in
   their gainsaying; but as for such as, what for want of light, what for
   want of faith, sit down and sigh in darkness, be not too hasty in
   laying farther burdens on them. When first the confederacy was entered
   into by the Protestant princes in Germany against Charles V., Luther
   himself for a season was bewildered, and knew not what to do, until,
   being instructed in the fundamental laws of the empire, he sat down
   fully in that undertaking, though the Lord gave it not the desired
   issue. [214] Our Saviour Christ asks, if, when he comes, he shall find
   faith on the earth, Luke xviii. 8. It is his coming with the spirit of
   judgment and burning, a day of trial and visitation, he there speaks
   of. Now, what faith shall he want which will not be found in that day?
   Not the faith of adherence to himself for spiritual life and
   justification, but of actual closing with him in the things he then
   doth; that shall be rare, -- many shall be staggered and faint in that
   day.

   And thus, by the several heads of this chapter, have I led you through
   the very state and condition of this nation at this time.

   First, Variety of judgments are threatened to us, and incumbent on us;
   as in the first part. Secondly, Of these, false worship, superstition,
   tyranny, and cruelty, lie in the bottom, as their procuring causes;
   which is the second. Thirdly, These, if renewed under your hand, will
   certainly bring inevitable ruin upon the whole nation; which is the
   third. Fourthly, All which make many precious hearts, what for want of
   light, what for want of faith, to fail, and cry out for "the wings of a
   dove;" which is the fourth.

   Fifthly, I come, in the fifth place, to God's direction to you for the
   future, in this state and condition; which being spread in divers
   verses, as the Lord gives it to the prophet, I shall meddle with no
   more of it than is contained in the words which at our entrance I read
   unto you: "Let them return," etc.

   In the words observe four things, --

   I. God's direction to the prophet, and in him to all that do his work
   in such a season as this described: "Let them return to thee; return
   not thou to them."

   II. Their assistance and supportment in pursuance of that direction: "I
   will make thee to this people a brasen fenced wall."

   III. The opposition, with its success and issue, which in that way they
   should meet withal: "They shall fight against thee, but shall not
   prevail."

   IV. Their consolation and success from the presence of the Lord: "For I
   am with thee to deliver thee," etc.

   I. There is God's direction.

   Many difficulties in this troublesome season was the prophet intricated
   withal. The people would not be prevailed with to come up to the mind
   of God; -- they continuing in their stubbornness, the Lord would not be
   prevailed with to avert the threatened desolation. What now shall he
   do? To stand out against the bulk of the people suits not his earthly
   interest; -- to couple with them answers not the discharge of his
   office; -- to wait upon them any longer is fruitless; -- to give up
   himself to their ways, comfortless. Hence his complaints, hence his
   moanings; -- better lie down and sink under the burden, than always to
   swim against the stream of an unreformable multitude. In this strait
   the Lord comes in with his direction: "Let them return unto thee," etc.
   Keep thy station, perform thy duty, comply not with the children of
   backsliding. But whatever be the issue, if there be any closing
   wrought, let it be by working them off from their ways of folly. All
   condescension on thy part, where the work of God is to be done, is in
   opposition to him. If they return, embrace them freely; if not, do thy
   duty constantly.

   That which is spoken immediately to the prophet, I shall hold out to
   all, acting in the name and authority of God, in this general
   proposition:--

   Observation. Plausible compliances of men in authority with those
   against whom they are employed, are treacherous contrivances against
   the God of heaven, by whom they are employed.

   If God be so provoked that he curseth him who doth his work
   negligently, what is he by them that do it treacherously? -- when he
   gives a sword into the hands of men, and they thrust it into his own
   bowels, his glory and honour, those things so dear to him? He that is
   intrusted with it, and dares not do justice on every one that dares do
   injustice, is afraid of the creature, but makes very bold with the
   Creator. Prov. xxv. 2, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but
   the honour of kings is to search out a matter." That which God aimeth
   to be glorious in, to manifest his attributes by, is the concealing and
   covering our iniquities in Christ; but if the magistrate will have
   glory, if he will not bring upon himself dishonour by dishonouring God,
   he is to search and find out the transgressions with whose cognizance
   he is intrusted, and to give unto them condign retribution. If the Lord
   curse them who come not forth to his help against the mighty, Judges v.
   23 -- what is their due who, being called forth by him, do yet help the
   mighty against him? For a man to take part with the kingdom's enemies,
   is no small crime; but for a commission-officer to run from them by
   whom he is commissionated, to take part with the adversary, is death
   without mercy. Yet have not some in our days arrived at that stupendous
   impudence, that when, as private persons, they have declaimed against
   the enemies of the nation, and by that means got themselves into
   authority, they have made use of that authority to comply with and
   uphold those by an opposition to whom they got into their authority?
   which is no less than an atheistical attempt to personate the Almighty,
   unto such iniquities as without his appearance they dare not own. But
   "he that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even
   they both are abomination to the Lord," Prov. xvii. 15; and not only to
   the Lord, but to good men also: "He that saith to the wicked, Thou art
   righteous; him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him," Prov.
   xxiv. 24.

   I speak only as to the general (for me, let all particulars find
   mercy), with a sad remembrance of the late workings of things amongst
   us, with those vile, sordid compliances, which grew upon the spirits of
   magistrates and ministers, with those whose garments were dyed with the
   blood of God's saints and precious ones, -- as formerly they were
   called, for now these names are become terms of reproach. And would
   this complying went alone; but pretences and accusations must be found
   out against such as follow with them. When they begin to call darkness
   light, they will ere long call light darkness; by which means our eyes
   have seen men of their own accord laying down the weapons wherewith at
   first they fought against opposers, and taking up them which were used
   against themselves; as hath happened more than once to penmen, both in
   our own and our neighbour nation.

   Now, this revolting from principles of religion and righteousness, to a
   compliance with any sinful way or person, is a treacherous opposition
   to the God of heaven. For, --

   It cannot be done but by preferring the creature before the Creator,
   especially in those things which are the proximate causes of deviation.

   Two principal causes I have observed of this crooked walking.

   (1.) Fear.

   (2.) That desire of perishing things which hath a mixture of
   covetousness and ambition.

   The first maketh men waxy what they do against men; the other maketh
   them weary of doing any thing for God, as whereby their sordid ends are
   not like to be accomplished.

   (1.) Fear. When once magistrates begin to listen after "quid
   sequitur's," and so to withdraw from doing good for fear of suffering
   evil, paths of wickedness are quickly returned unto, and the authority
   of God despised. "Let this man go, and take heed of Caesar," John xix.
   12, did more prevail on Pilate's treacherous heart than all the other
   clamours of the Jews. Yea, was not the whole Sanhedrim swayed to
   desperate villainy for fear the Romans should come and take away their
   kingdom? John xi. 48. When men begin once to distrust that God will
   leave them in the briers, to wrestle it out themselves (for unbelief
   lieth at the bottom of carnal fear), they quickly turn themselves to
   contrivances of their own for their own safety, their own prosperity;
   which commonly is by obliging those unto them by compliances, in an
   opposition to whom they might oblige the Almighty to their assistance.
   Surely they conclude he wants either truth or power to support them in
   his employment.

   If a prince should send an ambassador to a foreign state, to treat
   about peace, or to denounce war; who, when he comes there, distrusting
   his master's power to make good his undertaking, should comply and wind
   up his interest with them to whom he was sent, suffering his
   sovereign's errand to fall to the ground, -- would he not be esteemed
   as arrant a traitor as ever lived? And yet, though this be clipped coin
   among men, it is put upon the Lord every day as current.

   From this principle of carnal fear and unbelief, -- trembling for a man
   that shall die, and the son of man that shall be as grass, forgetting
   the Lord our maker, Isa. li. 12, -- are all those prudential follies
   which exercise the minds of most men in authority, making them,
   especially in times of difficulties, to regulate and square all their
   proceedings by what suits their own safety and particular interests, --
   counselling, advising, working for themselves, quite forgetting by whom
   they are intrusted, and whose business they should do.

   (2.) A desire of perishing things tempered with covetousness and
   ambition. Hence was the sparing of the fat cattle and of Agag by Saul,
   1 Sam. xv. 1.

   When those two qualifications close on any, they are diametrically
   opposed to that frame which of God is required in them, -- viz., "That
   they should be men fearing God, and hating covetousness." The first
   will go far, being only a contrivance for safety; but if this latter
   take hold of any, being a consultation to exalt themselves, it quickly
   carrieth them beyond all bounds whatsoever. The Lord grant that
   hereafter there may be no such complaints in this nation, or [that
   they] may be causeless, as have been heretofore, -- viz., that we have
   poured out our prayers, jeoparded our lives, wasted our estates, spent
   our blood, to serve the lusts and compass the designs of ambitious,
   ungodly men!

   The many ways whereby these things intrench upon the spirits of men, to
   bias them from the paths of the Lord, I shall not insist upon; it is
   enough that I have touched upon the obvious causes of deviation, and
   manifested them to be treacheries against the God of all authority.

   Use. Be exhorted to beware of relapses, with all their causes and
   inducements, and to be constant to the way of righteousness; and this I
   shall hold out unto you in two particulars.

   1. Labour to recover others, even all that were ever distinguished and
   called by the name of the Lord, from their late fearful returning to
   sinful compliances with the enemies of God and the nation. I speak not
   of men's persons, but of their ways. For three years this people have
   been eminently sick of the folly of backsliding, and without some
   special cordial are like to perish in it, as far as I know.

   Look upon the estate of this people as they were differenced seven
   years ago, so for some continuance, and as they are now; and you shall
   find in how many things we have returned to others, and not one
   instance to be given of their return to us. That this may be clear,
   take some particulars.

   (1.) In words and expressions; -- those are "index animi." Turn them
   over, and you may find what is in the whole heart. "Out of the
   abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Now, is not that language,
   are not those very expressions which filled the mouths of the common
   adversaries only, grown also terms of reproach upon the tongues of men
   that suffered sometimes under them, and counted it their honour so to
   do? Hence that common exprobration, A parliament of saints, an army of
   saints, and such like derisions of God's ways, -- now plentiful with
   them who sat sometimes and took sweet counsel with us. Ah! had it not
   been more for the honour of God that we had kept our station until
   others had come to us, -- so to have exalted the name and profession of
   the gospel, -- than that we should so return to them as to join with
   them in making the paths of Christ a reproach? Had it not been better
   for us, with Judah, to continue "ruling with God, and to be faithful
   with the saints," Hos. xi. 12, than to stand in the congregation of the
   mockers, and to sit in the seat of the scornful? What shall we say,
   when the saints of God "are as signs and wonders [to be spoken against]
   in Israel?" Isa. viii. 18. O that men would remember how they have left
   their first station, when themselves use those reproaches unto others
   which for the same cause themselves formerly bare with comfort! It is
   bitterness to consider how the gospel is scandalized by this woful
   return of ministers and people, by casting scriptural expressions by
   way of scorn on those with whom they were sometimes in the like kind
   companions of contempt. Surely in this we are returned to them, and not
   they to us.

   (2.) In actions, and those, --

   [1.] Of religion. Not only in opinion, but practice also, are we here
   under a vile return. We are become the lions, and the very same
   thoughts [are] entertained by us against others as were exercised
   towards ourselves. Are not others as unworthy to live upon their native
   soil in our judgments, as we ourselves in the judgments of them
   formerly over us? Are not groans for liberty, by the warmth of favour,
   in a few years hatched into attempts for tyranny? And for practice,
   what hold hath former superstition, in observing days and times, laid
   upon the many of the people again! Witness the late solemn
   superstition, and many things of the like nature.

   [2.] For civil things, the closing of so many formerly otherwise
   engaged with the adverse party in the late rebellion, with the lukewarm
   deportment of others at the same time, is a sufficient demonstration of
   it. And may not the Lord justly complain of all this? "What iniquity
   have you seen in me or my ways, that you are gone far from me, and have
   walked after vanity, and are become vain?" Jer. ii. 5. "Why have you
   changed your glory for that which doth not profit," verse 11. "Have I
   been a dry heath or a barren wilderness to you?" Oh, that men should
   find no more sweetness in following the Lamb under wonderful
   protections, but that they should thus turn aside into every
   wilderness! What indignity is this to the ways of God! I could give you
   many reasons of it; but I have done what I intended, -- a little hinted
   that we are a returning people, that so you might be exhorted to help
   for a recovery. And how shall that be?

   2. By your own keeping close to the paths of righteousness. If you
   return not, others will look about again. This breach, this evil is of
   you; within your own walls was the fountain of our backsliding. Would
   you be the repairers of breaches, the restorers of paths for men to
   walk in? -- do these two things:--

   (1.) Turn not to the ways of such as the Lord hath blasted under your
   eyes. And these may be referred to three heads.

   [1.] Oppression; [2.] Self-seeking; [3.] Contrivances for persecution.

   [1.] Oppression. How detestable a crime it is in the eyes of the
   Almighty, -- what effects it hath upon men, "making wise men mad!"
   Eccles. vii. 7, -- how frequently it closeth in the calamitous ruin of
   the oppressors themselves, -- are things known to all. Whether it hath
   not been exercised in this nation, both in general by unnecessary
   impositions, and in particular by unwarrantable pressures, let the
   mournful cries of all sorts of people testify. Should you now return to
   such ways as these, would not the anger of the Lord smoke against you?
   Make it, I beseech you, your design to relieve the whole, by all means
   possible, and to relieve particulars, yea, even of the adverse party
   where too much overborne. O let it be considered by you, that it be not
   considered upon you! I know the things you are necessitated to are not
   to be supported by the air. It is only what is unnecessary as to you,
   or insupportable as to others, that requires your speedy reforming;
   that so it may be said of you as of Neh. v. 14, 15. And for particulars
   (pray pardon my folly and boldness), I heartily desire a committee of
   your honourable House might sit once a-week, to relieve poor men that
   have been oppressed by men sometimes enjoying parliamentary authority.

   [2.] Self-seeking, when men can be content to lay a nation low, that
   they may set up themselves upon the heaps and ruins thereof. Have not
   some sought to advance themselves under that power which, with the
   lives and blood of the people, they have opposed; seeming to be
   troubled at former things, not because they were done, but because they
   were not done by them? But innocent blood will be found a tottering
   foundation for men to build their honours, greatness, and preferments
   upon. O return not in this unto any! If men serve themselves of the
   nation, they must expect that the nation will serve itself upon them.
   The best security you can possibly have that the people will perform
   their duty in obedience, is the witness of your own consciences that
   you have discharged your duty towards them, -- in seeking their good by
   your own trouble, and not your own advantages in their trouble. I doubt
   not but that in this your practice makes the admonition a commendation;
   otherwise the word spoken will certainly witness against you.

   [3.] Contrivances for persecution. How were the hearts of all men
   hardened like the nether millstone, and their thoughts did grind blood
   and revenge against their brethren! What colours, what pretences, had
   men invented to prepare a way for the rolling of their garments in the
   tears, yea, blood of Christians! The Lord so keep your spirits from a
   compliance herein, that withal the bow be not too much bent on the
   other side, -- which is not impossible.

   Be there a backsliding upon your spirit to these, or such-like things
   as these, the Lord will walk contrary to you; and were you "as the
   signet upon his hand," he would pluck you off.

   (2.) Return not to the open enemies of our peace. I could here enlarge
   myself, to support your spirits in the work mentioned, Job xxix. 14,
   15; but I must go on to the following parts of my text. And therefore,
   --

   II. I pass from the direction given to the supportment and assistance
   promised: "I will make thee to this people a brasen and a fenced wall."

   An implied objection, which the prophet might put in, upon his charge
   to keep so close to the rule of righteousness, is here removed. If I
   must thus abide by it, to execute whatsoever the Lord calls me out
   unto, not shrinking nor staggering at the greatest undertakings, what
   will become of me in the issue? will it not be destructive to stand out
   against a confirmed people? No, saith the Lord, it shall not be; "I
   will make thee," etc.

   Observation. God will certainly give prevailing strength and
   unconquerable defence unto persons constantly discharging the duties of
   righteousness, especially when undertaken in times of difficulty and
   opposition.

   The like engagement to this you have made to Ezekiel chap. iii. 8, 9.
   Neither was it so to the prophets alone, but to magistrates also. When
   Joshua undertook the regency of Israel in a difficult time, he takes
   off his fear and diffidence with this very encouragement, Josh. i. 5.
   He saith, he will make them a wall, -- the best defence against
   opposition; and that not a weak, tottering wall, that might easily be
   cast down, but a brazen wall, that must needs be impregnable. What
   engines can possibly prevail against a wall of brass? And to make it
   more secure, this brazen wall shall be fenced with all manner of
   fortifications and ammunition; so that the veriest coward in the world,
   being behind such a wall, may, without dread or terror, apply himself
   to that which he findeth to do. God will so secure the instruments of
   his glory against a backsliding people, in holding up the ways of his
   truth and righteousness, that all attempts against them shall be vain,
   and the most timorous spirit may be secure, provided he go not out of
   the Lord's way; for if they be found beyond the line, the brazen wall,
   they may easily be surprised. And, indeed, who but a fool would run
   from the shelter of a brazen wall, to hide himself in a little stubble?
   And yet so do all who run to their own wisdom, from the most hazardous
   engagement that any of the ways of God can possibly lead them unto. It
   is a sure word, and forever to be rested upon, which the Lord gives in
   to Asa, 2 Chron. xv. 2, "The Lord is with you, while ye be with him."
   An unbiased magistracy shall never want God's continued presence. Very
   Jeroboam himself receives a promise, upon condition of close walking
   with God in righteous administrations, of having a house built him like
   the house of David, 1 Kings xi. 38. What a wall was God to Moses in
   that great undertaking, of being instrumental for the delivery of
   Israel from a bondage and slavery of four hundred years' continuance?
   Pharaoh was against him, whom he had deprived of his sovereignty and
   dominion over the people. And what a provocation the depriving of
   sovereignty is unto potentates needs no demonstration: to the
   corruption of nature which inclines to heights and exaltations, in
   imitation of the fountain whence it flows, they have also the
   corruption of state and condition, which hath always inclined to
   absoluteness and tyranny. All Egypt was against him, as being by him
   visibly destroyed, wasted, spoiled, robbed, and at length smitten in
   the apple of the eye, by the loss of their first-born. And if this be
   not enough, that the king and people whom he opposed were his enemies,
   -- the very people for whose sakes he set himself to oppose the others,
   they also rise up against him, yea, seek to destroy him. One time they
   appeal to God for justice against him, Exod. v. 21, "The Lord look upon
   you, and judge." They appeal to the righteous God to witness that he
   had not fulfilled what he promised them, -- to wit, liberty, safety,
   and freedom from oppression; but that rather by his means their burdens
   were increased: and in this they were so confident (like some amongst
   us), that they appealed unto God for the equity of their complaints.
   Afterward, being reduced to a strait, such as they could not see how
   possibly they should be extricated from, without utter ruin (like our
   present condition in the apprehension of some), they cry out upon him
   for the whole design of bringing them into the wilderness, and affirm
   positively, that though they had perished in their former slavery, it
   had been better for them than to have followed him in this new and
   dangerous engagement, Exod. xiv. 11, 12; -- that generation being, as
   Calvin observes, [215] so inured to bondage, that they were altogether
   unfit to bear with the workings and pangs of their approaching liberty.
   Afterward, do they want drink? -- Moses is the cause. Do they want
   meat? -- this Moses would starve them, Exod. xv. 24, xvi. 7. He could
   not let them alone by the flesh-pots of Egypt; for this they are ready
   to stone him, Exod. xvii. 3. At this day, have we too much rain, or too
   short a harvest? -- it is laid on the shoulders of the present
   government. It was no otherwise of old. At length this people came to
   that height, as, being frightened by the opposition they heard of and
   framed to themselves in that place whither Moses would carry them, they
   presently enter into a conspiracy and revolt, consulting to cast off
   his government, and choose new commanders, and with a violent hand to
   return to their former condition, Num. xiv. 4, -- an attempt as
   frequent as fruitless among ourselves. When this would not do, at
   length, upon the occasion of taking off Korah and his company, they
   assemble themselves together, and lay, not imprisonment, but murder to
   his charge; and that of "the people of the Lord," Num. xvi. 41. Now,
   what was the issue of all those oppositions? what effect had they? how
   did the power of Pharaoh, the revenge of Egypt, the backsliding of
   Israel prevail? Why, God made this one Moses a fenced brazen wall to
   them all; he was never in the least measure prevailed against; -- so
   long as he was with God, God was with him, no matter who was against
   him.

   One thing only would I commend to your consideration, -- viz., that
   this Moses, thus preserved, thus delivered, thus protected, falling
   into one deviation, in one thing, from close following the Lord, was
   taken off from enjoying the closure and fruit of all his labour, Num.
   xx. 12. Otherwise he followed the Lord in a difficult season, and did
   not want unconquerable supportment. Take heed of the smallest turning
   aside from God. Oh! lose not the fruit of all your labour, for self,
   for a lust, or any thing that may turn you aside!

   Now, the Lord will do this, --

   1. Because of his own engagement.

   2. For our encouragement.

   1. Because of his own engagement. And that is twofold.

   (1.) Of truth and fidelity.

   (2.) Of honour and glory.

   (1.) His truth and veracity is engaged in it. "Those that honour him,
   he will honour," 1 Sam. ii. 30. If men honour him with obedience, he
   will honour them with preservation. "He will be with them, while they
   are with him," 2 Chron. xv. 2. While they are with him in constancy of
   duty, he will be with them to keep them in safety. He will never leave
   them, nor forsake them, Josh. i. 5. "No weapon that is formed against
   them shall prosper," Isa. liv. 17. Now, God is never as the waters that
   fail to any that upon his engagements wait for him; he will not shame
   the faces of them that put their trust in him. Why should our
   unbelieving spirits charge that upon the God of truth which we dare not
   impute to a man that is a worm, a liar? Will a man fail in his
   engagement unto him who, upon that engagement, undertakes a difficult
   employment for his sake? The truth is, it is either want of sincerity
   in our working, or want of faith in dependence, that makes us at any
   time come short of the utmost tittle that is in any of the Lord's
   engagements.

   [1.] We want sincerity, and do the Lord's work, but with our own aims
   and ends, like Jehu; -- no wonder if we be left to ourselves for our
   wages and defence.

   [2.] We want faith, also, in the Lord's work, -- turn to our own
   counsels for supportment: no marvel if we come short of assistance. "If
   we will not believe, we shall not be established."

   Look to sincerity in working, and faith in dependence; God's truth and
   fidelity will carry him out to give you unconquerable supportment:--
   deflexion from these will be your destruction. You that are working on
   a new bottom, work also on new principles; put not new wine into old
   bottles, new designs into old hearts.

   (2.) He is engaged in point of honour. If they miscarry in his way,
   what will he do for his great name? Yea, so tender is the Lord herein
   of his glory, that when he hath been exceedingly provoked to remove men
   out of his presence, yet because they have been called by his name, and
   have visibly held forth a following after him, he would not suffer them
   to be trodden down, lest the enemy should exalt themselves, and say,
   Where is now their God? They shall not take from him the honour of
   former deliverances and protections. In such a nation as this, if the
   Lord now, upon manifold provocations, should give up parliament,
   people, army, to calamity and ruin, would not the glory of former
   counsels, successes, deliverances, be utterly lost? would not men say
   it was not the Lord, but chance that happened to them?

   2. For our encouragement. The ways of God are oftentimes attended with
   so many difficulties, so much opposition, that they must be embraced
   merely because his; no other motive in the world can suit them to us. I
   mean, for such as keep them immixed from their own carnal and corrupt
   interests. Now, because the Lord will not take off the hardship and
   difficulty of them, lest he should not have the honour of carrying on
   his work against tumultuating opposition, he secures poor weaklings of
   comfortable assistance and answerable success, lest his work should be
   wholly neglected. It is true, the Lord, as our sovereign master, may
   justly require a close labouring in all his ways without the least
   sweetening endearments put upon them, only as they are his, whose we
   are, who hath a dominion over us. But yet, as a tender father, -- in
   which relation he delights to exercise his will towards his own in
   Christ, -- he pitieth our infirmities, knowing that we are but dust;
   and therefore, to invite us into the dark, into ways laboursome and
   toilsome to flesh and blood, he gives us in this security, -- that we
   shall be as a fenced brazen wall to the opposing sons of men.

   Use 1. To discover the vanity and folly of all opposition to men called
   forth of God to his work, and walking in his ways. Would you not think
   him mad that should strike with his fist, and run with his head against
   a fenced brazen wall, to cast it down? Is he like to have any success,
   but the battering of his flesh, and the beating out of his brains? What
   do the waves obtain by dashing themselves with noise and dread against
   a rock, but their own beating to pieces? What prevails a man by
   shooting his arrows against the sky, but a return upon his own head?
   Nor is the most powerful opposition to the ways of God like to meet
   with better success God looks no otherwise upon opposers than you would
   do upon a man attempting to thrust down a fenced brazen wall with his
   fingers. Therefore it is said, that in their proudest attempts,
   strongest assaults, deepest counsels, combinations, and associations,
   "he laughs them to scorn," derides their folly, contemns their fury,
   lets them sweat in vain, until their day be come, Ps. ii. How birthless
   in our own, as well as other generations, have been their swelling
   conceptions! What, then, is it that prevails upon men to break through
   so many disappointments against the Lord as they do? -- doubtless that
   of Isa. xxiii. 9, "Surely the Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain
   the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable
   of the earth." God gives up men unto it, that he may leave no earthly
   glory or honour without pollution or contempt. And therefore hath
   opposition in our days been turned upon so many hands, that God might
   leave no glory without contempt: yet with this difference, that if the
   Lord will own them, he will recover them from their opposition; as has
   happened of late to the ministry of one, and will happen ere long to
   the ministry of another nation. When the Lord hath a little stained the
   pride of their glory, they shall be brought home again by the spirit of
   judgment and burning; but if he own them not, they shall perish under
   the opposition. And when it hath been wheeled about on all sorts of
   men, the end will be.

   Use 2. "Be wise now therefore, O ye [rulers;] be instructed, ye judges
   of the earth; serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling,"
   Ps. ii. 10, 11. See whence your assistance cometh; see where lie the
   hills of your salvation, and say, "Asshur shall not save us; we will
   not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our
   hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy," Hos.
   xiv. 3. It is God alone who is "a sun and shield: his ways do good to
   the upright in heart." Behold, here is a way to encompass England with
   a brazen wall: let the rulers of it walk in right ways with upright
   hearts. Others have been careful to preserve the people to them, and
   the city to them; oh, be you careful to preserve your God unto you! He
   alone can make you a fenced wall; if he departs, your wall departs,
   your shade departs. Give me leave to insist a little on one particular,
   which I choose out among many others. When God leads out his people to
   any great things, the angel of his presence is still among them. See at
   large, Exod. xxiii. 20-22. The angel of the covenant, in whom is the
   name of God, that hath power of pardoning or retaining transgressions,
   -- Jesus Christ, the angel that redeemeth his out of all their
   troubles, Gen. xlviii. 16, -- he is in the midst of them, and amongst
   them. And God gives this special caution, if we would have his
   assistance, that we should beware of him, and obey him, and provoke him
   not. Would you, then, have God's assistance continued? -- take heed of
   provoking the angel of his presence: provoke him not by slighting of
   his ways; provoke him not by contemning his ordinances: if you leave
   him to deal for himself, he will leave you to shift for yourselves.
   What though his followers are at some difference, [216] (the best
   knowing but in part) about the administration of some things in his
   kingdom; the envious one having also sown some bitter seeds of
   persecution, strife, envy, and contention among them? -- what though
   some poor creatures are captivated by Satan, the prince of pride, to a
   contempt of all his ordinances, -- whose souls I hope the Lord will one
   day free from the snare of the devil; -- yet I pray give me leave (it
   is no time to contest or dispute it) to bear witness in the behalf of
   my Master to this one truth, that if by your own personal practice and
   observance, your protection, countenance, authority, laws, you do not
   assert, maintain, uphold the order of the gospel, and administration of
   the ordinances of Christ, -- notwithstanding the noise and clamours of
   novel fancies, which, like Jonah's gourd, have sprung up in a night,
   and will wither in a day, -- you will be forsaken by the angel of God's
   presence, and you will become an astonishment to all the inhabitants of
   the earth. And herein I do not speak as one hesitating or dubious, but
   positively assert it, as the known mind of God, and whereof he will not
   suffer any long to doubt, Ps. ii. 12.

   Use 3. "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say
   to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your
   God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come
   and save you," Isa. xxxv. 3, 4. Let the most weak and fearful, the
   fainting heart, the trembling spirit, and the doubting mind, know, that
   full and plenary security, perfect peace, attends the upright in the
   ways of God. You that are in God's way, do God's work, and take this
   cordial for all your distempers, -- Return not to former provoking
   ways, and he will make you" a fenced brasen wall."

   And so I come to the third thing which I proposed to consider, --

   III. The opposition which men cleaving to the Lord in all his ways
   shall find, with the issue and success of it: "They shall fight against
   thee; but shall not prevail."

   The words may be considered either as a prediction depending on God's
   prescience of what will be; or a commination from his just judgment of
   what shall be.

   In the first sense the Lord tells the prophet, from the corruption,
   apostasy, stubbornness of that people, what would come to pass; -- in
   the second, what, for their sins and provocations, by his just
   judgment, should come to pass. Time will not allow me to handle the
   words in both acceptations, wherefore I shall take up the latter only,
   -- viz., that it is a commination of what shall be for the farther
   misery of that wretched people; they shall judicially be given up to a
   fighting against him.

   Observation. God oftentimes gives up a sinful people to a fruitless
   contention and fighting with their only supporters and means of
   deliverance..

   Jeremiah had laboured with God for them, and with them for God, that,
   if possible, peace being made, they might be delivered; and, to
   consummate their sins, they are given up to fight against him.

   I cannot now insist upon particular instances; consult the history of
   the church in all ages, -- you shall find it continually upon all
   occasions verified. From the Israelites opposing Moses, to the
   Ephrahnites' contest with Jephthah, the rejecting of Samuel, and so on,
   to the kings of the earth giving their power to the beast to wage war
   with the Lamb, with the inhabitants of the world combining against the
   witnesses of Christ, is this assertion held out. In following story, no
   sooner did any plague or judgment break out against the Roman empire,
   but instantly, "Christianos ad leones;" -- their fury must be spent
   upon them who were the only supporters of it from irrecoverable ruin.

   Now the Lord doth this, --

   1. To seal up a sinful people's destruction. Eli's sons hearkened not,
   "because the Lord would slay them," 1 Sam. ii. 25. When God intends
   ruin to a people, they shall walk in ways that tend thereunto. Now, is
   there a readier way for a man to have a house on his head, than by
   pulling away the pillars whereby it is supported? If by Moses standing
   in the gap the fury of the Lord be turned away, certainly if the people
   contend to remove him, their desolation sleepeth not. When, therefore,
   the Lord intends to lay cities waste without inhabitants, and houses
   without men, to make a land utterly desolate; the way of its
   accomplishment is by making the hearts of the people fat, and their
   ears heavy, and shutting their eyes, that they should not see and
   attend to the means of their recovery, Isa. vi. 10, 11, -- so gathering
   in his peace and mercies from a provoking people, Jer. xvi. 5.

   2. To manifest his own power and sovereignty in maintaining a small
   handful, ofttimes a few single persons, a Moses, a Samuel, two
   witnesses, against the opposing rage of a hardened multitude. If those
   who undertake his work and business in their several generations should
   have withal the concurrent obedience and assistance of others whose
   good is intended, neither would his name be so seen nor his ways so
   honoured as now, when he bears them up against all opposition. Had not
   the people of this land been given up (many of them) to fight against
   the deliverers of the nation, and were it not so with them even at this
   time, how dark would have been the workings of providence which now, by
   wrestling through all opposition, are so conspicuous and clear! When,
   then, a people, or any part of a people, have made themselves unworthy
   of the good things intended to be accomplished by the instruments of
   righteousness and peace, the Lord will blow upon their waves, that with
   rage and fury they shall dash themselves against them; whom he will
   strengthen with the munition of rocks, not to be prevailed against. So
   that God's glory and their own ruin lie at the bottom of this close
   working of providence, in giving up a sinful people to a fruitless
   contending with their own deliverers, if ever they be delivered.

   Obj. But is not a people's contending with the instruments by whom God
   worketh amongst them, and for them, a sin and provocation to the eyes
   of his glory? How, then, can the Lord be said to give them up unto it?

   Ans. Avoiding all scholastical discourses, as unsuited to the work of
   this day, I shall briefly give in unto you how this is a sinful thing,
   yet sinners are given up unto it without the least extenuation of their
   guilt, or colour for charge on the justice and goodness of God.

   (1.) Then, to give up men unto a thing in itself sinful is no more but
   so to dispose and order things, that sinners may exercise and draw out
   their sinful principles in such a way. Of this that the Lord doth the
   Scripture is full of examples, and hath testimonies innumerable. That
   herein the Holy One of Israel is no ways co-partner with the guilt of
   the sons of men, will appear by observing the difference of these
   several agents in these four things:--

   [1.] The principle by which they work.

   [2.] The rule by which they proceed.

   [3.] The means which they use.

   [4.] The end at which they aim.

   [1.] The principle of operation in God is his own sovereign will and
   good pleasure. He doth whatsoever he pleaseth, Ps. cxv. 3. He saith his
   purpose shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure, Isa. xlvi. 10. He
   hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth,
   Rom. ix. 18; giving no account of his matters, Job xxxiii. 13. This our
   Saviour rendereth the only principle and reason of his hidden
   operations, "O Father, so it seemed good in thy sight," Matt. xi. 26.
   His sovereignty in doing what he will with his own, as the potter with
   his clay, is the rise of his operations; so that whatever he doth, "who
   will say unto him, What doest thou?" Job ix. 12. "Shall the thing
   formed say unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" Rom.
   ix. 20. And hence two things will follow:--

   1st. That what he doth is just and righteous; for so must all acts of
   supreme and absolute dominion be.

   2dly. That he can be author of nothing but what hath existence and
   being itself; for he works as the fountain of beings. This sin hath
   not. So that though every action, whether good or bad, receives its
   specification from the working of providence, -- and to that is their
   existence in their several kinds to be ascribed, -- yet an evil action,
   in the evilness of it, depends not upon divine concourse and influence;
   for good and evil make not sundry kinds of actions, but only a
   distinction of a subject in respect of its adjuncts and accidents.

   But now the principle of operation in man is nature vitiated and
   corrupted; -- I say nature, not that he worketh naturally, being a free
   agent, but that these faculties, will and understanding, which are the
   principles of operation, are in nature corrupted, and from thence can
   nothing flow but evil. "An evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit." "Men
   do not gather figs from thistles." "A bitter fountain sends not forth
   sweet waters." "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" If the
   fountain be poisoned, can the streams be wholesome? What can you expect
   of light and truth from a mind possessed with vanity and darkness? what
   from a will averted from the chiefest good, and fixed upon present
   appearances? what from a heart the figment of whose imagination is only
   evil?

   [2.] Consider the difference in the rule of operation. Every thing that
   works hath a rule to work by; -- this is called a law. In that thing
   which to man is sinful, God worketh as it is a thing only; man, as it
   is a sinful thing. And how so? Why, every one's sin is his aberration
   from his rule of operation or working. Hamartanein, is "aberrare `a
   scopo:" to sin is not to collime aright at the end proposed. He
   hamartia estin he anomia is a most exact definition of it. Irregularity
   is its form, if it may be said to have a form; a privation's form is
   deformity. Look, then, in any action wherein an agent exorbitates from
   its rule, -- that is sin. Now, what is God's rule in operation? His own
   infinite, wise will alone. He takes neither motive, rise, nor occasion
   for any internal acts from any thing without himself; he doth whatever
   he pleaseth, Ps. cxv. 3; he "worketh all things according to the
   counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11; -- that is his own law of
   operation, and the rule of righteousness unto others:-- working them
   agreeably to his own will, which he always must do, he is free from the
   obliquity of any action. What, now, is the rule of the sons of men Why,
   the revealed will of God, "Revealed things belong to us, that we may do
   them," Deut. xxix. 29. God's revealed will is the rule of our walking,
   our working; whatever suits not, answers not this, is evil. "Sin is the
   transgression of the law," 1 John iii. 4. Here, then, comes in the
   deformity, the obliquity, the ataxy, of any thing. God works, and man
   worketh; those agents have several rules. God works according to his
   rule; hence the action is good, as an action; -- man deviates from his
   rule; hence it is sinful, in respect of its qualifications and
   adjuncts. Man writes fair letters upon a wet paper, and they run all
   into one blot; not the skill of the scribe, but the defect in the
   paper, is the cause of the deformity. He that makes a lame horse go, is
   the cause of his going; but the defect in his joints is the cause of
   his going lame. The sun exhales a steam from the dunghill; the sun is
   the cause of the exhalation, but the dunghill of the unwholesome
   savour. The first cause is the proper cause of a thing's being, but the
   second of its being evil.

   [3.] Consider the several operations and actings of God and man; for
   instance, in a rebellious people's fighting against their helpers under
   him.

   Now, the acts of God herein may be referred to six heads.

   1st. A continuance of the creature's being and life; -- "upholding him
   by the word of his power," Heb. i. 3, when he might take him off in a
   moment; -- "enduring them with much long-suffering," Rom. ix. 22, when
   he might cut them off, as he did the opposers of Elijah, with "fire
   from heaven," 2 Kings i. 12.

   2dly. A continuance of power of operation to them, when he could make
   their hands to wither, like Jeroboam's, when they go about to strike, 1
   Kings xiii. 4; or their hearts to die within them, like Nabal's, when
   they intend to be churlish, 1 Sam. xxv. 37. But he raiseth them up, or
   makes them to stand, that they may oppose, Rom. ix. 17.

   3dly. Laying before them a suitable object for the drawing forth their
   corruption unto opposition, giving them such helpers as shall in many
   things cross their lusts, and exasperate them thereunto, -- as Elijah,
   a man of a fiery zeal, for a lukewarm Ahab.

   4thly. Withholding from them that effectual grace by which alone that
   sin might be avoided, -- a not actually keeping them from that sin by
   the might of his Spirit and grace. That alone is effectual grace which
   is actual. "He suffers them to walk in their own ways."

   And this the Lord may do, --

   (1st.) In respect of them judicially, -- they deserve to be forsaken:
   Ahab is left to fill up the measure of his iniquities, -- "Add iniquity
   to iniquity," Ps. lxix. 27.

   (2dly.) In respect of himself, by way of sovereignty, -- doing what he
   will with his own, -- hardening whom he will, Rom. ix. 18.

   5thly. He positively sends upon their understandings that which the
   Scripture sets out under the terms of blindness, darkness, folly,
   delusion, slumber, a spirit of giddiness, and the like: the places are
   too many to rehearse. What secret actings in and upon the minds of men,
   -- what disturbing of their advices, -- what mingling of corrupt
   affections with false, carnal reasonings, -- what givings up to the
   power of darkness, in Satan the prince thereof, -- this judicial act
   doth contain, I cannot insist upon. Let it suffice, God will not help
   them to discern, yea, he will cause that they shall not discern, but
   hide from their eyes the things that concern their peace, and so give
   them up to contend with their only helpers.

   6thly. Suitably upon the will and affections he hath several acts, --
   obfirming the one in corruption, and giving up the other to vileness,
   Rom. i. 24, 26, until the heart become thoroughly hardened, and the
   conscience seared; not forcing the one, but leaving it to follow the
   judgment of practical reason, -- which being a blind, yea, a blinded
   guide, whither can it lead a blind follower, but into the ditch? -- not
   defiling the other with infused sensuality, but provoking them to act
   according to inbred, native corruption, and by suffering frequent vile
   actings to confirm them in ways of vileness.

   Take an instance of the whole: God gives helpers and deliverers to a
   sinful people; because of their provocations, some or all of them shall
   not taste of the deliverance by them to be procured. Wherefore, though
   he sustains their lives in being, whereby they might have opportunity
   to know his mind and their own peace; yet he gives them a power to
   contend with their helpers, causing their helpers to act such things
   as, under consideration of circumstances, shall exceedingly provoke
   these sinners. Being so exasperated and provoked, the Lord, who is free
   in all his dispensations, refuseth to make out to them that healing
   grace whereby they might be kept from a sinful opposition: yea, being
   justly provoked, and resolved that they should not taste of the plenty
   to come, he makes them foolish and giddy in their reasonings and
   counsels, -- blinds them in their understandings, that they shall not
   be able to discern plain and evident things, tending to their own good,
   but in all their ways shall err like a drunken man in his vomit;
   whence, that they may not be recovered, because he will destroy them,
   he gives in hardness and obstinacy upon their hearts and spirits,
   leaving them to suitable affections, to contend for their own ruin.

   Now, what are the ways and methods of sinful man's working in such
   opposition, would be too long for me to declare; what prejudices are
   erected, what lusts pursued, what corrupt interests acted and followed,
   -- how self is honoured, what false pretences coined, how God is
   slighted, -- if I should go about to lay open, I must look into the
   hell of these times, than which nothing can be more loathsome and
   abominable. Let it suffice, that sinful self, sinful lusts, sinful
   prejudices, sinful blindness, sinful carnal fears, sinful corrupt
   interests, sinful fleshly reasonings, sinful passions, and vile
   affections, do all concur in such a work, are all woven up together in
   such a web.

   [4.] See the distance of their aims. God's aim is only the
   manifestation of his own glory -- than which nothing but himself is so
   infinitely good, nothing so righteous that it should be [his aim] --
   and this by the way of goodness and severity, Rom. xi. 22; -- goodness,
   in faithfulness and mercy, preserving his who are opposed, whereby his
   glory is exceedingly advanced; -- severity towards the opposers, that,
   by a sinful, cursed opposition, they may fall up the measure of their
   iniquities, and receive this at the hand of the Lord, that they lie
   down in sorrow, -- wherein also he is glorious.

   God forbid that I should speak this of all that for any time, or under
   any temptation, may be carried to an opposition, in any kind or degree,
   to the instruments of God's glory amongst them. Many for a season may
   do it, and yet belong to God, who shall be recovered in due time. It is
   only of men given up, forsaken, opposing all the appearances of God
   with his saints and people in all his ways, of whom I speak.

   Now, what are the ends of this generation of fighters against this
   brazen wall? and how distant from those of the Lord's! "They consult to
   cast him down from his excellency" whom God will exalt, Ps. lxii. 4.
   They think not as the Lord, neither doth their heart mean so; but it is
   in their heart to destroy and to cut off, Isa. x. 7. To satisfy their
   own corrupt lusts, ambition, avarice, revenge, superstition, contempt
   of God's people because his, hatred of the yoke of the Lord, fleshly
   interests, -- even for these, and such like ends as these, is their
   undertaking.

   Thus, though there be a concurrence of God and man in the same thing,
   yet, considering the distance of their principles, rules, actings, and
   ends, it is apparent that man doth sinfully what the Lord doth
   judicially; which being an answer to the former objection, I return to
   give in some uses to the point.

   Use 1. Let men, constant, sincere, upright in the ways of God,
   especially in difficult times, know what they are to expect from many,
   yea, the most of the generation, whose good they intend, and among whom
   they live; -- opposition and fighting are like to be their lot; -- and
   that not only it will be so because of men's lusts, corruptions,
   prejudices, but also it shall be so from God's righteous judgments
   against a stubborn people. They harden their hearts that it may be so,
   to compass their ends; and God hardens their hearts that it shall be
   so, to bring about his aims. They will do it, to execute their revenge
   upon others; they shall do it, to execute God's vengeance upon
   themselves. This may be for consolation, that in their contending there
   is nothing but the wrath of man against them whom they oppose (which
   God will restrain, or cause it to turn to his praise); but there is the
   wrath of God against themselves, which who can bear? This, then, let
   all expect who engage their hearts to God, and follow the Lamb
   whithersoever he goeth.

   Men walking in the sincerity of their hearts are very apt to conceive
   that all sheaves should bow to theirs, that all men should cry, "Grace,
   grace," to their proceedings. Why should any oppose? "Quid meruere?"
   Alas! the more upright they are, the fitter for the Lord by them to
   break a gainsaying people. Let men keep close to those ways of God
   whereto protection is annexed, and let not their hearts fail them
   because of the people of the land. The storm of their fury will be like
   the plague of hail in Egypt; it smote only the cattle that were in the
   field; -- those who, upon the word of Moses, drove them into the
   houses, preserved them alive. If men wander in the field of their own
   ways, of self-seeking, oppression, ambition, and the like, doubtless
   the storm will carry them away; but for those who keep house, who keep
   close to the Lord, though it may have much noise, terror, and dread
   with it, it shall not come nigh them. And if the Lord, for causes best
   known, known only to his infinite wisdom, should take off any Josiahs
   in the opposition, he will certainly effect two things by it.

   (1.) To give them rest and peace.

   (2.) To further his cause and truth, by drawing out the prayers and
   appeals of the residue; and this living they valued above their lives.

   All you, then, that are the Lord's workmen, be always prepared for a
   storm. Wonder not that men see not the ways of the Lord, nor the
   judgments of our God; -- many are blinded. Admire not that they will so
   endlessly engage themselves into fruitless oppositions; -- they are
   hardened. Be not amazed that evidence of truth and righteousness will
   not affect them; -- they are corrupted. But this do; Come, and enter
   into the chambers of God, and you shall be safe until this whole
   indignation be overpast. I speak of all them, and only them, who follow
   the Lord in all his ways with upright hearts and single minds: if the
   Lord will have you to be a rock and a brazen wall for men to dash
   themselves against, and to break in pieces, though the service be
   grievous to flesh and blood, yet it is his, whose you are. Be prepared,
   the wind blows, -- a storm may come.

   Use 2. Let men set upon opposition make a diligent inquiry, whether
   there be no hand in the business but their own? whether their counsels
   be not leavened with the wrath of God, and their thoughts mixed with a
   spirit of giddiness, and themselves carried on to their own
   destruction? Let me see the opposer of the present ways of God, who,
   upon his opposition is made more humble, more self-denying, more empty
   of self-wisdom, more fervent in supplications and waiting upon God,
   than formerly; and I will certainly blot him out of the roll of men
   judicially hardened. But if therewith men become also proud, selfish,
   carnally wise, revengeful, furious upon earthly interests, full,
   impatient; doubtless God is departed, and an evil spirit from the Lord
   prevaileth on them. O that men would look about them before it be too
   late; see the Lord disturbing them, before the waves return upon them;
   know that they may pull down some antics that make a great show of
   supporting the church, and yet indeed are pargeted posts supported by
   it! The foundation is on a rock that shall not be prevailed against.

   Use 3. See the infinite wisdom and sovereignty of Almighty God, that is
   able to bring light out of darkness, and to compass his own righteous
   judgments by the sinful advisings and undertakings of men. Indeed the
   Lord's sovereignty and dominion over the creature doth not in any thing
   more exalt itself, than in working in all the reasonings, debates,
   consultations of men, to bring about his own counsels through their
   free workings. That men should use, improve their wisdom, freedom,
   choice, yea, lusts, not once thinking of God; yet all that while do his
   work more than their own, -- "this is the Lord's doing, and it is
   marvellous in our eyes."

   Of the last part of my text I shall not speak at all; neither indeed
   did I intend.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [207] Isa. li. 20.

   [208] Exod. x. 17.

   [209] Zech. v. 7, 8.

   [210] "Est quaedam aemulatio divinae rei, et humanae." -- Ter. Apol.

   [211] See the appendix at the end of this sermon.

   [212] Rev. vi. 9, 10.

   [213] Tertul. Apol.

   [214] Sleid. Com., lib. viii.

   [215] In Num. cap. iv.

   [216] See the appendix about Toleration.
     __________________________________________________________________

Of toleration; and the duty of the magistrate about religion.

   The times are busy, and we must be brief. Prefaces for the most part
   are at all times needless, -- in these, troublesome. Mine shall only
   be, that aneu prooimion kai pathon, "without either preface or
   solemnity," I will fall to the business in hand. The thing about which
   I am to deal is commonly called Toleration in Religion, or toleration
   of several religions. The way wherein I shall proceed is not by
   contest, thereby to give occasion for the reciprocation of a saw of
   debate with any; but by the laying down of such positive observations,
   as being either not apprehended or not rightly improved by the most,
   yet lie at the bottom of the whole difference between men about this
   business, and tend in themselves to give light unto a righteous and
   equitable determination of the main thing contended about.

   And lastly, herein for method I shall first consider the grounds upon
   which that non-toleration whereunto I cannot consent has been, and is
   still, endeavoured to be supported; which I shall be necessitated to
   remove --

   I. By considering the arguments brought from holy writ;

   II. From some other general observations. And then in order;

   III. I shall assert the positive truth, as to the substance of the
   business under contest.

   All in these ensuing observations.

   I. As to the first of these --

   1. Although the expressions of "toleration," and "non-toleration,"
   wherewith the thing in controversy is vested, do seem to cast the
   affirmative upon them who plead for a forbearance in things of religion
   towards dissenting persons, yet the truth is, they are purely upon the
   negation, and the affirmative lies fully on the other part; and so the
   weight of proving, which ofttimes is heavy, lies on their shoulders
   Though non-toleration sound like a negation, yet punishment (which
   terms in this matter are isodunamounta is a deep affirmation. And,
   therefore, it sufficeth not men to say that they have consulted the
   mind of God, and cannot find that he ever spake to any of his saints or
   people to establish a toleration of error; and yet this is the first
   argument to oppose it produced in the late Testimony of the reverend
   and learned Assembly of the Church of Scotland. [217] Affirmative
   precepts must be produced for a non-toleration; that is, the punishing
   of erring persona For actings of such high concernment, men do
   generally desire a better warrant than this -- "There is nothing in the
   word against them." Clear light is needful for men who walk in paths
   which lead directly to houses of blood. God hath not spoken of
   non-toleration, is a certain rule of forbearance; but God hath not
   spoken of toleration, is no rule of acting in opposition thereunto.
   What he hath spoken, one way or other, shall be afterward considered.
   Positive actings must have positive precepts and rules for them, as
   conscience is its own guide. If, then, you will have persons deviating
   in their apprehensions from the truth of the gospel civilly punished,
   you must bring better warrant than this, that God hath not spoken
   against it; or I shall not walk in your ways, but refrain my foot from
   your path.

   2. That undoubtedly there are very many things under the command of the
   Lord, so becoming our duty, and within his promise, so made our
   privilege, which yet, if not performed, or not enjoyed, are not of
   human cognizance -- as faith itself; yet because the knowledge of the
   truth is in that rank of things, this also is urged as of weight, by
   the same learned persons, to the business at hand.

   3. Errors, though never so impious, are yet distinguished from
   peace-disturbing enormities. If opinions in their own nature tend to
   the disturbance of the public peace, either that public tranquility is
   not of God, or God alloweth a penal restraint of those opinions. It is
   a mistake, to affirm that those who plead for toleration do allow of
   punishment for offences against the second table -- not against the
   first. The case is the same both in respect of the one and the other.
   What offences against the second table are punishable? Doubtless not
   all, but only such as, by a disorderly eruption, pervert the course of
   public quiet and society; yea, none but such fall under human
   cognizance. The warrant of exercising vindictive power amongst men is
   from the reference of offences to their common tranquillity. "Delicta
   puniri publice interest." Where punishment is the debt, "Bonum totius"
   the creditor to exact it. And this is allowed as to the offences
   against the first table. If any of them in their own nature (not some
   men's apprehensions) are disturbances of public peace, they also are
   punishable. Only, let not this be measured by disputable consequences,
   no more than the other are. Let the evidence be in the things
   themselves, and "Actum est," let who will plead for them. Hence --

   Popish religion, warming in its very bowels a fatal engine against all
   magistracy amongst us, cannot upon our concessions plead for
   forbearance; it being a known and received maxim, that the gospel of
   Christ clashes against no righteous ordinance of man.

   And let this be spoken to the third argument of the fore-named reverend
   persons, from the analogy of delinquencies against the first and second
   table.

   4. The plea for the punishment of erring persons from the penal
   constitution under the Old Testament against idolaters (which in the
   next place is urged), seems not very firm and convincing. The vast
   distance that is between idolatry and any errors whatsoever, as merely
   such, however propagated or maintained with obstinacy, much impaireth
   the strength of this argumentation.

   Idolatry is the yielding unto a creature the service and worship due to
   the Creator, Rainold. de Idol., lib. ii. cap. 1, sect. 1. "Idololatria
   est circa omne idolum famulatus et servitus," Tertul. de Pol. -- "The
   attendance and service of any idol." "Idololatrae dicuntur Qui
   similacris eam servitutem exhibent, quae debertur Deo," August., lib.
   i. de Trinit. cap. 6 -- "They are idolaters who give that service to
   idols which is due unto God." To render glory to the creature as to God
   is idolatry, say the Papists, Bell, de Eccles. Triumph, lib. ii. cap.
   24; Greg. de Valen. de Idol, lib. i. cap. 1; -- suitable to the
   description of it given by the apostle, Rom. i. 25: plainly, that
   whereunto the sanction under debate was added, as the bond of the law
   against it (which was the bottom of the commendable proceedings of
   divers kings of Judah against such), was a voluntary relinquishment of
   Jehovah revealed unto them, to give the honour due unto him to dunghill
   idols. Now, though error and ignorance ofttimes lie at the bottom of
   this abomination, yet error, properly so called, and which under the
   name of heresy is opposed, is sufficiently differenced therefrom. That
   common definition of heresy -- that it is an error, or errors, in or
   about the fundamentals of religion, maintained with stubbornness and
   pertinacy after conviction (for the main received by most Protestant
   divines) -- will be no way suited unto that which was before given of
   idolatry, and is as commonly received, being indeed much more clear; as
   shall be afterward declared. That this latter is proper and suitable to
   those scriptural descriptions which we have of heresy, I dare not
   assert; but being received by them who urge the punishment thereof it
   may be a sufficient ground of affirming that those things whose
   definitions are so extremely different are also very distant and
   discrepant in themselves; and therefore constitutions for the disposal
   of things concerning the one cannot "eo nomine" include the other.
   Neither is the inference any stronger, than that a man may be hanged
   for coveting, because he may be so for murdering.

   The penal constitutions of the Judaical polity (for so they were, which
   yet I urge not) concerning idolaters, must be stretched beyond their
   limits, if you intend to inwrap heretics within their verge. If
   heretics be also idolaters, as the Papists (the poor Indians who
   worship a piece of red cloth, the Egyptians who adored the deities
   which grew in their own gardens, being not more besotted with this
   abomination than they who prostrate their souls unto, and lavish their
   devotion upon, a piece of bread, a little before they prepare it for
   the draught -- so casting the stumbling-block of their iniquities
   before the faces of poor Heathens and Jews, causing Averroes to breathe
   out his soul in this expression of that scandal, "Quoniam Christiani
   manducant Deum quem adorant, sit anima mea cum Philosophis!") then, the
   case seems to me to have received so considerable an alteration, that
   the plea of forbearance is extremely weakened as to my present
   apprehension. However, for the present I remove such from this debate.

   5. The like to this also may be said concerning blasphemy, the law
   whereof is likewise commonly urged in this cause. The establishment for
   the punishment of a blasphemer is in Lev. xxiv. 16. Given it was upon
   the occasion of the blaspheming and cursing of the son of an Egyptian,
   upon his striving and contending with an Israelite. Being probably, in
   his own apprehension, wronged by his adversary, he fell to reviling his
   God. The word here used to express his sin, is nqv?, signifying also to
   pierce, and is twice so rendered -- Isa. xxxvi. 6; Heb. iii. 14.
   Desperate expressions, piercing the honour and glory of the Most High
   willingly and willfully, were doubtless his death-deserving crime. It
   is the same word that Balak used to Balaam, when he would have
   persuaded him to a deliberate cursing and pouring out of imprecations
   on the people of God, Num. xxiii. 13, 14. A resolved piercing of the
   name and glory of God, with cursed reproaches, is the crime here
   sentenced to death. The schoolmen tell us, that to complete blasphemy,
   the perverse affection of the heart, in detestation of the goodness of
   God, joined with the reproaches of his name, is required. [218] Which,
   how remote it is from error of any sort (I mean within the compass of
   them whereof we speak), being a pure misapprehension of the
   understanding, embraced (though falsely) for the honour of God, I
   suppose is easily conceived; and so, consequently, that the argument
   for the death of a person erring, because he came off no easier of old
   who blasphemed, is "`a baculo ad angulum.

   If any shall say that blasphemy is of a larger extent and more general
   acceptation in the Scripture, I shall not deny it; but yet that that
   kind of blasphemy which was punishable with violent death, was
   comprehensive of any inferior crime, I suppose cannot be proved.
   However, blasphemy in the Scripture is never taken in any place, that I
   can remember, for a man's maintaining his own error; but for his
   reviling and speaking evil of the truth which he receiveth not: and so
   Paul before his conversion was a blasphemer. [219] Now, if men to whom
   forbearance is indulged in by-paths of their own, shall make it their
   work to cast dirt on the better ways of truth, it is to me very
   questionable whether they do not offend against that prime dictate of
   nature for the preservation of human society, "Quod tibi fieri non vis,
   alteri ne feceris;" and for such I will be no advocate. Neither can,
   indeed, the law of blasphemy be impartially urged by us in any case of
   heresy whatsoever. For --

   (1.) The penal sanctions of the laws of God are not in England esteemed
   of moral equity, and perpetually indispensable; for if so, why do
   adulterers unmolested behold the violent death of stealers?

   (2.) The blasphemer by that law was not allowed his clergy; die he must
   without mercy, no room being left for the intervention of repentance,
   as to the removal of his temporal punishment; when once the witnesses'
   garments were rent, he was anathema. But in case of any heresy,
   repentance, yea, recantation, is a sure antidote (at least for once, so
   it is among the Papists) against all corporeal sufferings.

   6. Neither doth that place in Zech. xiii. 3, concerning the running
   through of the false prophet, more prove or approve of the punishment
   of death to be inflicted for misapprehensions in the matters of
   religion (and if it proves not that, it proverb nothing; for slaying is
   the thing expressed, and certainly if proofs be taken from the letter,
   the letter must be obeyed, or we force the word to serve our
   hypothesis) than that place of John x. 1, "He that entereth not by the
   door is a thief and a robber;" which Bellarmine strongly urgeth to this
   very purpose, because thieves and robbers are so dealt withal
   righteously. [220] If such deductions may be allowed, it will be easy
   to prove "quidlibet ex quolibet," at any time.

   If the letter be urged, and the sense of the letter as it lies (indeed
   [221] the figurative sense of such places is the proper, literal sense
   of them), let that sense alone be kept to. Let parents, then, pass
   sentence, condemn, and execute their children, when they turn seducers;
   and that in any kind whatsoever -- into what seduction soever they
   shall be engaged, be it most pernicious, or in things of less
   concernment. The letter allows of none of our distinctions; be they
   convinced or not convinced, obstinate or not obstinate, all is one --
   so it must be: thrust through and slain by their parents must they fall
   to the ground. Only observe, his father and his mother that begat him
   must be made magistrates -- prophets with unclean spirits be turned
   into heretics:-- only "thrusting through," that must be as it is in the
   letter; yea, though plainly the party of whom it is said, "Thou shalt
   not live," verse 3, is found alive, verse 6. Surely such an Orleans
   gloss [222] is scarce sufficient to secure a conscience in slaying
   heretics. But, when men please, this whole place shall directly point
   at the discipline of the churches, and their spiritual censures under
   the gospel -- curing deceivers, and bringing them home to confession
   and acknowledgment of their folly. See the late Annot. of the Bible.

   7. From the asserting of the authority and description of the duty of
   the magistrate, Rom. xiii., the argument is very easy that is produced
   for the suppressing by external force of erroneous persona The
   paralogism is so foul and notorious in this arguing -- "He is to
   suppress evil deeds; heresy is an evil deed: therefore that also" that
   it needs no confutation. That he is to punish all evil deeds was never
   yet affirmed. Unbelief is a work of the flesh -- so is coveting; one,
   the root-sin, against the first, the other against the second table:
   yet in themselves both exempted from the magistrate's cognizance and
   jurisdiction. The evil-doers, doubtless, for whose terror and
   punishment he is appointed, are such as by their deeds disturb that
   human society the defence and protection whereof is to him committed.
   That among the number of these are errors, the depravations of men's
   understandings, hath not yet been proved.

   8. The case of the seducer, from Deut. xiii., is urged with more show
   of reason than any of the others to the business in hand; but yet the
   extreme discrepancies between the proof and the thing intended to be
   proved make any argumentation from this place, as to the matter in
   hand, very intricate, obscure, and difficult. For --

   (1.) The person here spoken of pretends an immediate revelation from
   heaven: he pretends dreams, and gives signs and wonders, verse 1, and
   so exempts his spirit from any regular trial Heretics, for the most
   part, offer to be tried by the rule that is "in medio," acknowledged of
   all -- a few distempered enthusiasts excepted.

   (2.) His business is to entice from the worship of Jehovah -- not in
   respect of the manner, but the object, verse 5. All heretics pretend
   the fear of that great name.

   (3.) The accepting and owning idol, dunghill gods in his room, is the
   thing persuaded to, verse 2 (and those were only stocks and stones);
   and this in opposition to Jehovah, who had revealed himself by Moses.
   Heretics worship him, own him, and abhor all thoughts of turning away
   from following after him, according to their erroneous apprehensions.
   Manichees, Marcionites, Valentinians, and such like names of infidels,
   I reckon not among heretics; neither will their brain-sick, paganish
   follies be possibly comprehended under that definition of heresy which
   is now generally received. Mohammedans are far more rightly termed
   heretics than they.

   (4.) This seducer was to die without mercy. And Ainsworth observes from
   the rabbins, that this offender alone had traps laid to catch him; and
   were he but once overheard to whisper his seduction, though never so
   secretly, there was no expiation of his transgression without his own
   blood. But now this place is urged for all kind of restraint and
   punishment whatsoever. Now, where God requires blood, is it allowed to
   man to commute at an inferior rate? So, I confess, it is urged. But yet
   what lies at the bottom, in the chambers of their bellies who plead for
   the power of the magistrate to punish erring persons from those, and
   such like places as these, is too apparent. Blood is there: swiftly or
   slowly, they walk to the chambers of death.

   (5.) Obstinacy after conviction, turbulency, etc., which are now laid
   down as the main weights that turn the scale on the side of severity,
   are here not once mentioned, nor by any thing in the least intimated.
   If he have done it, yea, but once, openly or secretly, whether he have
   been convinced of the sinfulness of it or no, be he obstinate or
   otherwise, it is not once inquired -- die he must, as if he had
   committed murder, or the like indispensable death-procuring crime. If
   the punishment, then, of erring persons be urged from this place, all
   consideration of their conviction, obstinacy, pertinacy, must be laid
   aside: the text allows them no more plea in this business than our law
   doth in the case of wilful murder.

   (6.) Repentance and recantation will, in the judgment of all, reprieve
   an erring person from any sentence of any punishment corporeal
   whatsoever; and many reasons may be given why they should so do. Here
   is no such allowance. Repent or not repent, recant or not recant, he
   hath no sacrifice of expiation provided for him -- die he must.

   (7.) The law contains the sanction of the third commandment, as the
   whole was a rule of the Jewish polity in the land of Canaan. This
   amongst us is generally conceived not binding, as such.

   (8.) The formal reason of this law, by some insisted on -- because he
   sought to turn a man from Jehovah, --

   [1.] Is of force only in this case of the object whereunto seduction
   tends -- viz., strange gods -- and no other.

   [2.] Turning from Jehovah respects not any manner of backsliding in
   respect of the way of worship, but a falling away from him as the
   object of worship.

   Now, there being these and many other discrepancies hindering the cases
   proposed from running parallel, I profess, for my part, I cannot see
   how any such evident deductions can possibly be drawn from hence as to
   be made a bottom of practice and acting in things of so high
   concernment. What may be allowed from the equity of those and the like
   constitutions, and deduced by analogy and proportion to the business in
   hand, I shall afterward declare.

   II. The sum of what is usually drawn from holy writ against such
   forbearance as I suppose may be asserted, and for the punishing
   heretics with capital punishments, being briefly discussed, I proceed,
   in the next place, to such other general observations as may serve to
   the farther clearing of the business in hand; and they are these that
   follow:--

   The forbearance of or opposition unto errors, may be considered with
   respect either unto civil or spiritual judicature.

   First, For the latter, it is either personal or ecclesiastical,
   properly so called. Personal forbearance of errors, in a spiritual
   sense, is a moral toleration or approbation of them; so also is
   ecclesiastical. The warrant for procedence against them on that hand is
   plain and evident: certainly this way no error is to be forborne. All
   persons who have any interest and share in truth are obliged, in their
   several ways and stations, to an opposition unto every error -- an
   opposition to be carried on by gospel mediums and spiritual weapons.
   Let them, according as they are called or opportuned, disprove them
   from the word, "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto
   the saints." Erring persons are usually "bono animo," says Salvian --
   very zealous to propagate their false conceptions; and shall the
   children of truth be backward in her defence? Precepts unto this as a
   duty, commendations of it, encouragements unto it, are very frequent in
   the gospel. Alike is this duty incumbent on all churches walking to the
   rule. The spiritual sword of discipline may be lawfully sheathed in the
   blood of heresies. No spiritual remedy can be too sharp for a spiritual
   disease. When the cure is suited to the malady, there is no danger of
   the application. And this is not denied by any. He that submits himself
   to any church society, does it "ea lege," -- of being obedient to the
   authority of Christ in that church in all its censures. "Volenti non
   fit injuria." Error is offensive, and must be proceeded against.
   Examples and precepts of this abound in the Scriptures. The blood of
   many erring persons, I doubt not, will one day have a "quo warranto"
   granted them against their (as to the particulars in debate) orthodox
   slayers, who did it to promote the service of God. Let them not fear an
   after-reckoning who use the discipline of Christ according to his
   appointment.

   This being considered, the occasion of a most frequent paralogism is
   removed. If errors must be tolerated, say some, then men may do what
   they please, without control. No means, it seems, must be used to
   reclaim them. But is gospel conviction no means? Hath the sword of
   discipline no edge? Is there no means of instruction in the New
   Testament established, but a prison and a halter? Are the hammer of the
   word and the sword of the Spirit, which in days of old broke the
   stubbornest mountains, and overcame the proudest nations, now quite
   useless? God forbid! Were the churches of Christ established according
   to his appointment, and the professors of the truth so knit up "in the
   unity of the Spirit and bond of peace" as they ought to be, and were in
   the primitive times, I am persuaded those despised instruments would
   quickly make the proudest heretic to tremble. When the churches walked
   in sweet communion, giving each other continual account of their
   affairs, and warning each other of all or any such persons as, either
   in practice or doctrine, walked not with a right foot (as we have
   examples in Clem. Epist. ad Corinth. -- the churches of Vienne and
   Lyons to those of Asia, Euseb.; -- of Ignatius to several persons and
   churches -- of Irenaeus to Victor., Euseb.; -- to Stephen, ibid., and
   the like), heretics found such cold entertainment as made them ashamed,
   if not weary, of their chosen wanderings. But this is not my present
   business.

   Secondly, There is an opposition or forbearance in reference to a civil
   judicature and procedence of things which respecteth errors in a. real
   sense, as to the inflicting or not inflicting of punishment on
   religious delinquents. And this is the sole thing under debate, viz. --

   Whether persons enjoying civil authority over others -- being intrusted
   therewithal according to the constitutions of the place and nation
   where the lot of them both, by providence, is fallen -- are invested
   with power from above, and commanded in the word of God, to coerce,
   restrain, punish, confine, imprison, banish, hang, or burn, such of
   those persons under their jurisdiction as shall not embrace, profess,
   believe, and practice, that truth and way of worship which is revealed
   unto them of God? or how far, into what degrees, by what means, in any
   of these ways, may they proceed?

   The general propositions and considerations of the penal laws of God,
   which were before laid down, have, as I suppose, left this business to
   a naked debate from the word of truth, without any such prejudices on
   either part as many take from a misapprehension of the mind of God in
   them; and therefore, by the reader's patience, I shall venture upon the
   whole anew, as if no such arguments had ever been proposed for the
   affirmative of the question in hand, not declining the utmost weight
   that is in any of them, according to equity and due proportion. And
   here, first, I shall give in a few things --

   (1.) To the question itself.

   (2.) To the manner of handling it.

   (1.) To the question itself. For herein I suppose --

   [1.] That the persons enjoying authority do also enjoy the truth; which
   is to the advantage of the affirmative.

   [2.] That their power in civil things is just and unquestionable; which
   also looks favorably on that side.

   [3.] That non-toleration makes out itself in positive infliction of
   punishment; which is so, or is nothing. Casting men out of protection,
   exposing them to vulgar violence, is confessedly unworthy of men
   representing the authority of God, and contrary to the whole end of
   their trust.

   (2.) To the manner of handling this question among persons at variance.
   And here I cannot but observe --

   [1.] That if I have taken my aim aright, there is no one thing under
   debate amongst Christians that is agitated with more confidence and
   mutual animosity of the parties litigant -- each charging other with
   dreadful inferences -- streams of blood, and dishonour to God, flowing
   out from their several persuasions; so that ofttimes, instead of a fair
   dispute, you meet on this subject with a pathetical outcry, as though
   all religion were utterly contaminated and trampled under foot, if both
   these contradictory assertions be not embraced. Now, seeing that in
   itself it is a thing wherein the gospel is exceedingly sparing, if not
   altogether silent, certainly there must be a farther interest than of
   judgment alone, or else that very much prejudicated with corrupt
   affections, or men could not possibly be carried out with so much
   violence upon supposed self-created consequences, wherewith in this
   cause they urge one another.

   [2.] That generally thus much of private interest appears in the
   several contesters, that non-toleration is the opinion of the many, and
   these enjoying the countenance of authority -- toleration, of the
   oppressed, who always go under the name of the faction, or factions --
   the unavoidable livery of the smaller number professing a way of
   worship by themselves, be it right or wrong. I do not desire to lay
   forth the usual deportment of men seeking the suppressing of others
   differing from them, towards those in authority. It is but too clearly
   made out by daily experience. If they close with them, they are
   "custodes utriusque tabulae," -- the church's nursing-fathers, etc. --
   what they please; but if they draw back, for want of light or truth to
   serve them, logs and storks find not worse entertainment from frogs
   than they from some of them. Such things as these may, nay, ought to
   be, especially heeded by every one that knows what influence corrupt
   affections have upon the judgments of men, and would willingly take the
   pains to wipe his eyes for the discerning of the truth.

   These things premised, I assert that --

   Non-toleration -- in the latitude which is for persons in authority
   enjoying the truth (or supposing they do enjoy it) to punish in an
   arbitrary way, according to what they shall conceive to be condign, men
   who will not forsake their own convictions about any head or heads of
   Christian religion whatsoever, to join with what they hold out, either
   for belief or worship, after the using of such ways of persuasion as
   they shall think fit -- is no way warranted in the gospel; nor can any
   sound proof for such a course be taken from the Old Testament.

   The testimonies out of the law, which I can apprehend to have any
   colour or appearance of strength in them, with the examples approved of
   God that seem to look this way, I considered at our entrance into this
   discourse.

   I speak of punishing in an arbitrary way; for all instances produced to
   the purpose in hand, that speak of any punishment, mention nothing
   under death itself; which yet, at least in the first place, is not
   aimed at by those that use them in our days, as I suppose. Now, some
   divines of no small name maintain, that God hath not left the
   imposition of punishment in any measure to the wills of men.

   Some arguments for the proof of the former assertion as laid down I
   shall in due place make use of; for the present, I desire to commend to
   the serious pondering of all Christians in general, especially of those
   in authority, these ensuing considerations --

   1. That it is no privilege of truth to furnish its assertors with this
   persuasion, that the dissenters from it ought forcibly to be opposed,
   restrained, punished.

   No false religion ever yet in the world did enthrone itself in the
   minds of men enjoying a civil sovereignty over the persons of others,
   but it therewithal commanded them, under pain of neglect and contempt
   of itself, to crush any underling worship that would perk up in
   inferior consciences.

   The old heathens carried their gods into the war (as did the
   Philistines, 1 Chron. xiv. 12, and the Israelites the ark, with
   heathenish superstition, 1 Sam. iv. 3), to whom they ascribed the
   success they obtained; and in requital of their kindness, they forced
   the dunghill deities of the conquered nations to attend the triumph of
   their victorious idols; and unless they adopted them into the number of
   their own gods, all farther worship to them was forbidden. Hence were
   these inventions among the old Romans, by spells and enchantments, to
   entice away a deity from any city they besieged (they being as expert
   at the getting of a devil as Tobias's Raphael, or the present Romanists
   at his fumigation); by which means they shrived into the honour of
   having thirty thousand unconquered idols, [223] and deserved worthily
   that change of their city's epithet from Epitome oikoumenes to Epitome
   deisidaimonias -- which it justly inheriteth to this very day.
   Rabshakeh's provocation to the example of the gods of the nations, 2
   Kings xviii. 33, 34, and the Roman senate's consultation concerning the
   admitting of Christ to a place among their idols, that he might have
   been freely worshipped (their consent being prevented by his almighty
   providence, who will not be enrolled among the vilest works of his most
   corrupted creatures), do both declare this thing.

   Now, not to speak of Cain, who seems to me to have laid the foundation
   of that cruelty which was afterwards inserted into the church's
   orthodoxies by the name of Haereticidium; we find the four famous
   empires of the world to have drunk in this persuasion to the utmost, of
   suppressing all by force and violence that consented not to them in
   their way of worship.

   Nebuchadnezzar, the "crown of the golden head," set up a furnace with
   an image; and a negative answer to that query, "Do you not serve my
   gods, nor worship my image?" served to cast the servants of the living
   God into the midst of the fire, Dan. iii. 1.

   Daniel's casting into the lions' den, chapter vi., shows that the
   Persian silver breast and arms did not want iron hands to crush or
   break the opposers of, or dissenters from, their religious edicts.

   And though we find not much of the short-lived founder of the Grecian
   dominion, yet what was the practice of the branches of that empire,
   especially in the Syrian and Egyptian sprouts, the books of the
   Maccabees, Josephus, and others, do abundantly manifest.

   For the Romans, though their judgment and practice -- which fully and
   wholly are given over from the dragon to the beast and false prophet --
   be written in the blood of thousands of Christians, and so not to be
   questioned; yet, that it may appear that we are not the only men in
   this generation, that this wisdom of punishing dissenters was not born
   with us, I shall briefly give in what grounds they proceeded on, and
   the motives they had to proceed as they did.

   (1.) First, then, they enacted it as a law, that no religious worship
   should be admitted or practised without the consent, decree, and
   establishment of the senate. Mention is made of a formal law to this
   purpose in Tertullian, Apol., cap. v., though now we find it not. The
   foundation of it was doubtless in that of the twelve tables: "Separatim
   nemo habessit deos, neve novos, sed ne advenas, nisi publice ascitos,
   privatim colunto;" -- "Let none have gods to himself, neither let any
   privately worship new or strange deities, unless they be publicly owned
   and enrolled." And that it was their practice, and in the counsels of
   the wisest amongst them, appears in that advice given by Maecenas to
   Augustus, in Dion Cassius: To men zeion pante pantos autos te sebou,
   kata ta patria, kai tous allous timan anankaze; tous de de zenizontas
   ti peri auto, kai misei kai kolaze, me monon ton theon heneka, hon
   kataphronesas oud' allou an tinos protimeseien, all' hoti kaina tina
   daimonia hoi toioutoi anteispherontes pollous anapeithousin
   allotrionomein; kak toutou kai sunomosiai kai sustaseis, etaireiai te
   gignontai, haper hekista monarchia sumpherei -- "Worship," saith he,
   "the divine power thyself according to the constitutions of thy
   country, everywhere and at all times; and compel others so to honour
   it. But hate and punish those who introduce foreign religions; not only
   for the god's sake -- whom he who contemneth will regard nothing else
   -- but because such, introducing new deities, do persuade many to
   transgress (or to change affairs); whence are conjurations, seditions,
   private societies -- things no way conducing to monarchy," Hist. Rom.,
   lib. 52:36.

   Hence, doubtless, was that opposition which Paul met withal in divers
   of the Roman territories. Thus, at Athens (though, as I suppose, they
   enjoyed there their own laws and customs, very suitable, as it should
   seem, to those of the Romans), preaching Jesus, he was accused to be "a
   setter forth of strange gods," Acts xvii. 1. For although, as Strabo
   observeth of the Athenians, that publicly, by the authority of the
   magistrates, polla ton zenikon hieron paredexanto, "they received many
   things of foreign worships;" yet that none might attempt any such
   things of themselves is notorious from the case of Socrates, who, as
   Laertius witnesseth, was condemned as hous men nomizei zeous -- "one
   who thought not those to be gods whom the city thought so to be, but
   brought in certain new deities." Hence, I say, was Paul's opposition,
   and his haling to Mars-hill. Without doubt, also, this was the bottom
   of that stir and trouble he met withal about Philippi. It is true,
   private interest lay in the bottom with the chief opposers; but this
   legal constitution was that which was plausibly pretended. Acts xvi.
   21, "They teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither
   to observe, being Romans:" ouk exesti Rhomaiois, -- "it is not lawful
   for us Romans" to receive the religion they hold out, because statutes
   are made amongst us against all religious worship not allowed by public
   authority. Let Calvin's short annotation on that place be seen.
   Gallio's refusing to judge between Jews (as he thought) in a Jewish
   controversy, is no impeachment of this truth; had it been about any
   Roman establishment, he would quickly have interposed. Now, this law
   amongst them was doubtless "fundi Christiani calamitas."

   This, then, in the first place, was enacted, that no worship should be
   admitted, no religion exercised, but what received establishment and
   approbation from them who supposed themselves to be intrusted with
   authority over men in such things. And this power of the dragon was
   given over to the beast and false prophet. The anti-christian power
   succeeding in the room of the paganish -- the pope and councils, of the
   emperors and senate -- it was quickly confirmed that none should be
   suffered to live in peace who received not his mark and name, Rev.
   xiii. 16, 17. Whereunto, for my part, I cannot but refer very many of
   those following imperial constitutions, which were made at first
   against the opposers of the church's orthodoxism, but were turned
   against the witnesses of Jesus in the close.

   (2.) This being done, they held out the reasons of this establishment.
   I shall touch only one or two of them, which are still common to them
   who walk in the same paths with them.

   [1.] Now, the first was, That toleration of sundry ways of worship, and
   several religions, tends to the disturbance of the commonwealth and
   that civil society which men under the same government do and ought to
   enjoy. So Cicero tells us, lib. ii., De Leg., "Suosque deos, aut novos,
   aut alienigenas coli, confusionem habet," etc.; -- it brings in
   confusion of religion and civil society. The same is clearly held out
   in that counsel of Maecenas to Augustus before mentioned. "They," saith
   he, "who introduce new deities, draw many into innovations; whence are
   conspiracies, seditions, conventicles, no way profitable for the
   commonwealth."

   [2.] The other main reason was, That hereby the gods, whom they owned
   and worshipped, were dishonoured and provoked to plague them. That this
   was continually in their mouths and clamours, all the acts at the
   slaying of the martyrs, the rescripts of emperors, the apologies of the
   Christians, as Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Arnobius, Minutius Felix, do
   abundantly testify. All trouble was still ascribed to their impiety.
   Upon the first breaking out of any judgment, as though the cause of it
   had been the toleration of Christians, presently the vulgar cry was,
   "Christianos ad leones." Now, that those causes and reasons have been
   traduced to all those who have since acted the same things, especially
   to the emperors' successor at Rome, needs not to be proved. With the
   power of the dragon, the wisdom also is derived. See that great
   champion, Cardinal Bellarmine, fighting with these very weapons, Lib.
   de Laicis, cap. 21. And indeed, however illustrated, improved, adorned,
   supported, flourished, and sweetened, they are the sum of all that to
   this day hath been said in the same case.

   (3.) Having made a law, and supported it with such reasons, as these,
   in proceeding to the execution of the penalty of that law as to
   particular persons (which penalty being, as now, arbitrary, was
   inflicted unto banishment, imprisonment, mine-digging, torturing in
   sundry kinds, maiming, death, according to the pleasure of the judges),
   they always charged upon those persons, not only the denying and
   opposing their own deities, religion, and worship; but also, that that
   which they embraced was foolish, absurd, detestable, pernicious,
   sinful, wicked, ruinous to commonwealths, cities, society, families,
   honesty, order, and the like. If a man should go about to delineate the
   Christian religion by the lines and features drawn thereof in the
   invectives and accusations of their adversaries, he might justly
   suppose that indeed that was their god which was set up at Rome with
   this inscription, "Deus Chistianorum Ononychites;" being an image with
   ass's ears, in a gown, claws or talons upon one foot, with a book in
   his hand. Charged they were that they worshipped an ass's head; which
   impious folly -- first fastened on the Jews by Tacitus, Hist., lib. v.
   cap. 1, in these words, "Effigiem animalis, quo monstrante errorem
   sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere" (having before set out a
   feigned direction received by a company of asses), which he had
   borrowed from Apion, a railing Egyptian of Alexandria [224] -- was so
   ingrafted in their minds that no defensative could be allowed. The
   [225] sun, the cross, "sacerdotis genitalia," were either really
   supposed, or impiously imposed on them, as the objects of their
   worship. The blood and flesh of infants, at Thyestean banquets, was
   said to be their food and provision; promiscuous lust, with incest,
   their chiefest refreshment. Such as these it concerned them to have
   them thought to be, being resolved to use them as if they were so
   indeed. Hence I am not sometimes without some suspicion, that many of
   the impure abominations, follies, villainies, which are ascribed unto
   the primitive heretics, yea, the very Gnostics themselves (upon whom
   the filth that lies is beyond all possible belief), [226] might be
   feigned and imposed, as to a great part thereof. For though not the
   very same, yet things as foolish and opposite to the light of nature,
   were at the same time charged on the most orthodox.

   But you will say, They who charged these things upon the Catholics were
   Pagans, enemies of God and Christ; but these, who so charged heretics,
   were Christians themselves. And so say I also, and therefore, for
   reverence of the name (though perhaps I could), I say no more. But yet
   this I say, that story which you have in Minutius Felix (or Arnobius,
   viii. book apologetical), of the meeting of Christians, the drawing
   away of the light by a dog tied to the candlestick, so to make way for
   adulteries and incests, I have heard more than once told with no small
   confidence of Brownists and Puritans. Hath not this very same course
   been taken in latter ages? Consult the writings of Waldensis and the
   rest of his companions, about Wickliffe and his followers, -- see the
   occasion of his falling off from Rome in our own chronicles, in Fabian
   of old, yea, and Daniel of late, to gratify a popish court; -- of
   Eckius, Hosius, Staphylus, Bolsec, Bellarmine, and the rest who have
   undertaken to portray out unto us Luther and Calvin, with their
   followers; -- and you will quickly see that their great design was to
   put on (as they did upon the head of John Huss at the Council of
   Constance, when he was led to the stake) the ugly visard of some
   devilish appearance, that under that form they might fit them for fire
   and fagot. And herein also is the polity of the dragon derived to the
   false prophet, and a colour tempered for persecutors to imbrue their
   hands in the blood of martyrs.

   This was the old Roman way, and I thought it not amiss to cautionate
   those enjoying truth and authority, that, if it be possible, they may
   not walk in their steps and method. The course accounted so sovereign
   for the extirpation of error was, as you see, first invented for the
   extirpation of truth.

   2. I desire it may be observed, that the general issue and tendence of
   unlimited arbitrary persecution, or punishing for conscience' sake
   (because in all ages, hoi pleiones kakoi, and the worst of men have sat
   at the upper end of the world, for the most part more false worshippers
   having hitherto enjoyed authority over others than followers of the
   Lamb), hath been pernicious, fatal, and dreadful to the profession and
   professors of the gospel, -- little or not at all serviceable to the
   truth.

   I have heard it averred by a reverend and learned personage, that more
   blood of heretics hath been shed by wholesome severity, in the
   maintenance of the truth and opposition unto errors, than hath been
   shed of the witnesses of Jesus by the sword of persecution, in the
   hands of heretics and false worshippers; -- an assertion, I conceive,
   under favour, so exceedingly distant from the reality of the thing
   itself, that I dare take upon me, against any man breathing, that in
   sundry Christian provinces, -- almost in every one of the west, -- more
   lives have been sacrificed to the one idol Haereticidium, of those that
   bear witness to the truth, in the belief for which they suffered, than
   all the heretics, properly so called, that ever were slain in all the
   provinces of the world by men professing the gospel. And I shall give
   that worthy divine, or any other of his persuasion, his option among
   all the chiefest provinces of Europe, to tie me up unto which they
   please. He that shall consider that above sixty thousand persons were,
   in six years or little more, cut off in a judicial way, by Duke D'Alva
   in the Netherlands, in pursuit of the sentence of the inquisition, will
   conclude that there is "causa facilis" in my hand.

   The ancient contest between the Homoousians and the Arians, -- the
   first controversy the churches were agitated withal after they enjoyed
   a Christian magistrate (and may justly be supposed to be carried on to
   the advantage of error beyond all that went before it, because of the
   civil magistrates interesting themselves in the quarrel), -- was not
   carried out to violence and blood before the several persuasions
   lighted on several dominions and state interests: as between the Goths,
   Vandals, and the rest of their companions on one side, who were Arians;
   and the Romans on the other. In all whose bickerings, notwithstanding,
   the honour of severity did still attend the Arians, especially in
   Africk, where they persecuted the Catholics with horrible outrage and
   fury:-- five thousand at one time were barbarously exposed to all
   manner of cruel villainy. Some eruptions of passion had been before
   among emperors themselves; but still with this difference, that they
   who Arianized carried the bell for zeal against dissenters. Witness
   Valens, who gave place in persecution to none of his pagan
   predecessors, killing, burning, slaying, making havoc of all orthodox
   professors; yea, perhaps that which he did -- at least was done by the
   countenance of his authority -- at Alexandria, upon the placing in of
   Lucius an Arian in the room of Athanasius, thrusting Peter beside the
   chair, who was rightly placed according to the custom of those times;
   perhaps, I say, the tumults, rapes, murders, then and there acted, did
   outgo what before had been done by the Pagans. See Theodoret, Eccles.
   Hist., lib. iv., cap. 19. It were tedious to pursue the lying,
   slandering invectives, banishments, deaths, tumults, murders, which
   attend this council all along, after once they began to invoke the help
   of the emperors one against another; yet in this space some
   magistrates, weary with persecuting ways, did not only abstain
   practically from force and violence, -- as most of the orthodox
   emperors did, -- but also enacted laws for the freedom of such as
   dissented from them. Jovianus, a pious man, grants all peace that will
   be peaceable; offended only with them who would offer violence to
   others, Socrates Eccles. Hist., lib. iii. cap. 25. Gratianus makes a
   law, whereby he granted liberty to all sects, but Manichees,
   Photinians, and Eunomians, Sozom. Eccles. Hist., lib. vii. cap. 1. Many
   more the like examples might be produced.

   The next difference about the worship of God, to the Arian and its
   branches, that was controverted in letters of blood, was about images
   and their worship; in which, though some furious princes -- in
   opposition to that growing idolatry which, by popes, bishops, priests,
   and especially monks, was in those days violently urged -- did mingle
   some of their blood with their sacrifices; yet not to the tithe almost
   of what the Iconolastrae, getting uppermost, returned upon them and
   their adherents.

   This, if occasion were, might be easily demonstrated from Paulus
   Diaconus, and others. After this, about the year 850, -- about which
   time the Iconolatrae having ensnared the west by polity (the posterity
   of Charles the Great, who had stoutly opposed the worship of images,
   complying with the popes, the fathers of that worship, for their own
   ends), and wearied the east by cruelty, -- that contest growing towards
   an end, the whole power of punishing for religion became subservient to
   the dictates of the pope, the kings of the earth giving their power to
   the beast; unto which point things had been working all along; -- from
   thence, I say, until the death of Servetus in Geneva, the pursuit of
   Gentilis, Blandrata, and some other madmen in Helvetia, for the space
   well-nigh of seven hundred years, -- the chiefest season of the reign
   of Satan and Antichrist, -- all punishing for religion was managed by
   the authority of Rome, and against the poor witnesses of Jesus,
   prophesying in sackcloth in the several regions of the west. And what
   streams of blood were poured out, what millions of martyrs slain in
   that space, is known to all. Hence Bellarmine boasteth that the
   Albigenses were extinguished by the sword, De Laic. cap. xxii. It is
   true, there were laws enacted of old by Theodosius, Valentinian,
   Martian, -- as C. De. haereticis, 1; Manichseis, 1; Arianis, 1;
   Unicuique, which last provideth for the death of seducers; but yet,
   truly, though they were made by Catholics, and in the favour of
   Catholics, considering to what end they were used, I can look upon them
   no otherwise but as very bottom-stones of the tower of Babel.

   This, then, in its latitude proving so pernicious to the profession of
   the gospel, -- having for so long driven the woman into the wilderness
   and truth into corners, -- being the main engine whereby the tower of
   Babel was built, and that which at this day they cry grace unto, as the
   foundation-stone of the whole antichristian fabric, [227] -- we had
   need be cautious what use we make (as one terms it well) of the broom
   of Antichrist, to sweep the church of Christ. Whether that we are in
   the truth, and they blinded with error of whom we have spoken, be a
   sufficient plea, we shall see anon. In the meantime we may do well to
   remember what Louis XII. of France said, yea, swore, concerning the
   inhabitants of Mirindol, whom, by the instigation of his prelates, he
   had ordered to be slain, when news was brought him what was their
   conversation and way of life: "Let them be heretics if you please,"
   saith he, "but assuredly they are better than I and my Catholics." Take
   heed lest the punished be better than the punishers.

   Let me add to this observation only this, that the attempt to suppress
   any opinions whatsoever by force hath been for the most part fruitless.
   For either some few particular persons are proceeded against, or else
   greater multitudes; if some particulars only, the ashes of one hath
   always proved the seed of many opinionatists. Examples are innumerable;
   take one, which is boasted of as a pattern of severity, taken from
   antiquity. About the year 390, Priscillianus, a Manichee, and a
   Gnostic, by the procurement of Ithacius and Idacius, two bishops, was
   put to death by Maximus, an usurping emperor, who ruled for a season,
   having slain Gratianus; as that kind of men would always close with any
   authority that might serve their own ends. Now, what was the issue
   thereof? Martinus, a Catholic bishop, renounces their communion who did
   it; the historian that reports it giving this censure of the whole,
   "Sic pessimo exemplo sublati sunt homines luce indignissimi;" -- though
   the men (Priscillianus and his companions) were most unworthy to live,
   yet their sentence of death was most unjust. But no matter for this,
   was not the heresy suppressed thereby? See what the same historian, who
   wrote not long after, and was able to testify the event, says of it:
   [228] "Non solum non repressa est haeresis, sed confirmata, et latius
   propagata est," etc.; -- "The heresy was so far from being suppressed
   hereby, that it was confirmed and propagated." His followers, who
   before honoured him as a saint, now adore him as a martyr. The like in
   all ages hath been the issue of the like endeavours.

   But now, if this course be undertaken against multitudes, what is or
   hath been the usual end of such undertakings? Take some examples of
   late days. Charles V., the most mighty emperor of Germany, undertakes
   by violence to extirpate the Lutherans and Calvinists out of the
   empire. After a tedious war, the death of many thousands, the wasting
   of the nation, in the close of all himself is driven out of Germany,
   and the business left much where it began, Sleid. Com. Philip of Spain,
   will needs force the inquisition upon the Netherlands. What is the
   issue? After the expense of an ocean of blood, and more coin than would
   have purchased the country twice over, his posterity is totally
   deprived of all sovereignty over those parts.

   Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart are put to death in Scotland by the
   procurement of a cardinal; the cardinal is instantly murdered by some
   desperate young men, and a war raised there about religion, which was
   never well quieted until, having hunted their queen out of her native
   kingdom, she had her head chopped off in England. [229] The wars,
   seditions, tumults, murders, massacres, rapes, burnings, etc., that
   followed the same attempt in France, cannot be thought of without
   horror and detestation. Neither knew those things any end, until the
   present forbearance was granted. Instances might be multiplied, but
   these things are known to all. If any shall say, All these evils
   followed the attempting to suppress truth, not error, I shall answer
   him another time, being loath to do it unless compelled. Only for the
   present I shall say, that error hath as much right to a forcible
   defence as truth.

   3. To stir us up yet farther to a serious consideration of the grounds
   and reasons which are laid down for the inflicting of punishment upon
   any for exorbitancies in things of religion (upon what hath been said),
   the perpetual coincidence of the causes by them held forth who pretend
   to plead for just severity, with their pretences who have acted unjust
   persecution, should be well heeded.

   The position is laid down in general on both sides, That erring persons
   are so and so to be dealt withal, -- that such is the power and duty of
   the magistrate in such cases. The definition of heresy is agreed on for
   the main; only the Papists place the church's determination where
   others thrust in the heretic's conviction, -- a thing much more obscure
   to bystanders and judges also. The appellations wherewith truth
   persecuted and error pursued are clothed, still the same. The
   consequences urged on all sides -- of dishonour to God, trouble to the
   state, and the like -- not at all discrepant. The arguments for the one
   and other for the most part the same. Look what reasons one sect gives
   for the punishing of another, -- the names being changed, are retorted.
   He blasphemeth to the heretic, who chargeth blasphemy upon him. We use
   no other arguments, cite no other texts, press no other consequences
   for the punishing of other heretics, than the Papists, the wisest
   heretics breathing, do for the punishment of us.

   No colour, no pretence, but hath been equally used in all hands. None
   can say, This is mine. To Luther's objection, that the Church of Christ
   never burned a heretic, for Huss and Jerome were none; Bellarmine
   answers, they were heretics to them Catholics, which did suffice, De
   Laic. cap. xxi. And indeed this vicissitude of things is very
   pernicious. All Christians almost are heretics to some enjoying
   authority (as Salvian said the case was between the Homoousians and
   Arians in his time); and most of those enjoying authority are persuaded
   it is their duty to suppress them whom they account heretics, and,
   answerably, have more or less acted according to this persuasion,
   until, by blood, wars, and horrid devastations of nations, some of them
   have been wearied. From the first croisade against the Albigenses,
   through the war of the Hussites under Zisca and the Procopii, those
   dreadful massacres before recounted, what a stage of blood hath Europe
   been made on this account! I desire that to this point the declaration
   of the Netherlands, at the beginning of their troubles (whom Bellarmine
   affirms to have petitioned for liberty of conscience, as he was writing
   "De Haereticidio," the thing being long before granted at Spira, at the
   convention of the states of the empire, in the year 1526), may be
   seriously considered.

   4. For the necessity of courses of extremity against erroneous persons,
   for the upholding "the faith once delivered to the saints," and the
   keeping the churches in peace, it doth not appear to me to be so urgent
   as is pretended.

   For three hundred years the church had no assistance from any
   magistrate against heretics; and yet in all that space there was not
   one long-lived or far-spreading heresy, in comparison of those that
   followed. As the disease is spiritual, so was the remedy which in those
   days was applied; and the Lord Jesus Christ made it effectual The
   Christians also of those days disclaimed all thoughts of such
   proceedings. The expressions of the most ancient, as Polycarpus,
   Ignatius, Irenaeus, concerning heretics, are sharp and cutting; their
   avoiding of them, being admonished, precise and severe; their
   confutations of them laborious and diligent; their church censures and
   ejections piercing and sharp; communion amongst the churches close,
   exact, and carefully preserved, so that a stubborn heretic was thrust
   out of Christian society; -- but for corporeal punishment, to be
   inflicted on them, in their writings not a syllable. Until Augustine
   was changed from his first resolution and persuasion, by the madness of
   Donatistical Circumcellions, this doctrine had but poor footing in
   antiquity. And whether his reasons as to this point be convincing, let
   any impartial man read his Epistle 50, and determine. What some say, --
   The Christians would have been of another mind had they enjoyed
   Christian magistrates, -- is so suited to our present frame and temper,
   but so unworthy of them, that I should wrong them by a defensative.
   What was their sense of them, in a spiritual way, is clear. John, they
   say, would not abide in a bath where Cerinthus the heretic, infected
   with Judaism and Paganism, was; saying, "Let us depart, lest the
   building fall on us where Cerinthus is," Iren., lib. iii. cap. 3;
   Euseb. Eccles. Hist., lib. iii. cap. 28. Marcion meeting Polycarpus,
   and asking him whether he knew him, or acknowledged him, his answer
   was, "Yea, to be the first-born of the devil," Euseb., lib. iv. cap.
   14. Ignatius's epistles are full of the like expressions. Irenaeus
   says, he would have no words with them, lib. iii. cap. 3. Tertullian's
   books testify for him at large, with what keenness of spirit he pursued
   the heretics of his days, though before the end of them he had the
   unhappiness to be almost one himself. Cyprian cries out, "Nulla cum
   talibus convivia, nulla colloquia, nulla commercia misceantur," Epist.
   iii. ad Cornel; -- "Neither eat, nor talk, nor deal with them."
   Antonius the hermit leaves testimony when he was dying, "that he never
   had peaceable conference with them all his days," Vita Anton. inter
   Oper. Athan. Surely had these men perceived the mind of God for their
   bodily punishment, they would not have failed to signify their minds
   therein; but truly their expressions hold out rather the quite
   contrary. Tous misountas ton Theon, misein chre kai humas, kai epi tois
   echthrois autou ektekesthai; ou men kai tuptein autous e diokein,
   kathos ta ethne ta me eidota ton Kurion kai Theon, all' echthous men
   hegeisthai kai chorizesthai ap' auton, says Ignatius, Epist. ad
   Philad.; -- "Count them enemies, and separate from them who hate God;
   but for beating or persecuting them, that is proper to the heathen who
   know not God, nor our Saviour: do not you so." Tertullian in very many
   places lays down general maxima tending to more liberty than is now
   pleaded for. One or two places may be pointed at: "Videte ne et hoc ad
   irreligiositatis elogium concurrat, adimere libertatem religionis, et
   interdicere optionem divinitatis, ut non liceat mihi colere quem velim,
   sed cogar colere quem nolim. Nemo se ab invito coli vellet, ne homo
   quidem," Apol., cap. xxiv. And again to Scapula the governor of
   Carthage, to dissuade him from the persecution he intended: "Tamen
   humani juris et naturalis potestatis est unicuique quod putaverit
   colere, nec alii obest, aut prodest alterius religio: sed nec
   religionis est cogere religionem, quae sponte suscipi debeat, non vi;
   cum et hostiae ab animo libenti expostulentur: ita et si nos
   compuleritis ad sacrificandum, nihil praestabitis diis vestris, ab
   invitis enim sacrificia non desiderabunt." And I desire to know,
   whether that which he maketh to be the plea of Christians may not also
   be used by all erring persons: "Quasi non totum quod in nos potestis,
   nostrum sit arbitrium. Certe si velim, Christianus sum, tunc ergo me
   damnabis, si damnari velim. Cum vero quod in me potes, nisi velim, non
   potes, jam meae voluntatis est quod potes, non tuae potestatis," Apol.,
   cap. xlix. Hence was that query of Lactantius, "Quis imponet mihi
   necessitatem aut credendi quod nolim, aut quod velim non credendi?" And
   long after these, Gregory of Rome, lib. ii. Epist. lii., tells us,
   "Nova et inaudita est ista praedicatio, quae verberibus exigit fidem;"
   -- to beat in faith with stripes, was then a new kind of preaching.
   These and the like were their expressions.

   It is true, in the three first centuries many fond, foolish, corrupt
   opinions were broached by sundry brain-sick men; but they laid little
   hold of the churches, kept themselves in the breasts of some few
   disorderly wanderers, and did very little promote the mystery of
   iniquity: but afterward, when the Roman emperors, and the great men of
   the earth, under and with them, began to interpose in the things of
   religion, and were mutually wooed, instigated, and provoked by the
   parties at variance (as indeed it is a shame to consider, upon all
   meetings, assemblies, disputes, councils, what running, what
   flattering, what insinuation at court, were used on all hands), what
   root did divers heresies take! how far were they propagated! Witness
   Arianism, which had almost invaded the whole world.

   Furthermore, by the ways which were invented, oft from the rule, for
   the extirpation of errors, when, by the instigation of prelates, the
   emperors were (to their own ruin) persuaded to them, the man of sin
   walked to his throne. Those very laws, edicts, and declarations, which
   were obtained against erring persons, did the bishops of Rome invert
   and use against all the witnesses of Jesus. The devil durst not be so
   bold as to employ that his grand agent in his apprenticeship against
   the saints; but he first suffers him to exercise his hand against
   heretics, intending to make use of him afterward to another purpose. In
   most of those contests which the Roman pontiffs had with their
   fellow-bishops, by which they insensibly advanced their own supremacy,
   it was the defence of Catholics they undertook; as in the case of
   Athanasius and others.

   Neither did the Christians of old at once step into the persuasion of
   punishing corporeally in case of religion. Constantine makes a decree
   at first, Ten eleutherian zreskeias ouk arnetean einai, "that liberty
   of worship is not to be denied; and therefore the Christians, as
   others, should have liberty to keep the faith of their religion and
   heresy," Euseb., Eccles. Hist., lib. x. cap. 5. And in the same edict
   he saith (how truly I know not, but yet great Constantine said it),
   "That it is most certain, that this is conducing to the peace of the
   empire, that free option and choice of religion be left to all."
   Afterward, when he began a little farther to engage himself in the
   business of religion, being indeed wearied with the petitions of
   bishops and their associates for the persecution of one another, what
   troubles in a few years did he intricate himself withal! Perplexed he
   was in his spirit to see the untoward revengefulness of that sort of
   people; insomuch that he writes expressly to them, being assembled in
   council at Tyre, "That they had neither care of the truth, nor love to
   peace, nor conscience of scandal, nor would by any means be prevailed
   on to lay down their malice and animosities," Socrat. Hist., lib. i.
   cap. 34. At length an Arian priest curries favour with his sister
   Constantia: she gets him into the esteem of her brother: after some
   insinuations of his, new edicts, new synods, new recallings, new
   banishments of other persons, follow one upon the neck of another,
   Rufin. Eccles. Hist., lib. i. cap. 11. And when this knack was once
   found out of promoting a sect by imperial favour, it is admirable to
   consider how those good princes, Constantine and his sons, were abused,
   misled, enraged, engaged into mutual dissensions, by the lies,
   flatteries, equivocations of such as called themselves bishops, Rufin.,
   lib. i. cap. 15, 16, etc. As also, how soon, with the many, the whole
   business of religion was hereupon turned into a matter of external pomp
   and dominion. But it is beside my purpose to rake into that hell of
   confusion which by this means brake in upon the churches in succeeding
   ages. Only for the following imperial edicts and constitutions in the
   behalf of the catholic faith, and for the punishing of erring persons,
   I desire to observe, --

   (1.) That the emperors were stirred up to them by turbulent priests and
   aspiring prelates. Let the pope's letters to them witness this. Leo,
   Epist. lxxv. etc.

   (2.) That they were still bottomed upon such and such councils, that
   were not to be opposed or spoken against, when all of them were spent
   for the most part about things quite beside and beyond the Scripture
   (as feasting, and lastings, and bishops' jurisdictions); and some of
   them were the very ulcers and imposthumations of Christian religion, as
   those of Nice and Ephesus, both the second; and in general all of them
   the sea upon which the whore exalted her seat and throne. And these
   things did those good men, either deceived by the craft of heretics, or
   wearied by the importunity of the orthodox.

   And yet, notwithstanding all this (as I shall afterward declare), I
   cannot close with that counsel which Themistius, a philosopher, gave to
   Valens the emperor, and am most abhorrent from the reason of his
   counsel, -- viz., "That he should let all sects alone, because it was
   for the glory of God to be honoured with diversities of opinions and
   ways of worship." Yet though this reason be false and impious, the
   advice itself was well conducing at that time to the peace of the
   churches, something qualifying the spirit of that heretical emperor,
   who before had cruelly raged against all orthodox professors of the
   Deity of Christ, Socrat., lib. iv. cap 27.

   5. Lastly, add unto all that hath been said, "Vice coronidis," for the
   use of such as, enjoying authority, may have misapprehensions of some
   truths of Christ, -- a sad consideration concerning the end and issue
   which the Lord, in his righteous judgment, hath in all ages given to
   persecutors and persecution.

   Nero (of whom says Tertullian, "Tali dedicatore gaudet sanguis
   Christianus"), who was the first that employed the sword against our
   religion, being condemned by the senate to be punished "more majorum,"
   slew himself, with this exprobration of his own sordid villainy,
   "Turpiter vixi, turpius morior," Sueton. in Ner. Domitian, the
   inheritor of his rage and folly, was murdered in his own house by his
   servants, Idem in Domit. Trajan, by a resolution of his joints,
   numbedness of body, and a choking water, perished miserably, Dio
   Cassius de Traj. This is he whose order not to seek out Christians to
   punishment, but yet to punish them appearing, you have in his epistle
   to Pliny, a provincial governor under him, Plin. Epist. xcvii.; which,
   though commended by Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., lib. iii. cap. 33, yet is
   canvassed by Tertullian as a foolish, impious, wicked constitution,
   Apol cap. ii. Hadrian, perishing with a flux and casting of blood, paid
   some part of the price of the innocent blood which he had shed, AElius
   Spart. in Had. Severus poisoned himself, to put an end to his
   tormenting pains, Jul. Capitol. Maximinus, with his son yet a child,
   was torn in pieces of the soldiers, all crying out, "that not a whelp
   was to be left of so cursed a stock." Decius, having reigned scarce two
   years, was slain with his children, Euseb., lib. vii. cap. 1. Valerian,
   being taken by Sapores king of Persia, was carried about in a cage, and
   being seventy years old, was at length flayed alive, Euseb., lib. vii.
   cap. 13. Another Valerian, of the same stamp with his brother and
   kindred, was murdered at Milan. Diocletian being smitten with madness,
   had his palace consumed with fire from heaven, and perished miserably.
   The city of Alexandria, in the time of Gallienus, was, for its
   persecution, so wasted with variety of destroying plagues and
   judgments, that the whole number of its inhabitants answered not the
   grey-headed old men that were in it before, Dionys. apud Euseb., lib.
   vii. cap. 21. What was the end of Julian is known to all. Now, truly,
   of many of these we might well say, as one of old did, "Quales
   imperatores." As Trajan, Hadrian, Severus, Julian, what excellent
   emperors had they been, had they not been persecutors! And all this,
   says Tertullian, is come to pass that men might learn me theomachein.
   He that desires to see more of this, let him consult Tertul. Apol. et
   ad Scap.; Euseb. Eccles. Hist., lib. vii. cap. 21; August. de Civit.
   Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 52; Eutrop., lib. viii. It would be tedious to
   descend to examples of latter ages, our own and the neighbour nations
   do so much, too much, abound with them. Let this that hath been spoken
   suffice to cautionate mortal men how they meddle with the vessels of
   the sanctuary.

   But now may some say, What will be the issue of this discourse? Do you,
   then, leave every one at liberty in the things of God? Hath the
   magistrate nothing to do in or about religion? Is he to depose the care
   thereof? Shall men, exasperated in their spirits by different
   persuasions, be suffered to devour one another as they please?

   III. I have only showed the weakness of those grounds which some men
   make the bottom of their testimonies against the toleration of any
   thing but what themselves conceive to be truth; as also, taken away the
   chief of those arguments upon which such a proceeding against erring
   persons is bottomed as tends to blood and death. What positively the
   civil magistrate may, nay, ought to do, in the whole business of
   religion, comes in the next place to be considered, being the third and
   last part of our discourse.

   Now, my thoughts unto this I shall hold out under these three heads.

   1. What is the magistrate's duty as to the truth, and persons
   professing it.

   2. What in reference to the opposers and revilers of it.

   3. What in respect of dissenters from it.

   1. I shall begin with the first, which to me is much of chiefest
   importance.

   His power, or rather his duty herein, I shall hold out in these ensuing
   propositions:--

   (1.) As all men in general, so magistrates, even as such, are bound to
   know the mind and will of God in the things which concern his honour
   and worship. They are bound, I say, to know it. This obligation lies
   upon all creatures capable of knowing the Creator, answerably to that
   light which of him they have, and the means of revelation which they do
   enjoy. He of whom we speak is supposed to have that most sovereign and
   supreme of all outward teachings, the word of God, with such other
   helps as are thereby revealed, and therein appointed; so as he is bound
   to know the will of God in every thing him concerning. Wherein he foals
   and comes short of the truth, it is his sin; -- the defect being not in
   the manner of the revelation, but in the corruption of his darkened
   mind. Now, that he is to make this inquiry in reference to his calling,
   is evident from that of David, 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, "He that ruleth over
   men must be just, ruling in the fear of God." This fear is only taught
   by the word. Without a right knowledge of God and his mind, there can
   be no true fear of him. That command, also, for the Jewish magistrate
   to study it day and night, and to have the book of the law continually
   before him, because it was the rule of that civil polity whereof he
   was, under God, the head and preserver, by analogy comfirmeth this
   truth, Deut. xvii. 18, 19.

   (2.) If he desire this wisdom sincerely, and the Lord intend him "as a
   light of the morning, as a rising sun, a morning without clouds" to his
   people, doubtless he will reveal himself to him, and teach him his
   mind; as he did David and Solomon, and other holy men of old. And as to
   this, I shall only with due reverence cautionate the sons of men that
   are exalted in government over their brethren, that they take heed of a
   lifted-up spirit, -- the greatest closer of the heart against the truth
   of God. He hath promised to teach the humble and the lowly in mind; the
   proud he beholdeth afar off. Is not this the great reason that the
   rulers believe not on him, and the nobles lay not their necks to the
   yoke of the Lord, even because their hearts are lifted up within them,
   and so lie in an unteachable frame before the Lord?

   (3.) The truth being revealed to them, and their own hearts made
   acquainted therewith, after their personal engagements to the practice
   of the power of godliness, according to the "revelation of God in the
   face of Jesus Christ," three things are incumbent on him in reference
   thereunto.

   [1.] That, according to the measure of its revelation unto him, he
   declare, or take care that it be declared, unto others, even all
   committed to his governing charge. The general equity that is in the
   obligation of "strengthening others when we are confirmed," desiring
   them to be like ourselves in all participation of grace from God, --
   the nature of true zeal for the glory and name of the Lord, are a
   sufficient warrant for this, yea, demand the performance of this duty.
   So Jehoshaphat, being instructed in the ways of God, sent princes and
   priests to teach it in all the cities and towns of Judah, 2 Chron.
   xvii. 7-9. As also did Hezekiah, 2 Chron. xxx. 6-9. Let this, then, be
   our first position:--

   i. It belongs to the duty of the supreme magistrate, the governor or
   shepherd of the people, in any nation, being acquainted with the mind
   of God, to take care that the truth of the gospel be preached to all
   the people of that nation, according to the way appointed, either
   ordinary or extraordinary.

   I make no doubt but God will quickly reject them from their power who,
   knowing their Master's will, are negligent herein.

   [2.] As he is to declare it, so he is to protect it from all violence
   whatever. Jesus Christ is the great king of nations, as well as the
   holy king of saints. His gospel hath a right to be preached in every
   nation, and to every creature under heaven. Whoever forbids or hinders
   the free passage of it, is not only sinful and impious towards God, but
   also injurious towards men.

   Certainly the magistrate is to protect every one and every thing in
   their own right, from the violence and injury of unruly men. In the
   preaching and receiving the gospel there is a right acted, superior to
   all earthly privileges whatever. In this, then, the magistrate is to
   protect it, that under him the professors thereof "may lead a quiet and
   peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty." And for this cause they
   to whom the sword is committed may with the sword lawfully defend the
   truth, as the undoubted right and privilege of those who do enjoy it,
   and of which they cannot be deprived without the greatest injury.
   Jephthah laid it down as the ground of the equity of the wars he waged
   against the Ammonites, that they would possess what the Lord their God
   gave them to possess; the defence whereof he pursued to the subversion
   of their (at first) invading enemies, Judges xi. 24, 33. It is no new
   thing to begin in defence, and end in offence. Now, if the truth be
   given us of the Lord our God to possess, certainly it may be contended
   for by those who owe protection thereunto.

   And if this were not so, we may pray, and prevail, for the prosperity
   of those in authority, and yet, when we have done, not have a right to
   a quiet and peaceable life. Let this, then, be the second assertion:--

   ii. The gospel being preached and declared, as of right it ought to be,
   it is the duty of the magistrate, by the power wherewith he is
   intrusted, to protect and defend it against all or any persons that, by
   force or violence, shall seek to hinder the progress or stop the
   passage of it, under what pretence soever.

   And that a neglect of this also will be attended with the anger of the
   Lord, and the kindling of his wrath, shall not long be doubted of any.

   [3.] The protecting, assisting, and supporting of all the professors of
   it in that profession, and in ways of truth's appointment, for the
   practice of that which is embraced, and the furtherance of it towards
   them who as yet embrace it not, is also required. And of this there are
   sundry parts.

   1st. That, seeing Christ Jesus hath appointed his disciples to walk in
   such societies, and requireth of them such kind of worship, as cannot
   be performed without their meeting together homothumadon, "in one
   place;" that he either provide, or grant being provided, the use of
   such places under his protection as may, in all or any kind, be suited
   and fitted for that end and purpose. And the ground of this is, --

   (1st.) From the right which the gospel of Christ hath to be received
   amongst men, according to his own appointment; whether that be the
   appointment of Christ or not, amongst us is no question.

   (2dly.) Because the magistrate hath the sole power of all public
   places, and the protection of them is committed to him alone, by virtue
   of that consent unto government which is among any people. This proved
   as above. 2dly. A protection in the use of those places, and all things
   exercised in them, answerable to that which he doth and is bound to
   grant unto men in their own private dwellings and families. The reason
   why I am protected from all hurt or violence in my family is, because I
   have a right to dispose of all things in my family, being my own; and
   so hath not another. It was asserted before that Christians have a
   right to the ordinances of Christ, and truth a right to be at liberty;
   and therefore, if any shall invade, disturb, or trouble them in their
   rights and liberties, he is bound, "ex officio," to give them a
   protection, "not bearing the sword in vain."

   Now, being in my family, in my private house, the assistance of those
   in authority is due, --

   (1st.) In respect of them without.

   (2dly.) In respect of them within.

   (1st.) For them without, if any one will, against my consent, intrude
   himself upon my family enjoyments, to share with me, or violently come
   to take away that is mine, or disturb me in the quiet possession of it,
   the magistrate takes cognizance of such disturbances, and punisheth
   them according to equity. Suitably, if any person or persons whatsoever
   shall with violence put themselves upon the enjoyment of such
   ordinances as those enjoying the rights of the gospel have obtained to
   themselves, or shall come in their celebration of them to cause
   disturbance, certainly that magistrate protects not every one in his
   undoubted rights, who doth not accommodate the wronged parties with the
   assistance of his power to the punishment of the transgressors.

   (2dly.) For house dwellers, servants, or any others, who may break out
   into such offences and incorrigibleness as the amendment thereof may be
   beyond what I am intrusted to do to any by law of God or man, shall not
   the magistrate here also interpose? is not his assistance here
   abundantly required and always granted?

   From parity of reason, is it not as due for their protection who, in
   the enjoyment of their public religious rights, may receive
   disturbance, and be under force from some incorrigible by any rule
   among themselves? For instance, -- suppose a person justly
   excommunicated and ejected any society of Christians, as to any
   spiritual communion, yet will with outward force and violence put
   himself upon them in their closest acts of communion; doubtless their
   rights are here to be by power preserved.

   3dly. That whereas the preachers of the gospel are now to be maintained
   in an ordinary way, and to expect their supportment in a usual course
   of providence; and seeing that many to whom we have proved that the
   gospel is to be declared by the care of the magistrate, will not or
   cannot make such provisions for them as is needful in these last evil
   days of the world; it is incumbent on those nursing-fathers to provide
   for them, who, because of their continual labours in the work of the
   Lord, are disenabled to make provision for themselves. Where churches
   are settled according to the rule of the gospel, and not too much
   straitened by reason of want, there may be an alteration as to this
   proposal. That this engagement lies first upon the churches, was seen
   of old. Hence that caution or canon of the Council of Chalcedon, cap.
   vi., Medeis cheirotoneistho apolelumenos, "Let none be ordained at
   large." "Ne dicatur, mendicat in palaestra infelix clericus," says the
   scholiast, -- "lest he should be driven to beg for want of
   maintenance."

   This being the sum of what, as to this head, I have to assert, I shall
   give in the proofs of it, and then draw some farther positions.

   Reason 1. The bottom of the whole ariseth from that right which the
   gospel hath to be preached to all nations and people; and that right,
   paramount to all civil sanctions and constitutions, which every soul
   hath to receive it in the profession thereof. And all this flows from
   the donation of the Father unto Jesus Christ, whereby he is made "heir
   of all things," Heb. i. 2, having the "nations given him for his
   inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession," Ps.
   ii. 8; -- being also" King of kings, and Lord of lords," acting nothing
   in taking possession of his own but what his sovereignty bears him out
   in.

   Reason 2. All this tends to the apparent good of these committed to his
   charge, that they may lead their lives in godliness and honesty; which
   is the very chief end of magistracy committed unto men. This is
   directly intended; all other things come in by accident, and upon
   suppositions.

   Reason 3. No person living can pretend to the least injury by this, --
   none is deprived, none wronged.

   Reason 4. The precepts given unto them, and the promises made
   concerning them, do abundantly confirm all that hath been asserted. Ps.
   ii. 10, 11, they are commanded as kings and judges to serve the Lord,
   in promoting the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is promised,
   Isa. xlix. 23, that "they shall be nursing-fathers and nursing-mothers
   to the church" of Christ, even then when she shall "suck the breasts of
   kings" (earthly things are the milk of kingly breasts), "when her
   officers shall be peace, and her exactors righteousness," Isa. ix. 16,
   17. This, at least, reacheth to all we have ascribed to them. All is
   but bowing the knee of magistracy at the name of Jesus.

   Hence are these positions:--

   iii. The providing or granting of places requisite for the performance
   of that worship which in the gospel is instituted, is the duty of the
   Christian magistrate.

   iv. Protection, as to peace and quietness in the use of the ordinances
   of the Lord Jesus Christ, from violent disturbers, either from without
   or within, is also incumbent on him.

   v. Supportment and provision, as to earthly things, where regularly
   failing, is of him required.

   And in the neglect of any of these that takes place, which is
   threatened, Isa. lx. 12, two or three consectaries, added hereunto,
   shall close this part of the magistrate's power, or rather duty, about
   the things of religion. As, --

   Consect. 1. Positive actings, by way of supportment and assistance,
   maintenance, allowance of public places, and the like, in the behalf of
   persons deviating from the truth, in those things wherein they deviate,
   are contrary to the rule of the word, and duty of them in authority.
   For, --

   Error hath neither right nor promise; nor is any precept given in the
   behalf thereof.

   Consect. 2. The defence and protection of erring persons from violence
   and injury, in those things wherein they have a right, is no acting of
   his duty about religious things, but a mere dealing for the
   preservation of human society, by the defence of persons not acting
   against the rules thereof. [230]

   Consect. 3. Every particular minute difference among the professors of
   the truth cannot be proved to come under the cognizance of the
   magistrate, he being to attend the worship which for the main is
   acceptable to God in Christ; neither do any testimonies extend his duty
   any farther. Hence, --

   Corollary 1. The present differences about church society and the
   subject or seat of discipline, which are between those dissenters who
   are known by the names of Presbyterians and Independents, as they are
   in themselves (not heightened by the prejudices, lusts, corruptions,
   and interests of men), hinder not at all, but that the magistrate is
   bound to the performance of the duties before mentioned unto both
   parties. And the reasons of this are, because, --

   Reason 1. The things wherein they are agreed are clearly as broad as
   the magistrate's duty can be stretched to cover them.

   Reason 2. Neither party, I am persuaded, in their retired thoughts dare
   avow the main of the worship by their dissenters embraced, to be, as
   such, rejected of the Lord.

   Reason 3. No example in the world can be produced out of the Old
   Testament, or New, or ecclesiastical history, of a forcible decision of
   such minute differences. See Socrat. Eccles. Hist., lib. vi. cap. 20.

   Corollary 2. All the plea of persons erring in doctrine or worship is
   not from what the magistrate must do, but from what he may not do.

   And this for the first part shall suffice.

   2. There is another part of the magistrate's power, -- the other side
   of his sword, -- to be exercised towards the opposition of that truth
   which he hath embraced.

   And this hath a twofold object:--

   (1.) Things; (2.) Persons.

   (1.) Things are of two sorts:--

   [1.] Ways of worship.

   [2.] Outward appearances, monuments, accommodations, and declarations
   of those ways.

   Of the first I shall speak afterward.

   By the second I mean all the outward attendances of any false or
   erroneous worship, which are either helps to or declarations of the
   superstition, idolatry, error, or falseness of it; as temples for
   idolatrous service, crosses, pictures, and the like abused relics of
   old, unwarranted zeal. Now, concerning these, I affirm, --

   1st, That the magistrate ought not to make provision of any public
   places for the practice of any such worship as he is convinced to be an
   abomination unto the Lord. When I say he ought not to make provision, I
   understand not only a not actual caring that such be, but also a caring
   that such may not be. He should not have a negation of acting as to any
   thing of public concernment. His not opposing here is providing. For
   instance, he must not allow -- that is, it is his duty to oppose -- the
   setting apart of public places under his protection for the service of
   the mass (as of late in Somerset House), or for any kind of worship in
   itself disallowed, because not required, and so not accepted. This were
   to be bound to help forward sin, and that such sin whereof he is
   convinced; -- which is repugnant to the whole revealed will of God. A
   magistrate, I told you before, is not to act according to what he may
   do, but what he must do. Now, it cannot be his duty to further sin.

   2dly. Outward monuments -- ways of declaring and holding out false and
   idolatrous worship -- he is to remove; as the Papists' images, altars,
   pictures, and the like; Turks' mosques; prelates' service-book. Now
   these are of two sorts:--

   (1st.) Such things as, in their whole use and nature, serve only for
   the carrying on of worship in itself wholly false, and merely invented;
   as altars, images, crosses.

   (2dly.) Such as are used for the carrying on of worship true in itself,
   though vilely corrupted; as praying and preaching; -- such are those
   places commonly called churches.

   The first are to be abolished; the latter aright used. I speak as to
   public appearances; for private disquisitions after such things I may
   be otherwise minded. The reason of this difference is evident to all.

   Thus, in days of old, Constantine shut up Pagans' temples, Euseb. de
   Vita Constant., lib. iv. cap. 23, 24; and demolished some of the most
   filthy of them, lib. iii. cap. 52. Theodosius utterly cast them to the
   ground, though not without some blows and bloodshed, Socrat. Eccles.
   Hist., lib. v. cap. 16. The command of God for the abolishing all
   monuments of idolatry, Deut. xii. 1-3, with the commendation of those
   kings of Judah who accordingly performed this duty, 2 Chron. xvii. 6,
   xxx. 14, are enough to confirm it, and to bottom this position:--

   vi. It is the duty of the magistrate not to allow any public places for
   (in his judgment) false and abominable worship; as also, to demolish
   all outward appearances and demonstrations of such superstitious,
   idolatrous, and unacceptable service.

   Let Papists, who are idolaters, and Socinians, who are anthropolatrae,
   plead for themselves.

   (2.) Now, for persons there seems something more of difficulty; yet
   certain clear rules may be proposed concerning them also, to hold out
   when they and their proceedings come under the cognizance of the civil
   magistrate, and are obnoxious to the sword which he beareth. And they
   are these:--

   [1.] Such persons as, having embraced any false principles and
   persuasion in or about things concerning God and his worship, do pursue
   the upholding or propagating of such principles in a disorderly manner,
   to the disturbance of civil society, are doubtless under his
   restraining power, to be acted and put forth in such ways as to other
   persons running out into the same or the like compass of disorder, upon
   other grounds, and from the instigation of other lusts. The pretence of
   disturbance and confusion, upon the bearing with differences in opinion
   about things commanded in religion, we before rejected, as a colour
   fitted chiefly for the wearing of persecution. But actual disturbances,
   indeed, must have actual restraints. For instance, if a man, being
   persuaded that the power of the magistrate is in Christian religion
   groundless, unwarrantable, unlawful, should thereupon stir up the
   people to the abolishing and removal of that power; such stirrings up,
   and such actings upon that instigation, are as opposite to the gospel
   of Christ (which opposeth no lawful regimen among the sons of men), so
   also prejudicial to human society; and therefore to be proceeded
   against by them who bear not the sword in vain. This case we know
   happened once in Germany, and may do so again in other places. If such
   as these suffer, it is "as murderers, or thieves, or evil-doers, or
   busy-bodies in other men's matters;" which is a shameful thing, no way
   commendable or praiseworthy, 1 Pet. iv. 15.

   [2.] If any persons whatsoever, under any pretence whatsoever, shall
   offer violence or disturbance to the professors of the true worship of
   God, so owned, established, and confirmed as above said, in and for the
   profession of that true, so-owned worship, service, and declaration of
   the mind of God; such persons are to fear that power which is the
   minister of God, and a revenger to them that do evil. Let us suppose of
   them what they suppose, and for their own justification and support in
   irregular ways bear out of themselves, -- that they enjoy the truth,
   others walking in paths of their own; yet then this practice is
   contrary to that prime dictate of nature which none can pretend
   ignorance of, viz., "Do not that to another which thou wouldst not have
   done unto thyself." If men that would not think it equitable to be so
   dealt with as they deal with others, supposing themselves in their
   condition, do yet so deal with them, they are autokatakritoi, and do
   pronounce sentence against themselves out of their own mouths. This,
   then, deserveth punishment; and breaking out to the disturbance of
   public order ought to be punished. We before proved the protection of
   public places to belong to the magistrate; so that he not only may,
   but, if he will not be false to Him by whom he is intrusted, he must,
   put forth his authority for the safe-guarding and revenging of them.
   Yea, also, and this rule may pass, when some things in the way publicly
   established are truly offensive. What the ancient Christians thought of
   the zeal of Audas, a Christian bishop, who would needs demolish a Pagan
   temple in Persia, I know not; but I am sure his discretion is not much
   extolled who, by that one fiery act of destroying pureion, -- that is,
   "a temple of fire" (for the Persians looked upon fire as a god, as the
   historian observes), -- occasioned a cruel persecution of thirty years'
   continuance, Theod. Eccles. Hist., lib. v. cap. 38.

   [3.] When any have entertained any singular opinion in matters of great
   weight and importance, -- such as nearly concern the glory of God, and
   the minds of Christians, in reverence of his holy name, are most
   tenderly affected withal, so that without much horror of mind they can
   scarce hear those errors whereby those grand truths are opposed, -- yet
   those persons who have entertained such uncouth opinions shall not be
   content so to have done, and also in all lawful ways (as to civil
   society) endeavoured to propagate the said opinions to others; but, in
   the pursuit of this their design of opposing truth, shall publicly use
   such expressions, or perform such acts, as are fit to pour contempt and
   scorn upon the truth which they do oppose, -- reviling it also, or God
   himself so represented as he is in the truth they abominate, with
   odious and execrable appellations (as, for instance, the calling the
   holy Trinity, "Tricipitem Cerberum"; -- if the question be put, Whether
   in this case the magistrate be not obliged to vindicate the honour of
   God by corporeal restraints, in some degrees at least, upon the persons
   of those men? -- truly, for my part, I incline to the affirmative. And
   the reason hereof is this:-- Though men, through the incurable
   blindness of their minds, falling into error of judgment and
   misinterpretation of the word, may disbelieve the Deity of Christ, and
   the Holy Spirit; yet that any pretence from the word, persuasion of
   conscience, or dictate of religion, should carry them out to reviling,
   opprobrious speeches of that which of God is held out contrary to their
   apprehensions, is false and remote from reason itself. For this cause
   Paul says he was a blasphemer; -- not because, being a Jew, he
   disbelieved the gospel; but because, so disbelieving it, he moreover
   loaded the truths thereof with contumelious reproaches Such
   expressions, indeed, differ not from those piercing words of the holy
   name of God which he censured to death, Lev. xxiv. 15, but only in
   this, that there seemeth in that to be a plain opposition unto light,
   in this not so. The like may be said of a Jew's crucifying a dog.

   [4.] There are a sort of persons termed in Scripture ataktoi, 1 Thess.
   v. 14; agoraioi. Acts xvii. 5; atopoi, 2 Thess. iii. 2; anupotaktoi, 1
   Tim. i. 9, and the like, -- disorderly, vagabond, wandering, irregular
   persons, fixed to no calling, abiding in no place, taking no care of
   their families; that, under a pretence of teaching the truth, without
   mission, without call, without warrant, uncommanded, undesired, do go
   up and down, from place to place, creeping into houses, etc. Now, that
   such ways as these, and persons in these ways, may be judicially
   inquired into, I no way doubt. The story is famous of Sesostris, king
   of Egypt, who made a law, that all the subjects of his kingdom should
   once a year give an account of their way and manner of living, and if
   any one were found to spend his time idly, he was certainly punished;
   and the laws of most nations have provided that their people shall not
   be wanderers, and whosoever hath not a place of abode and employment is
   by them a punishable vagabond. And in this, by much experience of the
   ways, walking, and converse of such persons, I am exceedingly confirmed
   in. I did as yet never observe any other issue upon such undertakings,
   but scandal to religion, and trouble to men in their civil relations.

   [5.] When men, by the practice of any vice or sin, draw others to a
   pretended religion; or, by pretence of religion, draw men to any vice
   or known sin, let them be twice punished, -- for their real vice, and
   pretended religion. The truth is, I have been taught exceedingly to
   disbelieve all the strange imputations of wickedness and uncleanness
   that are imposed upon many, to be either the end or the medium of the
   practice of that communion in religion which they do profess and
   embrace. I remember that, when I was a boy, all those stories were told
   me of Brownists and Puritans which afterward I found to have been long
   before the forgeries of Pagans, and imposed on the primitive
   Christians. I dare boldly say, I have heard stories of them a hundred
   times, holding out that very thing, and those deeds of darkness, which
   Minutius Felix holds out in the tongue of an infidel concerning the
   Christians of those days; but yet, because sundry venerable persons, to
   whom antiquity hath given sanctuary from being arraigned on the point
   of false testimony, have left it upon record of sundry heretics in
   their days, -- as the Gnostics and others, that they were conjoined
   into "societates tessera pollutionis," and some assert that the like
   iniquities are not wholly buried, I made the supposition, and hope
   that, if they depose themselves from common sense and reason, the
   magistrate will never exalt them to the privilege and exemption of
   religion.

   In these, and such like cases as these, when men shall break forth into
   disturbance of common order and enormities against the light of nature,
   beyond all positive command of any pretended religion whatsoever, that
   the magistrate ought to set hedges of thorns in their ways, sharpened
   according to their several delinquencies, I suppose no man not abhorred
   of common sense can once hesitate or doubt. And I am the more inclined
   to assert a restraint to all such as these, because it may be
   established to the height without the least prejudice unto the truth,
   though persons erring should enjoy the place of authority.

   3. That which now remaineth in this head to be considered, is
   concerning persons maintaining and upholding any great and pernicious
   errors, but in such ways as are not, by any of the former disorders, to
   be brought under the cognizance of the civil magistrate, but good,
   honest, allowable, and peaceable in themselves; not at all to be
   questioned, but in reference to the things that are carried on in and
   by those ways, -- as communication by discourse and private preaching,
   and the like.

   Now, concerning these, it is generally affirmed, that persons
   maintaining any error in or against any fundamental article of faith or
   religion, and that with obstinacy or pertinacy after conviction, ought
   to be proceeded against by the authority of the civil magistrate,
   whether unto death or banishment, imprisonment or confiscation of
   goods.

   (1.) Now unto this -- supposing what I have written heretofore
   concerning the incompetency of all and the non-constitution of any
   judge in this case, with the answers given at the beginning of this
   treatise to most of the places produced usually for the affirmative --
   I shall briefly give in my thoughts; reserving the consideration of
   pressing conformity to the next head to be handled. And, --

   [1.] That I cannot but observe, that, in the question itself, there are
   sundry things gratis assumed; as, --

   1st. That it is known and confessed what articles in religion are
   fundamental, and this also to the magistrate; when no one thing among
   Christians is more questionable, most accounting them so (be they what
   they will) wherein they differ from others. So that, one way or other,
   all dissenters shall be hooked in, directly or indirectly, to clash
   upon fundamentals. In this Papists are secure, who make the church's
   propositions sufficient to make an article fundamental.

   2dly. That the persons holding the error are convinced, when perhaps
   they have been only confuted; between which two there is a wide
   difference. He that holds the truth may be confuted; but a man cannot
   be convinced but by the truth. That a man should be said to be
   convinced of a truth, and yet that truth not shine in upon his
   understanding to the expelling of the contrary error, to me is strange.
   To be convinced, is to be overpowered by the evidence of that which
   before a man knew not. I myself once knew a scholar invited to a
   dispute with another man about something in controversy in religion. In
   his own, and in the judgment of all the bystanders, the opposing person
   was utterly confuted; and yet the scholar, within a few months, was
   taught of God, and clearly convinced that it was an error which he had
   maintained, and the truth which he opposed: and then, and not till
   then, did he cease to wonder that the other person was not convinced by
   his strong arguments, as before he had thought. May not a Protestant be
   really worsted in a dispute by a Papist? hath it not so ere now fallen
   out? -- if not, the Jesuits are egregious liars. To say a man is
   convinced, when, either for want of skill and ability or the like, he
   cannot maintain his opinion to and against all men, is a mere conceit.
   The truth is, I am so far from this morose severity of looking upon all
   erring persons as convinced that have been confuted, that I rather, in
   charity, incline to believe that no erring person, whilst he continues
   in his error, is convinced. It will not easily enter into my dull
   apprehension, how a man can be convinced of an error that is
   enlightened with a contrary truth, and yet hold that error still. I am
   loath to charge more corrupt and vile affections upon any than do
   openly appear. That of Paul, affirming that some men are
   self-condemned, is quite of another nature. I think a person is said to
   be convinced, not when there is sufficiency in the means of conviction,
   but when there is such an efficacy in them as to lay hold upon his
   understanding.

   3dly. That they are obstinate and pertinacious is also a cheap
   supposal, taken up without the price of a proof. What we call
   obstinacy, they call constancy; and what we condemn them for as
   pertinacy, they embrace as perseverance. As the conviction is imposed,
   not owned, so is this obstinacy. If we may be judges of other men's
   obstinacy, all will be plain; but if ever they get uppermost, they will
   be judges of ours. Besides, I know not what good it will do us, or how
   it will advantage our cause, to suppose men obstinate and convinced
   before we punish them, -- no such qualifications being anywhere in the
   book of God urged in persons deserving punishment:-- if they have
   committed the crime whereunto the penalty is annexed, be they obstinate
   or not, they shall be punished.

   [2.] But now, supposing all this, -- that we are clear in all
   fundamentals, -- that we are convinced that they are convinced, and
   doubt not but that they are obstinate; -- if they keep themselves in
   the former bounds, what is to be done? I say, besides what we spake at
   the entrance of this discourse, I shall, as to any ways of corporeal
   co-action and restraint, oppose some few things.

   1st. The non-constitution of a judge in case of heresy is a thing
   civilly criminal. As to spiritual censures, and an ecclesiastical
   judgment of errors and false doctrines, we find them appointed, and a
   lawful judge as to the determining concerning them divinely instituted;
   so that in such ways they may be warrantably proceeded against, Rev.
   xxii. 15. But now, for any judge that should make disquisition
   concerning them, or proceed against them, as things criminal, to be
   punished with civil censures, I conceive the Scripture is silent. And
   indeed, who should it be? The custom of former ages was, that some
   persons of one sort should determine of it as to right, -- viz., that
   such or such a thing was heresy, and such or such a one a heretic, --
   which was the work of priests and prelates; and persons of another sort
   should "de facto" punish, and determine to be punished, those so
   adjudged by the former, -- and these were, as they called them, the
   secular magistrates, officers of this world. And indeed, had not the
   god of this world blinded their eyes, and the God of the spirits of all
   flesh hardened their hearts, they would not have so given up their
   power to the man of sin as to be made so sordidly instrumental to his
   bloody cruelty. We read, Jer. xxvi. 10, 11, that the priests and
   prophets assemble themselves in judgment, and so pronounce sentence
   upon the prophet Jeremiah that he should die for a false prophet; verse
   12, Jeremiah makes his appeal to the secular magistrate, and all the
   people; who, taking cognizance of the cause, pronounce sentence in the
   behalf of the condemned person against the priests and prophets, and
   deliver him whether they will or not, verse 16. I spare the application
   of the story: but that princes and magistrates should, without
   cognizance of the thing or cause, proceed to punishment or censure of
   it, upon the judgment of the priests condemning such or such a man for
   a heretic or a false prophet, -- blessed be the Lord, we have no
   warrant. Had this proceeding been regular, Jeremiah had died without
   mercy for a false prophet, as thousands since, standing before the Lord
   in his spirit, have done. This course, then, that the civil magistrate
   should proceed to sentence of corporeal punishment upon others judging
   of the fault, is vile, sordid, unwarrantable, and exceedingly unworthy
   of any rational man, much more such as are set over the people of the
   land. That the same persons must determine of the cause and appoint the
   punishment is clear.

   Now, who must these be?

   (1st.) Are they the ministers of the gospel? -- of all others, they are
   the most likely to be the most competent judges in spiritual causes.
   Let it be so; but then, also, they must be the determiners and
   inflicters of the punishment upon default. Now, let them pour out upon
   obstinately erring persons all the vengeance that God hath betrusted
   them withal, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty
   through God," etc. By this course, admonition, avoiding, rejection,
   excommunication, will be the utmost that can be inflicted on them;
   which, for my part, I desire may be exercised to the utmost extent of
   the rule.

   (2dly.) Shall the magistrate be made judge of the cause as well as of
   the person? Is he intrusted to determine what is error, what not, --
   what heresy, what not, -- who is an heretic, who not; and so what
   punishment is due to such and such errors, according to the degrees
   wherein they are?

   [1st.] I desire an institution of this ordinance in the church. Where
   is the magistrate intrusted with such a power? where are rules
   prescribed to him in his proceedings?

   [2dly.] Is not a judiciary determination concerning truth and error (I
   mean truths of the gospel) a mere church act? and that church power
   whereby it is effected? Must not, then, the magistrate, "qua talis," be
   a church officer? Will men of this mind tolerate Erastianism?

   [3dly.] If there be a twofold judicature appointed for the same person,
   for the same crime, is it not because one crime may in divers respects
   fall under several considerations? and must not these considerations be
   preserved immixed, that the formal reason of proceeding in one court
   may not be of any weight in the other? We proved before, and it is
   granted of all, that the church is judge in case of heresy and error,
   as such, to proceed against them, as contrary to the gospel; -- their
   opposition to the faith delivered to the saints is the formal reason
   upon which that proceedeth to censure. If, now, this be afterward
   brought under another sentence, of another judicature, must it not be
   under another consideration? Now, what can this be, but its disturbance
   of civil society; which, when it doth so, -- not in pretence, but
   really and actually, -- none denies it to be the magistrate's duty to
   interpose with his power.

   [4thly.] If the magistrate be judge of spiritual offences, and it be
   left to him to determine and execute judgment, in such proportion as he
   shall think meet, according to the quality and degrees thereof, -- it
   is a very strange and unlimited arbitrariness over the lives and
   estates of men: and surely they ought to produce very clear testimonies
   that they are intrusted from the Lord herewith, or they can have no
   great quiet in acting.

   [5thly.] It seems strange to me, that the Lord Jesus Christ should
   commit this architectonical power in his house unto magistrates,
   foreseeing of what sort the greatest number of them would be, yea,
   determining that they should be such, for the trim and affliction of
   his own. View the times that are past, consult the stories of former
   ages, take a catalogue of the kings and rulers that have been, since
   first magistrates outwardly embraced Christian religion in this and
   other nations where the gospel hath been planted; and ask your own
   consciences whether these be the men to whom this high trust in the
   house of God is committed? The truth is, they no sooner left serving
   the dragon in the persecution of the Pagans, but presently, in a very
   few years, they gave up their power to the beast, to set up another
   state in opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel; in the
   supportment whereof the most of them continue labouring till this very
   day. "Hae manus Trojam exigent?" What may be added in this case, I
   refer to another opportunity.

   2dly. Gospel constitutions in the case of heresy or error seem not to
   favour any course of violence, -- I mean, of civil penalties. Foretold
   it is that heresies must be, 1 Cor. xi. 19; but this for the
   manifesting of those that are approved, not the destroying of those
   that are not; -- I say destroying, I mean with temporal punishment,
   that I may add this by the way; for, -- all the arguments produced for
   the punishment of heretics, holding out capital censures, and these
   being the tendence of all beginnings in this kind, -- I mention only
   the greatest, including all other arbitrary penalties, being but steps
   of walking to the utmost censures. Admonitions, and excommunication
   upon rejection of admonition, are the highest constitutions (I suppose)
   against such persons: "Waiting with all patience upon them that oppose
   themselves, if at any time God will give them repentance to the
   acknowledgment of the truth." Imprisoning, banishing, slaying, is
   scarcely a patient waiting. God doth not so wait upon unbelievers.
   Perhaps those who call for the sword on earth are as unacquainted with
   their own spirits as those that called for fire from heaven, Luke ix.
   54. And perhaps the parable of the tares gives in a positive rule as to
   this whole business: occasion may be given of handling it at large; for
   the present I shall not fear to assert, that the answers unto it,
   borrowed by our divines from Bellarmine, will not endure the trial. We
   hope that spiritual quiet, and inoffensiveness in the whole mountain of
   the Lord, which is wrapped up in the womb of many promises, will at
   length be brought forth to the joy of all the children of Zion.

   3dly. Sundry other arguments, taken from the nature of faith, heresy,
   liberty of conscience, the way of illumination, means of communication
   of truth, nature of spiritual things, pravitious tendence of the
   doctrine opposed, if it should be actually embraced by all enjoying
   authority, and the like, I thought at present to have added; but I am
   gone already beyond my purposed resting place.

   (2.) Come we, in a few words, to the last thing proposed (wherein I
   shall be very brief, the main of what I intended being already set
   down), -- the power of the magistrate to compel others to the embracing
   of that religion and way of worship which he shall establish and set
   up; which, for the greater advantage, we shall suppose to be the very
   same, both for the things proposed to be believed and also practised,
   which God himself hath revealed, and requireth all men everywhere to
   embrace. What is to be done for the settling and establishing of the
   profession of the gospel, and the right apprehension of the mind of God
   therein, contradistinct from all those false and erroneous persuasions
   which, in these or former days, [are] or have been held forth in
   opposition thereunto, was before declared; -- how it is to be
   supported, maintained, protected, defended, safe-guarded from all
   oppositions, disturbances, blasphemings, was then and there set down.

   Now, supposing that sundry persons, living under the power, and owning
   civil obedience to the magistrate, will not consent to sound doctrine,
   nor receive in some things (fewer or more, less or greater) that form
   of wholesome words which he holds forth and owns as the mind of Christ
   in the gospel, nor communicate with him in the worship which, by the
   authority of those words or that truth, he hath as before established,
   it is inquired, What is the duty of the magistrate in reference to the
   bringing of them into that subjection which is due unto, and an
   acknowledgment of, the truth?

   And to this I shall briefly give in my answer in these following
   positions:--

   [1.] In reference unto us in this nation, the greatest difficulty in
   giving a full return to this question ariseth from the great disorder
   of the churches of God amongst us. Were the precious distinguished from
   the vile, churches rightly established, and church discipline [so]
   exercised that Christians were under some orderly view, and men might
   be considered in their several capacities wherein they stand, an easy
   finger would untie the knot of this query. But being in that confusion
   wherein we are, gathering into any order being the great work in hand,
   I suppose, under favour, that the time is scarce come for the proposal
   of this question; but yet something may be given in unto it, though not
   so clear as the former supposal, being effected, would cause it to be.

   [2.] The constant practice of the churches in former ages, in all their
   meetings for advice and counsel, to consent unto some form of wholesome
   words, that might be a discriminating "tessera" [symbol] of their
   communion in doctrine, being used in prime antiquity, -- as is manifest
   in that ancient symbol commonly esteemed apostolical (of the chief
   heads whereof mention in the like summary is made in the very first
   writers among them), -- having also warrant from the word of God, and
   being of singular use to hold out unto all other churches of the world
   our apprehensions of the mind of God in the chief heads of religion,
   may be considered. If this be done by the authority of the magistrate,
   -- I mean, if such a declaration of the truth wherein the churches by
   him owned and protected do consent be held out as the confession of
   that truth which he embraceth, -- it will be of singular use unto, yea,
   indeed, must necessarily precede, any determination of the former
   question. Of the nature and use of confessions, etc., so much hath of
   late been learnedly disputed, that I shall not pour out any of mine own
   conceptions for the present about them in that hasty, tumultuary manner
   wherein I am enforced to expose this essay.

   [3.] Those who dissent from the truth so owned, so established, so
   decreed, do so either in less matters of small consequence, and about
   things generally confessed not fundamental; or in great and more
   weighty heads of doctrine, acts of worship, and the like; -- both
   agreeing in this, that they will not hold communion, either as to all
   or some parts and duties thereof, with those churches and persons who
   do embrace the truth so owned, as before, and act accordingly.

   1st, For the first of these, or such as dissent about things of no
   great concernment, in comparison of those other things wherein they do
   agree with them from whom they do dissent, I am bold positively to
   assert, that, saving and reserving the rules and qualifications set
   down under the second head, the magistrate hath no warrant from the
   word of God, nor command, rule, or precept, to enable him to force such
   persons to submit unto the truth as by him established, in those things
   wherein they express a conscientious dissent, or to molest them with
   any civil penalty in case of refusal or non-submission; nor yet did I
   ever in my life meet with any thing in the shape of reason to prove it,
   although the great present clamour of this nation is punctually as to
   this head:-- whatever be pretended, this is the Helena about which is
   the great contest.

   What, I pray, will warrant him, then, to proceed? Will the laws against
   idolatry and blasphemy, with their sanctions towards the persons of
   blasphemers and idolaters? (For I must ingenuously confess, all that
   which, in my poor judgment, looks with any appearance of pressing
   towards Haereticidium is the everlasting equity of those judicial laws,
   and the arbitrariness of magistrates from a divine rule in things of
   the greatest concernment to the glory of God, if free from them; and
   that [as] these laws, I doubt, will scarcely be accommodated unto any
   thing under contest now in this age of the world among Christians.) --
   But shall I say a warrant [may be] taken from hence for the compelling
   of men sound in so many fundamentals as, were it not for the contest
   with them, we would acknowledge sufficient for the entertainment of the
   Lord Jesus in their bosoms, to subject [themselves] to, and close with,
   the things contrary to their present light and apprehension (though
   under a promise of being taught of God), or to inflict penalties upon a
   refusal so to do? -- "Credat Apella!"

   Shall the examples of extraordinary judgments upon idolaters, false
   prophets, by sword and fire from heaven, on magicians, apostates, and
   the like, be here produced? Though such arguments as these have made
   thousands weep tears of blood, yet the consequence, in reason, cannot
   but provoke laughter to all men not wholly forsaken of directing
   principles.

   What, then, shall be done? they will say. They have been admonished,
   rebuked, convinced, -- must they now be let alone?

   Something as to this I shall add in the close of this discourse; -- for
   the present, let learned Whitaker answer for me. And first, to the
   first, -- of their being confuted: "Possunt quidem controversiae ad
   externum forum deferri, et ibi definiri; sed conscientia in eo foro non
   acquiescit, non enim potest conscientia sedari sine Spiritu sancto."
   Let controversies (saith he) be determined how you please, -- until the
   conscience be quieted by the Holy Spirit, there will be little peace.
   Unto which I shall not add any thing, considering what I said before of
   conviction. And to the latter, -- of letting them alone to their own
   ways, "Ecclesiae quidem optatius est levibus quibusdam dissensionibus
   ad tempus agitari, quam in perfida pace acquiescere; non ergo sufficit
   aliquo modo pacem conservari, nisi illam esse sanctam pacem
   constiterit," Whit., Con. 4 de Rom. Pont. qu. 1, cap. 1, sect. 2.
   Better some trouble, than a perfidious, compelled peace. See him handle
   this more at large, with some excellent conclusions to this purpose,
   Con. 4 de Rom. Pont. qu. 1, cap. 1, sect. 19, pp. 48 et 50.

   For these, then (and under this head I compare all such persons as,
   keeping in practice within the bounds before laid forth, do so far hold
   the foundation, as that, neither by believing what is not, nor
   disbelieving what indeed is, they do take in or keep off any such thing
   as wherewithal being embraced, or without which being rejected, the
   life of Christ cannot in any case possibly consist, nor salvation by
   him be obtained), as the magistrate is not bound by any rule or precept
   to assist and maintain them in the practice of those things wherein
   they dissent from the truth; so he is bound to protect them in peace
   and quietness in the enjoyment of all civil rights and liberties; --
   nor hath he either warrant or allowance to proceed against them, as to
   the least penalty, for their dissent in those things they cannot
   receive. Attempts for uniformity among saints, or such as, for aught we
   can conclude either from their opinions or practices, may be so, by
   external force, are purely antichristian.

   2dly. Now, for those that stand at a greater distance from the publicly
   owned and declared truths, -- such as before we spake of, -- the
   orderly way of dealing with such is, in the first place, to bring them
   off from the error of the way which they have embraced; and until that
   be done, all thoughts of drawing in their assent to that from which at
   such a distance they stand is vain and bootless. Now, what course is to
   be taken for the effecting of this? Spiritual ways of healing are known
   to all, -- let them be used; and in case they prove fruitless, for
   aught that yet I can perceive, the persons of men so erring must be
   left in the state and condition we described under the second head.

   And now, to drive on this business any farther by way of contest, I
   will not. My intention at the beginning was only positively to assert,
   and to give in briefly, the scriptural and rational bottoms and proofs
   of those assertions; wherein I have gone aside, to pull or thrust a
   line of debate, I have transgressed against my own purpose, -- I hope
   it will be pardoned; though I am heartily desirous any thing which
   passeth my pen may be brought to the test, and myself reduced where I
   have gone amiss. Yet my spirit faints within me to think of that way of
   handling things in controversy which some men, by reciprocation of
   answers and replies, have wound themselves into. Bolsec, [231] and
   Staphylus, and Stapleton, seem to live again, and much gall from
   beneath to be poured into men's ink. O the deep wounds the gospel hath
   received by the mutual keen invectives of learned men! I hope the Lord
   will preserve me from being engaged with any man of such a frame of
   spirit. What hath been asserted may easily be cast up in a few
   positions; -- the intelligent reader will quickly discern what is aimed
   at, and what I have stood to avow.

   If what is proposed be not satisfactory, I humbly offer to the
   honourable Parliament, that a certain number of learned men, who are
   differently minded as to this business of toleration, which almost
   every where is spoken against, may be desired and required to a fair
   debate of the matter in difference before their own assembly; that so,
   if it be possible, some light may be given to the determination of this
   thing, of so great concernment in the judgments of all men, both on the
   one side and on the other; that so they may "try all things, and hold
   fast that which is good."

   Corol. 1. That magistrates have nothing to do in matters of religion,
   as some unadvisedly affirm, is exceedingly wide from the truth of the
   thing itself.

   Corol. 2. Corporeal punishments for simple error were found out to help
   to build the tower of Babel.


   Si quid novisti rectius istis,

   Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [217] See a "Solemn Testimony against Toleration and the Present
   Proceedings of Sectaries and their Abettors in England, in reference to
   Religion and Government," etc. -- a document sanctioned by the General
   Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Jan. 16, 1649, and published in the
   course of the same year -- Ed.

   [218] Thom. 22ae. g. 13, a. 1, ad 1um.

   [219] Acts xviii. 6, xxvi. 11; 1 Tim. i. 13.

   [220] Bell. Lib. de Laicis., cap. xxi.

   [221] August. de Util. Creden., cap. iii. Thom. pp. q. 1, a. 10. Zanch.
   de SS. q. 12, cap. 2, reg. 10. Tilen. Syntag. Theol. de Interpret. S.
   Thes. 8. Whitak. de SS., qu. 5, cap. 2. Armin. Disput. Pri. Thes. 9, 1.
   Ames. Med. Theol. cap. 34. Thes. 22.

   [222] Orleans gloss, -- a very ancient proverbial saying in France,
   used in ridicule of comments more obscure than the text -- Menage,
   Dict. Etymol., sub. v. Gloze. -- Ed.

   [223] Varro in Augustin. de Civit. Dei.

   [224] Joseph. ad. Ap., lib. i.

   [225] "Moses novos ritus contrariosque caeteris mortalibus indidit.
   Profana illic omnia, quae apud nos sacra; rursum concessa apud illos,
   quae nobis incesta. Projectissima ad libidinem gens alienarum
   concubitum abstinent, inter se nihil illicitum." -- Tacitus (de
   Judaeis) Hist., lib. v. "Judaeos, impulsore Chresto quotidie
   tumultuantes Roma expulit," falsely and foolishly. -- Suet. Claud.,
   cap. xxv. "Quaesitissimis poenis afficiebat, quos per flagitia invisos
   vulgus Christianos apellabat." Tac. An., lib. xv. "Afflicti suppliciis
   Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae." --
   Sueton. in Nerone, cap. xvi.

   [226] Epiphan. tom. ii. lib. 1, Haer. 26.

   [227] "Becanus de fide haereticis servanda." -- Bell., De Laicis, etc.

   [228] Sulpitius Severus, lib. ii., Eccles. Hist.

   [229] Hist. of Reformation in Scotland.

   [230] For this cause the emperors of old still allowed the Novatians
   the liberty of worship.

   [231] Bolsec was a bitter opponent of Calvin, and wrote with much
   acrimony against him. -- De J. Calv. Hist. Col. 1580. Staphylus was was
   at one time an evangelical theologian of the Lutheran Church, and
   afterwards became a violent enemy of the Reformation, 1558-1564.
   Stapelton was a celebrated Roman Catholic divine, born in Sussex 1535.
   He left England on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and was appointed
   Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Louvain. He died in
   1598. His works were published at Paris in 1620, in four vols. folio.
   -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon IV.

   The steadfastness of the promises,

   and

   the sinfulness of staggering:

   opened in a sermon preached at Margaret's in Westminster, before the
   Parliament, February 28, 1649,

   being a day set apart for solemn humiliation throughout the nation.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   The following discourse was preached after Owen's return from Ireland.
   The expedition of Cromwell had been eminently successful in
   establishing peace, after the massacres and commotions which had long
   prevailed in that island. Owen, however, had set his heart upon
   securing for it higher blessings than outward peace, enforced by the
   conquering sword of the Protector. It is affecting to note the depth of
   spiritual concern and anxiety he evinces, that Ireland should enjoy the
   gospel of Christ, as the only cure for its manifold and inveterate
   disorders. How humbling, that extensive districts of it should have
   remained to our day substantially under the same wants and necessities
   which bad a voice so clamant in the ear of Owen! It reads as if the
   utterance of yesterday, when we find him declaring his heartfelt wish,
   that "the Irish might enjoy Ireland as long as the moon endureth, so
   that Jesus Christ might possess the Irish."

   Mr Orme holds, apparently on good grounds, that this sermon was really
   delivered before the House of Commons, not in February 1649, as the
   title bears, but in February 1650. The epistle dedicatory to the
   preceding sermon on" Righteous Zeal," etc., has the address and date,
   "Coggeshall, Feb. 28," (undoubtedly 1649), which is the same day on
   which, by the title of the present sermon, he was preaching at London.
   Some allusions in this sermon are thought to indicate that Owen had
   been in Ireland; and though, in all the editions of it, the year is
   said to have been 1649, by the present mode of reckoning it would be
   1650. We may add, that in the old collections of Owen's sermons, this
   one follows the sermon next in the present order, on Heb. xii. 27. On
   the other hand, Asty affirms that it was preached before Owen went to
   Ireland, and speaks of it as giving rise to his acquaintance with
   Cromwell. The allusions to Ireland may not be regarded by some as very
   decisive on the point; and it is singular that the number of the year
   should differ from the mode of reckoning common to the dates of the
   other sermons published by Owen about this time. Since authorities
   differ, we have given the evidence on both sides, and the sermons
   appear in the order in which, by the dates and titles, they are said to
   have been preached. Mr Orme seems to us clearly in the right; and,
   though the matter is not of much importance, we have, under this view,
   some record in this discourse of the impressions left on the mind of
   Owen by his visit to Ireland. On the first occasion on which he ever
   preached before the House of Commons, he entreated that the destitute
   parts of England and Wales might be supplied with the gospel; and now
   on his return from his mission to Dublin, as soon as he has the ear of
   Parliament, he implores, in fervent terms, that the gospel may be sent
   to Ireland. The fact bespeaks his own heartfelt sense of its value, and
   shows how wisely be could turn opportunities to account for the
   advancement of his Master's cause. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Die Veneris, 1 Martii, 1649.

   Ordered by the Parliament, That the thanks of this House be given to Mr
   Owen for his great pains taken in his sermon preached yesterday before
   the Parliament, at Margaret's, Westminster (being a day set apart for
   public humiliation); and that he be desired to print his sermon; and
   that he have the like privilege in printing as others in like cases
   have usually had. Ordered, That Sir William Masham do give the thanks
   of this House to Mr Owen accordingly.

   Hen. Scobell, Cler. Parl.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the Commons of England, in Parliament assembled.

   Sirs,

   That God in whose hands your breath is, and whose are all your ways,
   having caused various seasons to pass over you, and in them all
   manifested that his works are truth and his ways judgment, calls
   earnestly by them for that walking before him which is required from
   them who, with other distinguishing mercies, are interested in the
   speciality of his protecting providence. As, in a view of present
   enjoyments, to sacrifice to your net, and burn incense to your drag, as
   though by them your portion were fat and plenteous, is an exceeding
   provocation to the eyes of his glory; so, to press to the residue of
   your desires and expectations by an arm of flesh, the designings and
   contrivances of carnal reason, with outwardly appearing mediums of
   their accomplishment, is no less an abomination to him. Though there
   may be a present sweetness to them that find the life of the hand, yet
   their latter end will be, to lie down in sorrow. That you might be
   prevailed on to give glory to God, by steadfastness in believing,
   committing all your ways to him, with patience in well-doing, to the
   contempt of the most varnished appearance of carnal policy, was my
   peculiar aim in this ensuing sermon.

   That which added ready willingness to my obedience unto your commands
   for the preaching and publishing hereof, being a serious proposal for
   the advancement and propagation of the gospel in another nation, is
   here again recommended to your thoughts, by

   Your Most Humble Servant

   In Our Common Master,

   J. Owen.

   March 8, 1649.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon IV. The steadfastness of the promises, and the sinfulness of staggering.

   "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief." -- Rom. iv.
   20.

   In the first chapters of this epistle, the apostle, from Scripture and
   the constant practice of all sorts of men of all ages, Jews and
   Gentiles, wise and barbarians, proves all the world, and every
   individual therein, to "have sinned and come short of the glory of
   God;" -- and not only so, but that it was utterly impossible that, by
   their own strength, or by virtue of any assistance communicated, or
   privileges enjoyed, they should ever attain to a righteousness of their
   own that might be acceptable unto God.

   Hereupon he concludes that discourse with these two positive
   assertions:--

   First, That for what is past, "every mouth must be stopped, and all the
   world become guilty before God, chap. iii. 19.

   Secondly, For the future, though they should labour to amend their
   ways, and improve their assistances and privileges to a better
   advantage than formerly, "yet by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be
   justified in the sight of God," verse 20.

   Now, it being the main drift of the apostle, in this epistle, and in
   his whole employment, to manifest that God hath not shut up all the
   sons of men hopeless and remediless under this condition, he
   immediately discovers and opens the rich supply which God, in free
   grace, hath made and provided for the delivery of his own from this
   calamitous estate, even by the righteousness of faith in Christ; which
   he unfoldeth, asserteth, proves, and vindicates from objections, to the
   end of the 3d chapter.

   This being a matter of so great weight, as comprising in itself the sum
   of the gospel wherewith he was intrusted, -- the honour and exaltation
   of Christ, which above all he desired, -- the great design of God to be
   glorious in his saints, -- and, in a word, the chief subject of the
   embassage from Christ to him committed (to wit, that they who neither
   have, nor by any means can attain, a righteousness of their own, by the
   utmost of their workings, may yet have that which is complete and
   unrefusable in Christ, by believing); he therefore strongly confirms it
   in the 4th chapter, by testimony and example of the Scripture, with the
   saints that were of old; -- thereby also declaring, that though the
   manifestation of this mystery were now more fully opened by Christ from
   the bosom of the Father, yet indeed this was the only way for any to
   appear in the presence of God, ever since sin entered the world.

   To make his demonstrations the more evident, he singleth out one for an
   example who was eminently known, and confessed by all to have been the
   friend of God, -- to have been righteous and justified before him, and
   thereon to have held sweet communion with him all his days; to wit,
   Abraham, the father according to the flesh of all those who put in the
   strongest of all men for a share in righteousness, by the privileges
   they did enjoy and the works they did perform.

   Now, concerning him the apostle proves abundantly, in the beginning of
   the 4th chapter, that the justification which he found, and the
   righteousness he attained, was purely that, and no other, which he
   before described; to wit, a righteousness in the forgiveness of sins
   through faith in the blood of Christ. Yea, and that all the privileges
   and exaltations of this Abraham, which made him so signal and eminent
   among the saints of God as to be called "The father of the faithful,"
   were merely from hence, that this righteousness of grace was freely
   discovered and fully established unto him; -- an enjoyment being
   granted him in a peculiar manner by faith of that promise wherein the
   Lord Christ, with the whole spring of the righteousness mentioned, was
   enwrapped. This the apostle pursues, with sundry and various inferences
   and conclusions, to the end of verse 17, chapter 4.

   Having laid down this, in the next place he gives us a description of
   that faith of Abraham whereby he became inheritor of those excellent
   things, from the adjuncts of it; -- that as his justification was
   proposed as an example of God's dealing with us by his grace; so his
   faith might be laid down as a pattern for us in the receiving that
   grace.

   Now, this he doth from, --

   First, The foundation of it, whereon it rested.

   Secondly, The matter of it, what he believed.

   Thirdly, The manner of it, or how he believed.

   First, From the bottom and foundation on which it rested, -- viz., the
   omnipotency or all-sufficiency of God, whereby he was able to fulfil
   whatever he had engaged himself unto by promise, and which he called
   him to believe, verse 17, "He believed God, who quickeneth the dead,
   and calleth those things which be not as though they were."

   Two great testimonies are here of the power of God.

   1. That he "quickeneth the dead:" -- able he is to raise up those that
   are dead to life again.

   2. He "calleth things that are not as though they were:" -- by his very
   call or word gives being to those things which before were not, as when
   he said, "Let there be light, and there was light," Gen. i. 3; by that
   very word "commanding light to shine out of darkness," 2 Cor. iv. 6.

   These demonstrations of God's all-sufficiency he considereth in
   peculiar reference to what he was to believe; to wit, that "he might be
   the father of many nations," verse 11, -- of the Jews, "according to
   the flesh," -- of Jews and Gentiles, according to the faith whereof we
   speak. For the first, "his body being now dead, and Sarah's womb dead,"
   verse 19, he rests on God "as quickening the dead," in believing that
   he "shall be the father of many nations." For the other, that he should
   be a father of the Gentiles by faith, the Holy Ghost witnesseth that
   they "were not a people," Hos. ii. 23. The implanting of them in his
   stock must be by a power "that calleth things that are not, as though
   they were," -- giving a new nature and being unto them, which before
   they had not.

   To bottom ourselves upon the all-sufficiency of God, for the
   accomplishment of such things as are altogether impossible to any thing
   but that all-sufficiency, is faith indeed, and worthy our imitation. It
   is also the wisdom of faith to pitch peculiarly on that in God which is
   accommodated to the difficulties wherewith it is to wrestle. Is Abraham
   to believe that from his dead body must spring a whole nation? -- he
   rests on God, as "him that quickeneth the dead."

   Secondly, His faith is commended from the matter of it, or what he did
   believe; which is said in general to be "the promise of God," verse 20,
   "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief." And
   particularly, the matter of that promise is pointed at, verses 11, 18,
   -- that he should be "the father of many nations;" that was, his being
   a "father of many nations," of having "all nations blessed in his
   seed:" -- a matter entangled with a world of difficulties, considering
   the natural inability of his body and the body of Sarah to be parents
   of children. But, when God calls for believing, his truth and
   all-sufficiency being engaged, no difficulty nor seeming
   impossibilities that the thing to be believed is or may be attended
   withal, ought to be of any weight with us. He who hath promised is
   able.

   Thirdly, From the manner of his believing, which is expressed four
   ways.

   1. "Against hope, he believed in hope," verse 18. Here is a twofold
   hope mentioned; -- one that was against him, the other that was for
   him.

   (1.) He "believed against hope;" that is, when all arguments that might
   beget hope in him were against him. "Against hope," is against all
   motives unto hope whatever. All reasons of natural hope were against
   him. What hope could arise, in or by reason, that two dead bodies
   should be the source and fountain of many nations? so that against all
   inducements of a natural hope he believed.

   (2.) He "believed in hope;" that is, such hope as arose, as his faith
   did, from the consideration of God's all-sufficiency. This is an
   adjunct of his faith, -- it was such a faith as had hope adjoined with
   it. And this believing in hope, when all reasons of hope were away, is
   the first thing that is set down of the manner of his faith. In a decay
   of all natural helps, the deadness of all means, an appearance of an
   utter impossibility that ever the promise should be accomplished, --
   then to believe with unfeigned hope is a commendable faith.

   2. He was "not weak in faith," verse 19, meiosis, "minime debilis,"
   Beza. He was by "no means weak;" a negation that, by a figure, me
   asthenesas, doth strongly assert the contrary to that which is dented.
   He was no way weak; that is, he was very strong in faith, as is
   afterwards expressed, verse 20, He "was strong in faith, giving glory
   to God." And the apostle tells you wherein this his not weakness did
   appear: saith he, "He considered not his own body being now dead, when
   he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's
   womb," verse 19. It was seen in this, that his faith carried him above
   the consideration of all impediments that might lie in the way to the
   accomplishment of the promise.

   It is mere weakness of faith that makes a man lie poring on the
   difficulties and seeming impossibilities that lie upon the promise. We
   think it our wisdom and our strength to consider, weigh, and look into
   the bottom of oppositions and temptations that arise against the
   promise. Perhaps it may be the strength of our fleshly, carnal reason,
   but certainly it is the weakness of our faith. He that is strong in
   faith will not so much as debate or consider the things that cast the
   greatest seeming improbability, yea, impossibility, on the fulfilling
   of the promise: it will not afford a debate or dispute of the cause,
   nor any consideration. "Being not weak in faith, he considered not."

   3. He was "fully persuaded," verse 21, plerothphoretheis, "persuasionis
   plenus." This is the third thing that is observed in the manner of his
   believing. He fully, quietly, resolvedly cast himself on this, that "he
   who had promised was able to perform it." As a ship at sea (for so the
   word imports), looking about, and seeing storms and winds arising, sets
   up all her sails, and with all speed makes to the harbour; Abraham,
   seeing the storms of doubts and temptations likely to rise against the
   promise made unto him, with full sail breaks through all, to lie down
   quietly in God's all-sufficiency.

   4. The last is, that "he staggered not," verse 20. This is that which I
   have chosen to insist on unto you, as a choice part of the commendation
   of Abraham's faith, which is proposed for our imitation: "He staggered
   not at the promise of God through unbelief."

   The words may be briefly resolved into this doctrinal proposition:--

   Observation. All staggering at the promises of God is from unbelief.

   What is of any difficulty in the text, will be cleared in opening the
   parts of the observation.

   Men are apt to pretend sundry other reasons and causes of their
   staggering: The promises do not belong unto them, -- God intends not
   their souls in them, -- they are not such and such, -- and this makes
   them stagger; when the truth is, it is their unbelief, and that alone,
   that puts them into this staggering condition. As in other things, so
   in this, we are apt to have many fair pretences for foul faults. To lay
   the burden on the right shoulders, I shall demonstrate, by God's
   assistance, that it is not this, or that, but unbelief alone, that
   makes us stagger at the promises.

   To make this the more plain, I must open these two things:--

   I. What is the promise here intended.

   II. What it is to stagger at the promise.

   I. The promise here mentioned is principally that which Abraham
   believing, it was said eminently that "it was accounted to him for
   righteousness." So the apostle tells us, verse 5 of this chapter. When
   this was, you may see Gen. xv. 6; there it is affirmed, that "he
   believed the Lord, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." That
   which God had there spoken to him of, was about "the multiplying of his
   seed as the stars of heaven, whereas he was yet childless."

   The last verse of chapter xiv. leaves Abraham full of earthly glory. He
   had newly conquered five kings with all their host, was honoured by the
   king of Sodom, and blessed by the king of Salem; and yet, in the first
   verse of chapter xv., God, "appearing to him in a vision," in the very
   entrance, bids him "fear not; "-- plainly intimating, that
   notwithstanding all his outward success and glory, he had still many
   perplexities upon his spirit, and had need of great consolation and
   establishment. Abraham was not clear in the accomplishment of former
   promises about the blessed seed; and so, though he have all outward
   advancements, yet he cannot rest in them. Until a child of God be clear
   in the main in the matter of the great promise, -- the business of
   Christ, the greatest outward successes and advantages will be so far
   from quieting and settling his mind, that they rather increase his
   perplexities. They do but occasion him to cry, Here is this and that;
   here is victory and success; here is wealth and peace; -- but here is
   not Christ.

   That this was Abraham's condition appears from verse 2 of that chapter;
   where God having told him that he was his shield, and his exceeding
   great reward, he replies, "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I
   go childless?" As if he should have said, Lord God, thou toldest me
   when I was in Haran, now nineteen years ago, that in me and "my seed
   all the families of the earth should be blessed," Gen. xii. 3, -- that
   the blessed, blessing seed, should be of me: but now I wax old, all
   appearances grow up against the direct accomplishment of that word; and
   it was that which, above all, in following thee, I aimed at: if I am
   disappointed therein, what shall I do? and what will all these things
   avail me? -- what will it benefit me to have a multitude of earthly
   enjoyments, and leave them in the close to my servant?

   I cannot but observe, that this sighing, mournful complaint of Abraham,
   hath much infirmity, and something of diffidence mixed with it. He
   shakes in the very bottom of his soul, that improbabilities were
   growing up, as he thought, to impossibilities against him in the way of
   promise. Yet hence also mark these two things: First, That he doth not
   repine in himself, and keep up his burning thoughts in his breast, but
   sweetly breathes out the burden of his soul into the bosom of his God.
   "Lord God," saith he, "what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?"
   It is of sincere faith, to unlade our unbelief in the bosom of our God.
   Secondly, That God takes not his servant at the advantage of his
   complaining and diffidence; but lets that pass, until having renewed
   the promise to him, and settled his faith, then he gives in his
   testimony that he believed God. The Lord overlooks the weakness and
   causeless wailings of his, takes them at the best, and then gives his
   witness to them.

   This, I say, was the promise whereof we spake, -- that he should have a
   seed of his own, "like the stars that cannot be numbered," Gen. xv. 4,
   5. And herein are contained three things.

   1. The purely spiritual part of it, that concerned his own soul in
   Christ. God engaging about his seed, minds him of his own interest in
   that seed which brings the blessing. Jesus Christ, with his whole
   mediation, and his whole work of redemption, is in this promise, with
   the enjoyment of God in covenant, "as a shield, and as an exceeding
   great reward."

   2. The kingdom of Christ, in respect of the propagation and
   establishment of it, with the multitude of his subjects, -- that also
   is in this promise.

   3. The temporal part of it, -- multitudes of children to a childless
   man, and an heir from his own bowels.

   Now this promise, in these three branches, takes up your whole
   interest, comprises all you are to believe for, be you considered
   either as believers or as rulers. As believers:-- so your interest lies
   in these two things: That your own souls have a share and portion in
   the Lord Christ; and that the kingdom of the Lord Jesus be exalted and
   established. As rulers:-- That peace and prosperity may be the
   inheritance of the nation, is in your desires. Look upon this in
   subordination to the kingdom of Christ, and so all these are in this
   promise.

   To make this more plain, these being the three main things that you aim
   at, I shall lay before you three promises, suited to these several
   things, which, or the like, you are to view in all your actings, all
   staggering at them being from unbelief.

   The first thing you are to believe for, is the interest of your own
   souls in the covenant of grace by Christ. As to this, I shall only
   point unto that promise of the covenant, Heb. viii. 12, "I will be
   merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities
   will I remember no more."

   The second is the establishment of the kingdom of Christ, in despite of
   all opposition And for this, amongst innumerable [passages], take that
   of Isa. ix. 11. "Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they
   shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the
   forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought: for the
   nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish."

   The quiet and peace of the nation, which ye regard as rulers, as it
   stands in subordination to the kingdom of Christ, comes also under the
   promise; for which take that of Jer. xxx. 20, 21.

   These being your three main aims, let your eye be fixed on these three,
   or the like promises; for in the demonstration and the use of the point
   I shall carry along all three together, desiring that what is instanced
   in any one may be always extended to both the others.

   II. What is it to stagger at the promise? "He staggered not," ou
   diekrithe, "he disputed not." Diakrinomai is, properly, to make use of
   our own judgment and reason in discerning of things, of what sort they
   be. It is sometimes rendered, "to doubt," Matt. xxi. 21, "If ye have
   faith" (kai me diakrithete), "and doubt not:" that is, not use arguings
   and reasonings in yourselves concerning the promise and things
   promised. Sometimes it simply denotes to discern a thing as it is:-- so
   the word is used, 1 Cor. xi. 29, Diakrinon to soma, "Discerning the
   body." In the sense wherein it is here used, as also Matt. xxi. 21, it
   holds out, as I said, a self-consultation and dispute concerning those
   contrary things that are proposed to us. So also Acts x. 20, Peter is
   commanded to obey the vision, meden diakrinomenos, "nothing doubting."
   What is that? Why, a not continuing to do what he is said to have done,
   verse 17, "He doubted in himself what the vision he had seen should
   mean;" he rolled and disputed it in his own thoughts; he staggered at
   it.

   To stagger, then, at the promise, is to take into consideration the
   promise itself, and withal, all the difficulties that lie in the way
   for the accomplishment of it, as to a man's own particular, and then so
   to dispute it in his thoughts, as not fully to cast it off, nor fully
   to close with it. For instance, the soul considers the promise of free
   grace in the blood of Jesus, -- looks upon it, -- weighs as well as it
   is able the truth of God, who makes the promise, with those other
   considerations which might lead the heart to rest firmly upon it; but
   withal, takes into his thoughts his own unworthiness, sinfulness,
   unbelief, hypocrisy, and the like, -- which, as he supposes, powerfully
   stave off the efficacy of the promise from him. Hence he knows not what
   to conclude. If he add a grain of faith, the scale turns on the side of
   the promise; the like quantity of unbelief makes it turn upon him; and
   what to do he knows not; let go the promise he cannot, take fast hold
   he dares not; but here he staggers and wavers to and fro.

   Thus the soul comes to be like Paul, in another case, Phil. i. 23. He
   considered his own advantage on the one side by his dissolution, and
   the profit of the churches by his abiding in the flesh on the other;
   and taking in these various thoughts, he cries out he is in a strait;
   -- he staggered, he was betwixt two, and knew not which to choose: or
   as David, 2 Sam. xxiv. 14, when he had a tender of several corrections
   made to him, says, "I am in a great strait;" -- he sees evil in every
   one, and knows not which to choose.

   A poor creature looking upon the promise sees, as he supposes, in a
   steadfast closing with the promise, that there lies presumption; on the
   other hand, certain destruction if he believes not. And now he
   staggers, -- he is in a great strait: arguments arise on both sides, he
   knows not how to determine them; and so, hanging in suspense, he
   staggereth. Like a man travelling a journey, and meeting with two
   several paths that promise both fairly, and he knows not which is his
   proper way; he guesses, and guesses, and at length cries, Well, I know
   not which of these ways I should go; but this is certain, if I mistake,
   I am undone: I'll go in neither, but here I'll sit down, and not move
   one step in either of them, until some one come that can give me
   direction. The soul very frequently sits down in this hesitation, and
   refuses to step one step forward, till God come mightily and lead out
   the spirit to the promise, or the devil turn it aside to unbelief.

   It is as a thing of small weight in the air: the weight that it hath
   carries it downwards; and the air, with some breath of wind, bears it
   up again, so that it waves to and fro: sometimes it seems as though it
   would fall by its own weight; and sometimes again, as though it would
   mount quite out of sight; but poised between both, it tosseth up and
   down, without any great gaining either way. The promise draws the soul
   upward, and the weight of its unbelief sinks it downward. Sometimes the
   promise attracts so powerfully, you would think the heart quite drawn
   up into it; and sometimes again unbelief presses down, that you would
   think it gone forever; -- but neither prevails utterly, the poor
   creature swags between both. This is to stagger. Like the two disciples
   going to Emmaus, Luke xxiv. 14, "They talked together of the things
   that had happened," -- debated the business; and, verse 21, they gave
   up the result of their thoughts. They "trusted it had been he that
   should have redeemed Israel." They trusted once; but now, seeing him
   slain and crucified, they know not what to say to it. What then? do
   they quite give over all trusting in him? No, they cannot do so, verses
   22-24. Certain women had astonished them, and affirmed that he was
   risen; yea, and others also, going to his grave, found it so. Hereupon
   they have consultation within themselves, and are sad, verse 17; --
   that is, they staggered, they were in a staggering condition; much
   appears for them, something against them, -- they know not what to do.

   A poor soul, that hath been long perplexed in trouble and anxiety of
   mind, finds a sweet promise, -- Christ in a promise suited to all his
   wants, coming with mercy to pardon him, with love to embrace him, with
   blood to purge him, -- and is raised up to roll himself in some measure
   upon this promise. On a sudden, terrors arise, temptations grow strong,
   new corruptions break out, -- Christ in the promise dies to him, Christ
   in the promise is slain, is in the grave as to him; so that he can only
   sigh, and say, I trusted for deliverance by Christ, but now all is gone
   again; I have little or no hope, -- Christ in the promise is slain to
   me. What then? shall he give over? never more inquire after this buried
   Christ, but sit down in darkness and sorrow No, he cannot do so: this
   morning some new arguments of Christ's appearance again upon the soul
   are made out; Christ is not forever lost to him. What does he, then?
   Steadfastly believe he cannot, -- totally give over he will not; he
   staggers, -- he is full of self-consultations, and is sad. This it is
   to stagger at the promise of God.

   I come now to prove, that notwithstanding any pretences whatever, all
   this staggering is from unbelief.

   The two disciples, whom we now mentioned, that staggered and disputed
   between themselves in their journey to Emmaus, thought they had a good
   reason, and a sufficient appearing cause of all their doubtings. "We
   hoped," say they, "that it was he that should have redeemed Israel."
   What do they now stand at? Alas! the "chief priests and rulers have
   condemned him to death, and crucified him," Luke xxiv. 20. And is it
   possible that deliverance should arise from a crucified man? This makes
   them stagger. But when our Saviour himself draws nigh to them, and
   gives them the ground of all this, he tells them it is all from hence,
   they are "foolish, and slow of heart to believe," verse 25. Here is the
   rise of all their doubtings, even their unbelief. Whilst you are slow
   of heart to believe, do not once think of establishment.

   Peter venturing upon the waves at the command of Christ, Matt. xiv. 1,
   seeing "the wind to grow boisterous," verse 30, he also hath a storm
   within, and cries out, "Lord, save me!" What was now the cause of
   Peter's fear and crying out? Why, the wind and sea grew boisterous, and
   he was ready to sink; -- no such thing, but merely unbelief, want of
   faith, verse 31. "O thou of little faith," saith our Saviour,
   "wherefore didst thou doubt?" It was not the great wind, but thy little
   faith that made thee stagger. And in three or four other places, upon
   several occasions, doth our Saviour lay all the wavering and staggering
   of his followers as to any promised mercy upon this score, as Matt. vi.
   30, viii. 26.

   Isa. vii., Ahaz being afraid of the combination of Syria and Ephraim
   against him, received a promise of deliverance by Isaiah, verse 7.
   Whereupon the prophet tells him, and all Judah, that "if they will not
   believe, surely they shall not be established," verse 9. He doth not
   say, If Damascus and Ephraim be not broken, you shall not be
   established; no, he doth not stick there. The fear that you will not be
   established ariseth merely from your unbelief; -- that keeps you off
   from closing with the promise, which would certainly bring you
   establishment.

   And this is the sole reason the apostle gives why the word of promise,
   being preached, becomes unprofitable, even because of unbelief: it was
   not "mixed with faith," Heb. iv. 2.

   But these things will be more clear under the demonstration of the
   points, which are two.

   1. When a man doubts, hesitates, and disputes, any thing in himself,
   his reasonings must have their rise, either from something within
   himself, or from something in the things concerning which he
   staggereth; -- either "certitudo mentis," "the assurance of his mind,"
   or "certitudo entis," the "certainty of the thing itself," is wanting.
   He that doubteth whether his friend in a far country be alive or not,
   his staggering ariseth from the uncertainty of the thing itself; when
   that is made out, he is resolved, as it was with Jacob in the case of
   Joseph. But he that doubteth whether the needle in the compass, being
   touched with the loadstone, will turn northward, all the uncertainty is
   in his own mind.

   When men stagger at the promises, this must arise either from within
   themselves, or some occasion must be administered hereunto from the
   promise. If from within themselves, that can be nothing but unbelief;
   -- an inbred obstacle to closing with and resting on the promise, --
   that is unbelief. If, then, we demonstrate that there is nothing in the
   promise, either as to matter or manner, or any attendancy of it, that
   should occasion any such staggering, we lay the burden and blame on the
   right shoulders, -- the sin of staggering on unbelief.

   Now, that any occasion is not administered, nor cause given, of this
   staggering from the promise, will appear if we consider seriously
   whence any such occasion or cause should arise. All the stability of a
   promise depends upon the qualifications of the promiser to the ends and
   purposes of the promise. If a man make me a promise to do such and such
   things for me, and I question whether ever it will be so or not, it
   must be from a doubt of the want of one of these things in him that
   makes the promise; -- either (1.) of truth; or (2.) of ability to make
   good his word, because of the difficulty of the thing itself; or (3.)
   of sincerity to intend me really what he speaks of; or (4.) of constant
   memory to take the opportunity of doing the thing intended; or (5.) of
   stableness to be still of the same mind. Now, if there be no want of
   any of these in him whose promises we speak of, there is then certainly
   no ground of our staggering, but only from our own unbelief.

   Let us now see whether any of these things be wanting to the promises
   of God; and begin we with the first.

   (1.) Is there truth in these promises? If there be the least occasion
   in the world to suspect the truth of the promises or the veracity of
   the promiser, then may our staggering at them arise from thence, and
   not from our own unbelief. On this ground it is that all human faith,
   that is bottomed merely on the testimony of man, is at best but a
   probable opinion; for every man is a liar, and possibly may lie in that
   very thing he is engaged to us in. Though a good man will not do so to
   save his life, yet it is possible he may be tempted, -- he may do so.
   But now, the author of the promises whereof we speak is truth itself,
   -- the God of truth, who hath taken this as his special attribute, to
   distinguish him from all others. He is the very God of truth; and holds
   out this very attribute in a special manner in this very thing, in
   making of his promise: "He is faithful to forgive us our sins," 1 John
   i. 9. Whence his word is said not only to be true, but "truth," John
   xvii. 17, -- truth itself. All flesh is as grass, but his word abideth
   for ever, Isa. xl. 6, 8.

   But yet farther, that it may be evident that from hence there can be no
   occasion of staggering, this God of truth, whose word is truth, hath,
   in his infinite wisdom, condescended to our weakness, and used all
   possible means to cause us to apprehend the truth of his promises. The
   Lord might have left us in the dark, -- to have gathered out his mind
   and will towards us from obscure expressions; and, knowing of what
   value his kindness is, it might justly be expected that we should do
   so. Men in misery are glad to lay hold of the least word that drops
   from him that can relieve them, and to take courage and advantage upon
   it; -- as the servants of Benhadad watched diligently what would fall
   from the mouth of Ahab concerning their master, then in fear of death,
   and when he had occasionally called him his brother, they presently
   laid hold of it, and cry, "Thy brother Benhadad," 1 Kings xx. 33. God
   might have left us, and yet have manifested much free grace, to have
   gathered up falling crumbs or occasional droppings of mercy and supply,
   that we should have rejoiced to have found out one word looking that
   way. But, to shut up all objections, and to stop for ever the mouth of
   unbelief, he hath not only spoken plainly, but hath condescended to use
   all the ways of confirming the truth of what he says and speaks that
   ever were in use among the sons of men.

   There be four ways whereby men seek to obtain credit to what they speak
   as an undoubted truth, that there may be no occasion of staggering.

   [1.] By often averring and affirming of the same thing. When a man says
   the same thing again and again, it is a sign that he speaks the truth,
   or, at least, that he would be thought so to do; yea, if an honest man
   do clearly, fully, plainly, often engage himself to us in the same
   thing, we count it a vile jealousy not to believe the real truth of his
   intentions. Now, the Lord in his promises often speaks the same things,
   -- he speaks once and twice. There is not any thing that he hath
   promised us but he hath done it again and again. For instance, as if he
   should say, "I will be merciful to your sins;" I pray believe me, for
   "I will pardon your iniquities;" yea, it shall be so, -- "I will blot
   out your transgressions as a cloud."

   There is not any want whereunto we are liable, but thus he hath dealt
   concerning it. As his command is line upon line, so is his promise. And
   this is one way whereby God causeth the truth of his promises to
   appear. To take away all colour of staggering, he speaks once, yea
   twice, if we will hear.

   [2.] The second way of confirming any truth is by an oath. Though we
   fear the truth of some men in their assertions, yet when once they come
   to swear any thing in justice and judgment, there are very few so
   knownly profligate, and past all sense of God, but that their
   asseverations do gain credit and pass for truth. Hence the apostle
   tells us, Heb. vi. 16, that "an oath for confirmation is to men an end
   of all strife." Though the truth be before ambiguous and doubtful, yet
   when any interposes with an oath, there is no more contest amongst men.
   That nothing may be wanting to win our belief to the promises of God,
   he hath taken this course also, -- he hath sworn to their truth, Heb.
   vi. 13, "When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no
   greater, he sware by himself." He confirms his promise by an oath. "O
   felices nos, quorum causa Deus jurat; O infelices, si nec juranti Deo
   credimus!" When Christ came, "in whom all the promises of God are yea
   and amen," to make sure work of the truth of them, he is confirmed in
   his administration by an oath, Heb. vii. 21. He was made a priest by an
   oath by him that said, "The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a
   priest for ever." Now, I pray, what is the cause of this great
   condescension in the God of heaven, to confirm that word which in
   itself is truth by an oath? The apostle satisfies us as to the end
   aimed at, Heb. vi. 17, 18. This was, saith he, the aim of God herein,
   that his people, seeing him engaged by two such immutable things as his
   promise and his oath, may be assured that there is an utter
   impossibility that any one word of his should come short of its truth;
   or that they firmly resting upon it should be deceived thereby. And
   this is a second way.

   [3.] Another course whereby men confirm the truth of what they speak,
   is by entering into covenant to accomplish what they have spoken. A
   covenant gives strength to the truth of any engagement. When a man hath
   but told you he will do such and such things for you, you are full of
   doubts and fears that he may break with you; but when he hath indented
   in a covenant, and you can show it under his hand and seal, you look
   upon that, consider that, and are very secure. Even this way also hath
   the Lord taken to confirm and establish his truths and promises. That
   all doubtings and staggerings may be excluded, he hath wrapped them all
   up in a covenant, and brought himself into a federal engagement, that
   upon every occasion, and at every temptation, we may draw out his hand
   and seal, and say to Satan and our own false hearts, See here, behold
   God engaged in covenant, to make good the word wherein he hath caused
   me to put my trust; and this is his property, that he is a God keeping
   covenant. So that having his promise redoubled, and that confirmed by
   an oath, all sealed and made sure by an unchangeable covenant, what can
   we require more to assure us of the truth of these things? But yet
   farther:--

   [4.] In things of very great weight and concernment, such as whereon
   lives and the peace of nations do depend, men use to give hostages for
   the securing each other of the faith and truth of all their
   engagements, that they may be mutual pledges of their truth and
   fidelity. Neither hath the Lord left this way unused to confirm his
   promise. He hath given us a hostage to secure us of his truth, -- one
   exceedingly dear to him, one always in his bosom, of whose honour he is
   as careful as of his own. Jesus Christ is the great hostage of his
   Father's truth, the pledge of his fidelity in his promises. God hath
   set him forth, and given him to us for this end. "Behold, the Lord
   himself shall give you a sign" (a sign that he will fulfil his word);
   "a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
   Immanuel," Isa. vii. 14. That you may be assured of my truth, the
   virgin's son shall be a hostage of it. "In him are all the promises of
   God yea and amen." Thus also to his saints he gives the farther hostage
   of his Spirit, and the first-fruits of glory; that the full
   accomplishment of all his promises may be contracted in a little, and
   presented to their view, as the Israelites had the pleasures of Canaan
   in the clusters of grapes brought from thence.

   Now, from all this it is apparent, not only that there is truth in all
   the promises of God, but also that truth so confirmed, so made out,
   established, that not the least occasion imaginable is thence
   administered to staggering or doubting. He that disputes the promises,
   and knows not how to close with them, must find out another cause of
   his so doing; as to the truth of the promise, there is no doubt at all,
   nor place for any.

   (2.) But secondly, though there be truth in the promise, yet there may
   want ability in the promiser to accomplish the thing promised, because
   of its manifold difficulties. This may be a second cause of staggering,
   if the thing itself engaged for be not compassable by the ability of
   the engager. As if a skilful physician should promise a sick man
   recovery from his disease, though he could rely upon the truth and
   sincerity of his friend, yet he cannot but question his ability as to
   this, knowing that to cure the least distemper is not absolutely in his
   power; but when he promises who is able to perform, then all doubting
   in this kind is removed. See, then, whether it be so in respect of
   these promises whereof we speak. When God comes to Abraham to engage
   himself in that covenant of grace from whence flow all the promises
   whereof we treat, he lays this down as the bottom of all; "I am," saith
   he, "God Almighty," Gen. xvii. 1; or "God all-sufficient," very well
   able to go through with whatever I promise. When difficulties,
   temptations, and troubles arise, remember who it is that hath promised;
   -- not only he that is true and faithful, but he that is God Almighty,
   before whom nothing can stand, when he will accomplish his word. And
   that this was a bottom of great confidence to Abraham, the apostle
   tells you, Rom. iv. 21, "Being fully persuaded that he who had promised
   was able also to perform." When God is engaged by his word, his ability
   is especially to be eyed. The soul is apt to ask, How can this be? It
   is impossible it should be so to me. But, "he is able that hath
   promised." And this, Rom. xi. 23, the same apostle holds out to us to
   fix our faith upon, in reference to that great promise of recalling the
   Jews, and re-implanting them into the vine. "God," saith he, "is able
   to graft them in;" though now they seem as dead bones, yet the Lord
   knows they may live; for he is able to breathe upon them, and make them
   terrible as an army with banners. Yea, so excellent is this
   all-sufficiency, this ability of God to accomplish his whole word, that
   the apostle cautions us that we do not bound it, as though it could go
   so far only, or so far. Nay, saith he, Eph. iii. 20, he "is able to do
   exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think."

   When men come to close with the promise indeed, to make a life upon it,
   they are very ready to question and inquire whether it be possible that
   ever the word of it should be made good to them. He that sees a little
   boat swimming at sea, observes no great difficulty in it, looks upon it
   without any solicitousness of mind at all, -- beholds how it tosses up
   and down, without any fears of its sinking. But now, let this man
   commit his own life to sea in that bottom, what inquiries will he make!
   what a search into the vessel! Is it possible, saith he, this little
   thing should safeguard my life in the ocean? -- It is so with us, in
   our view of the promises: whilst we consider them at large, as they lie
   in the word, alas! they are all true, -- all yea and amen, -- shall be
   all accomplished; but when we go to venture our souls upon a promise,
   in an ocean of wrath and temptations, then every blast we think will
   overturn it; it will not bear us above all these waves. Is it possible
   we should swim safely upon the plank of a pinnace in the midst of the
   ocean.

   Now, here we are apt to deceive ourselves, and mistake the whole thing
   in question; which is the bottom of many corrupted reasonings and
   perplexed thoughts. We inquire whether it can be so to us as the word
   holds out; when the truth is, the question is not about the nature of
   the thing, but about the power of God. Place the doubt aright, and it
   is this: Is God able to accomplish what he hath spoken -- can he heal
   my backslidings? can he pardon my sins? can he save my soul? Now, that
   there may be no occasion or colour of staggering upon this point, you
   see God reveals himself as an all-sufficient God, as one that is able
   to go through with all his engagements. If you will stagger, you may so
   do. This is certain, you have no cause to do so from hence, -- there is
   not any promise that ever God entered into but he is able to perform
   it.

   But you will say, Though God be thus able, thus all-sufficient, yet may
   there not be defects in the means whereby he worketh? -- as a man may
   have a strong arm, able to strike his enemies to the ground, but yet if
   he strike with a feather or a straw, it will not be done; -- not for
   want of strength in his arm, but of fitness and suitableness in the
   instrument whereby he acteth. But, --

   [1.] God using instruments, they do not act according to their own
   virtue, but according to the influence of virtue by him to them
   communicated. Look to what end soever God is pleased to use any means,
   -- his choosing of them fills them with efficacy to that purpose. Let
   the way and means of accomplishing what thou expectest by the promise
   be in themselves never so weak, yet know that, from God's choosing of
   them to that end, they shall be filled with virtue and efficacy to the
   accomplishment of it.

   [2.] It is expressly affirmed of the great mediums of the promise, that
   they also are able, -- that there is no want of power in them for the
   accomplishment of the thing promised.

   1st. There is the means procuring it, and that is Jesus Christ: the
   promises, as to the good things contained in them, are all purchased by
   him. And of him the apostle affirms expressly, that "he is able to save
   them to the uttermost that come to God by him," Heb. vii. 25. No want
   here, no defect; he is able to do it to the uttermost, -- able to save
   them that are tempted, Heb. ii. 18.

   2dly. There is the great means of manifestation, and that is the word
   of God. And of this also it is affirmed, that it is able. It hath an
   all-sufficiency in its kind. Paul tells the elders of Ephesus, that
   "the word of grace is able to build them up, and to give them an
   inheritance among all them that are sanctified," Acts xx. 32.

   3dly. There is the great means of operation, and that is the Spirit of
   grace. He works the mercy of the promise upon the soul. He also is
   able, exceeding powerful, to effect the end appointed. He hath no
   bounds nor measure of operation but only his own will, 1 Cor. xii. 11.

   Hence, then, it is apparent, in the second place, that there is no
   occasion for doubting; yea, that all staggering is excluded, from the
   consideration of the ability of the promiser, and the means whereby he
   worketh. If thou continuest to stagger, thou must get a better plea
   than this, -- It cannot be, it is impossible. I tell thee, nay, but God
   is able to accomplish the whole word of his promise.

   (3.) There may be want of sincerity in promises and engagements; which
   whilst we do but suspect, we cannot choose but stagger at them. If a
   man make a promise to me, and I can suppose that he intends not as he
   says, but hath reserves to himself of another purpose, I must needs
   doubt as to the accomplishment of what he hath spoken. If the soul may
   surmise that the Lord intends not him sincerely in his promise, but
   reserves some other thing in his mind, or that it shall be so to others
   and not to him, he must needs dispute in himself, stagger, and keep off
   from believing. This, then, must be demonstrated, in the third place,
   -- that the promises of God, and God in all his promises, are full of
   sincerity; so that none need fear to cast himself on them: they shall
   be real unto him. Now, concerning this, observe, --

   [1.] That God's promises are not declarative of his secret purposes and
   intentions. When God holds out to any a promise of the pardon of sin,
   this doth not signify to any singular man that it is the purpose of God
   that his sin shall be pardoned. For if so, then either all men must be
   pardoned to whom the word of promise comes, which is not; or else God
   fails of his purposes, and comes short of his intendments, -- which
   would render him either impotent, that he could not, or mutable, that
   he would not, establish them. But "who hath resisted his will?" Rom.
   ix. 19. He is the Lord, and he changeth not, Mal. iii. 6. So that
   though every one to whom the promise is held out hath not the fruit of
   the promise, yet this derogates not at all from the sincerity of God in
   his promises; for he doth not hold them forth to any such end and
   purpose as to declare his intentions concerning particular persons.

   [2.] There are some absolute promises, comprehensive of the covenant of
   grace, which, as to all those that belong to that covenant, do hold out
   thus much of the mind of God, that they shall certainly be accomplished
   in and towards them all. The soul may freely be invited to venture on
   these promises, with assurance of their efficacy towards him.

   [3.] This God principally declares in all his promises of his mind and
   purpose, that every soul to whom they shall come may freely rest on; to
   wit, that faith in the promises, and the accomplishment of the
   promises, are inseparable. He that believeth shall enjoy. This is most
   certain, this God declares of his mind, his heart, towards us, -- that
   as for all the good things he hath spoken of to us, it shall be to us
   according to our faith. This, I say, the promises of God do signify of
   his purpose, that the believer of them shall be the enjoyer of them. In
   them "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith," Rom.
   i. 17; -- from the faith of God revealing, to the faith of man
   receiving. So that, upon the making out of any promise, you may safely
   conclude that, upon believing, the mercy, the Christ, the deliverance
   of this promise is mine. It is true, if a man stand disputing and
   staggering whether he have any share in a promise, and close not with
   it by faith, he may come short of it; and yet without the least
   impeachment of the truth of the promise or sincerity of the promiser,
   -- for God hath not signified by them that men shall enjoy the good
   things of them whether they believe or not. Thus far the promises of
   grace are general, and carry a truth to all, that there is an
   inviolable connection between believing and the enjoyment of the things
   in them contained. And in this truth is the sincerity of the promiser,
   which can never be questioned without sin and folly. And this wholly
   shuts up the spirit from any occasion of staggering. "O ye of little
   faith! wherefore do ye doubt?" Ah! lest our share be not in this
   promise, -- lest we are not intended in it. -- Poor creatures! there is
   but this one way of keeping you off from it; that is, disputing it in
   yourselves by unbelief. Here lies the sincerity of God towards thee,
   that believing, thou shalt not come short of what thou aimest at. Here,
   then, is no room for staggering. If proclamation be made granting
   pardon to all such rebels as shall come in by such a season, do men use
   to stand questioning whether the state bear them any good-will or not?
   No, saith the poor creature, I will cast myself upon their faith and
   truth, engaged in their proclamation: whatever I have deserved in
   particular, I know they will be faithful in their promises. The gospel
   proclamation is of pardon to all comers in, to all believers: it is not
   for thee, poor staggerer, to question what is the intendment towards
   thee in particular, but roll thyself on this, there is an absolute
   sincerity in the engagement which thou mayest freely rest upon. But, --

   (4.) Though all be present, truth, power, sincerity; yet if he that
   makes the promise should forget, -- this were a ground of staggering.
   Pharaoh's butler, without doubt, made large promises to Joseph; and
   probably spake the truth, according to his present intention.
   Afterward, standing in the presence of Pharaoh, restored to favour, he
   had doubtless power enough to have procured the liberty of a poor
   innocent prisoner. But yet this would not do, -- it did not profit
   Joseph; because, as the text says, he "did not remember Joseph, but
   forgat him," Gen. xl. 23. This forgetting made all other things
   useless. But neither hath this the least colour in divine promises. It
   was Zion's infirmity to say, "The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord
   hath forgotten me," Isa. xlix. 14; for saith the Lord, "Can a woman
   forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the
   son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
   Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are
   continually before me," verses 15, 16.

   The causes of forgetfulness are, --

   [1.] Want of love. The things that men love not, they care not for:--
   the matters of their love are continually in their thoughts. Now, says
   God to Zion, Why sayest thou I have forgotten thee? Is it for want of
   love? Alas! the love of a most tender mother to her sucking child comes
   infinitely short of my love to thee. My love to thee is more fixed than
   so, and how shouldst thou be out of my mind? how shouldst thou be
   forgotten? Infinite love will have infinite thoughtfulness and
   remembrance.

   [2.] Multiplicity of business. This with men is a cause of forgetting.
   I had done, says one, as I promised, but multiplicity of occasions
   thrust it out of my mind; I pray excuse me. -- Alas! though I rule all
   the world, yet thou art graven upon the palms of my hands; and
   therefore thy walls are continually before me. See also Ps. lxxvii. 9.
   Neither, then, is there as to this the least colour given us to stagger
   at the promise of God.

   (5.) But lastly, where all other things concur, yet if the person
   promising be changeable, if he may alter his resolution, a man may
   justly doubt and debate in himself the accomplishment of any promise
   made to him. "It is true," may he say, "he now speaks his heart and
   mind; but who can say he will be of this mind to-morrow? May he not be
   turned? and then what becomes of the golden mountains that I promised
   myself upon his engagement?" Wherefore, in the last place, the Lord
   carefully rejects all sinful surmises concerning the least change or
   alteration in him, or any of his engagements. He is "the Father of
   lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," James
   i. 17, -- no shadow, no appearance of any such thing. "I am the Lord,"
   saith he, "I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed,"
   Mal. iii. 6. The Lord knows, that if any thing in us might prevail with
   him to alter the word that is gone out of his mouth, we should surely
   perish. We are poor provoking creatures, therefore he lays our not
   being consumed only on this, even his own unchangeableness. This we may
   rest upon, "He is in one mind, and who can turn him?"

   And in these observations have I given you the first demonstration of
   the point: all staggering is from our own unbelief.

   2. The experience which we have of the mighty workings of God for the
   accomplishment of all his promises gives light unto this thing. We have
   found it true, that where he is once engaged, he will certainly go
   through unto the appointed issue, though it stand him in the laying out
   of his power and wisdom to the uttermost, Hab. iii. 9, "Thy bow was
   made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, thy word." If
   God's oath be passed, and his word engaged, he will surely accomplish
   it, though it cost him the making of his bow quite naked, -- the
   manifestation of his power to the utmost.

   It is true, never did any wait upon God for the accomplishment and
   fulfilling of a promise, but he found many difficulties fall out
   between the word and the thing. So was it with Abraham in the business
   of a son: and so with David in the matter of a kingdom. God will have
   his promised mercies to fall as the dews upon the parched, gasping
   earth, or "as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," Isa. xxxii.
   2, -- very welcome unto the traveller who hath had the sun beat upon
   his head in his travel all the day. Zion is a crown of glory in the
   hand of the Lord, as a royal diadem in the hand of her God, Isa. lxii.
   3. The precious stones of a diadem must be cut and polished, before
   they be set in beauty and glory. God will have ofttimes the precious
   living stones of Zion to have many a sharp cutting, before they come to
   be fully fixed in his diadem; but yet in the close, whatever obstacles
   stand in the way, the promise hath still wrought out its passage; -- as
   a river, all the while it is stopped with a dam, is still working
   higher and higher, still getting more and more strength, until it bear
   down all before it, and obtain a free course to its appointed place.
   Every time opposition lies against the fulfilling of the promise, and
   so seems to impede it for a season, it gets more and more power, until
   the appointed hour be come, and then the promise bears down all before
   it.

   Were there any thing imaginable whereof we had not experience that it
   had been conquered, to open a door for the fulfilling of every word of
   God, we might possibly, as to the apprehension of that thing, stagger
   from some other principle than that of unbelief.

   What is there in heaven or earth, but God and his ministering spirits,
   that hath not, one time or other, stood up to its utmost opposition,
   for the frustrating of the word wherein some or other of the saints of
   God have put their trust? Devils, in their temptations, baits,
   subtleties, accusations, and oppositions; -- men, in their counsels,
   reasonings, contrivances, interests, dominions, combinations, armies,
   multitudes, and the utmost of their endeavours; -- the whole frame of
   nature, in its primitive instituted course, -- fire, water, day, night,
   age, sickness, death, all in their courses have fought against the
   accomplishment of the promises. And what have they obtained by all
   their contendings? All disappointed, frustrated, turned back, changed,
   and served only to make the mercy of the promise more amiable and
   glorious.

   I would willingly illustrate this demonstration with an instance, --
   that the almighty, all-conquering power that is in the promise,
   settling all staggering upon its own basis of unbelief, might be the
   more evident.

   I might here mention Abraham, with all the difficulties and appearing
   impossibilities which the promise unto him did pass through and cast to
   the ground, -- the mercy of it at length arising out of the grave, for
   he received his son from the dead "in a figure," Heb. xi. 19; or I
   might speak of Joseph, Moses, or David; -- but I shall rather choose a
   precedent from among the works of God in the days wherein we live, and
   that in a business concerning which we may set up our Ebenezer, and
   say, Thus far hath God been a helper.

   Look upon the affair of Ireland. The engagement of the great God of
   revenges against murder and treachery, the interest of the Lord Christ
   and his kingdom against the man of sin, furnished the undertakers with
   manifold promises to carry them out to a desired, a blessed issue. Take
   now a brief view of some mountains of opposition that lie in the way
   against any success in that place; and hear the Lord saying to every
   one of them, Who art thou, O great mountain? before my people thou
   shalt be made a plain, Zech. iv. 7.

   Not to mention the strivings and strugglings of two manner of people in
   the womb of this nation, totally obstructing for a long time the
   bringing forth of any deliverance for Ireland; nor yet that mighty
   mountain (which some misnamed a level) that thought at once to have
   locked an everlasting door upon that expedition; I shall propose some
   few, of many that have attended it.

   (1.) The silence that hath been in heaven for half an hour, as to this
   business, -- the great cessation of prayers in the heavens of many
   churches, -- hath been no small mountain in the way of the promise.
   When God will do good for Zion, he requires that his remembrancers give
   him no rest, until he do it, Isa. lxii. 7; and yet sometimes, in the
   close of their supplications, gives them an answer "by terrible
   things," Ps. lxv. 5. He is sometimes silent to the prayers of his
   people," Ps. xxviii. 1. Is not then a grant rare, when his people are
   silent as to prayers? Of how many congregations in this nation may the
   prayers, tears, and supplications for carrying on of the work of God in
   Ireland, be written with the lines of emptiness! What a silence hath
   been in the heaven of many churches for this last half hour! How many
   that began with the Lord in that work, did never sacrifice at the altar
   of Jehovah-nissi, nor consider that the Lord hath sworn to have war
   with such Amalekites as are there "from generation to generation!"
   Exod. xvii. 15, 16. They have forgotten that Ireland was the first of
   the nations that laid wait for the blood of God's people desiring to
   enter into his rest; and therefore "their latter end shall be to perish
   for ever," Num. xxiv. 20. Many are as angry as Jonah, not that Babylon
   is spared, but that it is not spared. Hath not this been held out as a
   mountain? What will you now do, when such or such, these and those men,
   of this or that party, look upon you "as the grass upon the house-tops,
   which withereth afore it groweth up; wherewith the mower filleth not
   his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom;" -- that will not so
   much as say, "The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless you in the
   name of the Lord?" But now, shall the faithlessness of men make the
   "faith of God of none effect?" Shall the kingdom of Christ suffer
   because some of those that are his -- what through carnal wisdom, what
   through spiritual folly -- refuse to come forth "to his help against
   the mighty?" No, doubtless! "The Lord sees it, and it displeases him;
   he sees that there is no man, and wonders that there is no
   intercessor," -- even marvels that there are no more supplications on
   this behalf. "Therefore his own arm brought salvation to him; and his
   own righteousness, it sustained him. He put on righteousness as a
   breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on
   the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a
   cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his
   adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay
   recompense," Isa. lix. 15-18. Some men's not praying shall not hinder
   the promises accomplishing. They may sooner discover an idol in
   themselves than disappoint the living God. This was a mountain.

   (2.) Our own advices and counsels have often stood in the way of the
   promises bringing forth. This is not a time nor place for narrations;
   so I shall only say to this in general, -- that if the choicest and
   most rational advices of the army had not been overswayed by the
   providence of God, in all probability your affairs had been more than
   ten degrees backward to the condition wherein they are.

   (3.) The visible opposition of the combined enemy in that nation
   seemed, as to our strength, unconquerable. The wise man tells us, "A
   threefold cord is not easily broken." Ireland had a fivefold cord to
   make strong bands for Zion, twisted together. Never, I think, did such
   different interests bear with one another for the compassing of one
   common end.

   He that met the lion, the fox, and the ass travelling together,
   wondered -- "quo una iter facerent" -- whither these ill-matched
   associates did bend their course; neither did his marvelling cease when
   he heard they were going a pilgrimage, in a business of devotion.

   He that should meet Protestants, -- covenanted Protestants, that had
   sworn, in the presence of the great God to extirpate Popery and
   Prelacy, as the Scots in Ulster; -- others, that counted themselves
   under no less sacred bond for the maintenance of prelates,
   service-books, and the like, as the whole party of Ormond's adherents;
   -- joined with a mighty number that had for eight years together sealed
   their vows to the Romish religion with our blood and their own; --
   adding to them those that were profound to revolt up and down as suited
   their own interest, as some in Munster; -- all closing with that party
   which themselves had laboured to render most odious and execrable, as
   most defiled with innocent blood:-- he, I say, that should see all
   these, after seven years' mutual conflicting and imbruing their hands
   in each other's blood, to march all one way together, cannot but marvel
   -- "quo una iter facerent" whither they should journey so friendly
   together. Neither, surely, would his admiration be lessened when he
   should hear that the first thing they intended and agreed upon was, to
   cover the innocent blood of forty-one [232] [1641], contrary to that
   promise, "Behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the
   inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall
   disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain," Isa. xxvi. 21;
   and nextly, to establish Catholic religion, or the kingdom of Babel, in
   the whole nation, in opposition to the engaged truth, and, in our days,
   visibly manifested power of the Lord Jesus; with sundry such like
   things, contrary to their science and conscience, their covenant and
   light, yea, the trust and honesty, of most of the chief leaders of
   them. Now, how can the promise stand in the way of this hydra? what
   says it to this combined opposition?

   [1.] Why, first, saith the Lord, "Though hand join in hand, the wicked
   shall not be unpunished," Prov. xi. 21. Their covering shall be too
   short and narrow to hide the blood which God will have disclosed.

   [2.] And nextly, though they will give their power to the beast, and
   fight against the Lamb, -- consenting in this, who agree in nothing
   else in the world, -- yet they shall be broken in pieces; though they
   associate themselves, they shall be broken in pieces. If Rezin and the
   son of Remaliah, Syria and Ephraim, old adversaries, combine together
   for a new enmity against Judah, -- if covenant and Prelacy, Popery and
   treachery, blood and (as to that) innocency, join hand in hand to stand
   in the way of the promise, -- yet I will not in this join with them,
   says the Lord. Though they were preserved all distinctly in their
   several interests for seven years in their mutual conflicts, that they
   might be scourges to one another, yet if they close to keep off the
   engagement of God in the word of his promise, not much more than the
   fourth part of one year shall consume some of them to nothing, and fill
   the residue with indignation and anguish.

   By what means God hath mightily and effectually wrought, -- by mixing
   folly with their counsels, putting fear, terror, and amazedness upon
   all their undertakings, -- into carry on his own purpose, I could
   easily give considerable instances. That which hath been spoken in
   general may suffice to bottom us on this, that whilst we are in the way
   of God, all staggering at the issue is from unbelief; for he can, he
   will, do more such things as these.

   Use 1. My first use shall be as unto temporals; for they also, as I
   told you, come under the promise, not to be staggered at with the
   limitations before mentioned. Learn hence, then, to live more by faith
   in all your actings; believe, and you shall be established. I have, in
   the days of my pilgrimage, seen this evil under the sun, -- many
   professors of the gospel called out to public actings, have made it
   their great design to manage all their affairs with wisdom and policy,
   like the men of the residue of the nations. Living by faith upon the
   promises hath appeared to them as too low a thing for the condition and
   employment wherein they now are; -- now they must plot, and contrive,
   and design, -- lay down principles of carnal, fleshly wisdom, to be
   pursued to the uttermost. And what, I pray, hath been the issue of such
   undertakings?

   (1.) First, The power of religion hath totally been devoured by that
   lean, hungry, never-to-be-satisfied beast of carnal policy; -- no signs
   left that it was ever in their bosoms. Conformity unto Christ in gospel
   graces is looked on as a mean, contemptible thing. Some of them have
   fallen to downright atheism, -- most of them to wretched formality in
   the things of God. And then, --

   (2.) Secondly, Their plots and undertakings have generally proved
   tympanous and birthless; vexation and disappointment hath been the
   portion of the residue of their days. The ceasing to lean upon the
   Lord, and striving to be wise in our actings, like the men of the
   world, hath made more Rehoboams than any one thing in this generation.

   What now lies at the bottom of all this? Merely staggering at the
   promise through unbelief. What building is that like to be which hath a
   staggering foundation? When God answers not Saul, he goes to the devil.
   When the promise will not support us, we go to carnal policy: neither
   can it otherwise be. Engaged men finding one way to disappoint them,
   presently betake themselves to another. If men begin once to stagger at
   the promise, and to conclude, in their fears, that it will not receive
   accomplishment, that the fountain will be dry, they cannot but think it
   high time to dig cisterns for themselves. When David says, he shall one
   day perish by the hand of Saul, whatever God had said to the contrary,
   his next advice is, Let me go to the Philistines: and what success he
   had in that undertaking you know. Political diversions from pure
   dependence on the promise, do always draw after them a long time of
   entanglements.

   Give me leave to give a word of caution against one or two things which
   men, staggering at the promises through unbelief, do usually in their
   carnal wisdom run into, for the compassing of the thing aimed at, that
   they may not be found in your honourable assembly.

   [1.] Take heed of a various management of religion, of the things of
   God, to the advantage of the present posture and condition of your
   alfalfa The things of Christ should be as Joseph's sheaf, to which all
   others should bow. When they are made to cringe, and bend, and put on a
   flattering countenance, to allure any sort of men into their interest,
   they are no more the things of Christ. I would it had not been too
   evident formerly, that men entangled in their affairs, enjoying
   authority, have, with all industry and diligence, pursued such and such
   an appearance of religion; not that themselves were so passionately
   affected with it, but merely for the satisfaction of some in that,
   whose assistance and compliance they needed for other things. Oh, let
   not the things of, God be immixed any more with carnal reasonings! His
   truths are all eternal and unchangeable. Give them at once the
   sovereignty of your souls, and have not the least thought of making
   them bend to serve your own ends, though good and righteous. Think not
   to get the promise like Jacob, by representing yourselves in the things
   of God for other than you are.

   [2.] Hide no truth of God as to that way of manifestation which to you
   is committed, for fear it should prove prejudicial to your affairs.
   That influence and signature of your power which is due to any truth of
   God, let it not be withheld by carnal reasonings. I might farther draw
   out these, and such like things as these; -- the warning is, to live
   upon the faith of that promise, which shall surely be established,
   without turning aside to needless, crooked paths of your own.

   Use 2. Secondly. Be faithful in doing all the work of God whereunto you
   are engaged, as he is faithful in working all your works whereunto he
   is engaged. Your work, whereunto (whilst you are in his ways) God is
   engaged, is your safety and protection: God's work, whereunto you are
   engaged, is the propagating of the kingdom of Christ, and the setting
   up of the standard of the gospel. So far as you find God going on with
   your work, go you on with his. How is it that Jesus Christ is in
   Ireland only as a lion staining all his garments with the blood of his
   enemies; and none to hold him out as a lamb sprinkled with his own
   blood to his friends? Is it the sovereignty and interest of England
   that is alone to be there transacted? For my part, I see no farther
   into the mystery of these things but that I could heartily rejoice,
   that, innocent blood being expiated, the Irish might enjoy Ireland so
   long as the moon endureth, so that Jesus Christ might possess the
   Irish. But God having suffered those sworn vassals of the man of sin to
   break out into such ways of villany as render them obnoxious unto
   vengeance, upon such rules of government amongst men as he hath
   appointed; is there, therefore, nothing to be done but to give a cup of
   blood into their hands? Doubtless the way whereby God will bring the
   followers after the beast to condign destruction for all their enmity
   to the Lord Jesus, will be by suffering them to run into such practices
   against men as shall righteously expose them to vengeance, according to
   acknowledged principles among the sons of men. But is this all? hath he
   no farther aim? Is not all this to make way for the Lord Jesus to take
   possession of his long since promised inheritance? And shall we stop at
   the first part? Is this to deal fairly with the Lord Jesus? -- call him
   out to the battle, and then keep away his crown? God hath been faithful
   in doing great things for you; be faithful in this one, -- do your
   utmost for the preaching of the gospel in Ireland.

   Give me leave to add a few motives to this duty.

   (1.) They want it. No want like theirs who want the gospel. I would
   there were for the present one gospel preacher for every walled town in
   the English possession in Ireland. The land mourneth, and the people
   perish for want of knowledge. Many run to and fro, but it is upon other
   designs; knowledge is not increased.

   (2.) They are sensible of their wants, and cry out for supply. The
   tears and cries of the inhabitants of Dublin after the manifestations
   of Christ are ever in my view. If they were in the dark, and loved to
   have it so, it might something close a door upon the bowels of our
   compassion; but they cry out of their darkness, and are ready to follow
   every one whosoever, to have a candle. If their being gospelless move
   not our hearts, it is hoped their importunate cries will disquiet our
   rest, and wrest help as a beggar doth an alms.

   (3.) Seducers and blasphemers will not be wanting to sow their tares,
   which those fallowed fields will receive, if there be none to cast in
   the seed of the word. Some are come over thither already without call,
   without employments, to no other end but only to vaunt themselves to be
   God; as they have done in the open streets with detestable pride,
   atheism, and folly. So that as Ireland was heretofore termed by some in
   civil things a frippery of bankrupts, for the great number of persons
   of broken estates that went thither; so, doubtless, in religion it will
   prove a frippery of monstrous, enormous, contradictions opinions, if
   the work of preaching the word of truth and soberness be not carried
   on. And if this be the issue of your present undertakings, will it be
   acceptable, think you, to the Lord Jesus, that you have used his power
   and might to make way for such things as his soul abhors?

   [1.] Will it be for his honour, that the people whom he hath sought to
   himself with so high a hand should, at the very entrance of his taking
   possession, be leavened with those high and heavenly notions which have
   an open and experimented tendency to earthly, fleshly, dunghill
   practices? or, --

   [2.] Will it be for the credit and honour of your profession of the
   gospel, that such a breach should be under your hand? that it should be
   as it were by your means? Will it not be a sword, and an arrow, and a
   maul in the hands of your observers? Who can bear the just scandal that
   would accrue, -- scandal to the magistrates, scandal to the ministers
   of this generation, -- in neglecting such an opportunity of advancing
   the gospel, -- sleeping all the day whilst others sow tares?

   [3.] Where will be the hoped, the expected consolation of this great
   affair, when the testimony and pledge of the peculiar presence of
   Christ amongst us upon such an issue shall be wanting?

   What, then, shall we do? This thing is often spoken of, seldom driven
   to any close!

   1st. Pray. "Pray the Lord of the harvest, that he would send out," that
   he would thrust forth, "labourers into his harvest." The labourers are
   ready to say, There is a lion in the way, difficulties to be contended
   withal. And to some men it is hard seeing a call of God through
   difficulties; when if it would but clothe itself with a few carnal
   advantages, how apparent is it to them! they can see it through a
   little cranny. Be earnest, then, with the Master of these labourers, in
   whose hand is their life and breath, and all their ways, that he would
   powerfully constrain them to be willing to enter into the fields that
   are white for the harvest.

   2dly. Make such provision, that those who will go may be fenced from
   outward straits and fears, so far as the uncertainty of human affairs
   in general and the present tumultuating perturbations will admit. And
   let not, I beseech you, this be the business of an unpursued order.
   But, --

   3dly. Let some be appointed (generals die and sink by themselves) to
   consider this thing, and to hear what sober proposals may be made by
   any whose hearts God shall stir up to so good a work.

   This, I say, is a work wherein God expecteth faithfulness from you:
   stagger not at his promises nor your own duty. However, by all means
   possible, in this business I have striven to deliver my own soul.

   Once more; -- to this of faith, let me stir you up to another work of
   love, and that in the behalf of many poor perishing creatures, that
   want all things needful for the sustentation of life. Poor parentless
   children that lie begging, starving, rotting in the streets, and find
   no relief; yea, persons of quality, that have lost their dearest
   relations in your service, seeking for bread, and finding none; -- oh,
   that some thoughts of this also might be seriously committed to them
   that shall take care for the gospel!

   Use 3. I desire now to make more particular application of the
   doctrine, as to things purely spiritual. Until you know how to believe
   for your own souls, you will scarcely know how to believe for a nation.
   Let this, then, teach us to lay the burden and trouble of our lives
   upon the right shoulder. In our staggerings, our doubtings, our
   disputes, we are apt to assign this and that reason of them; when the
   sole reason, indeed, is our unbelief. Were it not for such a cause, or
   such a cause, I could believe; that is, were there no need of faith.
   That is, faith must remove the mountains that lie in the way, and then
   all will be plain. It is not the greatness of sin, nor continuance in
   sin, nor backsliding into sin, that is the true cause of thy
   staggering, whatever thou pretendest (the removal of all these is from
   that promise whose stability and certainty I before laid forth), but
   solely from thy unbelief, that "root of bitterness" which springs up
   and troubles thee. It is not the distance of the earth from the sun,
   nor the sun's withdrawing itself, that makes a dark and gloomy day; but
   the interposition of clouds and vaporous exhalations. Neither is thy
   soul beyond the reach of the promise, nor doth God withdraw himself;
   but the vapours of thy carnal, unbelieving heart do cloud thee. It is
   said of one place, "Christ could do no great work there." Why so? for
   want of power in him? Not at all; but merely for want of faith in them;
   -- it was "because of their unbelief." The promise can do no great work
   upon thy heart, to humble thee, to pardon, to quiet thee. Is it for
   want of fulness and truth therein? Not at all; but merely for want of
   faith in thee; -- that keeps it off Men complain, that were it not for
   such things, and such things, they could believe; when it is their
   unbelief that casts those rubs in the way. As if a man should cast
   nails and sharp stones in his own way, and say, Verily I could run,
   were it not for those nails and stones; when he continues himself to
   cast them there. You could believe, were it not for these doubts and
   difficulties, these staggering perplexities; when, alas! they are all
   from your unbelief.

   Use 4. See the sinfulness of all those staggering doubts and
   perplexities wherewith many poor souls have almost all their thoughts
   taken up. Such as is the root, such is the fruit. If the tree be evil,
   so will the fruit be also. Men do not gather grapes from brambles. What
   is the root that bears this fruit of staggering? is it not the evil
   root of unbelief? And can any good come from thence? -- are not all the
   streams of the same nature with the fountain? -- if that be bitter, can
   they be sweet? If the body be full of poison, will not the branches
   have their venom also? Surely if the mother -- unbelief -- be the mouth
   of hell, the daughters -- staggerings -- are not the gates of heaven.

   Of the sin of unbelief I shall not now speak at large. It is, in sum,
   the universal opposition of the soul unto God. All other sins arise
   against something or other of his revealed will; only unbelief sets up
   itself in a direct contradiction to all of him that is known. Hence the
   weight of condemnation in the gospel is constantly laid on this sin:
   "He that believeth not, on him the wrath of God abideth; he shall be
   damned." Now, as every drop of sea-water retains the brackishness and
   saltness of the whole; so every staggering doubt that is an issue of
   this unbelief hath in it the unsavouriness and distastefulness unto God
   that is in the whole.

   Farther, to give you a little light into what acceptance our staggering
   thoughts find with the Lord (according to which must be our esteem of
   all that is in us), observe that, --

   (1.) They grieve him.

   (2.) They provoke him.

   (3.) They dishonour him.

   (1.) Such a frame grieves the Lord. Nothing more presses true love than
   to have an appearance of suspicion. Christ comes to Peter, and asks
   him, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" John xxi. 15. Peter seems
   glad of an opportunity to confess him, and his love to him, whom not
   long since he had denied, and answers readily, "Yea, Lord; thou knowest
   that I love thee." But when Christ comes with the same question again
   and again, the Holy Ghost tells us, "Peter was grieved because he said
   unto him the third time, Lovest thou me?" It exceedingly troubled Peter
   that his love should come under so many questionings, which he knew to
   be sincere. The love of Christ to his is infinitely beyond the love of
   his to him. All our doubtings are nothing but so many questionings of
   his love. We cry, Lord Jesus, lovest thou us? and again, Lord Jesus,
   lovest thou us? and that with distrustful hearts and thoughts, that it
   is not, it cannot be. Speaking of the unbelieving Jews, the Holy Ghost
   tells us, Jesus was "grieved for the hardness of their hearts," Mark
   iii. 5. And as it is bitter to him in the root, so also in the fruit.
   Our staggerings and debates, when we have a word of promise, is a grief
   to his Holy Spirit, as the unkindest return we can make unto his love.

   (2.) It provokes him. How can this be, says Zacharias, that I should
   have a son? This shall be, saith the Lord; and thou thyself, for thy
   questioning, shalt be a sign of it, "Thou shalt be dumb, and not
   speak," Luke i. 20. His doubting was a provocation. And our Saviour
   expresses no less, in that bitter reproof to his disciples upon their
   wavering, Matt. xvii. 17, "O faithless and perverse generation, how
   long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" -- that is, in
   this unbelieving frame. Poor souls are apt to admire the patience of
   God in other matters, -- that he spared them in such and such sins, at
   such and such times of danger; but his exceeding patience towards them
   in their carnal reasonings and fleshly objections against believing,
   this they admire not. Nay, generally they think it should be so, God
   would not have them one step farther; nay, they could be more steadfast
   in believing, as they suppose, might it stand with the good-will of
   God; -- when all this while this frame of all others is the greatest
   provocation to the Lord; he never exercises more forbearance than about
   this kind of unbelief. When the spies had gone into Canaan, had seen
   the land, and brought of the good fruit of it, -- then to repine, then
   to question whether God would bring them into it or no, this caused the
   Lord "to swear in his wrath, that they should not enter into his rest."
   When God hath brought men to the borders of heaven, discovered to them
   the riches and excellency of his grace, admitted them to enter as spies
   into the kingdom of glory, -- then to fall a staggering whether he
   intends them an entrance or no is that which lies heavy on him. The
   like may be said of all promised mercies and deliverances whatsoever.
   That this is a provocation, the Lord hath abundantly testified,
   inasmuch as for it he hath oftentimes snatched sweet morsels from the
   mouths of men, and turned aside the stream of mercies when it was ready
   to flow in upon them. "If," saith he, "ye will not believe, surely ye
   shall not be established," Isa. vii. 9. The very mercy but now promised
   concerning your deliverance shall be withheld. Oh, stop not success
   from Ireland by unbelief!

   (3.) It dishonours God. In the close of this verse it is said, Abraham
   was "strong in faith" (or staggered not), "giving glory to God." To be
   established in believing, is to give God the greatest glory possible.
   Every staggering thought that ariseth from this root of unbelief robs
   God of his glory.

   [1.] It robs him of the glory of his truth: "He that believeth not,
   hath made him a liar; because he believeth not his record," 1 John v.
   10. Let men pretend what they please (as most [pretend?] an end, we
   give in specious pretences for our unbelief), the bottom of all is, the
   questioning of the truth of God in our false hearts.

   [2.] It robs him of the glory of his fidelity or faithfulness in the
   discharge of his promises: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful to
   forgive us our sins," 1 John i. 9. He hath engaged his faithfulness in
   this business of the forgiveness of iniquities, -- he whose right it
   is; calling that in question, calls the faithfulness of God in
   question.

   [3.] It robs him of the glory of his grace. In a word, if a man should
   choose to set himself in a universal opposition unto God, he can think
   of no more compendious way than this. This, then, is the fruit, this
   the advantage, of all our staggering, -- we rob God of glory, and our
   own souls of mercy.

   Use 5. Be ashamed of, and humbled for, all your staggerings at the
   promises of God, with all your fleshly reasonings and carnal
   contrivances issuing therefrom. For the most part, we live upon
   successes, not promises:-- unless we see and feel the print of
   victories, we will not believe; the engagement of God is almost quite
   forgotten in our affairs. We travel on without Christ, like his mother,
   and suppose him only to be in the crowd; but we must return to seek him
   where we left him, or our journeying on will be to no purpose. When
   Job, after all his complaining, had seen the end of the Lord, he cries
   out, "Now I abhor myself in dust and ashes." You have seen the end of
   the Lord in many of his promises, -- oh, that it might prevail to make
   you abhor yourselves in dust and ashes, for all your carnal fears and
   corrupt reasonings upon your staggerings! When David enjoyed his
   promised mercy, he especially shames himself for every thought of
   unbelief that he had whilst he waited for it. "I said," saith he, "in
   my haste, that all men were liars:" and now he is humbled for it. Is
   this to be thankful, to forget our provoking thoughts of unbelief when
   the mercy is enjoyed? The Lord set it home upon your spirits, and give
   it to receive its due manifestation!

   (1.) If there be any counsels, designs, contrivances, on foot amongst
   us, that are bottomed on our staggering at the promise under which we
   are, oh, let them be instantly cast down to the ground. Let not any be
   so foolish as to suppose that unbelief will be a foundation for quiet
   habitations. You are careful to avoid all ways that might dishonour you
   as the rulers of so great a nation; oh, be much more careful about such
   things as will dishonour you as believers! That is your greatest title,
   -- that is your chiefest privilege. Search your own thoughts; and if
   any contrivance, any compliance, be found springing up, whose seed was
   sown by staggering at the promise, root them up and cast them out
   before it be too late.

   (2.) Engage your hearts against all such ways for the future. Say unto
   God, How faithful art thou in all thy ways! how able to perform all thy
   promises! how hast thou established thy word in heaven and earth! Who
   would not put their trust in thee? We desire to be ashamed that ever we
   should admit in our hearts the least staggering at the stability of thy
   word.

   (3.) Act as men bottomed upon unshaken things, that are not at all
   moved by the greatest appearing oppositions. "He that believeth will
   not make haste:" be not hasty in your resolves in any distress; wait
   for the accomplishment of the vision, for it will come. So long as you
   are in the way of God, and do the work of God, let not so much as your
   desires be too hasty after appearing strengthenings and assistance.
   Whence is it that there is amongst us such bleating after the
   compliance of this or that party of the sons of men, -- perhaps priding
   themselves in our actings upon unbelief, as though we proclaimed, that,
   without such and such, we cannot be protected in the things of God? Let
   us, I beseech you, live above those things that are unworthy of the
   great name that is called upon us.

   Oh, that by these and the like ways we might manifest our
   self-condemnation and abhorrency for all that distrust and staggering
   at the word of God, which arising from unbelief, hath had such
   deplorable issues upon all our counsels and undertakings!
     __________________________________________________________________

   [232] Dr Owen refers to the Irish massacre of 1641, when, by the lowest
   computation, 40,000 Protestants are said to have been slaughtered. --
   Ed.
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     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon V.

   OURANON OURANIA:

   The

   shaking and translating of heaven and earth:

   a sermon preached to the honourable House of Commons in Parliament
   assembled, April 19, 1649,

   a day set apart for extraordinary humiliation.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   This sermon, from Heb. xii. 27, was preached before Parliament on a day
   set apart for extraordinary humiliation. It was in connection with this
   sermon that Owen for the first time was introduced to Oliver Cromwell;
   who, with other officers, listened to it, and afterwards made
   acquaintance with the preacher, under the circumstances mentioned in
   the "Life," etc., vol. i. p. 42. Cromwell was preparing to go to
   Ireland, and procured the appointment of Owen to accompany him, in
   order that the affairs of Trinity College, Dublin, might be adjusted
   and placed on a proper footing. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Die Veneris, April 20, 1649.

   Ordered, by the Commons assembled in Parliament, That Sir William
   Masham do give hearty thanks from this House to Mr Owen for his great
   pains in his sermon preached before the House yesterday, at Margaret's,
   Westminster; and that he be desired to print his sermon at large, as he
   intended to have delivered it if time had not prevented him; wherein he
   is to have the like liberty of printing thereof as others in like kind
   usually have had.

   Hen. Scobell, Clerc. Parl.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the right honourable, the Commons of England, in Parliament assembled.

   Sirs,

   All that I shall preface to the ensuing discourse is, that seeing the
   nation's welfare and your own actings are therein concerned (the
   welfare of the nation and your own prosperity in your present actings
   being so nearly related, as they are, to the things of the ensuing
   discourse), I should be bold to press you to a serious consideration of
   them as now presented unto you, were I not assured -- by your ready
   attention unto, and favourable acceptation of, their delivery -- that,
   being now published by your command, such a request would be altogether
   needless. The subject-matter of this sermon being of so great weight
   and importance as it is, it had been very desirable that it had fallen
   on an abler hand; as also that more space and leisure had been allotted
   to the preparing of it -- first, for so great, judicious, and
   honourable an audience; and, secondly, for public view -- than possibly
   I could beg from my daily troubles, pressures, and temptations, in the
   midst of a poor, numerous, provoking people. As the Lord hath brought
   it forth, that it may be useful to your Honourable Assembly, and the
   residue of men that wait for the appearance of the Lord Jesus, shall be
   the sincere endeavour at the throne of grace of

   Your most unworthy Servant

   In the work of the Lord,

   J. Owen.

   Coggeshall, May 1, 1649
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Sermon V. The shaking and translating of heaven and earth

   "And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things
   that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which
   cannot be shaken may remain." -- Heb. xii. 27.

   The main design of the apostle in this scripture to the Hebrews, is to
   prevail, with his countrymen, who had undertaken the profession of the
   gospel, to abide constant and faithful therein, without any apostasy
   unto, or mixture with Judaism, which God and themselves had forsaken;
   -- fully manifesting, that in such backsliders the soul of the Lord
   hath no pleasure, chap. x. 38, --

   A task, which whoso undertaketh in any age, shall find exceeding
   weighty and difficult, -- even to persuade professors to hold out and
   continue in the glory of their profession unto the end, that with
   patience doing the will of God they "might receive the promise;" [233]
   -- especially if there be "lions in the way," [234] if opposition or
   persecution do attend them in their professed subjection to the Lord
   Jesus. Of all that deformity and dissimilitude to the divine nature
   which is come upon us by the fall, there is no one part more eminent,
   or rather no one defect more evident, than inconstancy and unstableness
   of mind in embracing that which is spiritually good. Man being turned
   from his unchangeable rest [235] seeks to quiet and satiate his soul
   with restless movings towards changeable things.

   Now, he who worketh all our works for us and in us, Isa. xxvi. 12,
   worketh them also by us; [236] and, therefore, that which he will give,
   he persuades us to have, that at once his bounty and our duty may
   receive a manifestation in the same thing. Of this nature is
   perseverance in the faith of Christ; -- which, as by him it is
   promised, and therefore is a grace; so to us it is prescribed, and
   thereby is a duty. "Petamus ut det, quod ut habeamus jubet," Augustine;
   -- "Let us ask him to bestow what he requires us to enjoy." Yea, "De
   Domine, quod jubes, et jube vis;" -- "Give what thou commandest, and
   command what thou pleasest."

   As a duty it is by the apostle here considered; and therefore pressed
   on them who by nature were capable, and by grace enabled, for the
   performance thereof. Pathetical exhortations, then, unto perseverance
   in the profession of the gospel, bottomed on prevalent scriptural
   arguments and holy reasonings, are the sum of this epistle.

   The arguments the apostle handleth unto the end proposed are of two
   sorts:-- First, Principal; Secondly, Deductive, or emergencies from the
   first.

   First, His principal arguments are drawn from two chief fountains:-- 1.
   The author; and, 2. The nature and end of the gospel.

   1. The author of the gospel is either, --

   (1.) Principal and immediate, which is God the Father, who having at
   sundry times and in divers manners formerly spoken by the prophets,
   herein speaketh by his Son, chap. i. 1.

   (2.) Concurrent and immediate, Jesus Christ, this great salvation,
   being begun to be spoken to us by the Lord, chap. ii. 3. This latter he
   chiefly considereth, as in and by whom the gospel is differenced from
   all other dispensations of the mind of God. Concerning him to the end
   intended he proposeth, --[1.] His person; [2.] His employment.

   [1.] For his person, that thence he may argue to the thing aimed at, he
   holdeth out, --

   1st. The infinite glory of his Deity; being "the brightness of the
   Father's glory, and the express image of his person," chap. i. 3.

   2dly. The infinite condescension of his love, in assuming humanity;
   for, "because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also
   himself took part of the same," chap. ii. 14.

   And from the consideration of both these, he presseth the main
   exhortation which he hath in hand, as you may see, chap. ii. 1, 2, iii.
   12, 13, etc.

   [2.] The employment of Christ he describeth in his offices, which he
   handleth, --

   1st. Positively, and very briefly, chapters i., ii., iii.

   2dly. Comparatively, insisting chiefly on his priesthood, -- exalting
   it in sundry weighty particulars above that of Aaron, which yet was the
   glory of the Jewish worship; and this at large, chapters vi., vii.,
   viii., ix., x. And this being variously advanced and asserted, he
   layeth as the main foundation, upon which he placeth the weight and
   stress of the main end pursued, as in the whole epistle is everywhere
   obvious.

   2. The second head of principal arguments he taketh from the gospel
   itself; which considering as a covenant, he holdeth out two ways.

   (1.) Absolutely, in its efficacy in respect of, --

   [1.] Justification. In it God is merciful to unrighteousness, and sins
   and iniquities he remembers no more, chap. viii. 12; -- bringing in
   perfect remission, that there shall need no more offering for sin,
   chap. x. 18.

   [2.] Sanctification. He puts his laws in our hearts, and writes them in
   our minds, chap. x. 16; -- in it purging our consciences by the blood
   of Christ, chap. ix. 14.

   [3.] Perseverance: "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a
   people," chap. viii. 10.

   All three are also held out in sundry other places.

   (2.) Respectively to the covenant of works; and in this regard assigns
   unto it principal qualifications, with many peculiar eminences them
   attending, -- too many now to be named. Now, these are, --

   [1.] That it is new: "In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made
   the first old," chap. viii. 13.

   [2.] Better. It is a better covenant, and built upon "better promises,"
   chap. vii. 22, viii. 6.

   [3.] Surer, the Priest thereof being ordained, "not after the law of a
   carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life," chap. vii.
   16.

   [4.] Unalterable. So in all the places before named, and sundry others.

   All which are made eminent in its peculiar mediator, Jesus Christ;
   which is the sum of chap. vii.

   And still, in the holding out of these things, that they might not
   forget the end for which they were now drawn forth, and so exactly
   handled, he interweaves many pathetical entreaties and pressing
   arguments by way of application, for the confirming and establishing
   his countrymen in the faith of this glorious gospel; as you may see
   almost in every chapter.

   Secondly. His arguments less principal, deduced from the former, being
   very many, may be referred to these three heads:--

   1. The benefits by them enjoyed under the gospel.

   2. The example of others, who by faith and patience obtained the
   promises, chap. xi.

   3. From the dangerous and pernicious consequence of backsliding; of
   which only I shall speak. Now this he setteth out three ways.

   (1.) From the nature of that sin. It is a crucifying to themselves the
   Son of God afresh, and putting him to open shame, chap. vi. 6; a
   treading under foot the Son of God, counting the blood of the covenant
   an unholy thing, and doing despite to the Spirit of grace, chap. x. 29.

   (2.) The remediless punishment which attends that sin: "There remaineth
   no more sacrifice for it, but a certain fearful looking for of
   judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries,"
   chap. x. 26, 27.

   (3.) The person against whom peculiarly it is committed, and that is he
   who is the author, subject, and mediator of the gospel, the Lord Jesus
   Christ; concerning whom, for the aggravation of this sin, he proposeth
   two things.

   [1.] His goodness and love, and that in his great undertaking to be a
   Saviour; being "made like unto his brethren in all things, that he
   might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
   God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people," chap. ii. 17.
   And of this there is a sweet and choice line running through the whole
   discourse, making the sin of backsliding against so much love and
   condescension appear exceeding sinful.

   [2.] His greatness or power; which he sets out two ways.

   1st. Absolutely, as he is God, to be "blessed for ever," chap. i.; and,
   "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," chap.
   x. 31.

   2dly. Comparatively, as he is the mediator of the new covenant in
   reference to Moses. And this he setteth forth, as by many and sundry
   reasonings in other places of the epistle, so by a double testimony in
   this 12th chapter, making that inference from them both which you have,
   verse 25, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they
   escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we
   escape, if we turn away from him who speaketh from heaven."

   Now, the first testimony of his power is taken from a record of what he
   did heretofore; -- the other from a prediction of what he will do
   hereafter.

   The first you have, verse 26, in the first part of it, "His voice then
   shook the earth;" then, -- that is, when the law was delivered by him,
   as it is described, verses 18-21, foregoing; when the mountain upon
   which it was delivered, the mediator Moses, into whose hand it was
   delivered, and the people for whose use it was delivered, did all shake
   and tremble at the voice, power, and presence of Christ, [237] -- who,
   as it hence appears, is that Jehovah who gave the law, Exod. xx. 2.

   The other, in the same verse, is taken from a prediction out of Hag.
   ii. 6, of what he will do hereafter, -- even demonstrate and make
   evident his power, beyond whatever he before effected: He hath
   promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also
   heaven."

   And if any one shall ask, wherein this effect of the mighty power of
   the Lord Jesus consisteth, and how from thence professors may be
   prevailed upon to keep close to the obedience of him in his kingdom, --
   the apostle answers, verse 27, "And this word, Yet once more,
   signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things
   that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."
   And thus am I stepped down upon the words of my text, finding them in
   the close of the arguments drawn from the power of Christ to persuade
   professors to constancy in the paths of the gospel; and having passed
   through their coherence, and held out their aim and tendence, their
   opening and application come now to be considered.

   And herein these three things:-- I. The apostle's assertion: "The
   things that are shaken shall be removed, as things that are made;" II.
   The proof of this assertion: "This word, Yet once more, signifieth no
   less;" III. His inference from this assertion thus proved: "The things
   that cannot be shaken must remain."

   I. In the first I shall consider, -- 1. What are the things that are
   shaken; 2. What is their shaking; 3. What their removal, being shaken.

   1. For the first, there is a great variety of judgment amongst
   interpreters. [238] The foregoing verse tells us it is not only the
   earth, but the heaven also; but now what heaven and earth this should
   be is dubious, -- is not apparent. So many different apprehensions of
   the mind of God in these words as have any likeness of truth I must
   needs recount and remove, that no prejudice may remain from other
   conceptions against that which from them we shall assert.

   (1.) The earth, say some, is the men of the earth, living thereon; and
   the heavens are the angels, their blessed inhabitants: both shaken or
   stricken with amazement upon the nativity of Christ and preaching of
   the gospel. The heavens were shaken, when so great things were
   accomplished as that "the angels themselves desired to look into them,"
   1 Pet. i. 12; and the earth was filled with amazement, when, the Holy
   Ghost being poured out upon the apostles for the preaching of the
   gospel, men of every nation under heaven were amazed and marvelled at
   it, Acts ii. 5-7. Thus Rollocus, Piscator, and sundry other famous
   divines. But, --

   [1.] The shaking here intimated by the apostle was then, when he wrote,
   under the promise, not actually accomplished, as were the things by
   them recounted; for he holds it forth as an issue of that great power
   of Christ which he would one day exercise for the farther establishment
   of his kingdom.

   [2.] This that now is to be done must excel that which formerly was
   done at the giving of the law; as is clearly intimated in the
   inference: "Then he shook the earth, but now the heavens also." It is a
   gradation to a higher demonstration of the power of Christ; which that
   the things of this interpretation are is not apparent.

   [3.] It is marvellous these learned men observed not, that the heavens
   and the earth shaken, verse 26, are the things to be removed, verse 27.
   Now, how are angels and men removed by Christ? are they not rather
   gathered up into one spiritual body and communion? [239] Hence, verse
   27, they interpret the shaken things to be Judaical ceremonies, which,
   verse 26, they had said to be men and angels.

   (2.) Others by heaven and earth understand the material parts of the
   world's fabric, commonly so called; and by their shaking, those
   portentous signs and prodigies, with earthquakes, which appeared in
   them at the birth and death of the Lord Jesus. A new star,
   preternatural darkness, shaking of the earth, opening of graves,
   rending of rocks, and the like, are to them this shaking of heaven and
   earth. [240] So Junius, and after him most of ours. But this
   interpretation is obnoxious to the same exceptions with the former, and
   also others For, --

   [1.] These things being past before, how can they be held out under a
   promise? [241]

   [2.] How are these shaken things removed? which with their shaking they
   must certainly be, as in my text.

   [3.] This shaking of heaven and earth is ascribed to the power of
   Christ as mediator, whereunto these signs and prodigies cannot
   rationally be assigned; but rather to the sovereignty of the Father,
   bearing witness to the nativity and death of his Son; -- so that
   neither can this conception be fastened on the words.

   (3.) The fabric of heaven and earth is by others also intended, -- not
   in respect of the signs and prodigies formerly wrought in them, but of
   that dissolution, or, as they suppose, alteration, which they shall
   receive at the last day. So Pareus, Grotius, and many more. Now, though
   these avoid the rock of holding out as accomplished what is only
   promised, yet this gloss also is a dress disfiguring the mind of God in
   the text. For, --

   [1.] The things here said to be shaken do stand in a plain opposition
   to the things that cannot be shaken nor removed; and therefore they are
   to be removed, that these may be brought in. Now, the things to be
   brought in are the things of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. What
   opposition, I pray, does the material fabric of heaven and earth stand
   in to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus? Doubtless none at all, being the
   proper seat of that kingdom.

   [2.] There will, on this ground, be no bringing in of the kingdom of
   the Lord Jesus until indeed that kingdom in the sense here insisted on
   is to cease; that is, after the day of judgment, when the kingdom of
   grace shall have place no more.

   Those are the most material and likely mistakes about the words. I
   could easily give out, and pluck in again three or four other warping
   senses; but I hope few in these days of accomplishing will once stumble
   at them.

   (4.) The true mind of the Spirit, by the help of that Spirit of truth,
   comes next to be unfolded. And first, what are the things that are
   shaken?

   [1.] As the apostle here applies a part of the prophecy of Haggai, so
   that prophecy, even in the next words, gives light into the meaning of
   the apostle. Look what heaven and earth the prophet speaks of; -- of
   those, and no other, speaks the apostle. The Spirit of God in the
   Scripture is his own best interpreter. [242] See, then, the order of
   the words as they lie in the prophet, Hag. ii. 6, 7, "I will shake
   heaven and earth: I will shake all nations." God, then, shakes heaven
   and earth when he shakes all nations; that is, he shakes the heaven and
   earth of the nations. "I will shake heaven and earth, and I will shake
   all nations," is a pleonasm for "I will shake the heaven and earth of
   all nations." These are the things shaken in my text.

   The heavens of the nations, what are they? -- even their political
   heights and glory, those forms of government which they have framed for
   themselves and their own interest, with the grandeur and lustre of
   their dominions. The nations' earth is the multitudes of their people,
   their strength and power, whereby their heavens, or political heights,
   are supported. It is, then, neither the material heavens and earth, nor
   yet Mosaical ordinances, but the political heights and splendour, the
   popular multitudes and strength, of the nations of the earth, that are
   thus to be shaken, as shall be proved.

   That the earth, in prophetical descriptions or predictions of things,
   is frequently, yea, almost always, taken for the people and multitudes
   of the earth, needs not much proving. [243] One or two instances shall
   suffice. Rev. xii. 16, "The earth helped the woman" against the flood
   of the dragon; which that it was the multitudes of earthly people none
   doubts. That an earthquake, or shaking of the earth, are popular
   commotions, is no less evident from Rev. xi. 13, where by an earthquake
   great Babylon receives a fatal blow. And for the heavens, whether they
   be the political heights of the nations or the grandeur of potentates,
   let the Scripture be judge; I mean, when used in this sense of shaking,
   or establishment, Isa. li. 15, 16, "I am the Lord thy God, that divided
   the sea, whose waves roared: the Lord of hosts is his name. And I have
   put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of
   mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the
   earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people." By a repetition of what
   he hath done, he establisheth his people in expectation of what he will
   do. And, --

   1st. He minds them of that wonderful deliverance from an army behind
   them, and an ocean before them, by his miraculous preparing dry paths
   for them in the deep: "I am the Lord, that divided the sea, whose waves
   roared."

   2dly. Of his gracious acquainting them with his mind, his law, and
   ordinances at Horeb. "I have put," saith he, "my words in thy mouth."

   3dly. Of that favourable and singular protection afforded them in the
   wilderness, when they were encompassed with enemies round about: "I
   covered thee in the shadow of mine hand."

   Now, to what end was all this? Why, saith he, "That I might plant the
   heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth." What! of these
   material, visible heavens and earth? Two thousand four hundred and
   sixty years before, at least, were they planted and established. It is
   all but [nothing more than] making of "Zion a people," which before was
   scattered in distinct families. And how is this done? Why, the heavens
   are planted, or a glorious frame of government and polity is erected
   amongst them, and the multitudes of their people are disposed into an
   orderly commonwealth, to be a firm foundation and bottom for the
   government amongst them. This is the heavens and earth of the nations
   which is to be shaken in my text.

   Isa. xxxiv. 4, "All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the
   heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall
   fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine." Now, these
   dissolved, rolled heavens are no other but the power and heights of the
   opposing nations, their government and tyranny, especially that of
   Idumea, as both the foregoing and following verses do declare. "The
   indignation of the Lord," saith he, "is upon the nations, and his fury
   upon all their armies; he hath delivered them to the slaughter, their
   slain," etc. Jer. iv. 23-25, "I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was
   without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld
   the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved
   lightly." Here's heaven and earth shaken, and all in the razing of the
   political state and commonwealth of the Jews by the Babylonians, as is
   at large described in the verses following. Ezek. xxxii. 7, "I will
   cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun
   with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright
   lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy
   land, saith the Lord God." Behold heaven and earth, sun, moon, and
   stars, all shaken and confounded in the destruction of Egypt, -- the
   thing the prophet treats of, their kingdom and nation being to be
   ruined.

   Not to hold you too long upon what is so plain and evident, you may
   take it for a rule, that, in the denunciations of the judgments of God,
   through all the prophets, heaven, sun, moon, stars, and the like
   appearing beauties and glories of the aspectable heavens, are taken for
   governments, governors, dominions in political states; as Isa. xiv.
   12-15; Jer. xv. 9, li. 25. [244]

   Furthermore, to confirm this exposition, St John, in the Revelation,
   holds constantly to the same manner of expression. Heaven and earth in
   that book are commonly those which we have described. In particular,
   this is eminently apparent, chap. vi. 12-15, "And I beheld when he had
   opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the
   sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
   and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth: and the heaven departed as
   a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were
   moved out of their places," etc. The destruction and wasting of the
   Pagan-Romish state, the plagues and commotions of her people, the
   dethroning her idol-worship, and destruction of persecuting emperors
   and captains, with the transition of power and sovereignty from one
   sort to another, is here held out under this grandeur of words, [245]
   being part of the shaking of heaven and earth in my text.

   Add lastly hereunto, that the promises of the restoration of God's
   people into a glorious condition after all their sufferings, is
   perpetually, in the Scripture, held out under the same terms, and you
   have a plentiful demonstration of this point. Isa. lxv. 17, 18,
   "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not
   be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever
   in that which I create," etc. [246] 2 Pet. iii. 13, "Nevertheless we,
   according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein
   dwelleth righteousness." Rev. xxi. 1, "I saw a new heaven and a new
   earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and
   there was no more sea." The heaven and earth are restored, but the sea,
   -- that shall be no more. Those gatherings together of many waters,
   rivers from all places, [247] or pretended clergymen from all nations
   into general councils, which were the sea or many waters on which the
   whore sat, [248] shall have no place at all in the church's restored
   condition.

   I hope it is now fully cleared what is meant by the things that are
   shaken, -- even the political heights, the splendour and strength of
   the nations of the earth: the foundation of the whole is laid, and our
   heap (or building, if your favour will so accept it) will go on apace;
   for to the analogy hereof shall the residue of the words be
   interpreted.

   2. The second thing considerable is, What is the shaking of these
   things?

   To this the answer is now made brief and facile. Such as are the things
   shaken, such must their shaking be: spiritual, if spiritual; natural,
   if natural; civil, if civil. Now, they being declared and proved to be
   civil things, such also is their shaking. [249] Now, what is a civil
   shaking of civil constitutions? how are such things done in the world?
   what are these earthquakes? Truly, the accomplishment hereof is in all
   nations so under our eyes as that I need not speak one word thereunto.

   Neither shall I insist upon the inquiry, when this shaking shall be?

   The text is plain, that it must be previous to the bringing in of those
   things that cannot be moved; that is, the prosperous estate of the
   kingdom of Christ. [250] Only we may observe, that besides other
   shakings in particular nations, of less general concernment and
   importance, this prophecy hath and shall receive a twofold eminent
   accomplishment, with reference unto a twofold eminent opposition which
   the kingdom of Christ hath met withal in the world.

   (1.) From the Pagan-Roman state, which, at the gospel's first entrance,
   held in subjection most of the chief provinces of the then known world.
   [251] What were the bloody endeavours of the heaven and earth of that
   state for the suppression thereof is known to our children. The issue
   of the whole in the accomplishment of this promise, shaking those
   heavens and earth to pieces, I before pointed at from Rev. vi. 12-17,
   beginning in the plagues of the persecuting emperors, and ending in the
   ruin of the empire itself. But, --

   (2.) The immovable things were not yet in their glory to be brought in.
   More seed of blood must be sown, that the end of the gospel's year may
   yield a plentiful harvest. That shaking was only for vengeance upon an
   old, cursed, and not for the bringing in of a new, blessed state. The
   vials of God's wrath having crumbled the heavens and earth of pagan
   Rome into several pieces, [252] and that empire being removed as to its
   old form, by the craft of Satan it became moulded up again into a papal
   sovereignty, to exercise all the power of the first beast in
   persecution of the saints, Rev. xiii. 12. This second pressure, though
   long and sore, must have an end; -- the new-moulded heaven and earth of
   papal, antichristian Rome, running by a mysterious thread through all
   the nations of the west, must be shaken also; which when it is
   accomplished, there shall be no more sea. There is not another beast to
   arise, nor another state to be formed; -- let endeavours be what they
   will, the Lord Jesus shall reign. [253]

   3. What is the removal of heaven and earth, being shaken?

   The word here translated "removal" is metathesis: whence that is come
   to pass I dare not positively say. This, doubtless, is a common fault
   amongst translators, that they will accommodate the words of a text to
   their own apprehension of the sense and matter thereof. [254]
   Understanding, as I suppose, that the things here said to be shaken
   were the Jewish ordinances, they translated their disposition a
   "removal;" as the truth is they were removed. But the word signifies no
   such thing. As its natural import, from its rise and composition, is
   otherwise, so neither in the Scripture nor any profane author doth it
   ever signify properly a "removal." Translation, or changing, is the
   only native, genuine import of it: [255] and why it should in this
   place be haled out of its own sphere, and tortured into a new
   signification, I know not. Removal is of the matter, translation of the
   form only. It is not, then, a destruction and total emotion of the seat
   things of the nations; but a change, translation, and a new-moulding of
   them, that is here intimated. They shall be shuffled together, almost
   into their primitive confusion, and come out new-moulded, for the
   interest of the Lord Jesus. All the present states of the worm are
   cemented together by antichristian lime, as I shall show afterward:--
   unless they be so shaken as to have every cranny searched and brushed,
   they will be no quiet habitation for the Lord Christ and his people.
   This, then, is the metathesis of the "heaven and earth" of the nations.

   Now, this is evident from that full prediction which you have of the
   accomplishment hereof, Rev. xvii. 12, the kingdoms of the west "receive
   power one hour with the beast." Verse 13, in their constitution and
   government at first received, "they give their power to the beast," and
   fight against the Lamb. Verse 14, the Lamb with his faithful and chosen
   ones overcomes them. There their heaven and earth is shaken. Verse 16,
   their power is translated, new-moulded, and becomes a power against the
   beast, in the hand of Jesus Christ.

   This, then, is the shaking and removal in my text, which is said to be,
   "as of things that are made;" that is, by men, through the concurrence
   of divine Providence for a season (which making you have, Rev. xvii.
   12-17); -- not like the kingdom of Christ, which, being of a purely
   divine constitution, shall by no human power receive an end.

   The other parts of the text follow briefly.

   II. The next thing is the apostle's proof of this assertion. And he
   tells you, "This word, Once more," the beginning of this sentence he
   urged from the prophet, "signifies no less."

   The words in the prophet are, vd 'cht mt hy'?, "Yet once it is a
   little." mt hy'?, "It is a little," is left out by the apostle, as not
   conducing to the business in hand. Eti hapax, as he rendereth vd 'cht?,
   are a sufficient demonstration of the assertion. In themselves they
   hold out a commutation of things, and, as they stand in conjunction in
   that place of the prophet, declare that that shaking and commutation
   must be for the bringing in of the kingdom of the Lord Christ. In
   brief, being interpreted by the same Spirit whereby they were indited,
   we know the exposition is true.

   III. The last head remaineth under two particulars:-- 1. What are "the
   things that cannot be shaken?" 2. What is their remaining?

   1. For the first, "the things that cannot be shaken," verse 27, are
   called "a kingdom that cannot be moved," verse 28, -- a kingdom subject
   to none of those shakings and alterations which other dominions have
   been tossed to and fro withal. [256] Daniel calls it, a not giving of
   the kingdom to another people, Dan. ii. 44; -- not that oecumenical
   kingdom which he hath with his Father, as king of nations; but that
   oeconomical kingdom which he hath by dispensation from his Father, as
   king of saints. Now this may be considered two ways.

   (1.) As purely internal and spiritual; which is the rule of his Spirit
   in the hearts of all his saints. [257] This "cometh not with
   observation," it is within us, Luke xvii. 20, 21, -- consisting in
   "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," Rom. xiv. 17.

   (2.) As external, and appearing in gospel administrations. [258] So is
   Christ described as a king in the midst of their kingdom, Rev. i.
   14-17, as also chap. iv. and chap. xi. 15. And both these may be again
   considered two ways.

   [1.] In respect of their essence and being; and so they have been, are,
   and shall be continued in all ages. He hath built his church upon a
   rock, "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," Matt. xvi.
   18.

   [2.] In reference to their extent in respect of subjects, with their
   visible glorious appearance, which is under innumerable promises to be
   very great in the latter days: "And it shall come to pass in the last
   days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the
   top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all
   nations shall flow unto it," Isa. ii. 2. [259]

   These, then, are the things which cannot be shaken; which we may reduce
   to three heads.

   1st. The growth of righteousness, peace, and joy in the saints, being
   filled with light and love from the special presence of Christ; with a
   wonderful increase of the number of them, multitudes of the elect being
   to be born in those days, the residue of the Jews and fulness of the
   Gentiles meeting in one fold, and there "dwelleth righteousness," 2
   Pet. iii. 13. [260]

   2dly. The administration of gospel ordinances, in power and purity,
   according to the appointment and unto the acceptation of the Lord
   Jesus. The temple of God and the altar being measured anew, the outward
   court, defiled with Gentile worship, is left out, Rev. xi. 1, 2.

   3dly. The glorious and visible manifestation of those administrations
   in the eyes of all the world, in peace and quietness, -- none making
   afraid or hurting in the whole mountain of the Lord, Isa. lxv. 25.

   For the personal reign of the Lord Jesus on earth, I leave it to them
   with whose discoveries I am not, and curiosities I would not be,
   acquainted, Acts iii. 21.

   But as for such who from hence do, or for sinister ends pretend to
   fancy to themselves a terrene kingly state unto each private particular
   saint, -- so making it a bottom "vivendi ut velis," for every one to do
   that which is good in his own eyes, to the disturbance of all order and
   authority, civil and spiritual, -- as they expressly clash against
   innumerable promises, so they directly introduce such confusion and
   disorder as the soul of the Lord Jesus doth exceedingly abhor.

   It is only the three things named, with their necessary dependencies,
   that I do assert.

   2. And lastly, of these it is said, -- they must remain; that is,
   continue and be firmly established, as the word is often used, Rom. ix.
   11.

   The words of the text being unfolded, and the mind of the Holy Ghost in
   them discovered, I shall from them commend to your Christian
   consideration this following position:--

   Observation. The Lord Jesus Christ, by his mighty power, in these
   latter days, as antichristian tyranny draws to its period, will so far
   shake and translate the political heights, governments, and strength of
   the nations, as shall serve for the full bringing in of his own
   peaceable kingdom; -- the nations so shaken becoming thereby a quiet
   habitation for the people of the Most High.

   Though the doctrine be clear from the text, yet it shall receive
   farther scriptural confirmation, being of great weight and concernment.
   Dan. ii. 44, "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven
   set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall
   not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume
   all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." That this is affirmed
   of the kingdom of Christ under the gospel, none ever doubted.

   Three things are here remarkably intimated of it:-- 1. The time wherein
   it shall most eminently be established; and that is, "In the days of
   these kings," of which Daniel was speaking; 2. The efficacy of its
   being set up: "It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms;" 3. Its own
   stability: "It shall never be destroyed."

   1. For the first, there is great debate about the principal season of
   the accomplishing of this prediction; -- much hesitation who those
   kings are in whose days the kingdom of Christ is eminently to be
   established. In the days when the two legs of the Roman empire shall be
   divided into ten kingdoms, and those kingdoms have opposed themselves
   to the power of Christ, -- that is, in the days wherein we live, -- say
   some; yea, most of the ancients took this for the Roman empire, and to
   these the bringing in of the kingdom of Christ is the establishment of
   it in these days. Others understand the Syrian and Egyptian branches of
   the Grecian monarchy, and the bringing in of Christ's kingdom to be in
   his birth, death, and preaching of the gospel; wherein certainly the
   foundations of it were laid. I will not contend with any mortal
   hereabout; only I shall oppose one or two things to this latter
   interpretation. As, --

   (1.) The kingdom of Syria was totally destroyed and reduced into a
   Roman province sixty years before the nativity of Christ; and the
   Egyptian, thirty; -- so that it is impossible that the kingdom of
   Christ by his birth should be set up in their days.

   (2.) It is ascribed to the efficacy of this kingdom, that, being
   established, it shall break in pieces all those kingdoms: which how can
   it be, when, at the first setting of it up, they had neither place nor
   name, nor scarce remembrance?

   So that it must needs be the declining, divided Roman empire, shared
   among sundry nations, that is here intimated: and so, consequently, the
   kingdom of Christ to be established, is that glorious administration
   thereof which in these days he will bring in.

   2. Be it so or otherwise, this from hence cannot be denied, that the
   kingdom of Christ will assuredly shake and translate all opposing
   dominions, until itself be established in and over them all, -- oper
   hedei, -- which is all I intend to prove from this place. The
   ten-partite empire of the west must give place to the stone cut out of
   the mountain without hands.

   Dan. vii. 27, "The kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the
   kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the
   saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and
   all dominions shall serve and obey him." Hitherto is the end of the
   matter. Either Antichrist is described in the close of this chapter, or
   one very like him, St John painting him in the Revelation with all this
   man's colours; plainly intimating, that though, in the first place,
   that mad, raging tyrant, Antiochus the Illustrious, was pointed at, yet
   that another was to rise in his likeness, with his craft and cruelty,
   that, with the assistance of the ten horns, should plague the saints of
   the Christians no less than the others had done those of the Jews. Now,
   what shall be the issue thereof? His dominion with his adherents shall
   be taken away and consumed, verse 26. And then shall it be given to the
   people of the Most High, as before; or, they shall enjoy the kingdom of
   Christ in a peaceable manner, their officers being made peace, and
   their exactors righteousness.

   3. It is clearly evident, from these and other places in that prophecy,
   that He who is the only potentate will sooner or later shake all the
   monarchies of the earth, where he will have his name known, that all
   nations may be suited to the interest of his kingdom; which alone is to
   endure.

   Isa. lx. 1 in many places, indeed throughout, holds out the same. Verse
   12, "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish;"
   that is, all the nations of the earth. Not a known nation, but the
   blood of the saints of Christ is found in the skirts thereof. Now, what
   shall be the issue when they are so broken?

   Verses 17, 18, "I will make thy officers peace, and thine exactors
   righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor
   destruction within thy borders: but thou shalt call thy walls
   Salvation, and thy gates Praise." See at your leisure to this purpose,
   Amos ix. 11-15; Jer. xxxi. 23-25; Isa. xxxiii. 20-24.

   I shall only add that punctual description which you have of this
   "whole matter," as Daniel calls it, in the Revelation, with respect
   unto its accomplishment. Chap. xvii., the Roman harlot having procured
   the ten kings or kingdoms, into which the last head of the Roman empire
   sprouted, about the year 450, by the inundation of the northern
   nations, to join with her, they together make war against the Lamb.
   Verse 12, "The ten horns which thou sawest" upon the last head of the
   great beast, the Roman monarchy, "are ten kings, which have received no
   kingdom as yet," -- to wit, when John saw the vision, -- "but receive
   power as kings one hour with the beast." About four hundred years after
   this, the pope ascended to his sovereignty, and these western nations
   grew into distinct dominions about the same time. Verse 13, "These have
   one mind," -- that is, as to the business in hand, for otherwise they
   did and do vex one another with perpetual broils and wars, -- "and
   shall give their power and strength unto the beast," or swear to defend
   the rights of holy church (which is no other than Babylon), and act
   accordingly. Verse 14, "These shall make war with the Lamb;" -- having
   sworn and undertaken the defence of holy church, or Babylon, they
   persecuted the poor heretics with fire and sword; that is, the
   witnesses of the Lamb, and in them the Lamb himself, striving to keep
   his kingdom out of the world; -- "and the Lamb shall overcome them,"
   shaking and translating them into a new mould and frame; "for he is
   Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they that are with him," whose
   help and endeavours he will use, "are called, and chosen, and
   faithful." Verse 16, "The ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast,"
   being now shaken, changed, and translated in mind, interest, and
   perhaps government, "these shall hate the whore, and shall make her
   desolate" -- are instrumental in the hand of Christ for the ruin of
   that antichristian state which before they served -- "and naked, and
   shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire."

   Hence, chap. xviii. 2, Babylon, and that whole antichristian state
   which was supported upon their power and greatness, having lost its
   props, comes toppling down to the ground: "Babylon the great is fallen,
   is fallen." And the saints take vengeance on the whore for all her
   former rage and cruelty: "Double unto her double, according to her
   works," verse 6. And verse 9, "And the kings of the earth," -- being
   some of them shaken out of their dominion for refusing to close with
   the Lamb, -- "who have committed fornication, and lived deliciously
   with her," -- learning and practising false worship of her institution,
   -- "shall bewail her, and lament for her," -- as having received
   succour from her, her monasteries and shavelings, in their distress,
   whereunto indeed they were brought for her sake, -- "when they shall
   see the smoke of her burning," -- beholding her darkness, stink, and
   confusion, in her final desolation.

   Now, all this shall be transacted with so much obscurity and darkness,
   Christ not openly appearing unto carnal eyes, that though "many shall
   be purified, and made white, and tried, yet the wicked shall do
   wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall
   understand," Dan. xii. 10. There shall be no such demonstration of the
   presence of Christ as to open the eyes of hardened men; but at length,
   having suffered the poor, deceived wretches to drink of the cup
   prepared for them, he appears himself gloriously, Rev. xix. 13, in a
   more eminent manner than ever before, to the total destruction of the
   residue of opposers. And that this will be the utmost close of that
   dispensation wherein now he walketh, I no way doubt.

   The assertion being cleared and proved, the reasons of it come next to
   be considered. And, --

   (1.) It shall be done by the way of recompense and vengeance. It is the
   great day of the wrath of the Lamb, Rev. vi. 17. "Their land shall be
   soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the
   day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the
   controversy of Zion," Isa. xxxiv. 7, 8. The day of vengeance is in his
   heart, when the year of his redeemed is come, Isa. lxiii. 4. [261]

   The kings of the earth have given their power to Antichrist,
   endeavouring to the utmost to keep the kingdom of Christ out of the
   world. What, I pray, hath been their main business for seven hundred
   years and upwards, -- even almost ever since the man of sin was
   enthroned? How have they earned the titles, Eldest Son of the Church,
   The Catholic and Most Christian King, Defender of the Faith, and the
   like? Hath it not been by the blood of saints? Are there not, in every
   one of these kingdoms, the slain and the banished ones of Christ to
   answer for? In particular, --

   Hath not the blood of the saints of Jesus [262] (eclipsed by Antichrist
   and his adherents), Wickliffites and Lollards, cried from the ground
   for vengeance upon the English "heaven and earth" for a long season Did
   not their bodies lie in the streets of France, under the names of
   Waldenses, Albigenses, and poor men of Lyons? Hath not Germany and the
   annexed territories her Huss and Hussites, Jerome, and Subutraquians,
   [263] to answer for? Is not Spain's inquisition enough to ruin a world,
   much more a kingdom? Have not all these, and all the kingdoms round
   about, washed their hands and garments in the blood of thousands of
   Protestants? and do not the kings of all these nations as yet stand up
   in the room of their progenitors with the same implacable enmity to the
   power of the gospel? Show me seven kings that ever yet laboured
   sincerely to enhance the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, and I dare boldly
   say, "Octavus quis fuerit, nondum constat." And is there not a cry for
   all this, -- "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and
   avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Rev. vi. 10. Doth
   not Zion cry, "The violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon;"
   and, My blood upon those heavens of the nations? And will not the Lord
   avenge his elect, that cry unto him clay and night? will he not do it
   speedily? Will he not call the fowls of heaven to eat the flesh of
   kings, and captains, and great men of the earth? Rev. xix. 18. Will he
   not make these heavens like the wood of the vine, -- not a pin to be
   taken off them to hang a garment on in his whole tabernacle? The time
   shall come wherein the earth shall disclose her slain, and not the
   simplest heretic (as they were counted) shall have his blood
   unrevenged: neither shall any atonement be made for this blood, or
   expiation be allowed, whilst a toe of the image or a bone of the beast
   is left unbroken.

   (2.) A second reason is, That by his own wisdom he may frame such a
   power as may best conduce to the carrying on of his own kingdom among
   the sons of men. [264]

   He hath promised his church that he will give unto it holy priests and
   Levites, Isa. lxvi. 20, 21, which shall serve at the great feast of
   tabernacles, Zech. xiv. 16, -- a sufficient demonstration that he will
   dwell still in his churches by his ordinances, whatsoever some
   conceive; -- so also, that he will "make her civil officers peace, and
   her exactors righteousness," Isa. ix. 17, 18. They shall be so
   established that the nations, as nations, may serve it, and the
   kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, Rev. xi.
   15.

   For the present, the government of the nations (as many of them as are
   concerned therein) is purely framed for the interest of Antichrist. No
   kind of government in Europe, or line of governors, so ancient but that
   the beast is as old as they, and had a great influence into their
   constitution or establishment, to provide that it might be for his own
   interest. [265] I believe it will be found a difficult task to name any
   of the kingdoms of Europe (excepting only that remotest northward) in
   the setting up and establishment whereof, either as to persons or
   government, the pope hath not expressly bargained for his own interest,
   and provided that should have the chiefest place in all the oaths and
   bonds that were between princes and people. Bellarmine, to prove that
   the pope had a temporal power indirectly over all kings and nations (if
   he mean by indirectly, gotten by indirect means, it is actually true as
   to too many of them), [266] gives sundry instances, in most of the most
   eminent nations in Europe, how he hath actually exercised such a power
   for his own interest.

   There have been two most famous and remarkable changes of the
   government of these nations; and into both of them what an influence
   the pope had, is easily discernible.

   The first was between the years 400 and 500 after Christ, when the
   Roman empire of the west -- that which withheld the man of sin from
   acting his part to the life [267] -- was shivered to pieces by many
   barbarous nations; [268] who, settling themselves in the fruitful soils
   of Europe, began to plant their heavens, and lay the foundations of
   their earth, growing up into civil states, -- for the most part
   appointing them to be their kings in peace who had been their leaders
   in war. This furious inundation settled the Franks in Gaul, the Saxons
   in England, the West Goths in Spain, the East Goths and Longobards into
   Italy, and set up the Allemanns in Germany; from some whereof though
   for divers years the papal world was exceedingly tormented, and Rome
   itself sacked, yet in the close and making up of their governments,
   their manners and religion, they all submitted to the usurpation of the
   man of sin, so that in all their windings up there was a salve for him
   and his authority. [269]

   The second great alteration took up a long space, and was in action
   about three hundred years, -- reckoning it from the translation of the
   French crown from Childeric IV. [270] unto Pepin and his son Charles by
   papal authority, unto the conquest of England by the Normans; in which
   space the line of Charles in France was again by the same authority and
   the power of Hugh Capet cut off. No state in Europe -- the choice
   patrimony of the beast -- that did not receive a signal alteration in
   this space; nor was there any alteration but that the pope had a hand
   in every one of them; and, either by pretended collations of right, to
   pacify the consciences of blood-thirsty potentates in the undertaking
   and pursuing their unjust conquests, or foolish mitred-confirmations of
   sword-purchases, he got them all framed to his own end and purpose, --
   which was to bring all these nations into subjection to his Babylonish
   usurpations; which their kings finding no way inconsistent with their
   own designs, did willingly promote, labouring to enforce all
   consciences into subjection to the Roman see.

   Hence it is, as I observed before, that such an interposition was made
   of the rights of holy church that is, Babylon, the mother of
   fornications -- in all the ties, oaths, and bonds between princes and
   people. [271] And for the advancement of the righteous judgments of
   God, that the sons of men may learn to fear and tremble before him, it
   may be observed, that that which doth and shall stick upon potentates
   to their ruin, is not so much their own or any other interest, as the
   very dregs of this papal, antichristian interest thrust into their
   oaths and obligations, for no end in the world but to keep the Lord
   Jesus out of his throne. [272]

   This is a second reason why the Lord Jesus, by his mighty power, at the
   bringing in of his immovable kingdom, "will shake the heavens and the
   earth of the nations;" even because in their present constitution they
   are directly framed to the interest of Antichrist, which, by notable
   advantages at their first moulding, and continued insinuations ever
   since, hath so riveted itself into the very fundamentals of them, that
   no digging or mining, but an earthquake, will cast up the
   foundation-stones thereof. [273] The Lord Jesus, then, having promised
   the service of the nations to his church, will so far open their whole
   frame to the roots, as to pluck out all the cursed seeds of the mystery
   of iniquity, which, by the craft of Satan and exigencies of state, or
   methods of advancing the pride and power of some sons of blood, have
   been sown amongst them.

   (3.) A third reason is, because as is their interest, so is their
   acting. The present power of the nations stands in direct opposition to
   the bringing in of the kingdom of Christ. Two things there are which
   confessedly are incumbent on him in this day of his advancement.

   [1.] The bringing home of his ancient people to be one fold with the
   fulness of the Gentiles, raising up the tabernacle of David, and
   building it as in days of old, in the accomplishment of innumerable
   promises, [274] and in answer to millions of prayers put up at the
   throne of grace for this very glory, in all generations. Now, there be
   two main hinderances of this work that must be removed. The first
   whereof is, --

   1st, Real: the great river Euphrates, the strength and fulness of whose
   streams doth yet rage so high that there is no passage for the kings of
   the east to come over. Wherefore this must be dried up, as other waters
   were for their forefathers in the days of old, Rev. xvi. 12. [275]
   Doubtless this is spoken in allusion to Abraham's coming over that
   river into Canaan, when the church of God in his family was there to be
   erected, -- whence he was called the Hebrew (that is, the passenger, to
   wit, over that river, Gen. xiv. 13); -- and then it may well enough
   denote the Turkish power; which, proud as it is at this day, possessing
   in peace all those regions of the east, yet God can quickly make it
   wither and be dried up; -- or the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon,
   when it was taken and destroyed by the drying up of the streams of that
   river, and so the yoke of her tyranny broken from the church's neck;
   [276] -- and so it can be no other but the power of the Romish Babylon,
   supported by the kings of the nations, which must therefore be shaken
   and dried up.

   2dly, Moral, or the idolatry of the Gentile worshippers. [277] The Jews
   stick hard as yet at this, that God should abolish any kind of worship
   which himself had once instituted; but, that he should ever accept any
   false worship, which he had once strictly prohibited, and nowhere to
   this day appointed, -- to this they will never be reconciled. Now, such
   is all the invented idolatrous worship which the kings of the earth
   have sucked in from the cup of fornication held out to them in the hand
   and by the authority of the Roman whore; this still they cleave close
   unto, and will not hearken to the angel preaching the everlasting
   gospel, that men should worship Him who made the heavens, and the
   earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters, Rev. xiv. 6, 7, --
   that is, the God of heaven in Jesus Christ, -- in opposition to all
   their iconolatry, [278] artolatry, hagiolatry, staurolatry, and mass
   abominations. This, then, must also be removed; and because, as you saw
   before, it is so riveted and cemented into and with all the orbs of the
   nations, heaven and earth, they must be shaken, and brought eis
   metathesin, before it can be effected.

   [2.] The second thing he hath to accomplish is the tremendous, total
   destruction of Babylon, ( Ps. cxxxvii. 8, 9; Isa. xlvii. 7-9) the man
   of sin, and all his adherents, that are not obedient to the heavenly
   call, Rev. xviii. 4. [279] Now, as Samson, intending the destruction of
   the princes, lords, and residue of the Philistines, who were gathered
   together in their idol-temple, effected it by pulling away the pillars
   whereby the building was supported, whereupon the whole frame toppled
   to the ground; [280] so the Lord, intending the ruin of that mighty
   power, whose top seems to reach to heaven, will do it by pulling away
   the pillars and supporters of it, after which it cannot stand one
   moment. Now, what are the pillars of that fatal building? Are they not
   the powers of the world, as presently stated and framed? Pull them
   away, and, alas! what is Antichrist? It is the glory of the kings put
   upon her that makes men's eyes so dazzle on the Roman harlot. Otherwise
   she is but like the Egyptian deities, whose silly worshippers through
   many glorious portals and frontispieces were led to adore the image of
   an ugly ape.

   Add hereunto, that in this mighty work the Lord Jesus Christ will make
   use of the power of the nations, the horns of them; that is, their
   strength, Rev. xvii. 16. They must hate the whore, and make her
   desolate and naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. Now,
   whether this can be accomplished or no in their present posture, is
   easily discernible. Doth not the papal interest lie at the bottom of
   all, or the most ruling lines of Christendom? [281] Can that be ejected
   without unbottoming their own dominion? Do they not use the efficacy of
   the Roman jurisdiction to balance the powers of their adversaries
   abroad, and to awe their subjects at home? Hath not the pope a
   considerable strength in every one of their own bosoms? Are not the
   locusts of their religious orders (all sworn slaves to him) for number
   sufficient to make an army to fight the greatest emperor in the world?
   Are not most potentates tied by oath, or other compact, to maintain
   either the whole or some part of the old power, under the name of rites
   of holy church, prelates, and the like? And can any expect that such as
   these should take up the despised quarrel of the saints against that
   flourishing queen? Doubtless no such fruit will grow on these trees,
   before they are thoroughly shaken.

   (4.) A fourth reason is, that His own people, seeing all earthly things
   shaken and removing, may be raised up to the laying hold of that
   durable kingdom that shall not be removed. [282] All carnal interests
   will doubtless be shaken with that of Babylon. Many of God's people are
   not yet weaned from the things that are seen: [283] -- no sooner is one
   carnal form shaken out, but they are ready to cleave to another, yea,
   to warm themselves in the feathered nests of unclean birds. All fleshly
   dominion within doors, and all civil dominion that opposeth without
   doors, shall be shaken. Now, these things are so glued also to men's
   earthly possessions, the talons of the birds of prey having firmly
   seized on them, that they also must be shaken with them; and therefore
   from them also will he have us to be loosed, 2 Pet. iii. 12, 13.

   And these are some of the reasons of the position laid down, which is
   so bottomed, so proved, as you have heard. Of the speedy accomplishment
   of all this I no way doubt. "I believe, and therefore I have spoken."
   Whether I shall see any farther perfection of this work whilst I am
   here below, I am no way solicitous; being assured that if I fail of it
   here, I shall, through the grace of him who loved us, and gave himself
   for us, meet with the treasures of it otherwhere.

   Come we to the uses.

   Use 1. The rise of our first use I shall take from that of the prophet,
   "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he
   shall know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall
   walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein," Hos. xiv. 9.
   Labour for this heavenly wisdom and prudence, that we may know these
   things, and be acquainted with the mind and will of God in the season
   and generation wherein we live. His way is not so in the dark, nor his
   footsteps in the deep, but that we may perceive what he is about.

   Luke xii. 54-56, our Saviour gives it in as a sure testimony of the
   Pharisees' hypocrisy, notwithstanding all their pretences, and
   possession of Moses' chair, that they were wise in earthly things, and
   had drawn out experiences, by long observation, of what was like to
   come to pass as to the weather, by considering the ordinary signs of
   the alterations thereof; but notwithstanding that mighty effectual
   concurrence of signs in heaven and earth, with the accomplishment of
   prophecies, all pointing to the instant establishment of the kingdom of
   God in the coming of the Messiah, not discerning them at all, they come
   and cry, "If thou be the Christ, give us a sign;" when, without
   satisfying their sinful curiosity, heaven and earth were full of signs
   round about them. Men who will not receive God's signs, suppose they
   should be wonderful proficients in credulity might they have signs of
   their own fancying. The rich glutton thought that if his way of
   teaching might have been set up by men rising from the dead, there
   would have been a world of converts, -- more than were made by
   preaching the word of God. [284] Men suppose that if God from heaven
   should give in some discriminating prodigy, oh, how abundantly should
   they be satisfied! The truth is, the same lust and corruption that
   makes them disbelieve God's signs, moves them to look after signs of
   their own. For this very thing, then, were the Pharisees branded as
   hypocrites, that having wisdom in natural things, to calculate and
   prognosticate from necessary signs, yet in the works of the Lord,
   though the signs which in his wisdom he was pleased to give were
   plentiful round about them, they must have some of their own choosing.
   I pray God none such be found in our day.

   1 Chron. xii. 32, it is said of the men of Issachar, that they "had
   understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do." [285]
   Israel is in the dark, and knows not what to do, if the times and
   seasons be not discovered to them. If the mind and will of the Lord in
   their generation be not made out unto a people, it will be their ruin.
   Hence it is that the Lord encourageth us to make inquiry after these
   things, to find out the seasons wherein he will do any great work for
   his people, knowing that without this we shall be altogether useless in
   the generation wherein we live, Isa. xlv. 11, "Ask me of things to come
   concerning my sons; and concerning the work of my hands command ye me."
   And what is this that the Lord will have his people to inquire of him
   about? Even the great work of the ruin of Babylon, and restoration of
   his church; which yet was not to be accomplished for two hundred and
   forty years. And this he tells you plainly in the following verses: "I
   have raised him up" (Cyrus) "in righteousness, and I will direct all
   his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not
   for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts," verse 13. The Lord is
   earnest with his people to inquire into the season of the
   accomplishment of his great intendments for the good of his church,
   when as yet they are afar off; how much more when they are nigh at
   hand, even at the doors! "Whoso is wise, and will observe these thing,
   even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord," Ps. cvii.
   43. The prophet tells you [286] that this was his great study, and at
   length he understood by books the approach of the time wherein God
   would deliver his church from Babylonish captivity and pollution. Now,
   this discovery hath two or three notable products.

   (1.) It puts him upon earnest supplications for the accomplishment of
   their promised deliverance in the appointed season; -- wide from that
   atheistical frame of spirit which would have a predetermination of
   events and successes to eradicate all care and endeavour to serve that
   Providence which will produce their accomplishment. A discovery of the
   approach of any promised and before-fixed work of God should settle our
   minds to the utmost endeavour of helping the decree to bring forth.

   (2.) He finds great acceptation in this his address to the Lord by
   supplications, for the establishing of that work which he had
   discovered was nigh at hand. For, --

   [1.] An answer is returned him fully to his whole desire in the midst
   of his supplications, verse 21, "Whiles I was praying, the man Gabriel
   came," etc.

   [2.] The work which he had discovered to be approaching was instantly
   hastened and gone in hand withal, verse 23, "At the beginning of thy
   supplications the commandment came forth." Oh, that God would stir up
   his saints, in the spirit of Daniel, to consider and understand by
   books the time that he hath appointed for the deliverance of his
   people, that, fixing their supplications for the speeding thereof, the
   commandment may come forth for its full accomplishment!

   [3.] Having attained this, the Lord gives him fresh discoveries, -- new
   light of the time for the birth of the Messiah, which he thought not
   of, prayed not for: "Seventy weeks are determined," etc., verse 24. So
   delighted is the Lord with his people's diligent inquiry into his ways
   and walkings towards them, that thereupon he appears unto them, in the
   revelation of his mind, beyond all that they did expect or desire.

   Now, all this have I spoken to stir you up unto that whereunto at the
   entrance of this use you were exhorted, -- that you would labour for
   that spiritual wisdom and prudence which may acquaint your hearts, at
   least in some measure, with the mind and will of God concerning his
   work in the generation wherein you live. And farther to provoke you
   hereunto, know that you cannot but wander, as in many other, so
   especially in four sinful things:-- 1st, Sinful cares; 2dly, Sinful
   fears; 3dly, Sinful follies; 4thly, Sinful negligence.

   1st. Sinful cares, -- anxious and dubious thoughts about such things
   as, perhaps, the Lord intends utterly to destroy, or, at least, render
   useless. Had it not been the greatest folly in the world for Noah and
   his sons, when the flood was approaching to sweep away the creatures
   from the face of the earth, to have been solicitous about flocks and
   herds that were speedily to be destroyed? [287] Many men's thoughts at
   this day do even devour them about such things as, if they knew the
   season, would be contemptible unto them. Wouldst thou labour for
   honour, if thou knewest that God at this time were labouring to lay all
   the "honour of the earth in the dust?" [288] Couldst thou set thy heart
   upon the increase of riches, wert thou acquainted that God intends
   instantly to make "silver as stones, and cedars as sycamores," [289] --
   though not for plenty, yet for value? Would men be so exceedingly
   solicitous about this or that form of religion, this or that power to
   suppress such or such a persuasion, if they knew that the Lord would
   suddenly fill the earth with his knowledge, as the waters cover the
   sea? [290] Should our spirits sink for fear of this or that persecutor
   or oppressor, were it discovered unto us that in a short time nothing
   shall hurt or destroy in the whole mountain of the Lord? [291] Should
   we tremble at the force and power of this or that growing monarchy
   giving its power to the beast, had God revealed unto us that he is
   going to shake it until it be translated? Certain it is, that the root
   of all the sinful cares, which sometimes are ready to devour the hearts
   of God's people, is this unacquaintedness with the work and mind of the
   Lord.

   2dly. Sinful fears. Luke xxi. 28, our Saviour having told his disciples
   of wars, tumults, seditions, famines, earthquakes, etc., which were to
   come upon the earth, bids them, when they see these things, to "lift up
   their heads for joy." But how should this be? -- rejoice in the midst
   of so many evils and troubles, in the most whereof they were to have a
   Benjamin's mess, -- a double portion! Yea, saith our Saviour, Rejoice;
   for I have told you before, that then it is that your deliverance and
   redemption draweth nigh. It is for them to shake and tremble who are in
   the dark, -- who know not what the Lord is doing. They may be at their
   wits' end who know no other end of these things; but for you who know
   the mind of the Lord, what he intendeth and will effect by these
   things, cast off all sinful fears, and rejoice in him who cometh.

   Amongst us in these days new troubles arise, -- wars, and rumours of
   wars, appearances of famine, invasions, conspiracies, revolts,
   treacheries, sword, blood. Oh, how do men's faces wax pale, and their
   hearts die within them! Sometimes, with David, they could fly to the
   Philistines, and wind up their interest with them whom God will
   destroy. Every new appearance of danger shuffles them off from all
   their comforts, all their confidence. Hence poor souls are put upon
   doubling and shifting in the ways of God, in such a frame as God
   exceedingly abhors. They know not why any mercy is given, nor to what
   end; and therefore are afraid to own it, lest some sudden alteration
   should follow, and make it too hot for them to hold it; and all this
   because they know not the mind of the Lord, nor the judgment of their
   God. Were they but acquainted with it, so far as it is evidently
   revealed, they would quickly see all things working together to the
   appointed end.

   3dly. Sinful follies. Toil and labour in vain is, of all follies, the
   greatest folly; -- like the Jews under Julian, building of their temple
   in the day, God casting it to the ground in the night. When a man
   labours, toils, wearies and spends himself for the accomplishing of
   that which shall never come to pass, and that which, if he would but
   inquire, he might know shall never come to pass, he cannot well want
   the livery of a brutish man. How many poor creatures that think
   themselves wiser than those of Teman, and Dedan, and all the children
   of the east, do spend and consume their days and time in such ways as
   this, labouring night and day to set up what God will pull down, and
   what he hath said shall fall! "Come on, let us deal wisely," saith
   Pharaoh to his Egyptians, Exod. i. 10, to root out and destroy these
   Israelites. Poor fool! is there any wisdom or counsel against the Most
   High? I could give instances plenty in these days of men labouring in
   the dark, not knowing what they are doing, endeavouring with all their
   strength to accomplish that whereof the Lord hath said, "It shall not
   prosper;" and all because they discern not the season.

   4thly. Sinful negligence. You are no way able to do the work of God in
   your generation. It is the commendation of many saints of God, that
   they were "upright, and served the will of God in their generation."
   Besides the general duties of the covenant, incumbent on all the saints
   at all seasons, there are special works of providence which, in sundry
   generations, the Lord effecteth, concerning which he expects his people
   should know his mind, and serve him in them. Now, can a servant do his
   master's work if he know not his will? The Lord requireth that, in the
   great things which he hath to accomplish in this generation, all his
   should close with him. What is the reason that some stand in the
   market-place idle all the day? Some work for a season, and then give
   over; they know not how to go a step farther, but after a day, a week,
   a month, or year, are at a stand; -- worse than all this, some
   counterwork the Lord with all their strength, -- the most neglect the
   duty which of them is required. What is the reason of all this? They
   know in no measure what the Lord is doing, and what he would have them
   apply themselves unto. The best almost live from hand to mouth,
   following present appearances to the great neglect of the work which
   the Lord would have hastened amongst us. All this comes from the same
   root.

   But now, if all these sad and sinful consequences attend this nescience
   of the mind of God as to the things which he is doing in the days
   wherein we live, so far as he hath revealed himself and requires us to
   observe his walkings; by what ways and means may we come to the
   knowledge thereof, that we be not sinfully bewildered in our own cares,
   fears, and follies, but that we may follow hard after God, and be
   upright in our generation?

   There be four things whereby we may come to have an insight into the
   work which the Lord will do and accomplish in our days. (1st.) The
   light which he gives. (2dly.) The previous works which he doth. (3dly.)
   The expectation of his saints. (4thly.) The fear of his adversaries.

   (1st.) The light which he gives. God doth not use to set his people to
   work in the dark. They are the "children of light," and they are no
   "deeds of darkness" which they have to do. However others are blinded,
   they shall see; yea, he always suits their light to their labour, and
   gives them a clear discerning of what he is about. The Lord God doth
   nothing, but he reveals his secrets to his servants. The light of every
   age is the forerunner of the work of every age.

   When Christ was to come in the flesh, John Baptist comes a little
   before -- a new light, a new preacher. And what doth he discover and
   reveal? Why, he calls them off from resting on legal ceremonies, to the
   doctrine of faith, repentance, and gospel ordinances; -- tells them
   "the kingdom of God is at hand;" -- instructs them in the knowledge of
   Him who was coming. To what end was all this? Only that the minds of
   men being enlightened by his preaching, who was a "burning and a
   shining lamp," they might see what the Lord was doing.

   Every age hath its peculiar work, hath its peculiar light. Now what is
   the light which God manifestly gives in our days? Surely not new
   doctrines, as some pretend -- (indeed old errors, and long since
   exploded fancies). Plainly, the peculiar light of this generation is
   that discovery which the Lord hath made to his people of the mystery of
   civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. The opening, unravelling, and
   revealing the Antichristian interest, interwoven and coupled together,
   in civil and spiritual things, into a state opposite to the kingdom of
   the Lord Jesus, is the great discovery of these days. Who almost is
   there amongst us now who doth not evidently see, that for many
   generations the western nations have been juggled into spiritual and
   civil slavery by the legerdemain of the whore, and the potentates of
   the earth made drunk with the cup of her abominations? -- how the whole
   earth hath been rolled in confusion, and the saints hurried out of the
   world, to give way to their combined interest? Hath not God unveiled
   that harlot, made her naked, and discovered her abominable filthiness?
   Is it not evident to him that hath but half an eye, that the whole
   present constitution of the government of the nations is so cemented
   with antichristian mortar, from the very top to the bottom, that
   without a thorough shaking they cannot be cleansed? This, then, plainly
   discovers that the work which the Lord is doing relates to the
   untwining of this close combination against himself and the kingdom of
   his dear Son; and he will not leave until he have done it. To what
   degree in the several nations this shaking shall proceed, I have
   nothing to determine in particular, the Scripture having not expressed
   it. This only is certain, it shall not stop, nor receive its period,
   before the interest of Antichristianity be wholly separated from the
   power of those nations.

   (2dly.) The previous works he doth. How many of these doth our Saviour
   give as signs of the destruction of Jerusalem, -- and so, consequently,
   of propagating the gospel more and more to the nations! Matt. xxiv. 1;
   Luke xxi. 1. How fearful and dreadful they were in their
   accomplishment, Josephus the Jewish historian relateth; and how by them
   the Christians were forewarned, and did by them understand what the
   Lord was doing, Eusebius and others declare. "When," saith he, "you
   shall see the abomination of desolation" (the Roman eagles and ensigns)
   "standing in the holy place," Matt. xxiv. 15, -- or "Jerusalem
   compassed with armies," as Luke xxi. 20, -- then know by that, that
   "the end thereof is come, and your deliverance at hand."

   The works of God are to be sought out of them that have pleasure in
   them. They are vocal-speaking works; the mind of God is in them. They
   may be heard, read, and understood: the "rod may be heard, and who hath
   appointed it." Now, generally, he begins with lesser works, to point
   out to the sons of men what he is about to accomplish. By these may his
   will be known, that he may be met in righteousness.

   Now, what, I pray, are the works that the Lord is bringing forth upon
   the earth? what is he doing in our own and the neighbouring nations?
   Show me the potentate upon the earth that hath a peaceable molehill to
   build himself a habitation upon. Are not all the controversies, or the
   most of them, that at this day are disputed in letters of blood among
   the nations, somewhat of a distinct constitution from those formerly
   under debate? -- those tending merely to the power and splendour of
   single persons, these to the interest of the many. Is not the hand of
   the Lord in all this? Are not the shaking of these heavens of the
   nations from him? Is not the voice of Christ in the midst of all this
   tumult? And is not the genuine tendence of these things open and
   visible unto all? What speedy issue all this will be driven to, I know
   not; -- so much is to be done as requires a long space. Though a tower
   may be pulled down faster than it was set up, yet that which hath been
   building a thousand years is not like to go down in a thousand days.

   (3dly.) The expectation of the saints is another thing from whence a
   discovery of the will of God and the work of our generation may be
   concluded. The secret ways of God's communicating his mind unto his
   saints, by a fresh favour of accomplishing prophecies and strong
   workings of the Spirit of supplications, I cannot now insist upon. This
   I know, they shall not be "led into temptation," but kept from the hour
   thereof, when it comes upon the whole earth. When God raiseth up the
   expectation of his people to any thing, he is not unto them as waters
   that fail; nay, he will assuredly fulfil the desires of the poor.

   Just about the time that our Saviour Christ was to be born of a woman,
   how were all that waited for salvation in Israel raised up to a high
   expectation of the kingdom of God! -- such as that people never had
   before, and assuredly shall never have again; [292] yea, famous was the
   waiting of that season through the whole Roman empire. And the Lord,
   whom they sought, came to his temple. Eminent was their hope, and
   excellent was the accomplishment.

   Whether this will be made a rule to others or no, I know not: this I am
   assured, that, being bottomed on promises, and built up with
   supplications, it is a ground for them to rest upon. And here I dare
   appeal to all who with any diligence have inquired into the things of
   the kingdom of Christ, -- that have any savour upon their spirits of
   the accomplishment of prophecies and promises in the latter days, --
   who count themselves concerned in the glory of the gospel, -- whether
   this thing of consuming the mystery of iniquity, and vindicating the
   churches of Christ into the liberties purchased for them by the Lord
   Jesus, by the shaking and translating all opposing heights and heavens,
   be not fully in their expectations. Only, the time is in the hand of
   God, and the rule of our actings with him is his revealed will.

   (4thly.) Whether the fears of his adversaries have not their lines
   meeting in the same point, themselves can best determine. The whole
   world was more or less dreaded at the coming of Christ in the flesh.
   When, also, the signs of his vengeance did first appear to the Pagan
   world, in calling to an account for the blood of his saints, the kings
   and captains presently cry out, "The great day of his wrath is come,
   and who shall be able to stand?" Rev. vi. 17.

   I am not of counsel to any of the adherents to the man of sin, or any
   of those who have given their power unto the beast, -- I have not a key
   to the bosoms of the enemies of Christ, -- I am neither their
   interpreter nor do they allow me to speak in their behalf; yet truly,
   upon very many probable grounds, I am fully persuaded that, were the
   thoughts of their hearts disclosed, notwithstanding all their
   glittering shows, dreadful words, threatening expressions, you shall
   see them tremble, and dread this very thing, that the whole world as
   now established will be wrapped up in darkness, at least until that
   cursed interest which is set up against the Lord Jesus be fully and
   wholly shaken out from the heavens and earth of the nations.

   And thus, without leading you about by chronologies and computations
   (which yet have their use, well to count a number being wisdom indeed),
   I have a little discovered unto you some rules whereby you may come to
   be acquainted with the work of God in the days wherein we live, and
   also what that work is; which is our first use. The next shall be for
   direction to guide you what you ought to do, when you know what is the
   work of your generation.

   Use 2. Be exhorted to prepare to meet the Lord, to make his way
   straight: and this I would press distinctly, -- (1.) As to your
   persons; (2.) As to your employments.

   (1.) As to your persons. Give the Lord Jesus a throne in your hearts,
   or it will not at all be to your advantage that he hath a throne and
   kingdom in the world. Perhaps you will see the plenty of it, but not
   taste one morsel. Take first that which comes not by observation, --
   that which is within you, which is "righteousness, and peace, and joy
   in the Holy Ghost." Take it in its power, and you will be the better
   enabled to observe it coming in its glory. "Seek first this kingdom of
   God, and the righteousness thereof, and all these things shall be added
   unto you." Oh, that it were the will of God to put an end to all that
   pretended holiness, hypocritical humiliation, self-interested religion,
   that have been among us, whereby we have flattered God with our lips,
   whilst our hearts have been far from him! Oh, that it might be the
   glory of this assembly, above all the assemblies of the world, that
   every ruler in it might be a sincere subject in the kingdom of the Lord
   Jesus! Oh, that it might suffice that we have had in our parliament,
   and among our ministers, so much of the form and so little of the power
   of godliness; that we have called the world Christ, and lusts Christ,
   and self Christ, working indeed for them, when we pretended all for
   Christ! Oh, that I could nourish this one contention in your honourable
   assembly, that you might strive who should excel in setting up the Lord
   Jesus in your hearts!

   You may be apt to think, that if you can carry on and compass your
   purposes, then all your enemies will be assuredly disappointed. Do but
   embrace the Lord Jesus in his kingly power in your bosoms, and "ipso
   facto" all your enemies are everlastingly disappointed. You are the
   grains which, in the sifting of the nation, have been kept from falling
   to the ground. Are you not the residue of all the chariots of England?
   Oh, that in you might appear the reality of the kingdom of the Lord
   Jesus, which hath been so long pretended by others! -- that sound
   righteousness, not a pharisaical, rigid, supercilious affectation, not
   a careless belief and comportment, the issue of novel fancies, might be
   found upon your spirits! -- that you may be thought meet to rejoice
   with the Lord in his kingdom! Otherwise this day of the Lord which we
   have described, however desired and longed after, will be "darkness to
   you, and not light."

   (2.) In reference to your great employments, whereunto the Lord hath
   called you. And here I shall briefly hold out unto you one or two
   things.

   [1.] That you would seriously consider why it is that the Lord shakes
   the heavens and the earth of the nations, -- to what end this tendeth,
   and what is the cause thereof. Is it not from hence, that he may
   revenge their opposition to the kingdom of his dear Son? -- that he may
   shake out of the midst of them all that antichristian mortar wherewith,
   from their first chaos, they have been cemented, that so the kingdoms
   of the earth may become the kingdoms of the Lord Jesus? Is not the
   controversy of Zion pleaded with them Are not they called to an account
   for the transgression of that charge given to all potentates, "Touch
   not mine anointed?" And what is the aim of the Lord Jesus herein, whose
   mighty voice shakes them? Is it not to frame and form them for the
   interest of his own kingdom? -- that he may fulfil the word he hath
   spoken to Zion, "I will make thy officers peace, and thine exactors
   righteousness?"

   Consider, then, I pray, what you have in hand. Wait upon your King, the
   Lord Christ, to know his mind. If you lay any stone in the whole
   building that advanceth itself against his sceptre, he will shake all
   again. Dig you never so deep, build you never so high, it shall be
   shaken. Nay, that there be no opposition will not suffice:-- he hath
   given light enough to have all things framed for his own advantage. The
   time is come, yea, the full time is come, that it should be so; and he
   expects it from you. Say not, in the first place, this or that suits
   the interest of England; but look what suits the interest of Christ,
   and assure yourselves that the true interest of any nation is wrapped
   up therein. More of this in the treatise annexed to my sermon of
   January 31. [293]

   [2.] Be encouraged under all those perplexities and troubles which you
   are or may be wrapped in. Lift up the hands that hang down, and let the
   feeble knees be strengthened: "It is but yet a little while, and he
   that shall come will come, and will not tarry." The more you are for
   Christ, the more enemies you shall be sure to have; but the Lamb shall
   overcome. He is come to revenge the blood of his slain upon this
   generation, and to free the residue from the jaws of the terrible. He
   is our rock, and his work is perfect. What he hath begun, faster or
   slower, he will surely accomplish. It is a thing of the utmost
   imaginable indifferency whether any of our particular persons behold
   these things here below or not. If otherwise, we shall for the present
   have "rest with him, and stand in our lot at the end of the days;" but
   for the work itself, "the decree is gone forth," and it shall not be
   recalled. Receive strength and refreshment in the Lord.

   Use 3. Wonder not, when the heaven is shaken, if you see the stars fall
   to the ground. We had some who pretended to be church stars, that were
   merely fixed, to all men's view and by their own confession, in the
   political heavens. The first shaking of this nation shook them utterly
   to the ground. If others also tremble like an aspen leaf, and know not
   which wind to yield unto, or sail backwards and forwards by the same
   gale, wonder not at that neither. When men lay any other foundation
   than the immovable corner-stone, at one time or other, sooner or later,
   assuredly they will be shaken.

   Use 4. Let the professing people that are amongst us look well to
   themselves: "The day is coming that will burn like an oven." Dross will
   not endure this day: we have many a hypocrite as yet to be uncased.
   Take heed, you that act high, if a false heart, a defiled heart be
   amongst you, there shall be no place for it in the mountain of the
   Lord's house. "The inhabitants of Zion shall be all righteous," Isa.
   lx. 21. Many that make a great show now upon the stage, shall be turned
   off with shame enough. Try and search your hearts; force not the Lord
   to lay you open to all. The spirit of judgment and burning will try
   you. Tremble, I pray; for you are entering the most purging, trying
   furnace that ever the Lord set up on the earth.

   Use 5. Be loose from all shaken things:-- you see the clouds return
   after the rain, -- one storm in the neck of another. Thus it must be,
   until Christ hath finished his whole work. "Seeing that all these
   things must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all
   manner of holy conversation?" Let your eyes be upwards, and your hearts
   be upwards, and your hands be upwards, that you be not moved at the
   passing away of shaken things. I could here encourage you by the
   glorious issue of all these shakings, whose foretaste might be as
   marrow to your bones, though they should be appointed to consumption
   before the accomplishment of it; but I must close.

   Use 6. See the vanity, folly, madness of such as labour to oppose the
   bringing in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. Canst thou hinder the rain
   from descending upon the earth when it is falling? Canst thou stop the
   sun from rising at its appointed hour? Will the conception for thee
   dwell quietly in the womb beyond its month? Surely thou mayest with far
   more ease turn and stop the current and course of nature than obstruct
   the bringing in of the kingdom of Christ in righteousness and peace.
   Whence comes it to pass that so many nations are wasted, destroyed,
   spoiled, in the days wherein we live? -- that God hath taken quietness
   and peace from the earth? Doubtless from hence, that they will smite
   themselves against the "stone cut out of the mountain without hands."
   Shall not "the decree bring forth?" Is it not in vain to fight against
   the Lord? Some are angry, some troubled, some in the dark, some full of
   revenge; but the truth is, whether they will hear or forbear, Babylon
   shall fall, and all the glory of the earth be stained, and the kingdoms
   become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [233] Chap. x. 36.

   [234] Prov. xxii. 13, xxvi. 13.

   [235] Ps. lxvi. 7.

   [236] 1 Thess. i. 3; 2 Thess. i. 11; Deut. x. 16, xxx. 6; Ezek. xviii.
   31, xxxvi. 26; Acts xi. 18.

   [237] Exod. xix. 18, 19, xx. 18.

   [238] "Nescio an facilior hic locus fuisset, si nemo eum exposuisset."
   -- Mald. ad Luc., ii. 34.

   [239] Eph. i. 10. Anakephalaiosasthai, that is, mian kephalen
   paraschein angelois kai anthropois ton Christon; apeschismenoi gar esan
   hoi angeloi kai anthropoi. OEcumen. in loc.

   [240] Matt. ii. 2, xxvii. 45; Luke xxiii. 44, 45; Matt. xxvii. 51, 52.

   [241] Ho gar blepei tis, ti kai elpizei, Rom. viii. 24.

   [242] "Nunquam Pauli sensum ingredieris, nisi Pauli Spiritum
   imbiberis." -- Ber. Ser. de Monte. To auto chrisma didaskei humas peri
   panton, 1 John ii. 27. En pneumati hagio nooumenai kai anoigomenai hai
   graphai deiknuousin hemin ton Christon, eikotos zuroros to pneuma to
   hagion. -- Theophylac. in John x.

   [243] Ps. lxviii. 8; Hab. ii. 20; Matt. xxiv. 7; 1 Sam. xiv. 25 --
   [Heb.]

   [244] Isa. xiii. 13; Ps. lxviii. 8; Joel ii. 10; Rev. viii. 12; Matt.
   xxiv. 29; Luke xxi. 25; Isa. lx. 20; Obad. 4; Rev. viii. 13, xi. 12,
   xx. 11.

   [245] Euseb. Eccles. Hist., lib. ix., cap. 8, 10, lib. viii. cap. 17;
   De Vita Constant., lib. i., cap. 50-52.

   [246] Isa. lxvi. 22-24.

   [247] Gen. i. 10.

   [248] Rev. xvii. 1.

   [249] Chronous e kairous, hous ho pater etheto en te idia exousia, Acts
   i. 7.

   [250] Seismoi kata topous, Matt. xxiv. 7.

   [251] Exelthe dogma para Kaisaros Augoustou, apographesthai pasan ten
   oikoumenen, Luke ii. 1.

   [252] To katechon, 2 Thess. ii. 6.

   [253] Rev. xviii. 2; Isa. lx. 13; Ps. ii. 6.

   [254] Heb. xi. 5; Jude 4; Gal. i. 6; Heb. vi. 18, vii. 12.

   [255] "Mutationem," Trem. "Translationem." Erasm. Ar. Mont.

   [256] Ps. ii. 6, cx. 2; Acts ii. 36; Rev. i. 18; 1 Cor. xv. 24-27.

   [257] Luke vi. 20; Mark xii. 34, etc.

   [258] Ps. xlv. 6, xlv. 13; Isa. ix. 7; Obad. 21.

   [259] Isa. xi. 5-10, xix. 18, 19, xxx. 18, 19; Mic. iv. 1.

   [260] Isa. xlix. 18-22, liv. 1-3, etc., lv. 11, 12, lx. 16, 17; Ezek.
   xlviii. 35; Amos ix. 11; Rom. xi. 15, etc.; Isa. xlix. 22, 23, lxvi.
   21; Mal. iii. 3; Ezek. xliii. 9-11; Rev. xxi. 3; Isa. liv. 11-13, etc.;
   Zech. xiv. 9-11.

   [261] Ps. ii. 4, 5, cxxxvii. 8, 9; Isa. xlvii. 1-3, xlix. 26; Jer. l.
   33, 34, li. 24, 25, 34, 35; Zech. xii. 2-4, xiv. 12; Rev. xviii. 6,
   etc.

   [262] Acts; and Mon. Histor. Pap.

   [263] Utraquists? -- another name for the Calixtines, -- adherents of
   Huss and Jacobellus, who in 1421 exhibited their peculiar creed under
   four articles:-- 1. The preaching of the word in the natural tongue; 2.
   The dispensation of the Lord's supper to all Christians, the private
   members of the church as well as the clergy, sub utraque specie, in
   both kinds, -- and hence the name "Utraquists;" 3. The renunciation of
   secular dignities by the clergy; 4. The introduction of a stricter
   discipline in regard to the clergy. -- Guericke, ii. 439; Gieseler on
   the Period 1409-1517. -- Ed.

   [264] Ps. ii. 9-12; Rev. xvii. 14; Matt. xxviii. 20; 1 Cor. xi. 26;
   Eph. iv. 11-13; 1 Tim. vi. 13, 14; Ps. xlv. 16; Isa. xlix. 7, 23.

   [265] Bell. de Rom. Pon., lib. v. cap. 8.

   [266] Rev. xviii. 3 Hoi basileis tes ges met' autes eporneusan.

   [267] 2 Thess. ii. 6, 7.

   [268] Dan. ii. 41.

   [269] Houtoi mian gnomen echousi, kai ten dunamin kai ten exousian
   eauton to zerio diadidosousin, Rev. xvii. 13.

   [270] Childeric III.?-- the last of the Merovingian race of French
   kings, -- deposed in a.d. 750 by Pepin, to whom the crown of France, by
   the sanction of Pope Zachary, was transferred. The date of the Norman
   Conquest is a.d. 1066. -- Ed.

   [271] Rev. xiii. 15, 16.

   [272] Pempsei autois ho Theos energeian planes, 2 Thess. ii. 11.

   [273]

   "Roma sedes Petri, quae Pastoralis honoris

   Facta caput mundo, quicquid non possidet armis,

   Relligione tenet."
   Prosp., de Ingrat.

   [274] John x. 16; Isa. xxxvii. 31; Jer. xxx. 9; Ezek. xxxiv. 27,
   xxxvii. 24, 25; Hos. iii. 5; Amos ix. 11.

   [275] Exod. xiv. 21, 22; Josh. iii. 15, 16; Hab. iii. 8.

   [276] Jer. li. 31, 32.

   [277] Rev. xi. 2.

   [278] Worship of images -- bread -- saints -- the cross -- Ed.

   [279] Jer. li. 25, 26; Rev. xvii. 1, 2; Zech. ii. 7; Jer. li. 6.

   [280] Judges xvi. 28, 29.

   [281] Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolfo.

   [282] Heb. xii. 28.

   [283] 2 Cor. iv. 18.

   [284] Echousi Msoea kai tous prophetas. Ouchi pater Abraam; all' ean
   tis apo nekron poreuthe, Luke xvi. 29, 30.

   [285] Esth. i. 13.

   [286] Dan. ix. 2.

   [287] Gen. vi. 13.

   [288] Isa. xxiii. 9.

   [289] 1 Kings x. 27.

   [290] Hab. ii. 14.

   [291] Isa. lxv. 25.

   [292] Luke iii. 15.

   [293] Vide Discourse concerning Toleration, etc.
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   Sermon VI.

   The

   branch of the Lord the beauty of Zion;

   or,

   the glory of the church in its relation unto Christ.

   Opened in two sermons;

   one preached at Berwick, the other at Edinburgh.
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Prefatory note.

   All the information which can be given respecting these sermons on Isa.
   lvi. 7, will be found in the "Life," vol. i. p. 45, and the dedication
   to Cromwell which is prefixed to them. The first sermon was preached at
   Berwick, July 21, 1650. The date of the dedication is November 26,
   1650. There is no record of Owen's proceedings in Scotland. The
   decisive battle of Dunbar, September 3, 1650, placed Edinburgh in the
   hands of Cromwell. The castle for a time held out against him; and as
   the Presbyterian ministers who had retired to it refused to issue from
   it on the Sabbath to fill the pulpits in the town, there is every
   likelihood that Owen found constant employment in preaching the gospel.
   A celebrated correspondence took place between those ministers, as
   represented by Dundas, the commandant of the fortress, and Oliver
   Cromwell. The latter offered them liberty to preach in their respective
   churches. Not much to their credit, they declined to avail themselves
   of this permission, on the ground of "the personal persecution" of
   which they were afraid if they ventured to quit the castle. Cromwell
   replies with insinuations that they wished "worldly power," and made
   "worldly mixtures to accomplish the same," and advises them to "trust
   to the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God;" alleging, at the
   same time, that though they bad not listened to his public appeals,"
   the Lord hath heard us," in the victory of Dunbar. The ministers, in
   their reply, and in allusion to the practices of Cromwell's officers,
   "regret that men of mere civil place and employment should usurp the
   calling and employment of the ministry, particularly in Scotland,
   contrary to the government and discipline therein established, -- to
   the maintenance whereof you are bound by the Solemn League and
   Covenant;" and state that they "have not so learned Christ as to hang
   the equity of their cause upon events." Cromwell, in a long answer,
   with a postscript of four queries, betraying some temper at the smart
   rejoinder of the clergy, complains that they make themselves
   "infallible expositors of the Covenant;" and winds up a reproof to them
   for calling such successes as that achieved at Dunbar "bare events,"
   with the characteristic words, "The Lord pity you." In one of the
   postscript queries he has very manifestly the advantage, when he twits
   the ministers with their inconsistency in "crying down Malignants, and
   yet setting up the head of them,' Charles Stuart." It has been thought
   that the hand of Owen can be traced in the letters of Cromwell; and
   Hume speaks of them "as the best of Cromwell's wretched compositions."
   The improvement in the composition may be ascribed to the greater
   leisure which Cromwell possessed at this time, while waiting the
   reduction of the castle. The letters are deeply impregnated with all
   the strongly-marked peculiarities of Cromwell's style of thought, --
   the perpetual emphasis of a resolute will, expressed in sentences
   "lumbering," indeed, but, like his own sword, sharp as well as heavy.
   Owen, we cannot but think, would have been more successful in reply to
   some of the statements of the ministers, and especially to the charge
   which they preferred against Cromwell, of suspending the equity of his
   cause upon his outward success. Sea Owen's answer to such an accusation
   in the prefatory note to the third sermon in this volume. -- Ed.
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To his excellency, the Lord General Cromwell, etc.

   My Lord,

   It was with thoughts of peace that I embraced my call to this place in
   time of war. As all peace that is from God is precious to my spirit, so
   incomparably that between the Father and his elect, which is
   established and carried on in the blood and grace of Jesus Christ. The
   ministerial dispensation of this peace being through free grace
   committed even unto me also, I desire that in every place my whole may
   be, to declare it to the men of God's good pleasure. That this was my
   chief design, in answer to the call of God upon me, even to pour out a
   savour of the gospel upon the sons of peace in this place, I hope is
   manifest to the consciences of all with whom (since my coming hither)
   in the work of the ministry I have had to do. The enmity between God
   and us began on our part; -- the peace which he hath made begins and
   ends with himself. This is the way of God with sinners: when he might
   justly continue their enemy, and fight against them to their eternal
   ruin, he draws forth love, and beseeches them to be reconciled who have
   done the wrong, and them to accept of peace who cannot abide the
   battle. Certainly the bearing forth of this message, which is so
   "worthy of all acceptation," and ought to be so welcome, cannot but
   have sweetness enough to season all the pressures and temptations
   wherewith it is sometimes attended. This it hath been my desire to
   pursue, and that with the weapons which are not carnal. And though some
   may be so seasoned with the leaven of contention about carnal things,
   or at best the tithing of mint and cummin, as to disrelish the
   weightier things of the gospel, yet the great Owner of the vineyard
   hath not left me without a comfortable assurance that even this labour
   in the Lord hath not been in vain.

   The following sermons, which I desire to present unto your excellency,
   were preached, one at Berwick, upon your first advance into Scotland,
   the other at Edinburgh. My willingness to serve the inheritance of
   Christ here, even in my absence, caused me to close with the desires
   that were held out to this purpose. And I do present them to your
   excellency, not only because the rise of my call to this service, under
   God, was from you; but also, because in the carrying of it on I have
   received from you, in the weaknesses and temptations wherewith I am
   encompassed, that daily spiritual refreshment and support by inquiry
   into, and discovery of, the deep and hidden dispensations of God
   towards his secret ones -- which my spirit is taught to value. The
   carrying on of the interest of the Lord Jesus amongst his saints, in
   all his ways, which are truth and righteousness -- the matter pointed
   at in this discourse -- being the aim of your spirit in your great
   undertakings, it bears another respect unto you. I am not unacquainted
   with its meanness, yea, its coming short, in respect of use and fruit,
   of what the Lord hath since and by others drawn forth; but such as it
   is, having by Providence stepped first into the world, I wholly commend
   it to him for an incense who graciously "supplied the seed to the
   sower;" -- beseeching him that we may have joy unspeakable and glorious
   in the acceptance of that peace which he gives us in the Son of his
   love, whilst the peace whose desire in the midst of war you continually
   bear forth to him and to others, is by them rejected to their hurt.

   Your Excellency's

   Most humble Servant in our dearest Lord,

   J. Owen.

   Edinburgh, Nov. 26, 1650.
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Sermon VI. The branch of the Lord the beauty of Zion: or, the glory of the
church in its relation unto Christ.

   "For mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people."
   Isa. lvi. 7.

   From verse 3 of this chapter to verse 8, you have promises and
   predictions of calling in Gentiles and strangers to the church of God,
   notwithstanding any objections or hindrances laid in their way by
   ceremonial and typical constitutions, -- they being all to be removed
   in the cross of Christ, Eph. ii. 13-16; Col. ii. 14; -- making way for
   the accomplishment of that signal promise which is given in the 2d
   chapter of this prophecy, verses 2, 3, "And it shall come to pass in
   the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
   established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the
   hills; and all nations shall flow unto it: and many people shall go and
   say, Come ye, and let us go up," etc.

   The words of verse 7 are a recapitulation of the whole, holding out
   summarily the calling of the Gentiles to the holy mount, or spiritual
   church of Christ; where also you have a description of the services
   performed by them upon their coming: "Their burnt-offerings and
   sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar;" -- answerable to that
   eminent prediction of the solemn worship of the called Gentiles, Mal.
   i. 11, "For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the
   same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place
   incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name
   shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." The
   spiritual services of the saints of the Gentiles are in each place set
   forth by those ceremonial ordinances of incense, altar, and sacrifice,
   as were then most acceptable, from the Lord's own appointment.

   Now, this whole promise is once again strengthened, without loss of
   life or beauty, and comprised in the words of the text. That which
   before he termed "sacrifice and burnt-offerings," here he calleth
   "prayer;" and those who before were "the sons of the stranger," are
   here "all people," -- some, many of all sorts, the whole world, all
   men, without distinction, the partition wall being broken down.

   The thing here spoken of is God's house, described, -- First, By its
   appropriation unto him; it is his peculiar, -- "My house." Secondly, By
   its extent of receipt in respect of others; it is "for all people."
   Thirdly, By the employment of its inhabitants; that is, prayer, -- it
   "shall be called an house of prayer."

   "House" here may be taken two ways.

   1. Properly, as it was in the type for the material temple at
   Jerusalem; whereunto these words are applied by our Saviour, Matt. xxi.
   But that is no farther concerned herein, but as the spiritual holiness
   of the antitype could not be represented without a ceremonial holiness
   of the type.

   2. Spiritually, for the church of Christ to be gathered to him out of
   all nations; the house wherein "juge sacrificium," a continual
   spiritual sacrifice, is to be offered to him: this is peculiarly
   intended.

   So, then, observe, -- I. Christ's church of saints, of believers, is
   God's house. II. The church of Christ under the gospel is to be
   gathered out of all nations. III. There are established ordinances and
   appointed worship for the church of Christ under the gospel. It is the
   first that I shall speak unto.

   Christ's church of saints, of believers, is God's house.

   That his church is of saints and believers will appear in the issue.

   By the church of Christ I understand, primarily, the whole multitude of
   them who antecedently are chosen of his Father, and given unto him;
   consequently, are redeemed, called, and justified in his blood; -- the
   church which he loved, and gave himself for, "that he might sanctify
   and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might
   present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle,
   or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish,"
   Eph. v. 26, 27. And, secondarily, also every holy assembly of mount
   Zion, whereunto the Lord Christ is made beauty and glory, -- every
   particular church of his saints, inasmuch as they partake of the nature
   of the whole, being purchased by his blood, Acts xx. 28.

   That this church belongs unto God, I shall only leave evidenced under
   the claim whereby he here appropriates it to himself; he calls it his:
   "My house."

   That it is his house, I shall farther demonstrate. Three things are
   required to the making of a house:-- first, A foundation; secondly,
   Materials for a superstruction; thirdly, An orderly framing of both
   into a useful building; -- and all these concur to the church of
   Christ.

   First. It hath a foundation. "I have laid the foundation," saith Paul,
   1 Cor. iii. 10; and, "Other foundation can no man lay, save that which
   is laid, which is Jesus Christ," verse 11. That which Paul laid
   ministerially, God himself laid primarily and efficiently. "Thus saith
   the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried
   stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation," Isa. xxviii. 16.
   Now, this foundation is no other but the rock upon which the church is
   built, Matt. xvi. 18, which makes it impregnable to the gates of hell,
   communicating strength and permanency continually to every part of the
   building.

   Secondly. A foundation only will not make a house, -- there must also
   be materials for a superstruction. Those you have, 1 Pet. ii. 5. "Ye
   are," saith he, "lively stones." All God's elect are stones, in due
   time to be hewed and fitted for this building.

   Thirdly. Materials themselves will not serve: they must be fitly
   framed, and wisely disposed, or they will be a heap, not a house. This,
   then, is not wanting. Yet "are built upon the foundation of the
   apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
   cornerstone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth
   unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together
   for an habitation of God through the Spirit," Eph. ii. 20-22. There is
   much spiritual and heavenly architecture in these three verses. I shall
   only touch on some particulars.

   1. The foundation of this house, this temple, is laid; and that is
   Jesus Christ: "Other foundation can no man lay." He is here called "The
   chief corner-stone," and, "The foundation of the apostles and
   prophets." It is not, which they were, but which they laid. It is
   "genitivus efficientis," not "materiae," that expression holds out, --
   the persons working, not the thing wrought.

   2. The materials of this building, -- elect, believers; said in the
   former verse to be "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the
   household of God." They alone are built on Christ, and thereby have
   union with him: not one dead, rotten stone in all this building, as
   shall be declared.

   3. The architects or builders are of two sorts.

   (1.) Principal: "The Spirit;" -- we are "framed for an habitation of
   God by the Spirit;" he is the principal workman in this fabric, --
   without him is not one stone laid therein.

   (2.) Secondary and instrumental: "The apostles and prophets." And this
   they were two ways.

   [1.] Personally, in their several generations; -- this was their work,
   their labour, to lay the foundation and carry on the building of this
   house.

   [2.] Doctrinally; so they labour in it to this very day; -- their
   doctrine in the Scripture holds out the only foundation, and the only
   way of building thereon.

   4. The manner of the building: it is "fitly framed together,"
   sunarmologoumene, closely jointed and knit in together, sweetly closed
   together with Christ, "the head, from which all the body by joints and
   bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with
   the increase of God," Col. ii. 19.

   5. What kind of a house it is. It receiveth here a twofold title, "An
   holy temple," and "An habitation," or tabernacle; because of its
   allusion to both those holy places of the worship of God, fulfilling
   the types of them both. Hence it is most evident that this church of
   Christ is a house, and being appropriated unto God, God's house. To
   make this the more evident, I shall do these two things:--

   (1.) Show you what are the chief properties of this house. (2.) Declare
   what is the relation wherein Jesus Christ stands to this house, having
   called it all along the church of Christ. (1.) For the properties, or
   chief qualities of this house, they are three:-- [1.] It is a living
   house; [2.] It is strong; [3.] It is glorious.

   [1.] It is a living house: "To whom coming, as unto a living stone, ye
   also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house," 1 Pet. ii. 4,
   5. Christ, the foundation, is a living stone, and they that are built
   upon him are living stones. Hence they are said to grow together into a
   house. Growth is a sign of life, growing from an inward principle. Such
   as the growth of any thing is, such is its life. The growth of this
   house is spiritual, so therefore also is its life; -- it lives with a
   spiritual life, a life whose fulness is in its foundation. He hath
   "life in himself," John v. 26, and they from him: "I am crucified with
   Christ, nevertheless I live," Gal. ii. 20; yea, it is himself in them,
   -- "yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." It is true, those stones are
   dead in the rock as well as others; "by nature children of wrath as
   well as they," Eph. ii. 3; being "dead in trespasses and sins," verse
   1. He who hews them out gives them life; -- he quickens them when dead
   in trespasses and sins. There is not one rotten, dead stone in all this
   building. However some such may, by the advantage of their outward
   appearance, crowd in, yet they are not of the house itself.

   [2.] It is a strong house: "The gates of hell cannot prevail against
   it," Matt. xvi. 18. Though the rain descend, and the floods come, and
   the winds blow upon this house, yet it will not fall, because it is
   founded on a rock, Matt. vii. 25. We were all once a house built upon
   Adam; and when the wind came, and beat upon us, we fell; and the fall
   of that house was very great. He in his best estate was found to be but
   sand; now we are built upon a rock that will abide all trials:-- the
   waves may make a noise, and dash themselves against him, but it will be
   to their own ruin.

   But you will say, May not weak and inconsistent materials be built upon
   a rock, which yet may have never the more strength for their
   foundation?

   It is not so here, for the whole building is framed together in the
   foundation, Eph. ii. 22; not only on it, but also in it, and so not to
   be prevailed against, unless the rock itself be overthrown. And it is a
   living rock that this house is built on, -- a rock continually
   communicating strength unto every stone in the building, that it may be
   enabled to abide in him. I should proceed too far, should I go to
   declare the mighty defence and fortification of this house; -- what
   hath been spoken from the foundation is enough to demonstrate it to be
   a strong house.

   [3.] It is a glorious house, and that in a threefold respect.

   1st. It is glorious in respect of inward glory, brought unto it of God
   in the face of Jesus Christ, being beautiful through the comeliness
   that he puts upon it. Hence Christ speaking of it says, "How fair art
   thou, O love, for delights!" Cant. vii. 6; and, "Thou art all fair, my
   love; there is no spot in thee," chap. iv. 7. And how, I pray, comes
   that about? Why, Christ washeth it in his own blood, that it might be
   wholly "a glorious church," Eph. v. 26, 27. And farther, he being "The
   branch of the Lord and fruit of the earth," is made beauty and glory,
   excellency and comeliness, thereunto, Isa. iv. 2.

   It hath the beauty and glory of justification, which doth not only take
   away all filthy garments, causing iniquity to pass away, but also gives
   fair "change of raiment," Zech. iii. 4, 5, even the "garments of
   salvation," and the "robe of righteousness," Isa. lxi. 10. And then it
   hath the glory and beauty of sanctification; whence "the King's
   daughter is all glorious within," Ps. xlv. 13. The comeliness and
   beauty that is in a sanctified soul is above all the glory of the
   world. This house is all overlaid with gold within; Christ is unto it
   "a head of gold," Cant. v. 11. His house is not like Nebuchadnezzar's
   image, that the head should be of gold, and the members some of them of
   clay; -- they all partake of his nature, and are very glorious therein.

   2dly. In respect of its outward structure, which it eminently hath in
   all the peculiar assemblies thereof: "O thou afflicted, and tossed with
   tempest, and not comforted! behold, I will lay thy stones with fair
   colours, and thy foundations with sapphires. I will make thy windows of
   agates and carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones," Isa.
   liv. 11, 12. So, also, where it is called the new Jerusalem, -- a city,
   from its laws and polity, this "city" is said to be of "pure gold," --
   not dross and mire, -- "the building of the wall of jasper, and the
   foundations of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones,"
   Rev. xxi. 18, 19. This is that which the psalmist calls. "The beauty of
   holiness," Ps. cx. 3. The glory of the ordinances of the gospel is
   their vigour and purity. There is nothing so glorious as our King on
   his throne, Christ in his court, this house reigning in the
   administration of his ordinances:-- the "all his garments smell of
   myrrh, aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces whereby they have
   made him glad. Kings' daughters are among his honourable women: upon
   his right hand doth stand the queen in gold of Ophir," Ps. xlv. 8, 9.
   His goings are seen, the goings of our God and King in the sanctuary,
   Ps. lxviii. 24, 25, etc. The apostle exalteth the glory of gospel
   administrations exceedingly above the old tabernacle and temple
   worship, -- which yet was exceeding pompous and glorious. "If," saith
   he, "the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was
   glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold
   the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to
   be done away: how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather
   glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more
   doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that
   which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the
   glory that excelleth. For if that which was done away was glorious,
   much more that which remaineth is glorious," 2 Cor. iii. 7-11. Let men
   think as meanly as they please of the spiritual service of God amongst
   his people, all glory that ever yet appeared in the world was but a
   bubble to it, -- all that God ever instituted before came exceeding
   short of it. He delights in it who beholds the proud afar off.

   3dly. It is glorious in respect of the exaltation it hath above and the
   triumph over all its opposers. To see a house, a palace, hung round
   about with ensigns, spoils, and banners taken from the enemies that
   have come against it, is a glorious thing:-- thus is this house of God
   decked: "Kings of armies did flee apace, and she that tarried at home
   divided the spoil," Ps. lxviii. 12. "She that tarries at home," the
   mother of the family, the church of God, she "hath all the spoils." The
   Lord hath affirmed, that not only every one that opposeth, but all that
   do not serve this house, shall be utterly destroyed, Isa. lx. 12. There
   you have the spoil of Pharaoh, and all his host, gathered on the shore
   of the Red sea, and dedicated in this house, Exod. xv. There you have
   the robes of Nebuchadnezzar, reserved when himself was turned into a
   beast, Dan. iv. 1. There you have the imperial ornaments of Diocletian
   and his companion, casting aside their dominion for very madness that
   they could not prevail against this house. There is the blood of
   Julian, kept for a monument of vengeance against apostates. There you
   have the rochets of the prelates of this land, hung up of late, with
   other garments of their adherents, rolled in blood. There is a place
   reserved for the remaining spoils of the great whore, when she shall be
   burned, and made naked, and desolate, Rev. xi. Never any rose, or shall
   arise, against this house, and go forth unto final prosperity. Let the
   men of the world take heed how they burden themselves with the
   foundation-stone of this house; -- it will assuredly break them all in
   pieces.

   Thus have I given you a glimpse of this house, with the chief
   properties of it, which as God assumes as his own, so also peculiarly
   it belongs unto the Lord Christ; yea, what relation it stands in unto
   him, or rather he unto it, is the main thing I intend.

   (2.) Jesus Christ stands in a twofold relation unto this house:-- [1.]
   In respect of its fabric and building; [2.] In respect of its state and
   condition.

   [1.] In the first regard, Christ relates to this house in a fourfold
   respect; -- as, 1st. Its foundation; 2dly. Its ark; 3dly. Its altar;
   4thly. Its candlestick.

   I shall pass through these, God assisting, in order, and begin with
   what was first laid down, -- his relation to this house, as, --

   1st. The foundation of it. This was in part declared before. He is the
   stone which the builders rejected, but made of the Lord the head of the
   corner, Ps. cxviii. 22. He is the lowest in the bottom, to bear up the
   weight of the building; and the highest in the corner, to couple the
   whole together. "Other foundation can no man lay but that which is
   laid, which is Jesus Christ," 1 Cor. iii. 11. He is the rock on which
   he builds his church, Matt. xvi. 18.

   Now there are three things required to a foundation, all which are
   eminently seen in the Lord Christ, in reference to this house.

   (1st.) That it be first laid in the building. It were a course
   exceeding preposterous, first to build a house, and then to lay the
   foundation. Jesus Christ is the first that is laid in this holy fabric,
   and that in a fourfold respect.

   [1st.] He is the first in respect of God's eternal purpose. The Lord
   purposed that "he should have the pre-eminence" in this as well as in
   all other things, Col. i. 18. He is in that respect "the first-born
   among many brethren," Rom. viii. 29, the residue of this house being
   predestinated to be made conformable unto him. "He is before all
   things: by him all things" -- that is, all spiritual things, all the
   things of this house -- "consist: he is the head of the body, the
   church." This I mean, God purposed that Christ should be the bottom and
   foundation of this whole building, -- that it should be all laid on
   him. I do not mean that God first intended Christ for a foundation, and
   then his elect for building (the order of intention and execution is,
   as to first and last, inverted by all agents); but this I say, God
   purposing to build his elect into a holy temple, purposed that Jesus
   Christ should be the foundation.

   [2dly.] In respect of outward manifestation. God first manifests and
   declares him, before he laid one stone in this building. Gen. iii. 15,
   The seed, saith he, of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head:-- in
   that was laid the first stone of this building. Then was the "Lamb
   slain," apo katazoles kosmou, Rev. xiii. 8, presently "after the
   foundation of the world:" and thence is grace in him said to be given
   to the elect, pro chronon aionion, Tit. i. 2, "many ages ago."

   [3dly.] Because, in order of nature, Christ must be first laid in the
   heart of every individual stone before they are laid up in this
   building. If Christ be not in men, they are adokimoi, 2 Cor. xiii. 7,
   -- altogether useless for this building. Try them never so often, they
   must at last be rejected and laid aside.

   [4thly.] In respect of every particular assembly and little sanctuary
   of mount Zion. If he be not first laid in the midst of such assemblies,
   they will prove to be pinnacles of Babel, not towers of Zion. This,
   therefore, was the way of the saints of old, first to give up
   themselves to the Lord Christ, and then to one another, by the will of
   God, 2 Cor. viii. 5.

   In these respects Christ the foundation is first laid in this spiritual
   building, -- which is the first property of a foundation.

   (2dly.) A foundation must be hidden and out of sight unto all those
   that outwardly look upon the house. They cannot perceive it, though
   every part of the house doth rest upon it. And this hath occasioned
   many mistakes in the world. An unwise man coming to a great house,
   seeing the antics and pictures [figures?] stand crouching under the
   windows and sides of the house, may haply think that they bear up the
   weight of the house, when indeed they are for the most part pargeted
   posts. They bear not the house, -- the house bears them. By their
   bowing, and outward appearance, the man thinks the burden is on them,
   and supposes that it would be an easy thing, at any time, by taking
   them away, to demolish the house itself. But when he sets himself to
   work, he finds these things of no value; there is a foundation in the
   bottom, which bears up the whole, that he thought not of:-- against
   that he may waste himself, until he be broken in pieces. Men looking
   upon the church, do find that it is a fair fabric indeed, but cannot
   imagine how it should stand. A few supporters it seemeth to have in the
   world, like crouching antics under the windows, that make some show of
   under-propping it:-- here you have a magistrate, there an army, or so.
   Think the men of the world, "Can we but remove these props, the whole
   would quickly topple to the ground." Yea, so foolish have I been
   myself, and so void of understanding before the Lord, as to take a view
   of some goodly appearing props of this building, and to think, How
   shall the house be preserved if these should be removed? -- they looked
   unto me like the mariners in Paul's ship, without whose abode therein
   they could not be saved, -- when, lo! suddenly some have been
   manifested to be pargeted posts, and the very best to be held up by the
   house, and not to hold it up. On this account the men of the world
   think it no great matter to demolish the spiritual church of Christ to
   the ground:-- they encourage one another to the work, never thinking of
   the foundation that lies hidden, against which they dash themselves all
   to pieces. I say, then, Christ, as the foundation of this house, is
   hidden to the men of the world, -- they see it not, they believe it
   not. There is nothing more remote from their apprehension than that
   Christ should be at the bottom of them and their ways, whom they so
   much despise.

   (3dly.) The foundation is that which bears up the whole weight of the
   building. What part of the house soever is not directly poised upon it
   hath no strength at all. Take a goodly stone, hew it, square it, make
   it every way fit for your fabric, so that it may seem to be the best of
   all your materials; yet if you do not lay it upon the foundation,
   answerable to that which may give it a solid basis, and bear up the
   weight and poise thereof, it will be useless, cumbersome, and quickly
   fall to the ground.

   Let a man be hewed and squared by the word and ordinances into outward
   conformity never so exactly, that he seems one of the most beautiful
   saints in the world; yet if he be not laid rightly by faith upon the
   foundation, to derive from thence strength, supportment, and vigour, he
   will quickly fall to the ground. What, then, will become of their
   building who heap up all sorts of rubbish to make a house for the,
   Lord?

   2dly. Christ is the ark of this house. The ark in the tabernacle, and
   afterward in the temple, was the most holy thing in the most holy
   place. There was nothing in it but the two tables of stone written with
   the finger of God; -- before it was Aaron's rod that budded, with a pot
   full of manna; -- over it was the propitiatory, or mercy-seat, being a
   plate of gold as long and as broad as the ark, covering it, being
   shadowed with the cherubims of glory. Now all this glorious fabric did
   signify, that unless the law with its condemning power were hid in the
   ark, and covered with the mercy-seat, no person could stand before the
   Lord. Besides, the law was the old covenant of works, and being renewed
   unto them chiefly to be subservient to the gospel, and partly, with its
   appurtenances mad carnal administration, to be the tenure of the
   Israelites' holding the land of Canaan, and this being in the ark, it
   was said to contain the covenant, and is frequently called "The ark of
   the covenant." Jesus Christ is the ark of this spiritual house. When
   the temple was opened in heaven, there was seen in the temple the ark
   of God's testament, Rev. xi. 19, -- Jesus Christ, made conspicuous to
   all, who lay much hid under the old testament, Rom. iii. 25. God is
   said to set forth Christ to be hilasterion, "a propitiation," or
   mercy-seat; for by that very term is the mercy-seat expressed, Heb. ix.
   5. He is, then, the ark and the mercy-seat covering it. He, then, doth
   these two things:--

   (1st.) In behalf of this house, and every stone thereof, he hides the
   law with its condemning power, that nothing from thence shall be laid
   to their charge. If a man have a suit to be tried in any court, and a
   powerful friend engage himself that the only evidence which is against
   him shall not be produced, will it not give him encouragement to
   proceed? In that great and tremendous trial which is to be above, there
   is but one principal evidence against us, which gives life to all
   others; which if it be removed all the rest must fail:-- this is the
   law. Christ, as the ark and mercy-seat, hides this law; -- it shall not
   (I speak in respect to this house) be produced at the day of trial.
   Will not this be a great encouragement to them to appear at the throne
   of God? Christ hides the law, as being "the end" of it, Rom. x. 4,
   "that the righteousness thereof might be fulfilled in us," Rom. viii.
   4. He hath so far answered all that the law required, that none from
   thence can "lay anything to the charge of God's elect," Rom. viii. 33,
   34. Let not poor sinners fear, it will not be with them as with
   Uzzah:-- he touched the ark and died; touch this ark, and live forever.
   And, --

   (2dly.) He is the ark of this house, as containing in himself the new
   covenant; it is made with him originally, established in him
   irreversibly, -- made out through him in all the grace of it
   faithfully.

   3dly. He is the altar of this house. There were two altars in the old
   tabernacle and temple, -- an altar for sacrifice and an altar for
   incense, Exod. xxvii. 1, xxx. 1. The first was the great brazen altar
   that stood without the holy place, whereon the burnt-offerings and all
   sacrifices of blood for remission were offered. The other less, made of
   shittim-wood, all overlaid with pure gold, and a crown of beaten gold
   upon it, on which they were to burn pure incense unto the Lord always.
   And they were both most holy, sanctifying the gifts with legal
   sanctification that were offered on them, Matt. xxiii. 19. Now, both
   these doth our Saviour supply in this house. He is the great altar of
   sacrifice, the altar of offerings for expiation and atonement: "We have
   an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle,"
   Heb. xiii. 10; that is, even He who sanctified the people with his own
   blood, and suffered without the gate, verse 11. The good-will and soul
   of Christ offering up himself, through the eternal Spirit, a pure
   oblation and sacrifice, by one offering to perfect for ever them that
   are sanctified, is all our altar. He is also the golden altar of
   incense. Incense is prayer, Ps. cxli. 2, "Let my prayer come before
   thee as incense." Jesus Christ is the golden altar whereon that incense
   is offered, Rev. viii. 3, 4, even that altar which is always before
   God, Rev. ix. 13. As by being the former he makes our persons accepted,
   so by the latter he makes our duties accepted. And all the living
   stones of this house are priests to offer sacrifice on these altars. By
   him, as priests, they have approximation to the holy place; -- there
   they have a share and participation in all the sacrifices that are
   offered upon or by him.

   4th. He is the candlestick of this house. The making, fashioning, and
   use of the candlestick in the holy place of the tabernacle, you have,
   Exod. xxv. 31, etc. It was one of the most glorious utensils of that
   frame, made of pure and beaten gold, with much variety of works, --
   knops, flowers, and lamps. The use of it was, to bear out light for all
   the worship of God in that most holy place. The tabernacle was made
   close, without any window. It was not to receive light from without; it
   had all its own light from within. It is true, this candlestick, with
   its seven lamps, did secondarily represent the churches of Christ,
   which hold out his light among themselves and unto others, Rev. i. 20,
   "The seven candlesticks thou sawest are the seven churches." Therefore
   Solomon made "ten candlesticks of pure gold," 1 Kings vii. 49, to set
   out yet farther the increase and multiplying of the churches of God.
   Upon this account, also, the two witnesses are said to be "two
   candlesticks," Rev. xi. 4, and "the two anointed ones that stand before
   the God of the whole earth," Zech. iv. 3, whence that in the Revelation
   is taken. There is mention, indeed, of two anointed ones, but of one
   candlestick; -- the Holy Ghost plainly intimating, that though the
   churches and witnesses of Christ are also candlesticks in a second
   sense, yet there is one eminent candlestick, which hath light
   originally in itself, which also it communicates unto all others. And
   this is that which is mentioned in Zech iv., which hath the "two
   olive-trees," or the two anointed churches of Jews and Gentiles,
   standing by it, receiving light from it to communicate to others: they
   empty the golden oil out of themselves which they receive from the
   candlestick. For this candlestick hath "seven lamps," verse 2; which
   lamps, that burn before the throne, are the "seven Spirits of God,"
   Rev. iv. 5, -- seven Spirits, that is, the perfection and completeness
   of the Spirit of God in all his graces and operations. Now, who hath
   these seven Spirits? Even he who received not the Spirit "by measure,"
   John iii. 34, being the "stone" upon which are the "seven eyes," Zech.
   iii. 9. He alone, then, is this candlestick, and all the light which
   this house hath it is from him.

   There are two ways whereby Jesus Christ make., out light to this
   house:-- (1st.) By way of doctrinal revelation; (2dly.) Of real
   communication.

   (1st.) He alone discovers light to all the stones of this building: "No
   man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the
   bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," John i. 18. No saving
   discovery of God, of his nature, his will, his love, but what is by
   Christ. The moon and stars give light; but it is only what they receive
   from the sun. The prophets and apostles held out light; but it was all
   received from him. They spake by the Spirit of Christ that was in them.
   "I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you," 1
   Cor. xi. 23. The same apostle curses every one that shall bring in any
   other light into this house, be they angels or men, Gal. i. 8, 9.
   Christ alone fully knows the mind of God, as being always "in the bosom
   of the Father," John i. 18; yea, he knows it to the uttermost, being
   one with his Father, John x. 30. And he is willing to reveal it; for
   even "for this end came he into the world, that he might bear witness
   to the truth." And he had ability enough to do it, for "in him were hid
   all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," Col. ii. 3. He alone is the
   author of all light to this his holy habitation. Many attempts have
   been to set up light in this house, and not from Christ. Some would
   kindle their traditions, for the doctrine of this house; some their
   prudentials, for the government of it; some their ceremonials, for the
   worship of it; -- all candles in the sun. Shall men think to compass
   themselves with sparks, and walk in the light of the fire which
   themselves have kindled, in the face of the Sun of righteousness? Shall
   not such men lie down in sorrow? Beloved, take heed of such "ignes
   fatui," -- foolish, misguiding fires.

   (2dly.) By way of real communication. He is" the true Light, which
   lighteth every man," John i. 9. Every one that hath any spiritual light
   really communicated to him hath it from Christ. It is part of his work
   to "recover sight to the blind," Luke iv. 18. And therefore he adviseth
   the church of Laodicea to come to him for eye-salve, that she might
   see, Rev. iii. 18. At his coming, Zion shines forth, Isa. lx. 1;
   because his light ariseth upon her, verse 2. The former doctrinal
   teaching of itself will not suffice: that light may shine in darkness,
   and the darkness not comprehend it, John i. 5. All the light the sun
   can give will not make a blind man see: there must be a visive faculty
   within as well as light without. The stones of this building are by
   nature all blind, -- yea, darkened, -- yea, darkness itself. If the
   Lord Christ do not, by the mighty efficacy of his Spirit, create a
   visive power within them, as well as reveal the will of his Father to
   them, they will never spiritually discern the things of God. The
   natural man discerneth not the things of God, nor indeed can do, 1 Cor.
   ii. 14. It is true, men, by the help of common gifts, with the use of
   the former doctrinal revelation, may attain to such a knowledge of the
   mind of God as may, in a sense, be called illumination, Heb. vi. 4. Far
   may they go, much may they do, by this light:-- they may teach others,
   and be cast away themselves; -- they may dispute for truth, yea, die
   for truth, and all this while have but the first, common anointing, --
   see nothing clearly, but men walking like trees. A spiritual insight
   into the mind of God is not to be obtained without an almighty act of
   the Spirit of Christ, creating a new power of life and light upon the
   soul. Some, indeed, think that they have this seeing power in
   themselves. Do but show them outwardly what is to be seen, and let them
   alone for the discerning of it. Well, then, let them alone; if ever
   they are stones of this living house, I am deceived. Thou that art so,
   know whence is all thy light; and if thou art any thing in the dark,
   draw nigh to the candlestick from whence all light is. Thence must thy
   light come, yea, and thence it shall come; the secrets of the Lord
   shall make their abode with thee.

   And this is the fourfold relation wherein the Lord Christ stands unto
   this house, as it is a spiritual building.

   [2.] In respect of state and condition, Jesus Christ stands in a
   fivefold relation to this house, -- viz., 1st, As the owner; 2dly, The
   builder; 3dly, The watchman or keeper; 4thly, The inhabiter; 5thly, The
   avenger: each of which I shall unfold in order.

   1st. He is the owner of it. He calls it his: "Upon this rock will I
   build my church," Matt. xvi. 18. "Moses verily was faithful in all his
   house, as a servant; but Christ as a Son over his own house, whose
   house are we," Heb. iii. 5, 6. And that you may see that he doth not
   own it as his without good right and title, know that in the great
   economy of grace Jesus Christ hath a threefold right and title to this
   house.

   (1st.) Of inheritance. He is by his Father "appointed heir of all
   things," Heb. i. 3. By inheritance he obtains this excellent name, to
   be Lord of this house. God sends him to the vineyard as the heir, after
   his servants were refused. And he hath an engagement from his Father,
   that he shall enjoy his whole inheritance upon demand, Ps. ii. 8. For
   the Father appointed, "in the fulness of times, to gather together all
   things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth,
   even in him," Eph. i. 10. So that as Christ is "the first-begotten" of
   the Father, Heb. i. 6, and "the first-born of every creature," Col. i.
   15, the right of heirship is his. But this will not do; for, --

   (2dly.) When he should come to take possession of this house, he finds
   that it is mortgaged, and that a great debt lies upon it; which he must
   pay to the uttermost farthing, if he ever intend to have it. To the
   former title there must also be added a right of purchase. He must
   purchase this house, and pay a great price for it. And what is this
   price? what is required of him? No less than his dearest blood, Acts
   xx. 28. Yea, he must make his soul an offering for sin, and charge
   himself with the whole debt; -- all the curse and punishment which this
   house had in part actually contracted upon itself, and wholly deserved.
   He must put his shoulders under the burden due to it, and his back to
   the stripes prepared for it. A hard task! But Jesus Christ being the
   heir, the right of redemption belonged unto him. It was not for his
   honour that it should lie unredeemed. Full well he knew that if he did
   it not, the whole creation was too beggarly to make this purchase. It
   is true, that nature of ours -- which he assumed to pay that by, which
   he never took -- was startled for a while, and would have deprecated
   this grievous price, crying out, "If it be possible, let this cup pass
   from me;" but he recollects himself, and says, "I am content to do thy
   will, O God:" and so, through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself up
   unto God for a ransom. He likes the house, and will have it to dwell
   in, whatever it cost him. "Here," saith he, "shall be my habitation,
   and my dwelling for ever," Ps. cxxxii. 1. "Know ye not," saith the
   apostle, "that ye are the temple of the Spirit of Christ?" Well, and
   how come we so to be? "Ye are bought with a price," 1 Cor. vi. 19. They
   who affirm that he also purchased the unclean sties of the devil, wot
   not what they say.

   (3dly.) Unto purchase he must also add conquest. An unjust usurper had
   taken possession of this house, and kept it in bondage; -- Satan had
   seized on it, and brought it, through the wrath of God, under his
   power. He, then, must be conquered, that the Lord Christ may have
   complete possession of his own house. "For this purpose," then, "was
   the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the
   devil," 1 John iii. 8. And how doth he do it? He overpowers him and
   destroys him, in that "through death he destroyed him that had the
   power of death; that is, the devil," Heb. ii. 14. And he spoiled him,
   having overcome him. He bound the strong man, and then spoiled his
   goods, Matt. xii. 29. All that darkness, unbelief, sin, and hardness,
   that he had stuffed this house withal, Christ spoils and scatters them
   all away. And to make his conquest complete, he triumphs over his
   enemy, and, like a mighty conqueror, makes an open show of him, to his
   everlasting shame, Col. ii. 15, "Having spoiled principalities and
   powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in his
   cross;" and by this means strengthens his title to his inheritance.

   I might also farther insist on the donation of his Father, and the
   actual possession he takes of it by his Spirit; but these are
   sufficient to prove this house to be Christ's. I shall take some
   observations hence.

   Observation 1. [294] Is this the house of Christ? is he the owner of
   it? -- Let men take heed how they spoil it for themselves. The psalmist
   makes this a great argument in his pleading against opposers, that they
   came into the Lord's "inheritance," Ps. lxxix. 1. The title of Christ's
   purchase was not then so clearly known as that of his inheritance; and
   therefore they of old pleaded chiefly by that title. Now he hath
   proclaimed to all, his other titles also, -- the whole right he has to
   this house, -- to his saint, Who, then, shall meddle with it, and go
   free? Amongst men, every one with all his might will defend his own
   possession; and shall we think that the Lord Christ will suffer his to
   be spoiled at an easy rate? Shall not men pay dear for their
   encroachment? How hath he in our days frustrated all attempts for the
   persecution of his! "Touch not," saith he, "mine anointed." Men may
   upon various pretences claim this privilege to such a land, nation, or
   faction; it will in the end appear to be theirs, and only theirs, who
   are living stones of this house. Dogs may scramble for their bread, but
   shall not enjoy it. It is Christ in this house that will make every
   stone of it a burdensome stone. He hath done it that men may learn me
   zeomachein. Do not think it will excuse thee to say thou wast mistaken.

   Observation 2. Is Christ the owner of this house? -- Let the order and
   disposal of it be left to himself. Men are apt to be tampering with his
   house and household. They will be so kind and careful as to lay out
   their wisdom and prudence about it; -- Thus and thus shall it be; these
   are parts and members of it. Christ is exceeding jealous of his honour
   in this particular. He cannot bear it, that men pretending to his glory
   should think him so wanting in love or wisdom towards his own, as not
   exactly to dispose of all things that concern the regimen thereof. Men
   would not be so dealt withal in their own houses as they deal with
   Christ in his. We have all wisdom enough (as we suppose) to order our
   own houses; -- only the wisdom and love of the Father leaves his to the
   discretion of others, These thoughts are not from above.

   Observation 3. Hath Christ taken his own house to himself upon so many
   titles? -- Let not men put those building on him for his which are not
   so, which he holds not by these titles. Go to a man that dwells in a
   stately palace of his own, show him a hog-sty, tell him, "This is your
   house; here you dwell; this is yours:" -- can you put a greater
   indignity on him? "No," says the man; "that is not mine; I dwell in
   yonder sumptuous palace." And shall we deal thus with the Lord Jesus?
   He hath bought and adorned his own house:-- a glorious house it is. If
   now men shall hold out to him a sty of swine, a den of unclean beasts,
   a ruinous heap, whereof the far greatest part are dead stones, and tell
   him, this is his church, his house, -- will it not exceedingly provoke
   him? will he bear such a reproach? Nay, he will reject such tenders to
   their ruin.

   2dly. Jesus Christ is the builder of this house: "This man was counted
   worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the
   house hath more honour than the house," Heb. iii. 3. -- "I," saith he,
   "will build my church," Matt. xvi. 18. This is not a fabric for any
   workman but Christ. It is true, there are others employed under him;
   and some so excellent that they may be said to be "wise
   master-builders," 1 Cor. iii. 10; but yet all the efficacy of their
   labour in this building is not from themselves, but merely from him by
   whom they are employed. Except the Lord build this house, they labour
   in vain that go about to build it.

   Now this house receives a twofold building:-- (1st.) Spiritual, of all
   the stones thereof into one mystical house. Of this I chiefly treat.
   (2dly.) Ecclesiastical, of some particular stones into several
   tabernacles, -- which are useful partitions in the great mystical
   house, -- called assemblies and dwelling-places of mount Zion. Both
   these it hath from Christ alone.

   (1st.) For the first; -- if all the most skilful workmen in the world
   should go to the pit of nature, by their own strength to hew out stones
   for this building, they will never, with all their skill and diligence,
   lay one stone upon it. There is life required to those stones, which
   none can give but Christ. The Father hath given into his hand alone to
   give life eternal to whom he will, John xvii. 2. He alone can turn
   stones into children of Abraham. To him is committed all dispensation
   of quickening power. He brings us from the dust of death, and no man
   hath quickened his own soul. With spiritual power, all spiritual life
   is vested in Christ. If dead stones live, it must be by hearing the
   voice of the Son of God. Christ's building of his mystical house is his
   giving life unto dead stones; or rather, being life unto them. Of those
   who will attempt to build themselves, and draw a principle of spiritual
   life from the broken cisterns of nature, I shall speak afterward.

   (2dly.) For the second, or the communion of living stones one with
   another, and all with Christ, in the order and worship appointed by the
   gospel, so becoming assemblies and dwelling-places of mount Zion; --
   this also is of him. This is for his outward solemn worship; and he
   would never allow that the will of any creature should be the measure
   of his honour, lie sets up the candlesticks; and holds the stars in his
   hand. Look to the institution of this building, -- it is from Christ;
   -- look for directions about this building, -- it is wholly from him.
   From him, his word, his Spirit, is the institution, direction, and
   perfection of it. From hence, now, take some observations.

   Observation 1. Is Christ the builder of this house? can he alone fit us
   for this building? can he alone, and that by his almighty power, put
   life into dead stones, that they may grow up to be a holy and living
   habitation unto him? -- What, then, becomes of that famous workman,
   free-will, and a power of believing in ourselves? do not they work
   effectually in this temple? As it was in Solomon's temple, "there was
   neither axe, nor hammer, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while
   it was in building," 1 Kings vi. 7; so in this spiritual house, that
   iron tool of free-will is not once heard; it comes not nigh the work,
   -- Christ doth all alone. He gives life to whom he pleases. Shall a
   dead will be thought to have a quickening, life-giving power in it?
   Shall a spirit of life be spun out of the bowels of nature? Is it the
   will of man, or the will of God, that draws men unto Christ? and is it
   his Spirit, or flesh, that unites us to him? Where, then, is this
   workman employed, that makes all this noise in the world? Even there,
   where men cry, "Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top
   may reach unto heaven," Gen. xi. 4, -- amongst those who would build a
   Babel, a tower of their own to get to heaven by. The Lord comes down
   and scatters all their undertakings. This workman never placed stone in
   the house of Christ. Nay, it is like the foolish woman, that pulls down
   her house with both her hands. What free grace sets up, that free will
   strives to demolish.

   Observation 2. See hence a great mistake of many poor creatures, who
   would fain be stones in this house. What course take they? They hew and
   square themselves, -- strive to cut off this and that rubbish, which
   (as they suppose) alone hinders them from being fitted to this
   building; they pare themselves with vows, promises, resolutions, and
   engagements, -- beautify themselves with duties and services; and then,
   with many perplexing fears, present themselves to the building, never
   knowing whether they are admitted or no. All this while the great
   Master-builder stands by, scarcely dealt withal. What, now, is the
   issue of such attempts? What they build one day, falls down in another.
   When they have oftentimes in their own thoughts brought the building to
   such a pass as that they are ready to think it will be well with them,
   now surely they shall have a share and interest in this living and
   glorious house; all on a sudden they fall again to the ground, their
   hopes wither, and they suppose themselves in the world's rubbish again.
   There is no end of this alternation. Would, now, this poor soul see
   where its great defect lies?. It hath not applied itself aright to the
   only Builder. Wouldst thou be a stone in this fabric? Lay thyself
   before the Lord Jesus; say to him that thou art in thyself altogether
   unfit for the great building he hath in hand; -- that thou hast often
   attempted to put thyself upon it, but all in vain:-- "Now, Lord Jesus,
   do thou take me into thine own hand. If thou castest me away, I cannot
   complain, -- I must justify thee in all thy ways; but thou callest
   things that are not as though they were, -- thou turnest dead stones
   into children of Abraham: oh, turn my dead into a living stone!" Fear
   not; he will in no wise cast thee out.

   The vanity of men, attempting to mix their power and wisdom in the
   heaping up tabernacles for Christ, might be hence discovered; but I
   forbear.

   3dly. Jesus Christ is the great watchman, or keeper of this house.
   There are, indeed, other watchmen, and that of God's own appointment,
   for the use of this house: "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman,"
   Ezek. iii. 17; "I have set watchmen upon thy walls," Isa. lxii. 6, 7;
   which in a special manner are the pastors of the churches. "They
   watch," Heb. xiii. 17, as the priests and Levites heretofore kept the
   watch of the Lord. It cannot be denied but that many who have taken
   upon them to be these watchmen have watched only for their own
   advantage, have been very dogs, -- yea, dumb dogs, the very worst of
   dogs, Isa. lvi. 10, -- yea, they have been, and oftentimes are, under
   various pretences, great "smiters and wounders of the spouse of
   Christ," Cant. v. 7. But yet, were they never so good and true to their
   trusts, they were never able all to watch and keep this house, had it
   not another watchman: "Except the Lord keep the city, these watchmen
   watch in vain," Ps. cxxvii. 1. He that keepeth Israel, who doth neither
   slumber nor sleep, must keep this house, or it will be destroyed.
   Christ, then, is that holy one, and that watcher, that came down from
   heaven, and commanded to cut down the tree and the branches, Dan. iv.
   13, 14, -- Nebuchadnezzar and his great power, -- for meddling with
   this house. Now, Christ watcheth his house for two ends.

   (1st.) To see what it wants. 2 Chron. xvi. 9, "The eyes of the Lord run
   to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in its
   behalf." He looks down from heaven to behold them that fear him, Ps.
   xiv. He is that stone upon which are "seven eyes," Zech. iii. 9, -- a
   sufficiency, in perfection of wisdom, inspection, and government, for
   the good of his house. And those seven eyes of his "run to and fro
   through the whole earth" for this very purpose, Zech. iv. 10. He takes
   notice of the state and condition of his people, to eye them in their
   distresses, and to give them timely and suitable deliverance. They may
   call every spring of their refreshment, Beerlahai-roi [The well of Him
   that liveth and seeth me].

   (2dly.) To see that the son of violence draw not nigh unto it; and if
   he do, to require it at his hands; to make him eat his own flesh, and
   drink his own blood, that he may learn to devour no more. Observe,
   then, --

   Observation 1. Whence it is that this house, which seems so often to be
   nigh to destruction, is yet preserved from ruin. Ofttimes it is brought
   into a condition that all that look on say, Now it is gone for ever.
   But still it recovers, and gets up again. The Lord Christ looks on all
   the while: he knows how far things may proceed for trial. When it comes
   to that pass that, if pressures and troubles should continue, the house
   will be overborne indeed, then he puts in, rebukes the winds and waves,
   and makes all things still again. Like a father who looks upon his
   child in a difficult and dangerous business, -- knows that he can
   relieve him when he pleases, but would willingly see him try his
   strength and cunning, -- lets him alone until perhaps the child thinks
   himself quite lost, and wonders his father doth not help him; but when
   the condition comes to be such that, without help, he will be lost
   indeed, instantly the father puts in his hand and saves him. So deals
   the Lord Jesus with his house, -- inlets it oftentimes strive and
   wrestle with great oppositions, to draw out and exercise all the graces
   thereof; but yet all this while he looketh on, and when danger is nigh
   indeed, he is not far off.

   Observation 2. Let all the enemies of the church know, that there is
   one who hath an we over them in all their counsels and undertakings.
   Whilst they are digging deep, he looks on and laughs them to scorn. How
   perplexed was the king of Syria when he found that the prophet was
   acquainted with all his designs, and made them known to the king of
   Israel! It cannot but be a matter of perplexity to the enemies of this
   house, when they shall find that the great Friend and Protector thereof
   is continually present in all their advisoes. Let them not wonder at
   their birthless undertakings; the eye of Christ is still upon them.

   Observation 3. Let the saints see their privilege; -- whoever they are,
   in what condition soever, the eye of Christ is upon them. He watches
   over them for good, and knows their souls in adversity. When no eye
   sees them, he looks on them; they cannot be cast out of his care, nor
   hid from his sight. There are many poor souls who go heavily all the
   day long, -- that mourn in their spirits unknown, unregarded, unpitied;
   -- the eye of Christ is on them for good continually; they cannot be
   thrown out of his watchful care.

   4thly. Christ is the indweller of this house. He hath not built it and
   framed it for no use. It is for a habitation for himself. He hath
   chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. "This is my rest,"
   saith he; "here will I dwell," Ps. cxxxii. 13, 14. This house is built
   up to be an habitation unto him, Eph. ii. 22. He is the "King of
   saints," and this house is his court. It is true, for his human nature,
   "the heaven must receive him, until the time of the restitution of all
   things," Acts iii. 21; but yet, he dwelleth in this house three ways:--

   (1st.) By his Spirit. Christ dwells in this house, and every stone of
   it, by his Spirit, "Know ye not that Christ is in you, except ye be
   reprobates?" 2 Cor. xiii. 5. -- "Christ in you;" that is, the Spirit of
   Christ, Christ by his Spirit. So the Holy Ghost expounds it, Rom. viii.
   9, "If the Spirit of God dwell in you:" which, verse 10, is, "If Christ
   be in you." Christ and his Spirit, as to indwelling, are all one; for
   he dwells in us by his Spirit. "The love of God is shed abroad in our
   hearts by the Holy Ghost, that is given unto us," Rom. v. 5. There is
   not only the "love of God," a grace of the Spirit, "shed abroad" in us,
   but there is also the "Holy Spirit given unto us." This is fully
   asserted, Rom. viii. 11, "The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus,
   dwells in you;" as also, 2 Tim. i. 14, "Keep the good thing committed
   to thee by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." Hence the saints are
   said to be "temples of the Holy Ghost." Jesus Christ doth not build
   temples merely for graces, created graces; he dwells in them himself,
   -- he dwells in them by his Spirit. And this is a glorious privilege of
   this house, that Jesus Christ in a mystical and wonderful manner should
   dwell in it, and every stone of it. Hereby all believers come to be not
   one personal, but one mystical Christ, 1 Cor. xii. 12. However we are
   distanced in respect of his human nature, yet mystically we are one, --
   one body, one mystical Christ, -- because we have one Spirit dwelling
   in us and him. If a man were never so tall, so that his head should
   reach the stars, and his feet stand upon the ground, yet, having but
   one soul, he is but one man still. Though Christ in his human nature be
   exceedingly distanced from us, yet there being one and the same Spirit
   in him and us, we are one mystical Christ. Yet observe, --

   Observation 1. Though Christ be united unto the persons of the saints
   by the indwelling of the Spirit, yet the saints have not that which is
   called personal union with him, nor with the Spirit. Personal union is
   by a person of the Deity assuming the nature of man into one
   personality with itself, that having of its own no personal
   subsistence. Things are here clean otherwise: Christ doth not assume
   the saints into a personal subsistence with himself, but dwells in
   their persons by his Spirit.

   Observation 2. That the operations of the indwelling Spirit of Christ,
   and all his manifestations, are voluntary. He worketh as he will, and
   revealeth what he will, even where he dwells. He doth not work in us
   naturally, but voluntarily, unto what proportion he pleaseth;
   therefore, though he dwell equally in all saints in respect of truth
   and reality, yet he doth not in respect of working and efficacy.

   (2dly.) By his graces. Christ dwelleth in this house, and in all the
   stones thereof, by his graces. He "dwells in our hearts by faith," Eph.
   iii. 17. He dwells in us by his word "in all wisdom," Col. iii. 16. All
   the graces we are made partakers of, we receive from his fulness, and
   by them he inhabits in us. They are indeed the ornaments of the living
   stones of this house, to make them meet and fit for such an indweller
   as the Lord Christ. Christ will not dwell in a soul whose mind is
   darkness, his will stubbornness, and his affections carnal and sensual.
   He puts light, and life, and love upon the soul, that it may be meet
   for him to dwell in. Christ dwells in all the world by his power and
   presence, but he dwells only in his saints by his Spirit and grace.

   (3dly.) By his ordinances. Where two or three of his are assembled
   together, there is he in the midst of them. The ordinances of Christ
   are the Meat ornaments of his kingly court; by them he is glorious in
   all the assemblies of mount Zion. Some would fain cast out this
   indwelling of Christ from among his saints; -- in due time he will
   thoroughly rebuke them. Some, again, would thrust him out into the
   world; but he will make men know that his ordinances are given unto
   his. It is true, the benefit of some of them extends to the world; but
   the right and enjoyment of them is the privilege of his saints. Thus
   Christ dwells in his house. Hence, observe, --

   Observation 1. The intimacy of the Lord Jesus with his saints, and the
   delight he takes in them. He dwelleth with them, he dwelleth in them,
   -- he takes them to the nearest union with himself possible: he in
   them, they in him, that they may be one. He hath made many an admirable
   change with us. He took our sin, and gives us his righteousness; he
   took our nature, and gives us his Spirit. Neither is it a bare
   indwelling, -- he thereby holds with us all acts of the choicest
   communion. "If," saith he, "any man hear my voice, and open to me, I
   will come in to him." And what then? "I will sup with him, and he with
   me," Rev. iii. 20.

   (1.) "I will sup with him;" -- I will delight and satisfy myself with
   him. Jesus Christ takes abundance of delight and contentment in the
   hearts of his saints. When they are faithful, when they are fruitful,
   he is marvellously refreshed with it. Hence is that prayer of the
   spouse, "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my
   garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my Beloved come into
   his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits," Cant. iv. 16. She would have
   the spices, the graces she hath received, breathed on by a fresh gale
   of the Spirit, that they might yield a sweet savour. And why so? That
   her Beloved may have something for his entertainment, -- that he may
   come and sup, and eat of his pleasant fruits. A poor soul, that hath
   received Christ, hath not any desire so fervent as that it may have
   something for the entertainment of him; that he who filled it when it
   was hungry may not (as it were) be sent away empty. And the Lord Jesus
   is exceedingly taken with those refreshments. "The King is held in the
   galleries," Cant. vii. 5. He is detained, yea, bound with delight; --
   he knows not how to pass away. Therefore "he rests in his love," Zeph.
   iii. 17. He is exceedingly satiated in the delight he takes in his
   mints. Neither is this all, that when Christ comes he will sup with us,
   (though this be a great deal; for what are we, that we should entertain
   our Lord?) but also, --

   (2.) The saints sup with him: he provides choice refreshments for them
   also. When Christ comes in unto us, he will entertain a soul
   bounteously. He provides love for us. When the Spirit of Christ is
   bestowed on us, he sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, Rom. v.
   5. He sheds it abroad, -- pours it out abundantly. Friends, love is a
   choice dainty:-- he that knows it not is a stranger to all spiritual
   banquets:-- it is a choice dish in the feast of fat things that Christ
   prepareth. He provides "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
   Ghost," for us That [is] his kingdom, Rom. xiv. 17; and this kingdom of
   his is within us. Of such precious things as these doth Christ provide
   a supper for them with whom he dwells. If Christ be in you, more or
   less, you shall not want this entertainment. We are, indeed, sometimes
   like mad guests, that when meat is set on the table, cast it all down,
   without tasting a morsel. When Christ hath prepared sweet and precious
   dainties for us, we cast them on the ground; we throw away our peace,
   our joy, by folly and unbelief: but this makes not the truth of God of
   none effect.

   Observation 2. Doth Christ dwell in us by his Spirit? -- should we not
   be careful lest we grieve that Spirit of his? The Spirit of Christ is
   very tender. Did the saints continually consider this, that Christ
   dwells in them, -- that he is grieved and troubled at all their
   unbelief, unruly passions, worldly desires, foolish imaginations, --
   surely they could not but be much more watchful over themselves than
   generally they are. He is refreshed when we walk with him, and hold
   fellowship with him. To turn aside from him, to hold fellowship with
   the world or flesh, -- this grieves him and burdens him. Oh, "grieve
   not the Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed to the day of
   redemption." And let me tell you, if you do, though he will not utterly
   depart from you, nor take his kindness away for evermore, yet he will
   do that which shall make your heart ache, your joints tremble, and
   break all your bones in pieces. For, --

   (1.) He will depart from you as to all sense of his presence, that you
   shall have neither joy, nor comfort, nor peace. He will hide his face,
   and make you believe (as we say) that he is gone utterly from you. And
   this he will do, not for a day, or a night, or so, but for a great
   while together. You shall go to seek him, and you shall not find him;
   yea, beg and cry, and have no answer. Now all the world for one smile
   from Christ, for one impression of his presence upon my heart, -- and
   all in vain. When the Spirit of Christ was thus departed from David,
   upon his miscarriage, as to the sense and joy of it, how cloth he cry
   out, "Make me to hear the voice of joy and gladness, that the bones
   which thou hast broken may rejoice!" Ps. li. 8. If thou valuest the
   presence of Christ at no greater rate but to jeopard it upon every
   occasion, thou mayest haply go without the comfort of it all thy days.
   Examine yourselves, -- is it not so with some of you? Have you not lost
   the sense of the presence of Christ by your folly and uneven walking?
   Perhaps you value it not much, but go on as Samson with his hair cut,
   and think to do as at other times; but if the Philistines set upon
   thee, it will be sorrow and trouble; in every assault thou wilt find
   thyself a lost man; -- sooner or later it will be bitterness to thee.

   (2.) He will depart as to the efficacy of his working in thee, and
   leave thee so weak that thou shalt not be able to walk with God. His
   Spirit is "a Spirit of grace and supplications." He will so withdraw it
   that thou shalt find thy heart in a poor condition, as to those things.
   To be cold in prayer, dead in hearing, estranged from meditation,
   slight in all duties, -- this shall be thy portion; -- a frame that a
   tender soul would tremble to think of. Ah, how many poor creatures are
   come to this state in these days, by their neglect and contempt of
   Christ dwelling in them! They have lost their first love, their first
   life; their graces are ready to die, and their whole soul is asleep, in
   a heartless, lifeless, zealless frame. They shall be saved, but "yet as
   through fire."

   (3.) He will depart as to assurance of what is to come, as well as to a
   sense of what is present. It is the indwelling Spirit of Christ that
   gives assurance: hereby are we "sealed to the day of redemption." He
   "beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God."
   Upon our grieving him, he will withdraw as to this also. We shall be
   bewildered, and in the dark, not knowing what will become of our souls
   to eternity. For if Christ by his Spirit do not speak peace, who shall?

   Observation 3. Doth he dwell in us by his grace?

   (1.) Let us first know whence all graces are, that in a want or
   weakness of them we may know whither to go for a supply. "Of his
   fulness we receive, and grace for grace." All supplies of graces are
   from Christ. "Lord, increase our faith," say the apostles. Not only
   faith originally is from him, but all increases of it also. "I believe;
   help thou my unbelief," says the poor man. We wrestle and struggle with
   a little grace, a little faith, a little love, a little joy; and are
   contented if we can keep our heads above water, that we be not quite
   sunk and lost. How sweet would it be with us, if, upon a serious
   consideration from whence all these graces flow, we would apply
   ourselves to draw out farther degrees and heightenings of them, whereby
   he might dwell more plentifully in us, and we might always converse
   with him in his gracious train of attendants! How this may be done in
   particular, is not my business now to show.

   (2.) Learn to tender [make much of] the graces of Christ, as those
   which hold out his presence to us. Let us tender them in our own
   hearts, and prize them in whomsoever they are. They are pledges of the
   indwelling of Christ. Certainly, if men valued Christ, they would more
   value his graces. Many pretend to love him, to honour him, yea, with
   Peter, to be ready to die with him, or for him; but what evil surmises
   have they of the graces of Christ appearing in others! how do they call
   them hypocrisy, humour, folly, pride, singularity, with other terms of
   a later invention! I cannot so easily believe that any one can love the
   Lord Jesus and hate the appearances of him in others. Where is any
   thing of Christ, there is also Christ.

   5thly. Jesus Christ is the great avenger of this house, and of all the
   injuries or wrongs that are done unto it. "All," saith he, "that devour
   Israel shall offend," Jer. ii. 3. He will not hold him guiltless that
   rises up against it. See Isa. lix. 15-18. He takes upon him the
   avenging of his house, as his own proper work: "Shall he not avenge his
   elect? He will do it speedily." See also Isa. lxiii. 2-6. How dreadful
   is he in the execution of his revenging judgments against the enemies
   thereof! So also is he described, Rev. xix. 13-15. He hath promised to
   make the stones of this house heavy stones; they shall burden all that
   touch them, Zech. xii. 3. He comes forth of "the myrtle-trees in the
   bottom" (his lowly people in a low condition) with the "red horse"
   following him, Zech. i. 8. Upon this account he fearfully broke the old
   Roman-pagan empire, Rev. vi. 12-17; and will as fearfully destroy the
   antichristian Roman power, with all its adherents, Rev. xvii. to xix.
   Sooner or later he will call to an account every instrument of
   persecution in the world. Hence he is said to be a lion in the behalf
   of this house, that treads down all before him, Mic. v. 8. Jacob says
   of him in Judah, "He is a lion, as an old lion; who shall rouse him
   up?" Gen. xlix. 9. Suppose any do rouse him up: how then? "He will not
   lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain,"
   Num. xxiii. 24. Many poor creatures have, by their opposition to his
   house, roused up this lion: and what hath been the issue? What attempts
   have been to cause him to lie down again! -- All in vain. If he be once
   roused up, he will not couch down until he eat and drink the blood of
   the slain. But suppose great opposition be made unto him, -- will he
   not give over? Not at all. He will be as a lion that cometh upon his
   prey, if a multitude of shepherds be called forth against him, he will
   not be afraid at their voice, nor abase himself at their noise, Isa.
   xxxi. 4. In brief, sooner or later, temporally or eternally, he will
   avenge all the injuries and destroy all the enemies of his holy
   dwelling, 2 Thess. i. 6-10.

   And these are some of the relations wherein the Lord Christ stands unto
   this house of God, being made thereby unto it beauty and glory,
   comeliness and excellency. The carrying on of this building, by the
   union of all the stones thereof to the foundation, and their cementing
   one to another by faith, love, and order, I shall not now treat of, nor
   of the following points of the text.

   The general uses of what hath been said are three; the heads whereof I
   shall name.

   Use 1. See the eminent privilege of them which are indeed stones of
   this house, which is living, strong, and glorious, -- which is so
   nearly related to the Lord Christ. There is more of duty, dignity, and
   safety, in this thing, than can easily be expressed. To do service unto
   Christ as his, to have the honour of being his, and to be safeguarded
   as his, are great privileges. Let them who have any sense of these
   things farther draw out these particulars, from what hath been spoken.

   Use 2. Learn hence the vanity of resting upon outward church
   privileges, if we are not withal interested in this spiritual estate.
   Where men are living stones indeed, they lie in beauty and order in the
   assemblies; -- where they are otherwise, where assemblies are made up
   of dead rubbish, and yet cry, "The house of the Lord, the house of the
   Lord," -- the Lord Jesus abhors those assemblies; he stands not in
   these relations unto them.

   Use 3. See hence the ruin of persecution that hath appeared in the
   world in various forms. It hath put on all manner of colours and
   pretences, and prevailed with all sorts of persons at one time or other
   to close with it. What hath been the issue? what is like to be? The
   house, indeed, hath been battered sometimes; but they who have come
   against it have been broken all to pieces. Shall the residue of men
   who, under new pretences or old ones new painted, drive on the same
   design, -- shall they prosper? Thou, O Lord Jesus, in thine anger wilt
   cut them off. The Lord open the eyes of the sons of men, that they may
   not hope any more to separate between Christ and his saints, between
   whom there are so many everlasting relations!

   Mono sopho Theo, dia Iesou Christou, ho he doxa eis tous aionas. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [294] The second of the two sermons under the present text, and
   latterly printed as one, began at this point, according to a statement
   in an old edition. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon VII.

   The

   advantage of the kingdom of Christ

   in the

   shaking of the kingdoms of the world;

   or,

   providential alterations in their subserviency to Christ's exaltation.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   The battle of Worcester, "the crowning mercy," as Cromwell termed it,
   which effectually reduced Britain under his control, was fought on the
   3d of September 1651, the anniversary of his victory at Dunbar. On the
   24th of October following, a day of thanksgiving was observed for this
   success, and "sundry other mercies." On this occasion Owen, by this
   time Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, preached before the House
   of Commons the following sermon. "It contains," says Mr Orme, "many
   free and eloquent passages, especially on the danger of human
   governments interfering with the principles and rights of the kingdom
   of Christ; and on the abomination and extent of the antichristian
   apostasy." He refers, in illustration, to the passage which occurs on
   page 322. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Tuesday, October 28, 1651.

   Ordered by the Parliament, That the thanks of this House be given to Mr
   Owen, Dean of Christ Church in Oxford, for his great pains taken in his
   sermon preached before the Parliament, at Margaret's, Westminster, on
   Friday the 24th of October (being a day set apart for public
   thanksgiving); and that he be desired to print his sermon; and that he
   have the like privilege in printing the same as others in like case
   have usually had; and that the Lord-General do give him the thanks of
   this House, and desire him to print his sermon accordingly.

   Hen. Scobell, Cler. Parl.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the supreme authority of the nation, the Commons assembled in Parliament.

   Right Honourable,

   Of all the times which the Holy One of Israel hath caused to pass over
   the nations of the world, there hath not any from the days of old been
   so filled with eminent discoveries of his presence, power, and
   providence, in disposing of all affairs here below according to the
   counsel of his own will, as the season wherein he hath made you a
   spectacle unto men and angels, being the instrument in his hand to
   perform all his pleasure. Neither in this season hath he, upon any
   opportunity, so gloriously laid hold upon his own strength and
   goodness, to manifest the firedness of his eye on those who are as the
   apple of it, as in that mighty deliverance the high praises whereof,
   according to his good hand upon you, you lately tendered unto him.

   The more beauty and desirableness any design against the Lord Christ is
   clothed withal, the more power and subtlety it is supported with, the
   greater is the brightness of his coming for its wasting and desolation.
   With what deceivableness of unrighteousness and lies in hypocrisy the
   late grand attempt of those in Scotland, with their adherents (which
   also was of the former, and is gone into destruction), was carried on,
   is in some measure now made naked, to the loathing of its abominations.
   In digging deep to lay a foundation for blood and revenge, -- in
   covering private and sordid ends with a pretence of things public and
   glorious, -- in limning a face of religion upon a worldly stock, -- in
   concealing distant aims and bloody animosities to compass one common
   end, that a theatre might be provided to act several parts upon, -- in
   pleading a necessity from an oath of God unto most desperate
   undertakings against God, and such like things as these, perhaps it
   gives not place to any which former ages have been acquainted withal.
   Now, to reject all the claims of the authors and abettors thereof to
   any commission from above, to divest them of all pretences to religion
   and zeal thereof, to disappoint them in their expected associations,
   and to make all their strength to become as tow that hath smelt the
   fire, hath been His work alone who takes to himself his great power to
   carry on the interest of his kingdom against all opposers. Under the
   shadow of this mercy -- composed of as many branches of wisdom, power,
   goodness, and faithfulness, as any outward dispensation hath brought
   forth since the name of Christian was known -- do you now sit in
   council, and the residue of the nation in peace. What obligations from
   the Lord, what cords of love are upon us! The returnal and improvement
   of all his dealings with us, which he requireth and expecteth from us,
   I have pointed you unto in the following sermon. For the present I
   shall only add, that as whatever there hath been of beauty, glory, or
   advantage unto the people of God, in the late transactions, hath been
   eminently of undeserved grace; so the dreadful vengeance which the Lord
   hath executed against the men of his enmity and warfare hath been most
   righteously procured, by their clothing cursed designs of revenge,
   persecution, bondage in soul and body, spoil and rapine, with the most
   glorious pretences of zeal, covenant, reformation, and such like
   things, -- which never came into their hearts. Therefore, that the God
   of all our mercies and deliverances would for ever keep alive in your
   hearts a faithful acknowledgment of his grace, and a practical
   detestation of those ways which are such a provocation to the eyes of
   his glory, shall be the constant prayer of

   Your most humble Servant

   In our dearest Lord,

   J. Owen.

   From my Study, Ch. Ch., Oxon.,

   Nov. 7.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon VII. The advantage of the kingdom of Christ in the shaking of the
kingdoms of the world.

   "And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought
   down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green
   tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken,
   and have done Ezek. xvii. 24.

   Although all the works of God's providence -- which are great, and
   sought out of all that have pleasure in them, Ps. cxi. 2 -- have such a
   stamp and impress of his own image on them, his wisdom, goodness,
   power, love, that they declare their author, and reveal from heaven his
   kindness and wrath towards the children of men; [295] yet such are the
   prejudices, lusts, inordinacy of affections, and interest of many, that
   it hath always been a long and difficult task to convince them of his
   presence in them, when it hath been most uncontrollably evident. The
   Egyptians will wrestle with many a plague, by thinking the "magicians"
   can do so; [296] and the Philistines will try to the utmost whether it
   be his hand, or a chance that happened to them. [297] "Lord," saith the
   prophet, "when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see," Isa. xxvi.
   11. Yea, oftentimes (especially when judicial blindness is gone forth
   upon them), [298] though they cannot but see his arm awaked as of old,
   and made bare, they will not rest in his sovereign disposal of things,
   but rise up against the works of his revenge and holiness; like wild
   beasts that are pursued, when all ways of escape and turning are shut
   up, they fly in the face of him that follows them. They repent not of
   their evil deeds, but bite their tongues for anger, and blaspheme the
   God of heaven, Rev. xvi. 10, 11. Yea, such is the power of deceivable
   lusts, that many will admire at the blindness of others in former
   generations who considered not the works of God (as the Jews in the
   wilderness), when themselves are under actual contempt of no less
   glorious dispensations; like the Pharisees, who bewailed the folly of
   their fathers in persecuting the prophets, when themselves were
   endeavouring to kill the Son of God, Matt. xxiii. 29, 30. To bring,
   then, upon the spirits of men a conviction of the works of God, and his
   righteousness therein, so as to prevail with them to rest in his
   determination of things, is a task meet only for him who knows all
   their hearts within them, and can carry on the issues of his providence
   until to a man they shall say, "Verily there is a reward for the
   righteous: verily he is a God who judgeth in the earth," Ps. lviii. 11.
   And this is that which the Lord here undertakes to accomplish, "And,"
   saith he, "all the trees," etc.

   In the preaching and prophesying of Ezekiel, this one thing among
   others is eminent, that he was "artifex parabolarum," -- a wonderful
   "framer of similitudes and parables;" [299] a way of teaching attended
   with much evidence, clearness, and power.

   In particular, he frequently compares the world to a field, or a
   forest, and the inhabitants of it to the trees therein; -- an allusion
   exceedingly proper, considering the great variety and difference of
   condition both of the one and the other. The trees of the field are
   some high, some low; some green, some dry; some strong, some weak; some
   lofty, some contemptible; some fruitful, some barren; some useful, some
   altogether useless: so that you have all sorts of persons, high and
   low, of what condition, relation, or interest soever, clearly
   represented by the trees of the field; and these are the trees in my
   text.

   This chapter, unto verse 22, is taken up in a riddle, a parable, with
   the exposition of it. [300] The time being come that God would destroy
   the outward, visible monarchy of the Jews, for their false worship,
   tyranny, persecution, and oppression, he employs the king of Babylon in
   that work, [301] who subdues the nation, takes away two kings, one
   after another, and appoints Zedekiah a titulary governor under him.
   [302] But the wrath of God being to come upon them to the uttermost, he
   also closes with Egypt, rebels against him [303] by whose appointment
   alone he had any right to be a ruler, verse 16; so way is made, by his
   ruin, to put an end to the kingly reign of the house of David in
   Jerusalem, Jer. xxix. 16, 17. The Lord had of old erected a kingly
   government in the house of David, 1 Sam. xvi. 1; 2 Sam. xii. 7; -- not
   for any eminency in the government itself, or for the civil advantage
   of that people, -- for he had long before chosen and established
   another, consisting of "seventy elders of the people," Num. xi. 24, to
   whom he added prophets and judges, extraordinarily raised up in several
   generations, according to his promise, Deut. xviii. 18, (which when the
   people rejected, he said they rejected him, or his institution, 1 Sam.
   viii. 7), -- but that it might be a type of the spiritual dominion of
   their Messiah; [304] and so was a part of their pedagogy and bondage,
   as were the residue of their types, every one of them; -- yea, the most
   glorious enjoyments whatsoever which were granted them (which did yet
   represent something that was afterward to be brought in), was part of
   that servile estate wherein God kept that people, that without us they
   should not be made perfect. But now this carnal people, beholding the
   outward beauty, lustre, and glory of the type, began to rest in it, to
   the neglect of the spiritual kingdom of Christ represented thereby.
   [305] And thus did they with the rest of their types, until the Lord
   destroyed all their outward pomp and glory, Isa. i. 11, 12; Jer. vii.
   4, 14, 15. So, in particular, dealt he with their kingly government,
   when once they began to account their bondage their glory, and to
   embrace the shadow instead of the substance. And this did he, to recall
   them to a serious consideration of the tendency of all typical
   institutions, and the design he was carrying on concerning the kingdom
   of Christ.

   Hence, verse 22 of this chapter, he calls them from their
   thoughtfulness about the destructions, desolations, and contentions
   that were amongst them in reference to their civil rule, to the
   consideration of that design which he was secretly and silently
   carrying on under all these dispensations. "I will also take of the
   highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from
   the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high
   mountain and eminent: in the mountain of the height of Israel will I
   plant it; and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a
   goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the
   shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell." As if the Lord should
   say, There is a great noise in the world about setting up and plucking
   down of kings, in this their carnal rule; and many of you see nothing
   else, -- you will look no farther: but I also have my work in hand; my
   design is not bounded within these limits and outward appearances; I am
   setting up a King that shall have another manner of dominion and rule
   than these worms of the earth. He shall stand; -- as Mic. v. 4.

   The setting up, then, of this kingdom of Christ, who is "the highest
   branch of the high cedar," and planting it in the church, the "mountain
   of Israel," with the prosperity thereof, and safety of him that shall
   dwell therein, is the subject of verses 22, 23. This being that to the
   consideration whereof God here calls his people at such a season, I
   shall name one or two observations from this connection of the words.

   Observation 1. In the midst of all the tumults and embroilments of the
   nations, that which the Lord takes peculiarly as his own design, into
   his own management, is the carrying on of the kingdom of the Lord
   Jesus.

   You are about your work, saith the Lord, -- I also am about mine; you
   have your branches and cedars, -- I also have one to plant, that shall
   flourish. Dan. ii. 44, "In the days of these kings shall the God of
   heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed," etc. Were not
   those kings and kingdoms also of his setting up, that it is said, In
   their days he shall set up one of his own? Yea, doubtless; "He changeth
   the times and the seasons; he removeth kings, and setteth up kings,"
   chap. ii. 21. He "ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to
   whomsoever he will," chap. iv. 25. There is not a persecuting Pharaoh,
   but he raises him up for his own purpose, Exod. ix. 16. But yet, in
   respect of the kingdom of his Son, he speaks of them as if he had
   nothing to do with them: In their days I will do my own work, --
   advance the kingdom of the Lord Christ.

   There are great and mighty works in hand in this nation; tyrants are
   punished, -- the jaws of oppressors are broken, -- bloody, revengeful
   persecutors disappointed, -- and, we hope, governors set up that may be
   "just, ruling in the fear of God, that they may be as the light of the
   morning," etc., 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, 4. The hand of the Lord hath been
   wonderfully exalted in all these things; but yet, should we rest in
   them, -- should they not be brought into an immediate subserviency to
   the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, -- the Lord will quickly distinguish
   between them and his own peculiar design, and say, In the days of these
   changes I will do so and so; -- speak of them as if he had nothing to
   do with them. The carrying on of the interest of Christ is his peculiar
   aim; he, of his goodness, make it ours also!

   Observation 2. Among all the designs that are on foot in the world,
   there is none that hath either stability, fixedness, or final success,
   but only the design of God concerning the kingdom of Christ.

   Other branches may be set, but the branch of the Lord only prospers.
   [306] The likeliest appearances of other undertakings are but as the
   glorious rising of the sun in the morning, -- quickly clouded. The
   interest of Christ is like Joseph, Gen. xlix. 23, 24. Ofttimes the
   archers shoot at it, and grieve it; but in the close the bow thereof
   abides in strength; and therefore this is the issue of all these
   dispensations, that the kingdoms and nations are at length to be
   possessed by the Lord Christ, [307] his sheaf standing up, and all
   others bowing thereunto.

   And unto the consideration of these things, in the midst of all the
   tumults in the world, doth God effectually recall his people, and
   withal tells them how he will carry it on, in the words of my text,
   "And all the trees," etc.

   In the words three things are to be observed, -- First, The work that
   God ascribes to himself. And that he sets down under a twofold
   similitude: of pulling down the "high tree," and setting up the "low
   tree;" and of drying up the "green tree," and making the "dry tree" to
   flourish; and both these similitudes are coincident, serving only in
   this redoubling for the clearer illustration of that which they shadow
   out. Secondly, There is the issue that God will carry this out unto in
   respect of others: "All the trees of the field shall know." Thirdly, A
   particular assurance that the Lord gives for the accomplishment of all
   this, from the engagement of his name: "I the Lord," etc.

   First, For the first, the expression of the work of the Lord may be
   taken two ways: 1. Strictly and properly; 2. Largely, and by the way of
   analogy and proportion.

   1. In the first way you may consider, --

   (1.) The tree that is to be cast down and withered, and that is the
   "high tree," and the "green tree," -- a tree that in their eyes had
   both beauty and vigour, high and green; this was the Judaical kingdom,
   admired and delighted in by the Jews. This, says God, I will reject; as
   also he will many a tall Eliab, that even some Samuels may think to be
   his anointed.

   (2.) The tree that is to be exalted and made to flourish, and that is
   the "low tree," the "dry tree," contemptible for growth; -- it is low,
   useless for fruit, it is dry. And this is the spiritual kingdom of the
   Messiah, contemned, despised. This, says God, I will exalt, carry on,
   and make glorious; for though the interest of Christ and the gospel may
   seem low and dry for a season, in comparison of the glory of other
   flourishing interests, yet, in the issue, it shall be exalted above
   them all.

   2. As taken more largely, and by the way of analogy; and so, --

   (1.) The high and the green tree are the things of the most glorious
   appearance in the world, -- persons and states that seem to be
   exceedingly suited for the work that God hath to do, that are in the
   greatest probability to be eminently instrumental in his hand: but,
   alas! says God, These will I pull down, and cause to wither. Perhaps
   you will think it strange, that a mighty monarchy, a triumphing
   prelacy, a thriving conformity, should all be brought down; but so it
   shall be, "Every mountain shall be made a plain."

   (2.) The "low tree," and the "dry tree," are things, persons,
   assemblies, outwardly weak and contemptible, -- such as wise men do
   verily believe that God will never use; they will not understand that
   such Moseses shall be deliverers, but cry, Who made them judges and
   rulers? [308] But even these will God exalt and cause to flourish:
   "Every valley shall be exalted."

   Two observations flow from hence, which I shall insist upon:--

   I. In the carrying on of the interest of Christ and the gospel, God
   will work wonderful providential alterations.

   II. The actings of God's providence in carrying on the interest of
   Christ, shall be exceedingly unsuited to the reasonings and
   expectations of the most of the sons of men.

   Some trees must be plucked down, and some raised up; yea, high trees
   thrown down, and the low caused to flourish. There is the issue of
   God's thus dealing in respect of others, "All the trees of the field,"
   etc. By the "trees of the field" are meant men of all sorts that are
   concerned in these transactions.

   And herein you may observe two things:-- something intimated; and that
   is, an unwillingness in men to own these dispensations of God; hence
   the Lord undertakes himself to set on a conviction upon them, as a
   thing of great difficulty; -- and something expressed; which is the
   conviction itself that shall in the issue fall upon them,
   notwithstanding all their reluctancy. Hence also are these two
   observations:--

   Observation 1. Men are exceeding unwilling to see and own the hand of
   God in those works of his providence which answer not their reasonings,
   interests, and expectations.

   Observation 2. The Lord will not cease walking contrary to the carnal
   reasonings of men, in his mighty works for the carrying on the interest
   of the Lord Jesus, until his hand be seen, owned, and confessed.

   For what remains concerning the assurance of the accomplishment of all
   this from the engagement of his name, I shall only add, that the power
   and faithfulness of God are engaged in the carrying on the things of
   the kingdom of Christ, to the conviction of the most stubborn opposers.

   I begin with the first, --

   I. In the carrying on the interest of Christ and the gospel, God will
   work wonderful providential alterations, -- alterations among the trees
   of the field, nations, states, and men on earth.

   When the beginning of the saints' departure from under the dominion of
   Antichrist was followed with wars, tumults, and destructions, it was
   objected to Luther, that that doctrine could not be of God which was
   attended with such desolations: he replied, according to the vigour of
   his spirit, "Ego nisi tumultus istos viderem, Christum in mundo esse
   non crederem;" -- "Did he not see those tumults, he would not believe
   that Christ was come forth into the world." The Lord tells you how he
   will bring on his kingdom, Hag. ii. 6, 7, "I will shake the heavens,
   and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all
   nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come," etc. The "Desire of
   the nations," is to be brought in by the "shaking of the nations." They
   are to be civilly moved, that they may be spiritually established.
   Neither are they only to be shaken, but also to undergo great
   alterations in their shakings, Heb. xii. 27, "This word, Yet once more,
   signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things
   that are made, that those things that cannot be shaken may remain."
   They must have a removal as well as a shaking; -- metathesin, "a
   change," a translation. Most nations in their civil constitution lie
   out of order for the bringing in of the interest of Christ; -- they
   must be shaken up and new disposed of, that all obstacles may be taken
   away. The day of the gospel is not only terrible in its discovering
   light, and as it is a trying furnace, Mal. iii. 2, but also in its
   devouring fury, as it is a consuming oven, chap. iv. 1.

   There are three principal seasons of the Lord's eminent appearance to
   carry on the kingdom of Christ and the gospel, and all attended with
   dreadful providential alterations: and unto one of these heads may all
   particular actings be reduced.

   1. The first is, the promulgation of the gospel among the Jews by the
   Lord Christ himself and his apostles. What this was attended withal is
   graphically described, Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, "And ye shall hear of wars,
   and rumours of wars; for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom
   against kingdom, and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and
   earthquakes in divers places." And the close of it you have, verse 29,
   "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be
   darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall
   fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken." The
   Judaical state, in all the height and glory of it, was utterly
   consumed; so that all flesh, all the Jews, were in danger of utter
   destruction, verse 22; their own historian, himself a Jew, affirming,
   that from the foundation of the world never was there such destruction
   and desolation brought upon any nation: Which words of his are a
   comment on that prediction of our Saviour, Matt. xxiv. 21. And the
   reason of this eminent desolation you have, Isa. ix. 5, 6.

   2. The second is, in the farther carrying on of the gospel, after the
   destruction of Jerusalem, throughout the world of the Gentiles, subject
   then in a great proportion to the Roman empire. And what is the issue
   hereof? The opening of the six seals immediately follows thereon, Rev.
   vi.; which, after manifold and various alterations, end in that
   dreadful dissolution of the Pagan empire which you have described from
   verse 14 to the end.

   3. The most signal is the coming of the Lord Christ to recover his
   people from antichristian idolatry and oppression: which, of all
   others, is, and shall be, attended with the most astonishing
   alterations and desolations, -- pulling down of high trees, and
   exalting them that are low. Thence is that war described Rev. xvii. 14,
   and that mighty vengeance poured out by the Lord Christ on the nations,
   their kings and captains, chap. xix. 11 to the end; which the Holy
   Ghost describes by a collection of all the most dreadful expressions
   which are any where used to set out great devastations in the Old
   Testament.

   And this is the head whereunto the present actings of Providence in
   this nation are to be referred; they all tend to the accomplishment of
   his main design therein. He that thinks Babylon is confined to Rome and
   its open idolatry, knows nothing of Babylon, nor of the new Jerusalem.
   The depth of subtle mystery doth not lie in gross, visible folly. It
   hath been insinuating itself into all the nations for sixteen hundred
   years, and to most of them is now become as the marrow in their bones.
   Before it be wholly shaken out, these heavens must be dissolved, and
   the earth shaken; their tall trees hewed down, and set a howling, Rev.
   xviii., and the residue of them transplanted from one end of the earth
   to another. This, I say, then, is the work that the Lord hath now in
   hand; and this is a day of thankfulness in reference to what he hath
   done for us in this nation. I know no better way of praising God for
   any work, than the finding out of his design therein, and closing with
   him in it. God hath gone with you, I hope, now to the end of your work;
   leave him not until he comes to the end of his. He hath compelled you
   "to go with him one mile" for your own good, -- go with him two for his
   glory. The two tribes and a half sat not down in their own possessions
   until the whole work of the Lord was done. I speak not with respect to
   any engagements of war with foreign nations; -- what have I to do with
   things that are above me? You will find work enough for your zeal to
   the kingdom of Christ at home; and this is the work of thankfulness
   which you are called unto.

   Now, the reasons of this are, --

   (1.) Because amongst all men, where the kingdom of Christ is to be set
   up, there is something or other possessed that he alone must and will
   have; and, therefore, the Lord giving Jesus Christ but his own
   inheritance, it must needs be attended with great alterations. I dare
   say, until of late (whatever now is) there was not any state or nation
   in the world, where the name of Christ is known, but that there was an
   intrenchment upon that which is the pure portion and inheritance of the
   Lord Christ, and that detained with falsehood and force. Yea, such is
   the folly and blindness of the most of men, that they think their
   greatest interest lies in holding that fast which Christ will take from
   them; -- Pharaoh-like, that thought it the great advantage of his
   kingdom not to let the people go, when it proved the ruin of him and
   his land. This, I dare say, will, in the issue, be the ruin of all or
   most of the tall trees of Europe; they have grasped much of the power
   of Christ, and endeavour to impose on the consciences of his in the
   worship of God, or otherwise oppress them in what he hath purchased for
   them: and, by a dreadful mistake, they suppose their own interest lies
   therein; which makes them hold fast until Christ hath shaken them all
   to pieces, and taken away even that also which was their own. The late
   king had learned a saying from his predecessor, "No bishop, no king."
   Hence he supposes his main interest to lie in holding fast Prelacy;
   whatever he seems to part withal, that he will not let go, -- that is
   his main interest. And what is this Prelacy? A mere antichristian
   encroachment upon the inheritance of Christ, Christ coming to take his
   own, shakes the other to pieces. Those who would have been our
   oppressors in Scotland, but that God hath crushed the cockatrice in the
   shell, and filled the pit with their dead bodies which they had digged
   for us, -- they also had prepared a Procrustes' bed, a heavy yoke, a
   beast that, had it grown to perfection, would have had horns and hoofs;
   and in maintaining this they think their great interest to lie. And in
   holding this fast, are they, after all their associations, broken in
   pieces. And this is one cause.

   (2.) The works that God hath to do in such a season require it. God
   hath three great works to do, in the day of his carrying on the
   interest of Christ and the gospel:-- [1.] He hath great revenges to
   take; [2.] He hath great deliverances to work; [3.] He hath great
   discoveries to make. I shall but touch on each.

   [1.] He hath great revenges to take, and that on three sorts of
   persons.

   1st. On oppressing Babylonians, -- false worshippers and persecutors.
   Whilst the bride is preparing for the Lord Christ, he goes forth, with
   the armies of heaven following him, to take vengeance on these his
   enemies, Rev. xix. 11. These are the Absaloms, the usurpers of his
   throne, -- the Hamans, the forcers of his spouse, the chiefest
   adversaries of his kingdom? [309] "He shall fill the places with dead
   bodies" of these; and upon this account "wound the heads over many
   countries," Ps. cx. 6. The axe is laid to the root of many a tall tree
   on this score, even in this nation, where he is reckoning for blood and
   imposition of yokes; and he hath found out men inheriting this spirit
   from one generation to another.

   2dly. Scoffing Edomites. -- There is a twofold quarrel that God hath
   with that generation of men; their rejoicing at Zion's distress, and
   desiring its increase, Ps. cxxxvii. 7; and their endeavour to destroy
   the residue, when at any time straitened, Obad. 14. How many in the
   late trial rejoiced in the straits of Zion, that sat expecting our
   destruction, that they might have risen to stand in the cross ways to
   have cut off them that escaped! Wherewith should they have reconciled
   themselves to their master, but with the heads of the servants of
   Christ? God hath vengeance in such a day as this for Edom also.

   3dly. Lukewarm Laodiceans, -- neutralists, that "drink wine in bowls,"
   and are no way moved at the "suffering of Joseph," -- Gallios, that
   care for none of these things. There is not a generation in the world
   with whom the Lord is more provoked than with this Meroz generation.
   When God is jealous for Zion, he is displeased with them that are at
   ease, Zech. i. 14, 15. Now, consider how many persons of all these
   sorts are fixed in the nation, and you will see that vengeance cannot
   be taken on them without great alterations.

   [2.] He hath deliverances to work. It is the time of "visiting the
   prisoners of hope:" the prey must be taken out of the jaws of the
   terrible, -- every "staff of the oppressor broken in pieces;" yea, he
   delivers his saints, not only from all that they have suffered, but
   from all that was in the contrivance of their enemies to bring upon
   them, -- which is greater than they can execute; and this will cost
   something, before the Pharaohs of the nation will let his people go.

   [3.] He hath great trials to make; -- 1st. Of his own, that they may be
   purged; 2dly. Of hypocrites, that they way be discovered.

   1st. The day of carrying on the interest of Christ is a day of
   purifying and purging, Dan. xii. 10, "Many shall be purified, and made
   white, and tried;" that is, a day like a furnace, Mal. iii. 3, that
   will consume dross and tin. The remainder of the people must be brought
   through the fire, Zech. xiii. 9. Joshua's garments are defiled by
   dwelling in Babylon; [310] many of Christ's own have contracted rust
   and soil, have got carnal interests and engagements, that must be
   scoured from them.

   2dly. Of the discovery of hypocrites. It is emphatically said of the
   saints, that they "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." [311] All
   sorts of professors will follow him in some paths; in such as are
   consistent with their power, dominion, and advantages, they are even
   ready to run before him: but he hath some paths that are unpleasing to
   flesh and blood, -- paths that he gives no loaves in; here men that say
   they are Jews, and are not, but lie, give quite out from him. Now, upon
   all these several accounts, must that day of the gospel of necessity be
   attended with great providential alteration.

   Use 1. To discover where dwells that spirit that actuates all the great
   alterations that have been in these nations. Such things have been
   brought to pass as have filled the world with amazement; -- a monarchy
   of some hundred years' continuance, always affecting and at length
   wholly degenerated into tyranny, destroyed, pulled down, swallowed up;
   -- a great and mighty potentate, that had caused "terror in the land of
   the living," and laid his sword under his head, brought to punishment
   for blood; -- hypocrites and selfish men abundantly discovered, wise
   men made fools, and the strong as water; -- a nation (that of Scotland)
   engaging for and against the same cause, backward and forward twice or
   thrice, always seeking where to find their own gain and interest in it,
   at length totally broken, in opposition to that cause wherewith at
   first they closed; -- multitudes of professors, one year praying,
   fasting, mightily rejoicing upon the least success, bearing it out as a
   sign of the presence of God; another year, whilst the same work is
   carried on, cursing, repining, slighting the marvellous appearance of
   God in answer unto prayers and most solemn appeals, being very angry at
   the deliverances of Zion:-- on the other side, all the mighty successes
   that God hath followed poor despised ones withal, being with them as
   with those in days of old, Heb. xi. 33, "Who through faith subdued
   kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths
   of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
   out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to
   flight the armies of the aliens." He, I say, that shall consider all
   this, may well inquire after that principle which, being regularly
   carried on, yet meeting with the corruption and lusts of men, should so
   wheel them about, and work so many mighty alterations. Now, what is
   this but the most effectual design of the Lord to carry on the interest
   of Christ and the gospel, whatever stands in the way? This bears down
   all before it, -- wraps up some in blood, some in hardness, and is most
   eminently straight and holy in all these transactions. Isa. xiv. 32,
   "What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord
   hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it."

   Use 2. To magnify the goodness of God, who unto us hath sweetened and
   seasoned all his dreadful dispensations, and all the alterations in
   those nations, with this his gracious design running through them all:
   this is that which puts all their beauty and lustre on them, being
   outwardly dreadful and horrible. The carrying on of this (which is
   hidden from the men of the world, who have therefore no joy) is the
   only thing we have to rejoice at in this day; our victories have no
   glory but what they receive from hence, Isa. iv. 2. That blood which is
   an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord is the blood of the enemies of this
   design of his; the vengeance that is to be delighted in is the
   vengeance of the temple; heaven, and all that is in it, is called to
   rejoice, when Babylon "is destroyed with violence and fury," Rev.
   xviii. 21, -- when those who would not have the King of saints reign
   are brought forth and slain before his face: and in this God makes
   distinguishing work, and calls to rejoicing, Isa. lxv. 13, 14,
   "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but
   ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be
   thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed:
   behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for
   sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit."

   Thus the saints are called to sing "the song of Moses the servant of
   God, and the song of the Lamb," Rev. xv. 3. The deliverance by Moses
   was a temporal deliverance from outward yokes and bondage; -- the
   deliverance of the Lamb was a spiritual deliverance from spiritual
   bondage: the deliverance that God will give his saints from this
   oppression shall be mixed; as their bondage partakes of both, so shall
   their deliverance be; and therefore they shall sing the song of Moses
   and the Lamb. If ever any persons in the world had cause to sing the
   song of Moses and the Lamb, we have this day. The bondage prepared for
   us was both in spirituals and temporals; -- about a tyrant full of
   revenge, and a discipline full of persecution, hath been our contest:
   whether the yoke of the one and the other should by the sword and
   violence be put upon our necks and consciences, is our controversy.
   There was both Egypt and Babel in the bondage prepared, -- and both
   these enraged. Pharaoh doubled the task of the Israelites when they did
   speak of liberty; what would he have done had he recovered them under
   his hand after they were escaped? What would the thoughts of that man
   of blood have been, and his ways, had he prevailed, after so many
   provocations? "Craede ac sanguine, quisquis ab exilio." And what would
   their ways have been who thought to sit on his right hand and his left
   in his kingdom? But of this afterward. Now, God having broken both the
   one snare and the other, surely we have cause to sing the song of Moses
   and of the Lamb this day, when others are in the condition mentioned
   Isa. viii. 21, 22.

   It is true, all things are not clear to all perhaps that serve the
   Lord. Some cannot rejoice in the works of our God; but they are not the
   first on whom that sin hath been charged. Nothing more frequent in the
   Scripture than the laying this sin at the door of professors, that they
   set not their hearts to the work of the Lord. If they are of the armies
   in heaven, they will at length learn to follow the Lamb; and for the
   present, music with some discords may make melody for the Lord. The
   song of Deborah is full of complaint, [312] -- divisions of Reuben, --
   Gilead, Dan, and Asher, slow in their helps, -- Meroz wholly neutral:--
   though we have of all these sorts, yet may we make a song to the Lord,
   that in Jesus Christ may be acceptable this day. And the Lord, I hope,
   will open the eyes of them amongst us, and give them to cry for mercy
   when his righteous judgments have driven them from all their holds.
   When the mighty army was destroyed in the north about three years ago,
   many would see nothing in it, but that they had not the blessing of the
   church. Hence they began to think of it as Balak did of Balaam; --
   "whom he blessed, they were blessed; and whom he cursed, they were
   cursed." [313] God could not bear the robbing him of his glory, and
   giving it unto selfish men. They shall bless, and bless again, and be
   no more heard than the Baalists' cry:-- even to the Lord shall they
   cry, but he will not regard them: the Lord, I say, will drive them from
   such holds as these, that they may acknowledge his hand. Let, then, the
   great work of the Lord be owned, be rejoiced in, for it will certainly
   bear down all that stand in the way of it: neither is there the least
   true consolation in any of these alterations, but what arises from a
   closing with it.

   Come we to the second observation.

   II. The actings of God's providence, in carrying on the interest of
   Christ, are and shall be exceedingly unsuited to the reasonings and
   expectations of the most of men.

   He hath a glorious work here to be accomplished. Of whom should he now
   make use? Surely the "high tree," the "green tree" will be employed. If
   one be to be anointed in the family of Jesse, will it not be goodly
   Eliab? if the king will honour any, who should it be but I, says Haman?
   But all on the contrary, the low, dry tree is taken; -- David from the
   flock, and Mordecai from the gate. The thoughts of God are not as our
   thoughts, neither doth he look on outward appearances.

   To give some instances in his most signal actings in this kind.

   The Jews knew that God had a great work to do in giving of a Messiah,
   the Saviour of the world. They are raised up to expectation of it; upon
   every considerable appearance, they cry, Is this he? And what withal
   did they expect? -- Outward glory, beauty, deliverance, carnal power
   and dominion. God at length comes to do his work, and bringeth forth a
   poor man, that had not where to lay his head, followed by a few
   fishermen and simple women, that had "neither form nor comeliness that
   he should be desired;" persecuted, despised, crucified from the
   beginning to the end; -- quite another thing than what they looked for.
   [314] Thus lays he the foundation of the gospel in the person of his
   Son, by frustrating the expectations of the most of men: "The stone
   which the builders refused," etc. Again, seeing salvation is of the
   Jews, the rod of Christ's strength being to be sent out of Zion, and
   that living waters were to flow forth from Jerusalem, -- the gospel
   being from thence to be published through the world, -- whom should the
   Lord choose to do it? Surely the great, the wise, the learned of that
   nation; the high priests, learned scribes, devout Pharisees, that might
   have won their message some repute and credit in the world. [315] But,
   contrary to all the wisdom of the flesh, he takes a few ignorant, weak,
   unlearned fishermen, despised upon all accounts, and commits this great
   work unto them; and accordingly out they go, friendless, helpless,
   harbourless, unto their great employment. The like instruments, for the
   most part, did he employ to make an entrance upon the great work of
   casting down false worship and idolatry. Moreover, in that great work
   for the Lord Christ which is to be accomplished in the ruin and
   destruction of Babel, when it must be done with might, power, and
   strength, with armies and blood, will not now the Lord use the "high
   and green tree?" Many kings and potentates having in profession
   embraced the doctrine of the gospel, nobles and great ones having given
   up their names in appearance unto Christ, -- who but they shall now be
   used in this work of the Lord? But yet plainly the Lord tells them the
   contrary, Rev. xviii. 9; -- all these persons bewail the judgments of
   God that are executed on Babel, which shall be done by low, dry trees.

   To give one instance in the mighty works which God hath lately wrought
   in these nations:-- A work of reformation and carrying on the interest
   of Christ is here undertaken. What, upon this, are the thoughts of the
   most of men? whither were their eyes turned? Tall trees, green trees
   are pitched on. This and that great lord, popular with the multitude,
   Eliabs in their eyes, they must do it; -- the Scots shall certainly
   effect it; -- the king shall be taken from his evil counsel, he shall
   be active in it. A church government shall be set up, and no man
   suffered to live in the nation that will not submit unto it. Some, like
   the sons of Zebedee, shall sit on the right and left hand of Christ, in
   the kingdom they were setting up for him; -- these and those, sound
   good men, shall be next the king: then all will be great and glorious
   indeed. What now, I pray? Do all things indeed suit and answer these
   expectations and reasonings of men? doth God accomplish the thoughts of
   their hearts? Alas! the high trees rested on proved, for the most part,
   broken reeds, that ran into our hands, and let out our blood in
   abundance to no purpose; -- the top bough, hoped for, fallen as an
   abominable branch; -- the Scots shaken and broken with unparalleled
   destruction, in the maintenance of the interest and cause which at
   first they prosperously opposed; -- the iron yoke, pretended to be that
   of Christ (though it be fleshly, carnal, and cruel, suited to the
   wisdom of a man, and his rule be spiritual, meek, and gentle), cast off
   and thrown away:-- low trees, dry trees, despised ones, contemned ones,
   without form or comeliness, exalted, used, employed, and the hand of
   the Lord evidently lifted up in all these transactions.

   Some reasons of this may be given, and, --

   1. The first is taken from the corruptions of the hearts of men
   squaring the works of God to their fleshly reasonings, corrupt
   interests and principles. They are bold with the wisdom of God, and
   conclude thus and thus things ought to be, -- ordering their thoughts
   for the most part according to their corrupt and carnal advantages. I
   shall instance both as to carnal advantages and principles.

   (1.) Carnal power and glory seem excellent to the Jews: hence think
   they, When God gives us our Messiah, all this must be accomplished.
   Their affections are disordered by corrupt lusts and desires, and that
   enslaves their minds to strange apprehensions:-- God comes in his own
   way, and how cross do things run to their expectations. What was the
   corrupt design of many in Scotland? That they might set up a son of
   Tabeal in England, and themselves be great under him; that they and
   their partakers might impose on the residue of the nation, especially
   in the things of God. Their great desire that things should be thus,
   corrupts their minds to think that it ought to be so, and shall be so.
   Hence ambition to rule and to have all under their power, even in
   conscience, is quickly mistaken for zeal to the kingdom of Christ, --
   re-enthroning of tyranny is loyalty; and all according to covenant. As
   if men had sworn to be good to themselves, and to be true to their own
   interests all their days; which surely few need to be sworn to. Thus
   men's minds and judgments are distempered by their lusts and interests,
   which makes them frame a way for God to proceed in; which, when he doth
   not, how are they surprised!

   (2.) For principles. Men take up principles that they will adhere
   unto:-- wise principles, forsooth, yea, and very righteous too! All
   things whatever that fall out must be squared unto their principles.
   They expect that nothing must be done but what suits unto them; and if
   any thing contrary be wrought, even of God himself, how deceived, how
   disappointed are they! The most tremendous judgment of God in this
   world is the hardening of the hearts of men; -- this seals them up for
   the most part to destruction:-- a thing it is often mentioned in the
   Scripture, and many subtle disputes there are, how it should come forth
   from Him who is most holy, seeing it is the greatest sin of the
   creature.

   I shall give you my thoughts, in a most eminent instance or two, as to
   one particular of it. Look on Pharaoh, of whom it is most signally
   spoken, that God "hardened his heart." How did the Lord accomplish
   this? Pharaoh settles himself upon as righteous principles as ever any
   of the sons of men could do: one is, "That it belongs to the chief
   ruler of a nation to see to the profit and glory of the nation." What
   more righteous principle is there in the world? You that talk of your
   principles, give me one more righteous than this. Hence he concludes,
   that if it be incumbent on him to see that the realm receive no
   detriment, he must not let the people go by whom they received so many
   great advantages. God confirms his heart in these principles, which are
   good in themselves, but abominable when taken up against the mind and
   providence of God. Hence he and his perished in their principles,
   acting against the appearance of God. It is also said of Sihon, the
   king of the Amorites, that "his heart was hardened that he would not
   let the people go through his land." How, I pray? Even by adhering to
   that wise principle, "That it is not meet to let a potent enemy into
   the bowels of a people." And this made way for his ruin.

   Thus is it with many; they fix on principles, good in general, and in
   their season. Old bounds must not be broken up; -- order must not be
   disturbed:-- let God appear never so eminently, so mightily, they will
   keep to their principles. What is this but judicial hardness? And this,
   I say, is one reason why the actings of God in such a day as this are
   so unsuited to the expectations of men; -- they square his work to the
   interests and principles which it will not answer.

   2. God chooseth thus to do things above and beside the expectations of
   men, that his presence and the presence of the Lord Christ may be the
   more conspicuous in the world. Did the Lord always walk in paths that
   men had rationally -- that is, foolishly (for such is our wisdom in the
   ways of God) allotted to him, the appearances of his glory would be
   exceedingly eclipsed. It is hard for men to have a clear and naked view
   of the power of God [316] in effecting any thing, when there is great
   help of means to do it; but it is much harder to discern the wisdom of
   God in an affair, when men's own wisdom and designing is all
   accomplished. But now, when the way of God is "like the way of an eagle
   in the air," -- when "his paths are in the deep, and his footsteps are
   not known," -- then is he glorious in his goings. Men think all things
   would be very glorious, if they might be done according to their mind:
   perhaps, indeed, they would; -- but with their glory, not the glory of
   God.

   3. God will do it for the hardening of many false, empty professors and
   others in the world, that the judgments appointed may come upon them to
   the uttermost. [317] The hardening of men to their destruction, being a
   close and inward work, is one of the most eminent acts of the
   providence of God in governing the world:-- by this he accomplisheth
   most of the judgments that he hath threatened. Now, there is not any
   dispensation of God towards man but he can, and doth sometimes, cause
   it to be so managed and ordered, that it shall be a way and means of
   hardening such as he hath appointed thereunto:-- some are hardened by
   the word, some by mercies, some by judgments. Amongst other ways that
   he useth for this purpose, this is one, -- the disposal of the works of
   his providence contrary to the reasonings of men, -- doing things
   unlikely and unfitly in the eyes of flesh and blood, that so they may
   despise those ways of his, and be broken in opposition unto them. Take
   an instance in Pharaoh's last hardening for destruction: When he
   brought the people out of Egypt, he did not lead them the direct way to
   Canaan, but carries them into the wilderness, and shuts them up between
   the mountains and the sea. Pharaoh justly concludes that they are
   entangled beyond escape, and that he shall surely overtake them and
   destroy them. This draws him out to his ruin. Had God led them in the
   straight path, probably he had not pursued after them; but the Lord
   lays this as a plot for his destruction. God will harden Jeroboam, and
   therefore a lion shall slay the prophet that preached against his
   idolatry. So was it with the Jews. They expect all glory to attend the
   coming of the Messiah; and after the coming of him indeed, God follows
   them with judgments to a total desolation; which being so unsuited unto
   the dispensation they expected, hardness thereby is come upon them to
   the uttermost. Tertullian says, he dares say that "the Scriptures were
   on purpose framed in many thing to give occasion to proud and curious
   unhumbled wits to stumble and fall." And I dare say that the Lord doth
   order many of his works in the world in "ways past finding out," on
   purpose to give occasion to many to stumble and fall. God fulfilleth
   many mighty works, that could not otherwise be brought about, by
   hardening the hearts of men. The hardening of the late king's heart was
   an engine whereby he wrought mighty thing and alterations. Had not God
   laid obdurateness and stubbornness upon his spirit, we had long since,
   in all probability, been ruined. To accomplish this end, then, God will
   so order the works of his providence, that men shall reason themselves
   into unreasonable and brutish hardness and stupidity. Thus God hath
   done in the days wherein we live. His mighty acts that he hath wrought,
   both for the matter of the things done and the manner of their doing,
   have been so contrary to men's principles, interest, expectations, and
   reasons, that they have slighted them to such a degree of hardening
   that they seem to have no reason left at all; -- and when it comes to
   that, God will fall judicially upon the very faculties of their souls;
   he will blind their eyes, deprive them of their judgment and insight
   into things, that they shall be as incapable of [understanding] God's
   mind as fools; and give them up to vile affections, to do the things
   that are not seemly; -- as it hath fallen out with too many amongst us.

   Let us now make some use of this point.

   Use. It serves, then, to discover the vanity of those men who, because
   the works of God have not been carried on in ways suitable to their
   reasonings and expectations, do utterly reject them, disown them, and
   oppose him in them. Can these men give any one instance of any one
   eminent work of God that he hath brought about by such ways and means
   as men would rationally allot thereunto, especially in things that are
   in immediate subserviency to the kingdom of the Lord Christ? Can they
   instance that they have been so managed? nay, hath not this been a
   means to harden multitudes to their destruction that have limited the
   Holy One, and chalked out paths for him to walk in? I cannot but fear
   that it was a great provocation of the eyes of God's glory, that at the
   beginning, and in the carrying on of the great alterations that have
   been wrought by his providence among us, we did speak of confirming and
   continuing, under any condition whatsoever, any things or persons which
   it was in his design to evert:-- we must be promising to keep up the
   high tree, and to keep down the low tree; which was not at all in his
   thoughts, neither ever came it into his heart. I hope he hath taught us
   (though with thorns) to follow him sometimes, like Abraham, not knowing
   whither we go. Now, the Lord convince them who are yet under this
   darkness; -- that think the ways of God not equal, because not measured
   by their line; -- that bring their crooked rules unto that which is
   really straight, and cast it away as abominable. The children of Israel
   had got a proverb against the ways of God; [318] it was so taken for
   granted that the ways of his providence were not right and straight,
   that it was grown into a common by-word. A little discovery of the
   pride and hypocrisy of their own hearts undeceived them at last.

   I shall not say to our brethren that they have showed this day, that if
   Absalom had lived, and all we had been slain, it would have been
   well-pleasing to them; but this I shall say, that it is a sad sign that
   our ways please not God, when his ways please not us at all.

   There being not space for handling the two remaining propositions
   contained in the text, I shall go forth to one general use, and so
   conclude.

   Use. Now, this I shall take from that of the prophet Amos iv. 12; --
   the generality of the people being exercised with various judgments,
   the residue of them are said to be saved "as a firebrand out of the
   burning;" that is, powerfully, effectually, from a very terrible and a
   very near destruction. After all the Lord's great dispensation of
   providence, in carrying on his own design, this being the condition of
   the people of this nation, many being destroyed by foregoing judgments,
   and the residue now saved like a firebrand out of the burning, God
   having given us this issue of his mighty works in pulling down the high
   tree, and exalting the low tree, it cannot but be our wisdom to close
   with the counsel which God gives in such a condition; and that you
   have, I say, Amos iv. 12, "Because I will do this unto thee, prepare to
   meet thy God, O Israel." Seeing that all this is done, prepare to meet
   thy God, O England: prepare to meet thy God, O parliament: prepare to
   meet thy God, O army.

   To lead you a little towards the performance of this duty, it being
   that, and that alone, which is incumbent on you, I shall show you these
   two things:-- 1. What it is wherein we are to meet our God. 2. How we
   must meet him therein.

   1. For the first, there are three ways wherein we must meet the Lord,
   if we desire to answer his mind in any of these dispensations:-- (1.)
   In the way of his providence; (2.) In the way of his worship; (3.) In
   the way of his holiness.

   (1.) The eminent ways of the providence of God in these days may be
   referred unto three heads.

   [1.] His general design, to pull down all those high oppositions to the
   kingdom of his Son which I have mentioned.

   [2.] His peculiar aim, to stain the glory of all flesh, to pull down
   high trees, that no flesh may glory.

   [3.] His shaking of all endearments and enjoyments here below, that the
   hearts of his may be fixed only on the things that cannot be shaken.

   And these, upon all accounts and considerations whatever, appear to be
   the main tendencies of the actings of providence in these our days.

   (2.) There is the way of his worship; wherein also he will be met. It
   is most remote from my thoughts to enter into contests concerning that
   peculiar way of gospel worship which Christ hath appointed. It
   sufficeth me, that seeing God hath promised that in these days he will
   have his tabernacle with men, and that barrenness and drought shall be
   on every soul that comes not up to his feast of tabernacles, it is
   bottom sufficient to press men to meet him in that way, according as he
   shall graciously make out light unto them.

   (3.) There is the way of his holiness. As he is holy, so are all his
   ways holy, -- so he will be met and walked with in all ways of holiness
   and obedience to Jesus Christ. And these are the ways wherein God will
   be met by his remnant, his delivered remnant.

   2. What, then, is it to meet the Lord in any of these ways? what is it
   to meet him in the way of his providence, his worship, his holiness? To
   meet one in any thing, is to close with him in that thing:-- we say,
   Herein I meet you, when we are of one mind. To meet the Lord in these
   things, is to close with the will and mind of God in them. This is that
   which I would exhort you unto, yea, lay the charge of God upon you this
   day, even on you and your companions, who are as a brand snatched out
   of the burning, --

   (1.) To meet God in the way of his providence.

   [1.] Meet him in his general design of casting down all combined
   opposition to the kingdom of his Son; that God in his appointed time
   will bring forth the kingdom of the Lord Christ unto more glory and
   power than in former days, I presume you are persuaded. Whatever will
   be more, these six things are clearly promised:--

   1st. Fulness of peace unto the gospel and the professors thereof, Isa.
   xi. 6, 7, liv. 13, xxxiii. 20, 21; Rev. xxi. 25.

   2dly. Purity and beauty of ordinances and gospel worship, Rev. xi. 2,
   xxi. 3. The tabernacle was wholly made by appointment, Mal. iii. 3, 4;
   Zech. xiv. 16; Rev. xxi. 27; Zech. xiv. 20; Isa. xxxv. 8.

   3dly. Multitudes of converts, many persons, yea, nations, Isa. ix. 7,
   8, lxvi. 8, xlix. 18-22; Rev. vii. 9.

   4thly. The full casting out and rejecting of all will-worship, and
   their attendant abominations, Rev. xi. 2.

   5thly. Professed subjection of the nations throughout the whole world
   unto the Lord Christ, Dan. ii. 44, vii. 26, 27; Isa. lx. 6-9; -- the
   kingdoms become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, [Rev. xi. 15,]
   amongst whom his appearance shall be so glorious, that David himself
   shall be said to reign.

   6thly. A most glorious and dreadful breaking of all that rise in
   opposition unto him, Isa. lx. 12, -- never such desolations, Rev. xvi.
   17-19.

   Now, in order to the bringing in of this his rule and kingdom, with its
   attendances, the Lord Christ goes forth, in the first place, to cast
   down the things that stand in his way, dashing his enemies "in pieces
   like a potter's vessel." This is a part of the design of Providence,
   wherein we are to meet him in these days.

   I shall speak a word, -- (1st.) Unto them who are enabled to look
   through the clouds and darkness whereby his paths are encompassed;
   (2dly.) Unto them who cannot.

   (1st.) For the former, be you persuaded to meet the Lord in this his
   design, -- yet to continue steadfast in helping him against the mighty.
   I speak not only to you who are in authority, nor unto you to whom the
   sword is girded, but unto all that wish well to Zion. We have every one
   our mite that we may cast into this treasury: we may be all princes in
   this case, all Israels, -- prevailers with God and men. There be three
   things whereby even you, who are but as the number, the common soldiers
   of Christ, may meet the Lord in this design.

   [1st.] By faith. Believe the promises, close with them, act faith upon
   them, and you will believe the beast unto destruction, antichrist into
   the pit, and Magog to ruin. Believe that ( Ps. cx. 1, 4, ii. 7, 8; Mic.
   v. 3, 4; Isa. lx. 12) the enemies of Christ shall be made his
   footstool, that the nations shall be his inheritance, that he shall
   reign gloriously in beauty, that he shall smite in pieces the heads
   over divers nations; -- live in the faith of these things, and as it
   will give you the sweetness of them before they come, so it will hasten
   their coming beyond the endeavours of thousands, yea, millions of armed
   men.

   [2dly.] Meet him with your supplications. Cry unto him, as Ps. xlv.
   3-5, "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most Mighty, with thy glory and
   thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth,
   and meekness, and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee
   terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's
   enemies; whereby the people fall under thee." This will make you be the
   armies of heaven, that follow him in his great undertakings, Rev. xix.
   14. It is his praying people that are his conquering armies that follow
   him. Now you find it coming, leave not pulling with all your strength,
   lest it roll back again. Shoot not two or three arrows, and so give
   over; but never leave shooting until the enemies of the Lord be all
   destroyed. Seeing it is his gospel whose advancement the Lord Jesus
   aimeth at in all these dispensations, and whose quarrel alone he
   revengeth (whatever men may do), help on to the advancement of that
   gospel of his; which, as formerly it was oppressed by the height and
   tyranny of the tower of Babel, so for the present is exceedingly
   defiled and cumbered by the rubbish of it being in some measure cast
   down.

   [3dly.] Whereas in these dispensations it is most eminently and
   frequently, in the praise of Christ, said that he is just and righteous
   in all his ways, -- as you may see in all the acclamations of the
   saints upon the execution of his judgments on his enemies ("Just and
   righteous art thou"); which is signally done on this account, because
   the ways whereby he doth it are counted most unrighteous in the world,
   -- in this, then, also is he to be met, even in the administration of
   justice and judgment: you will otherwise certainly be found in a cross
   path unto him, and be borne down before him. This is that wisdom which
   he calls for among the judges of the earth, when he is set to reign on
   his holy hill, Ps. ii. 10, 11.

   (2dly.) I shall add one word or two unto them who, either from the
   darkness of the things themselves, or from the prejudices and
   temptations of their own spirits, are not able to discern the
   righteousness of the ways of God, but rather lift up themselves against
   him.

   First, then, Consider the constant appearing of God against every party
   that, under any colour or pretence whatever, have lifted up themselves
   for the reinforcement of things as in former days:-- what colour or
   pretence soever they have put on, or which way soever they have turned
   themselves, God hath still appeared against them. Can you not discern
   his leavening their counsels with folly and madness, weakening their
   hearts and hands, -- making the strong become as tow, and the
   successful a reproach? Though they have gone from mountain to mountain
   to seek for divination, and changed their pretences as olden as Laban
   did Jacob's wages, yet they find neither fraud nor enchantment that
   will prevail: and doth not this proclaim that the design which God had
   in hand is as yet marvellously above you?

   Secondly, Consider the constant answer of prayers which those which
   have waited on God in these dispensations, to their unspeakable
   consolation, have received, -- finding God to be nigh unto them in all
   that they call upon him for. If in this thing they regarded iniquity in
   their hearts, surely God would not have heard them. Others also cry,
   even to the Lord do they cry; but he will not bear witness to the
   abomination of their hearts. Oh, that upon these and the like
   considerations you would at last take the counsel of the psalmist, Ps.
   xlvi. 10, Be still, and know that he is God. Be silent before him, for
   he is risen out of his holy habitation. Say, God hath done great things
   for these; who hath hardened himself against him and prospered? And
   this is the first particular.

   [2.] The second design of Providence in these dispensations, is
   evidently to stain the glory of all flesh; so Isa. xxiii. 9. Never did
   the Lord any work more eminently. What sort of men is there amongst us
   whose glory God hath not stained? I had rather leave this unto a silent
   thought, than give you particular instances of it; otherwise, it were
   very easy to make it as clear as the sun, that God hath left neither
   self-honour nor glory to any of the sons of men. Meet him, then, in
   this also:--

   1st, Cease putting confidence in man; say, He is a worm, and the son of
   man is but a worm; his breath is in his nostrils, and wherein is he to
   be accounted of? This use doth the church make of mercies, Ps. xx. 6,
   7, "Some trust in horses, and some in chariots; but we will remember
   the name of the Lord:" we will not trust in parliaments or armies. "All
   flesh is grass," Isa. xl. 1; let it have its withering time, and away.
   See no wisdom, but the wisdom of God, -- no strength, but the strength
   of God, -- no glory but his.

   2dly, Have any of us any glory, any crowns, any gifts, any graces, any
   wisdom or valour, any useful endowments? let us cast them all down at
   the feet of Jesus Christ. If we look on them, if we keep them as our
   own, God withers all their beauty and their glory. Thus do the elders
   who worship the Lamb forever, Rev. iv. 10, 11, say to him, Lord Jesus,
   thine is the glory, -- thine are all the mighty works which have been
   wrought in our days; -- thine are all the means whereby they have been
   accomplished:-- we are nothing, we can do nothing; thou art all, and in
   all. And this is the second.

   [3.] He aims at the shaking of all these things here below. He is
   taking down the rate and price of all things here below; on that which
   was worth a thousand pounds, he takes his bill and writes down scarce
   the thousandth part. He hath laid his hand upon the nests of the
   nation, and hath fitted wings unto all their treasures, and so
   eminently written vanity and uncertainty on them all as must needs
   lessen their esteem, were not men blinded by the god of this world. In
   this also are we to meet the Lord, --

   1st. By getting a low esteem of the things that God is thus shaking,
   and that upon this account, that he shakes them for this very end and
   purpose, that we should find neither rest nor peace in them. Perhaps
   thou hast had a desire to be somebody in the world; -- thou seest
   thyself come short of what thou aimest at; say now, with Mephibosheth
   upon the return of David, Not only half, but let all go, seeing that
   the Lord Jesus shall reign with glory. A man may sometimes beat a
   servant for the instruction of his son; God hath shaken the enjoyments
   of his enemies to lead his friends to disesteem them. God forbid the
   quite contrary should be found upon any of us.

   2dly. By labouring to find all riches and treasures in the Lord Christ.
   The earth staggers like a drunken man; -- the princes of it are reduced
   to a morsel of bread; -- all that is seen is of no value: doth not God
   direct us to the hidden paths, -- to the treasures that cannot be
   destroyed? Many say, "Who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the
   light of thy countenance upon us."

   (2.) We are to meet the Lord in the way of his ordinances, -- in the
   way of gospel worship. The exalting of the Lord Christ herein is the
   issue of all the mighty works of God: this is given in as the end of
   all, Rev. xxi. 3, "The tabernacle of God," etc. After great shakings,
   the promise still is of a new heaven and earth, Isa. lxv. 17; Rev. xxi.
   1; and this is that the people of God put themselves upon in the days
   wherein Babylon is to be destroyed, Jer. i. 4-8; that is the work they
   then take in hand. The end of all is the building of the temple, Ezek.
   xlvii. 1.; and this is the conclusion that the people of God do make,
   Isa. ii. 3, 4; and if this be neglected, the Lord will say of us, as
   David of Nabal, "Surely in vain have I kept these men, and all that
   they have." To meet the Lord in this also, --

   [1.] Inquire diligently into his mind and will, that you may know his
   paths, and be acquainted with his statutes. I dare say, no temptation
   in the world presses with more colour and violence upon men under
   mercies, than that [temptation] to a neglect of walking and holding
   communion with God in his ordinances. The devil thinks thus to revenge
   himself of the Lord Jesus; -- his own yoke being broken, he thinks to
   prevail to the casting away of his. Christ hath a yoke, though it be
   gentle and easy.

   [2.] You that do enjoy holy ordinances, labour to have holy hearts
   answerable thereunto. You have heavenly institutions, labour to have
   heavenly conversations. If we be like the world in our walking, it is
   no great matter if we be like the world in our worship. It is sad,
   walking contrary to God in his own paths. Show out the power and
   efficacy of all gospel institutions in a frame of spirit, course of
   life, and equability of spiritual temper, all your days.

   [3.] Keep up the power of private worship, both personal and family. I
   have seen many good laws for the Sabbath, and hope I shall see some
   good examples! Look what the roots are in the family; such will the
   fruit be in the church and commonwealth. If your spirits are not well
   manured there, you will be utterly barren elsewhere. That is done most
   clearly to God which is done within doors.

   (3.) Meet him in the way of his holiness. In the cry of the saints unto
   the Lord for the execution of his judgments and vengeance, they in an
   especial manner invocate his holiness, Rev. vi. 10, "How long, O Lord,
   holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that
   dwell on the earth?" And in their rendering praises to him, they still
   make mention of his holiness and righteousness in all his ways. Though
   the ways of God are commonly traduced as unequal and unholy ways, yet
   in the close there is no property of his that he will more vindicate in
   all his works than that of his holiness; in this, then, we are also to
   meet the Lord in this day of our deliverance, -- the day wherein he
   hath wrought such great and wonderful alterations.

   This use the Holy Ghost maketh upon such like dispensations, 2 Pet.
   iii. 11, "Seeing that all these things," etc.; and so also, Heb. xii.
   27, 28, "And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those
   things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things
   which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom
   which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God
   acceptably with reverence and godly fear." All things opposing removed,
   a freedom established, -- therefore let us have grace. God is the
   thrice holy one, -- holy in his nature, holy in his word, and holy in
   all his works; and he requires that his people be a holy people. To
   this he still urged his ancient people, from the argument of his
   presence amongst them. Oh, that the Spirit of the Lord would bring
   forth this one fruit of all his dealing with us, that we might be a
   holy people! If we put God's pure and dean mercies into impure and
   unclean vessels, they will to us be defiled. Let us take heed of
   prostituting the mighty works of God to the service of our lusts.
   Should we now make such conclusions to ourselves as the rich fool in
   the gospel, and say, Well, we have now peace and prosperity laid up for
   some years; -- soul, take try ease, eat, drink, and be merry; grow rich
   and great; follow after vanity, pride, folly, uncleanness; enjoy with
   delight the things which we have, and heap up thereto:-- why, as this
   is to labour to draw the Lord God into a partnership with our
   abominations, mad to enforce his mighty works to bear witness to our
   lusts, so certainly it is such a frame as he will surely and speedily
   revenge. The end why God delivers us from all our enemies is, not that
   we may serve our lusts and ourselves without fear; but that we may
   serve him without fear, in righteousness and holiness, all the days of
   our lives. Let, then, this be the issue upon our hearts of all the
   victories, and successes, and returns of prayers that we have received,
   that we give up ourselves to the Lord in all manner of holiness: this
   is that which the Lord's voice calls us unto. Let not now him that is
   filthy be filthy still; let not him that is worldly be worldly still;
   let not him that is loose, and hath east off the yoke of Christ, be so
   still; let not him that hath sought himself do so still; let not him
   who hath contemned the institutions of Christ do so still; let not him
   that hath been lifted up above his brethren be so still; -- but let
   every one forsake his evil way, and the iniquity that is in his hand,
   that we who were not a people at all may be a people to the praise of
   the God of all; that you who rule over men may be just, ruling in the
   fear of the Lord, that you may be as the light of the morning when the
   sun is risen, even as a morning without clouds, as the tender grass
   springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain; -- that we who
   are under rule may sit under our vines and fig-trees, speaking well of
   the name of God, and labouring to carry on the kingdom of the Prince of
   Peace, even every one as we are called, and abiding therein with God;
   -- that as, when you sought this mercy of God which we rejoice in, in
   solemn humbling of yourselves before the Lord, I made it appear unto
   you that it was the remnant of Jacob, God's secret and holy ones, lying
   in the bowels of the nation, that must be the rise of all our
   deliverances, so we would now every one strive to be of that number, --
   for they alone enjoy the sweetness of this and every mercy.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [295] Ps. xix. 1, 2; Rom. i. 20; Acts xiv. 16, 17.

   [296] Exod. vii. 11, 12.

   [297] 1 Sam. vi. 9.

   [298] Isa. vi. 9, 10.

   [299] Ezek. xx. 49.

   [300] xvii. 2.

   [301] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17.

   [302] 2 Kings xxiv. 1-3.

   [303] Jer. xxxvii. 1; 2 Kings xxiv. 17; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10.

   [304] Ps. xlv. 6; Hos. iii. 5; Isa. ix. 7, xvi. 5, xxii. 22; Jer.
   xxviii. 5; Amos ix. 11; Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24, xxxvii. 24, 25.

   [305] 1 Cor. x. 11; Acts xv. 10; Gal. iii. 4.

   [306] Hag. ii. 6, 7; Heb. xii. 26, 27; Isa. viii. 9, 10, ix. 7, xlvi.
   10, liii. 10; Ps. xxxiii. 11; Prov. xix. 21, xxi. 30; Job xxiii. 13.

   [307] Isa. ix. 12, 13; Rev. xi. 15.

   [308] Exod. ii. 14; Acts vii. 27.

   [309] Isa. xliii. 14; Jer. xxv. 12, li. 35; Rev. xvi. 19.

   [310] Zech. iii. 3.

   [311] Rev. xiv. 4; John vi. 26.

   [312] Isa. xliii. 18; Ps. lxxviii. 42-44; Judges v. 15, 17, 23.

   [313] Num. xii. 6; 1 Kings xviii. 26.

   [314] Luke iii. 15; John i. 19, 20; Acts i. 6; Matt. xx. 21, 22, xiii.
   55, viii. 19; John iv. 28, 29; Isa. liii. 2, 3; Phil. ii. 7, 8, etc.

   [315] John iv. 22; Ps. cx. 2; Ezek. xlvii. 1; Zech. xiv. 8; Acts iv.
   13; 1 Cor. i. 20, 26-28.

   [316] Judges vii. 4.

   [317] Rom. ix. 18; Deut. ii. 30; Ps. lxxxi. 12, lxix. 22; Josh. xi. 20;
   Isa. vi. 9-12; John xii. 40-43; Deut. xxxii. 15.

   [318] Ezek. xviii. 2.
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     __________________________________________________________________
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   Sermon VIII.

   The labouring saint's dismission to rest:

   a sermon preached at

   the funeral of the Right Hon. Henry Ireton,

   Lord-deputy of Ireland,
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   This sermon on the death of Ireton, though printed, as we are told in
   the dedication, from the first notes which the author took, contains
   some beautiful and interesting thoughts, and is pervaded by a strain of
   peculiar tenderness and solemnity. Henry Ireton was the eldest son of
   German Ireton of Attenton, Nottinghamshire. He was born in 1610;
   entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1626; and having graduated as
   bachelor of arts, devoted himself' to the study of law at the Middle
   Temple. He entered the parliamentary army when the civil war commenced,
   and gave proof of singular courage and capacity. In 1646 he married
   Bridget, the eldest daughter of Cromwell; and by the powerful interest
   which he thus secured, as well as his own abilities, he obtained rapid
   promotion in the army. At the battle of Naseby he commanded the left
   wing of the parliamentary army, and was defeated by the impetuous
   charge of Prince Rupert. Led in the ardour of the struggle beyond his
   own rank, he was himself wounded and taken prisoner, but contrived soon
   afterwards to make his escape. It was at his suggestion that the secret
   council of officers was held, to consider what course should be taken
   in disposing of the king's person. He was one of the judges on the
   king's trial, and signed the warrant for his execution. In 1649 he was
   second in command to Cromwell in Ireland, was made president of
   Munster, and afterwards was left as lord deputy when Cromwell returned
   to England. In the midst of a successful career, he was seized, after
   having taken Limerick, with an inflammatory fever, on the 16th of
   November, and died on the 26th, 1651. His memory was honoured by a
   public funeral, and his remains were interred in Henry the Seventh's
   Chapel in Westminster Abbey. His widow and his children, consisting of
   one son (Henry) and four daughters, had a grant of -L-2000 settled on
   them by Parliament out of the confiscated estates of the Duke of
   Buckingham. After the Restoration, his body was disinterred, gibbeted
   along with that of Cromwell, and buried at Tyburn.

   Various testimonies might be adduced in proof of the high esteem in
   which he was held by his party. Burner affirms, that "he had the
   principles and temper of a Cassius;" -- Hume, that "he was a memorable
   personage, much celebrated for his vigilance and capacity;" -- Noble
   ("Memoir of the Cromwell Family," vol. ii. p. 298), that "he was the
   most artful, dark, deliberate man of all the Republicans, by whom he
   was much beloved;" -- Heath ("Flagellum," p. 124), that "he was
   absolutely the best prayer-maker and preacher in the army; for which he
   may thank his education at Oxford;" -- Ludlow ("Memoir," vol. i. p.
   33), that "he erected for himself a more glorious monument in the
   hearts of good men, by his affection to his country, his abilities of
   mind, his impartial justice, his diligence in the public service, and
   his other virtues; which were a far greater honour to his memory than a
   dormitory among the ashes of kings;" -- and Carlyle ("Cromwell's
   Letters and Speeches," vol. i. p. 167) thus closes a reference to his
   death, -- "One brave and subtle-working brain has ended; to the regret
   of all the brave. A man, able with his pen and his sword; very stiff in
   his ways." -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the honourable and my very worthy friend, Colonel Henry Cromwell.

   Sir,

   The ensuing sermon was preached upon as sad an occasion as on any
   particular account hath been given to this nation in this our
   generation. It is now published, as at the desire of very many who love
   the savour of that perfume which is diffused with the memory of the
   noble person peculiarly mentioned therein, so also upon the requests of
   such others as enables me justly to entitle the doing of it, obedience.
   Being come abroad, it was in my thoughts to have directed it
   immediately, in the first place, to her who, of any individual person,
   was most nearly concerned in him. But having observed how near she hath
   been to be swallowed up of sorrow, and what slow progress He who took
   care to seal up instruction to her soul by all dispensations, hath
   given her hitherto towards a conquest thereof, I was not willing to
   offer directly a new occasion unto the multitude of her perplexed
   thoughts about this thing. No doubt, her loss being as great as it
   could be, upon the account of one subject to the law of mortality, as
   many grains of grief and sorrow are to be allowed her in the balance of
   the sanctuary as God doth permit to be laid out and dispended about any
   of the sons of men. He who is able to make sweet the bitterest waters,
   and to give a gracious issue to the most grievous trial, will
   certainly, in due time, eminently bring forth that good upon her spirit
   which he is causing all these things to work together for. In the
   meantime, sir, these lines are to you: your near relation to that rare
   example of righteousness, faith, holiness, zeal, courage, self-denial,
   love to his country, wisdom, and industry, mentioned in the ensuing
   sermon; -- the mutual tender affection between you whilst he was
   living; -- your presence with him in his last trial and conflict; --
   the deserved regard you bear to his worth and memory; -- your design of
   looking into and following after his steps and purpose in the work of
   God in his generation, as such an accomplished pattern as few ages have
   produced the like, -- with many other reasons of the like nature, did
   easily induce me hereunto. That which is here printed is but the notes
   which I first took, not having had leisure since to give them a serious
   perusal; and upon that account must beg a candid interpretation unto
   any thing that may appear not so well digested therein as might be
   expected. I have not any thing to express concerning yourself, but only
   my desire that your heart may be fixed to the Lord God of your fathers;
   and that, in the midst of all your temptations and oppositions
   wherewith your pilgrimage will be attended, you may be carried on and
   established in your inward subjection unto, and outward contending for,
   the kingdom of the Dearly Beloved of our souls, not fainting or waxing
   weary until you receive your dismission to rest for your lot in the end
   of the days.

   Sir,

   Your most humble and affectionate Servant,

   J. Owen.

   Oxon, Chr. Ch., April 2.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon VIII. The labouring saint's dismission to rest.

   "But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in
   thy lot at the end of the days." -- Dan. xii. 13.

   The words of my text having no dependence (as to their sense and
   meaning, but only as to the occasion of them) on the verses foregoing,
   I shall not at all look backward into the chapter, but fall immediately
   upon them, that I be not hindered from my principal intendment; --
   being unwilling to detain you long, though willing to speak a word from
   the Lord to such a congregation, gathered together by such an eminent
   act of the providence of God.

   The words are the Lord's dismission given to a most eminent servant,
   from a most eminent employment, wherein these four things are
   observable:--

   First, The dismission itself in the first words: "Go thou thy ways."

   Secondly, The term allotted for his continuance under that dismission:
   "Until the end be."

   Thirdly, His state and condition under that dismission: "For thou shalt
   rest."

   Fourthly, The utmost issue of all this dispensation, both as to his
   foregoing labour, his dismission, and rest following: "Stand in thy lot
   at the end of the days."

   I. In the first I shall consider two things:-- 1. The person dismissed:
   "Thou;" 2. The dismission itself: "Go thou thy ways."

   1. The person dismissed is Daniel, the writer of this prophecy, who
   received all the great visions of God mentioned therein; and I desire
   to observe concerning him, as to our purpose in hand, two things:--
   (1.) His qualifications; (2.) His employment.

   (1.) For the first, I shall only name some of them that were most
   eminent in him, and they are three:-- [1.] Wisdom; [2.] Love to his
   people; [3.] Uprightness and righteousness in the discharge of that
   high place whereunto he was advanced.

   [1.] For the first, the Holy Ghost beareth ample testimony thereunto,
   Dan. i. 17, 20, "As for these four children, God gave them knowledge
   and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in
   all visions and dreams. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding,
   that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all
   the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm." In all
   matters of wisdom and understanding, none in the whole Babylonian
   empire, full of wise men and artists, were to be compared unto Daniel
   and his companions; and Ezekiel chap. xxviii. 3, rebuking the pride and
   arrogancy of Tyrus, with a bitter scorn he says, "Behold, thou art
   wiser than Daniel," or thou thinkest thyself so, -- intimating that
   none in wisdom was to be compared unto him.

   [2.] Love to his people. On this account was his most diligent inquiry
   into the time of their deliverance, and his earnest contending with
   God, upon the discovery of the season when it was to be accomplished,
   chap. ix. 1-4. Hence he is reckoned amongst them who in their
   generation stood in the gap in the behalf of others, -- "Noah, Daniel,
   and Job." Hence God calls the people of the Jews, his people, chap. ix.
   24, "Seventy weeks are determined on thy people;" -- the people of thy
   affections and desires, the people of whom thou art, and who are so
   dear unto thee.

   [3.] For his righteousness in discharging of his trust and office, you
   have the joint testimony of God and man:-- his high place and
   preferment you have, chap. vi. 2. He was the first of the three
   presidents who were set over the hundred and twenty other princes of
   the provinces; and the Holy Ghost tells you, that, in the discharge of
   this high trust and great employment, he was faithful to the utmost,
   verse 4, "Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion
   against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none
   occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any
   error or fault found in him." Which also his enemies confessed, verse
   5, "Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this
   Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God."

   These qualifications, I say, amongst others, were most eminent in this
   person who here received his dismission from his employment.

   (2.) There is his employment itself, from which he is dismissed; and
   herein I shall observe these two things:-- [1.] The nature of the
   employment itself; [2.] Some considerable circumstances of it.

   [1.] For the first, it consisted in receiving from God, and holding out
   to others, clear and express visions concerning God's wonderful
   providential alterations in kingdoms and nations, which were to be
   accomplished from the days wherein he lived to the end of the world.
   All the prophets together had not so many clear discoveries as this one
   Daniel concerning these things.

   [2.] For the latter, this is observable, that all his visions still
   close with some eminent exaltation of the kingdom of Christ; -- that is
   the centre where all the lines of his visions do meet, as is to be seen
   in the close almost of every chapter; and this was the great intendment
   of the Spirit in all those glorious revelations unto Daniel, to
   manifest the subserviency of all civil revolutions unto the interest of
   the kingdom of the Lord Christ.

   This, then, is the person concerning whom these words were used, and
   this was his employment.

   2. There is his dismission itself: "Go thou thy ways." Now this may be
   considered two ways:-- (1.) Singly, relating to his employment only;
   (2.) In reference to his life also.

   (1.) In the first sense, the Lord dischargeth Daniel from his farther
   attendance on him, in this way of receiving visions and revelations
   concerning things that were shortly to come to pass, although haply his
   portion might yet be continued in the land of the living: as if the
   Lord should say, Thou art an inquiring man; thou art still seeking for
   farther acquaintance with my mind in these things; -- but content
   thyself, thou shalt receive no more visions; I will now employ Haggai,
   Zechariah, and others; thou shalt receive no more. But I cannot close
   with this sense, for, --

   [1.] This is not the manner of God, to lay aside those whom he hath
   found faithful in his service. Men, indeed, do so; but God changeth
   not: whom he hath begun to honour with any employment, he continueth
   them in it whilst they are faithful to him.

   [2.] Daniel was now above a hundred years old, as may be easily
   demonstrated by comparing the time of his captivity, which was in the
   third year of the reign of Jehoiakim chap. i. 1, with the time of his
   writing this prophecy, which is expressly said to be in the reign of
   Cyrus, the king of Persia, chap. x. 1; and, therefore, probably his end
   was very nigh. And after this you hear of him no more; who, had he
   lived many days, it had been his sin not to have gone up to Jerusalem,
   the decree of Cyrus, giving liberty for a return, being passed.

   (2.) It is not, then, God's laying him aside from his office simply,
   but also his intimation that he must shortly lay down his mortality,
   and so come, into the condition wherein he was to "rest" until the end.
   This, then, is his dismission. He died in his work; -- life and
   employment go together. "Go thou thy ways."

   Observation I. There is an appointed season, wherein, the saints of the
   most eminent abilities, in the most useful employments, must receive
   their dismission:-- be their work of never so great importance, be
   their abilities never so choice and eminent, they must in their season
   receive their dismission.

   Before I handle this proposition, or proceed to open the following
   words, I shall crave leave to bring the work of God and the word of God
   a little close together, and lay the parallel between the persons
   dismissed, -- the one in our text, the other in a present providence,
   which is very near, only that the one lived not out half the days of
   the other.

   1. Three personal qualifications we observed in Daniel, all which were
   very eminent in the person of our desires.

   (1.) Wisdom. There is a manifold wisdom which God imparteth to the sons
   of men. There is spiritual wisdom, that, by the way of eminency, is
   said to be "from above," James iii. 17; which is nothing but the
   gracious acquaintance of the soul with the hidden wisdom of God in
   Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 7. And there is a civil wisdom, or a sound ability
   of mind for the management of the affairs of men, in subordination to
   the providence and righteousness of God. Though both these were in
   Daniel, yet it is in respect of the latter that his wisdom is so
   peculiarly extolled. And though I am very far from assuming to myself
   the skill of judging of the abilities of men, and would be far from
   holding forth things of mere common report; yet, upon assured grounds,
   I suppose this gift of God, -- ability of mind, and dexterous industry
   for the management of human affairs, -- may be ascribed to our departed
   friend.

   There are sundry things that distinguish this wisdom from that policy
   which God abhors; which is "carnal, sensual, and devilish," James iii.
   15, though it be the great darling of the men of the world. I shall
   name one or two of them.

   [1.] A gracious discerning of the mind of God, according to his
   appearance in the affairs wherein men are employed, Mic. vi. 9, "The
   Lord's voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see try
   name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it." It is the wisdom of
   a man, to see the name of God, to be acquainted with his will, his
   mind, his aim in things, when his providential voice crieth to the
   city. All the works of God have their voice, -- have their instruction;
   -- those of signal providences speak aloud; they cry to the city, Here
   is the wisdom of a man: he is a man of substance, [319] a substantial
   man, that can see his name in such dispensations. This carnal policy
   inquires not into, but is wholly swallowed up in the concatenation of
   things among themselves; applying secondary causes unto events, without
   once looking to the name of God, -- like swine following acorns under
   the tree, not at all looking up to the tree from whence they fall.

   [2.] Such acquaintance with the seasons of providence as to know the
   duty of the people of God in them, 1 Chron. xii. 32, "The children of
   Issachar, men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel
   ought to do." This it is indeed to be a man of understanding, -- to
   know in any season the duty of Israel, that they may walk up to
   acceptation with God in the performance thereof; -- a thing which is
   neither prescribed in the rules nor followed in the practice of men
   wise only with that cursed policy which God abhors. To have a mind
   suited unto all seasons and tempers, so as to compass their own selfish
   ends, is the utmost of their aim.

   Now, in both these did this gift of God shine in this deceased saint.

   1st, He ever counted it his wisdom to look after the name of God, and
   the testification of his will, in every dispensation of providence
   wherein he was called to serve. For this were his wakings, watchings,
   inquires. When that was made out, he counted not his business half
   done, but even accomplished, and that the issue was ready at the door:
   not, What saith this man? or, What saith that man? -- rebut, What saith
   the Lord? that being evident. He consulted not with flesh and blood,
   and the wisdom of it; whereof, perhaps, would he have leaned to it, he
   was as little destitute as any in his generation, -- I mean, the whole
   wisdom of a man. The name of God was as land in every storm; -- in the
   discovery whereof he had as happy all eye, at the greatest seeming
   distance, when the clouds were blackest and the waves highest, as any.

   2d, Neither did he rest here. "What Israel ought to do" in every
   season, was also his inquiry. Some men have a wisdom to know things,
   but not seasons, in any measure. Surely a thing in season is no less
   beautiful than a word in season; -- "as apples of gold in pictures of
   silver." There are few things that belong to civil affairs but are
   alterable upon the incomprehensible variety of circumstances. These
   alter and change the very nature of them, and make them good or bad;
   that is, useful or destructive. He that will have the garment that was
   made for him one year serve and fit him the next, must be sure that he
   neither increase nor wane. Importune insisting on the most useful
   things, without respect to alterations of seasons, is a sad sign of a
   narrow heart. He of whom we speak was wise to "discern the seasons,"
   and performed things when both themselves and the ways of carrying them
   on were excellently suited unto all coincidences of their season And,
   indeed, what is most wisely proposed in one season may be most
   foolishly pursued in another. It had been wisdom in Joshua not to have
   made any compact, but to have slain all the Gibeonites; but it was a
   folly sorely revenged in Saul, who attempted to do the same. He who
   thinks the most righteous and suitable proposals or principles that
   ever were in the world (setting aside general rules of unchangeable
   righteousness and equity, compassing all times, places, ways, and forms
   of government), must be performed, as desirable, because once they were
   so, is certainly a stranger to the affairs of human kind.

   Some things are universally unchangeable and indispensable amongst men,
   supposing them to live answerable to the general principles of their
   kind:-- as, that a government must be; without which every one is the
   enemy of every one, and all tend to mutual destruction, which are
   appointed of God for mutual preservation; -- that in government some do
   rule, and some be in subjection; -- that all rule be for the good of
   them that are ruled; and the like principles, that flow necessarily
   from the very nature of political society.

   Some things, again, are alterable and dispensable merely upon the
   account of preserving the former principles, or the like. If any of
   them are out of course, it is a vacuum in nature politic, for which all
   particular elements instantly dislodge and transpose themselves to
   supply. And such are all forms of governments amongst men; which, if
   either they so degenerate of themselves that they become directly
   opposite, or are so shattered by providential revolutions as to become
   useless, to their proper end, may and ought to be changed, and not upon
   other accounts. But now for other things in government, -- as the
   particular way whereby persons shall be designed unto it, -- the
   continuance of the same persons in it for a less or greater proportion
   of time, -- the exercise of more or less power by some sorts, or the
   whole body of them that are ruled, -- the uniting of men for some
   particular end by bonds and engagements, and the like occasional
   emergencies, -- the universal disposal of them is rolled on prudence to
   act according to present circumstances.

   (2.) Love to his people. This was the second qualification wherein
   Daniel was so eminent. And our deceased friend -- not to enter into
   comparison with them that went before -- had clearly such a proportion
   as we may heartily desire that those who follow after may drink but
   equal draughts of the same cup. That his pains, labour, travail,
   jeopards of his life and all that was dear to him, relinquishment of
   relations and contentments, had sweetness and life from this motive,
   even intenseness of affection to his people, the people of whom he was,
   and whose prosperity he did desire, needs no farther demonstration than
   the great neglect of self and all self-concernments which dwelt upon
   him in all his tremendous undertakings. "Vicit amor patriae," or
   certainly he who had upon his breast and all his undertakings
   self-contempt so eminently engraven, could not have persisted wrestling
   with so many difficulties to the end of his days. It was Jerusalem and
   the prosperity thereof which was preferred to his chief joy. Neither,
   --

   (3.) Did he come short in righteousness in the administration of that
   high place whereto he was called; nay, than this there was not a more
   eminent stone in that diadem which he had on the earth. If he lay not
   at the bottom, yet at least he had a signal concurrence in such acts of
   justice as antiquity hath not known, and posterity will admire. Neither
   was it this or that particular act that did in this bespeak his praise,
   but a constant will and purpose of rendering to every one his due.

   I shall not insist upon particulars: in these and sundry other personal
   qualifications, between the persons mentioned a parallel may lie.

   2. As to employment, that of Daniel was mentioned before: it was the
   receiving and holding out from God visions of providential alterations,
   disposing and transposing of states, nations, kingdoms, and dominions.
   What he had in speculation was this man's part to follow in action. He
   was an eminent instrument in the hand of God in as tremendous
   providential alterations as such a spot of the world hath at any time
   received, since Daniel foresaw in general them all: and this, not as
   many have been, carried along with the stream, or led by outward
   motives and considerations far above their own principles and desires,
   but seemingly and knowingly he closed with the mind of God, with full
   purpose of heart to serve the will of the Lord in his generation. And
   on this account did he see every mountain made a plain beforehand by
   the Spirit of the Lord, and "staggered not at the greatest difficulties
   through unbelief; but being steadfast in faith, he gave glory to God."
   And to complete the parallel, -- as Daniel's visions were still
   terminated in the kingdom of Christ, so all his actions had the same
   aim and intendment. This was that which gave life and sweetness to all
   the most dismal and black engagements that at any time he was called
   out unto. All made way to the coming in of the promised glory. It was
   all the "vengeance of the Lord and his temple," -- a Davidical
   preparation of his paths in blood, that He might for ever reign in
   righteousness and peace. But be he so or so, the truth of our
   proposition is confirmed towards him, That there is as appointed
   season, when the saints of the most eminent abilities, in the most
   useful employments, shall receive their dismission, etc.

   I shall briefly open the rest of the words, and so take up the
   proposition again which was first laid down.

   II. Then, there is the term allotted to him in this state of his
   dismission: "Until the end be."

   Three things may be here intended in this word, "end."

   1. The end of his life: "Go thou thy ways to the end of thy life and
   days." But this we before disallowed, not consenting that Daniel
   received a dismission from his employment before the end of his life
   and pilgrimage.

   2. The end of the world: "Go thy ways to the end of the world: till
   then thou shalt rest in thy grave." But neither yet doth this seem to
   be particularly intended in these words. The words in the close of the
   text do expressly mention that, calling it "the end of days;" and in so
   few words, the same thing is not needlessly repeated: besides, had this
   expression held out the whole time of his abode in the state of rest
   here signified, it must have been, "Go thou thy ways, for thou shalt
   rest until the end be." So that, --

   3. The "end" here is to be accommodated unto the things whereof the
   Holy Ghost is peculiarly dealing with Daniel; and that is, the
   accomplishment of the great visions which he had received, in breaking
   the kingdoms of the world, and setting up the kingdom of the Holy One
   of God. Daniel is dismissed from farther attendance in this service; he
   shall not see the actual accomplishment of the things mentioned, but is
   dismissed, and laid aside unto the end of them. The word "until," in
   the Scripture, is not such a limitation of time as to assert the
   contrary to what is excepted, upon its accomplishment "Until the end,"
   doth not signify that he should not rest after the end of the things
   intimated; no more than it is affirmed that Michal had children after
   her death, because it is said that until her death she had none, 2 Sam.
   vi. 23. This, then, is that end that he is dismissed unto, -- The
   appointed season for the accomplishment of those glorious things which
   he had foreshown.

   Observation II. God oftentimes suffers not his choicest servants to see
   the issue and accomplishment of those glorious things wherein
   themselves have been most eminently engaged.

   III. The third thing (that we may make haste) is his state and
   condition during the time which he lies under this dismission, in these
   words, "For thou shalt rest."

   There is nothing of difficulty in these words, but what will naturally
   fall under consideration in the opening of the proposition which they
   hold out: which is, --

   Observation III. The condition of a dismissed saint is a condition of
   rest: "Thou shalt rest until the end be."

   What this rest is, and from what, with wherein it consists, shall be
   afterward explained.

   IV. The last thing in the text is the utmost issue of all these
   dispensations, both as to his foregoing labour and his present
   dismission, and following rest: "Thou shalt stand in thy lot," etc.

   Here are two things considerable in these words.

   1. The season of the accomplishment of what is here foretold and
   promised unto Daniel; and that is, "in the end of the days;" that is,
   when time shall be no more, when a period shall be put to the days of
   the world:-- called "the last day, the great day, the day of judgment;"
   that is, the season of the accomplishment of this promise, "The day
   wherein God will judge the world by the man whom he hath ordained."

   Observation IV. There is an appointed, determinate season, wherein all
   things and persons, according to the will of God, will run into their
   utmost issue and everlasting condition.

   2. The thing foretold and promised; that is, that he should "stand in
   his lot."

   Observation V. There is an appointed lot for every one to stand in, and
   measured portion, which in the end they shall receive.

   Observation VI. There is an eminent lot hereafter, for men of eminent
   employment for God here.

   I shall not be able to handle all these several truths which lie in the
   words; those only which are of most importance, and most suitable, may
   briefly be handled unto you. And the first is, --

   Observation I. There is an appointed season wherein the saints of the
   most eminent abilities, in the most useful employments, must receive
   their dismission.

   Zech. i. 5, "Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they
   live for ever?" Fathers and prophets have but their season, and they
   are not: they have their dismission. So old Simeon professeth, "Nunc
   Dimittis," Luke ii. 29; -- Now, thou givest me a dismission. They are
   placed of God in their station, as a sentinel in his watch-tower; and
   they have their appointed season, and are then dismissed from their
   watch. The great Captain of their salvation comes, and saith, Go thou
   thy ways: thou hast faithfully discharged thy duty; go now unto thy
   rest. Some have harder service, -- some have harder duty than others.
   Some keep guard in the winter, -- a time of storms and temptations,
   trials and great pressures; others in the sunshine, the summer of a
   more flourishing estate and condition. Yet duty they all do; -- all
   attend in the service, -- all endure some hardship, and have their
   appointed season for their dismission: and be they never so excellent
   at the discharging of their duty, they shall not abide one moment
   beyond the bounds which he hath set them, who saith to all his
   creatures, Thus far shall you go, and no farther. Oftentimes this
   dismission is in the midst of their work for which they seem to be most
   eminently qualified.

   The three most eminent works of God, in and about his children, in the
   days of old, were his giving his people the law, and settling them in
   the land of Canaan; -- his recovering them from the Babylonish
   captivity; -- and his promulgation of the gospel unto them. In these
   three works he employed three most eminent persons; -- Moses in the
   first, Daniel in the second, and John Baptist in the third; and none of
   them saw the work accomplished wherein they were so eminently employed.
   Moses died the year before the people entered Canaan: Daniel, some few
   years before the foundation of the temple; and John Baptist in the
   first year of the baptism of our Saviour, when the gospel which he
   began to preach was to be published in its beauty and glory. They had
   all but their appointed seasons. Though their abilities were eminent,
   -- who like unto them! and their employment excellent, -- what like it
   in the earth! yet, at their seasons, they must go their ways to rest,
   and lie down, till they stand in their lot at the end of the days. The
   reasons of which are, --

   1. The general condition of their mortality doth require that it should
   be so: "It is appointed to all men once to die," Heb. ix. 27. There is
   a stable law fixed concerning the sons of men, that is not upon the
   account of any usefulness here to be dispensed withal. The number of
   our months is with God; he hath fixed our bounds, which we shall not
   pass. Our days are as the days of an hireling, that have a certain,
   prefixed, and determinate end. Their strength is not the strength of
   stones, neither is their flesh of brass, that they should endure for
   ever. See Job xiv. 10-12. This, I say, requires that there should be an
   appointed season for their employment, for it is so for their lives.
   And yet there is more in it than this; for in the course of five
   thousand years, God hath exempted two persons by his sovereignty from
   the condition of mortality, who walked with him in their generations:
   so that the bounds fixed to them were not upon the account of their
   lives, but merely of the work they had in hand.

   2. God doth it, that he may be the more eminently seen in the carrying
   on his own works, which in their season he commits to them. Should he
   leave his work always on one hand, it would seem at length to be the
   work of the instrument only. Though the people opposed Moses at the
   first, yet it is thought they would have worshipped him at the last:
   and therefore God buried him where his body could not be found. Yet,
   indeed, he had but the lot of most who faithfully serve God in their
   generations; -- despised whilst they are present, -- idolized when they
   are gone. I do not know of any great work that the Lord carried out the
   same persons to be the beginners and enders of. He gave them all their
   seasons, that his power and wisdom might the more evidently appear in
   carrying it from one hand to another.

   3. God makes room, as it were, in his vineyard for the budding,
   flourishing, and fruit-bearing of other plants which he hath planted.
   Great employments call for great exercise of graces. Even in
   employments in and about providential things, there is the exercise of
   spiritual grace; -- as much faith and prayer, as much communion with
   God, walking before him, and wrestling with him, may be used in casting
   down of armies, as in setting up of churches. God exerciseth all the
   graces of his in the work he calleth them out unto. He principles them
   by faith and fellowship with himself for their employment; and
   therefore he gives each individual but his appointed season, that
   others, in whose hearts he hath lodged the same spirit wherewith they
   are endued, may come forth and show the fruits thereof. Daniel lieth
   down in the dust in rest and peace. And why so? The spirit of prophecy
   is poured out on Haggai and Zechariah, etc.; they must also carry on
   this work, and bear my name before my people. Consider the use of this.

   Use 1. Of exhortation unto all that are employed in the work of God,
   especially such as with eminent abilities are engaged in eminent
   employments. You have but your allotted season for your work; -- your
   day hath its close, its evening; your night cometh, wherein none can
   work. The grave cannot praise the Lord; death cannot celebrate him: it
   is the living, the living that are fitted for that work, Isa. xxxviii.
   18, 19. It is true, men may allot you your season, and all in vain; but
   your times are in the hand of God, -- that which he hath appointed out
   unto you shall stand. Be you never so excellent, never so useful, yet
   the days of your service "are as the days of an hireling," that will
   expire at the appointed season. Be wise, then, to improve the time that
   is in your hands. This is the praise of a man, the only praise whereof
   in this world he is partaker, that he doth the will of God before he
   fall asleep; that he faithfully serves his generation, until he be no
   more. For a dying man to wrestle with the rebukes of God and the
   complaints of his own conscience, for meeting with the end of his days
   before he hath attained the midst of his duty, is a sad condition. You
   have your season, and you have but your season; neither can you lie
   down in peace, until you have some persuasion that your work as well as
   your life is at an end. Whatever, then, you find to do, do it with all
   your strength; for there is neither wisdom nor power in the grave,
   whither you are going, Eccles. ix. 10.

   Some particular rules may direct you herein.

   (1.) Compare yourselves with the saints of God, who were faithful in
   their generations, and are now fallen asleep. What a deal of work did
   Josiah do in a short season! what a light did John set up in a few
   years! with what unwearied pains and industry did our deceased friend
   serve his generation! It is said of Caesar, that he was ashamed of his
   own sloth, when he found that Alexander had conquered the eastern world
   at the age wherein he had done nothing. Behold here one receiving his
   dismission about the age of forty years; and what a world of work for
   God and the interest of the Lord Christ did he in that season! and how
   well, in the close, hath he parted with a temporal life for Him who, by
   his death, procured for him an eternal life! And now rest is sweet unto
   this labouring man. Provoke one another by examples.

   (2.) Be diligent to pass through your work, and let it not too long
   hang upon your hands; your appointed season may come before you bring
   it to the close; -- yea, search out work for God. You that are
   intrusted in power, trifle not away your season. Is there no oppressed
   person that with diligence you might relieve? is there no poor
   distressed widow or orphan whose righteous requests you might expedite
   and despatch? -- are there no stout offenders against God and man that
   might be chastised? -- are there no slack and slow counties and cities
   in the execution of justice, that might be quickened by your example?
   -- no places destitute of the gospel that might be furnished and
   supplied by your industry and wisdom? Can you not find out something of
   this or the like nature to be despatched with vigour and diligence?
   nay, do not innumerable particulars in each kind lie upon your hands?
   and is not your non-performance of them such a sacrifice as wherewith
   God is not well pleased? Your time is limited and appointed; you know
   not how soon you may be overtaken with it; and would it not be
   desirable unto you, that you had done these things? will it be
   bitterness in the end, that you so laid out your endeavours?

   Use 2. All men have but their seasons in any work; only God abideth in
   it for ever: in every undertaking let your eye still be on him, with
   whom is the fulness and the residue of the Spirit. Jeremiah's great
   bewailing of Josiah's death was doubtless made upon the account of his
   discerning that none would come after him to carry on the work which he
   had begun, but the wickedness of that people was to come to its height;
   -- else God can raise up yet more Josiahs. Let him be eyed as the
   principal and only abiding agent in any great undertaking.

   In the residue of the observations I shall be very brief. The next is,
   --

   Observation II. God oftentimes suffers not the choicest of his servants
   to see the accomplishment of those glorious things wherein themselves
   have been most eminently engaged.

   The case of Moses is most eminently known. He had a large share in
   suffering the persecutions Which were allotted to the people:-- forty
   years' banishment he endured in the wilderness, under the reproach of
   Christ; -- forty years more spent in wrestling with innumerable
   difficulties, dangerous perils, mutinies, wars, and contentions. At the
   close, when he comes to look upon the land, -- when the end of all that
   dispensation was to be wound up, and the rest and reward of all his
   toil and labour to be had, which formerly he had undergone for twice
   forty years, -- "Go thou thy ways," saith the Lord; "thou shalt rest;"
   -- take thy dismission; thou shalt not enter into the good land; lie
   down here in the wilderness in peace.

   John Baptist goes and preaches the drawing nigh of the kingdom of God,
   but lived only to point out Christ with his finger; cries, "Behold the
   Lamb of God; I must decrease," -- and is cut off. David makes the great
   preparation for the temple; but he shall not see so much as the
   foundation laid. Men must take their appointed lot. God will send by
   the hand of him whom he will send. Daniel must rest until the end be.
   It is said of some, they began to deliver Israel. The case of
   Zerubbabel was very rare, who saw the foundation and also the top-stone
   of the temple laid; and yet the work of Jerusalem was not half finished
   in his days, as you may see, Zech. i. And this because, --

   1. God oftentimes receives secret provocations from the choicest of his
   servants, which move him to take them short of their desires. Those of
   his own whom he employs in great works, have great and close communion
   with him. God usually exercises their spirits in near acts of
   fellowship with himself: they receive much from him, and are
   constrained to unburden themselves frequently upon him. Now, when men
   are brought into an intimacy with God, and have received great
   engagements from him, the Lord takes notice of every working and acting
   of their souls in an especial manner, and is oftentimes grieved and
   provoked with that in them which others can take no notice of. Let a
   man read the story of that action of Moses upon which the Lord told him
   directly he should not see the finishing of the work he had in hand,
   nor enter into Canaan, Num. xx. 7, 8, 11. It will be a hard matter to
   find out wherein the failing was. He smote the rock with the rod, with
   some words of impatience, when he should only have spoken to it, -- and
   this with some secret unbelief as to the thing he had in hand. God
   deals with others visibly, according to their outward actions; but in
   his own he takes notice of all their unbelief, fears, withdrawings, as
   proceeding from a frame in no measure answering those gracious
   discoveries of himself which he hath made unto them; and on this
   account it is that some are taken off in the midst of their work.

   2. To manifest that he hath better things in store for his saints than
   the best and utmost of what they can desire or aim at here below, he
   had a heaven for Moses; and therefore might in love and mercy deny him
   Canaan. He employeth some eminently; -- their work is great, -- their
   end glorious: at the very last step almost of their journey he takes
   off one and another, -- lets them not see the things aimed at. This may
   be thought hard measure, strict severity, exact justice, -- yea, as Job
   complains, "taking advantages against them;" but see what he calls them
   to, in calling them off from their greatest glories and excellencies on
   the earth, and all this will appear to be love, tenderness, and favour
   in the highest. Whilst you are labouring for a handful of first-fruits,
   he gives you the full harvest; whilst you are labouring for the figure
   here below, he gives you the substance above. Should you see the
   greatest work wherein any of you were ever engaged brought to
   perfection, yet all were but a few drops, compared with that fulness
   which he hath prepared for you. The Lord, then, doth it to witness to
   the children of men that the things which are seen -- the best of them
   -- are not to be compared with the things that are not seen, yea, the
   least of them; inasmuch as he takes them whom he will honour from the
   very door of the one, to bear them into the other. The meanest
   enjoyment in heaven is to be preferred before the richest on earth,
   even then when the kingdom of Christ shall come in most beauty and
   glory.

   Use 1. You that are engaged in the work of God, seek for a reward of
   your service in the service itself. Few of you may live to see that
   beauty and glory which perhaps you aim at as the end of all your great
   undertakings for God whereunto you have been engaged. God will proceed
   at his own pace, and calls on us to go along with him; and in the
   meantime, until the determinate end come, to wait in faith, and not
   make haste. Those whose minds are so fixed on, and swallowed up with,
   some end (though good) which they have proposed to themselves, do
   seldom see good days and serene in their own souls. They have
   bitterness, wrath, and trouble all their days, -- are still pressing to
   the end proposed, and commonly are dismissed from their station before
   it be attained. There is a sweetness, there is wages to be found in the
   work of God itself. Men who have learned to hold communion with God in
   every work he calls them out unto, though they never see the main
   harvest they aim at in general, yet such will rest satisfied, and
   submit to the Lord's limitation of their time:-- they bear their own
   sheaves in their bosoms. Seeing God oftentimes dismisses his choicest
   servants before they see or taste of the main fruits of their
   endeavours, I see not upon what account consolation can be had in
   following the Lord in difficult dispensations, but only in that reward
   which every duty bringeth along with it, by communion with God in its
   performance. Make, then, this your aim, that in sincerity of heart you
   do the work of God in your generation. Find his presence with you, his
   Spirit guiding you, his love accepting you in the Lord Christ; and,
   whenever you receive your dismission, it will be rest and peace, -- in
   the meantime, you will not make haste.

   Use 2. See a bottom and ground of consolation when such eminent
   instruments as this departed worthy are called off from their station,
   when ready to enter upon the harvest of all their labours, watchings,
   toilings, and expense of blood. God hath better things for them in
   store, abiding things, that they shall not enjoy for a day or two, --
   which is the best of what they could hope for here, had they lived to
   see all their desires accomplished, but such as in the fulness whereof
   they may lie down in peace to eternity. Why do we complain? -- for our
   own loss? is not the residue and fulness of the Spirit with Him who
   gave him his dismission? -- for his loss? he lived not to see Ireland
   in peace, but enjoys the glory of that eternal kingdom that was
   prepared for him before the foundation of the world; which is the
   condition held out in the third observation.

   Observation III. The condition of a dismissed saint is a condition of
   rest: "Go thy way until the end be; for thou shalt rest."

   The apostle gives it in as the issue of a discourse from a passage in
   the Psalms, "There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God,"
   Heb. iv. 9; -- it remains and is reserved for them; this the Lord hath
   solemnly proclaimed from heaven, Rev. xiv. 13, "Blessed are the dead
   which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they
   may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." They go
   into a blessed condition of rest. There is not any notion under which
   the state of a dismissed saint is so frequently described as this of
   "rest," -- which, indeed, is the proper end and tendency of all things.
   Their happiness is their rest; their rest is all the happiness they can
   be partakers of: "Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor
   nostrum, donec veniat ad te." [320]

   Now, "rest" holds out two things unto us:-- A freedom from what is
   opposite thereunto, wherein those that are at rest have been exercised,
   in reference whereunto they are said to be at rest; and something which
   suits them and satisfies their nature in the condition wherein they
   are; and, therefore, they are at rest: which they could not be were it
   not so with them; for nothing can rest but in the full fruition and
   enjoyment of that which satiates the whole nature of it in all its
   extent and capacity. We must briefly inquire, -- 1. What it is that the
   saints are at rest from; and, 2. What it is that they are at rest in.
   Which I shall do very speedily.

   1. The many particulars which they are at rest from may be referred
   unto two general heads:-- (1.) Sin; (2.) Labour and travail.

   (1.) Sin. This, on all considerations whatever, is the main
   disquietness of the soul. Temptations to it, actings in it, troubles
   for it, -- they are the very Egypt of the soul, its house and place of
   bondage and vexation; -- either the power of it indwelling, or the
   guilt of it pressing, are here still disquieting the soul. For the
   first, how doth Paul complain, lament, yea, cry out concerning it, Rom.
   vii. 24, "O wretched man that I am!" and what a sad, restless, and
   tumultuating condition upon this account doth he describe in the verses
   foregoing! The best, the wisest, the holiest of the saints on this
   account are in a restless condition. Suppose a man a conqueror in every
   battle, in every combat that he is engaged in; yet whilst he hath any
   fighting, though he be never foiled, he hath not peace. Though the
   saints should have success in every engagement against sin, yet because
   it will still be rebelling, still be fighting, it will disturb their
   peace. So also doth the guilt of it; -- our Saviour testifieth, that a
   sense of it will make a man to be "weary and heavy laden," Matt. xi.
   28. This oftentimes makes the inhabitants of Zion say they are sick;
   for though an end be made of sin, as to the guilt of it, in the blood
   of Christ, yet, by reason of our darkness, folly, and unbelief, and the
   hiding of the countenance of God, the conscience is oftentimes pressed
   with it, no less than if it lay indeed under the whole weight and
   burden of it.

   I shall not instance in more particulars concerning this cause of want
   of rest and disquietness; -- the perplexity of temptations, buffetings
   and winnowings of Satan, allurements and affrightments of the world,
   darkness and sorrows of unbelief, and the like, do all set in against
   us upon this account.

   This, in general, is the first thing that the dismissed saints are at
   rest from: They sin no more, they wound the Lord Jesus no more, they
   trouble their own souls no more, they grieve the Spirit no more, they
   dishonour the gospel no more, -- they are troubled no more with Satan's
   temptations without, no more with their own corruption within; but lie
   down in a constant enjoyment of one everlasting victory over sin, with
   all its attendants: saith the Spirit, "They rest from their labours,"
   Rev. xiv. 1, -- those labours which make them faint and weary, their
   contending with sin to the uttermost. They are no more cold in
   communion; they have not one thought that wanders off from God to
   eternity. They lose him no more, but always lie down in his bosom,
   without the least possibility of disturbance. Even the very remembrance
   of sin is sweet unto them, when they see God infinitely exalted and
   admired in the pardon thereof. They are free from trouble, and that
   both as to doing and suffering. Few of the saints but are called out,
   in one kind or another, to both these. Every one is either doing for
   God or suffering for God; -- some both do and suffer great things for
   him. In either of them there is pain, weariness, travail, labour,
   trouble, sorrow, and anxiety of spirit; neither is there any eminent
   doing or working for God but is carried on with much suffering to the
   outward man.

   What a life of labour and trouble did our deceased friend lead for many
   years in the flesh! how were his days consumed in travail! God calling
   him to his foot, and exercising him to understand the sweetness of that
   promise, that they that die in him shall have rest. Many spend their
   days deliciously, -- with so much contentment to the flesh that it is
   impossible they should have any foretaste and sweet relish of their
   rest that is to come.

   The apostle tells us that "there remaineth a rest for the people of
   God;" and yet withal, that they who believe are entered into that rest;
   -- those who in their labours, in their travails, do take in the
   sweetness of that promise of rest, do even in their labour make an
   entrance thereinto.

   (2.) They rest from all trouble and anxiety that attend them in their
   pilgrimage, either in doing or suffering for God, Heb. iv. 10. They
   enter into rest, and cease from their works. God wipes all tears from
   their eyes. There is no more watching, no more fasting, no more
   wrestling, no more fighting, no more blood, no more sorrow; the
   ransomed of the Lord do return with everlasting joy on their heads, and
   sorrow and sighing flee away. There, tyrants pretend no more title to
   their kingdom; rebels lie not in wait for their blood; they are no more
   awakened by the sound of the trumpet, nor the noise of the instruments
   of death:-- they fear not for their relations, they weep not for their
   friends; the Lamb is their temple, and God is all in all unto them.
   Yet, --

   2. This will not complete their rest; something farther is required
   thereto, -- even something to satisfy, everlastingly content, and fill
   them in the state and condition wherein they are. Free them in your
   thoughts from what you please, without this they are not at rest. This,
   then, you have in the second place, God is the rest of their souls, Ps.
   cxvi. 1, "Return to thy rest, O my soul." Dismissed saints rest in the
   bosom of God, because in the fruition and enjoyment of him they are
   everlastingly satisfied, as having attained the utmost end whereto they
   were created, all the blessedness whereof they are capable. I could
   almost beg for liberty a little to expatiate in this meditation of the
   sweet, gracious, glorious, satisfied condition of a dismissed saint.
   But the time is spent, and therefore, -- without holding out one drop
   of water to quench the feigned fire of purgatory; or drawing forth
   anything to discover the vanity of their assertion who affirm the soul
   to sleep, or to be nothing until the resurrection; or theirs who,
   assigning to them a state of subsistence and perception, do yet exclude
   them from the fruition of God, without which there is no rest, until
   the end of all; with such other by-persuasions as would disquiet the
   condition or abridge the glory of those blessed souls; which yet were a
   facile undertaking, -- I shall draw towards a close.

   There are three points yet remaining. I shall speak only to the first
   of them, and that as an use of the doctrine last proposed, and I have
   done.

   Observation IV. There is an appointed determinate season, wherein all
   things and persons, according to the will of God, wall run into their
   utmost issue and everlasting condition.

   Thou art going, whoever thou art, into an abiding condition and there
   is a lot appointed for thee, wherein lies an estate everlastingly
   unchangeable. It is the utmost end whereunto thou art designed, and
   when once thou art entered into that lot, thou art everlastingly
   engaged: no more change, no more alteration; if it be well with thee,
   it will abide; if otherwise, expect not any relief. In our few days we
   live for eternity; in our mutable estate we deal for an unchangeable
   condition. It is not thus only in respect of particulars, but God hath
   "appointed a day, wherein he will judge all the world by the man whom
   he hath ordained." An end is coming unto all that whole dispensation
   under which we are; -- to you who, by the riches of free grace, have
   obtained union and communion with the Lord Jesus, rest and peace, when
   God shall everlastingly rain snares, fire and brimstone, upon the
   workers of iniquity. Some mock, indeed, and say, "Where is the promise
   of his coming?" But we know "the Lord is not slack, as some men count
   slackness," but exerciseth patience until the appointed season for the
   bringing about of his own glorious ends, which he hath determined
   concerning his creatures. Why should we, then, complain, when any one,
   perhaps before our expectation, but yet according to God's
   determination, makes an entrance into the end of all? All things work
   to that season. This state of things is not for continuance. That which
   is incumbent is in this uncertain space of time allotted to us, to give
   all diligence to make our calling and election sure, as also to serve
   the Lord faithfully in our generations, wherein we cannot be surprised.
   We have an example in him who is gone before. It is true, the Lord
   Jesus is our primitive pattern and example; but those also who have
   followed him, wherein they have followed him, are to be eyed and marked
   as provocations to the same labour of faith and love wherein they were
   exercised. And, that this use may be made by this assembly, I shall add
   one word concerning him from whom is the occasion thereof.

   Every man stands in a threefold capacity, -- natural, civil, religious.
   And there are distinct qualifications that are suited unto these
   several capacities.

   1. To the first, as the ornaments and perfections of nature, are suited
   some seeds of those heroical virtues, as courage, permanency in
   business, etc.; which being in themselves morally indifferent, have
   their foundations eminently laid in the natures of some persons, which
   yet hinders not but that their good improvement is of grace.

   2. To the second, or man's civil capacity, there are many eminencies
   relating as peculiar endowments, which may be referred unto the three
   heads of ability, faithfulness, and industry; that through them neither
   by weakness, treachery, nor sloth, the works and employments incumbent
   on men in their civil state and condition may suffer.

   3. Men's peculiar ornament and improvement, in their religious
   capacity, lies in those fruits of the Spirit which we call Christian
   graces. Of these, in respect of usefulness, there are three most
   eminent, viz., faith, love, and self-denial. I speak of them upon
   another account than the apostle doth, where he placeth hope amongst
   the first three of Christian graces. Now, all these, in their several
   kinds, were as eminent in the person deceased, in his several
   capacities, perhaps is usually found in any one in a generation. My
   business is not to make a funeral oration, only I suppose that without
   offence I may desire, that in courage and permanency in business (which
   I name in opposition to that unsettled, pragmatical, shuffling
   disposition which is in some men), -- in ability for wisdom and
   counsel, -- in faithfulness to his trust and in his trust, -- in
   indefatigable industry in the pursuit of the work committed to him, --
   in faith on the promises of God, and acquaintance with his mind in his
   mighty works of providence, -- in love to the Lord Jesus and all his
   saints, in a tender regard to their interest, delight in their society,
   contempt of himself and all his for the gospel's sake, with eminent
   self-denial in all his concernments, -- in impartiality and sincerity
   in the execution of justice, that in these and the like things we may
   have many raised up in the power and spirit wherein he walked before
   the Lord and the inhabitants of this nation. This (I say) I hope I may
   speak without offence here upon such an occasion as this. My business
   being occasionally to preach the word, not to carry on a part of a
   funeral ceremony, I shall add no more, but commit you to Him who is
   able to prepare you for your eternal condition.
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   [319] The Hebrew word translated "wisdom" stands alone in the text,
   without "man;" tvsyh?, derived from ysh? or ys?; Sanscrit, as; Pers.,
   ess; Latin, esse, essentia, opes, -- substance. See Fuerst's
   Concordance. -- Ed.

   [320] [August. Confes., lib. i. c. 1.]
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     __________________________________________________________________
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   Sermon IX.

   Christ's kingdom

   and the

   magistrate's power.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   The complete title of the earlier editions of the following sermon
   indicates the design of the author, -- "Concerning the Kingdom of
   Christ, and the Power of the Civil Magistrate about the things of the
   Worship of God." It was preached to the Parliament on October 13, 1652,
   "a day of solemn humiliation." It was the time of the naval war with
   the Dutch. The bill for a New Representative, or, in other words, the
   question whether the Long Parliament should now be dissolved, was
   keenly agitated. The weightier question, as to the settlement of the
   Constitution, burdened and perplexed the nation. During the month in
   which the sermon was preached, numerous private conferences on the
   former point took place between the leaders of the Parliament and the
   officers of the Army. These circumstances may account for the
   appointment of a day of humiliation. What determined Owen to make
   choice of the delicate and important subject of which he treats in this
   sermon, might be the prevalence of a desire in many quarters for a
   proper adjustment of ecclesiastical affairs. A petition from the Army
   (see "Whitelocke's Memorials," p. 516) had been presented to the
   Parliament on the 13th of August 1652, "reciting that they had often
   sought the Lord, and desire these particulars to be considered." Then
   follows a list of twelve "particulars;" the first of which is, "That
   speedy and effectual means be used for promoting the gospel, profane
   and scandalous ministers be ousted, good preachers encouraged,
   maintenance for them provided, and tithes taken away."

   The sermon breathes a spirit weary of the lengthened confusion which
   had distracted the land. The principles contained in it raise questions
   as important in themselves, and as fresh in interest now, as in the
   days when Owen lived and preached. Whatever may be thought of his views
   on the relation of the magistrate to the church, this sermon, in which
   his judgment is declared on this topic of paramount and engrossing
   moment, has evidently been prepared with unusual care. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon IX. Christ's kingdom and the magistrate's power.

   "I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the
   visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood
   by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me
   know the interpretation of the things." -- Dan. vii. 15, 16.

   What there is of concernment for the right understanding of these words
   in that part of the chapter which goes before, may be considered in the
   opening of the words themselves; and therefore I shall immediately
   attend thereunto.

   There are in them four things considerable:-- I. The state and
   condition which Daniel, the penman of this prophecy, expresseth himself
   to be in, wherein he hath companions in the days wherein we live: "He
   was grieved in his spirit in the midst of his body." II. The cause and
   means whereby he was brought into this perplexed frame of spirit: "The
   visions of his head troubled him." III. The remedy he used for his
   delivery from that entangled condition of spirit wherein he was: "He
   went nigh to one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all
   this." IV. The issue of that application he made to that one that stood
   by for redress: "He told him, and made him know the interpretation of
   the things." -- All these I shall briefly open unto you, that I may lay
   a foundation for the truth which the Lord hath furnished me with to
   hold out unto you this day.

   I. In the first, the person spoken of is Daniel himself: "I Daniel." He
   bears this testimony concerning himself, and his condition was, -- "He
   was grieved in his spirit."

   The person himself was a man highly favoured of God above all in his
   generation; so richly furnished with gifts and graces that he is once
   and again brought forth as an example, and instanced in by God himself
   upon the account of eminence in wisdom and piety. Yet all this
   preserves him not from falling into this perplexed condition, Dan. i.
   17-20; Ezek. xiv. 14, xxviii. 3. Now, as the principal work of all the
   holy prophets, which have been since the world began, Luke i. 70; 1
   Pet. i. 10-12, was to preach, set forth, and declare the Lord Jesus
   Christ, the Messiah who was for to come; so some especial concernments
   of his person, righteousness, and kingdom, were in especial manner
   committed unto them respectively; -- his passion and righteousness to
   Isaiah; the covenant of grace in him to Jeremiah; and to this Daniel,
   most eminently, the great works of the providence of God in the shaking
   and overturning of kingdoms and nations in a subserviency to his
   kingdom. With the revelation hereof, for the consolation of the church
   in all ages, did the Lord honour him of whom we speak.

   For the present he describes himself in a somewhat perplexed condition.
   His spirit (mind and soul) was grieved, sick, troubled, or disquieted
   in the midst of his body; that is, deeply, nearly, closely:-- it sets
   out the greatness of his trouble, the anxiety of his thoughts within
   him. Like David, when he expostulated with his soul about it, -- "Why
   art thou so sad, my soul? and why art thou so disquieted within me?"
   Ps. xliii. 5, -- he knew not what to say, what to do, nor wherewith to
   relieve himself. He was filled with sad thoughts, sad apprehensions of
   what was to come to pass, and what might be the issue of the things
   that had been discovered unto him. This, I say, is the frame and temper
   he describes himself to be in, -- a man under sad apprehensions of the
   issues and events of things and the dispensations of God (as many are
   at this day); and upon that account closely and nearly perplexed.

   II. The cause of this perturbation of mind and spirit was from the
   visions of his head: "The visions of his head troubled him."

   He calls them "visions of the head," because that is the seat of the
   internal senses and fantasy, whereby visions are received. So he calls
   them "a dream," verse 1, "and visions of his head upon his bed." Yet
   such visions, such a dream it was, as, being immediately from God, and
   containing a no less certain discovery of his will and mind than if the
   things mentioned in them had been spoken face to face, he writes them
   by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, verse 2, for the use of the
   church.

   I shall not take the advantage of going forth unto any discourse of
   dreams, visions, oracles, and those other divers ways and manners (Heb.
   i. 1) of revealing his mind and will, which God was pleased to use with
   his prophets of old, Num. xii. 6-8. My aim lies another way:-- it
   sufficeth only to take notice, that God gave him in his sleep a
   representation of the things here expressed, which he was to give over
   for the use of the church in following ages. The matter of these
   visions, which did so much trouble him, falls more directly under our
   consideration. Now, --

   1. The subject of these perplexing visions is a representation of the
   four great empires of the world, which had, and were to have, dominion
   in and over the places of the church's greatest concernments, and were
   all to receive their period and destruction by the Lord Christ and his
   revenging hand.

   And these three things he mentions of them therein:-- (1.) Their rise;
   (2.) Nature; (3.) Destruction.

   (1.) In verse 2 he describes their rise and original: it was "from the
   strivings of the four winds of the heavens upon the great sea;" he
   compares them to the most violent, uncontrollable, and tumultuating
   things in the whole creation. Winds and seas! -- what waves, what
   horrible storms, what mixing of heaven and earth, what confusion and
   destruction must needs ensue the fierce contest of all contrary winds
   upon the great sea! Such are the springs of empires and governments for
   the most part amongst men, -- such their entrances and advancements. In
   particular, such were the beginnings of the four empires here spoken
   of. Wars, tumults, confusions, blood, destruction, desolation, were the
   seeds of their greatness: "Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem adpellant,"
   Galgac. apud Tacit. [Agr., 30.] Seas and great waters do, in the
   Scripture, represent people and nations, Rev. xvii. 15, "The waters
   which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and
   multitudes, and nations, and tongues." As "waters," they are unstable,
   fierce, restless, tumultuating; and when God mingleth his judgments
   amongst them, they are as "a sea of glass mingled with fire," --
   brittle, uncertain, devouring, and implacable. It is a demonstration of
   the sovereignty of God, that he is above them, Ps. xciii. 3, 4, "The
   floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice;
   the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the
   noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." Now, from
   these, tossed with the winds of commotions, seditions, oppressions,
   passions, do flow the governments of the world, the Spirit of God
   moving upon the face of those waters, to bring forth those forms and
   frames of rule which he will make use of.

   (2.) Unto verse 9 he describes them in order as to their nature and
   kind; -- one of them being then ready to be destroyed, and the other to
   succeed, until the utter desolation of them all, and all power rising
   in their spirit and principle.

   I shall not pass through their particular description, nor stay to
   prove that the fourth beast, without name or special form, is the Roman
   empire; which I have elsewhere [321] demonstrated, and it is something
   else which at this time I aim at. This is that which troubles and
   grieves the spirit of Daniel in the midst of his body. He saw what
   worldly powers should arise, -- by what horrible tumults, shakings,
   confusions, and violence they should spring up, -- with what
   fierceness, cruelty, and persecution, they should rule in the world,
   and stamp all under their feet.

   (3.) Their end and destruction is revealed unto him, from verse 10 unto
   verses 12, 13; and this by the appearance of "the Ancient of days" (the
   eternal God) in judgment against them; which he sets out with that
   solemnity and glory, as if it were the great judgment of the last day;
   -- God, indeed, thereby giving a pledge unto the world of that
   universal judgment he will one day exercise towards all, "by the man
   whom he hath ordained," Acts xvii. 31. And this increaseth the terror
   of the vision, to have such a representation of the glory of God as no
   creature is able to bear. God also manifests hereby his immediate
   actings in the setting up and pulling down the powers of this world;
   which he doth as fully and effectually as if he sat upon a throne of
   judgment, calling them all by name to appear in his presence, and, upon
   the evidence of their ways, cruelties, and oppression, pronouncing
   sentence against them. "Be wise, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed,
   ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with
   trembling," Ps. ii. 11, 12. "He changeth the times and seasons," Dan.
   ii. 21. "He ruleth in the kingdom of men, and setteth over it whom he
   pleaseth," chap. v. 21.

   And this is the first thing in this vision at which the prophet was
   perplexed.

   2. There is the approach of the Lord Christ unto the Father, with his
   entrance into his kingdom and dominion, which is everlasting, and
   passeth not away, verse 14.

   This being the end of the vision, I must a little insist upon it; not
   that I intend purposely to handle the kingdom of Christ as mediator,
   but only a little to consider it as it lies here in the vision, and is
   needful for the right bottoming of the truth in our intendment.

   Various have been the thoughts of men about the kingdom of Christ in
   all ages. That the Messiah was to be a King, a Prince, a Ruler, -- that
   he was to have a kingdom, and that the government was to be on his
   shoulder, -- is evident from the Old Testament; that all this was and
   is accomplished in Jesus of Nazareth, whom God exalted, made a Prince
   and a Saviour, is no less evident in the New; -- but about the nature
   of this kingdom, its rise and manner of government, have been, and are,
   the contests of men.

   The Jews to this very day expect it as a thing carnal and temporal,
   visible, outwardly glorious, wherein, in all manner of pleasure, they
   shall bear rule over the nations at their will; -- such another thing,
   of all the world, as the popedom, which the Gentile or idolatrous
   worshippers of Christ set up for his kingdom: and of some such thing it
   may be supposed the apostles themselves were not without thoughts,
   until they had conversed with the Lord after the resurrection, Luke ix.
   46; Acts i. 6. Neither are all amongst us free from them at this day.

   Those who with any simplicity profess the name of Christ, do generally
   agree that there are three parts of it.

   (1.) First, and principally, in that which is internal and spiritual,
   in and over the souls of men, over spirits both good and bad, in
   reference unto the ends which he hath to accomplish upon them. Of that
   which is direct and immediate upon the hearts and souls of men, there
   are two parts.

   [1.] That which he exerciseth towards his elect, who are given unto him
   of his Father, converting, ruling, preserving them, under and through
   great variety of dispensations, internal and external, until he brings
   them unto himself: "He stands and feeds them in the strength of the
   Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God," Mic. v. 4; --
   even he who is the "Ruler in Israel," verse 2. He is exalted and made
   "a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and the
   forgiveness of sins," Acts v. 31. He makes his people "a willing people
   in the day of his power," Ps. cx. 3, -- sending out his Holy Spirit to
   lead them into all truth, and making his word and ordinances "mighty
   through God to the pulling down of strongholds" in their hearts,
   "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself
   against the knowledge of God; and bringing into captivity every thought
   to the obedience of himself," 2 Cor. x. 4, 5. He takes possession of
   their hearts by his power, dwelling in them by his Spirit, making them
   kings in his kingdom, and bringing them infallibly into glory. Oh, that
   this rule, this kingdom of his, might be carried on in our hearts! We
   busy ourselves about many things; we shall find at length this one
   thing necessary. This is that part of the kingdom of Christ which we
   are principally to aim at in the preaching of the gospel: "We preach
   Christ Jesus the Lord," 2 Cor. iv. 5, -- him to be Lord and King,
   though others have had dominion over us. They are the grains of Israel
   which the Lord seeks for in his sifting the nations by his word, as
   well as by his providence: and we are, in the work of the gospel, to
   "endure all things for the elect's sakes," 2 Tim. ii. 10.

   [2.] In the power which he exerciseth towards others, to whom the word
   of the gospel doth come, calling, convincing, enlightening, hardening
   many, whom yet, being not his sheep, nor of his fold, he will never
   take to himself; but leaves to themselves, under aggravations of
   condemnation, which they pull upon themselves by the contempt of the
   gospel, 2 Cor. ii. 16; Heb. x. 29. He sends his Spirit to convince even
   the perishing "world of sin, righteousness, and judgment," John xvi. 8.
   He sendeth sharp arrows into the very hearts of his enemies, Ps. xlv.
   5, -- making them stoop, bow, and fall under him; so bounding their
   rage, overbearing their lusts, leaving them without excuse in
   themselves, and his people oftentimes not without profit from them:--
   with some dealing even in this life more severely; causing the
   witnesses of the gospel to torment them by the preaching of the word,
   Rev. xi. 10, yet giving them up to "strong delusions, that they may
   believe lies, and be damned," 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12, etc.

   [3.] In carrying on of this work towards the one and the other, he puts
   forth the power, rule, and dominion, which he hath of his Father over
   spirits, both good and bad.

   1st. Being made head of principalities and powers, and exalted far
   above every name in heaven or earth, being made the "first-born of
   every creature," and all the angels of God being commanded to worship
   him, Heb. i. 6, and put in subjection under his feet; -- he sends them
   forth, and uses them as ministering spirits for them who shall be heirs
   of salvation, verse 14, -- appointing them to behold the face of his
   Father, ready for his commands on their behalf, Matt. xviii. 10, --
   attending in their assemblies, 1 Cor. xi. 10, and to give them their
   assistance in the time of danger and trouble, Acts xii. 9, destroying
   their adversaries, verse 23, with innumerable other advantageous
   administrations, which he hath not thought good to acquaint us withal
   in particular, that our dependence might be on our King himself, and
   not on any of our fellow-servants, though never so glorious and
   excellent, Rev. xxii. 9.

   2dly. For Satan, as he came to bind the strong man armed, and to spoil
   his goods, Matt. xii. 29, -- to destroy him that had the power of
   death, Heb. ii. 14; and being made manifest to this end, that he might
   destroy his works (1 John iii. 8) in the souls of men in this world, 2
   Cor. x. 4, 5; so, having in his own person conquered these
   principalities and powers of darkness, making an open show of them in
   his cross, and triumphing over them, Col. ii. 15, he continues
   overruling and judging him and them, in their opposition to his church,
   and will do so until he bring them to a full conquest and subjection,
   that they shall be judged and sentenced by the poor creatures whom in
   this world they continually pursue with all manner of enmity, 1 Cor.
   vi. 3.

   And this looketh to the inward substance of the kingdom of Christ,
   which is given him of his Father, and is not of this world, though he
   exercise it in the world to the last day; -- a kingdom which can never
   be shaken nor removed. "The government of it is upon his shoulder, and
   of the increase of it there shall be no end."

   (2.) That rule or government which in his word he hath appointed and
   ordained for all his saints and chosen ones to walk in, to testify
   their inward subjection to him, and to be fitted for usefulness one to
   another. Now, of this part the administration is wrapped up in the
   laws, ordinances, institutions, and appointments of the gospel, -- and
   it is frequently called "The kingdom of God." That Jesus Christ doth
   not rule in these things, and is not to be obeyed as a king in them, is
   but a late darkness, which, though it should spread as a cloud over the
   face of the heavens, and pour forth some showers and tempests, yet it
   would be as a cloud still, which will speedily scatter and vanish into
   nothing.

   And this is that whose propagation, as the means of carrying on the
   former spiritual ends of Christ, you desire strength and direction for
   this day. Men may gather together unto Christ, and say, with heads full
   of hopes, poor souls, and eyes fixed on the right hand and left, "Lord,
   wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Take you his
   answer, and be contented with it, "It is not for you to know the times
   or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power," Acts i. 6,
   7, -- but do your work faithfully. I know in this thing, it is far
   easier to complain of you for not doing, than to direct you what to do.
   The Lord be your guide, and give you straw wherever bricks are required
   of you!

   (3.) In the universal judgment, which the Father hath committed to him
   over all, which he will most eminently exercise at the last day; --
   rewarding, crowning, receiving some to himself; judging, condemning,
   casting others into utter darkness, John v. 22-27; Acts ii. 36; Rom.
   xiv. 9; Acts xvii. 31. And of this universal, righteous judgment he
   giveth many warnings unto the world, by pouring forth sundry vials of
   his wrath upon great Nimrods and oppressors, Ps. cx. 6; Mic. iv. 3;
   Rev. xix. 11-13. And in the holding forth these three parts of the
   kingdom of the Lord Jesus doth the Scripture abound.

   But now, whether over and beyond all these the Lord Christ shall not
   bear an outward, visible, glorious rule, setting up a kingdom like
   those of the world, to be ruled by strength and power; and if so, when
   or how it shall be brought in, -- into whose hands the administration
   of it shall be committed, and upon what account, -- whether he will
   personally walk therein or no, -- whether it shall be clearly distinct
   from the rule he now bears in the world, or only differenced by more
   glorious degrees and manifestations of his power, -- endless and
   irreconcilable are the contests of those that profess his name. This we
   find, by woful experience, that all who, from the spirituality of the
   rule of Christ, and delight therein, have degenerated into carnal
   apprehensions of the beauty and glory of it, have, for the most part,
   been given up to carnal actings, suited to such apprehensions; and have
   been so dazzled with gazing after temporal glory, that the kingdom
   which comes not by observation hath been vile in their eyes.

   3. Now, because it is here fallen in my way, and is part of the vision
   at which the prophet was so much troubled, I shall give you some brief
   observations of what is clear and certain from Scripture relating
   hereunto, and so pass on. It is, then, certain, --

   (1.) That the interest of particular men, as to this kingdom of Christ,
   is to look wherein the universal concernment of all saints, in all
   ages, doth lie. This, undoubtedly, they may attain, and it doth belong
   to them. Now, certainly, this is in that part of it which comes not by
   observation, Luke xvii. 20, but is within us, which "is righteousness,
   and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," Rom. xiv. 17. This may be
   possessed in a dungeon as well as on a throne. What outward glory
   soever may be brought in, it is but a shadow of this; -- this is the
   kingdom that cannot be moved, which requires grace in us to "serve God
   acceptably with reverence and godly fear," Heb. xii. 28. Many have
   failed in grasping after outward appearances: never any failed of
   blessedness who made this their portion. Oh, that this were more
   pursued and followed after! Let not any think to set up the kingdom of
   Christ in the world, while they pull it down in their own hearts by sin
   and folly. In this let the lines fall to me, and let my inheritance be
   among those that are sanctified. Yet, --

   (2.) This is certain, that all nations whatever, which in their present
   state and government have given their power to the dragon and the beast
   to oppose the Lord Christ withal, shall be shaken, broken, translated,
   and turned off their old foundations and constitutions, into which the
   antichristian interest hath been woven for a long season. God will
   shake the heavens and the earth of the nations round about, until all
   the Babylonish rubbish, all their original engagements to the man of
   sin, be taken away.

   This I have fully demonstrated elsewhere. [322] All those great wars
   which you have foretold, wherein the saints of God shall be eminently
   engaged, are upon this account.

   (3.) That the civil powers of the world, after fearful shaking and
   desolations, shall be disposed of into a useful subserviency to the
   interest, power, and kingdom of Jesus Christ. Hence they are said to be
   his kingdoms, Rev. xi. 15; that is, to be disposed of for the behoof of
   his interest, rule, and dominion. Of this you have plentiful promises,
   Isa. lx., and elsewhere. When the nations are broken in opposition to
   Zion, their gain must be consecrated to the Lord, and their substance
   to the Lord of the whole earth, Mic. iv. 13. Even judges and rulers, as
   such, must kiss the Son, and own his sceptre, and advance his ways.
   Some think, if you were well settled, you ought not in any thing, as
   rulers of the nations, to put forth your power for the interest of
   Christ: the good Lord keep your hearts from that apprehension! Have you
   ever in your affairs received any encouragement from the promises of
   God? have you in times of greatest distress been refreshed with the
   testimony of a good conscience, that in godly simplicity you have
   sought the advancement of the Lord Christ? do you believe that he ever
   owned the cause as the head of his church? Do not now profess you have
   nothing to do with him:-- had he so professed of you and your affairs,
   what had been your portion long since!

   (4.) Look, what kingdom soever the Lord Christ will advance in the
   world, and exercise amongst his holy ones, the beginning of it must be
   with the Jews; they are to be "caput imperii." The head and seat of
   this empire must be amongst them; these are the "saints of the Most
   High," mentioned by Daniel: and, therefore, in that part of his
   prophecy which he wrote in the Chaldean tongue, -- then commonly known
   and spoken in the east, being the language of the Babylonish empire, --
   he speaketh of them obscurely, and under borrowed expressions; but
   coming to those visions which he wrote in Hebrew, for the sole use of
   the church, he is much more express concerning the people of whom he
   spake. The rod of Christ's strength goes out of Zion, and thence he
   proceeds to rule those that were his enemies, Ps. cx. 2. All the
   promises of the glorious kingdom of Christ are to be accomplished in
   the gathering of the Gentiles, with the glory of the Jews. The Redeemer
   comes to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression (that great
   transgression of unbelief) in Jacob, Isa. lix. 20. Then shall the Lord
   rise upon them, and his glory shall be seen upon them. The Gentiles
   shall come to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising,
   Isa. lx. 2, 3. I dare say there is not any promise anywhere of raising
   up a kingdom unto the Lord Christ in this world, but it is either
   expressed or clearly intimated that the beginning of it must be with
   the Jews, and that in contradistinction to the nations: so eminently in
   that glorious description of it, Mic. iv. 7, 8, "I will make her that
   halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation; and
   the Lord shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for
   ever. And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter
   of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom
   shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem." When the great hunter,
   Nimrod, set up a kingdom, the beginning of it was Babel, Gen. x. 10;
   and when the great Shepherd sets up his kingdom, the beginning of it
   shall be Zion: so farther it is at large expressed, Mic. v. 7, 8.
   Nothing is more clear to any, who, being not carried away with weak,
   carnal apprehensions of things present, have once seriously weighed the
   promises of God to this purpose. What the Lord Christ will do with
   them, and by them, is not so clear; this is certain, that their return
   shall be marvellous, glorious, -- as life from the dead. When, then,
   Euphrates shall be dried up, Turkish power and Popish idolatry be taken
   out of the world, and these "kings of the east" are come, -- when the
   seed of Abraham, being multiplied like the stars of heaven and the
   sands of the sea-shore, shall possess the gates of their enemies, and
   shall have peace in their borders, -- we may lift up our heads towards
   the fulness of our redemption; but whilst these things are, or may be,
   for any thing we know, afar off, to dream of setting up an outward,
   glorious, visible kingdom of Christ, which he must bear rule in, and
   over the world, be it in Germany or in England, is but an ungrounded
   presumption. The Jews not called, Antichrist not destroyed, the nations
   of the world generally wrapped up in idolatry and false worship, little
   dreaming of their deliverance, -- will the Lord Christ leave the world
   in this state, and set up his kingdom here on a molehill?

   (5.) This is a perpetual antithesis and opposition that is put between
   the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of Christ, -- that they rise
   out of the strivings of the winds upon the sea; he comes with the
   clouds of heaven; -- they are brought in by commotions, tumults, wars,
   desolations (and so shall all the shakings of the nations be, to punish
   them for their old opposition, and to translate them into a
   subserviency to his interest); the coming in of the kingdom of Christ
   shall not be by the arm of flesh, nor shall it be the product of the
   strifes and contests of men which are in the world, -- it is not to be
   done by might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, Zech.
   iv. 6. Great wars, desolations, alterations, shall precede it; but it
   is not the sons of men that, by outward force, shall build the new
   Jerusalem:-- that comes down from heaven adorned as a bride for Christ,
   fitted and prepared by himself. Certainly the strivings of men about
   this business shall have no influence into it. It shall be by the
   glorious manifestation of his own power, and that by his Spirit
   subduing the souls of men unto it; -- not by the sword of man setting
   up a few to rule over others. Hence, it is everywhere called a creating
   of "new heavens, and a new earth," Isa. lxv. 17, -- a work, doubtless,
   too difficult for the worms of the earth to undertake. There is nothing
   more opposite to the spirit of the gospel, than to suppose that Jesus
   Christ will take to himself a kingdom by the carnal sword and bow of
   the sons of men. The raising of the tabernacle of David, which is
   fallen down, and the setting up the decayed places of it, Acts xv. 16,
   is done by his visiting the people with his Spirit and word, verse 14.
   It is by the pouring out of his Spirit in a covenant of mercy, Isa.
   lix. 21. Thus the Lord sets up one shepherd of his people, "and he
   shall feed them, even," saith he, "my servant David; he shall feed
   them, and he shall be their shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God,
   and my servant David a prince among them," Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24. He
   brings in the kingdom of his Son by making the children of Israel "seek
   the Lord their God, and David their king, and to fear the Lord and his
   goodness," Hos. iii. 5. Who, now, can fathom the counsels of the
   Almighty? -- who hath searched his bosom, and can by computation tell
   us when he shall pour out his Spirit for the accomplishment of these
   things?

   This, then, is the last thing in this vision, whose consideration
   brought the prophet into so great perplexity and distress of spirit.

   III. There is the means that Daniel used for redress in that sad
   condition whereunto he was brought by the consideration of this vision:
   "He drew near to one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of
   all this."

   This also was done in vision. There is no mention of his waking before
   his making this address; but the vision continuing, he draws nigh in
   the same manner to one of them that stood by, -- one of those angels,
   or holy ones, that stood ministering before the throne of God, who was
   commissionated to acquaint him with the mind and will of God in the
   things represented to them. This, then, is the remedy he applies
   himself unto; -- he labours to know the mind and will of God in the
   things that were to be done. This, it seems, he pitched on as the only
   way for quieting his grieved and troubled spirit; and hereupon, --

   IV. He is told and made to know the interpretation of the things, so
   far, at least, as might quiet his spirit in the will of God. Not that
   he is clearly instructed in every particular; for he tells them, in the
   close of the chapter, that he had troublesome thoughts about the whole;
   -- "his cogitations troubled him, and his countenance changed," verse
   28; but having received what light God was willing to communicate to
   him, he inquires no farther, but addresses himself to his own duty.

   Take, then, from the words thus opened in these propositions (some
   whereof I shall do little more than name unto you), --

   Observation I. In the consideration of God's marvellous actings in the
   world, in order to the carrying on of the gospel and the interest of
   the Lord Jesus Christ, the hearts of his saints are oftentimes filled
   with perplexity and trouble.

   They know not what will be the issue, nor sometimes what well to do.
   Daniel receives a vision of the things which in part we live under: and
   if they fill his heart with astonishment, is it any wonder if they come
   close to us, and fill us with anxious, perplexing thoughts, upon whom
   the things themselves are fallen?

   Observation II. The only way to deliver and extricate our spirits from
   under such perplexities and entanglements, is to draw nigh to God in
   Christ, for discovery of his will.

   So did Daniel here; he went to one of them that ministered before the
   Lord, to be acquainted with his will. Otherwise thoughts and
   contrivances will but farther perplex you. Like men in the mire, whilst
   they pluck one leg out, the other sticketh faster in, -- whilst you
   relieve yourselves in one thing, you will be more hampered in another.
   Yea, he that increaseth wisdom, increaseth sorrow; -- the larger the
   visions are, the greater will be their troubles; until, being consumed
   in your own fears, cares, and contrivances, you grow useless in your
   generation. Those who see only the outside of your affairs sleep
   securely; those who come nigher, to look into the spirits of men, rest
   is taken from them; and many are not quiet, bemuse they will not. The
   great healing of all is in God.

   Observation III. When God makes known the interpretations of things, it
   will quiet your spirits, in your walking before him, and actings with
   him.

   This was that which brought the spirit of Daniel into a settlement. How
   God reveals his mind in these things, -- by what means, -- how it may
   be known by individual persons, for their quiet and settlement, -- how
   all God's revelations are quieting, and tend to the calming of men's
   spirits, not making them foam like the waves of the sea, -- should be
   handled on this observation.

   But I begin with the first observation.

   Observation I. In the consideration of God's marvellous actings in the
   world, in order to the carrying on of the gospel, the hearts of his
   saints are oftentimes filled with perplexity and trouble.

   When John received his book of visions in reference to the great things
   that were to be done, and the alterations that were to be brought
   about, though it were sweet in his mouth, and he rejoiced in his
   employment, yet it made his "belly bitter," Rev. x. 9, 10. It filled
   him with perplexity, as our prophet speaks, in the midst of his body.
   He saw blood and confusion, strife and violence; it made his very belly
   bitter.

   Poor Jeremiah, upon the same account, is so oppressed, that it makes
   him break out of all bounds of faith and patience, to curse the day of
   his birth, to wax quite weary of his employment, chap. xv.

   Our Saviour, describing such a season, Luke xxi. 26, tells us, that
   "men's hearts shall fail them for fear, and for looking after those
   things that are coming upon the earth." They will be thinking what will
   become of them, and what will be the issue of God's dispensations;
   fearing that the whole frame of things will be wrapped up in darkness
   and confusion. Hence our Saviour bids his disciples not be troubled
   when they hear of these things, Matt. xxiv. 6, intimating that they
   will be very apt so to be.

   Now, the causes and occasions (which are the reasons of the point)
   arise, --

   1. From the greatness and astonishableness of the things themselves
   which God will do; even great and terrible things, which men looked not
   for, Isa. lxiv. 2, 3. When he comes to make his name known to the
   nations, that his adversaries may tremble at his presence, and doth
   terrible things, quite above and beyond the expectation of men, which
   they never once looked for, -- no wonder if their hearts be surprised
   with amazement. It hath of late been so with this nation. All
   professors at the beginning of these days joined earnestly in that
   prayer, Isa. lxiii. 17-19, lxiv. 1. God, in answer hereunto, comes down
   and rends the heavens, and the mountains flow down at his presence,
   according to the desire of their souls; yet withal he doth terrible
   things, -- things that we looked not for. How many poor creatures are
   turned back with astonishment, and know not how to abide with him! When
   our Saviour Christ came in the flesh, who had been the desire of all
   nations for four thousand years, and most importunately sought after by
   the men of that generation wherein he came, yet doing great and
   unexpected things at his coming, who was able to abide it? This, says
   Simeon, will be the issue of it, "He shall be for the fall and rise of
   many; and the thoughts of many hearts shall be revealed," Luke ii. 34,
   35. Hence is that exclamation, Mal. iii. 2, "Who may abide the day of
   his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth?" His coming is
   desired indeed, but few can bear it. His day will "burn as an oven," as
   a furnace, chap. iv. 1: some are overheated by it, some consume in it;
   -- blessed are they that abide. This is one cause of the perplexing of
   the spirits of men; -- the consideration of the things themselves that
   are done, being above and beyond their expectations; and this even many
   of the saints of God are borne down under at this day. They little
   looked for the blood and banishment of kings, change of government,
   alteration of nations, such shakings of heaven and earth as have
   ensued; not considering that he who doth these things weighs all the
   nations in a balance, and the rulers of them are as the dust thereof
   before him.

   2. From the manner whereby God will do these things. Many perplexing,
   killing circumstances attend his dispensations. I shall instance only
   in one, -- and that is, darkness and obscurity, whereby he holds the
   minds of men in uncertainty and suspense, for his own glorious ends.
   Such, he tells us, shall his day and the works thereof be: "And it
   shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor
   dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day
   nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening-time it shall be
   light," Zech. xiv. 6, 7. Men shall not know what to make of it, nor
   what to judge. He brings not forth his work all at once, but by
   degrees; and sometimes sets it backward, and leads it up and down, as
   he did his people of old in the wilderness, that none might know where
   they should fall or settle; and he that believeth will not make haste.
   When God is doing great things, he delights to wrap them up in the
   clouds; to keep the minds of men in uncertainties, that he may set on
   work all that is in them; and try them to the utmost, whether they can
   live upon his care and wisdom, when they see their own care and wisdom
   will do no good. Men would fain come to some certainty; and commonly,
   by the thoughts and ways whereby they press unto it, they put all
   things into more uncertainty than ever, and so promote the design of
   God, which they so studiously endeavour to decline. Hence is that
   description of the presence of the Lord in his mighty works, Ps. xviii.
   9, 11, "Darkness was under his feet;" men could not see his paths, etc.
   He hath ends of surprisal, hardening, and destruction towards some, for
   which they must be left unto their own spirits, and led into many
   snares and by-paths, for their trial, and the exercise of others; which
   could not be accomplished did he not come in the clouds, and were not
   darkness his pavilion and his secret place. On this account is that cry
   of men of profane and hardened spirits, Isa. v. 19, "Let him make
   speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of
   the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!" They
   know not what to make of what they see, -- of all that is yet done or
   accomplished. They would have the whole work out, that they might once
   see the end of it, and so know what to judge; they would be at a point
   with him, and not always kept at those perplexing uncertainties. And
   this is another cause of the trouble of men's spirits, in consideration
   of the dispensations of God. God still keeps a cloud hanging over, and
   they know not when it will fall, nor what will be done in the issue of
   things. This makes some weary of waiting on him, and, with the profane
   king of Israel, to cry, This evil is of the Lord; there is no end;
   confusion will be the issue of all; -- why should I abide any longer?

   3. The lusts of men do commonly, under such dispensations, fearfully
   and desperately tumultuate, to the disturbance of the most settled and
   weighed spirits. Satan takes advantage to draw them out in such a
   season to the utmost, both in spirituals and civils. What will be the
   constant deportment of men of corrupt minds in such a time our Saviour
   sets forth, Matt. xxiv. 5. They shall come in the name of Christ to
   deceive; and shall deceive many, and cause iniquity to abound. In such
   a day Edom will appear an enemy, [323] and Ephraim with the son of
   Remaliah will join with Syria for the vexing of Judah: hence are
   perplexities, and swords piercing through the very souls of men. Take
   an instance in the days wherein we live. From the beginning of the
   contests in this nation, when God had caused your spirits to resolve
   that the liberties, privileges, and rights of this nation, wherewith
   you were intrusted, should not, by his assistance, be wrested out of
   your hands by violence, oppression, and injustice; this he also put
   upon your hearts, to vindicate and assert the gospel of Jesus Christ,
   his ways, and his ordinances, against all opposition, though you were
   but inquiring the way to Zion, with your faces thitherward. God
   secretly entwining the interest of Christ with yours, wrapped up with
   you the whole generation of them that seek his face, and prospered your
   affairs on that account: so that, whereas causes of as clear a
   righteousness among the sons of men as yours have come to nothing, yet
   your undertaking hath been like the sheaf of Joseph in the midst of the
   nations, which hath stood up when all the others have bowed to the
   ground. Being, then, convinced that your affairs have fallen under his
   promises, and have come up to an acceptance before him, solely upon the
   account of their subserviency to the interest of Christ, God hath put
   it into your hearts to seek the propagation of his gospel. What now, by
   the lusts of men, is the state of things? Say some, There is no gospel
   at all; say others, If there be, you have nothing to do with it; --
   some say, Lo, here is Christ; others, Lo, there:-- some make religion a
   colour for one thing; some for another; -- say some, The magistrate
   must not support the gospel; say others, The gospel must subvert the
   magistrate; -- say some, Your rule is only for men as men, you have
   nothing to do with the interest of Christ and the church; say others,
   You have nothing to do to rule men but upon the account of being
   saints. If you will have the gospel, say some, down with the ministers
   of it, chemarims, [324] locusts, etc.; and if you will have light, take
   care that you may have ignorance and darkness:-- things being carried
   on as if it were the care of men that there might be no trouble in the
   world but what the name of religion might lie in the bottom of. Now,
   those that ponder these things, their spirits are grieved in the midst
   of their bodies; -- the visions of their heads trouble them. They
   looked for other things from them that professed Christ; but the summer
   is ended, and the harvest is past, and we are not refreshed. Again, God
   had so stated your affairs, that you were the mark of the antichristian
   world to shoot at in the beginning, and their terror in the close: and
   when you thought only to have pursued Sheba the son of Bichri, the man
   of your first warfare, behold one Abel after another undertakes the
   quarrel against you; yea, such Abels as Scotland and Holland, of whom
   we said in old times, We will inquire of them, and so ended the matter:
   and there is not a wise man or woman amongst them that can dissuade
   them. Strange! that Ephraim should join with Syria to vex Judah their
   brother, -- that the Netherlands, whose being is founded merely upon
   the interest you have undertaken, should join with the great
   antichristian interest, which cannot possibly be set up again without
   their inevitable ruin. Hence also are deep thoughts of heart; men are
   perplexed, disquieted, and know not what to do.

   I could mention other lusts, and tumultuatings of the spirits of men,
   that have an influence into the disturbance of the hearts of the most
   precious in this nation, but I forbear.

   4. Men's own lusts disquiet their spirits in such a season as this. I
   could instance in many; I shall name only four:-- (1.) Unstableness of
   mind; (2.) Carnal fears; (3.) Love of the world; (4.) Desire of
   pre-eminence.

   (1.) Unstableness of mind, which makes men like the waves of the sea,
   that cannot rest. The Scripture calls it akatastasian,
   "tumultuatingness" of spirit. There is something of that which Jude
   speaks of, in better persons than those he describes, -- "raging like
   waves of the sea, and foaming out their own shame," verse 13. If God
   give men up to a restless spirit, no condition imaginable can quiet
   them; still they think they see something beyond it that is desirable.
   Hannibal said of Marcellus, that he could never be quiet, -- conqueror
   nor conquered. Some men's desires are so enlarged, that nothing can
   satiate them. Wise men, that look upon sundry godly persons in this
   nation, and beholding how every yoke of the oppressor is broken from
   off their necks, that no man makes them afraid, that they are looked on
   as the head, not as the tail, -- enjoying the ordinances of God
   according to the light of their minds and desires of their hearts, no
   man forbidding them, -- are ready to wonder (I speak of private
   persons) what they can find to do in their several places and callings,
   but to serve the Lord in righteousness and holiness, being without
   fear, all the days of their lives. But, alas! when poor creatures are
   given up to the power of an unquiet and unstable mind, they think
   scarce any thing vile, but being wise unto sobriety, -- nothing
   desirable, but what is without their proper bounds, and what leads to
   that confusion which themselves, in the issue, are least able of many
   to undergo. It is impossible but that men's hearts should be pierced
   with disquietness and trouble, that are given up to this frame.

   (2.) Carnal fears. -- These even devour and eat up the hearts of men.
   What shall we do? what shall become of us? Ephraim is confederate with
   Syria, and the hearts of men are shaken as the trees of the wood that
   are moved with the wind. What! new troubles still! new unsettlements!
   This storm will not be avoided; this will be worse than all that hath
   befallen us from the youth of our undertakings. God hath not yet won
   upon men's spirits to trust him in shakings, perplexities, alterations;
   they remember not the manifestations of his wisdom, power, and goodness
   in former days, and how tender hitherto he hath been of the interest of
   Christ, that their hearts might be established. Could we but do our
   duty, and trust the Lord with the performance of his promises, what
   quietness, what sweetness might we have!

   I shall not instance in the other two particulars. It is too manifest
   that many of our piercing and perplexing thoughts are from the
   tumultuating and disorder of our own lusts. So that what remains of the
   time allotted to me I shall spend only in the use of this point, and
   proceed no farther.

   Use. Of instruction, to direct you into ways and means of quietness, in
   reference unto all these causes and occasions of piercing, dividing
   thoughts in such a season as this. The good Lord seal up instruction to
   your souls, that you may know the things that belong to your peace, and
   what Israel ought to do at this, even at this time. For my brethren's
   and companions' sake, I wish you prosperity. Though my own portion
   should be in the dust, for the true, spiritual, not imaginary, carnal
   interest of the church of God in this nation, and the nations about, I
   wish you prosperity.

   (1.) First, then, in reference to the things that God is doing, both as
   to their greatness and their manner of doing; whose consideration fills
   men with thoughts that grieve their spirits in the midst of their
   bodies. Would you have your hearts quieted in this respect? -- take my
   second observation for your direction; -- The only way to extricate and
   deliver our spirits from under such perplexities and entanglements, is
   to draw nigh to God in Christ for the discovery of his will. So did
   Daniel here in my text. I fear this is too much neglected. You take
   counsel with your own hearts, you advise with one another, -- hearken
   unto men under a repute of wisdom; and all this doth but increase your
   trouble, -- you do but more and more entangle and disquiet your own
   spirits. God stands by and says, "I am wise also;" and little notice is
   taken of him. We think we are grown wise ourselves, and do not remember
   we never prospered but only when we went unto God, and told him plainly
   we knew not what to do. Public fastings are neglected, despised, spoken
   against; and when appointed, practised according as men's hearts are
   principled to such a duty, -- coldly, deadly, unacceptably. Life, heat,
   warmth is gone; and shall not blood and all go after? The Lord prevent
   it! Private meetings are used to show ourselves wise in the debate of
   things, with a form of godly words; sometimes for strife, tumult,
   division, disorder. And shall we think there is much closet inquiring
   after God, when all other actings of that principle which should carry
   out thereunto are opposed and slighted? When we do sometimes wait upon
   God, do not many seem to ask amiss, to spend it on their lusts; -- not
   waiting on him poor, hungry, empty, to know his will, to receive
   direction from him; but rather going full, fixed, resolved, settled on
   thoughts, perhaps prejudices, of our own, -- almost taking upon us to
   prescribe unto the Almighty, and to impose our poor, low, carnal
   thoughts upon his wisdom and care of his church? Oh, where is that holy
   and that humble frame wherewith at first we followed our God into the
   wilderness, where we have been fed and clothed, preserved and protected
   for so many years? Hence is it that the works of God are become
   strange, and terrible, and dark unto us; and of necessity some of us,
   many of us, must shut up all with disappointment and sorrow. We fill
   our souls boldly, confidently, with cross and contrary apprehensions of
   the intendments of God, and of the mediums whereby he will accomplish
   his ends; and do not consider that this is not a frame of men who had
   given up themselves to the all-sufficiency of God. Some, perhaps, will
   say, this belongs not unto them; they have waited upon God, and they do
   know his mind, and what are the things he will do, and are not blind
   also, nor in the dark, as other men. But if it be so, "what means this
   bleating of sheep and oxen in mine ears?" yea, what means that roaring
   and foaming of unquiet waves which we hear and see; -- hard speeches,
   passionate reproaches, sharp revilings of their brethren, in boundless
   confidence, endless enmity, causing evil surmises, biting, tearing,
   devouring terms and expressions, casting out the names of men upright
   in their generations, saying, The Lord be praised? When the Lord
   discovers his mind and will, it settleth the heart, composeth the mind,
   fills the soul with reverence and godly fear, conforms the heart unto
   itself, -- fills it with peace, love, meekness, gentleness. And shall
   we be thought to have received the mind, the will of God, when our
   hearts, words, ways, are full of contrary qualities? Let it be called
   what it will, I shall not desire to share in that which would bring my
   heart into such a frame. Well, then, beloved, take this for your first
   direction: Be more abundant with God in faith and prayer, deal with him
   in public and private, take counsel of him, bend your hearts through
   his grace to your old frame, when it was your joy to meet in this
   place, -- which now, I fear, to many is their burden. Seek the Lord and
   his face, "seek him while he may be found." And hereby, --

   [1.] You will empty your hearts of many perplexing contrivances of your
   own, and you will find faith in this communion with God, by little and
   little, working out, killing, slaying these prejudices and presumptions
   which you may be strong in, that are not according to the will of God;
   so you be sure to come not to have your own lusts and carnal
   conceptions answered, but to have the will of God fulfilled. When men
   come unto the Lord to have their own visions fulfilled, it is righteous
   with God to answer them according to those visions, and confirm them in
   them, to their own disturbance, and the disturbance of others.

   [2.] You shall certainly have peace in your own hearts in the
   all-sufficiency of God. This he will give in upon your spirits, that
   whatever he doth, all his ways shall be to you mercy, truth,
   faithfulness, and peace; -- yea, the discoveries which you shall have
   of his own fulness, sweetness, suitableness, and the excellency of
   things which are not seen, will work your hearts to such a frame, that
   you shall attend to the things here below, merely upon the account of
   duty, with the greatest calmness and quietness of mind imaginable.

   [3.] You shall surely know your own particular paths, wherein you ought
   to walk in serving God in your generation. Those that wait upon him, he
   will guide in judgment; he will not leave them in the dark, nor to
   distracted, divided, piercing thoughts. But whatever others do, you
   shall be guided into ways of peace. This you shall have when the lusts
   of men will neither let themselves nor others be at quiet. Oh, then,
   return to your rest; look to Him from whom you have gone astray. Take
   no more disturbing counsel with yourselves, or others; renew your old
   frame of humble dependence on God, and earnest seeking his face. You
   have certainly backslidden in this thing. Is the Lord not the God of
   counsel and wisdom, as well as the God of force and power, that you run
   to him when in a strait in your actions, but when your counsels seem
   sometimes to be mixed with a spirit of difficulty and trouble, he is
   neglected? Only come with humble, depending hearts; -- not every one to
   bring the devices, imaginations, opinions, prejudices, and lusts of
   their own hearts, before him.

   (2.) For the troubles that arise from the lusts of other men, and that
   about the gospel and the propagation thereof (the tumultuating of the
   lusts of men in reference whereunto I gave you an account of formerly),
   there are many piercing thoughts of heart. What extremes, I had almost
   said extravagances, men have in this matter run out into, I shall now
   not insist upon; only I shall give you a few directions for your own
   practice.

   If once it comes to that, that you shall say you have nothing to do
   with religion as rulers of the nation, God will quickly manifest that
   he hath nothing to do with you as rulers of the nation. The great
   promise of Christ is, that in these latter days of the world he will
   lay the nations in a subserviency to him, -- the kingdoms of the world
   shall become his; that is, act as kingdoms and governments no longer
   against him, but for him. Surely those promises will scarcely be
   accomplished in bringing commonwealths of men professing his name to be
   of Gallio's frame, -- to take care for none of those things: or as the
   Turk, -- in an absolute indifferency what any profess; I mean, that are
   not his own, for in respect of them he changes not his God. Not that I
   would you should go and set up forms of government to compel men to
   come under the line of them, or to thrust in your sword to cut the
   lesser differences of brethren; not that I think truth ever the more
   the truth, or to have any thing the more of authority upon the
   conscience, for having the stamp of your authority annexed to it, for
   its allowance to pass in these nations. Nor do I speak a word of what
   is, may, or may not be incumbent on you in respect of the most
   profligate opposers of the truths of the gospel, but only this, that,
   not being such as are always learning, never coming to the knowledge of
   the truth, but being fully persuaded in your own minds, certainly it is
   incumbent on you to take care that the faith which you have received,
   which was once delivered to the saints, in all the necessary
   concernments of it, may be protected, preserved, propagated to and
   among the people which God hath set you over. If a father, as a father,
   is bound to do what answers this in his family unto his children; a
   master, as a master, to his servants; if you will justify yourselves as
   fathers or rulers of your country, you will find in your account this
   to be incumbent on you. Take heed of them that would temper clay and
   iron, things that will not mingle, -- that would compound carnal and
   fleshly things with heavenly things and spiritual, that they may not
   entangle your spirits. The great design of grasping temporal power upon
   a spiritual account, will prove at last to be the greatest badge of
   Antichrist. Hitherto God hath appeared against it; and will, no doubt,
   to the end. If either you, by the authority God hath given you in the
   world, shall take upon you to rule the house of God, as formally such,
   as his house, though you rule the persons whereof it is made up; or
   those who are, or pretend to be, of that house, to rule the world on
   that account, -- your day and theirs will be nigh at hand.

   Now, because you wait on God for direction in reference to the
   propagation of the gospel, and the preventing that which is contrary to
   sound doctrine and godliness, I shall, -- [1.] Show you very briefly
   what God has promised concerning magistrates to this end; [2.] Give you
   some principles whereon you may rest in your actings; and, [3.] Lay
   down some rules for your direction: and so draw to a close.

   [1.] Take, in the first place, what God hath promised concerning
   magistrates, kings, rulers, judges, and nations, and their subserviency
   to the church. What God hath promised they shall do, that is their duty
   to do; he hath not measured out an inheritance for his people out of
   the sins of other men. Let us a little view some of these promises, and
   then consider their application to the truth we have in hand, and what
   is cleared out unto us by them. There are many; I shall instance in the
   most obvious and eminent. "I will restore thy judges as at the first,
   and thy counsellors as at the beginning," Isa. i. 26. It is to Zion
   redeemed, purged, washed in the blood of Christ, that this promise is
   made. Isa. xlix. 7, "Kings shall see and arise, and princes shall bow
   down themselves." [Hebrew] The Jews being, for the greatest part of
   them, rejected upon the coming of Christ, this promise is made unto him
   upon his pouring out of the Spirit for the bringing in of the Gentiles;
   as it is farther enlarged, verses 22, 23, "Kings shall be thy
   nursing-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-mothers." Isa. lx. looks
   wholly this way. Taste of the nature and intendment of the whole: "And
   the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of
   thy rising. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall
   not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of
   the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. Thou shalt also suck
   the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou
   shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty
   one of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring
   silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy
   officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness," verses 3, 11, 16,
   17. To which add the accomplishment of all those promises mentioned,
   Rev. xi. 15, xxi. 24.

   You see here are glorious promises, in the literal expression, looking
   directly to what we assert concerning the subserviency of rulers to the
   gospel, and the duty of magistrates in supporting the interest of the
   church. Let us, concerning them, observe these three things; as, --
   1st, To whom they are made; 2dly, On what occasion they are given;
   3dly, What is the subject or matter of them in general.

   1st, Then, they are all given and made to the church of Christ after
   his coming in the flesh, and his putting an end to all ceremonial,
   typical, carnal institutions. For, --

   (1st.) They are every way attended with the circumstances of calling
   the Gentiles, and their flowing into the church; which were not
   accomplished till after the destruction of the Jewish church. So is the
   case in that which you have, Isa. xlix. 20, "The children which thou
   shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine
   ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may
   dwell."

   It shall be when the church shall have received the new children of the
   Gentiles, having lost the other of the Jews; which he expresseth more
   at large, verse 22, "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up
   mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and
   they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be
   carried upon their shoulders." So also are the rest. When God gives the
   nations to be the inheritance of Christ, the Holy Ghost cautions rulers
   and judges to kiss the Son, and pay the homage due to him in his
   kingdom, Ps. ii. 10, 11.

   (2dly.) Because these promises are pointed unto as accomplished to the
   Christian Church in that place of the Revelation before mentioned: "And
   the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven,
   saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord,
   and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever," chap. xi. 15.
   "And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it:
   and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it,"
   chap. xxi. 24. So that there are plainly promises of kings and princes,
   judges and rulers, to be given to the church, and to be made useful
   thereunto; and kingdoms and nations, people in their rules and
   governments, to be instrumental in the good thereof: so that these
   promises belong directly to us and our rulers, if, under any notion, we
   belong to the Church of Christ.

   2dly. For the occasion of these promises; -- it is well known what a
   trust, by God's own appointment, there was invested in the rulers,
   judges, kings, and magistrates, of the judicial state and church under
   the Old Testament, in reference unto the ways and worship of God, --
   the prosecution and the execution of the laws of God concerning his
   house and service being committed to them. Farther, when they
   faithfully discharged their trust, -- promoting the worship of God
   according to his institutions, -- encouraging, supporting, directing,
   reproving others, to whom the immediate and peculiar administration of
   things sacred was committed, -- destroying, removing whatever was an
   abomination unto the Lord, -- it was well with the whole people and
   church; they flourished in peace, and the Lord delighted in them, and
   rejoiced over them to do them good. And, on the other side, their
   neglect in the discharge of their duty was then commonly attended with
   the apostasy of the church, and great breakings forth of the
   indignation of the Lord. This the church found in those days, and
   bewailed. To hold out, therefore, the happy state of his people that he
   would bring in, he promises them such rulers and judges as he gave at
   first, who faithfully discharged the trust committed to them:-- not
   that I suppose them bound to the Mosaical rules of penalties in
   reference to transgressions and offences against gospel institutions,
   but only that a duty in general is incumbent on them, in reference to
   the church and truth of God, which they should faithfully discharge; --
   of which afterward.

   This, then, being the occasion of those promises, and their
   accomplishment being, as before, in a peculiar manner pointed at, upon
   the shaking, calling, and new-moulding of the kingdoms and nations of
   the world which had given their power to the beast, and thereupon
   framed anew into a due subserviency to the interest of Christ, there is
   not the least shadow or colour left for the turning off and rejecting
   the sweetness of all these promises, upon account of their being merely
   metaphorical, and shadowing out spiritual glories:-- neither their
   beginning nor ending, neither their rise nor fall, will bear any such
   gloss or corrupting interpretation.

   3dly. As to the matter of these promises, I shall only assert this in
   general, -- that the Lord engageth that judges, rulers, magistrates,
   and such like, shall put forth their power, and act clearly for the
   good, welfare, and prosperity of the church. This is plainly held out
   in every one of them. Hence kingdoms are said to serve the church; that
   is, all kingdoms. They must do so, or be broken in pieces, and cease to
   be kingdoms. And how can a kingdom, as a kingdom (for it is taken
   formally, and not materially, merely for the individuals of it, as
   appears by the threatening of its being broken in pieces) serve the
   church, but by putting forth its power and strength in her behalf Isa.
   lx. 12. And therefore, upon the accomplishment of that promise, they
   are said to become the kingdoms of the Lord Christ, Rev. xi. 15,
   because, as kingdoms, they serve him with their power and authority;
   having before, as such, and by their power, opposed him to the utmost.
   They must nurse the church, not with dry breasts, nor feed it with
   stones and scorpions, but with the good things committed to them. Their
   power and substance, in protection and supportment, are to be engaged
   in the behalf thereof: hence God is said to give these judges, rulers,
   princes, kings, queens to the church; not setting them in the church,
   as officers thereof, but ordering their state in the world (Rev. xi.
   15) to its behoof. In sum, there is not any one of the promises recited
   but holds forth the utmost of what I intend to assert from them all;
   viz., that the Lord hath promised that the magistrates whom he will
   give, own, and bless, shall put forth their power, and act in that
   capacity wherein he hath placed them in the world, for the good,
   furtherance, and prosperity of the truth and church of Christ. They
   shall protect them with their power, feed them with their substance,
   adorn them with their favour and the privileges wherewith they are
   intrusted; they shall break their forcibly oppressing adversaries, and
   take care that those who walk in the truth of the Lord may lead a
   peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty. If, then, you are such
   magistrates as God hath promised, (as woe be unto you if you are not!)
   know that he hath undertaken for you, that you shall perform this part
   of your duty; and I pray that you may rule with him therein, and be
   found faithful.

   [2.] The second ground that I would point unto, as a bottom of your
   actings in this thing, ariseth from sundry undoubted principles, which
   I shall briefly mention. And the first is, --

   1st. That the gospel of Jesus Christ hath a right to be preached and
   propagated in every nation, and to every creature under heaven. Jesus
   Christ is the "Lord of lords, and King of kings," Rev. xvii. 14. The
   nations are given to be his inheritance, and the utmost parts of the
   earth to be his possession, Ps. ii. 8, 9. He is appointed the "heir of
   all things," Heb. i. 2. God hath set him over the works of his hands,
   and put all things in subjection under his feet, Ps. viii. 6. And upon
   this account he gives commission to his messengers to preach the gospel
   to all nations, Matt. xxviii. 19, or, to every creature under heaven,
   Mark xvi. 15. The nations of the world being of the Father given to
   him, he may deal with them as he pleaseth, and either bruise them with
   a rod of iron, and break them in pieces as a potter's vessel, Ps. ii.
   9, -- he may fill the places of the earth with their dead bodies, and
   strike in pieces the heads of the countries, Ps. cx. 6, -- or, he may
   make them his own, and bring them into subjection unto himself; --
   which towards some of them he will effect, Rev. xi. 15. Now, the gospel
   being the rod of his power, and the sceptre of his kingdom, the grand
   instrument whereby he accomplisheth all his designs in the world,
   whether they be for life or for death, 2 Cor. ii. 16, -- he hath given
   that a right to take possession, in his name and authority, of all that
   he will own in any nation under heaven. And, indeed, he hath in all of
   them some that are his peculiar purchase, Rev. v. 9; whom, in despite
   of all the world, he will bring in unto himself. To have free passage
   into all nations is the undoubted right of the gospel; and the persons
   of Christ's good-will have such a right to it and interest in it, that,
   look, from whomsoever they may claim protection in reference unto any
   other of their most undoubted concernments amongst men, of them may
   they claim protection in respect of their quiet enjoyment and
   possession of the gospel.

   2dly. That wherever the gospel is by any nation owned, received,
   embraced, it is the blessing, benefit, prosperity, and advantage of
   that nation. They that love Zion shall prosper, Ps. cxxii. 6. Godliness
   hath the promise of this life, and is profitable unto all things, 1
   Tim. iv. 8. The reception of the word of truth, and subjection to
   Christ therein, causing a people to become willing in the day of his
   power, entitle that people to all the promises that ever God made to
   his church. They shall be established in righteousness; they shall be
   far from oppression; and for fear and terror, they shall not draw nigh
   unto them: whosoever contends against such a people, shall fall
   thereby. No weapon that is formed against them shall prosper; every
   tongue that shall rise against them in judgment, they shall condemn.
   For this is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord, Isa. liv. 14,
   15, 17.

   To the prosperity of a nation two things are required:-- (1st.) That
   they be freed from oppression, injustice, cruelty, disorder, confusion,
   in themselves, from their rulers, or others; (2dly.) That they be
   protected from the sword and violence of them that seek their ruin from
   without. And both these do a people receive by receiving the gospel.

   (1st.) For the first, they have the promise of God that they shall have
   "judges as at the first," Isa. i. 26, -- such injustice and judgment
   shall bear rule over them and among them, as the first judges whom he
   stirred up and gave to his ancient people; their officers shall be
   peace, and their exactors righteousness, Isa. lx. 17. Even the very
   gospel which they do receive is only able to instruct them to be just,
   ruling in the fear of the Lord; for that only effectually teacheth the
   sons of men to live righteously, soberly, and godly in this present
   world, Tit. ii. 12.

   (2dly.) And for the second, innumerable are the promises that are given
   to such a people; whence the psalmist concludes, upon the consideration
   of the mercies they do and shall enjoy, "Happy is the people whose God
   is the Lord," Ps. cxliv. 15. The glorious Lord will be to them a place
   of broad rivers and waters, in which no galley with oars, nor gallant
   ship shall pass by; the Lord will be their redeemer, lawgiver, king,
   and saviour, Isa. xxxiii. 21. It will interest any people in all the
   promises that are made for the using of the church to thrash, break,
   destroy, burden, fire, consume, and slay the enemies thereof; -- so far
   shall a people be from suffering under the hands of oppressors, that
   the Lord will use them for the breaking and destruction of the Nimrods
   of the earth: and this blessing of the nations do they receive by the
   faith of Abraham.

   3dly. The rejection of the gospel by any people or nation to whom it is
   tendered, is always attended with the certain and inevitable
   destruction of that people or nation; which, sooner or later, shall,
   without any help or deliverance, be brought upon them by the revenging
   hand of Christ.

   When the word of grace was rejected and despised by the Jews, the
   messengers of it professedly turning to the Gentiles, Acts xiii. 46,
   xxviii. 28, -- God removing it from them, unto a nation that would
   bring forth fruit, Matt. xxi. 43, as it did in all the world, or among
   all nations, for a season, Col. i. 6, -- with what a fearful and
   tremendous desolation he quickly wasted that people, is known to all;
   -- he quickly slew and destroyed those husbandmen that spoiled his
   vineyard, and let it forth unto others, that might bring him his fruit
   in due season. Hence, when Christ is tendered in the gospel, the judges
   and rulers of the nations are exhorted to obedience to him, upon pain
   of being destroyed upon the refusal thereof, Ps. ii. 12. And we have
   the experience of all ages, ever since the day that the gospel began to
   be propagated in the world. The quarrel of it was revenged on the Jews
   by the Romans, -- upon the Romans by the Goths, Vandals, and
   innumerable barbarous nations; and the vengeance due to the
   anti-Christian world is at hand, even at the door. The Lord will
   certainly make good his promise to the utmost, that the kingdom and
   nations which will not serve the church, even that kingdom and those
   nations shall utterly perish, Isa. lx. 12.

   4thly. That it is the duty of magistrates to seek the good, peace, and
   prosperity of the people committed to their charge, and to prevent,
   obviate, remove, take away every thing that will bring confusion,
   destruction, desolation upon them; as Mordecai procured good things for
   his people, and prosperity to his kindred, Esth. x. 3. And David
   describes himself with all earnestness pursuing the same design, Ps.
   ci. 1. Magistrates are the ministers of God for the good, universal
   good, of them to whom they are given, Rom. xiii. 1-4; and they are to
   watch and apply themselves to this very thing, verse 6. And the reason
   the apostle gives to stir up the saints of God to pray, amongst all
   sorts of men, in special for kings and those that are in authority, --
   to wit, that they may, in general, come to the knowledge of the faith,
   and be saved; and, in particular, discharge the duty and trust
   committed to them (for on that account are they to pray for them as
   kings and men in authority), -- is, "that we may lead a quiet and
   peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty," 1 Tim. ii. 1-4. It being
   incumbent on them to act even as kings and men in authority, that we
   may so do; they are to feed the people committed to their charge with
   all their might, unto universal peace and welfare.

   Now, the things that are opposite to the good of any nation or people
   are of two sorts:-- (1st.) Such as are really, directly, and
   immediately opposed to that state and condition wherein they close
   together, and find prosperity. In general, seditions, tumults,
   disorders; in particular, violent or fradulent breakings in upon the
   respective designed bounds, privileges, and enjoyments of singular
   persons, without any consideration of Him who ruleth all things, are of
   this kind. If nations and rulers might be supposed to be Atheists, yet
   such evils as these, tending to their dissolution and not-being, they
   would, with all their strength, labour to prevent, either by watching
   against their commission, or inflicting vengeance on them that commit
   them, that others may hear, and fear, and do so no more. (2dly.) Such
   as are morally and meritoriously opposed to their good and welfare; in
   that they will certainly pluck down the judgments and wrath of God upon
   that nation or people where they are practised and allowed. There are
   sins for which the wrath of God will be assuredly revealed from heaven
   against the children of disobedience. Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth
   as examples of his righteous judgment in this kind. And shall he be
   thought a magistrate, to bear out the name, authority, and presence of
   God to men, that so he and his people have present peace, [who,] like a
   herd of swine, cares not though such things as will certainly first eat
   and devour their strength, and then utterly consume them, do pass for
   current? Seeing that they that tale over men must be just, ruling in
   the fear of the Lord, the sole reason why they sheathe the sword of
   justice in the bowels of thieves, murderers, adulterers, is, not
   because their outward peace is actually disturbed by them, -- and
   therefore they must give example of terror to others, who being like
   minded, are not yet actually given up to the practice of the like
   abomination, -- but also, yea, principally, because He in whose stead
   they stand and minister to the world is provoked by such wickedness to
   destroy both the one and the other. And if there be the same reason to
   be evidenced concerning other things, they also call for the same
   procedure.

   To gather up, now, what hath been spoken:-- considering the gospel's
   right and title to be propagated, with all its concernments, in every
   nation under heaven; the blessing, peace, prosperity, and protection
   wherewith it is attended when and where received; and the certain
   destruction and desolation which accompanies the rejection and contempt
   thereof; -- considering the duty that, by God's appointment, is
   incumbent on them that rule over men, -- that in the fear of the Lord
   they ought to seek the good, peace, and welfare and prosperity of them
   committed to their charge; to prevent, obviate, remove, revenge, that
   which tends to their hurt, perturbation, dissolution, destruction,
   immediate from heaven, or from the hand of men; and in the whole
   administration to take care that the worshippers of God in Christ may
   lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty; -- let
   any one, who hath the least sense upon his spirit, of the account which
   he must one day make to the great King and Judge of all the world, of
   the authority and power wherewith he was intrusted, determine whether
   it be not incumbent on him -- by all the protection he can afford, by
   all the privileges he can indulge, the supportment that he can grant,
   by all that encouragement which, upon the highest account imaginable,
   he is required or allowed to give to any person whatsoever -- to
   further the propagation of the gospel; which upon the matter is the
   only thing of concernment, as well unto this life as that which is to
   come. And if any thing be allowed in a nation, which in God's esteem
   may amount to a contempt and despising thereof, men may be taught by
   sad experience what will be the issue of such allowance.

   5thly. I shall only propose one thing more to your consideration.
   Although the institutions and examples of the Old Testament, of the
   duty of magistrates in the things and about the worship of God, are
   not, in their whole latitude and extent, to be drawn into rules that
   should be obligatory to all magistrates now, under the administration
   of the gospel, -- and that because the magistrate then was "custos,
   vindex, et administrator legis judicialis, et politiae Mosaicae," from
   which, as most think, we are freed; -- yet, doubtless, there is
   something moral in those institutions, which, being unclothed of their
   Judaical form, is still binding to all in the like kind, as to some
   analogy and proportion. Subduct from those administrations what was
   proper to, and lies upon the account of, the church and nation of the
   Jews, and what remains upon the general notion of a church and nation
   must be everlastingly binding. And this amounts thus far, at least,
   that judges, rulers, and magistrates, which are promised under the New
   Testament to be given in mercy, and to be of singular usefulness, as
   the judges were under the Old, are to take care that the gospel church
   may, in its concernment as such, be supported and promoted, and the
   truth propagated wherewith they are intrusted; as the others took care
   that it might be well with the Judaical church as such. And on these,
   and such like principles as these are, may you safely bottom yourselves
   in that undertaking wherein you seek for direction from God this day.

   [3.] For the rules which I intimated, I shall but name them, having
   some years since delivered my thoughts to the world at large on this
   subject; [325] and I see no cause as yet to recede from any thing then
   so delivered. Take, then, only, for the present, these brief directions
   following:--

   1st. Labour to be fully persuaded in your own minds, that you be not
   carried up and down with every wind of doctrine, and be tempted to
   hearken after every spirit, as though you had received no truth as it
   is in Jesus. It is a sad condition, when men have no zeal for truth,
   nor against that which is opposite to it, whatever they seem to
   profess; because, indeed, having not taken in any truth in the power
   and principle of it, they are upon sad thoughts, wholly at a loss
   whether there be any truth or no. This is an unhappy frame indeed; --
   the proper condition of them whom God will spew out of his mouth.

   2dly. Know that error and falsehood have no fight or title, either from
   God or man, unto any privilege, protection, advantage, liberty, or any
   good thing you are intrusted withal. To dispose that unto a lie, which
   is the fight of and due to truth, is to deal treacherously with Him by
   whom you are employed. All the tenderness and forbearance unto such
   persons as are infected with such abominations is solely upon a civil
   account, and that plea which they have for tranquility whilst neither
   directly nor morally they are a disturbance unto others.

   3dly. Know that in things of practice, so of persuasion, that are
   impious and wicked, either in themselves or in their natural and
   unconstrained consequences, the plea of conscience is an aggravation of
   the crime. If men's consciences are seared, and themselves given up to
   a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient, there is
   no doubt but they ought to suffer such things as to such practices are
   assigned and appointed.

   Should I now descend unto particulars in all the things mentioned, and
   insist on them, time would wholly fail me, -- neither is it a work for
   a single sermon; and, therefore, in one word I shall wind up the whole
   matter, and end.

   Know them, then, that are faithful and quiet in the land; regard the
   truth of the gospel; remember the days of old, -- what hath done you
   good, quieted your heart in distress, crowned your undertakings with
   sweetness; lose not your first love; draw not out your own thoughts for
   the counsel of God; seek not great things for yourselves; be not moved
   at the lusts of men; keep peace what in you lieth with all that fear
   the Lord; let the glory of Christ be the end of all your undertakings,
   etc.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [321] Sermon on Heb. xii. 27.

   [322] Sermon on Heb. xii. 27.

   [323] Obad. 12, 13; Isa. vii. 1.

   [324] kmrym? a contemptuous appellation of idolatrous priests. It
   occurs 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Hos. x. 5; Zeph. i. 4; and is derived from a
   Syriac word, blackness; in the concrete, one in black attire, an
   ascetic, a priest. -- Ed.

   [325] Discourse on Toleration.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon X.

   God's work in founding Zion,

   and

   his people's duty thereupon.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   An English Parliament was summoned by Cromwell, as Lord Protector, to
   meet at Westminster on the 17th September 1656. At this time Admiral
   Blake was pursuing his victorious career, and combating on the ocean
   the inveterate enemy of England and English Protestantism, -- Spain. In
   order to obtain the supplies requisite for the maintenance of the war,
   the Parliament was convened, and Dr Owen preached on the occasion. The
   Parliament agreed to support the Protector in the war, and voted him
   for the purpose -L-400,000. The sermon of Owen is remarkable for the
   tone of cheerful gratitude pervading it, for the peace and freedom
   which the nation now enjoyed. While contrasting present advantages with
   the evils from which the country had been delivered, he warns his
   audience against any course that might expose them, under the judgment
   of God, to the loss of privileges so dearly won, and against indulging
   in the strife and animosities which would "turn judgment into wormwood,
   and truth into hemlock." -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Wednesday, 17th of September 1656.

   Ordered by the Parliament, That Mr Maidstone and the Lieutenant of the
   Tower do give the hearty thanks of the House to Dr Owen, Dean of Christ
   Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, for his great
   pains taken in his sermon preached this day in the Abbey Church at
   Westminster, before his Highness the Lord Protector and the members
   elected to sit this present Parliament; and that he be desired to print
   his sermon; and that no man presume to print it without his leave.

   Hen. Scobell, Clerk of the Parliament.
     __________________________________________________________________

To his highness, the Lord Protector, and to the Parliament of the Commonwealth
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, etc.

   Although I need plead no other reason for the publishing of the ensuing
   discourse but your order and command for my so doing; yet, because I
   know that your peculiar interest, as governors of this commonwealth, in
   the several stations wherein you are placed of God, is truly stated
   therein, -- in the pursuit whereof your peace and the peace of these
   nations will be found to lie, -- I crave leave to add that
   consideration also. Being fully acquainted in and with what weakness it
   was composed and delivered, I cannot but conclude that it was merely
   for the truth's sake therein contained, which is of God, and its
   suitableness, through his wise providence, to the present state of
   things in these nations, that it found acceptance and entertainment
   with you; which also makes me willing to be therein your remembrancer a
   second time. From the day wherein I received a command and call unto
   the service of preaching unto you, unto this issue of it, wherein it is
   clothed anew with obedience to your order, I found mercy with God to
   have that caution of the great apostle abiding in my heart and
   thoughts, "If I yet please men, I am not a servant of God." Hence I can
   with boldness profess, that, influenced in some measure with the power
   of that direction, I studiously avoided whatever might be suggested
   with the least unsuitableness thereunto, with respect either to myself
   or others.

   It was for Zion's sake that I was willing to undertake this duty and
   service, rejoicing that I had once more an opportunity to give public
   testimony to the great concernment of the great God and our dear Lord
   Jesus Christ in all the concussions of the nations in the world, and
   peculiarly in his wonderful providential dispensations in these wherein
   we live. And here, as the sum of all, to use plainness and liberty of
   speech, I say, if there be any thing, in any person whatever in these
   nations, that cannot stand with, that can stand without, the general
   interest of the people of God pleaded for, let it fall, and rise no
   more; and the Lord, I know, will send his blessing out of Zion on
   whatever, in singleness of heart, is done in a tendency to the
   establishment thereof.

   Farther, I shall not need to suggest any thing of the ensuing
   discourse:-- they who take themselves to be concerned therein will
   acquaint themselves with it by its perusal. I shall only add, if the
   general principles asserted therein be in your hearts; if, in pursuit
   thereof, you endeavour that in no corner of the nation it may be said,
   This is Zion, that no man careth for; but that those who love the Lord
   Jesus Christ in sincerity, and are, by faith and obedience, separated
   from the perishing world, following the Lamb, according to the light
   which he is graciously pleased to impart unto them, and engaged, by the
   providence of God, in that work which he hath undertaken to accomplish
   amongst us, be not overborne by a spirit of profaneness and contempt of
   the power of godliness raging in the earth; that they may be preserved
   and secured from the return of a hand of violence, and encouraged in
   the testimony they have to bear to the kingdom of Christ, in opposition
   to the world, and all the ways which the men thereof have received by
   tradition from their fathers, that are not according to his mind; --
   you will, undoubtedly, in your several conditions, receive blessing
   from God. Which also that you may, in all your concernments, is the
   daily prayer of

   Your humble Servant

   In the work of our dear Lord Jesus,

   John Owen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon X. God's work in founding Zion, and his people's duty thereupon.

   "What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord
   hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it." --
   Isa. xiv. 32.

   The head of the prophecy whereof these words are the close, lies in
   verse 28, "In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden;" which
   gives us the season and just time of its revelation and delivery. The
   kingdom of Judah was at that season low and broken; -- foreign
   invasions and intestine divisions had made it so. An account hereof is
   given us, 2 Chron. xxviii. throughout, as it is especially summed up,
   verse 19 of that chapter, "For the Lord brought Judah low because of
   Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah naked, and transgressed sore
   against the Lord." Amongst their oppressing neighbours that took
   advantage of their low and divided condition, their old enemies the
   Philistines, the posterity of Ham in Canaan, had no small share, as
   verse 18 of that chapter, "The Philistines also had invaded the cities
   of the low country, and of the south of Judah, and had taken
   Bethshemesh, and Ajalon, and Gederoth, and Shocho with the villages
   thereof, and Timnah with the villages thereof, Gimzo also and the
   villages thereof: and they dwelt there."

   In this state of things, God takes notice of the joy and triumphing of
   the whole land of Palestina, -- that is, the country of the
   Philistines, rain that the rod of him that smote them was broken; that
   is, the power of the kings and kingdom of Judah, which, for many
   generations, had prevailed against them, -- especially in the days of
   David, 2 Sam. v. 1, and of Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 6, -- and kept them
   under, was made weak and insufficient for that purpose, verse 29,
   "Rejoice not thou, whole land of Palestina, because the rod of him that
   smote thee is broken."

   It is no wonder if Palestina, that was to be smitten and broken by the
   rod of God among his people, rejoice at their perplexities and
   distresses when we have seen men so to do who pretend to dwell in
   Judah.

   To take them off from their pride and boasting, their triumph and
   rejoicing, the Lord lets them know that, from the people whom they
   despised, and that broken rod they trampled upon, their desolation was
   at hand, though they seem to be perplexed and forsaken for a season,
   verses 29-31, "Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of
   him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come
   forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. And
   the first-born of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in
   safety; and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy
   remnant. Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art
   dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall
   be alone in his appointed times." That it is Hezekiah who is
   principally intended in these lofty allegorical expressions, that was
   then rising up from the broken rod of Judah, is evident. He is termed a
   "cockatrice," and a "fiery flying serpent," not from his own nature,
   which was tender, meek, and gentle, wherein the comparison doth not at
   all lie nor hold; but in respect of the mischief that he should do
   unto, the irrecoverable destruction that he should bring on, the land
   of Palestina: which, accordingly, he performed, 2 Kings xviii. 8, "He
   smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from
   the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city;" that is, he wasted and
   destroyed the whole land, from one end even to the other.

   It is, it seems, no new thing, that the season of the enemies'
   rejoicing, built upon the outward appearance and state of things among
   the people of God, is the beginning of their disappointment and
   desolation. The Lord make it so in this day of England's expectation,
   that the rod of it may be strengthened again, yet to smite the whole
   land of Palestina!

   The words of my text are the result of things upon God's dealings and
   dispensations before mentioned. Uncertain it is, whether they ought to
   be restrained to the immediate prophecy before-going concerning
   Palestina, or whether they relate not also to that in the beginning of
   the chapter, concerning the destruction of the Assyrian, which is
   summed up, verses 24, 25, "The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely
   as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so
   shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my
   mountains tread him under foot: then shall big yoke depart from off
   them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders." It is the
   ruining of Sennacherib and his army in the days of Hezekiah that is
   foretold. Yea, and this seems to claim a peculiar share and influence
   into this, or triumphant close; because, eminently and signally, not
   long after, messengers were thus sent from Babylon to inquire of the
   health and congratulate the good success of Hezekiah. And well had it
   been for him and his posterity had he given those messengers the return
   to their inquiry which was here prepared for him some years before. His
   mistake herein was the fatal ruin of Judah's prosperity. Let not, then,
   that consideration be excluded, though the other insisted on be
   principally intended.

   The words, you see, have in them an inquiry, and a resolution thereof.
   I shall open them briefly as they lie in the text.

   First, There is an inquiry.

   1. "What shall one;" -- what shall, or what ought, -- what is it their
   duty to do, or to say? or, what shall they, upon the evidence of the
   things done, so do or say? Either their duty or the event is denoted,
   or both; as, in such predictions, it often falls out.

   2. "What shall one;" -- that is, any one, or every one. The answer
   spoken of is either the duty of every one to give, or it will be so
   evident, that any one shall be able to give it. The word one, I
   confess, is not expressly in the original, but is evidently included in
   the verb vmhynh?, -- what shall be answered? that is, by any one
   whatever. There is no more in the translation than is eminently
   infolded in the original expression of this thing.

   3. "What shall one then;" -- that is, in the season when God hath
   disappointed the hopes and expectations of the enemies of his people,
   and hath strengthened their rod to bruise them again more than ever.
   That is a season wherein great inquiry will be made about those things.
   "What shall one then answer?" This word also is included in the
   interrogation; and much of the emphasis of it consists therein.

   4. "Answer the messengers;" -- that is, men coming on set purpose to
   make inquiry after the state of affairs among God's people, --
   ambassadors, agents, spies, messengers, -- inquirers of any sort; or
   the word may be taken more largely, for any stranger that came to
   Jerusalem. The Septuagint render these words, basileis ethnon, "the
   kings of the nations." What shall they say in this case? Ti
   apokrithesontai; "what shall they answer," or "say?" -- So that word is
   sometimes used. Some think that for ml'ky?, which they should have
   rendered angeloi, or" messengers," they read mlky? or "kings," by an
   evident mistake; but all things are clear in the original.

   5. "Of the nations;" -- that is, of this or that nation, of any nation
   that shall send to make inquiry: gvy?, "of the heathen," say some.
   Those commonly so called, or "the nations estranged from God," are
   usually denoted by this word in the plural number; yet not always under
   that consideration: so that there may be an enallagy of number, the
   nation for the nations; which is usual.

   "What shall one answer" them? They come to make inquiry after the work
   of God among his people, and it is fit that an answer be given to them.

   Two things are observable in this interrogation:--

   I. The nations about will be diligently inquiring after God's
   dispensations among his people.

   Besides what reports they receive at home, they will have messengers,
   agents, or spies, to make inquiry.

   II. The issues of God's dispensations amongst his people shall be so
   evident and glorious, that every one, any one, though never so weak, if
   not blinded by prejudice, shall be able to give a convincing answer
   concerning them to the inquiries of men.

   Something shall be spoken to these propositions in the process of our
   discourse.

   Secondly, There is the resolution given of the inquiry made in this
   interrogation. Hereof are two parts:-- 1. What God hath done. 2. What
   his people shall or ought to do.

   Wrap up at any time the work of God and the duty of his people
   together, and they will be a sufficient answer to any man's inquiry
   after the state of things among them. As to our wisdom in reference
   unto providential dispensations, this is the whole of man.

   1. The first thing in the answer to be given in is the work of God.
   "The Lord hath founded Zion;" -- Zion, that is, his church, his people,
   his chosen ones, called Zion from the place of their solemn worship in
   the days of David, the figure and type of the gospel church, Heb. xii.
   22, "Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God,
   the heavenly Jerusalem." It is generally used, not for the whole body
   of that people, unless as they were typically considered, in which
   respect they were all holy; but for the secret covenanted ones of that
   people, -- as is evident from all the promises made thereunto, -- yet
   with special regard to the ordinances of worship.

   This God "hath founded;" -- founded, or established, strengthened, that
   it shall not be removed. Ps. lxxxvii. 1 is a comment on these words. He
   "hath founded" it; that is, in faithful promises and powerful
   performances, sufficient for its preservation and establishment.

   Now this expression, "The Lord hath founded Zion," as it is an answer
   to the inquiries of "the messengers of the nation," may be taken two
   ways.

   (1.) As giving an account of the work itself done, or what it is that
   God hath done in and amongst his people. What is the work that is so
   famed abroad, and spoken of throughout the world, that, being attempted
   in many places, and proving abortive, is here accomplished? This is it,
   shall one say: God hath established his people and their interest. It
   is no such thing as you suppose, -- that some are set up, and some
   pulled down; that new fabrics of government or ruling are erected for
   their own sakes, or their sakes who are interested in them. But this is
   the thing that God hath done, he "hath founded Zion;" -- established
   his people and their interest, in despite of all opposition.

   (2.) As giving a reason of the work done. Whence is it that the Lord
   hath wrought so mightily for you, amongst you, in your behalf, --
   preserved you, recovered you, supported you, given you success and
   victory, -- when all nations conspired your ruin? Why, this is the
   reason of it, "God hath founded Zion;" -- he bore it good-will, hath
   taken care of the interest of his church and people.

   The words may be taken in either sense; the issue of their intendment,
   as to our instruction, will be the same. This is the answer to be given
   to "the messengers of the nation," who perhaps expected to have heard
   of their strength and policy, of their counsellors and armies, of their
   wealth and their riches, of their triumphs and enjoyments. No: "God
   hath founded Zion." And well had it been for Hezekiah had he given his
   answer, prepared for him so long before, to the messengers of Babylon.

   III. The great design of God, in his mighty works, and dispensations in
   the world, is the establishment of his people, and their proper
   interest, in their several generations.

   Give me leave to say, it is not for this or that form of government, or
   civil administration of human affairs, -- it is not for these or those
   governors, -- much less for the advantage of one or other sort of men,
   for the enthroning of any one or other persuasion, gainful or helpful
   to some, few or more, that God hath wrought his mighty works amongst
   us; but it is that Zion may be founded, and the general interest of all
   the sons and daughters of Zion be preserved; -- and so far as any thing
   lies in a subserviency thereunto, so far, and no farther, is it with
   him accepted. And whatever, on what account soever, sets up against it,
   shall be broken in pieces.

   What answer, then, should we give to inquirers? "That the Lord hath
   founded Zion." This is that, and that alone, which we should insist
   upon, and take notice of, as the peculiar work of God amongst us. Let
   the reports of other nations be what they will, -- let them acquaint
   the messengers of one another with their glory, triumphs, enlarging of
   their empires and dominions, -- when it is inquired what he hath done
   in England, let us say, "He hath founded Zion." And he will not leave
   until every man concerned in the work shall be able to say, We have
   busied ourselves about things of no moment, and consumed our days and
   strength in setting up sheaves that must bow hereunto. This is the main
   of God's intendment; and whilst it is safe, he hath the glory and end
   of his dispensations.

   2. The other part of the answer relates to the people: "The poor of his
   people shall trust in it."

   The words contain either their duty, -- they ought to do so; or the
   event, -- they shall do so; or both jointly.

   (1.) "The poor of his people," verse 30, they are called, "The
   firstborn of the poor and needy;" that is, those who are very poor.
   Now, this expression may denote either the people in general, who had
   been poor and afflicted, -- and so "the poor of his people" is as much
   as "his poor people," -- or some in particular, that, partly upon the
   account of their low outward condition, partly on the account of their
   lowliness of mind, are called "The poor of his people;" and so the
   words are excellently paraphrased, Zeph. iii. 12, 13, "I will also
   leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall
   trust in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel shall not do
   iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in
   their mouth; ... and none shall make them afraid." We may take the
   words in a sense comprising both these; namely, for the poor preserved
   remnant, carried through the fiery trial, and preserved to see some
   comfortable issue of God's dealing with them, though yet wrestling with
   difficulties and perplexities.

   (2.) What shall they do? They "shall trust in it;" vvh ychsv?, "and in
   it they shall trust;" -- that is, being "in it, they shall trust,"
   confide, acquiesce, namely, in the Lord, who hath wrought this work;
   or, "in it," that is, either in the work of God, or in Zion so
   established by God.

   The word here used for "trusting," is sometimes taken for to "repair"
   or to retreat to any thing, and not properly to put trust, affiance, or
   confidence; and so it is rendered in the margin of your books, "They
   shall betake themselves to it." So is the word used, Judges ix. 15; Ps.
   xxxvi. 7. So the intendment is, -- that the poor, preserved people of
   God, seeing his design to found Zion, and to establish the interest of
   his chosen, shall leave off all other designs, alms, and contrivances,
   and wind up all on the same bottom:-- they shall not, at least they
   ought not (for I told you the words might denote either their duty,
   what they ought to do; or the event, what they shall do), set up
   designs and aims of their own, and contend about other things; but
   betake their hopes to that which is the main intendment of God, the
   establishment of the interest of his people, and cast all other things
   in a subserviency thereunto. The sum is, --

   IV. It is the duty of God's poor preserved remnant, laying aside all
   other aims and contrivances, to betake themselves to the work of God,
   founding Zion, and preserving the common interest of his people.

   Of the propositions thus drawn from the words, I shall treat severally,
   so far as they may be foundations of the inferences intended. And, --

   I. The nations about will be diligently inquiring concerning God's
   dispensations among his people; -- their eyes are upon them, and they
   will be inquiring after them.

   In the handling of this, and all that follows, I humbly desire that you
   would consider in what capacity, as to the discharge of this work, I
   look upon myself and you. As you are hearers of the word of God (in
   which state alone at present, though with reference to your designed
   employment, I look upon you), you are not at all distinguished from
   others or among yourselves, but as you are believers or not, --
   regenerate persons, or coming short thereof. And on this account, as I
   shall not speak of my rulers without reverence, so I shall endeavour to
   speak to my hearers with authority.

   I say, then, there are certain affections and principles, that are
   active in the nations, that will make them restless, and always put
   them upon this inquiry. The people of God, on one account or other,
   shall be, in all seasons, a separated people, Num. xxiii. 9, "Lo, the
   people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations;"
   yea, they are separated from them, whilst they are in their bowels, and
   dwell in the midst of them, Mic. v. 7, 8. Whether they are amongst them
   as the spring of their mercies or the rise of their destruction (one of
   which they will always be), yet they are not of them. No sooner, then,
   is any people, or portion of them, thus dedicated to God, but all the
   nations about, and those amongst them not engaged in the same way with
   them, instantly look on them as utterly severed from them. Having other
   ways, ends, and interests than they, -- being built up wholly on
   another account and foundation, -- they reckon not of them as a people
   and a nation. The conclusion they make concerning them is that of
   Haman, Esth. iii. 8, "There is a certain people scattered abroad, and
   dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and
   their laws are diverse from all people." Not their moral and judicial
   laws, which were the sum of that perfection which all nations aimed at,
   -- on which account they said of them, "Surely this great nation is a
   wise and understanding people," Deut. iv. 6; and the keeping of those
   laws was their wisdom and understanding among all nations; -- nor yet
   merely the laws of their religious worship; but the whole way,
   interest, design, profession of that people, is comprised in this
   expression, -- they "are diverse from all people." Looking on them in
   this state, they have principles, as I said, that will carry them out
   to an inquiry into their state and condition.

   1. They are full of envy against them: "They shall be ashamed for their
   envy at the people," Isa. xxvi. 11. Looking on them as wholly separated
   from them, and standing on another account than they do, they are full
   of envy at them. Envy is a restless passion, full of inquiries and
   jealousies; the more it finds of poison, the more it swells and feeds.
   It will search into the bottom of that which its eye is fixed on. The
   transaction of the whole business between Nehemiah and Sanballat gives
   light to this consideration. See Neh. iv. 1-6. And ever the nearer any
   nation is to this people, the greater is their envy. It was Edom, and
   Moab, and Ammon, the nations round about, that were most filled with
   wrath and envy against Israel. Yea, when that people was divided among
   themselves, and the true worship of God remained with Judah, and they
   became the separated people, Ephraim was instantly filled with envy
   against them, Isa. xi. 13, "The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and
   the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy
   Judah; for there must be a desire of the same thing, or something
   answering it (which befalls in proximity of habitation), that a man is
   envied for in him that envies him. This is one fountain of the nations'
   inquiry after your affairs.

   Through the providence of God you dwell alone; that is, as to your main
   design and interest. You are not reckoned among the nations, as to the
   state of being the people of God. So far, and under that consideration,
   they count you not worthy to be reckoned or esteemed a nation. They
   envy to see the men of their contempt exalted, blessed. The same is the
   condition of Ephraim amongst us; men not engaged in the same cause and
   way with you, they are full of envy. Wherefore do they inquire of your
   welfare, -- of your state and condition, -- of your affairs? Is it that
   they love you, -- that they desire your prosperity, -- that they would
   have you an established nation? No; only their envy makes them
   restless. And, as it is in general, so no sooner doth any man, upon a
   private account, separate himself from the public interest of the
   people of God, but he is instantly filled with envy against the
   managers of it. And, notwithstanding all our animosities, if this hath
   not befallen us in our differences and divisions, I no way doubt a
   peaceable composure and blessed issue of the whole. If envy be not at
   work, we shall have establishment.

   2. A second principle whereby they are put upon their inquiries, is
   fear. They fear them, and therefore will know how things stand with
   them, and what are the works of God amongst them, Heb. iii. 7, "I saw
   the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of
   Midian did tremble." "I saw" it: when God was doing the great work,
   described in that chapter with many lofty allegorical expressions, of
   bringing his people out of bondage, to settle them in a new state and
   condition, the nations round about, that looked on them, were filled
   with affliction, fear, and trembling. They were afraid whither these
   things would grow. Ps. xlviii. 1-6, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to
   be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.
   Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on
   the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her
   palaces for a refuge. For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by
   together. They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and
   hasted away. For fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a
   woman in travail." The close of all the considerations of these kings
   and their attendants is, that fear took hold upon them. Fear is
   solicitous and inquiring; it will leave nothing unsearched, unlooked
   into; it would find the inside and bottom of every thing wherein it is
   concerned. Though the more it finds, the more it is increased; yet the
   greater still are its inquiries, fearing more what it knows not, than
   what it knows, -- what is behind, than what appears. This puts the
   nations upon their inquiry; they are afraid what these things will grow
   to. Ps. cxxvi. 2, "Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our
   tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath
   done great things for them;" -- they are the words of men pondering
   their affairs, and filled with fear at the issue. If God do such things
   as these for them, what think you will be the issue? I dare say of the
   proudest adversaries of the people of God at this day, notwithstanding
   all their anger, they are more afraid than angry. The like also may be
   said concerning their wrath, revenge, and curiosity, -- all pressing
   them to such inquiries.

   This is the issue of this proposal: If we are not a separated people
   unto God; -- if our portion be as the portion of the men of the world,
   and we are also as they, reckoned among the nations; -- if we have had
   only national works, in the execution of wrath on men fitted thereunto
   amongst us; -- woe unto us that we were ever engaged in the whole
   affair that for some years we have been interested in! It will be
   bitterness and disappointment in the latter end. If we be the Lord's
   peculiar lot, separate unto him; the nations about, and many amongst
   ourselves, on the manifold accounts before mentioned, will be inquiring
   into our state and condition and the work of God amongst us. Let us
   consider what we shall answer them, -- what we shall say unto them.
   What is the account we give of God's dealings with us, and of his
   mighty works amongst us? -- what is the profession we make If we seek
   ourselves, -- if we are full of complaints and repinings one against
   another, -- if every one hath his own aims, his own designs (for what
   we do, not what we say, is the answer we make), -- if we measure the
   work of God by its suitableness to our private interests; -- if this be
   the issue of all the dealings of God amongst us, we shall not have
   wherein to rejoice. But of these things afterward. The second
   proposition is, --

   II. The issue of God's dealing with and dispensations among his people,
   shall be so perspicuous and glorious, that one, any one, every one,
   shall be able to give an answer to them that make inquiries about them.

   "What shall one then say?" Whether it be for judgment or mercy, all is
   one; -- he will make the event to be evident and glorious. He "is our
   rock, and his work is perfect;" and he will have his works so known as
   that they may all praise him. Be it in judgment, see what issue he will
   bring his work unto, Deut. xxix. 24, 25, "Even all nations shall say,
   Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land what meaneth the heat
   of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the
   covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them,
   when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt." "Men shall say,"
   -- ordinary men shall be able to give this sad account of the reason of
   the works of God, and his dealings with his people. So also as to his
   dispensations in mercy, Isa. xxvi. 11, "Lord, when thy hand is lifted
   up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their
   envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them."
   He will not leave the work of his favour towards his people, until
   those who are willing to shut their eyes against it do see and
   acknowledge his hand and counsel therein.

   I do not say this will hold in every dispensation of God, in all
   seasons, from the beginning to the ending of them. In many works of his
   power and righteousness he will have us bow our souls to the law of his
   providence, and his sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness therein, when his
   footsteps are in the deep, and his paths are not known; which is the
   reasonablest thing in the world. But this, generally, is the way of his
   proceedings, especially in the common concernments of his people, and
   in the disposal of their public interests:-- his works, his will and
   counsels therein, shall be eminent and glorious. It is chiefly from
   ourselves and our own follies that we come short of such an
   acquaintance with the works of God as to be able to give an answer to
   every one that shall demand an account of them. When David was
   staggered at the works of God, he gives this reason of it, "I was
   foolish, and as a beast before him," Ps. lxxiii. 22. That
   thoughtfulness and wisdom which keeps us in darkness, is our folly.

   There are sundry things that are apt to cloud our apprehensions as to
   the mind of God in his dealing with his people. As, --

   1. Self-fulness of our own private apprehensions and designs. A private
   design and aim in the works of Providence, is like a private,
   by-opinion in matters of religion. You seldom see a man take up a
   by-opinion (if I may so speak), but he instantly lays more weight upon
   it than upon all religion besides. If that be not enthroned, be it a
   matter of never so small importance, he scarce cares what becomes of
   all other truths which he doth embrace. When men have fixed to
   themselves that this or that particular must be the product of God's
   providential dispensations, that alone fills their aims and desires,
   and leaves no room for any other apprehension. Have we not seen
   persons, in the days wherein we live, so fixed on a reign, a kingdom,
   -- I know not what, that they would scarce allow God himself to be wise
   if their minds were not satisfied? "Give me this child, or I die!" Now,
   is it probable, that, when men's whole souls are possessed with a
   design and desire of their own, so fully that they are cast into the
   mould of it, are transformed into the image and likeness of it, -- they
   can see, hear, think, talk, dream nothing else, -- they shall be able
   to discern aright, and acquiesce in the general issue of God's
   dispensations, or be able to "answer the messengers of the nations,"
   making inquiry concerning them? Fear, hope, wrath, anger,
   discontentment, with a rabble of the like mind-darkening affections,
   are the attendants of such a frame. He who knows any thing of the power
   of prejudices in diverting the minds of men from passing a right
   judgment on things proposed to them, and the efficacy of disordered
   affections for the creating and confirming of such prejudices, will
   discern the power of this darkening disturbance.

   2. Private enmities, private disappointments, private prejudices, are
   things of the same consideration. Let a man of a free and large heart
   and spirit abstract his thoughts from the differences that are among
   the people of God in this nation, and keep himself from an engagement
   into any particular design and desire; -- it is almost impossible that
   he should wink so hard but that the issue and reason of God's dealing
   with us will shine in upon his understanding, so that he shall be able
   to give an account of them to them that shall make inquiry. Will he not
   be able to "say to the messengers of the nations," and all other
   observers of the providential alterations of the late times that have
   passed over us, The people of God in this nation were despised, but are
   now in esteem: they were under subjection to cruel task-masters, --
   some in prisons, some banished to the ends of the earth, merely on the
   account of the worship of their God; the consciences of all inthralled,
   and of many defiled and broken on the scandals laid before them; whilst
   iniquity and superstition were established by law; -- but this is that
   which God hath now done and accomplished, -- the imprisoned are set at
   liberty, the banished are recalled; they that have lain among the pots
   have got doves' wings; conscience is no more inthralled; their
   sacrifices are not mixed with their blood, nor do they meet with
   trembling in the worship of God? O ye "messengers of the nations," this
   is that which the Lord hath done! Who, I say, not entangled with one
   prejudicate engagement or other, may not see this with half an eye? But
   such is our state and condition, such our frame and temper, so full are
   we of our own desires, and so perplexed with our own disappointments,
   that we can see nothing, know nothing, nor are able to give any word of
   account that may tend to the glory of our God to them that inquire of
   us; but every one vents his own discontentments, his own fears, his own
   perplexities. The Lord look down in mercy, and let us not be found
   despisers of the work of his power and goodness! Ah! how many glorious
   appearances have I seen, of which I said, Under the shadow hereof shall
   we live among the heathen! but in a short space they have passed away.
   Shall we, therefore, choose us a captain, and go down again into Egypt?
   The third proposition ensues.

   III. The great design of God, in his mighty works and dispensations, is
   the establishment of his people, and their proper interest, in their
   several generations.

   To make this clear, some few things are previously to be considered;
   as, --

   1. The proper interest of the people of God is to glorify him in their
   several places, stations, and generations: none of us are to live unto
   ourselves. It is for this end that God hath taken a peculiar people to
   himself in this world, that his name may be borne forth by them, --
   that he might be glorified by them and upon them. This is the great end
   whereunto they are designed, and that which they ought to aim at only,
   even to glorify God. If this be not done, they fall off from, and are
   beside their proper interest. Besides innumerable testimonies to this
   purpose, I might give evidence to this assertion from God's eternal,
   electing love towards them, with his intendment therein; -- from their
   redemption out of every kindred, tribe, and family under heaven, by the
   blood of Christ; -- from their separation from the world, by their
   effectual calling, and the like considerations. But I have the
   consenting voice of them all in general, and of every individual in
   particular, crying out, This is our, this is my proper interest, that
   we may glorify God; fail we and come short in this, we come short and
   fail in the whole: so that I shall not need farther to confirm it.

   2. God is the only proper and infallible judge, in what state and
   condition his people will best and most glorify his name in their
   several generations. I think I need not insist on the proof of this
   assertion. "Should it be according to thy mind," saith he, in Job
   xxxiv. 33; or according to the mind of God? Should the disposal of
   things be according to his will, or ours? Whose end is to be obtained
   in the issue of all? is it not his glory? Who hath the most wisdom to
   order things aright, -- he or we? Who hath the chiefest interest in,
   and right unto, the things contended about? Who sees what will be the
   event of all things, -- he or we? Might men be judges, would they not
   universally practically conclude, that the condition wherein they might
   best glorify God would be, that they might have peace and rest from
   their enemies, union and a good understanding among themselves, -- that
   they might dwell peaceably in the world, without control, and have the
   necks of their adversaries under their feet? This in general:-- in
   particular, that this or that persuasion, that they are peculiarly
   engaged in, might be always enthroned; that their proper sheaf might
   stand upright, and all others bow thereunto; and that nothing is
   contrary to the glory of God but what disturbs this condition of
   affairs? I know not what may be accomplished before the end of the
   world; from the beginning of it hitherto, for the most part, the
   thoughts of God have not been as these thoughts of ours. He hath judged
   otherwise as to the condition wherein his people should glorify him.
   God is judge himself; let us, I pray you, leave the determination of
   this difference to him. And if it be so as to our general condition,
   much more is it so as to our peculiar designs and aims, wherein we are
   divided.

   3. Providential dispensations, are discoveries of the wisdom of God in
   disposing of the condition of his people, so as they may best glorify
   him. To dispute against the condition wherein at any time we are cast
   by his providence, is to rise up against his wisdom in disposing of
   things to his own glory.

   These things being premised, it is easy to give light and evidence to
   the assertion laid down.

   I might go through the stories of God's dealings with the nations of
   the world, and his own people amongst them, and manifest in each
   particular that still his design was the establishment of his people's
   proper interest. But, instead of instances, take two or three
   testimonies that occur. Deut. xxxii. 8, "When the Most High divided to
   the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he
   set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of
   Israel." From the beginning, God hath so ordered all the nations of the
   world, that they may bear a proportion to what he hath to do with his
   people; that he may so order and dispose of them, as that his design
   towards his own may be accomplished. Amos ix. 9, "For, lo, I will
   command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as
   corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the
   earth." All the stirs and commotions that are in the world, are but
   God's siftings of all the nations, that his chosen ones may be fitted
   for himself, and not lost in the chaff and rubbish. Heb. xii. 26, 27,
   "Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying,
   Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this
   word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are
   shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be
   shaken may remain." All the shakings of the nations are, that the
   unshaken interest of the saints may be established. Isa. li. 15, 16,
   "But I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared:
   The Lord of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth,
   and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant
   the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion,
   Thou art my people." Heaven and earth, and all things therein, are
   disposed of, that Zion may be built and established. All God's works in
   this world lie in a subserviency to this end and purpose. Doth God at
   any time prosper an evil or a wicked nation? -- an antichristian
   nation? Is it for their own sakes? Doth God take care for oxen? hath he
   delight in the prosperity of his enemies? No; it is only that they may
   be a rod in his hand for a little moment, and a staff for his
   indignation against the miscarriages of his people, Isa. x. 5, "O
   Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine
   indignation." This, in such a season, is their proper interest, -- to
   glorify God in distress. Doth he break, ruin, and destroy them, as
   sooner or later he will leave them neither root nor branch? All that he
   doth to them is a recompense for the controversy of Zion, Isa. xxxiv.
   8, "For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of
   recompenses for the controversy of Zion."

   We see not, perhaps, at this day, wherein the concernment of the
   remnant of God's people doth lie, in the great concussions of the
   nations in the world; we know not what design in reference to them may
   lie therein. Alas! we are poor, short-sighted creatures; we know
   nothing that is before us, -- much less can we make a judgment of the
   work of God, in the midst of the darkness and confusion that is in the
   world, until he hath brought it to perfection. All lies open and naked
   to his eye, and the beauty of all his works will one day appear. The
   true and proper interest of his people, so as they may best glorify him
   in the world, is that which he is pursuing in all these dispensations.

   The grounds, reasons, and foundations of this truth, in the counsel,
   from the love and attributes of God, the redemption in the blood of
   Jesus, I must not now pursue. This one thing I shall only offer:-- The
   state of Zion, of the people of God, being much to depend upon the
   disposals of them whom God, by his providence, raiseth up to rule and
   government among the nations; though sometimes he sets up men whose
   hearts and minds are upright with himself, yet he will not trust his
   own to their mercy and the variableness of their wills in general; but
   will so dispose, alter, weaken and strengthen them, to set them up, and
   pull down, that it shall be their interest (to which they will always
   abide faithful) so to deal with his people as he will have them dealt
   with, that they may best glorify him in their generations.

   If it be in the infinite, wise counsel of God, to give his mints in
   this nation peace and tranquillity, they shall not have it precariously
   upon the wills of men; for he will not leave moulding and disposing of
   the affairs of the nation, until it find that it is its proper interest
   to give and measure out unto them what is to the mind of God. All that
   hath been done amongst us, all that we are in expectation of, turns on
   this hinge alone. But lastly, --

   IV. It is the duty of God's preserved remnant, laying aside all other
   aims and contrivances, to betake themselves to the work of God,
   founding Zion, and preserving the common interest of his people.

   "God hath founded Zion, and the poor of the people shall trust
   therein," or betake themselves unto it. We are apt to wander on hills
   and mountains, every one walking in the imagination of his own heart,
   forgetting our resting-place. When God was bringing the power of the
   Babylonian upon his people, the prophet Jeremiah could neither persuade
   the whole nation to submit to his government, nor many individuals
   among them to fall to him in particular. And when the time of their
   deliverance from that captivity was accomplished, how hardly were they
   persuaded to embrace the liberty tendered! Notwithstanding all
   encouragements and advantages, the greatest part of them abide in that
   place of their bondage to this day. So hardly are we brought to close
   with God's peculiar work, and our own proper interest, although his
   glory and our own safety lie therein. The reasons of this frame I have
   in part touched before; I shall add but two more.

   1. Discontentment with our peculiar lot and portion in the work of the
   Lord and common interest of his people. It is with us, in our civil
   affairs, as the apostle saith it is not in the natural body, nor ought
   to be in the spiritual or church body. The foot doth not say, Because I
   am not the head, I am not of the body; no, it doth not, but is content
   with its own place and usefulness. It is so with the rest of the
   members, that are more noble, and yet are not the head neither. It is
   otherwise with us. I interpose not my thoughts as to your present
   constitution, and the order of things amongst us. I speak no more than
   I have sundry years since, sundry times complained of to a parliament
   of this commonwealth. Every one, if not personally, yet in association
   with them of some peculiar persuasion with himself, would be the head;
   and because they are not, they conclude they are not of the body, nor
   will care for the body, but rather endeavour its ruin. Because their
   peculiar interest doth not reign, the common interest shall be
   despised. And this hath been the temper, or rather distemper, of the
   people of God in this nation now for sundry years; and what it may yet
   produce I know not. Only, for the present, the work of God in founding
   Zion, in pursuing his people's common interest, is despised, thought
   light of, and all the pleasant things thereof trodden under foot.
   Unless God end this frame, my expectations, I confess, of a happy issue
   of the great work of God amongst us will wither day by day.

   2. The suffering of our wills and judgments, as to the products of
   providence, to run before the will of God. This the experience of these
   days hath taught us. Those who have a forwardness in prescribing to God
   what he should do, as to the "modus" or manner of the work which at any
   time he hath to accomplish, are stubbornly backward in closing with
   what he doth actually produce. These, and the like things, which might
   be in large catalogues reckoned up, one after another, detain the minds
   of men from acquiescing in the common interest of Zion, whose
   preservation is the whole peculiar design of the great work of God in
   any place or season. -- These foundations being laid in the words of
   the text, let us now see what inferences from them may be made for our
   advantage and instruction.

   Use 1. Let us, then, consider diligently what we shall "answer the
   messengers of the nations." Some think that by the "nation" is
   peculiarly intended the nation of the Jews themselves, whose messengers
   from all parts came to Jerusalem to inquire of the work of God, and to
   advise about the affairs of the whole. In this sense you are the
   messengers of this nation, to whom an answer is to be returned. And
   because the text saith, one shall do it, -- that is, any one, -- I
   shall make bold, before we close, to give an answer to your inquiries,
   and endeavour to satisfy your expectations. In the meantime, as the
   words seem more directly to respect the inquiries of other nations; so
   it is in a special manner incumbent on you, who will be especially
   inquired of, to return an answer to them. Be provided, then, I pray, in
   your own hearts, to give an answer in this business. And, oh, that you
   could do it with one heart and lip, -- with one consent and judgment!
   On whom are the eyes of this nation, and of those round about? from
   whom are the expectations of men? to whom should we go to inquire what
   God hath done in this nation, what he is doing, what are the effects of
   his power, if not of you? Some of you have been engaged in this work
   with the Lord from the beginning. And I hope none of you have been
   engaged in heart or hand against it; and you speak still with living
   affections to the old and common cause. If you will be able to steer
   your course aright, if you would take one straight step, have in a
   readiness an acquaintance with the work of God, what it is that he aims
   at, by which you may be guided in all your undertakings. Suppose, now,
   a man, or men, should come and ask of you what God hath done in these
   nations, what he hath wrought and effected, what is brought forth? Have
   you an answer in readiness? Certainly God hath done so much, as that he
   expects you should be able to give an account of it. Take heed that
   every one of you be not ready to speak the disquietness of your own
   spirits, and so cast contempt on the work of God. Something else is
   required of you. I have sometimes, in darkness and under temptations,
   myself begun to think, that what hath been, is the thing that is, and
   there is no new thing under the sun; -- as it hath been among the
   heathen of old, so it hath been amongst us; or as it was with Israel, 1
   Kings xvi. 21, 22, "Then were the people of Israel divided into two
   parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath to make him
   king, and half followed Omri; but the people that followed Omri
   prevailed against the people that followed Tibni the son of Ginath: so
   Tibni died, and Omri reigned:" -- that a common thing, and frequent in
   the world, had befallen us, wherein God had no hand but that of common
   providence, in dashing one sort of men against another. So foolish have
   I been, and as a beast, so ready to condemn the generation of the
   righteous, -- so unbelieving and ready to cast away the faith and
   prayer of ten thousand saints, one of whose sighs shall not be lost.
   But such fearful effects, sometimes trouble, disquietment,
   disappointment, and carnal fear will produce. But certain it is, none
   of the many cries of the people of God shall be lost, nor their faith
   be disappointed. God hath a peculiar design in hand, and we are to find
   it out, that we may be able to answer them that make inquiries. If you
   lay not this foundation of your procedures, I shall not wonder if you
   err in your ways. It is your pole-star, and will be so, by which your
   whole course is to be steered; -- your shield, which whilst it is safe,
   though you die, your glory abides.

   But you will say, What, then, is this great design of God among his
   people? Let the Holy One of Israel bring nigh his work, that we may
   know it. What is that true and general interest of Zion that he hath
   founded? Let us know it, that we may be able to give an answer to them
   that inquire after it. Ask themselves, -- those who have prayed for it,
   waited for it, expected it, are made partakers of it, do enjoy it, live
   upon it, -- probably they will be able to give you an account what is
   their peculiar and only interest as to these providential
   dispensations; -- surely they cannot but know that which they enjoy and
   live upon.

   But you will say, Of all others this is the most unlikely and
   irrational course, -- a way to perplex and entangle, not to inform us
   at all. Is it not clear that they are divided among themselves? Is not
   their language, is not their voice, like that of the Jews at the
   building of the second temple? Some shouted for joy, and some wept at
   the remembrance of the former temple? Are not their desires rather like
   that, and those of theirs who built Babel, than of those who cry Grace,
   grace, whilst God is founding Zion? Do not many of them utterly deny
   any work or design of God (I mean that is peculiar) in the affairs of
   this nation, and utterly fall away from the society of them who are
   otherwise persuaded? And is it likely that we can gather any resolution
   from them? Doth not the greatest danger of our own miscarriage lie in
   this, that we may be apt to attend to their peculiar desires, and so to
   divide amongst ourselves as they are divided?

   And is this the return that indeed is to be made? Oh, that mine eyes
   might run down with water clay and night on this account, -- that my
   heart might be moved within me, for the folly of my people! "O foolish
   people and unwise, do ye thus requite the Lord?" It is true, many at
   all times have desired the day of the Lord, who, when it hath come,
   have not been able to abide it; -- it hath consumed them, and all the
   principles whereon they have acted, and upon which they did desire it.
   But that those who have their share in it indeed, should be thus broken
   among themselves, should bite one another, devour one another, and
   scarce allow one another to be sharers in the common interest of the
   saints in that day, -- this is a lamentation, and shall be for a
   lamentation. But yet something may be farther pressed on them in this
   business. When one went to demand of the philosophers of the several
   sects which was the best of them, every one named his own sect and
   party in the first place; but all of them, in the second place, granted
   that of Plato to be the most eminent. The inquirer knew quickly what to
   conclude: setting aside prejudicate affections, self-love, and
   by-interests, he saw that the judgment of all ran on that of Plato, as
   the best and most eminent sect; and which thereupon he preferred before
   the rest.

   May not some inquiry of the like nature be made of the people of God
   amongst us? Ask them, What is the common interest of Zion, that God
   takes care of, that he hath founded in the days wherein we live, in the
   great transactions of providence that have passed over us? Say some,
   That such a form of church worship and discipline be established, such
   a rule of doctrine confirmed, and all men whatever compelled to submit
   unto them; herein lies that kingdom of Christ which he takes care of,
   this is that which God will have founded and established: and what this
   form, what this rule is, we are to declare. -- That that discipline be
   eradicated, the ministers' provision destroyed, and the men of such a
   persuasion enthroned, to rule all the rest at their pleasure; seeing
   that, notwithstanding all their pretended reformation, they are yet
   antichristian, say others. -- Say some, That a kingdom and rule be set
   up in our hands, to be exercised in the name and authority of Jesus
   Christ, taking away all law and magistracy already established, to
   bring forth the law of righteousness conceived in our minds, and
   therein to be preserved; -- all uniting only in this, that a
   sovereignty as unto administration of the things of God is to be
   theirs. -- Say others, lastly, That the people of God be delivered from
   the hands of their cruel enemies, that they may serve the Lord without
   fear all the days of their lives, in righteousness and holiness; --
   that, notwithstanding their present differences, they may live
   peaceably one with, or, at least, one by another, enjoying rule and
   promotion as they are fitted for employments, and as he gives promotion
   in whose hand it is; -- that godliness and the love of the Lord Jesus
   Christ be preserved, protected, and secured, from a return of the hand
   of violence upon it. Herein, say some, lies the common interest of the
   people of God; this he hath wrought out for them, -- herein he hath
   founded Zion. Ask, now, the people of God in this nation, I say, or any
   of them, one or more, at any time, what he or they look upon as the
   chief thing aimed at in the mighty dispensations of God amongst us.
   Will they not every one answer, in the first place, That is aimed at,
   that is to be enthroned, that so doing is the will of God, the end of
   his works among them, wherein their or his particular engagement and
   interest lies? But ask them now again, in the second place, Which of
   the remaining persuasions, concerning the work of God and the common
   interest of his people, they would prefer next to their own? Will they
   not all unanimously fix on that mentioned in the last place, rather
   than any of the others? Is it not, then, evident, that, setting aside
   prejudicate affections, and such determinations as may reasonably be
   supposed to arise from them, -- laying away all private animosities,
   and desire of rule and pre-eminence, with other worldly and selfish
   designs, -- the universality of the people of God do answer to them
   that inquire, that in the last persuasion lies the aim and work of God
   in our generation? For my own part, on this and other considerations
   hereafter to be mentioned, I shall dare freely to give this answer to
   the messengers of this or any nation in the world who shall make
   inquisition after the work of God amongst us, and his design in
   reference to his people; and it is no other than my heart hath been
   fixed upon for many years, and which I have several times, on one
   account or other, intimated or pressed unto the parliament, which first
   undertook to manage, and successfully carried on, that cause in whose
   protection you are now engaged.

   This, I say, then, "God hath founded Zion;" he hath taken care of the
   generation of the righteous, the children of Zion, however differenced
   among themselves; -- hath broken the yoke of their oppressors, given
   them peace, ordered the affairs of this nation so, that they do or may
   all of them enjoy quietness, one not envying the other, nor they vexing
   them, but, serving God according to the light which he is graciously
   pleased to afford them, they wait for farther manifestation of the
   glorious gospel; and that God hath broken, and will break, every design
   that, either openly and professedly, or under specious pretences of
   crying, "Lo, here is Christ, or, Lo, there," hath sought, or shall seek
   and endeavour, to subvert this his work, to the preservation whereof he
   will certainly mould the government and interest of this nation;
   ordering its affairs in a peculiar manner on that account only, and not
   that he delighteth in one way or form whereunto it hath been cast more
   than another. And whatever high-minded men, full of their own
   apprehensions and wisdom, may do, to this "work of God the poor of his
   people shall repair." And for my insisting on this answer, and this
   only, I have these farther reasons to add for my justification:--

   (1.) This is an interest comprehensive of all the sons of Zion, whose
   founding God intends; it excludes none that can claim a share in the
   city of the living God. God takes equal care of all the dwelling-places
   of Zion. Every dwelling-place of Zion hath its beauty, hath its glory,
   Isa. iv. 5. The glory of one may be as the glory of the sun; of
   another, as the moon; of others, as the stars; and those differing from
   one another in glory; -- yet each hath its glory; "and upon it there
   shall be a defence," -- a covering, a protection. This is the promise;
   this hath been the work of God.

   (2.) This compriseth all them who have lived by faith, and abode in
   supplications in reference to God's late dispensations amongst us. Who
   dare despise any one of those little ones, and say, God hath heard me,
   not you; regarded me, not you; you have no share or portion in the
   returns of supplications which we enjoy?

   (3.) This alone preserveth the dwellers of Zion from offering violence
   one to another, -- from taking the work of Babylon out of its hands,
   and devouting one another. Let any other apprehension whatever of the
   work of God be embraced, and the first work that thereby men will be
   engaged in is the oppressing, persecuting, ruining of their brethren;
   which, whether it be the founding of Zion or no, the day of judgment
   shall determine.

   (4.) This is that which the common enemy seeks to destroy. It is not
   this or that party that he would devour; it is not this or that
   persuasion he would cast down; his hatred is pros to genos, "against
   the whole race" and kind. This is that which he would accomplish, that
   all the children of God, however differenced among themselves, might be
   ruined, destroyed, cast down, and rooted out forever, -- that the name
   of Israel might no more be had in remembrance. This, then, is that
   which God, in their disappointment, aims to establish.

   (5.) Because the founding of Zion doth not consist in this or that form
   of the civil administration of human affairs, there being nothing
   promised nor designed concerning them, but that they be laid in an
   orderly subserviency to the common interest of the saints; which, let
   men do what they will, yea, what they can, all governments shall at
   last be brought unto. And who is there amongst us that, in singleness
   of heart, dares make such an "answer to the messengers of the nations,"
   inquiring after the peculiar work of God amongst us, -- namely, that it
   consists in the establishment of this or that form of civil
   administration, though much of the work of God lies therein, in
   relation to this general end? This, then, is the answer which I "shall
   give to the messengers of the nations;" and of it there are these three
   parts:--

   [1.] God hath broken, destroyed, ruined them and their contrivances,
   who made it their business to overthrow Zion, and to root out the
   generation of the righteous, not under this or that way or form,
   whereby they are differenced among themselves, but as such, as the
   saints of the Holy One; and will continue so to do.

   [2.] He hath given to them -- to "the poor of his people" -- peace,
   liberty, freedom, from impositions on their consciences, with much
   glorious light in several degrees in his worship and service.

   [3.] He hath cast (as he hath promised) the power of the nation into a
   subserviency to this common interest of Christ and his people in this
   world; and hath made, or will make, them to understand, that as the
   peace of Zion lies in their peace, so their peace lies in the peace of
   Zion. And what to say more "to the messengers of the nations," I know
   not.

   Use 2. If this, then, be the work of God, let us repair to it. The poor
   of the people shall trust therein, or join themselves thereunto. That
   you may do this in judgment, be pleased to take these directions,
   which, with all humility, I offer to you, and I hope from the Lord:--

   (1.) Engage in no way, no counsels, be the reasonings and pretences for
   them never so specious, which have an inconsistency with this common
   interest of Zion in this generation. If, instead of repairing to the
   work of God, you should be found contending against it, and setting up
   your own wisdom in the place of the wisdom of God, it would not be to
   your advantage. I know many things will be suggested unto you; --
   settling of religion, establishing a discipline in the church, not to
   tolerate errors, and the like. From which discourses I know what
   conclusions some men are apt to draw, if no otherwise, yet from what
   they have been doing for many years. Do we, then, plead for errors and
   unsettlement! God forbid! God hath undertaken to found and establish
   Zion, to settle it, and he will do it; and I pray God you may be
   instrumental therein, according to his mind. He will also give his
   people one heart and one way; and I pray that you, by your example of
   union in love, and by all other good means, may be instrumental towards
   the accomplishment of that promise amongst us. It is only the liberty
   and protection of the people of God as such that is pleaded for; and he
   that shall set up any thing inconsistent therewith, as so set up, will
   lay the foundation of his building in the first-born of his peace, and
   set up the gate of it in the utmost and last of his welfare. In a word,
   the people of God may possibly, in this nation, devour one another, and
   wash their hands in the blood of one another, by widening the breaches
   that are among them, -- and woe be to them that shall be instrumental
   therein! but if ever they come to a coalescency in love and truth, it
   must be by their mutual forbearance of one another, until the Spirit be
   poured down from on high, and the fruits of peace be brought forth
   thereby. And herein the Lord make you as the mountains that bring forth
   righteousness, and the little hills that bring forth peace unto his
   people!

   There are some things that I am afraid of, that lie contrary to what I
   am exhorting you unto. I wish the event may manifest that I am afraid
   without cause. However, give me leave to caution you of them, because I
   cannot be faithful to my call if I do not.

   [1.] Take heed lest that evil be still abiding upon any of our spirits,
   that we should be crying out and calling for reformation without a due
   consideration of what it is, and how it is to be brought about. I wish
   one of many of them who have prayed for it, and complained for want of
   it, had endeavoured to carry it on as they might. Would you have a
   reformation? Be you more humble, more holy, more zealous; delight more
   in the ways, worship, ordinances of God; reform your persons in your
   lives, relations, families, parishes, as to gospel obedience, and you
   will see a glorious reformation indeed. What mean you by a reformation?
   Is it the hurting of others, or doing good to ourselves? Is it a power
   over other men's persons, or our own lusts? God hath now, for sundry
   years, tried us, whether indeed we love reformation or no. Have any
   provoked us or compelled us to defile the worship of God with
   ceremonies or superstitions, and our own consciences therewithal? Have
   we been imposed on in the ways of God by men ignorant of them? Hath not
   God said to us, You that have prayed under persecution for reformation,
   -- you that have fought in the high places of the field for
   reformation, -- you that have covenanted and sworn for reformation, --
   go now, reform yourselves:-- you ministers, preach as often as you
   will, as freely as you please, no man shall control you; live as holily
   as you can, -- pray as often, fast as often as you will, -- be full of
   bounty and good works, giving examples to your flock, none shall
   trouble you; be instant in season, out of season, preach the whole
   counsel of God without control:-- you people, be holy, serve God in
   holiness, -- keep close to his worship and ordinances, love them,
   delight in them, bring forth such fruits as men may glorify God on your
   account; condemn the world, justify the cause of God by a gospel
   conversation, take seven years' peace and plenty, and see what you can
   do? -- If, after all this, we still cry out, Give us a reformation, and
   complain not of our own negligence, folly, hatred of personal
   reformation, to be the only cause of that want, it is easy to judge
   what we would have, had we our desires.

   [2.] Take heed lest any who have formerly desired the day of the Lord,
   considering the purity and holiness wherewith it will be attended, grow
   weary of it and its work, as not being able to abide it, and so lay
   aside all thoughts of growing up with it in the will of God; -- lest
   any say, Is this the day of the Lord, that holiness, godliness, exact
   obedience, should be prized, exalted, esteemed; that profaneness,
   pride, selfishness, formality should be despised, consumed, devoured?
   -- we will have none of this day.

   [3.] Take heed that there rise not up a generation that know not
   Joseph; -- that knew us not in the days of our distress and contending
   with those who would have destroyed us; who were not engaged with us in
   praying, fasting, fighting, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, but were
   unconcerned in all our affairs; who know nothing of the cries, tears,
   trembling, and fears, wherewith this cause hath been managed. Can we
   expect that they should be acted by the spirit of it, or have a due
   sense of what they must be engaged in? What know they of the communion
   we have had with God in this business all along, what answers he hath
   given us, what obligations he hath put upon us thereby? The whole
   business is to them as a story only of that which is past, wherein they
   are not concerned. There are such abiding impressions left on the souls
   of as many as have been engaged in the work of God in this nation, from
   the beginning to the end, as will never be blotted out. If a spirit not
   sensible of former ways should arise amongst us and prevail, it would
   be sad with the interest of Christ and his people in this nation. To
   return to my directions:--

   (2.) Make this work of God your pole-star, that you may steer and guide
   your course by it. In all your consultations and actions, whatever is
   proposed, whatever is to be done, let this consideration attend it --
   But how will it suit the design of God in establishing Zion? Men
   speaking of a thing of manifest evidence, say that it is written with
   the beams of the sun. Give me leave to tell you of a thing that is
   written in the prayers of the saints, the fears of your enemies, the
   condition of this nation, the counsels of princes of the earth, the
   affairs of the nations abroad in the world, -- all the issues of the
   providence of God in these days; all which concurring, I suppose, will
   give as good an evidence as any thing in the like kind is capable of.
   What is this, you will say? It is, in brief, Let the work of God as
   stated be your guide in all your consultations, and it will direct you
   to aim at these ends:--

   [1.] To preserve peace, to compose differences, to make up breaches, to
   avoid all occasions of divisions at home.

   [2.] To make up, unite, gather into one common interest, the Protestant
   nations abroad in the world, that we may stand or fall together, and
   not be devoured one after another. That these are the things which God
   calls you to mind, and do, if you will bear any regard to his present
   work is, I say, written with all the beams of Providence before
   mentioned. If the Lord should suffer you to be regardless either to the
   one or the other, know you not that it would be bitterness in the
   latter end? Ask your friends what they desire, your enemies what they
   fear, the nations abroad what they are doing, -- consider Babylon,
   consider Zion; and if one and the same voice come from them all, not to
   attend unto it, would be not to attend to the voice of God. It is,
   indeed, an easy thing for you to gratify Satan, satiate the desire of
   your enemies, lay a foundation of troubles; -- it is but attending to
   the clamours of men without, and the tumultuating of lusts and carnal
   wisdom within, and the whole work is done. But to carry on the work of
   God in the particulars mentioned, -- this is not so easy a task; --
   self must be denied, many glorious pretences laid aside, contrary
   reasonings answered, men's weaknesses, miscarriages, failings borne
   withal, because they are men; and, which is more than all, our own
   particular darling desires, it may be, let go unsatisfied, though
   moulded into contrivances for many years. The truth is, the
   combinations of the antichristian party in the world are so evident,
   their successes so notorious, their designs so fixed, their advantages
   to carry them on so many, that to persuade with them who have power for
   that end and purpose to make it their business to keep union amongst
   ourselves, on all good and honest terms, and to endeavour the union of
   all that call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and
   ours, in the world, were to cast a reproach upon their wisdom,
   foresight, and zeal. So that it sufficeth me to have mentioned these
   things.

   Use 3. Encourage all things that lie in a tendency and subserviency to
   the work of God, unfolded and insisted on. For instance, --

   (1.) Wherever you see any work of real reformation, tending to the
   advancement of the gospel, discarding of old useless forms received by
   tradition from our fathers, separating the precious from the vile,
   according to the several measures of light which God, in his infinite
   wisdom, hath graciously imparted, let not needless objections and
   hinderances lie in the way, but give in all due encouragements to the
   men of such engagements. Perhaps the business of carrying on
   reformation is grievous to some, who, in their anger and wrath, revenge
   and disappointment, may make complaints of it to you, in private or in
   public. The Lord give you wisdom, that you may never weaken the hands
   or sadden the hearts of men who are willing to join hearts and hands
   with you to save a poor nation, and to keep life in the work of God in
   the midst thereof!

   (2.) What you find established already in this kind, encourage,
   preserve, improve, that the work fail not.

   (3.) Find out what is wanting, and pursue it as God gives you advantage
   and opportunity.

   (4.) Where men, under pretence of religion, make it their business to
   defile themselves, or disturb the civil peace and quiet of others, let
   them know that the sword is not borne in vain. I can but name these
   things.

   Honourable! -- My heart's desire and prayer to God for you is, that you
   may be the repairers of breaches, and the restorers of paths for men to
   walk in; that you may be the preservers of the good old cause of
   England, according to the growth it received in and under several
   providential dispensations. Many particulars lie in my heart to propose
   unto you; but, on very many considerations, I shall name none at
   present of them, but close all with some few general directions.

   [1.] Secure your spirits, that in sincerity you seek the public good of
   the nations, and the prosperity of the good people therein, who have
   adhered to the good cause of liberty and religion. If this be in your
   eye as that which is principally intended, as you may pray in faith for
   the presence of God with you, and have a comfortable expectation of his
   protection and favour; so if, in the pursuit of it, through human
   frailty you should err, or mistake in the choice of means, paths, ways,
   tending to that end, God will guide you, and lead you, and not leave
   you until he hath made straight paths for your feet. But if at the
   bottom there lie secret animosities, self-will, desire of obtaining
   greatness or power, on the one hand or other, -- if every such thing be
   not on all hands subdued unto public good, -- prayers will be weakened,
   carnal wisdom increased, the counsel of God rejected, and you will
   wander in all your ways without success.

   [2.] Keep alive this principle (which whether any will hear, or whether
   any will forbear, I know not; but this I am sure of, in the latter end
   it will be found to be true), according as you regard, cleave to,
   promote, protect, on the one side, or despise, contemn, and oppose, on
   the other, the common interest of Zion, the people of God, before laid
   down; so will your affairs either flourish, prosper, and succeed, on
   the one hand, or wither, decay, and be fruitless, on the other. In all
   other things that shall fall under your consideration, that relate to
   the civil government of the nations, prudence, conjecture, probability,
   consideration of circumstances, and the present posture of things, may
   take place; -- this is capable of no framing to the one hand or other,
   upon any pretence whatever.

   [3.] If it be possible, keep up a spirit of love and forbearance among
   yourselves; "love thinketh no evil." Do not impose designs on one
   another, and then interpret every thing that is spoken, though in never
   so much sincerity and simplicity of spirit, in a proportion to that
   design; -- this will turn judgment into wormwood, and truth into
   hemlock.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon XI.

   God's presence with a people the spring of their prosperity;

   with

   their special interest in abiding with him.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   Before the same Parliament to which the last discourse was delivered,
   Dr Owen made a similar appearance on October 30, 1656. The close of the
   sermon gives a vivid picture of the religious state of Wales. We have
   seen that, in the first sermon he ever preached before Parliament, he
   took the opportunity of urging the necessity of some measures for
   promoting education and religion in that part of Britain. The
   circumstance that he was descended from a Welsh family, may account for
   the special interest which he evinced in the religious welfare of
   Wales. Great religious destitution prevailed in it. The Welsh at this
   time had neither Bibles nor Catechisms, and had scarcely sermon four
   times in the year. In 1649 an act was passed for the better propagation
   of the gospel, and the ejection of scandalous clergymen, in Wales. From
   the report of the commissioners in 1652, one hundred and seventy-five
   ministers had been ejected since 1645. Through the exertions of
   Parliament, one hundred and fifty preachers were appointed to officiate
   in thirteen Welsh counties; whose zeal in their duties may be judged of
   from the fact, that most of them preached three or four days every
   week. A schoolmaster was appointed for every market-town; and two of
   superior qualifications, educated at the university, were supported in
   all the larger towns. In addition to all this agency, six itinerant
   preachers were appointed for each county, at an allowance of -L-100;
   these were aided by the services of thirty, two ministers; and as all
   these arrangements were insufficient to meet the necessities of the
   case, pious laymen travelled through the counties, and conducted public
   devotion in the presence of the people. The first sermon of Owen had,
   accordingly, borne ample fruit. Whitelocke tells us, that in 1649 every
   Friday was devoted by Parliament to the purpose of consulting in regard
   to the spread and maintenance of religion. These facts deserve to be
   known to their credit, as evincing a lively and zealous interest in the
   highest welfare of the people, whatever view may be taken of the duty
   or competency of the state to make such provision for the support of
   the gospel and the spiritual enlightenment of a nation. For full
   details on these points, the reader may be referred to Neal, vol. iv.
   pp. 14 and 104, and the publications of the Rev. Vavasor Powell, one of
   the commissioners, in defence of their proceedings. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Friday, the 31st October 1656.

   Ordered by the Parliament, That the thanks of this House be given unto
   Dr Owen, Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University of
   Oxon, for his great pains taken in his sermon before this House
   yesterday, in Margaret's Church, Westminster, being a day set apart for
   solemn fasting and humiliation; and that he be desired to print his
   sermon; and that he have the like privilege in printing thereof as hath
   been formerly allowed to others in like cases. And Major-General Kelsey
   is desired to give him the thanks of this House accordingly.

   Hen. Scobell, Clerk of the Parliament.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, Ireland, and Scotland, with
the dominions thereunto belonging.

   Sirs,

   My hope that some impression may possibly remain upon your hearts and
   spirits of and from the things delivered unto you in the ensuing
   sermon, makes me willing unto the obedience of presenting it unto you,
   upon your command, in this manner. Were I not persuaded that your
   peace, interest, and concernment are expressed therein, and knew not
   with what simplicity of heart you were minded thereof, I should have
   chosen, on many accounts, to have waived this duty. But having now
   performed what is incumbent on me to render this service useful,
   recommending it yet farther to the grace of God, I humbly beg that it
   may not, in this return unto you, be looked on as a thing of course,
   and so laid aside; but be reviewed with that intension of spirit which
   is necessary in duties of this importance; whereby you may manifest
   that your command unto this service was grounded on a sense of some
   advantage to be made by that performance of it. Sundry things, I
   confess, that were spoken unto you are gone beyond my recovery, having
   had their rise from the present assistance which God was pleased to
   afford in the management of the work itself. The sum of what was
   provided beforehand, and no otherwise, without the least addition, is
   here presented unto you, with hearty desires that the vision of the
   truth herein considered may be to them that love you, and the
   accomplishment thereof be found in the midst of you. So prays

   Your humblest Servant

   In our dear Lord Jesus,

   John Owen.

   Nov. 17, 1656.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon XI. God's presence with a people the spring of their prosperity.

   "And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and
   all Judah and Benjamin; The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and
   if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will
   forsake you." -- 2 Chron. xv. 2.

   It will not, I am sure, seem strange to any, that I have taken a text
   to preach on, in a day of humiliation, out of a thanksgiving sermon,
   such as this discourse of Azaraiah seems to be; if they shall but
   consider the suitableness of the instruction given therein to any great
   and solemn occasion, whether of humiliation or rejoicing. The words,
   indeed, are the sum of all directions that in such cases can be given,
   -- the standard of all rules and exhortations wherein any nation or
   people, in any condition, are or may be concerned; -- so plainly
   measuring out our fate and lot, the event and issue of our affairs,
   with all the great undertakings of the people of God in this nation,
   that of themselves I hope they will make some passage to the hearts of
   them to whom the inferences from them shall this day be applied.

   In the foregoing chapter we have an account of a great victory that Asa
   and the people of Judah, fighting in faith and with prayer, obtained
   against the huge host of the Ethiopians, with the abundant spoils which
   they took and carried away thereupon. In their triumphant return to
   Jerusalem the Spirit of God stirs up a prophet to go out and meet them,
   to give them an account of the rise and cause of their success, and
   direction for their future deportment under the enjoyment of such
   mercies and deliverances. The Lord knows how apt even the best of men
   are to forget the spring of their mercies, -- how negligent in making
   suitable returns, by a due improvement of the advantages put into their
   hands, unto the Lord of all mercies; therefore are they in all seasons
   to be minded of their proper interest and duty.

   This is done in my text to Asa and Judah by Oded; and I desire in my
   sermon that it may with the same spirit and the same success be done by
   me unto you. The words I intend principally to insist on, having the
   same thing for substance three times repeated in them, the opening of
   the first clause, with the general tendency of the whole, will suffice
   as to their exposition, and the grounding of that general proposition
   which I shall improve. Two things are, then, principally to be inquired
   into:--

   First. What it is for God to be with any people.

   Secondly. What it is for a people to be or abide with God.

   And according to the analogy of these two, the following assertions, of
   seeking the Lord, and forsaking him, will be easily understood. For
   though the words differ in expression, yet they are all of the same way
   of assertion. They are three hypothetical propositions, or promissory
   assertions on supposition:-- "If you abide with the Lord, he will be
   with you;" "If you seek the Lord, he will be found of you;" "If you
   forsake the Lord, he will forsake you." The same matter is trebled, for
   the fuller and surer confirmation of the thing asserted; -- only,
   whereas the last proposition supposeth a thing possible, -- namely,
   that they might forsake the Lord, -- the first supposes a thing
   present; and therefore it is so expressed, -- "whilst you are with
   him," -- because they had abode with God in their late war and trial.

   Before I enter upon the opening of the words themselves, I cannot pass
   by the earnest preface of the prophet, "Hear ye me, O Asa," He saw the
   people, upon their success, taken up with many thoughts, thinking of
   many businesses, full of many contrivances, -- one imagining one thing,
   another another; all of them, it may be, how they should use and
   improve their peace and success to their advantage, interest, profit,
   or security. Or the princes and rulers, as it is probable and usual in
   such cases, might be considering how to carry on their victory, how to
   make the best advantage of it, in their dealing with neighbouring
   princes and nations, in making peace or war. In the midst of these
   thoughts the prophet meets them, and diverts them, with all
   earnestness, to things quite of another nature, and of unspeakably
   greater importance and concernment to them. "Hear ye me," saith he; it
   is not your own counsel nor your own valour that hath brought about
   this great work, this mighty victory; the Lord himself hath done it, by
   his presence with you. It is not of any concernment unto you what other
   nations do, or may do; but the presence of God concerns you alone to
   look after.

   Observation. The great concernment of any people or nation is, to know
   that all their prosperity is from the presence of God amongst them, and
   to attend to that which will give continuance thereunto. You may tire
   yourselves in the imaginations and contrivances of your own hearts, and
   lay out your thoughts and time about things that will not profit nor
   advantage you; -- this is your interest, this is your concernment,
   "Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin." Of this proposition
   afterwards.

   For the words themselves, the first thing proposed to be inquired into
   for their explanation is this, --

   First, What is it for God to be with a people?

   God may be said to be with men, or present with them, in sundry
   respects.

   1. He may be said to be with them in respect of the omnipresence of his
   essence. So he is naturally and necessarily present with all creatures,
   -- indistant from them, present with them. The ubiquity and immensity
   of his essence will not allow that he should be distant from any thing
   to which he hath given a being. "The heaven, even the heaven of
   heavens, cannot contain him," 1 Kings viii. 27. Doth he not fill heaven
   and earth? Is he a God at hand only, and not afar off, as to the ends
   of the earth? This presence of God with all things David emphatically
   declares, Ps. cxxxix. 7-12. But it is not that that is here intended;
   that is universal, to all creatures, -- natural and necessary; this,
   especial, to some, -- voluntary, and of mercy; that, of nature and
   essence; this, of will and operation.

   2. God may be said to be with one in respect of personal union. So he
   was with, and only with, the man Jesus Christ, Acts x. 38, Theos en
   met' autou, "God was with him;" that is, in personal union, the human
   nature being taken into subsistence with the Son of God.

   3. God is present or with any in respect of the covenant of grace. He
   is with them to be their God in covenant; -- the tenor whereof is, that
   he will not leave them, nor shall they forsake him; he will be for
   them, and they shall be for him, and not for another. He is with them
   for all the ends of mercy, love, kindness, pardon, salvation, that are
   proposed and exhibited in it. But neither is this the presence of God
   here intended, though this be something that flows from it and does
   attend it. For, --

   (1.) That presence of God with his people hath not such a conditional
   establishment as this here mentioned. It stands on other terms and
   better security than that here proposed; it hath received an eternal
   ratification in the blood of Christ, is founded in the immutable
   purpose of grace, and is not left to the conditionality here expressed,
   as we shall see afterward.

   (2.) The presence here mentioned respects the whole body of the people,
   all Judah and Benjamin, in their national state and consideration, unto
   whom, as such, the effectual covenant of grace was never extended; for
   they were not all Israel who were of Israel.

   (3.) The presence here promised respects immediately the peculiar end,
   of blessing the whole people with success in their wars and
   undertakings; -- so the occasion of the words and the context, with
   regard to the following discourse, do undeniably evince. It is not,
   then, this presence of God only that is intended; though, as it will
   afterward appear, it is not to be separated from it.

   4. There is a presence of God in respect of providential dispensations.
   And this is twofold:--

   (1.) General; -- ordering, disposing, guiding, ruling all things,
   according to his own wisdom, by his own power, unto his own glory. Thus
   he is also present with all the world; he disposes of all the affairs
   of all the sons of men as he pleaseth; -- sets up one, and pulls down
   another; changes times, seasons, kingdoms, bounds of nations, as seems
   good to him. The help that is given to any, he doth it himself. The
   shields of the earth belong unto God; be works deliverance in the
   earth, even among them that know him not. And the evils, desolations,
   and destruction, that the earth is full of, are but the effects of his
   wrath and indignation, revealing itself against the ungodliness of men.
   He is thus present with every person in the world; holds his breath and
   all his ways in his hand; disposes of his life, death, and all his
   concernments, as he pleaseth. He is present in all nations, to set them
   up, pluck them down, alter, turn, change, weaken, establish,
   strengthen, enlarge their bounds, as he sees good; and the day is
   coming when all his works will praise him. Neither is this here
   intended; -- it is necessary, and belongs to God, as God, and cannot be
   promised to any; it is a branch of God's natural dominion, that every
   creature be ruled and disposed of, agreeably to its nature, unto the
   end whereunto it is appointed.

   (2.) Special; -- attended with peculiar love, favour, good-will,
   special care towards them with whom he is so present. So Abimelech
   observed that he was with Abraham, Gen. xxi. 22, "God is with thee in
   all that thou doest," -- with thee to guide thee, bless thee, preserve
   thee, as we shall see afterward. So he promised to be with Joshua, "I
   will be with thee," chap. i. 5; and so he was with Gideon, "The Lord is
   with thee," Judges vi. 12, -- to bless him in his great undertaking;
   and so with Jeremiah, "I am with thee," chap. xv. 20. This is fully
   expressed, Isa. xliii. 1, 2, "I have redeemed thee, I have called thee
   by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I
   will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow
   thee."

   And this is the presence of God here intimated, -- his presence with
   the people as to special providential dispensations, as is manifest
   from the whole discourse of the prophet; and wherein this consists,
   shall be afterward at large declared.

   Secondly, What is a people's abiding with God?

   There is a twofold abiding with God, --

   1. In personal obedience, according to the tenor of the covenant. This
   is not here intended, but supposed. There is no abiding in any thing
   with God where there is not an abiding in this thing; yet this, as I
   said, is not here principally intended, but supposed; -- something
   farther is intended; for, as hath been declared, it is national work
   and national abiding that is intended. So that, --

   2. There is an abiding with God in national administrations; -- this is
   a fruit of the other, in those who are called to them. And that this is
   principally here intended is evident from that use that Asa made of
   this information and exhortation of the prophet. He did not only look
   to his personal walking thereupon, but also immediately set upon the
   work of ordering the whole affairs of the kingdom so as God might be
   glorified thereby. How this may be effected, shall at large afterward
   be declared. What hath already been spoken may suffice for a foundation
   of that proposition which I shall this day insist upon; and it is this,
   --

   Observation. The presence of God with a people, in special providential
   dispensations for their good, depends on their obediential presence
   with him in national administrations to his glory: "The Lord is with
   you, while ye be with him."

   For the explication of this proposition some few things are to be
   premised:--

   1. The presence of God with his people as to special grace in the
   covenant, and his presence with them as to special assistance in
   providence, proceed on very different accounts.

   (1.) They have a very different rise. The foundation and principal law
   of special grace, dispensed in the covenant, is this, -- that some
   sinned, and another was punished, So it is laid down expressly, Isa.
   liii. 6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one
   to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all;"
   -- 2 Cor. v. 21, "He was made sin for us, that we might be made the
   righteousness of God in him;" -- Gal. iii. 13, 14, "a curse for us,"
   that the blessing of faithful Abraham might come on them that believe.
   1 Pet. ii. 24, This is the great and sovereign principle of the
   covenant of grace, that a commutation should be made of persons, as to
   punishments and rewards; that sinners should be provided of a
   substitute, -- one that should undergo the punishment due to them, that
   they might go free, and procure a reward for them who could procure
   none for themselves.

   Now, the supreme and sovereign law of providential dispensations is
   utterly diverse and alien from this of the covenant of grace. This you
   have asserted, Ezek. xviii. 1, xx. 1, "The soul that sinneth, it shall
   die:" one shall not bear the iniquity of another: "the righteousness of
   the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall
   be upon him." Take this for a law of universal right, and
   indispensable, extend it to the covenant of grace, and it is absolutely
   exclusive of the substitution and satisfaction of Christ. But it is the
   ground, rule, and law of providential dispensations that God is there
   treating about, and vindicating his dealing with any people as to his
   presence with them and acting towards them therein; which is diverse,
   as you see, from the foundation of the covenant before mentioned.

   (2.) As the foundations are diverse, so is the rule of their
   continuance. What is the rule and measure of God's continuance with his
   people in the covenant of grace? Plainly this, -- that he will never
   forsake them; and, on that account, will take care that they shall
   never forsake him, but abide with him forever. It is not whilst they do
   so and so, he will abide with them; and when they cease so to do, he
   will forsake them, as to his federal and covenant presence; -- there is
   not such a sandy foundation left us of our abiding with God in Christ.
   See the tenor of the covenant, Jer. xxxi. 33, xxxii. 38-40. The sum is,
   that God will be with them, and take care that they always abide with
   him; and therefore hath he provided for all interveniences imaginable,
   that nothing shall violate this union. God lays his unchangeableness as
   the foundation of the covenant, Mal. iii. 6, and he therein makes us
   unchangeable; -- not absolutely so, for we change every moment; but
   with respect to the terms and bounds of the covenant, he hath
   undertaken that we shall never leave him. The law of God's presence in
   respect of providential dispensations, and all special privileges
   attending it, is quite of another importance: it is purely conditional,
   as you may see in my text. The tenor of it is expressed to the height,
   1 Sam. ii. 30, "I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy
   father, should walk before me forever: but now the Lord saith, Be it
   far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that
   despise me shall be lightly esteemed." Here is no alteration of counsel
   or purpose in God; but merely an explanation of the rule, law, and
   tenor of providential dispensations; -- no interpretation of the
   covenant of grace (Eli held not the priesthood by that covenant); but
   an explication of the tenor of a privilege given in special providence,
   Ps. lxxxix. 32, 33. Hence is that variety of God's dealings with men
   mentioned in the Scripture; which yet are always righteous, according
   to one or other of these rules and laws. Isa. xliii. 22-24, says God of
   his people, "Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been
   weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy
   burnt-offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices." --
   "Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled
   me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with
   thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities." What, then,
   shall be done with this people? -- depart from them, destroy them, let
   them die? No, verse 25, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy
   transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." So
   also, chap. lvii. 17, "For the iniquity of his covetousness was I
   wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly
   in the way of his heart" Surely now God will utterly consume them, root
   and branch, as persons incorrigible and irrecoverable. No; the case is
   quite otherwise, verses 18, 19, "I have seen his ways, and will heal
   him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him:" I will pity
   him, pardon him, save, sanctify him, and fill him with consolation. Go
   now to Ezek. xxxiii. 18, "When the righteous turneth from his
   righteousness," what then? God will heal him, and restore comforts unto
   him, as it was in the places before mentioned? No, no; "He shall die,"
   -- he shall be cut off. What is the reason of this diversity? Why, in
   the first place, God speaks of his dealings unto their souls as to his
   covenant of grace, and all the mercies of it; -- in this last, as to
   his dealings with their persons, and their outward concernments in the
   dispensations of his providence. And the not heeding hereof hath made
   some pronounce, inconsiderately, the covenant of grace to be merely
   conditional, because they find many mercies and privileges spoken of
   under such a notion; -- not considering that all those proposals belong
   to the law of outward providence, and not to the nature of the covenant
   of promise established in the blood of Christ. And unless this be
   allowed, nothing can be more contrary to my text than that promise, and
   such as that which we have, Isa. liv. 9, where provision is made for
   God's abiding with his people, notwithstanding all their backslidings
   and provocations; which he will so far heal as that he may not forsake
   them. And this is first to be observed, that we do not, in the
   consideration of God's presence and withdrawings as to providential
   dispensations, cast any reflection on the stability and
   unchangeableness of the covenant of grace. David hath fully stated this
   business, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5; saith he, "Although my house be not so with
   God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all
   things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire,
   although he make it not to grow." David had a promise for the
   prosperity of his house; he had also an engagement of the sure mercies
   of the covenant. The different tenor of these engagements, as to their
   success and establishment, he gives us this account of:-- the covenant
   is absolute and unchangeable; that is, ordered in all things, and sure;
   -- the prosperity of his house depends on another law and rule, that is
   subject to alteration.

   2. Observe the nature of this dependence of God's presence on our
   abiding with him. It doth not depend upon it, as the effect upon its
   proper cause, as though it were procured by it, merited by it; -- we
   enjoy not the least morsel of bread on any such account, much less such
   eminent privileges as attend God's special providential presence. We
   deserve nothing at the hand of God; and, therefore, if he should take
   us in the midst of the choicest obedience, and fill us with the
   fiercest of miseries, he does us no wrong; -- and, therefore, the Lord
   does so deal sometimes with his; and that not only with particular
   persons, as in the case of Job, but also with his people in general, as
   Ps. xliv. 17-19, "All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten
   thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart is not
   turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; though thou
   hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the
   shadow of death." Though he requires our duty at our hands, yet he is
   not tied to any such present reward. This is all, -- it ordinarily
   depends upon it as a consequent upon an antecedent, which allows an
   interposition of grace and mercy; as Neh. ix. 17. Nevertheless, thou
   being merciful, "forsookest them not." So, elsewhere, that good man
   prays, "Remember me for good, and spare me, according to the multitude
   of thy mercies." For the glory of his righteousness, and of his ways in
   the world, God hath ordered that his people shall walk with him, when
   he abides eminently and conspicuously in a special manner with them.

   3. Observe, that our abiding with God, even in national
   administrations, is the proper effect of his presence with us in
   covenant dispensations; so that all, in the issue, is of mere mercy and
   grace: though the condition seems to be imposed on us, yet it is from
   him alone that we have strength for its performance. It is in this, and
   such like cases, as David said it was with them at their dedicating
   their silver and gold for the building of the temple: Ta sa, ek ton
   son, -- "Of thine own, Lord, have we given unto thee." We do but return
   him, his own, we give him but the fruits of his own grace; and without
   it we can make no return whatever.

   These things being premised, I shall give the proposition some
   confirmation, and so descend to the due improvement of it.

   I suppose I need not go for proof beyond the observation of the
   constant tenor of God's proceedings with his people of old. When did he
   not deal thus with them? What instance can be given of transgressing
   this rule? Is the whole story of the nation of the Jews any thing but
   the illustration of this proposition? Some ruled well, and sought the
   Lord; and the Lord was with them, and prospered them in all their ways;
   -- some fell from him, and walked according to their own imaginations;
   and the Lord cut them short on that account; -- yea, sometimes the same
   man, as Solomon, Asa, Uzziah, experienced both these states and
   conditions. Hath not the state of all nations, since they came into the
   power of men professing the knowledge of him, been the same? Look on
   the Roman empire; did it not flourish under the hand of men who ruled
   with God, and were faithful with the saints? Is not the present
   distraction of it, under the fury and cruelty of Turk and Pope, the
   issue of the violence, unrighteousness, idolatry, luxury, and
   persecution of ill governors? Doth not the demonstration of all God's
   people in the world -- the consideration whereof, in particular, might
   be insisted on as the ground and reason of the truth insisted on --
   require that it should be thus Lev. xxvi., and almost the whole book of
   Deuteronomy, are sermons on this text; and every verse, almost, in them
   would afford a new confirmation of the truth in hand. I shall need
   rather, then, to caution from mistakes, than farther to confirm the
   proposition. For this end, take these ensuing observations:--

   1. All outward flourishing or prosperity of a people doth not always
   argue the special presence of God with them. There are sundry things
   required to make success and prosperity an evidence of the presence of
   God:--

   (1.) That the people themselves prospered be his people, -- his
   peculiar. How many wicked nations are there in the world, that for a
   long season have received blessings (as it were) and success in their
   undertakings! Is the Lord amongst them by his special presence? Not at
   all. He is using them, indeed, for his own end and purposes, -- to
   break others, or fill up the measure of their own iniquities, that
   their destruction may be an evident demonstration of his vengeance and
   righteous judgment to all the world; but present with them in the sense
   contended about, he is not. The case is stated, Hab. i., ii., as you
   may see in those chapters at large. It is the same case with the
   Antichristian and Mohammedan nations in the world at this day. Their
   prosperity is no evidence of God's presence, because themselves are his
   enemies. Other bottoms, reasons, and grounds there are of their
   successes; -- God's owning of them is none of them.

   (2.) That the whole work be good, and have a tendency to God's glory,
   wherein they are engaged. David's counsel for the killing of Uriah
   prospered and took effect; yet was not God with him therein. The work
   engaged in must be according to his mind. And, --

   (3.) Made useful and subservient to his glory. When the hearts of a
   people can secure themselves in these things, then may they rejoice in
   their prosperity, as a pledge of God's presence with them.

   2. Even great afflictions, eminent distresses, long perplexities, may
   have a consistency with God's special presence. Though the wheel goes
   on, yet it may have a cross wheel in it, that may cause rubs and
   disturbances. The rule of God's acting in his presence, is his own
   wisdom, and our good in the issue, -- not our partial, self-destroying
   desires. Had the best people in the world all their own desires, they
   would be every way ruined. When God is nigh to us, he knows what is
   best for us. Security from destroying evils, not [from] trying evils,
   he gives to them with whom he is.

   And this is all that I shall offer for the explication, confirmation,
   and cautioning of the proposition insisted on; what remains farther to
   be opened will fall in under the uses of it, which now ensue.

   Use 1. This special presence of God being, as you have heard, the great
   and only concernment of any people, -- the tenure or condition thereof
   being our abiding with him, -- let our first use be to instruct us
   particularly, -- (1.) What this special prese nce of God is, and
   wherein it doth consist; (2.) What it is for us to abide with God, so
   as we may enjoy it.

   (1.) For the full discovery of the first, I shall consider it in that
   eminent instance wherein of old he did grant his presence to his
   people. The bottom of that stupendous undertaking of the Israelites in
   leaving Egypt, and journeying through the wilderness into Canaan, lay
   in the promise of the presence of God with them, Exod. iii. 10-12. On
   this one consideration their whole undertaking and affair turned; to
   this issue it is put by Moses, Exod. xxxiii. 15, "If thy presence go
   not [with us,] carry us not up hence;" -- they will not move one step
   without him; and with him they care not whither they go.

   Now, this presence of God with them symbolically did consist in, or
   rather was represented by, two things:-- [1.] The pillar of the cloud
   and fire, which was with them ordinarily; [2.] The appearance of his
   glory, which they enjoyed on extraordinary occasions.

   [1.] The first, with the first use of it, is mentioned, Exod. xiii. 21,
   22, "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to
   lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them
   light, to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud
   by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people." There
   is mention here as if it were of two pillars, one by day, and another
   by night; but it seems to have been the same pillar with several
   properties. For, chap. xiv. 19, 20, the same pillar, at the same time,
   performs both these offices in respect of several persons; -- to some
   it was, on the one side, a cloud and darkness; to others, bright and
   shining as fire: "The pillar of the cloud went from before their face,
   and stood behind them. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians
   and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it
   gave light by night to these." After this, when the ark was made, and
   the tabernacle erected, this cloud, which until then went before the
   camp, came and covered the tabernacle night and day, as it stood in the
   midst of the camp, or the congregation; as a cloud it was by day, and
   as a pillar of fire by night, Exod. xl. 34-38; and there it continued
   with the people all the while they were in the wilderness, Neh. ix. 19.
   This being the first eminent pledge of the presence of God with that
   people, let us consider what was indulged or granted to them thereby.

   1st. They had hereby constant direction in all their journeyings and
   undertakings: they were by this pillar directed in their way; so at
   large it is expressed, Num. x. 33, as also Exod. xl. 1. God, by this
   pledge of his presence, was the beginning of all their rest and motion,
   the guide and director of all their undertakings; so that they moved,
   acted, rested, proceeded, according to his will and counsel. He guided
   them by his eye, and led them by his counsel. Sometimes, perhaps, they
   would be forward, they would be up, acting, doing, their hearts are
   full of desires, and they are impatient of delay. If it be not
   according to his mind, he will cause a cloud to abide on their
   tabernacle, or their assemblies and meetings, -- a cloud that shall
   darken them, and distract them in their consultations, that they shall
   not be able to take one step forward. Though their desires be great,
   their intentions good, yet the cloud shall be upon them, and they shall
   not know their way. Sometimes, perhaps, they are heavy, fearful,
   slothful; -- there is a lion in the way, -- giants are in the land;
   difficulties and perplexities lie in the way before them in such and
   such undertakings, -- they have no heart to them; the way is long and
   perilous, -- better return than go forward. Would God now have them
   pass on and engage? the cloud shall break up and go before them, --
   they shall see so far on their way as to go forth with cheerfulness.
   Only, observe this, that when the cloud was taken up, they knew they
   were to go on in the way wherein they were, and journeyed accordingly;
   yet they knew not whither they should go, nor what would be the end of
   their journey. And therefore it is said, that when they journeyed the
   ark went before them, to seek out a resting-place for them, Num. x. 33.
   It was carried on, to see where the pillar or cloud of direction would
   stay, and there they rested, wherever it was. When God gives a people
   so much direction as that they see it is their duty to go on, and to
   trust him in so doing, though they see not the end, nor know what their
   resting-place will be, yet it is a pledge of God's presence with them.
   I suppose in your assembly you have had the cloud taken off, as to your
   engagements in some undertakings, concerning which you are to trust
   that the Ark of God's presence, the Lord Jesus Christ, will find you
   out a resting-place, which as yet appears not unto you.

   What a full experience have we had of this kind of proceeding among us!
   In the last assembly of parliament, how many had no less real
   intentions to be at work for God than now! God saw that it would not be
   for the advantage of the people that they should proceed; hence the
   cloud rested on that assembly, that they could not see how to take one
   step forward. He was still present with us; but it was by a darkening
   cloud, that we could not journey towards our rest. Nor is it the will
   or counsel of man, but of God, that is to be looked to in these things.
   We now hope the cloud is up, and we are journeying towards our rest.
   The great Angel of his presence will find a rest for us in the good
   providence of God. This, then, lies in God's special presence, -- he is
   with us to give us direction in all our undertakings; -- to take away
   darkness, perplexities, difficulties from our counsels; or to cause us
   to rest and cease from whatever may come into our hearts that is not
   according to his mind. The Lord give us evermore of this his presence!

   I cannot stay to show you the several ways whereby God now communicates
   direction to a people; -- how he inclines their hearts insensibly, yet
   powerfully; fixes the bent of their spirits effectually, their hearts
   being in his hand as the rivers of water, which he turns as he
   pleaseth; supplies them with reasonings and consultations beyond the
   verge of their own wisdom; proposes occasions, invitations,
   provocations; gives them spirit and courage beyond their natural frames
   and tempers; enlarges them in prayer, or shuts them up; makes walls on
   the one hand, and open paths on the other; with innumerable such ways
   and means as, in his infinite wisdom, he is pleased to make effectual
   for their guidance. It suffices that, in the use of means, through
   patience and waiting upon him, they shall be directed to that which is
   pleasing to him. So is he with them.

   2dly. The second use of this pillar was, to give them protection and
   defence in their ways; so Exod. xiv. 19, 20, 24. This protected them
   from the Egyptians; -- and from thence God troubled their enemies out
   of the pillar; that is, from his especial presence. This use of it is
   insisted on, Isa. iv. 5, 6. The cloud, that was as smoke by day, and as
   fire by night, was also a shadow, a place of refuge, and a covert; in
   one word, a protection or a defence.

   And this is a second thing which is in God's special presence, -- he
   will protect or defend them with whom he is so present. He is their
   dwelling-place, Ps. xc. 1, then, when in this world they have none;
   their refuge in the time of trouble: so Isa. xxv. 4, xxvi. 1, xxxi. 4.
   Promises and instances to make this good abound; -- they are known to
   all; the time would fail me to insist upon them. I might go over all
   the causes, means, and ways of the fears, dangers, ruin of such a
   people, and show you how a defence is provided against them all. Are
   their fears from themselves, because of their folly, weakness, and
   division? or from pretended friends, because of their envy and
   desertion? or from open enemies, because of their power, cruelty,
   malice, and revenge? A defence is provided on every account. Heat,
   rain, tempests, storms, adversity, prosperity, -- all are provided
   against, where God is present, Isa. xxxii. 1, 2.

   And if any people in the world have experience of this truth, we have
   it this day. Had not the Lord been with us, who had not destroyed us?
   Enemies, friends, abroad, at home, our own follies, -- all, any of
   them, had done the work, had not the Lord himself been with us.

   Only observe, that the presence of God, as to these effects, may
   sometimes, in some particulars, be eclipsed, and the effects themselves
   for some season be entangled, though there be not an utter breach
   between him and his people. How often did the Israelites attempt things
   without his direction! how often did he break in upon them, to their
   woe and sorrow! yet, for the main, he forsook them not, until the great
   work intended by them was accomplished, Neh. ix. 19. It is not every
   entanglement, every disappointment, every defeat, that argues God's
   departure, as to his special presence. It may be good for us sometimes
   to be in such a condition; and then that desertion that carries into
   it, is from the presence of God. We are now grown to that, that if
   every thing immediately surmount not our imagination, say some, God is
   gone from them; -- not because it is so, but because they would have it
   so. But he is merciful with whom we have to do, and will not cast off
   his people forever.

   [2.] The people with whom God was, had the glory of Jehovah as a pledge
   of his presence with them. This appeared only at extraordinary seasons;
   -- so it did at the giving of the law, Exod. xxiv. 16; so also at the
   setting up of the tabernacle. It differed from the cloud; for when the
   cloud was upon the tabernacle, the glory of the Lord filled it. It
   appeared again to all the people, Lev. ix. 23. I shall not now inquire
   what was this visible representation of the majesty of God; -- it
   sufficeth, as to the purpose in hand, that when God gives his presence
   to a people at extraordinary seasons, he affords them extraordinary
   manifestations of his glory. So in Ezekiel's vision of those dreadful
   wheels of providence, the glory of the Lord is said to appear in the
   temple; and as his especial presence departed from the temple and the
   city, so the glory, by several degrees, departed also, chap. x. 10, 18,
   19, xi. 23.

   Eminent and glorious appearances with and for a people in extraordinary
   seasons is, then, another thing that accompanies God's special
   providential presence with them. When they are at an utter loss in
   their counsels, at a stand in their motions, disappointed in their
   undertakings, deserted in their enterprises, pressed on every side
   above measure, or called to some extraordinary work, so that their
   ordinary direction and protection will not carry them on nor bear them
   up, -- then will God relieve them by some especial appearance of his
   glory. "In the mount will the Lord be seen." This will give a relief
   when all is at a loss. And in this lies the most discriminating
   evidence of special providence. Glorious appearances in great straits
   are eminent testimonies of God's regard.

   Could I now insist on some of the instances that might be given of this
   kind of dealing with us in England, in the pursuit of the cause we have
   in hand, it would make us ashamed of all our unworthiness, carnal
   fears, and unbelief.

   This is the second evidence of God's presence:-- he is with a people to
   direct them, to protect, to manifest his glory amongst them, -- his
   glory in balancing the issues of providence one in respect of another,
   -- so that all shall acknowledge that of a truth the Lord is amongst
   them. "Blessed is the people that is in such a case; yea, blessed is
   the people whose God is the Lord." What would you have more? Here is
   ease of all cares, a remedy for all sores, security in the midst of
   troubles, -- rest, and peace, and assured dwelling-places, though the
   Assyrian should be in the land.

   Thus you see what is this great concernment of any people.

   (2.) Let us now consider the tenure of this blessedness, -- on what
   account it is to be obtained or enjoyed. Now this is, our abiding with
   God. This, then, is next to be considered.: What it is for a people, --
   what it is for you and us, so to abide with God, as that we may in all
   our affairs enjoy his presence in the ways before described.

   Now, something is hereunto previously required, -- something it
   consists in.

   [1.] That we may abide with God, this is indispensably required, --
   that we may have peace with him in Jesus Christ. If we are never with
   him, we cannot abide with him; no man can abide where he never cornea
   The acceptance of our persons lies at the bottom of the acceptance of
   our duties. As the special presence of God with any, is in and by
   Christ, and no otherwise, so is our abiding with God in and through
   him. "God with us" is the name of Christ: our being with God is in him
   who is our peace. Two cannot walk together, unless they be agreed, Amos
   iii. 3.

   Now, because this is not to be expected from all the individuals of a
   nation, yet this thing is to be endeavoured, -- that the rulers of it
   be such as have this interest. I do not divest of a share in
   government, those who have no share in Christ, if lawfully called
   thereunto; but I say, when God gives governors whom he intends to make
   a blessing unto a people, they shall be such as are blessed of him in
   Christ. And if ever the government of this nation, in this present
   constitution, -- suppose it the most exactly framed and balanced, in
   the several parts of it, for the furtherance of public good, -- be
   devolved into the hands of men not interested in God by Christ, though
   the constitution may be absolutely good, yet the government will not be
   blessed, and the nation will be ruined; for God and his glory will
   depart, Mic. v. 5, 6. It is Christ that is our peace, even in outward
   troubles. They are "seven shepherds under him," and "eight principal
   men" accepted with him, that are to be our relief.

   It is true, for some particular actions or works a wicked man may be
   anointed particularly, -- as Jehu, and Jeroboam the son of Joash; but
   you have no instance that ever God was with a people, to bless them
   indeed in a course of special providence, when wicked men, by their own
   consent, were their rulers, -- where the union and relation between
   them and the people is considerable. I confess unto you, I never think
   of the state of England, but my heart trembles at this thing, --
   namely, that those who have, and it is fit should have, so great a
   share in the government of this commonwealth, should have their rise
   from the body of the people, that is dark and profane, and full of
   enmity against the remnant. Did not God overrule men, contrary to their
   own inward principles and lusts, how soon would ruin and desolation
   break in upon that hand! And give me leave to say, that God, in his
   sovereign providence, having called so many at this time to the place
   of rule and authority, who indeed (as we believe) love the Lord Jesus
   in sincerity, it seems to me to look as your duty, to consider all ways
   and means, whereby the power of these nations may be, in succeeding
   seasons, devolved on men of the like spirit and condition.

   I shall not interpose in that which by some is so much spoken of, --
   the reign of the saints. I am sure the means used and attempted by
   some, to set upon and to set up such a rule and dominion, have not
   become sober men, much less saints of Christ. Yet this I must say, and
   in the saying of it, I dare say, "Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and
   Benjamin," If ever God cease to call saints -- that is, men interested
   personally in Christ -- to places of chief authority in this nation, or
   commit the power of it into other hands, -- and when those called to
   power, cease to exert it in a subserviency to the kingdom of Christ,
   for the true spiritual advantage of his people, there will be an end of
   England's glory and happiness. I say, Hear ye this, all ye people! This
   I have delivered long ago, and many times in this place; -- this I say
   still, and in this persuasion hope to live and die. The Lord guide you
   in this thing; however, we shall live on the good providence of our
   God, who hath hitherto taken care for us.

   This, then, I say, is pre-required, as a qualification of any person to
   the performance of this duty of abiding with God. It is the psalmist's
   advice, Ps. ii. 11, 12. Let this principle be always owned amongst you;
   by it honour Christ in the world. Give him the pre-eminence; it is the
   Father's will he should have it in all things. Expect not the presence
   of God, but upon this account. Bear testimony herein against the world
   of profane men, who despise these things. Seeing, then, it cannot be
   expected to have this qualification diffused universally, as yet,
   through the body of the people, let the rulers take care that they be
   not the cause of God's departure from us.

   [2.] What is it, now, for such persons to abide with God, so as they
   may expect comfortably the continuance of his presence with them? --
   which is their all that they need or desire. I shall name some few
   things that are signally required thereunto.

   1st. That they inquire of God, ask counsel at his hand, -- look to him
   for direction in all their affairs. He is present with them to give
   them direction:-- not to seek for it at his hand, is exceedingly to
   despise him. It must arise from one of these two apprehensions; --
   either he cares not for us, or he knows not how to direct us. When he
   gave direction by the cloud on the tabernacle, the people being
   reproved for their carnal fears and unbelief upon the return of the
   spies, some of them would needs instantly into the mountain, and fight
   with the Canaanites; but, says the Holy Ghost, the "ark abode in the
   camp." They went without God's direction, and prospered accordingly.
   With what contempt doth God speak of the wisdom and counsels of the
   sons of men, when they will adhere unto them! How does he make it his
   glory, to turn all their consultations into folly, and to make them err
   in their ways like a drunken man! How doth he bid them take counsel
   together, when he intends to destroy them! What instances may be given
   of all good and prosperous rulers of old, of their seeking direction
   from God! What promises of a success, and a blessed issue in so doing,
   are there! The words of my text will suffice as an instance in every
   kind.

   But you will say, How shall we inquire of God?

   The nations had their oracles, whereby they deluded themselves. The
   people of God had their Urim and Thummim, their prophets and oracle.
   "Bring hither the ephod, and inquire of God," was the word with them.
   But, alas! what is all this to the advantage we have of seeking counsel
   of God, and taking direction from him? We have a High Priest always
   present with us, by whom we may inquire. Our high priest is the angel
   of God's presence, the mighty counsellor, the power and eternal wisdom
   of God himself. And where is he? He appears in the presence of God for
   us, in the holy place not made with hands, having made a new and living
   way for us to come within the vail, to inquire of the oracle. What
   would we have more? He is our captain, our leader, our high priest,
   urim and thummim, our oracle, our ark, on whom the cloud of direction
   rests and abides for ever. Would you, then, be with God? Take direction
   from him by Christ in all your undertakings; so do in deed, and not in
   word or profession only.

   I hope I need not stay to give you directions how this duty is to be
   performed. The "unction" will teach it you, and your "fellowship," I
   hope, "is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." Only now
   take these few words with you:--

   (1st.) Captivate all your desires to his glory. Set your hearts on
   nothing, but with this express reserve, -- If it is consistent with and
   expedient unto the glory of Christ and his kingdom. Be not sick of your
   own violent desires; but lay all your aims and designs at his feet
   always, becoming as weaned children before him.

   (2dly.) Bear before him a real sense of your own weakness and folly,
   both severally and jointly, if not directed by him, that in his pity
   and compassion he may relieve you.

   (3dly.) Keep your hearts in that integrity, that you may always press
   and urge him with his own concernment in all your affairs. This is a
   thing that none but upright hearts can do uprightly.

   (4thly.) Actually inquire by faith and prayer, what is his will and
   mind; -- do it severally and jointly; -- do it privately, publicly; --
   do it every day, and in days set apart for that purpose. He will
   assuredly be found of you. You know how easy it were to exemplify all
   these things by testimonies and instances; but time will not permit.

   If, instead of these things, you bear yourselves up on the wings of
   your own wisdom and contrivances, though you may seem for a season to
   have attained a fair pitch and flight, you will be entangled, and
   brought down in the midst of your course with shame and sorrow: for the
   Lord will not be with you.

   2dly. Another thing wherein we are to be with God, is by trusting in
   him for protection. "O trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord
   Jehovah there is everlasting strength. This man made the Lord his
   refuge. He that trusteth in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, that shall
   never be removed. Commit your ways to the Lord, roll your burden on
   him; stand still and see his salvation." What glorious things are
   spoken of this trusting to the Lord for protection you all know. It
   were endless to insist on commands and promises to this purpose; and to
   single out one or two were but to weaken the cause in hand, seeing
   hereunto the whole Scriptures bear witness. I shall only show you what
   it is so to do, in some few particulars.

   (1st.) It is to strengthen and encourage your hearts in difficult
   affairs, a comfortable issue whereof you cannot on visible causes
   conjecture, on the account of God's engagement for your good. To omit
   the instances of Asa, Jehoshaphat, and many others, take that signal
   one of David in his great distress at Ziklag, 1 Sam. xxx. 1. You know
   the story:-- his habitation was burnt and spoiled, his wives and
   children captived, his people consulting to stone him, so that he was
   greatly distressed; the enemy numerous and without his reach; -- all
   means of relieving his condition, and bringing it to a comfortable
   issue, far removed. But what course did he now take? did he despond?
   did he give over? did he rest on his own counsel and strength? No,
   saith the Holy Ghost; "but David encouraged himself in the Lord his
   God." Have you any affair that lies before you that is good and honest,
   but yet dreadful, difficult, entangled? Your hearts are ready to faint
   whenever you think of it; -- it is almost beyond your imaginations to
   contrive a comfortable issue. In such a season, if you will be with
   God, he will be with you; -- if you so trust him as to encourage your
   hearts on the account of his wisdom, goodness, power, that he can find
   out and bring about a comfortable, glorious end, -- this is to trust
   him for protection. Ps. xlvi. 1 is this doctrine delivered to the full.

   (2dly.) To trust God for protection, is to wait under discouragements
   and disappointments for a desired issue of the affairs we commit to
   him. "He that believeth will not make haste," Isa. xxviii. 16. This the
   Lord pleads for, Hab. ii. 3, 4. Men will have their desires precisely
   accomplished this year, this month, this week, or they will wait no
   longer. These, says God, are proud men; their hearts are lifted up in
   them; they trust not to me for protection. Men love to trust God (as
   they profess) for what they have in their hands, in possession, or what
   lies in an easy view; place their desires afar off, carry their
   accomplishment behind the clouds out of their sight, interpose
   difficulties and perplexities, -- their hearts are instantly sick, --
   they cannot wait for God; they do not trust him, -- nor ever did. Would
   you have the presence of God with you? Learn to wait quietly for the
   salvation you expect from him. Then, indeed, is he glorified, when he
   is trusted in a storm, when he is waited for under long perplexities
   and distresses. Want of this ruined the Israelites in the wilderness.
   Their work was long, their difficulties and entanglements many; -- they
   would have had an immediate end of their troubles. What! more
   difficulties! more hardships! nay, then, let us choose a captain, and
   go down again into Egypt. We know the worst of that; where this will
   end we know not. This laid their carcasses in the wilderness, and
   deprived them of enjoying the good land.

   (3dly.) It is to commit your affairs to the Lord with submission to his
   will, as to their issue and accomplishment. Trust respects protection,
   but it prescribes not as to particular events. It is to commit our
   affairs to God with thoughts of his infinite wisdom, sovereignty, and
   goodness, with resolutions thereupon that the product of his will is
   that which will be good, be best for us, though it should not at all
   fall in with our present desires. It is true, the Psalmist says,
   "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it
   to pass," Ps. xxxvii. 5. And so he shall and will, in all such cases as
   that there particularly insisted on by the Psalmist, wherein his own
   glory is particularly engaged. But this prescribes not, as to all
   cases, that we should cry, "Give me this child, or I die." The rule is
   known; abide in this frame, and we shall have that we desire, or that
   which is better for us. But I must not abide in these things. See Ps.
   xxxvii. 3-5, lxxiii. 23-26.

   And these are some of those ways wherewith we abide with God, as to our
   trusting of him in reference to special protection.

   3dly. A third thing I should fix upon is, a people's universal owning
   of God's concernments in the world. His presence with them is, his
   owning their concernments; and certainly he expects that they abide
   with him in the owning of big God's concernment in the world is his
   people, as invested with the privileges purchased for them by Christ.
   Deut. xxxii. 9, "The lord's portion is his people." This is that which
   the Lord has particularly kept to himself; the vineyard that he has
   chosen out of all the forests of the world; the handful that he hath
   taken to himself, -- his sons and daughters, -- his family. These he
   expects that you should abide by, if you would have him abide by you;
   yea, it is most certain, as your respect and regard shall be to them
   and their interest as his people, so will his respect and regard be to
   you and your interest as the people of this nation. But I have formerly
   spoken hereof unto you, and therefore, though it be a matter of the
   greatest importance, I shall not farther insist upon it.

   And these are some of the conditions of God's special presence with
   you. Pleasant conditions! their performance is your glory, your rest,
   your blessedness; -- not your bondage, not your burden. Not one duty
   doth God on this account require of you, but it is also your reward. O
   blessed terms of peace and agreement! Blessed be the great Peacemaker!
   cursed be the breakers of this blessed agreement! Is this all, indeed,
   that is required, that we may have the special presence of God with us
   forever? O how inexcusable shall we be if we neglect these terms! --
   how just will be our ruin! Behold, I have set before you life and death
   this day; the life or death of these nations. O choose life! seeing it
   may be had on such easy, such blessed terms; terms wherein, in doing
   good to others, you will also do good to your own souls; you will give
   peace to the nation, and have peace and rest in your own souls.

   Use 2. Look on this presence of God as your main concernment. This is
   that which the prophet calls for in the words of the text. So the
   psalmist, "There are many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord,
   lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us," Ps. iv. 1. Let
   other men make what inquiries they please, -- look for good, for rest,
   for peace in what they best fancy; acquiesce you in this, that the
   light of God's countenance, a pledge of his presence with you, is that
   alone which you are to inquire after. I remember, since the beginning
   of these last wonderful days, how often we have thought ourselves
   utterly ruined:-- If such alterations come, we are undone; if such men
   die, fall off, oppose, there is little hope of carrying on the work
   wherein we are engaged; if such shakings, such divisions befall us, our
   ruin is at hand; if we break with such and such foreign nations, what
   hope remaineth? But, alas! we have found by experience, that our
   affairs have turned on none of these things; our prosperity hath been
   built on none of those principles. Such desertions as we feared, have
   happened; such alterations, such divisions have befallen us, -- we have
   been sometimes almost reduced to Gideon's number; such breaches with
   foreign nations have ensued: one party that was with us hath gone off,
   and asked, What will ye now do? and then another party hath gone off,
   and asked us, What will ye do now? And no sooner do any fall off, but
   instantly they expect, and foretell destruction to them that do abide;
   as though they were God, and not man; or as though God were bound to
   follow them with his presence in all their passions, in all their
   wanderings. It would, I confess, be more desirable unto me than life
   itself, to see all those at least, who stuck to the cause of God in its
   greatest difficulties and trials, and then when it ceased to be carried
   on in the ordinary paths of nations, united again in the same common
   interest, -- to see their passions and prejudices cured, and their
   persons returned to their former usefulness. But this is that which is
   the result of all this discourse; -- it is not this or that thing, or
   any thing whatever, but the presence of God alone with a people, that
   is their life, their preservation, their protection, and prosperity. If
   our strength had lain in any thing else in this world, our light had
   gone out long ago, and it had departed from us: but hence it is that we
   are not consumed. Now, if you are so careful not to lose these and
   those friends, this and that party of the nation, -- not to provoke
   this or that people causelessly; oh, what weight ought it to have upon
   your hearts and souls, that you provoke not the Lord to depart from
   you! that you take care for the continuance of his presence with you!
   This is your life, your safety, your success, -- your peace. Learn to
   prize it, value it.

   Use 3. Whilst you have any pledge of the presence of God with you, be
   not greatly moved nor troubled by any difficulties that you may meet
   withal; be not moved with any terror, but sanctify the Lord of hosts in
   your hearts, and make him your dread and your fear, and he shall be a
   refuge and a hiding-place unto you.

   Some pretend to visions of God, and they prophesy your ruin and
   destruction; yea, they have limited times thereof, to the shame of
   their prognostications. Some are full of revenge, and they threaten
   your ruin, and talk what a catholic interest is complicating, and
   rising up against you. Some are troubled at your proceedings, -- that
   they are not in such equal paths as might be desired; as though that
   were a work and way of yesterday; as though we had not been turned and
   driven out of old tracks and paths above ten years ago; and as though
   the old paths were not so worn to the interest of a profane multitude,
   that it is yet impossible to keep the burden upright in them whose
   guidance you are intrusted with. Some say you will never be able to go
   through with the charge of your undertaking; as though God had never
   said, "The gold and silver are mine." Should these things busy or
   distract you? Doth the issue of the business in hand depend on the
   thoughts of these men? Will the end be according to their contrivances?
   Have these things, indeed, any influence at all into the determination
   of this controversy? Will not this one consideration guide your hearts
   and spirits, when all these waves roll all together upon you? Yea, but
   the whole of this affair must be ordered, and will fall out, according
   as the presence of God is with us, or otherwise. "If God be with us,
   who can be against us?" How may you on this account triumph against all
   oppositions whatsoever!

   Use 4. Fix, then, your thoughts on the things which lie in a tendency
   towards the confirming of God's special providential presence with you.
   You have heard of the tenure of it, the means whereby it is procured
   and retained: these things I have spoken to in general before. Besides
   your own dependence on God, and comportment with his providence, the
   things incumbent on you are such as respect either persons or things.

   (1.) For persons, it is that which I have minded you of before, and
   which I shall do whilst I have life and opportunity to speak to you, or
   any concerned in the government of this nation, in public or private;
   because I know it is your life, your peace, your duty; -- and that is,
   that the end and aim of all your consultations be the protection,
   encouragement, liberty of the seed of Jacob, the remnant, the hidden
   people, -- those whom God hath owned, accepted, blessed, given his
   presence unto and amongst them. I plead not for their exaltation,
   promotion, preferment, -- I know not what; but charge it as your duty,
   to take care that they be not trodden under foot, nor swallowed up, nor
   exposed to the rage and contempt of the men of the earth. It is not
   this or that party of them that I speak of, but the generation of them
   that seek the face of God; whose cause alone it is and not [that] of
   any other men, or frame of things, that is, through the mighty power of
   God, triumphant in these nations. They are to God as the apple of his
   eye; and let their safety be so also to you, and you will not fail of
   the presence of God.

   (2.) For things, they are either, [1.] The things of God; or, [2.] Men:
   of each a word.

   [1.] For the things of God, or the public profession of religion in the
   land, my time is too far spent for me to enter into a serious discourse
   on the subject. Some things have of late been done, which, when envy,
   and anger, and disappointment shall cease to operate, the whole people
   of God in this nation will have cause to rejoice in.

   Let it not be thought amiss, if I mind you of one part of the nation in
   especial: the example of the saints allows us a special regard to those
   of our own nation, our kinsfolks in the flesh. It is for Wales I speak,
   where the unhappiness of almost all men running into extremes, hath
   disadvantaged the advancement of the gospel and the progress of it,
   when we had great ground for the expectation of better things. Some are
   still zealous of the traditions of their fathers; and nothing, almost,
   will satisfy them, but their old road of beggarly readers in every
   parish. Others, again, perhaps out of a good zeal, have hurried the
   people with violence beyond their principles, -- and sometimes, it may
   be, beyond the truth; and, as Jacob said, over-driving the cattle and
   young ones has almost destroyed the whole flock. Between complaints on
   one side and the other, I fear between misguided zeal and formality --
   the whole work is almost cast to the ground; -- the business of Zion,
   as such, is scarce by any cared for. The good Lord guide you to
   somewhat for its relief, that those who are godly may be encouraged,
   and those that need instruction may not be neglected.

   [2.] The things of man, or righteous administrations of justice in
   things relating to this present pilgrimage. These wheels, also, are you
   to set going. Many particulars lie before you, more will present
   themselves; -- troublesome times have always produced good laws; --
   your wisdom will be, to provide for good execution, that not only the
   generations to come, but the present, may eat of the fruit of your
   labours and travail.
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     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon XII.

   The glory and interest of nations professing the gospel.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   A great event has occurred since the last two sermons, comparatively
   cheerful and buoyant in their tone, were preached. Oliver Cromwell is
   dead. His son Richard is in his place; but cannot fill it. The
   Parliament has been convened on the 27th of January 1659; and on the
   4th of February Dr Owen is called to preach before it. It is most
   interesting to gather the spirit of the day from the scope and
   character of this discourse. In the last discourses, complacency in the
   peace prevailing in the country, and jealousy lest unseemly contention
   should renew the distraction and turmoil from which the nation has made
   its escape, are predominant characteristics. In the discourse that
   follows, it is easy to mark a spirit of anxiety as to the future
   developments of Providence. One emphatic sentence lays bare the very
   heart of the nation, heaving and throbbing with painful uncertainty in
   regard to the issue of public events; -- "We have peace now, outward
   peace; but, alas! we have not quietness: and if any thing may be done
   that may give us quietness, yet perhaps we may not have assurance." The
   preacher, however, has not abated his confidence in God, -- insists
   upon His presence and aid as the true source of hope to the nation, and
   of preservation from ruin, -- shows that, from the multitude of the
   godly in the land, God's presence is still with the nation, and
   rejoices in the belief that they will prove to it" as the ark in the
   house of Obed-edom, as Joseph in the house of Potiphar." Whatever
   reasons might exist for the prevailing anxiety, Owen "encouraged
   himself in God;" and sought in this discourse to infuse into the minds
   of his hearers his own unshaken steadfastness of faith.

   It appears, from the dedication, that some exception had been taken to
   certain views which he had expressed in the sermon about civil
   government. The only passage in it which bears on civil government will
   be found at the foot of p. 466; in which he mentions, that although he
   does not think a man may not be lawfully called to magistracy who is
   not a believer, yet he had "no great expectation from them whom God
   loves not." In the dedication he affirms that he had advanced nothing
   which could "really interfere with any form of civil government, in the
   world, administered according to righteousness and equity." -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the right honourable, the Commons of England, assembled in Parliament.

   I need not give any other account of my publishing this ensuing short
   discourse, than that which was also the ground and reason of its
   preaching, -- namely, your command. Those who are not satisfied
   therewith, I shall not endeavour to tender farther grounds of
   satisfaction unto, as not having any persuasion of prevailing if I
   should attempt it. Prejudice so far oftentimes prevails, even on good
   soils, that satisfaction will not speedily thrive and grow in them.
   That which exempts me from solicitousness about the frame and temper of
   men's minds and spirits, in the entertainment of discourses of this
   nature, is the annexing of that injunction unto our commission in
   delivering the word of God: it must be done, "whether men will hear, or
   whether they will forbear." Without, therefore, any plea or apology for
   whatever may seem most to need it in this sermon, I devolve the whole
   account of the rise and issue it had, or may have, on the providence of
   God in my call and your command. Only I shall crave leave to add, that,
   in my waiting for a little leisure to recollect what I delivered out of
   my own short notes and others' (that I might not preach one sermon and
   print another), there were some considerations that fell in exciting me
   to the obedience I had purposed. The desire I had to make more public,
   at this time and season, the testimony given in simplicity of spirit to
   the interest of Christ in these nations, and therein to the true, real
   interest of these nations themselves, -- which was my naked design,
   openly managed, and pursued with all plainness of speech (as the small
   portion of time allotted to this exercise would allow), -- was the
   chief of them. Solicitations of some particular friends gave also
   warmth unto that consideration. I must farther confess, that I was a
   little moved by some mistakes that were delivered into the hands of
   report, to be managed to the discountenance of the honest and plain
   truth contended for, especially when I found them, without due
   consideration, exposed in print unto public view. That is the manner of
   these days wherein we live. I know full well that there is not any
   thing, from the beginning to the ending of this short discourse, that
   doth really interfere with any form of civil government in the world,
   administered according to righteousness and equity, -- as there is not
   in the gospel of Christ, or in any of the concernments of it. And I am
   assured, also, that the truth proposed in it inwraps the whole ground
   of any just expectation of the continuance of the presence of God
   amongst us, and his acceptation of our endeavours about the allotment
   and just disposal of our civil affairs. Let others lay what weight they
   will or please, upon the lesser differences that are amongst us on any
   account whatever; if this shield be safe, -- this principle maintained
   and established, that is here laid down, -- and the just rights of the
   nation laid in a way of administration, suited unto its preservation
   and furtherance, I shall not easily be cast down from my hopes, that
   amongst us -- poor, unprofitable, unthankful creatures as we are -- we
   may yet see the fruit of righteousness to be peace, and the effect of
   righteousness quietness and assurance for evermore. For those, then,
   who shall cast their eve on this paper, I would beg of them to lay
   aside all those prejudices against persons or things, which their
   various contexture in our public affairs may possibly have raised in
   them. I know how vain, for the most part, expectations of prevailing in
   such a desire by naked requests are; but sick men must be groaning,
   though they look for no relief thereby. Wherefore, committing it into
   that hand wherein lie also your hearts and mine, I shall commend it,
   for your use, unto the sovereign grace of Him, who is able to work all
   your present works for you, and, which is more, to give you an
   inheritance among them that are sanctified. So prays

   Your Servant in the work of

   Our Lord Jesus Christ and his Gospel,

   John Owen.
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Sermon XII. The glory and interest of nations professing the gospel.

   "Upon all the glory shall be a defence." -- Isa. iv. 5.

   The design of this chapter is to give in relief against outward
   perplexing extremities, from gospel promises, and the presence of
   Christ with his people in those extremities. The next intendment of the
   words in the type seems to relate to the deliverance of the people of
   the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, and the presence of God amongst
   them upon their return; -- God frequently taking occasion from thence
   to mind them of the covenant of grace, with the full ratification and
   publication of it by Christ, as is evident from Jer. xxxi. and xxxii.,
   and sundry other places.

   As to our purpose, we have considerable in the chapter, -- the persons
   to whom these promises are given; the condition wherein they were; and
   the promises themselves that are made to them, for their supportment
   and consolation.

   First. The persons intended are the remnant, the escaping, the "evasion
   of Israel," as the word signifies, verse 2, -- they that are left, that
   remain, verse 3, -- who escape the great desolation that was to come on
   the body of the people, the furnace they were to pass through. Only, in
   the close of that verse they have a farther description added of them,
   from the purpose of God concerning their grace and glory; they are
   written among the living, or rather, written unto life; -- "Every one
   that is written," that is, designed, unto life in Jerusalem.

   As to the persons, in themselves considered, the application is easy
   unto this assembly. Are you not the remnant, -- the escaping of
   England? Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Are you not they
   that are left, they that remain from great trials and desolations? The
   Lord grant that the application may hold out, and abide to the end of
   the prophecy!

   Secondly. The condition that this remnant, or escaping, had been in, is
   laid down in some figurative expressions concerning the smallness of
   this remnant, or the paucity of them that should escape, and the
   greatness of the extremities they should be exercised withal. I cannot
   insist on particulars. It may suffice, that great distresses and
   calamities are intimated therein; and such have the days of our former
   trials and troubles been to some of us.

   Thirdly. The promises here made to this people, thus escaped from great
   distresses, are of two sorts:-- Original or fundamental; and then
   consequential thereon.

   1. There is the great spring, or fountain-promise, from which all
   others, as lesser streams, do flow; and that is the promise of Christ
   himself unto them, and amongst them, verse 2. He is that "branch of
   Jehovah" and that "fruit of the earth" which is there promised. He is
   the bottom and foundation, the spring and fountain, of all the good
   that is or shall be communicated unto us; all other promises are but
   rivulets from that unsearchable ocean of grace and love that is in the
   promise of Christ; -- of which afterward.

   2. The promises that are derived and flow from hence may be referred
   unto three heads:-- (1.) Of beauty and glory, verse 2; (2.) Of holiness
   and purity, verses 3, 4; (3.) Of preservation and safety, verses 5, 6.

   My text lies among the last sort; and not intending long to detain you,
   I shall pass over the others, and immediately close with that of our
   present concernment.

   Now, this promise of verse 5 is of a comprehensive nature, and relates
   to spiritual and temporal safety or preservation. Godliness, though it
   be not much believed, yet indeed hath the promise of this life and that
   which is to come.

   I shall a little open the words of the verse, and thereby give light to
   those which I have chosen peculiarly to insist upon. It is, as I have
   said, safety and preservation, both spiritual and temporal, that is
   here engaged for; and concerning it we have considerable, --

   [1.].The manner of its production. -- I will create it, saith God.
   There is a creating power needful to be exerted for the preservation of
   Zion's remnant. Their preservation must be of God's creation. It is not
   only, not to be educed out of any other principle, or to be wrought by
   any other means; but it must, as it were, by the almighty power of God,
   be brought out of nothing; -- God must create it. At least, as there
   were two sorts of God's creatures at the beginning, -- that dark body
   of matter, whose rise was merely from nothing; and those things which
   from that dark, confused heap, he made to be other things than what
   they were therein, -- it is of the last sort of creatures, if not of
   the first. If the preservation of this remnant be not out of nothing,
   without any means at all, yet it is for the most part from that
   darkness and confusion of things which contribute very little or
   nothing towards it. I will create it, saith God; and whilst he
   continues possessed of his creating power, it shall be well with his
   Israel.

   [2.] For the nature of it; -- it is here set out under the terms of
   that eminent pledge of the presence of God with his people in the
   wilderness, for their guidance and protection in the midst of all their
   difficulties and hazards, by a pillar of cloud and a flaming fire. This
   guided them through the sea, and continued with them after the setting
   up of the tabernacle in the wilderness forty years. The use and
   efficacy of that pillar, the intendment of God in it, the advantage of
   the people by it, I cannot stay to unfold:-- it may suffice, in
   general, that it was a great and signal pledge of God's presence with
   them, for their guidance and preservation; that they might act
   according to his will, and enjoy safety in so doing. Only, whereas this
   promise here respects gospel times, the nature of the mercy promised is
   enlarged, and thereby somewhat changed. In the wilderness there was but
   one tabernacle; and so, consequently, one cloud by day, and one pillar
   of fire by night, was a sufficient pledge of the presence of God with
   the whole people. There are now many dwelling-places, many assemblies
   of mount Zion; and in the enlargement of mercy and grace under the
   gospel, the same pledge of God's presence and favour is promised to
   every one of them as was before to the whole. The word we have
   translated "a dwelling-place," denotes not a common habitation, but a
   place prepared for God; and is the same with the assemblies and
   congregations in the expression following. The sum of all is, God, by
   his creating power, in despite of all opposition, will bring forth
   preservation for his people; guiding them in paths wherein they shall
   find peace and safety.

   Only ye may observe the order and dependence of these promises; -- the
   promise of holiness, verse 4, lies in order before that of safety,
   verse 5. Unless our filth and our blood be purged away by a spirit of
   judgment and a spirit of burning, it is in vain for us to look for the
   pillar and the cloud. If we are not interested in holiness, we shall
   not be interested in safety; -- I mean as it lies in the promise, and
   is a mercy washed in the blood of Jesus; for as for the peace of the
   world, I regard it not. Let not men of polluted hearts and defiled
   hands once imagine, that God cares for them in an especial manner. If
   our filth and our blood, our sin and our corruption, abide upon us, and
   we are delivered, it will be for a greater ruin; the way unto the cloud
   and pillar is by the spirit of judgment and burning.

   The words of my text are a recapitulation of the whole verse, and are a
   gospel promise given out in law terms; or a New Testament mercy under
   Old Testament expressions.

   I shall, then, briefly show you these two things:-- 1st. What is here
   expressed as to the type and figure; 2dly. What is here intended as to
   the substance of the mercy promised.

   1st. For the figure; by the "glory" and "defence," a double consort, or
   two pairs of things seem to be intended; -- the ark and the mercy-seat;
   the tabernacle and the pillar of fire.

   For the first, -- the ark is oftentimes called the "glory" of God, Ps.
   lxxviii. 61, "He delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory
   into the enemy's hand; "-- where he speaks of the surprisal of the ark
   by the Philistines; which when it was accomplished, Phinehas's wife
   called her son Ichabod, and said, "The glory is departed," 1 Sam. iv.
   21. The word which we have rendered "a defence," properly signifies "a
   covering;" as was the mercy-seat, the covering of the ark. So that,
   "Upon the glory shall be a defence," is as much as, Unto you the
   mercy-seat shall be on the ark; or, You shall have the mercy
   represented and intimated thereby.

   The tabernacle and cloud, or pillar of fire, are also called to mind.
   So the words are expressive of that figure of God's gracious presence
   with his people which we have recounted, Exod. xl. 34, "Then a cloud
   covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled
   the tabernacle." So it continued: the glory of God was in the
   tabernacle, and the cloud upon it, or over it, as the word here is; and
   so "upon all the glory there was a defence."

   2dly. I need not stay to prove that all those things were typical of
   Christ. He was the "end of the law," represented by the ark, which did
   contain it, Rom. x. 3, 4. He was "the mercy-seat," as he is called, and
   said to be, Rom. iii. 25, 1 John ii. 2, -- covering the law from the
   eye of justice, as to those that are interested in him. He was the
   tabernacle and temple, wherein dwelt the glory of God, and which was
   replenished with all pledges of his gracious presence.

   Apply, then, this promise to gospel times, and the substance of it is
   comprehended in these two propositions:-- I. The presence of Christ
   with any people, is the glory of any people. This is the glory here
   spoken of; as is evident to any one that will but read over the second
   verse, and consider its influence unto these words: "The branch of the
   Lord shall be to them beautiful and glorious;" and, "Up on all the
   glory shall be a defence." II. The presence of God in special
   providence over a people, attends the presence of Christ in grace with
   a people. If Christ, the glory, be with them, a defence shall be upon
   them; what lies else in allusion to the mercy-seat, not drawn forth in
   these propositions, may be afterward insisted on.

   I. For the first: What, I pray, else should be so? This is their glory,
   or they have none. Is it in their number, that they are great, many,
   and populous? God thinks not so, nor did he when he gave an account of
   his thoughts of his people of old: "The Lord did not set his love upon
   you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;
   for ye were the fewest of all people," Deut. vii. 7. God made no
   reckoning of numbers; he chose that people that was fewest of all. He
   esteemed well of them, when they were but "a few men in number; yea,
   very few, and strangers," Ps. cv. 12. You know what it cost David in
   being seduced by Satan into the contrary opinion. He thought the glory
   of his people had been in their number, and caused them to be reckoned;
   but God taught him his error, by taking off with a dreadful judgment no
   small portion of the number he sought after. There is nothing more
   common in the Scripture, than for the Lord to speak contempt of the
   multitude of any people, as a thing of nought; and he takes pleasure to
   confound them by weak and despised means. Is it in their wisdom and
   counsel, their understanding for the ordering of their affairs? Is that
   their glory? Why, see how God derides the prince of Tyrus, who was
   lifted up with an apprehension hereof, and counted himself as God upon
   that account, Ezek. xxvii. 3-6, etc. The issue of all is, "Thou shalt
   be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slays thee." God will let
   him see, in his ruin and destruction, what a vain thing that was which
   he thought his glory. Might I dwell upon it, I could evince unto you
   these two things:--

   1. That whereas the end of all human wisdom in nations, or the rulers
   of them, is to preserve human society in peace and quietness, within
   the several bounds and allotments that are given unto them by the
   providence of God, it so comes to pass, for the most part, through the
   righteous judgment and wise disposal of God, that it hath a contrary
   end, and bringeth forth contrary effects throughout the world. Do not
   the inhabitants of the earth generally owe all their disturbance,
   sorrow, and blood to the wise contrivance of a few men, not knowing how
   to take the law of their proceedings from the mouth of God, but laying
   their deep counsels and politic contrivances in a subserviency to their
   lusts and ambition? And what glory is there in that, which almost
   constantly brings forth contrary effects to its own proper end and
   intendment?

   2. That God delights to mix a spirit of giddiness, error, and folly in
   the counsels of the wise men of the world; making them reel and stagger
   in their way like a drunken man, that they shall not know what to do,
   but commonly, in their greatest concernments, fix upon things as devoid
   of true reason and sound wisdom as any children or fools could close
   withal. "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness; and the counsel of
   the froward is carried headlong," Job v. 13, 14; -- so at large, Isa.
   xix. 11-14. And now where is their glory? I could give instances of
   both these, and that plentifully, in the days and seasons that have
   passed over our own heads. The like also may be said of the strength,
   the power, the armies of any people, -- if their number and wisdom be
   vain, be no glory; their strength, which is but the result or exurgency
   of their number and wisdom, must needs be so also. But you have all
   this summed up together, Jer. ix. 23, 24, "Thus saith the Lord, Let not
   the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in
   his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that
   glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am
   the Lord." It is neither wisdom, nor might, nor riches, that is our
   glory; but our interest in Jehovah only.

   This, I say, is in the presence of Christ only.

   Now, Christ may be said to be present with a people two ways.

   (1.) In respect of the dispensation of his gospel amongst them, the
   profession of it, and subjection to the ordinances thereof. The gospel
   of Christ is a blessed gospel, -- a glorious gospel in itself, and unto
   them that embrace it. But yet this profession, separated from the root
   from which it ought to spring, is not the glory of any people; Christ
   is not their glory who are his shame. Empty profession is the shame of
   Christ in the world, and shall not be others' glory. The apostle tells
   us that this may consist with a litter of unclean lusts; making them in
   whom it is abominable to God and man, 2 Tim. iii. 4, 5. If the bare
   profession of the truth would render a nation glorious, oh, how
   glorious were this nation! So would have been the people of old, who
   cried, "The temple of the Lord! the temple of the Lord!" But when men
   profess the truth of Christ, but in their hearts and ways maintain and
   manifest an enmity to the power of that truth, and to all of Christ
   that is in reality in the world, -- this is no glory.

   (2.) Christ is present with a people in and by his Spirit, -- dwelling
   in their hearts by his Spirit and faith, uniting them to himself. I do
   not distinguish this from the former, as inconsistent with it; for
   though the former may be without this, yet where this is there will be
   the former also. Profession may be without union; but union will bring
   forth profession. There may be a form of godliness without power; but
   where the power is, there will be the appearance also. Now, when Christ
   is thus present with a people, -- that is, [when] they are united to
   him by his Spirit, -- they are members of his mystical body; -- that is
   their glory. Be they few or many in a nation that are so, they are the
   glory of that nation, and nothing else: and where there is the most of
   them, there is the most glory; and where they are diminished, there the
   glory is eclipsed. Christ mystical, the head and his body, is all the
   glory that is in the world. If any nation be glorious and honourable
   above others, it is because of this presence of Christ in that nation.
   Christ is the glory of his saints, Isa. iv. 2, -- in him they glory,
   Isa. xlv. 25; and the saints are Christ's glory, 2 Cor. viii. 23. They
   are the glory of Christ, and he glories in them; as God of Job, to
   Satan: "Hast thou considered my servant Job?" chap. i. 8. He doth, as
   it were, glory in him against the wickedness of the world; and Christ
   in them, and they in him, are all the glory of this world. So Zech. ii.
   8, Christ was in the pursuit of the collection of his people from their
   dispersion. What seeks he after, -- what looks he for? He goes "after
   the glory;" even to find out them who are God's glory in the world.

   Now this is the glory of any people, upon a threefold account.

   [1.] This alone makes them honourable and precious before God. So says
   God of them, Isa. xliii. 1, "I have redeemed thee, I have called thee
   by thy name; thou art mine;" -- those are they of whom I spake. What
   then? Verse 4, "Thou art precious in my sight, thou art honourable, and
   I have loved thee." How doth God manifest his valuation of them? Verse
   3, Why, he will give all the world, -- the greatest, mightiest,
   wealthiest nations, for them; verse 5, all is as nothing in comparison
   of them who are his portion, and the lot of his inheritance. The Lord
   keep this alive upon your hearts, that that may be in your eyes the
   glory of this nation, on the account whereof it is precious to God, and
   honourable in his sight.

   [2.] Because this presence of Christ makes men comely and excellent in
   themselves, with what eye soever the world may look upon them. The
   whole world, out of Christ, lies in evil, -- under the curse of God and
   defilement of sin. In all the glittering shows of their wealth and
   riches, in the state and magnificence of their governments, the beauty
   of their laws and order (as they relate to their persons), they are, in
   the eye of God, a filthy and an abominable thing, -- a thing that his
   soul loatheth. Curse and sin will make any thing to be so. But now
   Christ is to them, and in them, beautiful and glorious, Isa. iv. 2.
   Christ is so in himself, and he is so unto them, and makes them to be
   so. There is through him beauty, and excellency, and comeliness, --
   every thing that may make them lovely and acceptable. That the world
   looks not on them as such, is not their fault, but the world's misery.
   It looked on their master -- Christ himself, the brightness of his
   Father's glory, who is altogether lovely, the chiefest of ten thousand
   -- with no other eye, Isa. liii. 2. They are so in themselves, and are
   so to Christ. Being exposed, indeed, to many temptations, oftentimes
   they are made black and sully [sullied] by them; but yet they are
   comely still, Cant. i. 5. The ways whereby they are made black, for the
   most part we have expressed, verse 6; when the sun shines on them, and
   they are made keepers of the vineyard, it comes upon them. Prosperity
   and public employment oftentimes so sully them, that they are made
   black to the reproach of the world; but yet to Christ, who forgives and
   washes them, they are comely. Yea, this is all the excellency that is
   in the world. Sin, with honour, with wealth, with power, with wisdom,
   is a deformed and contemptible thing:-- it is grace only that is
   beautiful and glorious; it is the gracious only that are excellent in
   the earth, Ps. xvi. 3.

   [3.] This alone makes any truly useful unto others; and that either for
   preservation or prosperity.

   1st. Here lies the preservation of any nation from ruin. Isa. lxv. 8,
   "Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one
   saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my
   servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all." This is the blessing
   in the cluster, the hidden and secret blessing, for the sake whereof
   the whole is not destroyed. The "remnant" left by the Lord of hosts,
   Isa. i. 9, -- that keeps the whole from being as Sodom or Gomorrah. If
   Elisha, a servant of the Lord, told the king of Israel, in his
   distress, that if he had not regarded the presence of Jehoshaphat, the
   king of Judah, he would not so much as have spoken to him; how much
   more will the Lord himself let a people know, in their distress, that
   were it not for the regard he hath to his secret ones, he would not
   take the least notice as to relief of them, or their concernments!
   Sodom could not be destroyed until Lot was delivered. The whole world
   owes its preservation and being to them, whom they make it their
   business to root out of it. They are as the foolish woman, that pulls
   down her own house with both her hands. It is not your councils, -- you
   know how they have been divided, entangled, ensnared; it is not your
   armies, as such, -- what have they been, to oppose against the mighty
   floods that have risen up in this nation? and they also have been as a
   reed driven to and fro with the wind (mankind is no better; John the
   Baptist says it of himself); -- but it is this presence of Christ in
   and with his, that hath been the preservation of England, in the midst
   of all the changes and revolutions that we have been exercised withal,
   Mic. v. 5.

   2dly. Not only preservation, but prosperity is from hence also. Mic. v.
   7, "And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a
   dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for
   man, nor waiteth for the sons of men." It is the remnant of Jacob of
   whom he speaks; that is, this people of Christ, with whom he is so
   present, as hath been manifested. And where are they? They are in the
   midst of many people, in their inside, -- in their bowels. They are
   woven, by their relations and employments, into the bowels of the
   nations; and on that account, there is neither this nor any nation
   about us, but shall spin out their mercies or their misery from their
   own bowels. Their providential fates lie in them; as is their
   deportment towards this remnant, such will their issue be. But what
   shall this remnant do? Why, it shall be "as dew from the Lord," and "as
   showers on the grass." It shall be that alone which makes them
   fruitful, flourishing, and prosperous. It may be, it will be so,
   provided there be good assistance, counsel, and strength, to carry on
   their affairs: yea, blessed be God for councils, and for armies; he
   hath made them useful to us. But the truth is, the blessing of this dew
   depends not on them; it tarrieth not for man; it waiteth not for the
   sons of men. It will be a blessing, let men do what they will; it
   depends not on their uncertain and unstable counsel, -- on their weak
   and feeble strength. This remnant is as the ark in the house of
   Obed-edom, as Joseph in the house of Petiphar, -- all is blessed and
   prospered for their sakes. It is not the glorious battlements, the
   painted windows, the crouching antics that support a building, but the
   stones that lie unseen in or upon the earth. It is often those who are
   despised and trampled on that bear up the weight of a whole nation. All
   the fresh springs of our blessings are in Zion.

   It were easy to manifest, that in all our late revolutions we have
   turned on this hinge. According as the presence of Christ with his
   people, in the power of his Spirit, hath received entertainment in
   these nations, so hath our state and condition been. For many years
   before the beginning of these troubles, the land had been full of
   oppression; I mean, in respect to the people of God. Poverty,
   imprisonment, dangers, banishment, reproaches, were their portion. God
   was long patient. At length the height of their adversaries came to
   this, that they set not themselves so much against their persons or
   ways, as against the Spirit of Christ in and with them: that was made
   their reproach, that the by-word wherewith they were despised in the
   mouths of their adversaries, and the profane multitude. When things
   were come to this, that the very presence of Christ with his people was
   made the direct object of the hatred of men, the Lord could bear it no
   longer; but sware by himself that time should be given them no more. In
   this very house he raised up saviours and deliverers on mount Zion, to
   judge the mount of Edom. And how did he carry on this work? Not by
   might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, as Zech.
   iv. 6; even by that very Spirit which had been reviled and despised.
   Give me leave to say, the work of judging this nation was carried on by
   the presence of the Spirit of Christ with his in faith and prayer. It
   was not by prudence of councils, or strength of armies above that of
   our enemies, that we prevailed; but by faith and prayer: and if any one
   be otherwise minded, I leave him for his resolution to the judgment of
   the great day, when all transactions shall be called over again. The
   adversaries themselves, I am sure, acknowledged it, when they openly
   professed that there was nothing left for them to overcome, or to
   overcome them, but the prayers of the fanatic crew.

   After some years' contending, when the Lord had begun to give us
   deliverance, by breaking the power of the enemy, at least in this
   nation, besides those bitter divisions that fell out among the people
   of God themselves, and the backsliding of some to the cause and
   principles they had opposed, this evil was also found rising again
   amongst us; -- slighting, blaspheming, contemning, under several
   pretences, of the Spirit and presence of Christ in and with his saints.
   You know what ensued; -- what shakings, what revolutions, with new
   wars, bloodshed, and desolation, over the three nations. And give me
   leave to remember you, as one that had opportunity to make observations
   of the passages of Providence in those days, in all the three nations,
   in the times of our greatest hazards; -- give me leave, I say, to
   remember you, that the public declarations, of those employed in the
   affairs of this nation, in the face of the enemies, their addresses
   unto God among themselves, their prayers night and day, their private
   discourses one with another, -- were, that the preservation of the
   interest of Christ in and with his people was the great thing that lay
   in their eyes; and that if it were not so, they desired that God would
   stop them in their way; yea, rather cause their carcasses to fall in
   the high places of the field, than to prosper them in that which should
   be contrary thereunto: and we know what ensued. How we have used our
   mercies is another matter: this was the principle that prevailed with
   God and man.

   Use 1. If you desire the glory of these nations, labour to promote the
   interest of Christ in these nations. I am not speaking unto you about
   disputable things, -- differences among the people of God themselves;
   nor am I interposing my advice in your civil affairs; but I speak in
   general about those with whom Christ is present by his Spirit, his
   chosen ones, against whom there is an old enmity in Satan and the
   world. The glory of these nations is, that there is a people in them
   that have Christ in the midst of them; let it be your business to take
   care for that glory. But how shall we do it?

   (1.) Labour personally, every one of you, to get Christ in your own
   hearts. I am very far from thinking that a man may not be lawfully
   called to magistracy, if he be not a believer; or that, being called,
   he should be impeded in the execution of his trust and place because he
   is not so. I shall not suspend my obedience whilst I inquire after my
   lawful governor's conversion; but yet this I say, considering that I
   cannot much value any good, but what comes in by the way of promise, I
   confess I can have no great expectation from them whom God loves not,
   delights not in. If any be otherwise minded, I shall not contend with
   him; but for this I will contend with all the world, that it is your
   duty to labour to assure Christ in your own hearts, even that you may
   be the better fitted for the work of God in the world. It is the
   promise of God to Zion, that "her officers shall be peace, and her
   exactors righteousness," Isa. lx. 17; and then shall she call her
   "walls Salvation, and her gates Praise," verse 18. It will be little
   advantage to any, to have the work of God raised in the world, and not
   to have the foundation-stone laid in their hearts. If there should be
   in any of you an enmity unto Christ and the power of godliness, -- a
   hatred and contempt of the people of God, -- an evil heart of unbelief,
   -- an evil course of life, worldliness, oppression, vanity of mind,
   etc., -- would it advantage you to be intrusted with power in these
   nations? Would it not hasten your destruction, and increase your
   account? It is a noble promise that we have, Isa. xxxii. 17, "And the
   work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness,
   quietness and assurance for ever." It is a gospel righteousness that is
   spoken of; and that not of the cause as such only, but of the persons.
   The persons being righteous, and that with the righteousness of Christ,
   the effects mentioned shall follow their righteous undertakings. We
   have peace now, outward peace; but, alas! we have not quietness; and if
   any thing may be done that may give us quietness, yet, perhaps, we may
   not have assurance. We may be quickly shaken again; but when the
   righteousness of the persons and cause meet, all the rest will follow.

   (2.) Set yourselves to oppose that overflowing flood of profaneness,
   and opposition to the power of godliness, that is spreading itself over
   this nation. Know you not that the nation begins to be overwhelmed by
   the pourings out of a profane, wicked, carnal spirit, full of rage, and
   contempt of all the work of reformation that has been attempted amongst
   us? Do you not know that if the former profane principle should prove
   predominant in this nation, that it will quickly return to its former
   station and condition, and that with the price of your dearest blood?
   And yet, is there not already such a visible prevalency of it, that in
   many places the very profession of religion is become a scorn; and in
   others, those old forms and ways taken up with greediness, which are a
   badge of apostasy from all former engagements and actings? And are not
   these sad evidences of the Lord's departing from us? If I should lay
   before you a comparison between the degrees of the appearances of the
   glory of God in this nation, the steps whereby it came forth, and those
   whereby it seems almost to be departing, it would be a matter of
   admiration and lamentation. I pray God we lose not our ground faster
   than we won it. Were our hearts kept up to our good old principles on
   which we first engaged, it would not be so with us; but innumerable
   evils have laid hold upon us; and the temptations of these days have
   made us a woful prey. Gray hairs are here and there, and it will be no
   wonder if our ruin should come with more speed than did our
   deliverance. Oh, then, set yourselves in the gap! by all ways and means
   oppose the growth of an evil, profane, common, malignant spirit amongst
   us. But I haste.

   (3.) Value, encourage, and close with them in and with whom is this
   presence of Christ. They are the glory of the nation; its peace,
   safety, and prosperity will be found wrapped up in them. I know there
   lie divers considerable objections against the practice of this duty. I
   shall name some few of them, and leave the exhortation unto your
   consideration:--

   [1.] Who are those persons in whom is this presence of Christ? Are they
   such as profess indeed religion, but neglect all rules of
   righteousness? -- that would be accounted godly, but care not to be
   honest, -- the marks of whose miscarriages are written on their
   foreheads? Are not these so far from being the glory, that they are the
   shame of any nation? I pray give me leave to endeavour the rolling away
   of this great stone of offence, in these few ensuing considerations:--

   1st, Then, I shall willingly lay this down for a principle, that he is
   not religious who is not also righteous; as also, I shall not much
   value his righteousness who is not religious. He that is righteous doth
   righteousness; he doth so, in the bent of his spirit, and course of his
   ways and walkings. If a man be froward, heady, high-minded, sensual,
   unjust, oppressive, worldly, self-seeking, a hater of good men, false,
   treacherous, let him pretend to what he will, that man's religion is in
   vain; he may have a form of godliness, but he hath not the power of it.
   This principle we shall agree upon.

   2dly, There have been, in the days wherein we live, many false
   professors, hypocrites, that have thought gain to be godliness; by
   reason of whose wicked lives, ways, and walking, the name of God hath
   been evil spoken of. And woe to them by whom these offences are come!
   -- but yet, also, woe to the world because of offences! If these
   offences turn off men from an esteem of the remnant of Christ, in whom
   is his presence, woe to them also! I acknowledge, these clays have
   abounded with offences; but woe to them who are turned aside by them
   from owning the portion and inheritance of Christ!

   3dly, It cannot be denied, but that many of them who do belong unto
   Christ have woefully miscarried in these days. "O tell it not in Gath,
   publish it not in Askelon!" O that our souls could mourn in secret on
   that account! that we could go backward, and cover the nakedness and
   folly of one another! But, alas! this hath been far from being our
   frame of spirit! We have every one spread the failings of his brother
   before the face of men and devils. But yet, notwithstanding these
   miscarriages, those that are the people of Christ are his people still;
   and he loves them still, whether we will or no; -- and commonly, those
   who are least able to bear with the miscarriages of others, have most
   of their own.

   4thly, That differences of judgments, in civil affairs or church
   matters, ought not presently to be made arguments of men not being
   righteous. Some men think that none are righteous that are not of their
   principles; than which principle there is nothing more unrighteous. Let
   men that differ from them walk never so holily, profess never so
   strictly, yet, if they are not of their mind, they are not righteous!
   If men are offended on such accounts, it is because they will be so.

   5thly, This hath ever been the way of the men of the world; that when
   any have been unblamable and zealous upon the account of religion, they
   will attempt their reputation, though without any ground or colour,
   upon the account of righteousness. So suffered the Christians of old;
   and so the Puritans of former days; -- unjustly and falsely, as God
   will judge and declare. The world, then, in this matter, is not to be
   believed; the common reports of it are from the devil, the accuser of
   the brethren, who accuses them in the same manner before God night and
   day. These are but pretences, whereby men, ignorant of the mystery of
   the gospel and the power of grace, harden themselves to their ruin.

   6thly, This remnant of Christ, with whom his presence is, who are the
   glory of a nation, is to be found only amongst the professors of a
   nation. For, although of those who are professors there may be many
   bad, yet of those that are not professors there is not one good. Where
   there is faith there will be a profession. If I should not know well
   where to find them, I am sure I know where I cannot find them. I cannot
   find them in the ways of the world, and conformity to it; in darkness,
   ignorance, neglect of duty, and utter unacquaintedness with gospel
   truths, -- the gifts and graces of the Spirit. There I cannot find
   them. I shall not say of them, "Behold the Lord's anointed!" let their
   outward, worldly appearance be what it will. Now, by the help of these
   considerations, those who have in themselves principles of life and
   light in Christ, will, or may be (setting aside their temptations),
   enabled to discover this generation of the Lord's delight; and for
   others, I cannot take down the enmity that God hath set up. So then,
   notwithstanding this objection, I shall certainly esteem this remnant
   of Christ to lie among those who, having received gospel light and
   gospel gifts, evidently do make also profession of gospel grace, union
   and communion with Christ, separation from the world and the ways of
   it, in a conversation acceptable unto God in Christ. And to this
   portion shall I say, as Ruth to Naomi, let what will be glorious or
   uppermost in the world, "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou
   lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my
   God. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee
   and me." With them let my portion be, and the portion of my family,
   whatever their lot and condition in this world should be; and the Lord
   say, Amen.

   [2.] But it will be said, secondly, We are still at a loss; for what
   woful divisions are there amongst this generation of professors! Some
   are for one way, and some for another; some say one sort are the people
   of God, some another; some say the Prelatists are so, some the
   Presbyterians; some the Independents, some the Anabaptists; some the
   Fifth-monarchy-men, some others; -- and on whom should the valuation
   pleaded for be cast?

   To this I answer, --

   1st. Some do say so, and plead thus, it cannot be denied; but the truth
   is, the greater is their weakness and folly. It is impossible men
   acquainted with the Spirit of Christ and the gospel should say so,
   unless they were under the power of one temptation or other. But it is
   no party, but the party of Christ in the world, and against the world
   -- the seed of the woman against the seed of the serpent -- that I am
   pleading for. That men, as to their interest in Christ, should be
   judged from such denominations as, though they make a great noise in
   the world, yet, indeed, signify very little things in themselves, is
   most unrighteous and unequal; nor will men find peace in such rash and
   precipitate judgments.

   2dly. There may be many divisions amongst the people of God, and yet
   none of them be divided from Christ, the head, The branches of a tree
   may be entangled by strong winds, and stricken against one another, and
   yet none of them be broken off from the tree itself; and when the storm
   is over, every one possesses its own place in quietness, beauty, and
   fruitfulness. Whilst the strong winds of temptations are upon the
   followers of Christ, they may be tossed and entangled; but not being
   broken off from the root, when he shall say to the winds, "Peace, be
   still," they will flourish again in peace and beauty.

   3dly. Let not Satan cheat you of your duty by this trivial objection.
   If he can keep you from duty whilst he can make divisions, he hath you
   sure enough. They of whom I speak, be they under what reproach or
   obloquies soever, they are all true men, all the children of one
   Father, though they are unhappily fallen out by the way.

   Use 2. Of encouragement to those that have the presence of Christ with
   them in the manner declared; -- they shall be safe. In vain it is for
   all the world to attempt their security; either they shall not prevail,
   or they shall mischief themselves by their own prevalency, Mic. v. 8.
   As they shall be a dew where they are appointed for a blessing; so, as
   a lion where they are oppressed. Destruction will come forth on their
   account, and that terribly, like the destruction of a lion; speedily in
   passing through it shall be done. And whence is it that this feeble
   generation shall be as a lion? It is from the presence of Christ among
   them, who is "the lion of the tribe of Judah;" and, to honour them, he
   assigns that to them which is his own proper work. Let men take heed
   how they provoke this lion. For the present, Gen. xlix. 9, he is "gone
   up from the prey: he stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion, and as an
   old lion; who shall rouse him up?' He hath taken his prey in these
   nations, in the destruction of many of his enemies; he seemeth now to
   take his rest, to couch down, his indignation being overpast; -- but
   who shall rouse him up? Why! what if he be provoked? what if he be
   stirred up? Why, he will not lie down, "until he eat of the prey, and
   drink the blood of the slain," Num. xxiii. 24. There is no delivery
   from him. No; but what if there be a strong combination of many against
   him; will he not cease and give over? Isa. xxxi. 4. Be they who they
   will, the shepherds of the people; be they never so many, -- a
   multitude of them; let them lift up their voice and rage never so much,
   -- all is one; he will perform his work and accomplish it, until you
   have him in the condition mentioned, Isa. lxiii. 1-6. Blessed are the
   people that are under his care and conduct; yea, blessed are the people
   whose God is the Lord!
     __________________________________________________________________
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   Sermon XIII.

   How we may bring our hearts to bear reproofs.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note to the three following discourses.

   In the year 1672, the government of Charles II. began to abate its
   severity against Dissent. Penal laws against the Nonconformists and
   Popish recusants were suspended. They were allowed to meet for public
   worship, on the condition of taking out from government a license to
   this effect. A large body of Nonconformists availed themselves of the
   license. Numerous congregations were formed; and, to illustrate the
   harmony between Presbyterians and Independents on the leading doctrines
   of the Christian system, a weekly lectureship was established, in which
   four Presbyterian and two Independent ministers officiated in rotation.
   The first lectures were Dr Bates, Dr Manton, Dr Owen, Mr Baxter, Mr
   Collins, and Mr Jenkyn. The lectures were delivered in Pinner's Hall,
   an ancient and curious building in Old Broad Street. This lectureship
   was supported by considerable sums, which were bequeathed for the
   purpose. A division among the lecturers took place in 1694, occasioned
   by disputes in regard to the soundness of some opinions of Dr Crisp,
   whose works had been reprinted in 1690. The one party held these
   opinions to be Antinomian; the other party, who were called Neonomians,
   vehemently resented a work by Dr Williams, in refutation of Crisp's
   views. In the end, Dr Bates, Mr Howe, Mr Alsop, and Dr Williams
   withdrew, and established a separate lecture at Salter's Hall.

   These lectures at Pinner's Hall were only the revival of a similar
   course of public instruction which had been instituted several years
   previously, and dropped at the Restoration. Neal, in his History of the
   Puritans, gives the following account of its origin:-- "Most of the
   citizens of London having some relative or friend in the army of the
   Earl of Essex, so many bills were sent up to the pulpit every Lord's
   day for their preservation, that the ministers had not time to notice
   them in prayer, or even to read them. It was therefore agreed to set
   apart an hour at seven o'clock every morning, half of it to be spent in
   prayer for the welfare of the public, as well as particular cases, and
   the other in exhortations to the people. Mr Case began it in his church
   in Milk Street, from whence it was removed to the other distant
   churches in rotation, -- a month at each. A number of the most eminent
   ministers conducted this service in town, and it was attended by great
   crowds of people. After the heat of the war was over, it became what
   was called a Casuistical Lecture, and continued till the Restoration,"
   According to Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, most of the lectures
   were delivered at Cripplegate Church, and some at St Giles', whilst the
   lectures in the series against Popery were delivered at Southwark.

   The lectures were published in successive volumes, and are very
   valuable. The first volume was edited by Case, who had been chiefly
   instrumental in the erection of the lectureship, -- it is entitled,
   "The Morning Exercise Methodized; or, certain chief heads and points of
   the Christian religion opened and improved, in divers sermons," etc.
   The volume bears date 1660. Other four volumes successively appeared in
   1661, 1674, 1683, and 1690. To each of the volumes there was a preface
   by Samuel Annesley, LL.D., who had also given one of the lectures in
   each course. In 1675, there was published, under the editorial
   superintendence of the Rev. Nathaniel Vincent, A.M., "The Morning
   Exercise against Popery; or, the principal errors of the Church of Rome
   detected and confuted, in a morning lecture preached lately at
   Southwark."

   It is not so generally known, that, besides the works enumerated above,
   there were volumes of the same character published at still earlier
   dates. The titles of them may be given:-- "The Morning Exercise at
   Giles-in-the-Fields, May 1655, printed for Richard Gibbs, in Chancery
   Lane, near Sergeants' Inn;" and "The Word of Faith, at
   Martin's-in-the-Fields, February 1655, printed for Fran. Tyton, at the
   Three Daggers, in Fleet Street."

   Dr Owen contributed three sermons to these "Morning Exercises;" -- one
   entitled, "How we may Bring our Hearts to Bear Reproofs," published in
   the Supplement to "The Morning Exercise" at Cripplegate, 1674; a
   second, "The Chamber of Imagery," etc., in "The Morning Exercise" in
   1683; and a third, -- which seems to have escaped the notice of Mr
   Orme, and is not included in Russell's edition of Owen's works, --
   entitled, "The Testimony of the Church is not the Only, nor the Chief
   Reason of our Believing the Scripture to be the Word of God," and
   published in "The Morning Exercise against Popery," 1675. -- Ed.
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Sermon XIII. How we may bring our hearts to bear reproofs.

   Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove
   me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for
   yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities." -- Ps. cxli. 5.

   It is generally agreed by expositors that this psalm, as that
   foregoing, with two of those that follow, was composed by David in the
   time of his banishment, or flight, from the court of Saul. The state
   wherein he describeth himself to have been, the matter of his pleas and
   prayers contained in them, with sundry express circumstances regarding
   that season, and his condition therein, do manifest that to have been
   the time of their composure.

   That the psalmist was now in some distress, whereof he was deeply
   sensible, is evident from that vehemency of his spirit which he
   expresseth in the reiteration of his request or supplication, verse 1;
   and by his desire that his prayer might come before the Lord as
   incense; and the lifting up of his hands as the evening sacrifice,
   verse 2. The Jewish expositors guess, not improbably, that in that
   allusion he had regard unto his present exclusion from the holy
   services of the tabernacle; which in other places he deeply complains
   of.

   For the matter of his prayer, in this beginning of the psalm (for I
   shall not look beyond the text), it respecteth himself, and his
   deportment under his present condition; which he desireth may be
   harmless and holy, -- becoming himself, and useful unto others. And
   whereas he was two ways liable to miscarry, -- first, By too high an
   exasperation of spirit against his oppressors and persecutors; and,
   secondly, By a fraudulent and pusillanimous compliance with them in
   their wicked courses; which are the two extremes that men are apt
   sinfully to run into in such conditions, -- he prays earnestly to be
   delivered from them both. The first he hath respect unto, verse 3, "Set
   a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips;" -- namely,
   that he might not, under those great provocations which were given him,
   break forth into an unseemly intemperance of speech against his unjust
   oppressors; which sometimes fierce and unreasonable cruelties will
   wrest from very sedate and moderate spirits. But it was the desire of
   this holy psalmist, as, in like cases, it should be ours, that his
   heart might be always preserved in such a frame, under the conduct of
   the Spirit of God, as not to be surprised into an expression of
   distempered passion in any of his words or sayings. The other he
   regards in his earnest supplication to be delivered from it, verse 4,
   "Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with
   men that work iniquity; and let me not eat of their dainties." There
   are two parts of his request unto the purpose intended. First, That, by
   the power of God's grace influencing his mind and soul, his heart might
   not be inclined unto any communion or society with his wicked
   adversaries in their wickedness. Secondly, That he might be preserved
   from a liking of, or a longing after, those things which are the baits
   and allurements whereby men are apt to be drawn into societies and
   conspiracies with the workers of iniquity: "And let me not eat of their
   dainties." See Prov. i. 10-14. For he here describeth the condition of
   men prospering for a season in a course of wickedness; -- they first
   jointly give up themselves unto the practice of iniquity, and then
   together solace themselves in those satisfactions of their lusts which
   their power and interest in the world do furnish them withal. These are
   the "dainties" of which an impotent longing and desire do betray the
   minds of unstable persons unto a compliance with ways of sin and folly;
   for I look on these "dainties" to comprise whatever "the lust of the
   eyes, the lust of the flesh," or "the pride of life," can afford. All
   these David prays to be delivered from any inclination unto, especially
   when they are made the allurements of a course of sin. In the enjoyment
   of these dainties, it is the common practice of wicked men to soothe
   up, approve of, and mutually encourage one another in the way and
   course wherein they are engaged. And this completes that goodly
   felicity which in this world so many aspire unto, and whereof alone
   they are capable. The whole of it is but a society in perishing sensual
   enjoyments, without control, and with mutual applauses from one
   another.

   This the psalmist had a special regard unto; who, casting his eye
   towards another communion and society, which he longed after, verse 5,
   that, in the first place, presents itself unto him, which is most
   opposite unto those mutual applauses and rejoicings in one another
   which are the salt and cement of all evil societies, -- namely, rebukes
   and reproofs for the least miscarriages that shall be observed. Now,
   whereas the dainties, which some enjoy in a course of prosperous
   wickedness, are that alone which seems to have any thing in it amongst
   them that is desirable; and, on the other side, rebukes and reproofs
   are those alone which seem to have any sharpness, or matter of
   uneasiness and dislike, in the society of the godly; David balanceth
   that which seemeth to be sharpest in the one society against that which
   seems to be sweetest in the other, and, without respect unto other
   advantages, prefers the one above the other. Hence some read the
   beginning of the words, "Let the righteous rather smite me," with
   respect unto this comparison and balance.

   "Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him
   reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my
   head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities." The view of
   our translation will evidence the words to be elliptical in the
   original, by the various supplements which we make to fill up the sense
   of them, and render them coherent; and this hath put some difficulty on
   the interpretation of the text, and caused some variety of
   apprehensions in sober and learned expositors.

   It is not unto my present purpose to engage into a discussion of all
   the difficulties of the text, seeing I design to found no other
   doctrine thereon, than what all will acknowledge to be contained in the
   words and their coherence. I shall only, therefore, briefly open them
   with respect unto our present purpose, and its concernment in them.

   yhlmny tsdyq chsd? -- tsdyq? "the righteous," is any one opposed to the
   workers of iniquity, verse 4, -- any righteous person whatever, -- any
   one who is of the society and communion of the righteous ones: for all
   the world falls under this distribution, as it will one day appear.
   "Let him smite me:" the word hlm? is seldom used in the Scripture but
   to signify "a severe stroke," which shakes the subject smitten, and
   causeth it to tremble. See Prov. xxiii. 35; 1 Sam. xiv. 16; Ps. lxxiv.
   6. And it is used for "the stroke of the hammer on the anvil," in
   fashioning of the iron, Isa. xli. 7. Wherefore the word chsd?,
   following may be taken adverbially, as a lenitive of that severity
   which this word importeth: "Let him smite me;" but "leniter, benigne,
   misericorditer," -- "gently, kindly, friendly, mercifully." And so some
   translations read the words, "Let the righteous smite me friendly," or
   kindly.

   But there is no need to wrest the word to such an unusual sense; for
   the psalmist intends to show, that so he may be delivered from the
   society of ungodly men, and enjoy the communion of the righteous, he
   would not deprecate the greatest severities which, according to rule,
   might be exercised in rebuking or reproving him. And this he doth with
   so full a satisfaction of mind, -- with such a high valuation of the
   advantage he should have thereby, -- that he says not, he would bear it
   patiently and quietly, but chsd?; it will be unto me "a benignity, a
   mercy, a kindness," -- as the word imports. And as it seems that some
   reproofs, at least, -- some regular dealings of righteous persons with
   us, -- may come as a stroke that makes us shake and tremble; so it is a
   good advance in spiritual wisdom, to find out kindness and mercy in
   those that are so grievous unto our natural spirits, -- unto flesh and
   blood.

   vyvkychny?, "And let him reprove me." This manifests what he intends by
   smiting, in the foregoing words. It is reproofs that he intends; and
   these he calls smiting, in opposition unto the flattering compliance of
   wicked men with one another in the enjoyment of their dainties, and
   with respect unto that smart unto the mind and affections wherewith
   some of them are sometimes accompanied. But this word, directly
   expressing that subject-matter whereof I intend to treat, must be again
   spoken unto.

   smn r's 'lyny r'sy?. These words have a double interpretation; for they
   may be either deprecatory of an evil implied, or declaratory of the
   psalmist's sense of the good he desired. Kimchi on the place observes,
   that his father Joseph divided the words of the text, and began here a
   new sense, wherein the psalmist returns unto the close of the fourth
   verse, "Let me not eat of their dainties," and, "Let not their precious
   oil" -- that is, their flatteries and soothings in sin" break my head;'
   but let the reproofs of the righteous preserve me. And this sense is
   followed by the Vulgar Latin, "Oleum autem peccatorum non impingat
   caput meum;" but the other construction and sense of the words is more
   natural. smn r's?, "Oleum capitis," the "oil of the head," we render,
   an "excellent oil;" and countenance may be given unto that
   interpretation from Exod. xxx. 23, where bsmym r's?, "spices of the
   head," is well rendered, "principal spices." But I rather think that
   smn l r's?, "oil poured on the head" -- which was the manner of all
   solemn unctions -- is intended. This being a great privilege, and the
   token of the communication of great mercy, the psalmist compares the
   rebukes of the righteous thereunto; and therefore he adds, 'lyny r'sy?,
   "it shall not break my head." Considering reproofs in their own nature,
   he calls them "smitings;" -- some of them being very sharp, as it is
   needful they should be where we are obliged to rebuke apotomos, "in a
   piercing and cutting manner," 2 Cor. xiii. 10; Tit. i. 13. But with
   respect unto their use, benefit, and advantage, they are like unto that
   anointing oil which, being poured on the head, was both gentle and
   pleasant, and a pledge of the communication of spiritual privileges,
   whence no inconveniences would ensue.

   The last clause of the words belonging not unto our present design, I
   shall not insist on their explication.

   Some few things must be farther premised unto our principal intention
   concerning the nature of those reproofs, which are proposed as a matter
   of such advantage in the text. And, --

   1. The word ykch?, here used, signifieth, "to argue, to dispute, to
   contend in judgment," as well as "to reprove, rebuke, or reprehend."
   Its first signification is "to argue," or "to plead a cause with
   arguments." Hence it is used as a common term between God and man,
   denoting the reasons, real, or pretended only, on the one side and the
   other. So God himself speaks unto his people, lkvn' znvkchh?, Isa. i.
   18, "Go to, now, and let us plead," reason or argue, "together;" and
   Job calls his pleas or arguments in prayer unto God, tvkchvt?, Prov.
   xxiii. 4, "I would fill my mouth with arguments." Wherefore, that only
   hath the true nature of a reproof, which is accompanied with reasons
   and arguments for the evincing of what it tends unto. Rash, groundless,
   wrathful, precipitate censures and rebukes, are evil in themselves,
   and, in our present case, of no consideration. Nor, indeed, ought any
   one to engage in the management of reproofs, who is not furnished with
   rule and argument to evince their necessity, and render them effectual.
   Sometimes things may be so circumstanced, as that a reproof shall so
   carry its own reason and efficacious conviction along with it, that
   there will be no need of arguing or pleas to make it useful. So the
   look of our blessed Saviour on Peter, under the circumstances of his
   case, was a sufficient reproof, though he spake not one word in its
   confirmation. But ordinarily, cogent reasons are the best conveyances
   of reproofs to the minds of men, be they of what sort they will.

   2. Reproofs do always respect a fault, an evil, a miscarriage, or a
   sin, in them that are reproved. There may be mutual admonitions and
   exhortations among Christians, with respect unto sundry things in the
   course of their faith and obedience, without a regard unto any evil or
   miscarriage. The general nature of a reproof is an admonition or
   exhortation; but it hath its special nature from its regard unto a
   fault in course, or particular fact. And hence the word signifies also
   "to chastise;" wherein is a correction for, and the means of a recovery
   from, a miscarriage, 2 Sam. vii. 14, "I will reprove him with the rod
   of men;" that is, chastise him. This, therefore, is that reproof which
   we intend, -- a warning, admonition, or exhortation, given unto any,
   whereby they are rebuked for, and with respect unto, some moral evil or
   sin in their course, way, practice, or any particular miscarriage, such
   as may render them obnoxious unto divine displeasure or chastisement;
   for it is essential unto a regular reproof, that, in him who gives it,
   it may be accompanied with, or do proceed from, an apprehension that
   the person reproved is, by the matter of the reproof, rendered
   obnoxious unto the displeasure of God.

   3. It may also be considered, that reproving is not left arbitrarily
   unto the wills of men. Whatever seems to be so, it loseth its nature if
   it be not a duty in him who reproves, and will come short of its
   efficacy No wise man will reprove, but when it is his duty so to do,
   unless he design the just reproach of a busy-body for his reward. The
   command is general, with respect unto brother and neighbour, Lev. xix.
   17, "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any
   wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him." But as to the
   particular discharge of this work as a duty, there must be either an
   especial office or an especial relation, or a concurrence of
   circumstances for its warranty. God hath, in his wisdom and care, given
   rules and bounds unto our engagement unto duties; without a regulation
   whereby we shall wander in them with endless dissatisfactions unto
   ourselves, and unnecessary provocations unto others. But the duty of
   reproving, with the love, wisdom, tenderness, and compassion required
   in the discharge of it, -- its motives, ends, and circumstances, -- its
   proper rules and limitations, -- fall not under my present
   consideration; but these things in general were necessary to be
   premised unto what do so.

   That which the text instructs us in may be comprised in this general
   observation:--

   Observation. Reproofs, though accompanied with some sharpness, if
   rightly received and duly improved, are a mercy and advantage
   incomparably above all the satisfactions which a joint consent with
   others in sin and pleasures can afford.

   The latter part of the proposition I have mentioned only to express the
   balance that is proposed by the psalmist between the best and most
   desirable advantages of wicked society on the one hand, and the
   sharpest or most displeasing severities that accompany the communion of
   the righteous or godly. But I shall not at all handle the comparison,
   as designing only some directions how men should behave themselves
   under reproofs, that they may be a kindness, and an excellent oil unto
   them; or how they may by them obtain spiritual benefit and advantage
   unto their own souls. And this, however at present the matter may be
   managed, is of itself of great importance. For as, in the state of
   weakness and imperfection, of mistakes and miscarriages, wherein we
   are, there is no outward help or aid of more use and advantage unto us
   than seasonable reproofs; so in the right receiving and improving of
   them, as high a trial of the spirits of men, as to their interest in
   wisdom and folly, doth consist, as in any thing that doth befall them,
   or wherewith they may be exercised. For as scorners of reproofs, those
   that hear them unwillingly, that bear them haughtily and impatiently,
   with designs of revenge or disdainful retortions, have the characters
   of pride and folly indelibly fixed on them by the Holy Ghost; so their
   due admission and improvement is in the same infallible truth
   represented as an evident pledge of wisdom, and an effectual means of
   its increase. This is so much and so frequently insisted on in that
   great treasure of all wisdom, spiritual, natural, and political, --
   namely, the Book of Proverbs, that it is altogether needless to call
   over any particular testimonies unto that purpose.

   Three things we are to inquire into, in compliance with our present
   design:-- I. How reproofs may be duly received. II. The reasons why
   they ought so to be. III. How they may be duly improved. [326]

   I. That we may receive reproofs in a due manner, three things are to be
   considered:-- 1. The general qualification of the reprover; 2. The
   nature of the reproof; and, 3. The matter of it.

   1. The Psalmist here desires that his reprover may be a righteous man:
   "Let the righteous smite me," -- "Let him reprove me." To give and take
   reproofs, is a dictate of the law of nature, whereby every man is
   obliged to seek the good of others, and to promote it according to his
   ability and opportunity. The former is directed by that love which is
   due unto others; the latter, by that which is due unto ourselves: which
   two are the great rules, and give measure to the duties of all
   societies, whether civil or spiritual. Wherefore, it doth not evacuate
   a reproof, or discharge him who is reproved from the duty of attending
   unto it, that he by whom it is managed is not righteous, yea, is openly
   wicked; for the duty itself being an effect of the law of nature, it is
   the same, for the substance of it, by whomsoever it is performed. Yea,
   ofttimes such moral, or rather immoral, qualifications as render not
   only the reprover less considerable, but also the reproof itself, until
   thoroughly weighed and examined, obnoxious unto prejudicate
   conceptions, do occasion a greater and more signal exercise of grace
   and wisdom in him that is reproved than would have been stirred up had
   all things concurred unto the exact regularity of the reproof. However,
   it is desirable, on many accounts, that he who reproves us be himself a
   righteous person, and be of us esteemed so to be. For, as such a one
   alone will or can have a due sense of the evil reproved, with a right
   principle and end in the discharge of his own duty; so the minds of
   them that are reproved are, by their sense of his integrity, excluded
   from those insinuations of evasions, which prejudices and suggestions
   of just causes of reflections on their reprover will offer unto them.
   Especially, without the exercise of singular wisdom and humility, will
   all the advantages of a just reproof be lost, where the allowed
   practice of greater sins and evils than that reproved is daily
   chargeable on the reprover. Hence is that reflection of our Saviour on
   the useless, hypocritical diligence of men in pulling the mote out of
   their brother's eyes whilst they have beams in their own, Matt. vii.
   3-5. The rule in this case is:-- If the reprover be a righteous person,
   consider the reprover first, and then the reproof; if he be otherwise,
   consider the reproof, and the reprover not at all.

   2. The nature of a reproof is also to be considered. And this is
   threefold: for every reproof is either, (1.) Authoritative; or (2.)
   Fraternal; or (3.) Merely friendly and occasional.

   (1.) Authoritative reproofs are either, [1.] Ministerial; or [2.]
   Parental; or [3.] Despotical.

   [1.] There is an especial authority accompanying ministerial reproofs,
   which we ought especially to consider and improve. Now, I understand
   not hereby those doctrinal reproofs when, in the dispensation of that
   word of grace and truth which is "profitable for correction and
   reproof," 2 Tim. iii. 16, they speak, and exhort, and "rebuke" the sins
   of men "with all authority," Tit. ii. 15; but the occasional
   application of the word unto individual persons, upon their
   unanswerableness in any thing unto the truth wherein they have been
   instructed. For every right reproof is but the orderly application of a
   rule of truth unto any person under his miscarriage, for his healing
   and recovery. Where, therefore, a minister of the gospel, in the
   preaching of the word, doth declare and teach the rule of holy
   obedience with ministerial authority, if any of the flock committed to
   his charge shall appear in any thing to walk contrary thereunto, or to
   have transgressed it in any offensive instance, as it is his duty, the
   discharge whereof will be required of him at the great day,
   particularly to apply the truth unto them in the way of private,
   personal reproof; so he is still therein accompanied with his
   ministerial authority: which makes his reproof to be of a peculiar
   nature, and as such to be accounted for. For as he is thus commanded,
   as a minister, to "exhort, rebuke, admonish," and "reprove" every one
   of his charge, as occasion shall require; so, in doing of it, he doth
   discharge and exercise his ministerial office and power. And he that is
   wise will forego no considerations that may give efficacy unto a just
   and due reproof; especially not such a one as, if it be neglected, will
   not only be an aggravation of the evil for which he is reproved, but
   will also accumulate his guilt with a contempt of the authority of
   Jesus Christ. Wherefore the rule here is, -- The more clear and evident
   the representation of the authority of Christ is in the reproof, the
   more diligent ought we to be in our attendance unto it and compliance
   with it. He is the great reprover of his church, Rev. iii. 19. All the
   use, power, authority, and efficacy of ecclesiastical reproofs flow
   originally and are derived from him. In ministerial reproofs, there is
   the most express and immediate application of his authority made unto
   the minds of men; which, if it be carelessly slighted or proudly
   despised, or evacuated by perverse cavillings, as is the manner of some
   in such cases, it is an open evidence of a heart that never yet
   sincerely took upon it this law and yoke.

   These things are spoken of the personal reproofs that are given by
   ministers, principally unto those of their respective flocks, as
   occasion doth require; wherein I shall pray that our Lord Jesus Christ,
   the great Shepherd of the sheep, would yet make us all more faithful
   and diligent, as the season wherein we live doth abundantly require it.
   But, moreover, church censures, in admonition and excommunication, have
   the nature and ends of ministerial reproofs. But the handling of their
   nature and use, with the duties of those persons who justly fall under
   them, and the benefit which they may reap thereby, is too long and
   large a subject to be here diverted unto.

   [2.] Authoritative reproof is parental. Reproof is, indeed, one of the
   greatest and most principal duties of parents towards children, and
   without which all others, for the most part, do but pamper them unto
   slaughter and ruin. Neglect hereof is that which hath filled us with so
   many Hophnis, Phinehases, and Absaloms, -- whose outrageous
   wickednesses are directly charged on the sinful lenity and neglect, in
   this matter, even of godly parents. And, indeed, whereas some parents
   are openly vicious and debauched, even in the sight of their children,
   in a sensual neglect and contempt of the light of nature, whereby they
   lose all their authority in reproving, as well as all care about it; --
   and whereas the most have so little regard unto sin as sin, whilst
   things are tolerably well in outward concerns, that they neglect the
   reproof of it as such; and many, through a foolish, contemptible
   prevalency of fond affection, will take no notice of the sinful
   follies, extravagances, and miscarriages of their children, until all
   things grow desperate with them; but soothe up and applaud them in such
   effects of pride, vanity, and wantonness, as ought to be most severely
   reproved in them; -- the woful and dreadful degeneracy of the age
   wherein we live owes itself much unto the horrible neglect of parents
   in this duty. That parental reproof is a duty taught by the law of
   nature, confirmed in the Scripture, enjoined under severe threatenings
   and penalties, exemplified in instances of blessings and vengeance on
   its performance or neglect, rendered indispensably necessary by that
   depravation of our natures which works in children from the womb, and
   grows up in strength and efficacy together with them, -- I should not
   need to prove, if it lay directly before me, it being a matter of
   universal acknowledgment. I shall only say, that whereas there is, on
   many accounts, an immediate impress of divine authority on parental
   reproofs, that which children ought to consider and know for themselves
   is, that a continuance in the neglect or contempt of them is a token
   that seldom fails of approaching temporal and eternal destruction,
   Prov. xxx. 17.

   [3.] Authoritative reproof is despotical; namely, that of governors,
   rulers, and masters of families. This also partakes of the nature of
   those foregoing, and being a duty founded in the law of nature, as well
   as enforced by positive divine commands, casts a peculiar obligation to
   obedience on them that are so reproved. And where servants regard not
   sober and Christian reproofs, as the ordinance of God for their good,
   they lose the advantages of their condition, and may be looked upon as
   unsanctified sufferers in a state of bondage; which hath an especial
   character of the first curse upon it.

   (2.) Reproof is fraternal, or such as is mutual between the members of
   the same church, by virtue of that especial relation wherein they
   stand, and the obligation thence arising unto mutual watchfulness over
   each other, with admonitions, exhortations, and reproofs. As this is
   peculiarly appointed by our Saviour, Matt. xviii. 15, in confirmation
   of the ordinance in the church of the Jews to that purpose, Lev. xix.
   17, and confirmed by many precepts and directions in the New Testament,
   Rom. xv. 14; 1 Thess. v. 14; Heb. iii. 12, 13, xii. 15, 16; so the
   neglect of it is that which hath lost us not only the benefit, but also
   the very nature of church-societies. Wherefore, our improvement of
   rebukes in this kind, depends much on a due consideration of that duty
   and love from whence they do proceed: for this we are, by the royal law
   of charity, obliged unto the belief of, where there is not open
   evidence unto the contrary. And whereas, it may be, those things for
   which we may be thus reproved are not of the greatest importance in
   themselves, who that is wise will, by the neglect of the reproof
   itself, contract the open guilt of contemning the wisdom, love, and
   care of Christ in the institution of this ordinance?

   (3.) Lastly, Reproofs are friendly or occasional, such as may be
   administered and managed by any persons, as reasons and opportunities
   require, from the common principle of universal love unto mankind,
   especially towards them that are of the household of faith. These also,
   having in them the entire nature of reproofs, will fall under all the
   ensuing directions, which have a general respect thereunto.

   If, then, we would duly make use of, and improve unto our advantage,
   the reproofs that may be given us, we are seriously to consider the
   nature of them, with respect unto those by whom they are managed; for
   all the things we have mentioned are suited to influence our minds unto
   a regard of them, and compliance with them.

   3. The matter of a reproof is duly to be weighed by him who designs any
   benefit thereby. And the first consideration of it is, whether it be
   true or false. I shall not carry them unto a more minute distribution
   of the substance and circumstances of the matter intended, of the whole
   or part of it; but do suppose, that, from some principal consideration
   of it, every reproof, as to its matter, may be denominated and esteemed
   true or false.

   And here our own consciences, with due application unto the rule, are
   the proper judge and umpire. Conscience, if any way enlightened from
   the word, will give an impartial sentence concerning the guilt or
   innocence of the person, with respect unto the matter of a reproof. And
   there can be no more infallible evidence of a miscarriage in such a
   condition, than when pride, or passion, or prejudice, or any corrupt
   affection, can either outbrave or stifle that compliance with a just
   reproof which conscience will assuredly tender, Rom. ii. 14, 15.

   (1.) If a reproof, as to the matter of it, be false or unjust, and so
   judged in an unbiassed conscience, it may be considered in matter of
   right and of fact. In the first case, the matter may be true, and yet
   the reproof formally false and evil; in the latter, the matter may be
   false, and yet the reproof an acceptable duty.

   [1.] A reproof is false in matter of right, or formally, when we are
   reproved for that as evil which is indeed our duty to perform. So David
   was fiercely reproved by his brother Eliab for coming unto the battle
   against the Philistines, ascribing it to his pride, and the naughtiness
   of his heart. Whereunto he only replied, "What have I done? Is there
   not a cause?" 1 Sam. xvii. 28, 29. And Peter rebuked our Lord Jesus
   Christ himself for declaring the doctrine of the cross, Mark viii. 32.
   And so we may be reproved for the principal duties that God requireth
   of us. And if men were as free in reproving as they are in reproaching,
   we should not escape from daily rebukes for whatever we do in the
   worship of God. Now, though such reproofs generally may be looked on as
   temptations, and so to be immediately rejected, as they were in the
   cases instanced in; yet may they sometimes, where they proceed from
   love, and are managed with moderation, be considered as necessary
   cautions to look heedfully unto the grounds and reasons we proceed upon
   in the duties opposed, at which others do take offence.

   [2.] If the reproof be false in matter of fact, wherein that is charged
   on us, and reproved in us, whereof we are no ways guilty, three things
   are to be considered, that it may not be unuseful unto us:--

   1st. The circumstances of the reprover; as, first, Whether he do
   proceed on some probable mistake; or, secondly, Credulity and easiness
   in taking up reports; or, thirdly, On evil, groundless surmises of his
   own; or, fourthly, From a real godly jealousy, which hath been imposed
   on, as easily it will be, by some appearances of truth. Without a due
   consideration of these things, we shall never know how to carry it
   aright, towards them by whom we are reproved for that whereof we are
   not guilty.

   2dly. Consider aright the difference between a reproof and a reproach;
   for they may be both false alike, and that whereof we are reproved have
   no more truth in it than that wherewith we are reproached. Yea, we may
   be honestly reproved for that which is false, and wickedly reproached
   with that which is true. So Augustine calls the language of the maid
   unto her mother about drinking wine, "durum convicium," though the
   matter of it were true enough. But a reproach is the acting of a mind
   designing of, and rejoicing in, evil. Unto a reproof it is essential
   that it spring from love. "Whom I love I rebuke," is the absolute rule
   of these things. Let a man rebuke another, though for that which indeed
   is false, if it be in love, it is a reproof; but let him rebuke
   another, though for that which is true, if it be from a mind delighting
   in evil, it is a reproach; and if it be false, it is, moreover, a
   calumny.

   3dly. Where a man, in such cases, is fully justified by the testimony
   of his own conscience, bearing witness unto his integrity and
   innocency; yet may he greatly miscarry under the occasion, if he attend
   not diligently unto his own spirit; which most men judge to be set at
   the utmost liberty under such injurious provocations, as they esteem
   them. Wherefore, to keep our minds unto sedate, Christian moderation in
   such cases, and that we may not lose the advantage of what is befallen
   us, we ought immediately to apply them unto such other duties as the
   present occasion doth require; as, --

   First. To search our own hearts and ways, whether we have not indeed
   upon us the guilt of some greater evils than that which is falsely
   charged on us, or for which we are reproved on mistake. And if it
   appear so, upon examination, we shall quickly see what little reason we
   have to tumultuate, and rise up with indignation against the charge we
   suffer under. And may we not thence see much of the wisdom and goodness
   of God, who suffereth us to be exercised with what we can bear off with
   the impenetrable shield of a good conscience, whilst he graciously
   hides and covers those greater evils of our hearts, with respect
   whereunto we cannot but condemn ourselves?

   Secondly. To consider that it is not of ourselves that we are not
   guilty of the evil suspected and charged. No man of sobriety can, on
   any mistake, reprove us for any thing, be it never so false, but that
   it is merely of sovereign grace that we have not indeed contracted the
   guilt of it; and humble thankfulness unto God on this occasion, for his
   real preserving grace, will abate the edge and take off the fierceness
   of our indignation against men for their supposed injurious dealings
   with us.

   Thirdly. Such reproofs, if there be not open malice and continued
   wickedness manifest in them, are to be looked on as gracious
   providential warnings, to take heed lest at any time we should be truly
   overtaken with that which at present we are falsely charged withal. We
   little know the dangers that continually attend us, the temptations
   wherewith we may be surprised at unawares, nor how near on their
   account we may be unto any sin or evil which we judge ourselves most
   remote from, and least obnoxious unto. Neither, on the other hand, can
   we readily understand the ways and means whereby the holy, wise God
   issueth forth those hidden provisions of preventing grace which are
   continually administered for our preservation; and no wise man, who
   understands any thing of the deceitfulness of his own heart, with the
   numberless numbers of invisible occasions of sin wherewith he is
   encompassed continually, but will readily embrace such reproofs, as
   providential warnings unto watchfulness in those things whereof before
   he was not aware.

   Fourthly. When the mind, by these considerations, is rendered sedate,
   and weighed unto Christian moderation, then ought a man, in such cases,
   patiently and peaceably to undertake the defence of his innocency, and
   his own vindication. And herein, also, there is need of much wisdom and
   circumspection; it being a matter of no small difficulty for a man duly
   to manage self and innocency, both which are apt to influence us unto
   some more than ordinary vehemency of spirit. But the directions which
   might, and indeed ought to be given under all these particular heads,
   could by no means be confined unto the limits fixed to this discourse.

   (2.) If the matter of the reproof be true in fact, then it is duly to
   be considered, whether the offence for which any one is reproved be
   private or public, attended with scandal.

   [1.] If it be private, then it is to be weighed, whether it was known
   unto, and observed in and by, the person himself reproved or no, before
   he was reproved. If it were not so known (as we may justly be reproved
   for many things which, through ignorance or inadvertency, or compliance
   with the customs of the world, we may have taken no notice of), and if
   the reproof bring along light and conviction with it, the first
   especial improvement of such a peculiar reproof is thankfulness to God
   for it, as a means of deliverance from any way, or work, or path, that
   was unacceptable in his sight. And hence a great prospect may be taken
   of the following deportment of the mind under other reproofs. For, a
   readiness to take in light and conviction, with respect unto any evil
   that we are ignorant of, is an evidence of a readiness to submit to the
   authority of God in any other rebukes that have their convictions going
   before them: so the heart that is prone to fortify itself, by any pleas
   or pretences, against convictions of sin in what it doth not yet own so
   to be, will be as prone unto obstinacy under reproofs in what it cannot
   but acknowledge to be evil. If it were known before to the person
   reproved, but not supposed by him to be observed by others, -- under
   the covert of which imagination sin often countenanceth itself, -- that
   soul will never make a due improvement of a reproof, who is not first
   sensible of the care and kindness of God in driving him from that
   retreat and hold where the interest of sin had placed its chiefest
   reserve.

   [2.] Sins so far public as to give matter of offence or scandal, are
   the ordinary subject of all orderly reproofs; and therefore need not in
   particular to be spoken unto.

   Having showed the nature of reproofs in general, with such
   considerations of the matter of them as have afforded occasion unto
   sundry particular directions relating unto the duty under discussion,
   it remains that we explain and confirm the other two generals comprised
   in the observation deduced from the text; namely, II. Why we ought to
   receive reproofs, orderly or regularly given unto us, esteeming of them
   as a singular privilege; and, III. How we may duly improve them unto
   their proper end, the glory of God, and the spiritual advantage of our
   own souls.

   II. As to the first of these, we may observe, --

   1. That mutual reproofs, for the curing of evil and preventing of
   danger in one another, are prime dictates of the law of nature, and
   [of] that obligation to seek the good of each other which our
   participation in the same being, offspring, original, and end, cloth
   lay upon us. This God designed in our creation, and this the rational
   constitution of our natures directs us unto. To seek and endeavour for
   each other, all that good whereof we are capable in time, or unto
   eternity, was indelibly implanted upon our natures, and indispensably
   necessary unto that society among ourselves, with the great end of our
   joint living unto God, for which we were made. All the mutual evils of
   mankind, whether of persons or of nations, designed or perpetrated
   against one another, are effects of our fatal prevarication from the
   law of our creation. Hence Cain, the first open violent transgressor of
   the rules and bounds of human society, thought to justify or excuse
   himself by a renunciation of that principle, which God in nature had
   made the foundation of a political or sociable life, with respect unto
   temporal and eternal ends. "Am I," saith he, "my brother's keeper?"
   Gen. iv. 9. Yea, God hath made every man the keeper of his brother so
   far as that they should in all things, in their opportunities, and unto
   their power, seek their good, and deliverance from evil. In those
   things which are good unto us, those which are spiritual and eternal
   have the pre-eminence. These nothing can prejudice but sin and moral
   evils; whose prevention, therefore, in one another, so far as we are
   able, is a duty of the law of nature, and the prime effect of that love
   which we owe unto the whole offspring of that "one blood" whereof God
   hath made all nations. And one of the most effectual means for that end
   are the reproofs whereof we treat; and the obligation is the same on
   those that give them and those to whom they are given, with respect
   unto their several interests in this duty. Wherefore, to neglect, to
   despise, not thankfully to receive, such reproofs as are justly and
   regularly given unto us at any time, is to contemn the law of our
   creation, and to trample on the prime effect of fraternal love. Yea, to
   despise reproofs, and to discountenance the discharge of that duty, is
   to open a door unto that mutual hatred and dislike which, in the sight
   of God, is murder. See Lev. xix. 17, with 1 John iii. 15. Let us,
   therefore, look to ourselves; for there is no greater sign of a
   degeneracy from the law and all the ends of our creation, than an
   unwillingness to receive reproofs, justly deserved and regularly
   administered, or not to esteem of them as a blessed effect of the
   wisdom and goodness of God towards us.

   2. Whereas the light of nature is variously obscured, and its directive
   power debilitated in us, God hath renewed on us an obligation unto this
   duty by particular institutions, both under the Old Testament and the
   New. The truth is, the efficacy of the law of creation, as unto moral
   duties, being exceedingly impaired by the entrance of sin; and the
   exercise of original, native love towards mankind being impeded and
   obstructed by that confusion and disorder whereinto the whole state of
   mankind was cast by sin, -- every one thereby being made the enemy of
   another, as the apostle declares, Tit. iii. 3, -- [and that disorder]
   not being cured by that coalescency into civil societies, which
   respects only political and temporal ends; the discharge of this duty
   was utterly lost, at least beyond that which was merely parental.
   Wherefore God, in the institution of his church, both under the Old
   Testament and the New, did mould men into such peculiar societies and
   relations, as wherein they might be made meet again for the exercise
   thereof. He hath so disposed of us, that every one may know every one
   whom he is obliged to reprove, and every one may know every one whom he
   is obliged to hear. And as he hath hereby cured that confusion we were
   cast into, which was obstructive of the exercise of this duty; so, by
   the renovation of positive commands, attended with instructions,
   directions, promises, and threatenings, enforcing the giving and
   receiving of reproofs with respect unto moral and spiritual ends, he
   hath relieved us against that obscurity of natural light which we
   before laboured under. Should I go to express the commands, directions,
   exhortations, promises, and threatenings, which are given in the
   Scripture to this purpose, it would be a work as endless as I suppose
   it needless, to all that are conversant in the holy writings. It may
   suffice unto our present purpose that, -- there being an express
   institution of God for the giving and taking of reproofs, and that an
   effect of infinite goodness, benignity, and love towards us, -- not
   thankfully to receive reproofs, when it is our lot to deserve them and
   to have them, is to despise the authority of God over us, and his
   gracious care for us. When, therefore, it befalleth any to be justly
   and orderly reproved, let him call to mind the authority and love of
   God therein; which will quickly give him that sense of their worth and
   excellency as will make him thankful for them: which is the first step
   unto their due improvement.

   3. A due consideration of the use, benefit, and advantage of them, will
   give them a ready admission into our minds and affections. Who knows
   how many souls, that are now at rest with God, have been prevented by
   reproofs, as the outward means, from going down into the pit! Unto how
   many have they been an occasion of conversion, and sincere turning unto
   God! How many have been recovered by them from a state of backsliding,
   and awakened from a secure sleep in sin! How many great and bloody sins
   hath the perpetration of been obviated by them! How many snares of
   temptations have they been the means to break and cancel! What
   revivings have they been to grace, what disappointments unto the snares
   of Satan, who can declare! The advantage which the souls of men do or
   might receive every day by them, is more to be valued than all earthly
   treasures whatever; and shall any of us, when it comes to be our
   concern, through a predominancy of pride, passion, and prejudice, or
   through cursed sloth and security, -- the usual means of the defeatment
   of these advantages, -- manifest ourselves to have no interest in, or
   valuation of, these things, by an unreadiness or unwillingness to
   receive reproofs, when tendered unto us in the way and according to the
   mind of God?

   III. But now, suppose we are willing to receive them, it will be
   inquired, in the last place, What considerations may further us in
   their due improvement, and what directions may be given thereunto?

   An answer to this inquiry shall shut up this discourse: and I shall say
   hereunto, --

   1. If there be not open evidence unto the contrary, it is our duty to
   judge that every reproof is given us in a way of duty. This will take
   off offence with respect unto the reprover, which unjustly taken, is an
   assured entrance into a way of losing all benefit and advantage by the
   reproof. The reason why any man doth regularly reprove another, is
   because God requireth him so to do, and by his command hath made it his
   duty towards him that is reproved. And do we judge it reasonable, that
   one should neglect his duty towards God and us, and in some degree or
   other make himself guilty of our sins, for no other cause but lest we
   should be displeased that we are not suffered to sin securely, and, it
   may be, to perish eternally? And if we are convinced that it is the
   duty of another to reprove us, we cannot but be convinced that it is
   our duty to hearken and attend thereunto; and this will fix the mind
   unto a due consideration of the present duty that lies before us, and
   what is our just concernment in the reproof. Besides, if it be done in
   a way of duty, it is done in love; for all orderly rebukes are effects
   of love. And if we are convinced of any one, that he cloth reprove in a
   way of duty, we must be satisfied that what he doth proceedeth from
   love, without by-ends or dissimulation. For what doth not so, be it
   what it will, belongs not to rebuking in a way of duty. And this will
   remove all obstructing prejudices, in all who have the least gracious
   ingenuity. Ahab despised the warning of Micaiah, because he thought
   they mutually hated one another; he knew how it was with himself, and
   falsely so judged of the prophet, by his necessary sharpness towards
   him. But where there are such surmises, all advantages of reproofs will
   be assuredly lost. Where, therefore, our minds are satisfied that any
   reproof is an effect of love, and given in a way of duty, "dimidium
   facti, [qui coepit, habet,]" -- we are half way in the discharge of the
   duty directed unto.

   2. Take heed of cherishing habitually such disorders, vices, and
   distempers of mind, as are contrary unto this duty and will frustrate
   the design of it. Such are, -- (1.) Hastiness of spirit. Some men's
   minds do with such fury apply themselves unto their first apprehension
   of things, that they cast the whole soul into disorder, and render it
   incapable of farther rational consideration. There may be, it is
   possible, some failures and mistakes in useful and necessary reproofs,
   in matter, manner, circumstance, some way or other. This immediately is
   seized on by men of hasty spirits (a vice and folly sufficiently
   condemned in Scripture), turned unto a provocation, made a matter of
   strife and dispute, until the whole advantage of the reproof is utterly
   lost and vanisheth. A quiet, gentle, considerative, sedate frame of
   spirit is required unto this duty. (2.) Pride and haughtiness of mind,
   self-conceit, elation of spirit, -- which will be inseparably
   accompanied with the contempt of others, and a scorn, that any should
   think themselves either so much wiser or so much better than ourselves
   as to reprove us in any kind, -- are a fenced wall against any benefit
   or advantage by reproofs; yea, things that will turn judgment into
   hemlock, and the most sovereign antidote into poison. No wild beast in
   a toil doth more rave, and tear, and rend, than a proud man when he is
   reproved. And therefore, he who manifests himself so to be, hath
   secured himself from being any more troubled by serious reproofs from
   any wise man whatever. See Prov. ix. 7, 8. (3.) Prejudices, which are
   so variously occasioned, as it were endless to recount. If, now, we
   make it not our constant business to purge our minds from these
   depraved affections, they will never fail effectually to exert
   themselves on all occasions, to the utter defeatment of all use in, or
   benefit by, the most necessary and regular reproofs.

   3. Reckon assuredly, that a fault, a miscarriage, which any one is duly
   reproved for, if the reproof be not received and improved as it ought,
   is not only aggravated, but accumulated with a new crime, and marked
   with a dangerous token of an incurable evil. -- See Prov. xxix. 1. Let
   men do what they can, bear themselves high in their expressions, grow
   angry, passionate, excuse or palliate; unless they are seared and
   profligately obstinate, their own consciences will take part with a
   just and regular reproof. If hereupon they come not up to amendment,
   their guilt is increased by the occasional excitation of the light of
   conscience, to give it an especial charge. And there is an additional
   sin, in the contempt of the reproof itself. But that which principally
   should make men careful, and even tremble, in this case, is, that they
   are put on a trial, whether ever they will forsake the evil of their
   ways and doings, or no: for he who is orderly reproved for any fault,
   and neglects or despiseth the rebuke, can have no assurance that he
   shall ever be delivered from the evil rebuked; but hath just cause to
   fear that he is entering into a course of hardness and impenitency.

   4. It is useful unto the same end, immediately to compare the reproof
   with the word of truth. -- This is the measure, standard, and directory
   of all duties, whereunto, in all dubious cases, we should immediately
   retreat for advice and counsel. And whereas there are two things
   considerable in a reproof, -- first, the matter of it, that it be true,
   and a just cause or reason of a rebuke; and, secondly, the fight which
   the reprover hath unto this duty, with the rule which he walked by
   therein, -- if both these, for the substance of them, prove to be
   justified by the Scripture, then have we, in such a case, no more to do
   with the reprover, nor any of his circumstances, but immediately and
   directly with God himself; for where he gives express warranty and
   direction for a duty in his word, his own authority is as directly
   exerted thereby as if he spoke unto us from heaven. Hereby will the
   mind be prevented from many wanderings and vain reliefs, which foolish
   imagination will suggest, and be bound up unto its present duty.

   Let our unwillingness to be reproved be what it will, as also our
   prejudices against our reprover, if we are not, at least, free to bring
   the consideration and examination of the one and the other unto the
   word of truth, it is because our deeds are evil, and therefore we love
   darkness more than light.

   No milder nor more gentle censure can be passed on any, who is not free
   to bring any reproof that may be given him unto an impartial trial by
   the word, whether it be according to the mind of God or no. If this be
   done, and conviction of its truth and necessity do then appear; then
   let the soul know it hath to do with God himself, and wisely consider
   what answer he will return, what account he will give unto Him.
   Wherefore, --

   5. The best way to keep our souls in a readiness rightly to receive,
   and duly to improve, such reproofs as may regularly be given us by any,
   is to keep and preserve our souls and spirits, in a constant awe and
   reverence of the reproofs of God, which are recorded in his word. --
   The neglect or contempt of these reproofs, is that which the generality
   of mankind do spilt themselves upon, and perish eternally. This is so
   fully and graphically expressed, Prov. i., that nothing can be added
   thereunto. And the great means whereby much hardness comes upon others,
   through the deceitfulness of sin, is want of keeping up a due sense or
   reverence of divine reproofs and threatenings on their souls. When this
   is done, -- when our hearts are kept up unto an awful regard of them,
   exercised with a continual meditation on them, made tender, careful,
   watchful by them, -- any just reproof from any, that falls in
   compliance with them, will be conscientiously observed, and carefully
   improved.

   6. We shall fail in this duty unless we are always accompanied with a
   deep sense of our frailty, weakness, readiness to halt or miscarry, and
   thereon a necessity of all the ordinances and visitations of God, which
   are designed to preserve our souls. -- Unless we have due apprehensions
   of our own state and condition here, we shall never kindly receive
   warnings beforehand to avoid approaching dangers, nor duly improve
   rebukes for being overtaken with them. It is the humble soul -- that
   feareth always, and that from a sense of its own weakness, yea, the
   treacheries and deceitfulness of its heart, with the power of those
   temptations whereunto it is continually exposed that is ever likely to
   make work of the duty here directed unto.
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   [326] This enunciation of the topics in the discourse differs slightly
   from what appears in "The Morning Exercises," where the order of the
   second and third heads is reversed. We prefer the arrangement adopted
   above, because it is consistent with the actual order of the topics in
   the discourse itself, and because it is given in the folio volume of
   Owen's Sermons published in 1721; for an account of which see the
   General Preface to this edition of his works. The editors of that
   volume state, "that, for the greater accuracy of the work, such
   original manuscripts as are yet remaining, even of those sermons which
   were formerly printed, have been consulted, which we chose rather to
   follow than the printed copies, where any thing had been altered and
   omitted; so that both the Sermons and other Tracts are free from those
   many gross faults that have hitherto sullied them." -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
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   Sermon XIV.

   The testimony of the church is not the only nor the chief reason of our
   believing the scripture to be the word of God.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon XIV. The testimony of the church is not the only nor the chief reason of
our believing the scripture to be the word of God.

   "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." -- Luke xvi.
   29.

   As everlasting blessedness -- men's greatest and most desirable good --
   is that which God only can bestow, and the way to it, that which he
   only can discover (who knows the Lord's mind like himself? who is so
   sure a guide in the way, as he who is himself the end? -- nature can
   neither direct us to, nor fit us for, a supernatural happiness); so it
   is not only our interest to seek it, but likewise to see whether what
   pretends to be the rule of our walking, in order to our obtaining of
   it, be indeed the right one: which we can no otherwise be assured of,
   than by seeing that it be such an one as is given us by Him to whom
   alone it belongs to prescribe us the way, and who, being infinitely
   good, as well as infinitely wise, will no more deceive us than he can
   be himself deceived. Now, the holy scripture of the Old and New
   Testament, is that which we profess to own as the rule of our faith and
   life, in relation to our future glory. It is, then, the wisdom of every
   Christian to inquire upon what account he receives this rule; -- why he
   believes it, and submits to it; whether he be persuaded that it is of
   God by God himself, or only by men. For if he can find indeed that he
   receives it upon the authority of God, he may be secure of the truth
   and sufficiency of it; but if only on that of men, they, being liable
   to mistakes, may lead him into error; and so he can never be sure that
   what he owns as his rule is indeed the right one, and of God's own
   prescribing. Or admit [that] it really be so, yet if it be not received
   on right grounds, he will be exposed to innumerable fears and
   fluctuations, and never walk comfortably nor constantly in his way,
   when he doubts whether it be the right or a wrong one. The
   superstructure cannot be better than the foundation; and a well-ordered
   and comfortable conversation will never be the effect of an
   ill-grounded belief. It is good, therefore, in the beginning of our
   course, to be secure of our way, -- to see both what we believe, and
   why; lest, otherwise, we be either forced to go back, or else upon as
   light grounds swerve from the way as we were at first persuaded to
   engage in it. Our great inquiry, then, in this discourse, will be, --

   Upon what account we believe the Scripture to be the word of God;
   whether upon the authority of God, or the church? which I ground upon
   these words, "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them."

   In this parable, whereof these words are a part, we have an account of
   the different estates of a wicked man, Dives, and a good man, Lazarus,
   both in this life and the other. In this life, Dives had his "good
   things," the whole of his happiness, all the portion he was ever to
   enjoy; and Lazarus had his "evil things," all the sorrow and misery he
   was ever to endure. And in the other life, we have Lazarus in Abraham's
   bosom, a place and state of rest, "entered into peace," Isa. lvii. 1,
   2; and Dives in hell, a state of misery, and place of torments; where,
   finding so great a change, and being deeply affected with his now woful
   condition, he is (though in vain) desirous, if not of release, as
   despairing of that, yet at least of a little ease; and therefore,
   addressing himself to Abraham, he entreats him that Lazarus might be
   sent to "dip" but even "the tip of his finger in water, and cool his
   tongue," verse 24; but this is denied him as impossible, verse 26.
   Seeing that would not do, he desires, however, [that] his torments
   might not be increased by his brethren's coming to him; whom we may
   suppose to have been his fellow-sinners, and partakers with him in his
   riot and luxury. Or, if you will believe so much charity to be among
   the damned, his request is, that Lazarus might be sent to them, to
   admonish them for their good, that so they might be brought to a timely
   repentance, ere they came to an untimely end, and then to endless
   torments, But this is denied him too, as altogether needless and
   unprofitable, verse 31; and he is told, that God had made sufficient
   provision for them, -- given them the most effectual means whereby they
   might be brought to repentance, in that he had given them his written
   word, "Moses and the prophets;" by whose writings if they were not
   persuaded to repent, a miracle would not persuade them. Lazarus rising
   from the dead would no more be believed than "Moses and the prophets,"
   whose writings were among them; and therefore to them Abraham sends
   them, as a means sufficient for the end pretended, at least, by Dives
   to be aimed at: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them."
   As if he had said, "The will of God concerning thy brethren's duty, and
   the truth of God concerning future rewards as the great motives to it,
   are clearly enough laid down in the Scripture; and if they believe not
   these things, and are not persuaded to repentance upon the authority of
   God in his word, much less will they be moved by the testimony of one
   coming from the dead." Hence I infer, that the holy Scripture, or
   written word of God, is sufficient in itself, and most effectually
   able, to convince men of the truth of those things which are contained
   in it. It was so then; why not now? "Moses and the prophets" were so;
   why are not the apostles and evangelists? Is all the whole Scripture
   grown Old Testament, and so old as to be decayed? When and by what
   means did it lose that life and power, that authority and efficacy, it
   sometimes had? It had formerly more virtue to convince men than a
   miracle itself; and now, belike, it hath less than a council! It could
   have done more than a man "from the dead;" and now it can do less than
   a dead man, a sinful pope! For his Holiness of Rome may be very wicked,
   the Papists themselves being judges.

   From the former proposition it will undeniably follow, that the
   Scripture is sufficient in itself to convince men of its own
   divineness, or its being itself the word of God, that being one truth
   it doth so often assert. The general must comprehend the particular;
   and therefore, if the Scripture be sufficient to satisfy the minds of
   men as to all that it affirms to be truth, it must needs be able to
   satisfy them as to this too, -- that the whole of it is the word of
   God.

   But this our adversaries will not allow; and therefore, instead of
   taking it for granted, or resting on this single proof, we must here
   put it to the question, from whence the Scripture hath its authority,
   or upon what grounds we are to believe it to be the word of God. If you
   will give the Papists leave to answer, they will presently tell you,
   "Upon the sole authority of the church;" or, "Because the church
   declares it to be the word of God;" and that "without the determination
   of the church, it hath very little authority or weight in it," and you
   are "no more bound to believe the gospel of Matthew, than the history
   of Livy." Nay, one says plainly, [327] that "but for the church, you
   are no more bound to believe the Scripture than AEsop's Fables." And
   you may be sure the man was in earnest, when you do but consider how
   many incredible things another of them (alleged at large by our learned
   Whitaker) musters up out of the Scripture, which he would fain persuade
   the world would never be believed if the church did not interpose her
   testimony; and yet, as broad as the blasphemy mentioned is, another of
   the same party minceth the matter, and says [that] the words might be
   "piously spoken." And if a private doctor of the Church of Rome may
   thus transubstantiate blasphemy into piety, or make that pass for pious
   which is really blasphemous, I see no reason why a pope might not add
   his authority, and make it canonical too. But, that we may give the
   best account of the controversy before us, -- I. Some things must be
   premised by way of explication, for the better understanding of terms.
   II. The state of the question must be laid down. III. The truth
   confirmed. IV. Popish objections answered. V. Some application made.

   I. For explication of terms, let us see, --

   1. What we mean by the Scripture. By that, therefore, is understood
   "the word of God," declaring his mind concerning men's happiness and
   duty, or teaching us what we are to believe concerning God, and how we
   are to obey him; as it was at first revealed by himself to the apostles
   and prophets, and by them delivered by word of mouth; and afterward,
   for the perpetuity and usefulness of it, committed to writing, as we
   now have it, in the books of the Old and New Testament. So that "the
   word of God" and "the Scripture" are the same materially, and differ
   only in this, that "the word of God" doth not in itself imply its being
   written, nor exclude it, but may be considered indifferently as to
   either; whereas "the Scripture" signifies the same word, only with the
   addition of its being committed to writing.

   2. What is meant by authority, when we inquire whence the Scripture
   hath its authority. [328] Authority in this business is a power of
   commanding or persuading, or, as some phrase it, "convincing," arising
   from some excellency in the thing or person vested with such authority.
   Whatever hath authority de facto, so far forth hath esteem and honour,
   or reverence, yielded to it; as whatever hath authority de jure, hath
   such esteem or honour of due belonging to it, and answering it as its
   correlate. And both the one and the other are founded on some
   excellency:-- sometimes of nature, both in persons and things;
   sometimes of office and dignity; sometimes of knowledge; sometimes of
   virtue and manners; sometimes of prudence, as in persons: according to
   each of which, a suitable respect and honour is due to the authority
   therefrom arising. And as any man excels in any of these, so he hath
   authority in that, though he may not in other things. Thus, he that
   excels in the knowledge of the law may have authority in that, though
   he may have none in physic or divinity, in which he may not excel; and
   an honest man, that excels in morality, may on that account have the
   authority of a witness, though not of a judge. Now, when we speak of
   the authority of the Scripture, and ask from whence it hath it, we do
   but inquire whence it is that the Scripture persuades, convinces, or
   binds us to believe it, or commands us to assent to it, as the word of
   God; or whereon its power of so doing is founded, -- whether it be not
   some excellency inherent in itself, or whether it be only something
   foreign and extrinsical to it.

   3. What we mean by faith, when it is demanded why we believe the
   Scripture to be the word of God. Faith, so far as it concerns the
   understanding (for in some acts of faith the will bears part), is an
   assent yielded to something proposed under the appearance, at least, of
   truth, built upon the testimony of another; and therefore, according as
   the testimony is, for the sake of which we believe any thing,
   accordingly will our faith be:-- if it be the testimony of a man or
   men, our faith will be a human faith; but if the testimony be divine,
   or we believe a thing because God himself asserts it, we call it "a
   divine faith." Only we must remember, that a truly divine faith hath
   always God for its author; so that three things concur to the producing
   the act of such a faith:-- (1.) The truth believed; which is objectum
   materiale, "the object of it." (2.) The testimony of God concerning
   that truth; which is objectum formale, "the formal reason and ground"
   of this faith. (3.) The efficiency of God producing it or working it in
   the mind. Now, when we speak of believing the Scripture to be the word
   of God, we speak of a divine faith. A man may, upon the credit of his
   parents, of his minister, of a particular church, or of the church
   catholic, if such a testimony can be had, believe the Scripture to be
   the word of God; but the question will be, what kind of faith that is,
   whether such an one as God requires him to receive the Scripture with.

   4. What we understand by the church in the question. "The church" may
   be taken either for the universality of believers in all places of the
   world, so as to comprehend private saints as well as public officers,
   people as well as pastors, and those of former ages as well as the
   present, -- prophets themselves, and apostles, and penmen of the
   Scripture. Or we may take it for that part of the catholic church which
   lives together in the same age, (call it, if you please, "the present
   catholic church,") comprehending in it all the believers, people as
   well as pastors, alive at the same time in the several parts of the
   whole world. Or else we may understand "the church" in the popish
   sense, only for the present church; and that, too, for the Church of
   Rome, which they call "Catholic;" and that, again, only for the pastors
   of it, excluding the people; and they, again, may be considered either
   separately or in conjunction, as meeting together in a general council;
   and that, either by themselves without the pope, or together with him;
   or, lastly, as represented by him, or virtually contained in him: for
   this great name, "The Church," dwindles at last into one only man. But,
   sure, he is no small one that contains so many in him; for, if we
   believe the Papists (not only, though especially, the Jesuits), the
   pope, in this controversy, is nothing else but the church catholic
   compacted, and thrust into a single person, in whom all those several
   excellencies which are scattered among the members do, as in the head,
   collectively reside. And so the catholicness they vaunt so much of, is
   crowded into a narrow compass; for those, whether pastors or members of
   the church, that lived formerly, are first cut off, and the church is
   reduced to the present age; then the people, as excrescences, are pared
   away too, and the bulkiness of the church thereby lessened, the
   officers or pastors only remaining; and yet these, too, must be
   contracted into a council; and that at last epitomized into a pope, who
   is but the epitome of an epitome, and scarcely so much as a small
   synopsis of that voluminous thing "the church," they talk so largely
   of.

   II. For the state of the question, these things being premised, take it
   thus:-- 1. In some things we agree with them; 2. In some we differ from
   them.

   1. In some we agree.

   (1.) That the scripture of the Old and New Testament, which we own (who
   yet exclude the apocryphal books of one sort or other) is the word of
   God, is acknowledged by them as well as by us.

   (2.) Consequently, that it is in itself true and of divine authority,
   and that it doth not depend upon the church, as to that authority and
   truth which in itself it hath, -- or that the testimony of the church
   doth not make it to be true, or to be the word of God, -- the Papists
   themselves (at least the most wary among them) will (be sure, in words)
   grant. And therefore they have coined a distinction for the nonce: they
   tell us that the Scripture hath a twofold authority; one in itself, as
   it is true, and comes from God; the other in relation to us, as it
   binds us to receive and believe it. The former of these they own to be
   in the Scripture antecedently to the testimony of the church. The
   distinction is vain, when all authority is in relation to another, over
   whom either de facto it is, or de jure it ought to be, exercised. But
   let it pass.

   (3.) That every Christian is bound, with a divine faith to receive the
   Scripture as the word of God, they grant as well as we do.

   (4.) That the Holy Spirit hath a hand in men's believing the Scripture
   to be the word of God, allow the Papists their sense, and they will
   likewise yield no less than we. That the faith whereby men own the
   Scriptures (if it be a divine one, as they say it is) is wrought in the
   hearts of men by the Spirit of God, they do grant, and must, unless
   they will avow themselves to be Pelagians.

   (5.) And, lastly, that the church (allow us our sense) may be a help to
   us, and furtherance to our faith, in receiving the Scripture as the
   word of God, we will grant as well as they. That the universal
   concurrence of all believers in receiving the Scripture, and [that] the
   testimony they do, and in all ages have, in their way and capacity,
   given to it, is a strong argument to persuade dissenters to submit to
   the divine authority of it, we easily yield; and that it is the duty of
   the present church, during its time, to labour to preserve the
   Scripture pure and entire, and to hold it forth to others, and
   endeavour to persuade them of its divineness, and so to perform the
   part of a teacher, we are willing likewise to yield. And so, in a word,
   we acknowledge the usefulness of the church's testimony, as an external
   help, and that by which some benefit may be reaped by men at the
   beginning of their faith. For it is the foundation of a human faith,
   and sufficient for the producing of that. And when a man hath so far
   yielded, as to receive the Scripture as God's word, though only on the
   credit of men, yet coming afterward to peruse and study it, and look
   more narrowly into it, he may then come to see better and more solid
   grounds for his belief; and, God working on his heart by the word, he
   may come to receive it with a divine faith, which at first he did only
   with a human; as, in John iv., the men of Samaria, who first believed
   Christ for the woman's words, did afterwards believe him because they
   heard himself. Thus far, therefore, there is some agreement between
   them and us. So that the question is not concerning the object of our
   faith, the thing to be believed; for both acknowledge it, in this
   business, to be the divineness of the Scripture: nor concerning the
   efficient cause of that faith; for both will own it to be the Spirit
   which works this faith in the heart: but concerning the medium or
   argument whereby the Spirit works it, and so the ground and foundation
   of our faith, that which is the formal reason why we believe the
   Scripture to be the word of God.

   2. This, therefore, is the thing wherein we and they differ: something
   they affirm which we deny, and something we affirm which they deny.

   (1.) They affirm the testimony of the present church (and that must be
   of Rome only now, for they count that only the catholic one) -- that
   is, of the pastors of it convened in a general council, either with the
   pope, as some of them say, or without him, as others, or virtually in
   him, as others -- to be the only sufficient ground of men's believing
   the Scripture to be the word of God; and so tell us that the Spirit
   bears witness to the divinity of the Scripture by the testimony of the
   church, and makes use of that as the medium or argument by which he
   persuades men to receive the Scripture as the word of God; and that
   without that testimony, or antecedently to it, men cannot know, nor are
   bound to believe, the Scripture so to be. This we deny.

   (2.) We affirm, on the other side, that the testimony of the Spirit of
   God in the word itself -- witnessing it to be of God, by that stamp and
   impress, or, which comes to the same, by those notes and marks of
   divinity which everywhere appear in it -- is the immediate and
   principal, and a sufficient, reason of our believing it to be the word
   of God, and the medium the Spirit useth in working faith in us, or
   making us assent to the divinity of the Scripture. So that, as the
   Spirit, working inwardly in our hearts, moves as the efficient of our
   faith, so the Scripture itself, in its own intrinsical beauty, lustre,
   power, and excellency, is that which moves us, in the way of an object
   or medium, to yield our assent to its being of God. By this the Spirit
   of God, as the author of the Scripture, witnesseth it to be of God;
   and, by an internal application of this to our minds, induceth us to
   assent to its so being. The testimony of the Spirit in the word is
   open, public, general, to all, if they have but eyes to see it; whereas
   the inward application of it by the efficiency of the Spirit is only to
   believers.

   This they deny; and this we shall first, though more briefly, prove;
   and then disprove -- as well as we deny -- what they assert.

   Argument I. The Holy Ghost, in Scripture, calls us to the Scripture
   itself, and God's authority only in it, and not to the church, for the
   settling of our belief of its divinity; and therefore in the Scripture
   itself we have a sufficient argument to move us to believe its coming
   from God. In Isa. viii. 20, we are sent "to the law and to the
   testimony." The prophets generally propound what they deliver merely in
   the name and on the authority of God: their usual style is, "Thus saith
   the Lord," and, "The word of the Lord." They do nowhere send us to the
   church to know whether it be so or not; but leave it with us, as being
   of itself (that is, without the testimony of the church) sufficient to
   convince us; and if we will not believe it, at our own peril be it. So,
   in the text, Abraham (that is indeed Christ, whose mind Abraham in this
   parable is brought in speaking) sends Dives' brethren to "Moses and the
   prophets:" and our Saviour Christ sends the Jews to the Scriptures, --
   bids them "search" them, John v. 39; and so verses 46, 47. And Luke
   commends the Bereans, not that they sent up to Jerusalem to the church
   there, or waited for a general council, to assure them of the
   divineness of what was preached to them; but that "they daily searched
   the Scriptures, to see if those things were so," Acts xvii. 11. But all
   this would be in vain, our labour would be lost in searching the
   Scriptures, and looking into them for the confirmation of themselves,
   if there were not something in them sufficient to persuade us of their
   having God for their author, but at last we must have recourse to the
   church to assure us of it. Why are we sent thus far about, if a nearer
   way be at hand?

   Arg. II. Those properties which the Holy Ghost in the Scripture
   attributes to the Scripture will prove the same. It is light: "The
   commandment is a lamp, and the law is light," Prov. vi. 23; "A lamp to
   my feet, and a light to my path," Ps. cxix. 105; "A light shining in a
   dark place," 2 Pet. i. 19. And, surely, that which is light may
   discover itself. He that needs another to tell him what is light, wants
   eyes. It "is quick, and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword,"
   Heb. iv. 12; it enters into the soul: and therefore by its own power
   and efficacy discovers itself to us as well as us to ourselves. It is
   "like as a fire, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces,"
   Jer. xxiii. 29. So likewise, 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25; and Ps. xix. 7, 8:
   from both which we may argue, That word which convinceth men, judgeth
   them, makes manifest the secrets of their hearts; that, again, which
   converts the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoiceth the heart,
   enlightens the eyes; is sufficiently able to discover itself to be of
   God, though the church should not give in her testimony; but such a
   word is the Scripture: therefore, etc. And, farther, why may not God's
   word discover its author as well as his works do? If "the heavens
   declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handy-work," Ps.
   xix. 1; if "even the least creatures preach God to us," [329] they that
   bear not his image on them, yet have some vestigia, some "footsteps" of
   him; and much more [if] his greater and more noble works, the glorious
   fabric of heaven and earth, and man, the most excellent of his
   creatures on earth, show forth that excellency in them which manifests
   itself to be from none but God; and [if] he hath, in a word, left such
   an impress of himself upon his works, as that they generally proclaim
   themselves to be his; why should it be thought incredible that God
   should leave the like notices of himself upon his word, and stamp that
   upon it which might plainly evidence it to be his? Nay, if men do
   commonly make themselves known by their works, -- writers by their
   skill, artists by their curious pieces; if Apelles could have drawn
   such a picture, Phidias have cut such a statue, Cicero have penned such
   an oration, that any who had judgment in such things might have said
   [that] such a man, and no other, was the author of such a work; surely,
   then, much more may God in so lively a manner express himself in his
   word as clearly to notify to us that it is his. And if any should say,
   God could have done it, but would not, I desire to know a good reason
   why God, who hath left us so plain and conspicuous evidences of his
   wisdom, power, and goodness on his creatures, would not leave the print
   of himself in the like manner upon his word.

   Arg. III. God's revealing himself to us in the Scripture is the first
   and highest revelation upon which our faith is built; and therefore
   that revelation is sufficient to manifest itself to us, even without
   the church's testimony. [330] The reason of the consequence is, because
   faith (a divine one, such as we speak of) being always built upon
   revelation, whatever it be which is the first revelation, whereon our
   faith is built, must be sufficient to notify itself to us; otherwise,
   our faith is not founded upon any revelation at all, if that revelation
   needs something else, which is not revelation, to give credit to it, or
   if that which is the first revelation yet needs another to make it
   manifest to us it is not itself the first; -- which is a palpable
   contradiction. And for the antecedent, I thus make it appear:-- In the
   business of faith, either we must come to some first revelation, or we
   must go on from one to another without any end; for either the faith
   whereby I believe this revelation -- that "the Scripture is the word of
   God" -- to be divine, is founded upon this very revelation itself, --
   namely, the Scripture, which so many times tells me it is of God, -- or
   upon some other revelation. If upon this itself, then I have what I
   would, -- that this is the first revelation whereon my faith is built;
   but if on another, I ask again, Must I believe that for itself, or for
   some other? If for itself, then that must be the first; if for some
   other, I shall ask again, Am I to believe that for itself, or for
   another? And so there will be no end, no first revelation on which my
   faith is founded, but I must go higher, and higher, even in infinitum.

   Other arguments might be produced to confirm what we assert, and are by
   our divines; but I intended brevity in these; -- and the truth we
   maintain will be more confirmed by what I am in the next place to say
   against the Papists' assertion.

   III. That, therefore, the testimony of the church is not the only
   sufficient ground (nor indeed a sufficient one at all) of our believing
   the divinity of the Scripture, I shall prove by several arguments.

   Arg. I. I argue from Eph. ii. 20, And we "are built upon the foundation
   of the apostles and prophets." The Scripture is the foundation of the
   church, and therefore hath not its authority, even in respect of us,
   from the church; but, on the contrary, the church hath its authority
   from the Scripture, upon which it depends in its very being, and
   without which it is not the church, nor if built upon any other
   foundation; it hath no authority but from the Scripture, -- none in
   itself, but as thence it derives it, and we know none [that] it hath
   but as there we find it. And this is spoken of the true church, and not
   merely the church in the popish sense. If ever we would find out the
   nature and definition of the church, we must seek it in the Scripture,
   where alone it is that we see it to be God's will to have a church upon
   earth, and by what means it is called, and of whom it is constituted,
   and with what power and privileges it is endowed. He that will question
   whether the Scripture be the word of God, will as easily question
   whether the church be the church of God, or whether God have any church
   or not. Now, if the church have all its authority from the Scripture,
   by which alone it is a church, and known to be so, how can it be with
   any reason said that the Scripture hath its authority, even as to us,
   from the church? For if the church have no authority but from the
   Scripture, then the authority of the church must suppose that of the
   Scripture, and the Scripture must be owned, or the church cannot be
   owned. For who knows what or which the church is, but as the Scripture
   describes it to us? And so the Scripture hath not its authority, as to
   us, from the church. For can the Scripture both give authority to the
   church, and yet receive its own authority from it? Can it authorize the
   church, before it be itself authorized by it? Can it give the church a
   power to communicate authority to it, and yet have no authority
   hitherto itself? Nay, can it be consistent with common sense, that the
   Scripture should give the church a power to bind men to the belief of
   it, and yet have no power in itself to bind the church to the belief of
   it?

   Again: when they say the Scripture hath its authority from the church,
   I ask, How shall I know that there is a church? For if I be one that
   own no such thing as the Scripture (which the church is persuading me
   to believe), withal I own no such society as the church; and how will
   they prove there is such an one, but by the Scripture? For I, who am
   supposed to acknowledge no church, do acknowledge no authority it hath,
   and shall not take its own word. And yet if I grant there be a church,
   how shall I know that such a company of men as pretend to be the church
   are really so? I shall not take their own testimony; I am not satisfied
   in their being witnesses to themselves. And if they will prove
   themselves to be the church by the Scripture, then either the Scripture
   must have authority, as to me, before the church, or else they prove
   one obscure thing by another. If they say there be certain signs and
   marks of the church inherent in it, by which it may be known, -- alas!
   I know not those marks but by the Scripture, which describes the
   church. If they say the Spirit witnesseth by those marks that this is
   the church, why may not I say the same of the Scripture; and so, that
   be known without the testimony of the church to be the word of God, as
   well as the church to be the church of God? And yet, after all this,
   granting this society of men to be the church, how shall I know that
   this church is infallible? And if I know it not to be so, I am not so
   mad as to build my faith upon its authority. If they say, "Because it
   is governed by the Holy Ghost," how shall I know that? for it is not
   obvious to me that it is. If they say, "Because Christ hath promised
   that it should," I ask, Where? where can it be but in the Scripture?
   Sure, then, the Scripture must be owned, and have its authority, as to
   me, or their proof is invalid, and they do but trifle instead of
   arguing.

   Before I proceed to another argument, let us examine what is excepted
   against this. To this text, Eph. ii. 20, it is replied by some of the
   Papists, --

   Exception. I. That "by foundation' is not meant the Scripture written
   by the apostles and prophets, but their preaching."

   Answer. But, 1. If that were granted, it would not prejudice our cause.
   What they wrote and preached is the same truth, and differs not
   essentially, but only in the way of delivery; one being delivered to
   their present hearers viva voce, and the other by writing, transmitted
   likewise to posterity: "Witnessing both to small and great, saying none
   other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should
   come," Acts xxvi. 22. So Acts xvii.

   2. The preaching of the apostles and prophets did last but a while;
   whereas Paul speaks of the lasting, perpetual foundation of the church.

   3. If he speaks only of the preaching of the apostles and prophets, how
   comes he to join these two together? For the prophets were long since
   dead; and their preaching, if that only were the foundation of the
   church, could be the foundation of that church only which lived with
   them, and heard them.

   Except. II. "He meant, therefore," say some of our adversaries, "the
   New Testament prophets, who preached at the same time with the
   apostles."

   Answer. But that is not so easily proved as said: for though such
   prophets are mentioned in some places of the New Testament, it doth not
   follow that they must needs be understood here. For why doth the
   apostle mention them only, and not evangelists too, nay, pastors and
   teachers likewise, whom he joins all together in Eph. iv. 11, and who
   did at the same time preach the same truth which the apostles did?
   Beside that, we find, by the doctrine of "the prophets" mentioned in
   the New Testament, the truth preached and written by the prophets under
   the Old commonly understood. So, 2 Pet. i. 19, "A more sure word of
   prophecy." Heb. i. 1, "God spake to the fathers by the prophets." So
   also, Rom. i. 2, and Luke i. 70. The apostles under the New Testament
   were the chief that taught, though New Testament prophets, as likewise
   evangelists, pastors, and teachers, did preach the same doctrine; as
   formerly, under the Old Testament, the prophets that then lived were
   the chief, though others beside, as the Levites, did teach "the good
   knowledge of the Lord," 2 Chron. xxx. 22.

   Except. III. "But," say they again, "the Ephesians were not built upon
   Paul's writings, which were not then extant, but on his preaching; and
   therefore these other kind of prophets must be understood, on whose
   preaching, together with the apostles', they were built.

   Ans. The preaching [of] the truth, or writing it, makes no difference;
   but still it is the same truth, which is the foundation of the church,
   whether it be written or preached. And though the Ephesians were built
   on the word as preached by Paul, yet what hinders but they might
   likewise be built on the word as written by former prophets; whom,
   though they could not now hear, yet they might read? And Paul himself
   proves what he preached, by what the prophets had written; that so both
   the word preached and written might be propounded to the Ephesians as
   one and the same foundation of their faith.

   Except. IV. They say that "by the church' in this place is understood,
   not the pastors, but the people; because the pastors were they that
   preached; and therefore, if they were meant, it would follow that they
   should be built upon themselves."

   Ans. 1. It is most absurd to say, that the pastors and doctors of the
   church are not built upon the doctrine of the apostles and prophets.
   Who ever heard of one foundation for the faith of the teachers, and
   another for the faith of the people? It seems, then, by their own
   confession, [that] the pope and his clergy are not built upon the
   foundation of the apostles and prophets; and if they have not this
   foundation, I am sure they have no better. The faith of pastors and
   people is the same; and why is not the foundation the same too? Are
   they fit to build up others in the faith of the Scriptures, who are not
   themselves built upon the Scriptures? And it is idle to say, [that]
   they are built on the Holy Spirit: for will they separate the Spirit
   from the Scripture? What doth the Spirit teach, but out of, and
   according to, the Scripture? To be led by the Spirit, and yet built on
   the Scriptures, are very well consistent.

   Ans. 2. It is not absurd to say, that the teachers of the church are
   built on the doctrine they teach; though not as they teach it, yet as
   they have BEFORE received and believed it. Indeed, they ought to offer
   nothing to others, as the foundation of their faith, but what is the
   foundation of their own; nor to hazard the souls of their hearers upon
   any worse bottom than they would venture their own souls. And it doth
   not follow from hence that they are taught by themselves, or are a
   foundation to themselves; but only, that the doctrine they have
   themselves believed and are built upon, -- they deliver to others, that
   they too may believe it, and be built upon it.

   Arg. II. The doctrine delivered in the Scripture doth not, as to our
   receiving it, depend upon the church; and therefore neither doth the
   Scripture itself: the doctrine of the Scripture and the Scripture
   itself are really the same, and differ but in an accident of being
   written, or not written. The same doctrines we have in the Scripture,
   were published and known before they were written; and they did not
   then depend upon the authority of the church; and why should they now?
   Doth the writing of them make them of less authority, or less credible,
   or less able to convince men's minds, than they formerly were? Upon the
   authority of what church did Adam, Seth, Enoch, Abraham, etc., receive
   the word of God, when it was yet unwritten? What council was there,
   what pope to persuade them of it? And how come the same truths to have
   less power and efficacy to persuade us than them? Will our adversaries
   say, the patriarchs received the word immediately from God himself?
   True, some of them did; but what is that to the church and her
   authority? Or will they say, those patriarchs from whom others received
   the word were infallible? They will hardly be able to prove it. How
   came Abraham to persuade his wife to tell a lie, and expose her
   chastity thereby, for the saving of his life, if he were infallible?
   And how came other patriarchs to allow polygamy, if they were
   infallible? And do not the Papists themselves tell us that the church
   of the Jews was not infallible; and that infallibility is the peculiar
   privilege of the gospel church, the promise of it being made only to
   that? [331]

   And, to come down lower, Moses received many things of the Lord which
   were immediately received by the people, -- as the law of the passover,
   Exod. xii., -- and where the people presently answer that all the words
   which the Lord had said, they would do, Exod. xxiv. 3. Did the people
   themselves ("the church in the wilderness," Acts vii. 38) give
   authority to these laws, or did the council of the elders do it? We
   find nothing of their being convened together upon any such account as
   to consider whether God's laws should be received or not. Or did they
   receive them on the authority of any other church? If so, which was it,
   where was it? Or, lastly, was Moses an Old Testament pope, and the
   virtual church of Israel? Then, belike, that church was infallible as
   well as the gospel, contrary to their own doctrine. That Moses was
   infallibly inspired in all that he commanded the people from God, is
   sure; but that ever he pressed them to receive the word of God on his
   own authority, or any but God's, can never be proved. If they say that
   the people received the word on the account of the miracles wrought by
   Moses, that is more to our purpose titan theirs. And what shall we say
   of the law written in men's hearts? on whose authority is that
   received? It is the same for substance with the law written in the
   word; and must there be the testimony of the church to assure men that
   even this law too is of God? or, if it be acknowledged for its own
   light and power, whereby it manifests itself to be of God, why may not
   the law written in the word be so acknowledged too?

   But come we farther down. On whose authority were the sermons of the
   prophets, after Moses' time, received? When they spoke to the people in
   the name of the Lord, did they ever cite the testimony of the church,
   to vouch what they said to be indeed from the Lord? or, did they ever
   seek the suffrages of the high priests and governors of the church, to
   establish their doctrine as divine? Their ordinary style is, "Thus
   saith the Lord;" not, "Thus saith the church," or, "The church says,
   that the Lord saith thus."

   Lastly. If we descend to the times of the New Testament, we shall find
   the same there. When our Saviour Christ himself preached, what he spoke
   was as much the word of God when he spake it as now that it is written;
   but neither did he refer himself, as to the divinity of his doctrine,
   to the authority of the church, nor did any believe it on that account.
   He did not refer it to the church; for he did not receive testimony
   from men, John v. 34, -- no, not from John Baptist himself, though of
   no small authority in the Jewish church, and generally taken to be a
   prophet. Though John, as his duty was, did bear witness to Christ, and
   point to him, -- "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of
   the world," John i. 29, 36; -- yet Christ had no need of this testimony
   to make himself be received as the Messiah, or what he preached as the
   word of God; as if the one or the other could not have been received
   without it. He therefore tells the Jews that he had "greater witness
   than that of John," John v. 36; -- first his works; then his Father
   himself, verse 37; then the written word: "Search the Scriptures; for
   in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify
   of me," verse 39. All this while, here is not one tittle of the church
   and its testimony; and if that be the only means whereby men can be
   assured of the divineness of the word, how comes Christ to overlook it?
   And that they who believed Christ's doctrine did not believe it on the
   authority of the church is clear; for the church of the Jews was
   generally corrupt, erred in many things, and therefore was unfit. And
   it was, especially as to its guides and officers, generally against
   Christ; and therefore unwilling to give testimony to him. It neither
   owned him nor his doctrine; so that they who received and believed
   Christ's preaching, did it on some other account than the testimony of
   the then present church. If the Papists shall say, they received his
   doctrine on the account of Christ's own divine authority, I would
   inquire, how they came to know he had any such authority; for that
   Christ was the Messiah, and, consequently, had this divine authority,
   were some of the truths he preached. If they say, that Christ's
   doctrine was received either upon the account of his miracles, or of
   its agreement with the scripture of the Old Testament, they say more
   for us than for themselves, and, either way, desert their cause.

   And if we look to the apostles that followed Christ, and preached the
   same doctrine, we shall see that it was not received on the account of
   the church, no more than commanded to the hearers thereon. In Acts ii.
   41, upon Peter's preaching, three thousand believed: "They gladly
   received the word;" they did not, it seems, expect the testimony of the
   church to tell them whether it were the word or not. In Acts iv. 4, we
   read of either five thousand more, or so many as made up the whole five
   thousand. And in Acts viii. the Samaritans receive the gospel on
   Philip's preaching; and afterward, the eunuch. And, to pass by others,
   the Bereans and Thessalonians receive the word, in Acts xvii. Of the
   former it is said, that "they received the word with all readiness of
   mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so,"
   verse 11. Of the latter, Paul testifies that "they received the word,
   not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God," 1
   Thess. ii. 13. All this while, here is no church interposing its
   authority, or asserting the divineness of what Peter, or Philip, or
   Paul preached. On what account, then, did these people believe the word
   preached by the apostles? "On the authority of the church," say the
   Papists. But what church? "Why," says a great one among them, [332]
   speaking of the Thessalonians, "the voice of Paul was the voice of the
   church, when he preached to the Thessalonians; and so they, in
   receiving the word on Paul's authority, received it on the authority of
   the church." Say the same of Peter and Philip.

   Paul, it seems, then, was the church; or else how could Paul's
   preaching be the voice of the church? What kind of church, then, was
   Paul? Was he the church virtual? Was he a pope, and was Peter, and
   Philip, and the rest of the apostles and evangelists, so too? A blessed
   church, sure, that had so many popes! or rather, a miserable one, that
   either had no visible head or had so many! If they say, Paul's voice
   was the voice of the church, because he was an officer of it, by whom
   the church published the doctrine she believed and was to propagate; --
   Paul was indeed an officer of the church; but yet made so by Jesus
   Christ himself, -- not an apostle of men, nor by man, Gal. i. 1. And
   the doctrine he preached was no otherwise the doctrine of the church,
   than as it was the same which the church believed, but never taught it
   him; for he "received it not of men, neither was taught it, but by the
   revelation of Jesus Christ," verse 12. And, therefore, they might more
   reasonably have said, that the voice of Paul was the voice of Christ;
   the word he preached being more properly the word of Christ, who was
   the author of it, than the word of the church, who only received it of
   Christ. But what will become of this fine invention of our Jesuit, if
   the Thessalonians did not receive the word on the authority of Paul
   himself, whether in his single or representative capacity, or call it
   as you please? And, surely, they did not; for then his authority must
   be owned, ere, on the account of that, his preaching could be believed.
   But both Paul and his authority, whatever it were, were unknown to the
   Thessalonians when he first preached among them; and therefore could
   not induce them to believe what he taught. The same we may say of the
   other apostles, in their first planting the gospel when they came to
   the Gentiles; they were unknown till they made themselves and their
   authority known by their preaching. And when they came to the Jews,
   where they were known, yet they were not trusted, nor their apostolical
   authority acknowledged. And so it could prevail neither with the one
   nor with the other, till their doctrine was first believed.

   Arg. III. The Scripture hath its authority, in relation to us, before
   the church pass its judgment concerning it; and therefore it hath not
   that authority from the church. This will appear, --

   1. By the concession of the Papists themselves, who acknowledge that
   the church only declares the Scripture to be authentic, but doth not
   make it so. Surely, then, it was authentic in itself before that
   declaration of the church, which is only a pronouncing that to be which
   was before. And if it be in itself authentic, it is so to us too; that
   is, it hath in itself a power of binding us to the belief of it, so
   soon as we come to hear of it, whether the church hath declared its
   authenticness or not.

   2. If the Scripture hath not its authority as to us, before the
   judgment of the church, then either it must be a private or public
   judgment of the church which gives it that authority. A private one it
   cannot be: for when we speak of the authority of the Scripture as to
   us, it is understood of all Christians everywhere; and it is not fit
   that a private judgment of the church, or, which is the same, the
   judgment of a private church, should give laws to all the rest, Nor can
   it be the public testimony, or that of the catholic church; for none
   such can be produced by the Papists from whence the Scripture hath its
   authority. Let them, if they can, show us the first general council
   that ever declared the Scripture to be the word of God. The council of
   Jerusalem, in Acts xv. 1, if it were a general one, is the first we
   read of; and that toucheth not the point in hand, -- doth not declare
   the Scripture to be authentic, but takes it for granted. They that were
   there met cite the scripture of the Old Testament, and thereby own its
   authority, but do not then first establish it. And Peter and the rest
   do the like in their preaching, Acts ii., iii. And dare the Papists
   say, then, that the Old Testament was not authentic before this
   council? Had the church hitherto no certain canon, nor authentic
   Scripture, to be the rule of its faith? After this council we find no
   general one till that of Nice. And was the church of God all this while
   too (for three hundred years) without the canon of the Scripture? to
   say nothing that the Council of Nice itself did never define which it
   was; but acknowledged it as already received.

   3. If a council meets to declare the divine authority of the Scripture,
   we would know by what authority it meets. If the several pastors of the
   church come together on the authority and by the command of the
   Scripture itself, then it hath its authority before they meet; else it
   could not make it their duty so to do. If by some revelation or impulse
   of the Spirit without the Scripture, what kind of spirit is that which
   acts in separation from the Scripture? And if the Papists will affirm
   this, let them no more call themselves good Catholics, but even the
   worst of fanatics.

   Arg. IV. The authority o/the church is not more certain or clear, as to
   us, than that of the Scripture; and therefore the Scripture cannot have
   its authority from it. That which proves another thing, must itself be
   more clear and better known. But that the authority of the church is
   not better known to us than that of the Scripture will soon appear; for
   whatever authority the church hath, she must prove it either from
   herself, or from something else.

   If from any thing else, it must either be from the testimony of those
   that are out of the church; but they know not the church, nor any
   authority it hath: or from the Scripture; but then the authority of the
   Scripture must be more known than that of the church: or from the
   Spirit; but how will they make it out that they have the testimony of
   the Spirit for them, otherwise than by the Scripture, in and by which
   he is wont to bear witness? If they say the Spirit witnesseth to the
   authority of the church inwardly, so as to persuade the minds of
   dissenters that the church is the church of God; this is merely begged,
   and not proved, and yet will not satisfy neither. For we ask not, "What
   is the efficient cause of men's believing the authority of the church?"
   but, "What is the argument whereon that belief is grounded, and whereby
   the church persuades men of its own authority?"

   Or else, on the other side, if the church prove its authority from
   itself, then the same thing shall be proved by itself. But yet, I ask,
   What judgment of the church is it whereby its authority is proved? They
   say, "Both the testimony of the ancient and of the present church." But
   how can the testimony of the ancient church be known but by the
   writings of those that formerly lived, the books of fathers, and
   decrees of councils? But we would know how we shall have greater
   assurance that those books were written by those fathers whose names
   they bear, and those decrees made by those councils to which they are
   ascribed, than that the Scripture is the word of God. How came we to be
   more certain that Cyprian's or Austin's works were written by them,
   than that the four Gospels were written by the four evangelists, or
   Paul's Epistles by him? And if the present church prove its authority
   by the ancient church, it must prove it but to very few; for they are
   but few that ever saw, and yet fewer that ever read, the writings of
   the ancients; and many, perhaps, have never heard of them. And besides,
   the ancient church was some time the present church; and when it was
   so, from whence might it prove its authority? From some more ancient.,
   no doubt; according to our adversaries' discourse, it must be. But from
   whence did the first church prove its authority (for we must come to a
   first), when there was none before it to prove it by?

   Lastly. The authority of the present church cannot be proved by the
   testimony of the present church. For then it must be either by a part
   of it; but that cannot be, for a part of the present church is inferior
   to the whole of it, and he that questions the authority of the whole
   will no less question that of a part: or else by the whole church; and
   then the authority of the whole church must be proved by the authority
   of the whole church, -- we must believe she is the church, because she
   says she is the church.

   Arg. V. If we are to believe the divinity of the Scripture merely on
   the church's authority, then that faith can be but a human faith,
   because founded on no better than the authority of men. Our faith can
   be no better than its foundation; a divine faith cannot be built upon
   human testimony. But the Papists themselves are ashamed to own a thing
   so grossly absurd, as that the faith whereby we believe one main
   article of religion -- the divineness of the Scripture -- should be but
   a human faith.

   Except. To this, therefore, they say, that "the faith whereby we
   believe the Scripture to be the word of God is a divine faith, and
   built on the testimony of God; and that testimony is no other than the
   testimony of the church." [333] We easily reply, --

   Ans. 1. That the church's testimony is no otherwise the testimony of
   God than as it agrees with the word of God; and when it doth so, we are
   to believe what the church says, not merely because the church says it,
   but because God says it. And if the church holds forth to me any divine
   truth, and I yield my assent to it merely because the church declares
   it to me, though what I believe be a divine truth, yet the faith with
   which I receive it will be but a human faith; the truth is of God, but
   my faith is in man. Whereas, if I believe any truth because God speaks
   it, though not by the church, nor any officer of it, but some private
   person, yet my faith is a divine faith, and the testimony of a private
   person, speaking what the Scripture speaks, is as really the voice of
   God as the testimony of the church.

   2. Some of the most learned of the Papists themselves [334] make a
   great difference between the testimony of God and of the church. The
   former they grant to be altogether divine; the latter, modo quodam,
   "after a sort" divine. The former they reckon to be the primary
   foundation of faith; the latter, but the secondary. Nay, some of them
   acknowledge that faith which rests only on the authority of the church
   not to be divine; and some, the church's testimony to be but the
   conditio sine qua non, "the condition without which we cannot" believe
   the divinity of the Scriptures; -- which surely they would scarcely do,
   if they thought the testimony of the church to be the testimony of God.
   And if the testimony of the church be but "in some sort" a divine
   testimony, the faith which is built upon it can be but "in some sort" a
   divine faith. And if the testimony of the church be but the secondary
   foundation of faith, how comes it to be (according to Stapleton) the
   testimony of God himself, which surely they will allow to be the
   primary foundation of faith?

   3. Before they can evince the testimony of the church to be the
   testimony of God, they must first prove the church to be absolutely
   infallible, and see they agree among themselves about it; lest we be
   still at a loss how to know what is that church whose testimony is the
   voice of God himself. And, --

   4. If I do but deny the testimony of the church to be the testimony of
   God (as we do), how will they prove it? "By the testimony of the
   church." I shall not take its word. Or will they say it hath such notes
   of its being the voice of God in it, as thereby to manifest itself to
   be his voice? They will get nothing by that; for I am ready to say the
   same of the Scripture. Or, lastly, will they prove it by the Scripture?
   Then they plainly give away their cause, and own the authority of the
   Scripture to be before the testimony of the church.

   Arg. VI. If we must believe the Scripture to be the word of God only
   because the church determines it to be so, then we must believe all
   things in it to be of God/or the same reason only. That "Christ came
   into the world to save sinners," 1 Tim. i. 15; that "whosoever
   believeth in him shall have everlasting life," etc., John iii. 16; and
   all the promises of the gospel, must be believed to be made to us by
   God, only because the church tells us they were; and the truth of them,
   as to us, depends merely on the church's authority: and so all the
   comfort of our hearts, and the hopes we have of heaven, must be
   primarily derived from the authority of the church, and ultimately
   resolved into it. What a case had we been in, if it had not pleased the
   church to receive these promises into the canon! And if the Papists say
   true, she might not have received them: for, as we shall see by-and-by,
   [335] it depends wholly upon the church what books shall be canonical,
   and what not; and, by the same reason, what parts of those books; and,
   consequently, whether all the promises of the gospel shall be canonical
   or not. And so we owe all our hope to the church's charity; and must
   count her a good-natured mother for not cutting off these "breasts of
   consolations," Isa. lxvi. 11; but leaving something for her poor
   children to hang upon, to keep them from perishing. Belike it is the
   church's favour that all the world is not damned. I am sure the best
   promises in the Scripture, if the popish doctrine take place, can
   afford but cold comfort. For if I be asked what ground I have for my
   hopes of salvation, I answer, The promises of God. If I be asked again,
   "Are these promises true?" I answer, Yes, "But how doth that appear?"
   Why, because God made them. "But how do I know God made them?" Well
   enough; for the church says he did. Here the authority of the church is
   the first foundation of all my hopes: and poor ones, God knows, they
   are, if no better grounded, and little comfort I am like to have in
   them. It is to little purpose to tell me the testimony of the church is
   not merely human; for is it merely divine? If it be not, it cannot
   found a faith which is merely divine. And when my soul and the
   everlasting salvation of it lie at stake, I think I am concerned to see
   that my faith and hopes have a sure foundation; and that, I am sure,
   none can be which is not merely divine.

   Arg. VII. If the testimony of the church is necessary, and the only
   sufficient reason of our believing the divineness of the Scripture,
   then it will certainly follow, that no man who is out of the church can
   be called into the church by the Scripture; -- which is pretty strange
   doctrine, and yet I see not how possibly the Papists can evade it. For
   they that are called into the church by the Scripture are persuaded by
   the Scripture, and convinced by it, that it is their duty to join
   themselves to the church; but this can never be if the Scripture be of
   no authority with them. [336] Whatever convinceth or persuades a man,
   must certainly have some authority with him; and if, therefore, the
   church persuades men by the Scripture, that Scripture must needs be
   received and owned ere they be joined to the church, the Scripture
   being the very reason and argument whereby they are persuaded. The
   conclusion will not be yielded to, if the medium from whence it is
   inferred be not first granted; and in this case the Scripture is the
   medium the church makes use of, in persuading men to embrace her
   society. Thus it was in the beginning of the gospel church; Peter
   disproves the conceit some of the Jews had of him and the rest of the
   apostles, that they were "full of new wine," Acts ii. 13, by the
   testimony of Scripture, prophesying concerning the pouring out of the
   Holy Ghost in the latter days, Joel ii. 28-32. Then he proves the
   resurrection of Christ by Ps. xvi. 8, etc.; and his ascension into
   heaven by Ps. cx. 1; and his being the Christ promised to David to be
   of the fruit of his loins, by Ps. cxxxii. 11. And hereupon follows the
   bringing into the church three thousand of the hearers, who, "when they
   heard these things, were pricked in their hearts," Acts ii. 37. And so,
   in Acts iii., how often doth Peter cite the prophets, particularly
   Moses! verse 22. And Philip thus preacheth to the eunuch out of the
   prophet Isaiah, Acts viii. 27-39; and Peter again to Cornelius out of
   the prophets, Acts x. 43; and Paul, in Acts xiii., where we find some,
   both Jews and Gentiles, wrought on by his preaching, and brought into
   the church. And was it the authority of these apostles (that is, in the
   Papists' style, the church) that persuaded thus many? Alas! they that
   heard them did not once dream of their being the church; and therefore
   did not believe on that account.

   Arg. VIII. No law receives its authority of binding men to subjection
   to it from those that are merely subject to it, and did not make it;
   therefore the Scripture hath not its authority from the church, which
   is merely subject to it as a law, and is not the author of it. The
   whole church is so, and not only pastors, but people; and if the pope
   himself be not under the Scripture, as the law by which he is to be
   ruled, well may he pass for ho anomos, "that wicked or lawless one,"
   spoken of in 2 Thess. ii. 8. True, indeed, a law may be made known by a
   herald that proclaims it; but who can say it receives its authority of
   binding the subjects from him, when he himself is one of them, and as
   much bound to it as any else? Allow the church to be the herald which
   proclaims and publisheth this law, must she therefore give authority to
   it? Put [a] case: a subject hears of a law, though not by a herald; --
   is he not bound to submit to it, because he did not hear it proclaimed?
   Suppose a man come to the knowledge of the Scripture some other way
   than by the ministry of the church, in the popish sense, -- that is,
   the pastors of it (as it is storied the Indians and the Iberians did,
   by the help of private persons), -- is he not bound to submit to it?
   Must he suspend his belief till he have the testimony of the church to
   assure him that the Scripture is of God?

   If it be said, that "a law doth not bind till it be promulged, and the
   promulgation of it is the church's business;" I answer, God hath
   published his law sufficiently in the Scripture, and to it all must be
   subject to whom the Scripture comes, whether the church farther tells
   them that it is the word of God or not; as in the case mentioned, it
   was received and submitted to. I wonder how the church was the herald
   that proclaimed the law of God to the Iberians, when they received it
   from a poor captive woman. Stapleton (before) tells us, that when Paul
   preached to the Thessalonians, his voice was the voice of the church;
   and, I pray, was this poor woman's voice the voice of the church too?
   By my consent, let her even be the church itself, virtual, infallible,
   -- a mere pope Joan I. But, farther: if the church publish this law we
   speak of, and it doth not bind till published by her, upon what account
   did she herself believe it when she first published it? (Let the
   question be concerning the herald himself, why he believes the law
   which himself proclaims.) Doth the church believe the Scripture to be
   the word of God at all, antecedently to her own publishing and
   propounding it to others, or not? Is her faith wrought in her by the
   testimony she herself gives to the Scripture, or by something before? I
   suppose the Papists will scarce be so mad as to say the former; for
   what kind of faith must that be, when a man believes merely upon his
   own testimony? And how can the church be the church before she
   believes? If they say the church's faith in the Scripture was wrought
   in her before her own testimony concerning its divineness, I would fain
   know what that is by which it is wrought. If it be any thing in the
   word itself, or be the testimony of the Spirit, why may not I, or any
   man else, believe the Scripture, before the church give in her
   testimony concerning it, upon the same account that she herself doth?
   But if she believe the divinity of the Scripture upon the testimony of
   the former church, I would know, again, what better assurance she hath
   of the testimony of the former church than of the Scripture itself,
   seeing she can know it only out of the writings of the ancients; and
   whoever questions the authority of the Scripture, may, upon much better
   grounds, question the writings of fathers, and decrees of councils, as
   was said before.

   Arg. IX. They that believe not the Scripture to be the word of God,
   when propounded to them as such, though they have not the testimony of
   the church to confirm them in it, yet sin in their not believing it;
   and are therefore bound to believe it antecedently to the church's
   testimony (for if they were not bound to believe it, they should not
   sin in disbelieving it): and consequently the Scripture hath its
   authority in itself, and before the testimony of the church, and
   therefore not from it. That men sin in not believing the Scripture even
   without the church's testimony, is proved from Acts xiii. 46, 51, where
   Paul shakes off the dust of his feet against the unbelieving Jews, and
   tells them they "judge themselves unworthy of eternal life." See Acts
   xxviii. 24, etc., where he declares their actual unbelief to be the
   effect of their hard-heartedness; which, though it might be judicial,
   they being left of God to themselves and their own lusts, yet withal it
   was sinful too, and contracted by themselves. And will any man say that
   these Jews, in refusing the gospel, did not sin? I suppose the Papists
   themselves scarcely will. If they say, as formerly, that Paul's
   testimony was the testimony of the church; I answer, those Jews owned
   no such thing as a gospel church, nor any authority it had to bind them
   to the belief of the gospel; and consequently could not own Paul as an
   officer of that church, his apostleship being merely a gospel office;
   which a man could not submit to who did not first receive the gospel by
   which he was constituted an apostle. If they say, they might know him
   to be an apostle by the miracles he wrought; I answer again, that when
   he preached at Antioch in Pisidia, we have no mention of any miracle he
   there wrought; yet some, both Jews and Gentiles, believed, Acts xiii.
   42, 43: and therefore they neither received himself nor his preaching
   upon the account of his miracles; nor could miracles make it the duty
   of the unbelieving Jews to submit to Paul as an officer of the gospel
   church, when no miracle was wrought by him. If it be said that he was
   known by the fame of his miracles elsewhere wrought, which gave credit
   to him; then it will follow that Paul was to be believed for his
   miracles' sake, as well as the gospel for his sake; and thence, again,
   that the gospel was not to be believed merely for Paul's own authority,
   but principally for his miracles, it being for their sake that he
   himself was owned as having any authority. And if so, either Paul's
   authority was not the authority of the church, or the authority of Paul
   as the church was not supreme; for that of his miracles was above it,
   -- that which procured credit to him was of greater authority than
   himself. Upon the whole, it seems, by this reply of the Papists, that
   miracles were the great thing which procured credit to Paul's
   preaching; and if they did, the authority of the church did not, --
   unless, as before they made Paul and the church the same, so here they
   will make miracles and the church the same.

   Arg. X. It cannot be certainly known, by the testimony of the church,
   that the Scripture is the word of God; and therefore it hath not, as to
   us, its authority from the church. If it may be certainly known that
   the Scripture is the word of God by the testimony of the church, then
   either it must be by the testimony of the universality of believers, or
   of the pastors. Not the former: for (beside that the Papists themselves
   exclude them, and say that the Scripture is to have authority with
   them, but not from them, [337] ) either we speak of the multitude of
   believers separately and disjunctively; and so they cannot give credit
   to the Scripture, when they are all of them fallible and liable to
   error: or else all together and in conjunction; but so likewise they
   cannot certify us of the divineness of the Scripture, because they
   never did, never will, meet together to do it. And we may stay long
   enough ere we believe the divinity of the Scripture, if we tarry till
   all the believers in the world meet together to give in their verdict
   concerning it. If we speak of the church merely in the popish sense,
   for the pastors of it, there will be as much uncertainty as in the
   other; for either we must consider them separately too, or in
   conjunction. If separately, they are all liable to error; and,
   according to the Papists themselves, they do all believe the Scripture
   on the authority of the church; and therefore cannot give authority to
   it. If we consider them all together, when did, or when will, the
   pastors of all the churches in the world meet together, to give their
   joint testimony to the Scripture? And if they should, why are we bound
   to believe them? They were not infallible singly, nor can they be any
   more so conjunctly. If all the several parts of the integral -- the
   church -- be liable to error or corruption, why is not the whole? But
   suppose the pastors meet by their delegates in a general council, will
   that mend the matter? Not at all, that I see; for it is not yet
   determined by the Papists themselves, where the supreme authority,
   which should give testimony to the Scripture, doth reside, -- whether
   in pope, council, or both. And so we are left at uncertainties, and
   know not to whom to go, -- whose word to take; but must suspend our
   belief of the divineness of the Scripture, till it be agreed upon among
   our adversaries whose authority is indeed supreme, and to be relied
   upon.

   Yet put [the] case, [that] a general council be the chief which gives
   testimony to the Scripture: how shall we know that this council hath
   not erred, in determining the Scripture to be the word of God? Shall we
   know it by the Scripture? It is supposed we doubt concerning that; and
   so its testimony is not valid. Or by the testimony of the church? Why,
   this council is the church itself, which determines in its own case;
   and so we must believe this council hath not erred, because it says it
   hath not erred. If the pope be the church virtual, and we must receive
   the Scripture on his credit, the same objection will be against him;
   for how shall we know he doth not err? By the Scripture? But it is yet
   in question. Or by the testimony of the church? The pope himself is
   this church; and then we must believe he hath not erred, only because
   he saith he hath not erred.

   Lastly, let pope and council both together be this church: how shall we
   know they both together do not err? Not by the Scripture, for that is
   not yet owned; nor by the testimony of the church, for pope and council
   together, are this church, and their testimony concerning themselves is
   not to be received. And, to conclude, how shall we know that pope and
   council are the church? Not because they themselves say so, nor because
   the Scripture doth; for that is not yet believed. Not by the testimony
   of the Spirit; for why shall that bear witness any more to the church,
   that it is the church, than to the Scripture, that it is the word of
   God? Nor yet by notes or marks inherent in the church; for why may not
   the same be allowed to the Scripture? And how shall we know these marks
   to be true, but by the Scripture; by which alone we can judge of the
   nature and properties of the church? And yet still it is supposed that
   the Scripture is not believed.

   IV. This may suffice, to show the absurdity of the popish doctrine. Let
   us, in the next place, see what grounds they have for it, and how they
   oppose the truth. I shall only speak to the chief of their arguments,
   and reduce them to as few heads as I well can. Any that would see them
   more largely handled, may consult several of our protestant divines,
   who speak more fully to this point than the shortness of a sermon will
   permit.

   Object. I. "Either," say they, "the authority of the Scripture must be
   known by the church, or by the Scripture itself, or by the testimony of
   the Spirit; but it cannot be known either of the two latter ways: and
   therefore can only [be known by] the first."

   First. That it cannot be known by the Scripture itself they prove,
   because "neither the whole Scripture can be proved by the whole, nor
   one part of it by another. For if a man deny the whole Scripture, it
   will be in vain to attempt the proof of one part by another, when such
   an one doth no more receive the authority of one part than of another.
   And the whole cannot be proved by the whole; for then the same thing
   should be proved by itself: and whereas that which is brought to prove
   another thing should itself be more clear than that which it is to
   prove, in this case one obscure thing should prove another; or rather,
   an obscure thing be brought to prove itself, for the whole Scripture
   cannot be said to be more clear or better known than itself."

   Before I propound the other part of their proof, I shall answer to
   this.

   Ans. The divine authority of the Scripture may be known by the
   Scripture itself. For, --

   1. The authority of one part of it may be proved by another part, to
   those that do not deny the whole. Some there have been, and still may
   be, who have received some part of the Scriptures, and not others; to
   such we may prove that part which they deny by that which they allow.
   The Sadducees acknowledged the Five Books of Moses, but not "the
   Prophets;" our Saviour Christ, therefore, when he had to do with them,
   did not cite the prophecy of Daniel to prove the resurrection of the
   dead, but Moses' writings, Matt. xxii. 1. But when he dealt with others
   of the Jews who received the whole Old Testament, he proved what he
   spake out of other parts of it, -- out of the prophets themselves; and
   so bids them, more generally, "search the Scriptures," John v. 39. Why
   may not we do likewise? We shall see how the Old and New Testament
   prove each other; so that we may argue with men that acknowledge the
   one, so as, by that they allow, to prove that which they deny:--

   (1.) The Old Testament is proved by the New. Christ divides the whole
   Old Testament into Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms; and thereby
   declares them all to be canonical, Luke xxiv. 44. That was then the
   usual way by which the Jews did divide the Old Testament. And here in
   the text Abraham sends Dives' brethren to Moses and the Prophets. And
   Christ, mentioning a place out of the Psalms, bears witness to the
   whole Old Testament under the name of" The Scripture:" "The Scripture
   cannot be broken," John x. 34, 35. And we find particular parts of the
   Old Testament proved in the New. In Matt. v., Christ confirms the Law
   of Moses, as to its divine authority, when he explains it; beside other
   places, in which he speaks of some particular laws. In Matt. xii.
   38-42, and Luke iv. 25-27, and especially Heb. xi., the historical part
   of the Scripture is confirmed. And how many testimonies have we out of
   the Psalms and Prophets everywhere which do the same! The twelve lesser
   prophets are at once proved by Stephen's alleging them, in Acts vii.
   42, where the testimony cited is out of Amos: but Stephen mentions the
   "book of the prophets;" that is, that volume of the smaller prophets
   which, among the Jews, was reckoned as one book.

   (2.) The New Testament is confirmed by the Old. For how often do Christ
   and his apostles prove their doctrine out of the Old Testament! When
   they quote the Old Testament, it is a good proof of its authority to
   any that own the New; and when by those quotations they prove their own
   doctrine, it is a good argument for the proof of the New Testament to
   them that believe the Old, as the case was of the Jews at that time.
   And therefore our Saviour Christ refers them to the Old Testament,
   particularly Moses, John v. 45, 46, for the proof of the great doctrine
   he held forth to them, -- that he was the Messiah that should come into
   the world. So Peter, in Acts iii. 22, 23, refers to Deut. xviii. 18,
   19, to prove what he was preaching: "A prophet shall the Lord your God
   raise up to you," etc. The same we may say of the types of the Old
   Testament, -- that they confirm the New, in which we find them
   fulfilled. If any say, "We find no particular confirmation of Ezra,
   Nehemiah, and Esther in the New Testament;" I answer, They are
   confirmed by our Saviour Christ in his general division of the Old
   Testament, according to the Jewish account, into the Law, the Prophets,
   and the Psalms, under which these books were contained, the whole
   volume of the Hagiographa going under the name of "The Psalms."

   2. "But now, what if we have to do with those that deny the whole
   Scripture, -- admit no part of it? how shall we convince them that it
   is the word of God?" I answer, --

   (1.) Not by the church, be sure; for if they have no reverence for any
   part of the Scripture, they will have as little for the church, which
   hath no being, as a church, but from the Scripture. And therefore it
   will be a most vain thing to attempt a proof of the Scripture, either
   in part or in the whole, by the church, which is as unknown, in the
   nature of a church, to them that question the Scripture, as the
   Scripture itself is.

   (2.) We would prove the whole Scripture by the whole, as well as one
   part of it by another. For as the whole system of God's works in the
   creation proves itself to be of God, and to have him for its author,
   Ps. xix. 1, etc., by all those eminent signs and effects of God's
   goodness, power, and wisdom, which are to be seen in the whole; so
   likewise doth the whole Scripture prove God to be the author of it, by
   all those signs and evidences of his wisdom, goodness, power, and
   holiness, which appear in the whole, and manifest it to be of God. Nor
   doth it follow from hence, that if the whole Scripture prove itself, it
   is, as the Papists say, more known than itself, simply and absolutely,
   though in some respects it certainly may be so; as a man in one
   respect, may be more known than himself in another. A man, when he hath
   given some eminent proofs of his learning, is thereby more known than
   without them he is; so the Scripture, too, considered with all those
   evidences of God's goodness, wisdom, holiness, etc., which appear in
   it, is more known than itself, when these are not considered. How do we
   prove the sun to be the sun, but by the glory of its light, which so
   far excels the light of other stars? And is not the sun, considered
   with its light, more known to us than considered in itself. How do we
   come to the knowledge of the nature of things in the world, but by
   considering their properties, qualities, effects, etc.; which plainly
   declare what their nature is, seeing such properties, etc., could not
   be but where such a nature is? So likewise here, there are those
   properties in the Scripture, those excellencies, which could be from
   none but God; and, therefore, make it appear that that writing, which
   hath those excellencies in it, is of God. To speak of these distinctly
   is not my present business, not having to do with them that deny the
   Scripture.

   Secondly. "We cannot," say the Papists again, "know the Scripture to be
   the word of God by the testimony of the Spirit. For either it is by the
   public testimony, which is that of the church" (and if this be granted,
   they have enough); "or it is private testimony. But then," they say,
   "it will follow, -- 1. That our faith in the Scripture is enthusiasm.
   2. That if the private testimony of the Spirit be questioned, it cannot
   be proved but by the Scripture; and so the Scripture being proved by
   the Spirit, and the Spirit again by the Scripture, we shall run in a
   round, which is no lawful way of arguing."

   Ans. To this I answer, that we know the Scripture to be of God by the
   public testimony of the Spirit; but I deny his public testimony to be
   his witnessing by the church. It is indeed his witnessing by the
   Scripture itself, when he witnesseth it to be of God, by those
   excellencies of it which evidence it so to be; and this he witnesseth
   to all that have their eyes open to see it: and in that respect it may
   be called "public." And when he witnesseth the same thing, by the same
   means, in the hearts of particular believers, and so applies his public
   testimony to private consciences, enlightening and enabling men to
   believe upon his public testimony, you may, if you please, call that
   "his private testimony." This clearly cuts off all that the adversaries
   object; and no such things will follow, as they pretend, upon what we
   maintain. We know no other private testimony of the Spirit, but this
   particular application of his public one; and then, I am sure, there is
   no danger of enthusiasm. For that is properly enthusiasm, when God
   reveals any thing to men's minds immediately and in an extraordinary
   way, and without the intervention of the usual means whereby he is wont
   to make himself known to men; as in former times he did to the
   patriarchs, prophets, and apostles (and the enthusiasm both the Papists
   and we find fault with is, when men pretend to this, which yet they
   have not): but when God makes known his will in an ordinary way, by the
   use of instruments and means for the conveying of spiritual knowledge
   to them, this is not enthusiasm; as when "faith comes by hearing," Rom.
   x. 17. And so it is in the case before us: when the Spirit witnesseth
   to the hearts of private believers that the Scripture is the word of
   God, he doth it in an ordinary way, -- working in them a faith of the
   Scripture by those arguments of divinity which are in the Scripture
   itself; and makes use of them as means to induce them to believe. As
   the light and brightness of the sun is the medium whereby it is known
   to be the sun; so that divine light and power which is in the word, is
   the very medium and argument whereby the Spirit, enabling us to
   perceive it, persuades us that that word is the word of God. And I
   would ask our adversaries, Can a private man believe the divinity of
   the Scripture merely on the authority of the church, without the
   Spirit's witnessing it to him by that authority? If they say, "Yes,"
   then they must acknowledge that faith to be merely human, because not
   wrought by God. If they say, "No," (as they must if they be constant to
   themselves, in holding that the Spirit witnesseth by the church,) then,
   when the Spirit witnesseth to the conscience of a private believer by
   the church, why is not that enthusiasm too? For when he witnesseth to a
   private conscience by this application of his public testimony, here is
   as much a private spirit, and a private testimony, as any we speak of.
   The only difference is in the medium the Spirit useth in this private
   work; which they say is the testimony of the church, and we say is the
   Scripture itself. Both of us agree that it is the Spirit's public
   testimony; but they call one thing so, and we another. If they say that
   yet this is not enthusiasm, because here is no immediate revelation,
   but means are made use of; I say the same of the Spirit's witnessing to
   the divinity of the Scripture in the heart of a private believer by the
   Scripture itself, or those notes of divinity which are apparent in the
   word. This is no more immediate than the other, nor any less [so], by
   the intervention of means.

   And for the other consequent they would infer from the private
   testimony of the Spirit, -- that then "we shall run in a round, and
   prove the Scripture to be the word of God by the testimony of the
   Spirit, and prove the Spirit again by the Scripture," [338] -- there is
   as little fear of this as of the other For we bring not the private
   testimony of the Spirit in our consciences (against which only this
   objection is made), or his applying his public testimony to us in a way
   of illumination and conviction of our minds, as the argument inducing
   us to believe; but that, we say, is his public testimony in the word,
   when he witnesseth its divinity to us by that excellency, light, and
   power which is in the word itself, and makes use of that to persuade us
   to believe. The Spirit, indeed, is the efficient of our faith, or the
   agent which causeth us to believe, enlightening our minds, and drawing
   our hearts to consent to the truth; but the evidences of divinity we
   see in the Scripture, through the Spirit's enlightening us, is the
   reason or motive of our believing: they move us to believe objectively,
   but the Spirit effectively. So that here is no danger of a circle in
   our discourse, or proving idem per idem. For if I be asked, how I know
   the Scripture to be the word of God; this question may have a double
   sense: for either it is meant of the power and virtue whereby I
   believe; and then I answer, By the power and efficiency of the Spirit
   of God, opening the eyes of my understanding, and enabling me to
   believe; -- or it is meant of the medium or argument made use of, and
   by which, as a motive, I am drawn to believe; and then I answer, Those
   impressions of divinity the Spirit hath left on the word, and by which
   he witnesseth it to be of God, are the argument or motive persuading me
   to believe. Now, when they ask how I know the Spirit, who witnesseth in
   my conscience to the divinity of the Scripture, to be the Spirit of
   God, the question is plainly, by what means or argument I am persuaded
   that it is the Spirit of God; and then I answer, By those properties of
   the Spirit which the Scripture mentions. And so the question, how I
   know the Scripture to be the word of God, either is concerning the
   efficient of my belief of the Scripture, or else it is not to the
   purpose (for I do not allege the efficiency or inward operating of the
   Spirit as the motive of my faith); and the latter is concerning the
   objective cause or argument inducing me to believe the Spirit to be the
   Spirit of God. The mistake is this, -- they would fasten upon us, that
   we make the Spirit in his inward work upon our hearts to be the motive
   to our faith; whereas we only make it to be the efficient of our faith.

   To conclude this answer to their first argument:-- let us see if it may
   not be retorted upon themselves. If the church's testimony give
   authority to the Scripture, as Papists say, then if a man deny the
   authority of the church, how will they prove it? For neither one part
   of the church can give credit to the other, when the whole is
   questioned; nor can the whole church give credit to itself; for then
   the whole church will be more known than itself. Or if we ask, How
   comes the church to believe the Scripture? is it by its own testimony?
   But surely it must believe it ere it can give testimony to it Or is it
   by the testimony of the Spirit? If so, is it by the public testimony of
   the Spirit? That cannot be; for, according to them, that is no other
   than the testimony of the church itself, the absurdity of which hath
   been already shown. Or if it be the private testimony of the Spirit;
   then they, by their own arguing, will run into enthusiasm, as well as
   we. And, indeed, they do plainly run into a circle, in their proving
   the Scripture by the authority of the church, and the authority of the
   church again by the Scripture; for with them the authority of the
   church is the motive or argument, whereby they prove the divine
   authority of the Scripture, and that again is the motive or argument,
   by which they prove the authority of the church. And so both the church
   and the Scripture are more known than each other, and yet less, too:
   more known, because they prove each other; and less known, because they
   are proved by each other. Here they are themselves in a noose. But it
   is no matter; the pope's omnipotency can easily break it, or the
   church's authority make her logic canonical, though all the Aristotles
   in the world should make it apocryphal!

   Object. II. "It is necessary for us, in religion, to have the canon of
   Scripture certain: but this we cannot have, otherwise than by the
   church; because its authority is most certain, and the only one which
   is sufficient, to remove all doubts concerning the divineness of the
   Scripture out of our minds; both because God speaks by the church, and
   because the church best knows the Scripture. She is Christ's bride, and
   therefore best knows the voice of the Bridegroom; she hath the Spirit
   of Christ, and therefore can best judge of his word and the style of
   it."

   Ans. We deny that the canon of the Scripture cannot be known but by the
   church, and the contrary hath been already proved: the Scripture hath
   been owned and received where no such judgment of the church hath been.
   And it is as false, that the authority of the church is the greatest
   and most certain; for that of the Scripture, upon which the church and
   her authority depend, is above it. God speaks in the Scripture, and by
   it teacheth the church herself; and therefore his authority in the
   Scripture is greater, -- the authority of him that teacheth, than of
   those by whom he teacheth: as the authority of a king in his laws, is
   greater than that of an officer that proclaims them. A king may, by his
   council or judges, acquaint his subjects with his laws; but will it
   therefore follow, because he speaks his mind, which is in those laws,
   by such officers, that their authority is greater than that of those
   laws themselves? God speaks by the church (the true church, we mean);
   but he speaks nothing by her but what he speaks in the Scripture, which
   she doth only ministerially declare to us: and therefore the authority
   of God and his law is above hers, who, though she publish, yet did not
   make it, but is herself subject to it, and by that law only stands
   obliged to publish it to others. And for what they say of the church's
   ability to judge of the Scripture, we answer, that she cannot judge of
   the style of the Scripture otherwise than by the help of the Spirit,
   and by the same private Christians may judge too; and there be no means
   whereby the church can know the Scripture to be the word of God, but
   particular believers may know it by the same. And if the church's
   authority be so great, in our adversaries' opinion, because she can so
   well judge of the style of the Scripture, how much greater is that of
   the Scripture, which is able, by its style, to manifest itself to the
   church!

   Except. "But," say they, "we do not know the voice of Christ in the
   Scripture but by the church; therefore her authority is greater."

   Ans. This is both false and inconsequent: false, for it hath been
   sufficiently evinced that the voice of Christ may be otherwise known,
   and hath been, too; inconsequent, in that it follows not that the
   authority of the church is therefore greater than that of the
   Scripture. John Baptist directed many to Christ: and suppose, without
   his direction of them and witnessing to Christ, they had never come to
   him, will it thence follow that John's authority was greater than
   Christ's? The church, we grant, may be a mean whereby many are brought
   to the belief of the Scripture, who yet, afterward, do believe upon
   better grounds, as being persuaded by the word itself.

   Object. III. "We can no otherwise know the Scripture to be the word of
   God, than as we know what books are canonical, and what not -- what
   were written by inspired men, and what were not; but this we can know
   only by the authority of the church. This is proved, because some books
   which at first were not received as canonical, the church did
   afterwards receive, as Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Susanna, the books of
   Maccabees, etc.; the Epistle to the Hebrews, the second of Peter,
   second and third of John, and the Revelation. And books which are not
   canonical, are therefore not canonical because the church would not
   allow them as such; namely, the Revelation of Paul, the Gospel of
   Peter, Thomas, Matthias, etc. And, lastly, some books written by
   prophets and apostles are not canonical, because the church hath not
   determined that they are so."

   Ans. To let pass what a learned Protestant [339] largely proves, --
   namely, that it is possible to know the Scripture to be the word of
   God, and yet not know which books are particularly canonical and
   written by inspired penmen, -- that it may be known that the doctrine
   contained in those books is of God, though it be not known whether it
   were written by such as were immediately inspired themselves, or had it
   from those that were, -- in the primitive times, some not only good
   men, but churches too, did deny some of those books to be canonical
   which we now generally receive; and yet they did receive the word of
   God, and the doctrine contained in those books, though they questioned
   whether those books themselves were written by such as were immediately
   inspired or not. And do not the Papists themselves tell us, that the
   canon of the Scripture was not established for a long time after the
   apostles' days, till it might be done by general councils? And yet,
   surely the church did in the meantime own the word of God, and know the
   voice of Christ.

   We say, then, that it may be known which books are canonical, and which
   are not, otherwise than by the church; for the church herself knows
   them otherwise than by herself, or her own authority. When she declares
   them to be canonical, she believes them to be canonical; and her
   believing them to be canonical is antecedent to her declaring them to
   be so. She must learn herself, before she can teach others: she
   believes them, therefore, to be canonical, because she sees the stamp
   of God upon them, and that they are such as can be of none but God. The
   same way, likewise, private believers may know them. And when the
   church sees this stamp of God upon a book, she thence concludes it to
   be divine, and then declares it to be so.

   Except. "But how, then, comes it to pass, that some books of canonical
   Scripture were not so soon received as others, if all have such an
   impress of divinity upon them?"

   Ans. I answer, that these notes of divinity, which are sufficient in
   all the several books of Scripture to demonstrate them to be of God,
   yet may be more clear and illustrious in some than in others; as God's
   power and wisdom may be more apparent and conspicuous in some of his
   works than in others of them. Or else it may be from the different
   degrees of illumination afforded to different persons, and in different
   ages. When some doubted of some books of Scripture, all did not; and
   they that did not, had a greater measure of the Spirit, as to that at
   least, than others had.

   Now, to their particular proofs of the minor proposition in their
   arguments, we answer particularly, --

   1. That those books annexed by the Papists to the Old Testament, and
   called by them "deutero-canonical," and by us no better still than
   "apocryphal," such as the books of Maccabees, Esdras, Tobit, etc.,
   never were received into the canon by the ancient church, nor can they
   produce the decree of any one ancient council wherein they were owned;
   as for modern councils, we matter them not. They say that these books
   were doubted of at first, and afterward received. Belike, then, the
   church at first did not know them to be the word of God; and if she be
   the bride of Christ, who best of all knows the Bridegroom's voice, how
   came she for so long time not to know it? Here, certainly, in spite of
   infallibility, the church must be in an error; for if she doubted of
   the divinity of these books, when yet they were really divine, she
   erred in so doubting; and if she did know them to be of God, and yet
   did not receive them, she was more than erroneous; that is, she was
   plainly rebellious. As for the Epistle to the Hebrews, the second of
   Peter, and those others which we all own as canonical, though some
   particular persons or churches might doubt of their authenticness, yet
   it doth not appear that all ever did. Some of the Papists themselves
   confess that the Epistle to the Hebrews was generally acknowledged,
   unless by two or three of the Latin fathers; and Jerome reckons both
   that and the Revelation as generally acknowledged for canonical. [340]
   However, when these books were owned as canonical, it was not on the
   bare authority of the church. For how came the church herself to
   acknowledge them? How came she to know that they were written by
   inspiration? Did she believe it on her own credit? or did she not
   rather receive them as canonical because she found them canonical,
   perceiving the stamp of God upon them? And surely the same reason might
   make us receive them, though the church had not testified concerning
   them.

   2. To the second thing they allege concerning the Revelation of Paul,
   the Gospel of Peter, etc., or any book written by philosophers or by
   heretics, I answer, that if the church did reject them, she did do but
   her duty; and it will not follow from her rejecting them, that there
   was no other way of knowing them not to be canonical, beside the
   church's disowning them. For upon what grounds did the church disown
   them? upon her own authority? Then she rejected them, because she
   rejected them! -- judged them not to be canonical, because she judged
   them not to be canonical! If she did disown them, because she saw not
   that dignity and excellency in them which she saw in the books of the
   Old and New Testament, and which might persuade that they were of God;
   surely, then, it was not merely the church's authority which made them
   not to be canonical; -- and on the same grounds that the church
   rejected those books we likewise may do it. Sure I am, Eusebius reckons
   those books not only "as forged," but as something worse, -- that is,
   "absurd and impious." [341]

   3. When they say that "some writings of the prophets and apostles
   themselves are not canonical, -- and therefore not so, because not
   acknowledged by the church to be so, -- I answer, that some things the
   prophets and apostles might write as private men, and not by the
   inspiration and special direction of the Holy Ghost; and such never
   were to be received into the canon of the Scripture, nor were written
   with any intent that they should. But those things which they wrote as
   prophets and as apostles, by the immediate inspiration and special
   direction of the Spirit, and for this end, that they might be the rule
   of the saints' faith, were all received into the canon. If they deny
   this, let them produce any such writing of prophets or apostles not yet
   received as canonical For what they say, out of 1 Chron. xxix. 29, of
   the writings of Samuel, Nathan, and Gad, how will they ever make it
   evident that they were other than the books of Samuel, written partly
   by himself while he lived, and partly by Gad and Nathan after his
   death? And so, likewise, 2 Chron. ix. 29, the writing of Nathan,
   Ahijah, and Iddo; and 2 Chron. xiii. 22, Iddo again; 2 Chron. xx. 34,
   Jehu: how will they ever prove them to be other than what we have in
   the books of Kings? It is true, too, that mention is made of some
   writings of Solomon which are not in the canon; but how will it appear
   that they ever ought to be there, or were ever written for that
   purpose? As for any writings of the apostles which are not in the
   Scripture, the chief insisted on is the Epistle (as they would have it)
   of Paul to the Laodiceans, mentioned Col. iv. 16; which we deny to have
   been written by Paul, nor will the words enforce any such thing: "the
   epistle from Laodicea" is one thing, and "to Laodicea" another. [342]
   It is most likely to have been some letter written by the Laodiceans to
   Paul, in which there being some things that concerned the Colossians,
   the apostle adviseth them to read that epistle. Jerome saith of this
   epistle, that "some do read it as one of Paul's; but it is generally
   rejected. [343] And for other books which they mention, they have been,
   as generally, disowned by the church as fictitious, and not written by
   the authors whose names they bear. The same father cashiers several of
   them together that went under the name of Peter, "as being all
   apocryphal." [344]

   Object. IV. "We cannot confute heretics who deny the Scripture, or part
   of it, but by the authority of the Catholic Church, which receives it."

   Ans. Those heretics that will acknowledge the church, may be confuted
   by its authority, but not have faith wrought in them: they may have
   their mouths stopped, but not their minds enlightened, by it. And
   though we may make use of the authority of the church with such, yet
   not as the chief, and much less only, argument to persuade them of the
   divinity of the Scripture. But even by the same way whereby believers
   are persuaded of it, may heretics be persuaded too. And if we meet with
   such heretics as pay no more reverence to the church than to the
   Scripture, we are in a fine case if we have no other way of dealing
   with them but by urging the authority of the church: surely they that
   deny the divinity of the one will not stick to deride the testimony of
   the other.

   Object. V. To pass by other testimonies [which] they cite out of the
   ancients, one they mainly triumph in, -- that saying of Austin, that he
   had not believed the gospel had not the authority of the church moved
   him to it. [345]

   Ans. Austin speaks, when converted and orthodox, of himself as formerly
   a Manichee; and shows that he had then been moved by the authority of
   the church to receive the gospel. When he was a Manichee he was a
   heretic, not a heathen, and so might have some esteem for the church;
   or if he had no respect for the church as the church, yet he might --
   even by the confession of Papists themselves, so far as he saw the
   consent of so many nations, and the prescription of so long time, and
   other like arguments in the church, to induce him reverence it.

   V. Application:--

   Use I. From what hath been spoken, we may conclude, --

   1. The mischief and danger of Popery as to this particular doctrine.
   How dishonourable and injurious to God is this doctrine of the Papists,
   and how destructive to religion!

   (1.) How dishonourable to God, for the credit of his word to depend
   upon the testimony of men, and not to be able of itself to discover its
   author!

   1st. A dishonour it is to his wisdom, if he could not otherwise assure
   men of the divine original of the Scripture, than by having men bear
   witness to it; if he knew no other way of certifying us of his will,
   and making known his laws to us, but by the help of our
   fellow-creatures, who, as well as we, are subject to those laws. Can
   God make "the heavens declare his glory," and cannot he make the
   Scripture do it? Ps. xix. 1. Can he make himself "known by the
   judgments which he executes," and not by the statutes he establisheth?
   Ps. ix. 16. Can he show forth his wisdom, power, and goodness by the
   things he doeth, and not by the things he speaks; and so make his works
   praise him, but not his word? Ps. cxlv. 10. Nay, can en so write, so
   speak, as thereby to discover themselves, and what wisdom, or
   knowledge, or skill they have; and cannot God do as much? Is God less
   wise and able than they are; or is he wise in some things, and not in
   others? How came "the Spirit of the Lord" to be thus "straitened," Mic.
   ii. 7, as to have but this one way of making known the word to us; and
   that such an one as he must be beholden to his creatures for it? It is
   certain that formerly he had other ways; and why hath he not now? How
   comes he to be less wise than he was? Surely, if there be "no
   variableness" in God, "nor shadow of turning," James i. 17, he must be
   as unchangeable in his wisdom as in any other attribute, and there can
   be no diminution of it.

   2d. If God can otherwise make known the divineness of his word, than by
   the testimony of the church, and yet will not, it looks (to say no
   worse) very like a reflection upon his goodness, to leave men a more
   uncertain way of coming to the knowledge of his will and their duty,
   when he could give them a more sure one, -- to leave his people no
   better helps against their weakness and doubtings, than the uncertain
   authority of a man, or a company of men, who may as easily be deceived
   in the testimony they give, as others may in the faith they yield to
   it. And if God did, formerly, give his people a better and more sure
   foundation for their faith than the authority of mere men, weak men,
   fallible men (as hath been proved), how comes his goodness to fail now,
   and to be less to saints under the gospel, than to those under the law,
   or the patriarchs before it?

   3d. This doctrine of the Romanists greatly derogates from God's
   sovereignty. It degrades his authority, and lifts up the church into
   his place; it doth worse than make princes go on foot, and servants
   ride on horses, Eccles. x. 7. If what the Papists teach in this point
   be true, the Holy Ghost is in a worse condition than his apostle was,
   who needed not "letters of commendation" to or from the churches, 2
   Cor. iii. 1; he must be fain to canvass for the votes of men, or seek
   their testimonials; God himself cannot establish his laws without the
   church's leave; Jesus Christ shall not be King of saints, -- not sway
   his sceptre nor rule his house, without the good-liking of the pope and
   council. What is this but what was said of old? -- "Nisi homini Deus
   placuerit, Deus non erit;" [346] -- "God must be concerned to please
   men," at least the Papists: "for if he doth not, they know how to be
   quit with him; for then he shall not exercise his authority over them,"
   -- not bind their consciences, not command their faith, not prescribe
   them their duty, not govern their lives: the church will not give their
   approbation to his laws, and so he shall not be their Sovereign, he
   shall not be their God. What can be more injurious to God's supremacy
   than this doctrine, which subjects the authority of God in his word to
   the pleasure of his creatures? What sovereign prince upon earth will
   endure to be so dealt with, -- to have the authority of his laws
   suspended upon the testimony of those that publish them, of those that
   are themselves subject to them? I dare say, the pope scorns to have it
   said, that his decretals have their force from him that divulgeth them,
   or his bulls from him that posts them up. He would not endure, if he
   sent out his orders to a church or council, that they should sit upon
   them, and subject them to their judgment, and approve or disallow of
   them as they saw fit; he would expect, that they should be received and
   submitted to, upon the account of his stamp upon them, and seal annexed
   to them. Why may not the Scripture be allowed as much, which hath God's
   stamp so fairly impressed on it, and had the seal of so many miracles
   to confirm it?

   (2.) This doctrine of the Papists is prejudicial, indeed destructive,
   to Christian religion. It leaves us only the name of Christianity, and
   no more. What is all religion, if God be not the author of it and, if
   the Papists say true, we can never be sure, that God is the author of
   that which we call Christian. This one doctrine of the Romish synagogue
   puts us into a worse condition than the Jewish one is in; which hath
   some foundation for its faith and worship, whereas this leaves none at
   all for ours. It is, in a word, most perniciously contrary to, and
   destructive of, a Christian faith, and comfort, and obedience, all at
   once:--

   1st. It is destructive to our faith. It leaves us no firm footing for
   it, when it must be first founded upon, and lastly resolved into, the
   authority of men; and we can never know the Scripture to be the word of
   God, without either the concurring votes of all the Christian world to
   assure us of it, or at least the definitive sentence of a pope or
   council, and have no better assurance of its being divine than their
   say-so. What can ruin our faith, if the undermining of it do not? and
   what is it to undermine it, if this be not? It takes away the very
   foundation of it; and, instead of the infallible veracity of the God of
   truth, puts us off with the uncertain testimony of, at least, a company
   of fallible men, who may every one of them be deceived; and therefore
   so may we too, for company, if we rely on their authority. Indeed, it
   leaves us little (if any at all) more certainty for our religion than
   the Turks have for theirs; for why may not they as well require us to
   believe, that God speaks to us in the Alkoran, because they say he
   doth, as the Papists require us to believe he speaks to us in the
   Scripture, merely because the pope or council says so? nay, how little
   difference doth this cursed doctrine make between the great mysteries
   of the gospel, the articles of our faith, and the ridiculous fables of
   the rabbins, or abominations of Mohammed! For if some writings are not
   canonical Scripture, merely because the church (that is, pope or
   council) hath not canonized them, and some are, because it hath, -- the
   Acts of Peter and the Revelation of Paul are not the word of God,
   because the church would not so far dignify them; and the Epistles of
   Peter and Paul are therefore of divine authority, because it so seemed
   good to the church to determine, -- why might not the same church, if
   she had been so pleased, have added the Talmud to the Scripture, ay,
   and the Alkoran too? And they cannot say, it is because these books
   contain not only innumerable fopperies, but notorious lies, unless they
   will eat their own words, and recede from one of their chiefest
   arguments; namely, that the apocryphal books they themselves do not
   receive are therefore only not canonical, because the church hath not
   received them, when the rest are, because she hath.

   2d. It is as destructive to our comfort. When our great comfort
   proceeds from our faith, such as the one is, so will the other be too;
   an ill-grounded faith can never produce a well-grounded comfort: the
   foundation being shaken, the building must needs totter. What will
   become of that "comfort of the Scripture" the apostle speaks of, Rom.
   xv. 4, -- that "joy and peace in believing," verse 13, -- that hope in
   God's word David mentions, Ps. cxix. 81, cxxx. 5, -- if we can no
   otherwise be sure that it is God's word, but only because men tell us
   it is so? How will our hope and comfort fail us, and our hearts fail
   us, when we come to consider, that that testimony of man, which is the
   ground of our faith, and therefore of our comfort, for aught we know,
   will (sure enough may) fail us! How should we stand, if our foundation
   sink under us? If the rain should descend, and the floods come, and the
   winds blow, and beat upon us, what shelter, what fence should we have?
   How great would our fall be! Matt. vii. 27. If temptations should
   arise, and assault and shake our faith, how should we maintain our
   comforts? Would it not be sad for us, or any of us, to say within
   ourselves, "I have ventured my soul and its eternal welfare upon the
   Scripture, and the promises I there find; but how do I know that this
   Scripture is the word of God? How do I know I am not mistaken? Am I as
   sure I am not deceived as I am certain of being miserable if I be? Here
   is, indeed, a company of men that call themselves "the church;" but
   that is a hard word; I never meet it anywhere but in their mouths, and
   in this book which they have put into my hands; and yet these are the
   only men that tell me it is the word of God. But what reason have I to
   believe them? They say, indeed, they are infallible, and cannot be
   deceived; but how shall I know that? They say the Scripture says so.
   Suppose it doth, what know I but they make it say so, and the Scripture
   and they are agreed together to gratify one another, and speak for one
   another? I see not that they are the church unless the Scripture makes
   them so; and yet they tell me, that the Scripture is not the word of
   God to me unless they make it so. I know no authority they have to bind
   me to believe them, but what this book gives them; and they know none
   it hath to bind me to believe it, but what they give it. And thus I am
   quite at a loss, if either this thing called "the church" be not
   honest, but will cheat me; or be not infallible, but may deceive me.
   How vain, then, and flattering have all my hopes been hitherto! how
   uncertain my faith, how deceitful my joys and comforts! Farewell
   "glory, and honour, and peace!" Farewell "life and immortality!"
   Farewell "the inheritance of the saints," and the "crown of
   righteousness!" Fine things, if I knew where to have them! Rom. v. 10;
   2 Tim. i. 10; Col. i. 12; 2 Tim. iv. 8. How would you like this,
   Christians? Do ye not even tremble at the thoughts of such dismal
   temptations? What think you, then, of the religion of the Papists,
   which exposeth all that embrace it to such uncertainties? It is no
   wonder they allow no certainty of salvation to believers, when they
   leave them at so great uncertainties for the very foundation of their
   faith.

   3d. It is as destructive to our obedience as to either of the other.
   Gospel obedience is the fruit of faith; and therefore such as is the
   faith we have, such will be the obedience we yield. If our faith be not
   right, our obedience can be no better. A human faith is not sufficient
   to found our duty to God upon; and that obedience which proceeds only
   from such a faith, will neither be acceptable to God nor available to
   us. And yet such is the faith, and no higher, which causeth our
   obedience, if it be grounded only, or firstly, in the testimony of man,
   and resolved into it. "Without faith it is impossible to please God,"
   Heb. xi. 6; and that faith, surely, is a divine faith, such as rests on
   God's own authority. But if we believe the Scripture to be of God only
   because men say it is, that faith cannot be divine; nor, therefore, the
   obedience which flows from it acceptable. In this case, the same
   testimony of the church, which would be the foundation of our faith,
   would likewise be the cause of our obedience. We should believe duty to
   be duty with the same kind of faith with which we believed the command
   of it to be of God, and that would be no other than men's telling us
   that it is; and so the result of all would be, that we must obey God,
   because they tell us he commands us to obey him; and so we first show a
   respect to men in believing, before we show any to God in obeying him.
   And then, not only we must be beholden to the church for the knowledge
   we have of our duty, but God must be beholden to her too for our
   performing of it.

   2. How much better a religion is ours than that of the Papists! We are
   the veriest fools upon earth, if ever we change our own for theirs.

   (1.) We have more certainty in our way than they have, or ever can
   have, in their way. Our faith is built upon no worse a bottom than the
   infinite veracity of Him who is the truth itself, revealing himself to
   us in the Scripture of truth, and not on the sandy foundation of any
   human testimony:-- it leans upon God, not upon men; upon "Thus saith
   the Lord," not, "Thus saith the church." Though we despise not the true
   church, but pay reverence to all that authority wherewith God hath
   vested it, yet we dare not set it up in God's place. We are willing it
   should be a help to our faith, but not the foundation of it; and so
   should do its own office, but not invade God's seat, nor take his work
   out of his hands: that would neither be for his glory nor our own
   security. Our faith is a better than such an one would be: we receive
   it not from churches, from popes, from councils; but from God himself,
   that cannot lie to us, and will not deceive us. If we are beholden to
   men, parents, ministers, etc., for putting the Bible into our hands,
   and directing us to the Scripture; yet when we read it, hear it opened,
   and are enlightened by it, and see what a spirit there is in it; when
   the word enters into us, as the sunbeams into a dark room, and gives us
   light, Ps. cxix. 130; when we see its excellency, are ravished with its
   beauty, taste its sweetness, feel its power, admire its majesty; when
   we find it to be such a word as searcheth our hearts, judgeth our
   thoughts, tells us all that is within us, all that ever we did in our
   lives, John iv. 29, awakens our consciences, commands the most inward
   spiritual obedience, sets before us the noblest ends, and offers us the
   most glorious reward, -- an unseen one, -- an eternal one; -- then we
   come to acknowledge that of a truth God is in it, -- no mere creature
   could be the author of it. And so we believe it, not because men have
   ministerially led us to the knowledge of it, or have persuaded or
   commanded us to receive it, or told us it is of God; but because we
   ourselves have heard and felt him speaking in it. The Spirit shines
   into our minds by the light of this word, and speaks loudly to our
   hearts by the power of it, and plainly tells whose word it is; and so
   makes us yield to God's authority. Take a Christian whose faith is thus
   bottomed, and overturn it, if you can:-- you must first beat him out of
   his senses, -- persuade him he hath no eyes, no taste, no feeling, no
   understanding, no affections, no reflection upon himself, no knowledge
   of what is done in his own soul, and so, indeed, that he is not a man,
   but a brute or a stock, -- ere ever you can persuade him that the
   Scripture is not the word of God. Whereas, on the other side, the
   Papists' religion is built merely on men, and their faith hath no more
   certainty than those men have infallibility. Ask them what is the
   great, nay, the only convincing reason why they believe the Scripture
   to be the word of God, and they will tell you, "The church's testimony
   concerning it." They believe it, because the church commands it; that
   is, the pope doth so, or a general council, or somebody, -- they know
   not who.

   And here they are at a loss already; for as much as they fill our ears
   with a great noise and din of "the church!" and can scarcely talk of
   any thing but "the church! the church!" yet they are not so much agreed
   among themselves what this very church is, upon whose authority they
   build their faith, and would have us build ours. In several countries
   they have several churches, several supremacies, several
   infallibleships: a council is the church, and supreme and infallible,
   in France; and the pope is the same in Italy. And so (amongst the
   Papists), if you do but change your climate, you must change your faith
   too; -- if you but cross the Alps, you must translate your faith, and
   shift it from a council's shoulders to the pope's. A strange, variable
   thing you will find it, which must be calculated according to the
   meridian you are in, and will not serve indifferently for all places;
   so that you must be sure to fix your habitation, ere you can settle
   your belief. And yet, if this were agreed upon, you would still be at
   an uncertainty, as to the infallibility of whatsoever they call "the
   church:" -- for you are likely to have nothing but their own word for
   it; and if you will take it so, you may; or if they prove it by the
   Scripture, they desert their cause, and own the Scripture as above
   them, and authentic without them; and so, while they would establish
   their infallibility, they lose their authority.

   And so, to conclude, there is nothing certain, nothing solid, among
   them, nothing able to bear the weight of an immortal soul, -- nothing
   upon which a man can venture his everlasting salvation. I see no such
   thing as a truly divine faith among them, unless it be therefore
   divine, because built upon the authority of their lord god, the pope.
   They call the pope ecclesiae catholicae principem et sponsum. In the
   mass at the election of him, they apply that to him which is said of
   the Holy Ghost: "I will pray the Father, and he will send you another
   Comforter," John xiv. 16. And in the time of Leo X. it was disputed in
   their schools, among other blasphemies, whether the pope were a mere
   man, or quasi deus, "as it were a god;" and whether he did not partake
   of both the natures of Christ, Mornaei Myster. Iniquit., p. 636.

   (2.) Our religion is more comfortable, as well as more certain. Our
   faith being built upon the truth of God himself, and our comfort upon
   our faith, so long as our foundation remains immovable, we need not
   fear our superstructure. If our faith have good footing, our hopes and
   comforts will keep their standing. Faith in the promises is that from
   whence all the comfort of our hearts, and our "rejoicing in hope of the
   glory of God," doth proceed, Rom. v. 2. A Christian's joy, "is joy in
   believing;" and his peace, "the peace of God," Phil. iv. 7; and his
   comforts, the comforts of the Holy Ghost: but this can never be, if our
   faith be founded immediately on the testimony of men, and not of God;
   or if we believe the promises of the word to be made by God, because
   men tell us he made them. So long as we hold to the "sure word," 2 Pet.
   i. 19, we have sure hopes and sure comforts, and no longer; and
   therefore a Papist can never have any "strong consolation" by his
   faith, Heb. vi. 18, when his faith itself hath so weak a foundation.
   How can they ever rejoice in hopes of heaven, when they believe there
   is a heaven with no better a faith than they believe a pope or council
   to be infallible? It is to little purpose to say they believe there is
   a heaven (say the like of other articles), because God in the Scripture
   tells them so, when they would not have believed one tittle of that
   very Scripture, if a pope or a council had not bid them believe it: for
   then their hopes and comforts are all resolved into the authority of
   this church (whatever it be), as well as their faith is; and both the
   one and the other rest not on the real infallibility of the God of
   truth, but on the pretended infallibility of one single prelate at
   Rome, or a convention of them at Trent. From such a foundation for our
   faith, and such comforters of our consciences, the Lord deliver us!

   By this you may gather what you must do, if you would be Papists. You
   must renounce your reason and faith too, if you would embrace their
   religion; you must enslave your consciences to the authority of men,
   and so put out your own eyes that you may see with other men's. You
   must not be "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,"
   Eph. ii. 20, but of popes and councils, -- it may be, of a single pope;
   and so hazard your eternal peace and welfare on the credit of a man who
   may be himself a murderer, an adulterer, a sodomite, a necromancer, a
   blasphemer, a heretic; and may be so far from being saved himself, that
   he may, as some Papists acknowledge, carry whole cart-loads of souls to
   hell with him. Yet still he is infallible! -- an infallible murderer,
   an infallible sodomite, an infallible sorcerer! etc. And you must
   believe him to be infallible all this while, by himself, or with a
   council, or you cannot be saved, -- among them. The church, to be sure,
   you must believe and adore, whatever it be, either representative or
   virtual; you must not ask a reason for your faith neither, but tamely
   submit to its tyrannical dictates. And if it should ever come to this,
   would it not be as hard a chapter as the third of Daniel? -- would not
   Smithfield be as hot a place as the plain of Dura, if every one that
   would not fall down and worship this great golden idol -- Holy Church
   -- should be cast into the burning fiery furnace?

   Use II. And, therefore, to prevent this, and that your faith may be
   firm and immovable, as standing not in the authority or wisdom of men,
   but the power and truth of God; that your hearts may be full of
   comfort, your lives full of holiness, your deaths full of sweetness;
   and that you may be "more than conquerors" over all those temptations
   whereby the wicked one may at any time assault your faith, -- be sure
   to see that it have a good foundation, -- see that you believe the
   Scripture upon solid and lasting grounds. Trust the authority of no
   mere man, nor company of men, in the world, in a business on which the
   everlasting blessedness or misery of your soul doth depend. Hear Moses
   and the prophets; hear the apostles and evangelists. We are sure God
   spake by them; and they never err. As for popes and councils, we are
   sure they have erred, and so may do again. And so may your parents that
   first instructed you: masters, teachers, churches, all may err. And
   though, de facto, they do not err in this, when they tell you the
   Scripture is the word of God; yet, they being but men, and having no
   promise of absolute infallibility, and being liable to mistakes in
   other things, -- when you find that, you may come to question whether
   they were not mistaken in this too; and so think you have been deluded
   all this while, and [have] taken that for the word of God and rule of
   your lives which is nothing less. And then you will either cast away
   your faith, or you must seek a new foundation for it. And if you come
   in a Papist's way, and hear talk of Peter's successors, Christ's
   vicars, catholic churches, general councils, infallibilities, long
   successions, apostolical traditions, you do not know what kind of
   spirit such conjuring words may raise up in you. You may be apt to
   think the major part (as you will be told, though falsely, it is) must
   carry it, and so determine your faith by the votes of men, -- that is,
   not so much change the foundation of it, as enlarge it; and whereas,
   before, it was built upon the credit of a parent or a pastor, now build
   it upon the credit of a great many, or a great one in the name of all
   the rest; or if it rested before on a particular church, now it shall
   rely on that which you are told is the catholic one. For my part, I
   shall never wonder to see ill-grounded Protestants easily turn Papists:
   they are semi-Papists already, and they may soon be wholly such. They
   have a pope at home; and if they do not like him, they may easily
   exchange him for another abroad. He that pins his faith upon one man's
   sleeve may soon do it upon another's: he is already a church-Papist,
   and may soon be a Mass one.

   And therefore, to conclude, whoever thou art, if thou have not formerly
   done it, search thyself now, ere Satan sift thee; try thy faith in the
   Scripture, that it may be approved; see whose image and superscription
   it bears, what foundation it hath, what answer thou canst give to any
   one that asks thee a reason of it; nay, what answer thou canst give
   thyself. Ask thyself, "Why do I believe the Bible to be the word of
   God? How do I know it was not the invention of man? By what arguments,
   by what authority, was I induced to give my assent to it? Do I take it
   merely on the credit of those of whom I was born, among whom I was
   bred, -- with whom I have conversed? Is this a sufficient foundation
   for my faith? Dare I venture my soul upon such a bottom? Is this to
   build my house upon a rock? How near the Papists am I come, ere I was
   aware of it! I spit at them, and defy them, and yet act like them, if
   not below them, and can scarcely say so much for my faith as they can
   for theirs." If this be thy condition, -- to work anew, for shame! and
   begin quickly too, and get thy faith well settled, and upon its right
   basis; or, I dare say, thou wilt never keep thy faith at the expense of
   thy life, but rather turn ten times than burn once. If thou hast,
   therefore, any regard to the constancy of thy faith, to the comfort of
   thy life, the honour of God, or the salvation of thy own soul, labour
   immediately to get thy belief of the word better founded: read the
   Scripture constantly, study it seriously, search it diligently, hear it
   explained and applied by others, meditate on it thyself, and beg of God
   an understanding of it, and a right faith in it; that he would give
   thee "an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear," Deut.
   xxix. 4; that he would "open thine eyes to behold wondrous things out
   of his law," Ps. cxix. 18; that he would give thee his Spirit, that
   thou mayest "search the deep things of God," 1 Cor. ii. 10; -- that he
   would cause thee to hear his voice in that word which thou hast
   hitherto taken to be his, and direct thy heart into the surest grounds
   of believing it.

   And, be sure hold on in such a way of painful endeavours for the
   getting thy faith settled till it be done, and what thou hast hitherto
   received on the account of man thou now believest for the sake of God
   himself. I deny thee not the testimony of the universal church of
   Christ in all ages, so far as thou art capable of knowing it, as well
   as of the present church, or any particular one to which thou art any
   way related, as a help to thee: make the best thou canst of it, only
   rest not on it. But especially take notice, if thou see not the stamp
   of God upon the word, characters of divinity imprinted on it, as well
   as external notes accompanying it, consider the antiquity of it, the
   continuance of it, the miracles that confirmed it, the condition of the
   men that penned it, -- their aims, their carriage and conversation, --
   God's providence in keeping it and handing it down to thee through so
   many successive generations, when so many in all ages would have
   bereaved the world of it. And, farther, consider the majesty and
   gravity, and yet plainness and simplicity, of its style; the depth of
   the mysteries it discovers, the truth and divineness of the doctrine it
   teacheth, the spirituality of the duties its enjoins, the power and
   force of the arguments with which it persuades, the eternity of the
   rewards it promises and the punishments it threatens; the end and scope
   of the whole, -- to reform the world, to discountenance and extirpate
   wickedness, and promote holiness and righteousness, and thereby advance
   God's glory, and lead man on to everlasting blessedness, etc.

   And, be sure, leave not off till thou find thy faith raised from so low
   a bottom as the authority of men, and fixed on God's own testimony;
   till thou canst safely and boldly say, "I believe the Scripture now to
   be the word of God, not because I have heard men say so, but because I
   hear God himself in this very Scripture bearing witness to it: his
   Spirit hath given me new eyes, and enabled me to see the divineness of
   it. I know, and am sure, that this is the word of God: never mere man
   spake at such a rate; never did the word of man work such effects. The
   entrance of it hath given light to my soul, which was before in
   darkness, not knowing whither it went. How many glorious mysteries do I
   see in it! what purity, what spirituality, what holiness! etc. -- all
   which speak the wisdom, and power, and goodness, and holiness, and
   truth of the Author of it. What sweetness have I tasted in it! It hath
   been as the honey and honeycomb" to me, Ps. xix. 10. What power, what
   life, what strange energy have I experienced in it! What a change hath
   it wrought in me! What lusts hath it discovered and mortified! What
   duties hath it convinced me of, and engaged me in! What strength hath
   it furnished me with! How hath it quickened me when I was dead in sin,
   revived my comforts when they were dying, actuated my graces when they
   were languishing, roused me up when I was sluggish, awaked me when I
   was dreaming, refreshed me when I was sorrowful, supported me when I
   was sinking, answered my doubts, conquered my temptations, scattered my
   fears, enlarged me with desires, and filled me "with joy unspeakable
   and full of glory!" 1 Pet. i. 8. And what word could ever have wrought
   such effects, but that of the eternal, all-wise, all-powerful God? And
   therefore upon his alone authority I receive it; him alone I adore in
   it, whose power I have so often found working by it. I durst venture a
   hundred souls, if I had them, and a hundred heavens, if there were so
   many, upon the truth and divine authority of this word; and should not
   stick, not only to give the lie to the most profound,' and most
   resolute,' and invincible,' and irrefragable,' and angelical,' and
   seraphical' doctors, [347] nay, and infallible' popes and councils too,
   but even to say Anathema' to angels themselves, and seraphims, if they
   should tell me the Scripture were not the word of God."

   Christian! get but such a faith of the word as this into thy heart, and
   then thou mayest defy scoffers, atheists, Papists, and all their works.
   If they deride thee, let them mock on; thou wilt not easily be laughed
   out of thy senses, nor overcome by men's jeers to disbelieve what thou
   hast seen and felt. If they will not believe as thou dost, yet thou
   shalt never be brought to play the infidel as they do; no more than
   cease to behold and admire the glory of the sun, because birds of the
   night, owls and bats, care not for looking on it: thou wilt never deny
   what thou plainly seest, because others do not who have no eyes. Sure I
   am, if they see not what thou dost, it is either because they wink
   against the light, or look off from it; or God hath not yet in mercy
   opened their eyes, or hath in judgment closed them up: "If our gospel
   be hid, it is hid to them that are lost," 2 Cor. iv. 3.
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   [327] Surdis. apud Chamierum.

   [328] Camero De Verbo Dei.

   [329] Praesentem clamat quaelibet herba Deum.

   [330] Vide Rob. Baron., Contra Turnebul.

   [331] Becani Man. Controv., lib. i. cap. 3.

   [332] Stapleton.

   [333] "Deus per ecclesiam loquens non aliter loquitur, qu`am si
   immediate per visiones et somnia, aut quovis alio supernaturali modo
   revelandi, nobis loqueretur." -- Stapletonus.

   [334] Bellarminus; Becanus apud Rob. Baron.; Melchior Carus, lib. ii.
   cap. 8.

   [335] See the Papists' Objections, under head IV. of this discourse,
   pages 522-532. -- Ed.

   [336] Vide Chamieri Panstratia, de Can., lib. vi. c. 18.

   [337] Vide Syntagma Thesium in Acad. Salmurien.

   [338] Vide R. Baron., Contra Turneb.; Cameronem De Verbo Dei; et
   Turretinum De Cr. Pontiff.

   [339] Camero.

   [340] Speaking of both: "Et tamen nos utramque suscipimus, nequaquam
   hujus temporis consuetudinem, sed veterum Scriptorum authoritatem
   sequentes, qui plerumque utriusque utuntur testimoniis, non ut interdum
   de apocryphis facere solent," etc. -- Epist ad. Dardan.

   [341] Hothen oud' en nothois auta katakteon, all' hos atopa pante kai,
   dussibe paraiteteon.-- Lib. iii. cap. 25.

   [342] It is in the Greek, ek Laodikeias, not pros Lasdikeian.

   [343] Para panton ekballetai. -- De Script. Eccles.

   [344] Hos apokrupha onta apodokimazetai. -- Ibid.

   [345] "Ego non crederem evangelio, nisi me ecclesiae catholicae
   commoveret authoritas." "Crederem et commoveret," for "credidissem, et
   commovisset," as is a frequent way of speaking with that father. -- See
   Chamieri Panstr., lib. ii. cap. 11, at large.

   [346] Tertullianus.

   [347] Such titles the Papists give their schoolmen.
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   Sermon XV.

   The chamber of imagery in the church of Rome laid open;

   or,

   an antidote against Popery.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon XV. The chamber of imagery in the church of Rome laid open.

   Question: How is the practical love of truth the best preservative
   against Popery?

   "If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." -- 1 Pet. ii. 3.

   When false worship had prevailed in the church of old unto its ruin,
   God showed and represented it unto his prophet under the name and
   appearance of "a chamber of imagery," Ezek. viii. 11, 12. For therein
   were portrayed all the abominations wherewith the worship of God was
   defiled, and religion corrupted. Things relating unto divine truth and
   worship have had again the same event in the world, especially in the
   Church of Rome; and my present design is to take a view of the chambers
   of their imagery, and to show what was the occasion and what were the
   means of their erection: and in them we shall see all the abomination
   wherewith the divine worship of the gospel hath been corrupted, and
   Christian religion ruined. Unto this end it will be necessary to lay
   down some such principles of sacred truth as will demonstrate and
   evince the grounds and causes of that transformation of the substance
   and power of religion into a lifeless image, which shall be proved to
   have fallen out amongst them. And because I intend their benefit
   principally who resolve all their persuasion in religion into the word
   of God, I shall deduce these principles from that passage of it in 1
   Pet. ii. 1-3.

   The first verse contains an exhortation unto, or an injunction of,
   universal holiness, by the laying aside or casting out whatever is
   contrary thereunto: "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile,
   and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings;" the rule whereof
   extends unto all other vicious habits of mind whatever.

   And in the second, there is a profession of the means whereby this end
   may be attained; namely, how any one may be so strengthened in grace,
   as to east out all such sinful inclinations and practices as are
   contrary unto the holiness required of us, -- which is the divine word;
   compared therefore unto food, which is the means of preserving natural
   life, and of increasing its strength: "As new-born babes desire the
   sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."

   Hereon the apostle proceeds, in verse third, to declare the condition
   whereon our profiting, growing, and thriving by the word doth depend;
   and this is an experience of its power, as it is the instrument of God
   whereby he conveys his grace unto us: "If so be that ye have tasted
   that the Lord is gracious." See 1 Thess. i. 5. Therein lies the first
   and chief principle of our ensuing demonstration, and it is this:--

   Principle I. All the benefit and advantage which any men do or may
   receive by the word, or the truths of the gospel, depend on an
   experience of its power and efficacy in communicating the grace of God
   unto their souls.

   This principle is evident in itself, and not to be questioned by any
   but such as never had the least real sense of religion on their own
   minds. Besides, it is evidently contained in the testimony of the
   apostle before laid down.

   Hereunto three other principles of equal evidence with itself are
   supposed, and virtually contained in it.

   Principle II. There is a power and efficacy in the word, and the
   preaching of it, Rom. i. 16, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
   for it is the power of God unto salvation."

   It hath a divine power, the power of God, accompanying it, and put
   forth in it, unto its proper ends: "For the word of God is quick and
   powerful," Heb. iv. 12.

   Principle III. The power that is in the word of God consists in its
   efficacy to communicate the grace of God unto the souls of men.

   In and by it they "taste that the Lord is gracious;" that is its
   efficacy unto its proper ends. These are salvation, with all things
   requisite thereunto; such as the illumination of our minds, the
   renovation of our natures, the justification of our persons, the life
   of God in holy worship and obedience, -- all leading unto our eternal
   enjoyment of him. These are the ends whereunto the gospel is designed
   in the wisdom of God, whereunto its efficacy is confined.

   Principle IV. There is an experience to be obtained of the power and
   efficacy of the word.

   In that place of the apostle it is expressed by "tasting." But there is
   something antecedent unto their tasting, specially so called, and
   something consequent unto it, both inseparable from it; and therefore
   belonging unto the experience whereof we speak. Wherefore, --

   1. The first thing required hereunto is light; that is, a spiritual,
   supernatural light, enabling us to discern the wisdom, will, and mind
   of God in the word, in a spiritual manner; without which we can have no
   experience of its power. Hence the gospel is hid unto them that perish,
   though it be outwardly declared unto them, 2 Cor. iv. 3. This is the
   only means which lets into the mind and conscience a sense of this
   efficacy. This, in the increases of it, the apostle prays for on the
   behalf of believers, that they may have this experience, Eph. i. 16-19,
   iii. 16-19; and declares the nature of it, 2 Cor. iv. 6.

   2. The taste intended follows hereon; wherein consists the life and
   substance of the experience pleaded for. And this taste is a spiritual
   sense of the goodness, power, and efficacy of the word and the things
   contained in it, in the conveyance of the grace of God unto our souls,
   in the instances mentioned, and others of a like nature; for in a
   taste, there is a sweetness unto the palate, and a satisfaction unto
   the appetite. By the one in this taste, our minds are refreshed; and by
   the other, our souls are nourished; -- of both believers have an
   experience. And this is let into the mind by spiritual light, without
   which nothing of it is attainable. "God, who commanded light to shine
   out of darkness," shine into your hearts, to give the light of the
   knowledge of his glory "in the face of Jesus Christ," 2 Cor. iv. 6.

   3. To complete the experience intended, there follows hereon a
   conformity in the whole soul and conversation unto the truth of the
   word, or the mind of God in it, wrought in us by its power and
   efficacy. So the apostle expresses it, Eph. iv. 20-24, "If so be that
   ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in
   Jesus: that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man,
   which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in
   the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after
   God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

   Hereupon follows our last principle, which is the immediate foundation
   of the ensuing discourse, or that which is to be confirmed; and it is
   this:--

   Principle V. The loss of an experience of the power of religion hath
   been the cause of the loss of the truth of religion; or it hath been
   the cause of rejecting its substance, and setting up a shadow or image
   in the room of it.

   This transformation of all things in religion began and proceeded on
   these grounds. Those who had the conduct of it were always possessed of
   the general notions of truth, which they could not forego without a
   total renunciation of the gospel itself. But, having lost all
   experience of this power in themselves, they wrested them unto things
   quite of another nature, -- destructive to the truth, as well as devoid
   of its power; hereon it came to pass that there was a dead image made
   and set up of religion in all the parts of it, called by the name of
   that which was true and living, but utterly lost. All experience, I
   say, of the power and efficacy of the mystery of the gospel, and the
   truth of it, in communicating the grace of God unto the souls of men,
   being lost, retaining the general notion of it, they contrived and
   framed an outward image or representation of them, suited unto their
   ignorance and superstition. Thus was the truth of religion once almost
   totally lost in the world, as we shall see; neither will it ever be
   lost any other way, or by any other means. When churches or nations are
   possessed of the truth and the profession of it, it is not laws, nor
   fines, nor imprisonments, nor gibbets, nor fires, that shall ever
   dispossess them or deprive them of it. Whilst an experience of the
   power of religion continued in the primitive times, all the bloody rage
   and cruelty of the world, all the craft of Satan, and the subtlety of
   seducers, who abounded, did utterly fail in attempting to deprive
   Christians of the truth, and the profession of it. But when this began
   to decay and be lost amongst them, they were quickly deceived, and
   drawn off from the simplicity of the gospel. Upon the reformation of
   religion in these parts of the world, when the truth was received in
   the love and power of it, and multitudes had experience of the
   spiritual benefit and advantage which they received thereby, in
   liberty, holiness, and peace, -- all the prisons, tortures, swords, and
   fires, that were applied unto its extirpation, did nothing but diffuse
   the profession of it, and root it more firmly in the minds of men. It
   cannot be lost but by another way, and other means. The Jesuits and
   their associates have been, for a hundred years, contriving methods and
   arts for the dispossessing nations and churches of the truth which they
   have received, and the introducing the Romish superstition. They have
   written books about it, and practised according to their principles, in
   every kingdom and state of Europe who own the Protestant religion But
   the folly of most of their pretended arts and devices unto this end
   hath been ridiculous and unsuccessful; and what they have added
   hereunto of force hath been divinely defeated. There is but one way,
   one effectual engine to deprive any people of the profession of the
   truth which they have once received; and that is, by leading them into
   such profaneness and ignorance, as whereby they may lose all experience
   of its power and efficacy in communicating the grace of God unto their
   souls, and therein all sense of the advantage which they might have had
   by it. When this is done, men will as easily lay aside the profession
   of religion as burdensome clothes in summer.

   There is much talk of a plot and conspiracy to destroy the Protestant
   religion, and introduce Popery again amongst us. They may do well to
   take care thereof who are concerned in public affairs: but as unto the
   event, there is but one conspiracy that is greatly to be feared in this
   matter; and that is, between Satan and the lusts of men. If they can
   prevail to deprive the generality of men of an experience in their own
   minds of the power and efficacy of the truth, with the spiritual
   advantage which they may have thereby, they will give them up to be an
   easy prey unto the other designers. And there are two engines that are
   applied unto this purpose; -- the one is ignorance, the other is
   profaneness, or sensuality of life. Whenever either of these prevails,
   the experience intended must necessarily be lost and excluded; and the
   means of their prevailing are, want of due instruction by those who are
   the leaders of the people, and the encouragement of sensuality by
   impunity and great examples. This is the only formidable conspiracy
   against the profession of the truth in this nation; without whose aid
   all power and force will be frustrate in the issue. And as there is a
   great appearance of divine permission of such a state of things at
   present amongst us, so, if they be managed by counsel also, and that
   those ways of ignorance and sensuality are countenanced and promoted
   for this very end, that, the power of truth being lost, the profession
   of it may be given up on easy terms, -- there is nothing but sovereign
   grace that can prevent the design. For the principle which we have laid
   down is uncontrollable in reason and experience, -- namely, that the
   loss of an experience of the power of religion will issue, one way or
   other, in the loss of the truth of religion and the profession of it.
   Whence is it that so many corrupt opinions have made such an inroad on
   the Protestant religion and the profession of it? Is it not from hence,
   that many have lost an experience of the power and efficacy of the
   truth, and so have parted with it? Whence is it that profaneness and
   sensuality of life, with all manner of corrupt lusts of the flesh, have
   grown up, unto the shame of profession? Is it not from the same cause
   as the apostle expressly declares it comes by? 2 Tim. iv. 2-5. One way
   or other, the loss of experience of the power of truth will end in the
   loss of the profession of it.

   But I proceed unto the instance which I do design in the Church of
   Rome; for the religion of it, at this day, is nothing but a dead image
   of the gospel, erected in the loss of an experience of its spiritual
   power, overthrowing its use, with all its ends, being suited to the
   taste of men, carnal, ignorant, and superstitious. This I shall make
   evident by all sorts of instances in things relating to, -- I. The
   person and offices of Christ; II. The state, order, and worship of the
   church; with, III. The graces and duties of obedience required in the
   gospel. And in all my principal design is, to demonstrate what is the
   only way and means of securing our own souls, -- any church or nation,
   -- from being ensnared with, or prevailed against, by Popery.

   I. Section I. It is a general notion of truth, that the Lord Christ, in
   his person and grace, is to be proposed and represented unto men as the
   principal object of their faith and love.

   He himself, in his Divine Person, is absolutely invisible unto us; and,
   as unto his human nature, absent from us; for the heaven must receive
   him "until the times of restitution of all things." There must,
   therefore, an image or representation of him be made unto our minds, or
   he cannot be the proper object of our faith, trust, love, and delight.
   This is clone in the gospel, and the preaching of it; for therein he is
   "evidently set forth" before our eyes, as "crucified amongst us," Gal.
   iii. 1. So, also, are all the other concerns of his person and offices
   therein clearly proposed unto us; yea, this is the principal end of the
   gospel, -- namely, to make a due representation of the person, offices,
   grace, and glory of Christ unto the souls of men, that they may believe
   in him, and "believing, have eternal life," John xx. 31. Upon this
   representation made of Christ and his glory in the gospel, and the
   preaching of it, believers have an experience of the power and efficacy
   of the divine truth contained therein, in the way before mentioned, as
   the apostle declares, 2 Cor. iii. 18, for "we all, with open face
   beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
   same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
   Having a spiritual light to discern and behold the glory of Christ, as
   represented in the glass of the gospel, they have experience of its
   transforming power and efficacy, changing them into the likeness of the
   image represented unto them, -- that is, of Christ himself; which is
   the saving effect of gospel power. But this spiritual light was lost
   among men, through the efficacy of their darkness and unbelief; they
   were not able to discover the glory of Christ, as revealed and proposed
   in the gospel, so as to make him the present object of their faith and
   love. And this light being lost, they could have no experience of the
   power of divine truth concerning him changing them into his image. They
   could make no affecting discovery of him in the Scripture. All things
   therein were dark and confused, or at least seemed an inaccessible
   mystery, which they could not reduce to practice. Hence, those who had
   got the public conduct of religion drove the people from reading the
   Scripture, as that which was of no use, but rather dangerous unto them.
   What shall these men, then, betake themselves unto? Shall they reject
   the notion in general, that there ought to be such a representation
   made of Christ unto the minds of men, as to inflame their devotion, to
   excite their faith, and stir up their affection to him? This cannot be
   clone without an open renunciation of him, and of the gospel as a
   fable. Wherefore they will find out another way for it, -- another
   means unto the same end; -- and this is, by malting images of him of
   wood and stone, or gold and silver, or painting on them. Hereby they
   supposed he would be made present unto his worshippers; -- that he
   would be so represented unto them, as that they should be immediately
   stirred up unto the embraces of faith and love. And herein they found
   sensible effects, unto their great satisfaction; for their minds being
   dark, carnal, and prone to superstition, -- as are the minds of all men
   by nature, -- they could see nothing in the spiritual representation of
   him in the gospel that had any power on them, or did in any measure
   affect them. In these images, by the means of sight and imagination,
   they found that which did really work upon their affections, and, as
   they thought, did excite them unto the love of Christ.

   And this was the true original of all the imagery in the Church of
   Rome, as something of the same nature, in general, was of all the
   image-worship in the world. So the Israelites in the wilderness, when
   they made the golden calf, did it to have a representation of a deity
   near unto them, in such a visible manner as that their souls might be
   affected with it: so they expressed themselves, Exod. xxxii. 1.
   Wherefore in this state, under a loss of spiritual light and
   experience, men of superstitious minds found themselves entangled. They
   knew it necessary that there should be such a representation made of
   Christ as might render him a present object of faith and love,
   wherewith they might be immediately affected. How this was done in the
   gospel they could not understand, nor obtain any experience of the
   power and efficacy of it unto this end. Yet the principle itself must
   be retained, as that without which there could be no religion;
   wherefore, to extricate themselves out of this difficulty, they brake
   through all God's commands to the contrary, and betook themselves to
   the making images of Christ, and their adoration. And from small
   beginnings, according as darkness and superstition increased in the
   minds of men, there was a progress in this practice, until these images
   took the whole work of representing Christ and his glory out of the
   hands, as it were, of the gospel, and appropriated it unto themselves.
   For I do not speak of them, now, so much as they are images of Christ,
   or objects of adoration, as of their being dead images of the gospel;
   that is, somewhat set up in the room of the gospel, and for the ends of
   it, as means of teaching and instruction. They shall do the work which
   the gospel was designed of God to do; for as unto this end, of the
   representation of Christ as the present object of the faith and love of
   man, with an efficacy to work upon their affections, there is in the
   Church of Rome a thousand times more ascribed unto them than unto the
   gospel itself. The whole matter is stated by the apostle, Rom. x. 6-8,
   "The righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in
   thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ
   down from above:) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to
   bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is
   nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith,
   which we preach." The inquiry is, how we may be made partakers of
   Christ, and righteousness by him: or, how we may have an interest in
   him, or have him present with us. This, saith the apostle, is done by
   the word of the gospel which is preached, which is nigh unto us, -- in
   our mouths, and in our hearts. "No," say these men, "we cannot
   understand how it should be so; we do not find that it is so, -- that
   Christ is made nigh unto us, present with us, by this word. Wherefore
   we will ascend into heaven to bring down Christ from above; for we will
   make images of him in his glorious state in heaven, and thereby he will
   be present with us, or nigh unto us. And we will descend into the deep,
   to bring up Christ again from the dead; and we will do it, by making
   first crucifixes, and then images of his glorious resurrection,
   bringing him again unto us from the dead. This shall be in the place
   and room of that word of the gospel, which you pretend to be alone
   useful and effectual unto these ends."

   This, therefore, is evident, that the introduction of this abomination,
   in principle and practice destructive unto the souls of men, took its
   rise from the loss of an experience of the representation of Christ in
   the gospel, and the transforming power in the minds of men which it is
   accompanied with, in them that believe. "Make us gods," say the
   Israelites, "to go before us; for as for this man Moses," who
   represented God unto us, "we know not what is become of him." What
   would you have men do? Would you have them live without all sense of
   the presence of Christ with them, or being nigh unto them? Shall they
   have no representation of him? No, no; make us gods that may go before
   us, -- let us have images unto this end; for how else may it be done we
   cannot understand. And this is the reason of their obstinacy in this
   practice against all means of conviction; yea, they live hereon in a
   perpetual contradiction unto themselves. Their temples are full of
   graven images, like the house of Micah, -- "houses of gods;" and yet in
   them are the Scriptures (though in a tongue unknown to the people),
   wherein that practice is utterly condemned; [so] that a man would think
   them distracted, to hear what their book says, and to see what they do
   in the same place. But nothing will reach unto their conviction, until
   the vail of blindness and ignorance be taken from their minds. Until
   they have spiritual light enabling them to discern the glory of Christ
   as represented in the gospel, and to let in an experience of the
   transforming power and efficacy of that revelation in their own souls,
   they will never part with that means for the same end, which they are
   sensible of to be useful unto it, and which is suited unto their
   inclination. Whatever be the issue, though it cost them their souls,
   they will not part with what they find, as they suppose, so useful unto
   their great end of making Christ nigh unto them, for that wherein they
   can see nothing of it, and of whose power they can have no experience.

   But the principal design of this discourse is, to warn others of these
   abominations, and to direct unto their avoidance; for if they should be
   outwardly pressed unto the practice of this idolatry, whatever is of
   carnal affection, of blind devotion, or superstition in them, will
   quickly be won over unto a conspiracy against their convictions.
   Nothing will then secure them, but an experience of the efficacy of
   that representation which is made of Christ in the gospel. It is,
   therefore, the wisdom and duty of all those who desire a stability in
   the profession of the truth, continually to endeavour after this
   experience, and an increase in it. He who lives in the exercise of
   faith and love in the Lord Jesus Christ, as revealed in the gospel, as
   evidently crucified, and evidently exalted therein, and finds the fruit
   of his so doing in his own soul, will be preserved in the time of
   trial. Without this, men will, at last, begin to think that it is
   better to have a false Christ than none at all; they will suppose that
   something is to be found in images, when they can find nothing in the
   gospel.

   Sect. II. It is a prevalent notion of truth, that the worship of God
   ought to be beautiful and glorious.

   The very light of nature seems to direct unto conceptions hereof. What
   is not so may be justly rejected, as unbecoming the divine Majesty; and
   therefore, the more holy and heavenly any religion pretends to be, the
   more glorious is the worship prescribed in it, or ought so to be. Yea,
   the true worship of God is the height and excellency of all glory in
   this world: it is inferior unto nothing but that which is in heaven,
   which it is the beginning of, the way unto, and the best preparation
   for. Accordingly, even that worship is declared to be glorious, and
   that in an eminent manner, above all the outward worship of the Old
   Testament, in the tabernacle and temple, whose glory was great, and, as
   unto external pomp, inimitable. To this purpose the apostle disputes at
   large, 2 Cor. iii. 6-11. This, therefore, is agreed, that there ought
   to be beauty and glory in divine worship; and that they are most
   eminently in that which is directed and required in the gospel. But
   withal the apostle declares, in the same place, that this glory is
   spiritual, and not carnal: so did our Lord Jesus Christ foretell that
   it should be; and that, unto that end, all distinction of places, with
   all outward advantages and ornaments belonging unto them, should be
   taken away, John iv. 20-24.

   It belongs, therefore, unto our present design, to give a brief account
   of its glory, and wherein it excels all other ways of divine worship
   that ever were in the world; even that under the Old Testament, which
   was of divine institution, wherein all things were ordered "for beauty
   and glory." And it may be given in the instances that ensue:--

   1. The express object of it is God, not as absolutely considered, but
   as existing in three persons, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is
   the principal glory of Christian religion and its worship. Under the
   Old Testament, the conceptions of the church about the existence of the
   divine nature in distinct persons were very dark and obscure; for the
   full revelation of it was not to be made, but in the distinct actings
   of each person in the works of redemption and salvation of the church;
   -- that is, in the incarnation of the Son, and mission of the Spirit
   after he was glorified, John vii. 39. And in all the ways of natural
   worship, there was never the least shadow of any respect hereunto. But
   this is the foundation of all the glory of evangelical worship. The
   object of it, in the faith of the worshipper, is the holy Trinity; and
   it consists in an ascription of divine glory unto each person, in the
   same individual nature, by the same act of the mind. Where this is not,
   there is no glory in religious worship.

   2. Its glory consists in that constant respect which it hath unto each
   divine person, as unto their peculiar work and actings for the
   salvation of the church. So it is described, Eph. ii. 18, "Through him"
   -- that is, the Son as mediator -- "we have access by one Spirit unto
   the Father." This is the immediate glory of evangelical worship,
   comprehensive of all the graces and privileges of the gospel; and to
   suppose that the glory of it doth consist in any thing but the light,
   graces, and privileges which it doth itself exhibit, is a vain
   imagination. It will not borrow glory from the invention of men. We
   shall therefore a little consider it as it is here represented by the
   apostle:--

   (1.) The ultimate object of it, under this consideration, is God as the
   Father: "We have access" therein "unto the Father." And this
   consideration, in our worship, of God as a Father -- relating unto the
   whole dispensation of his love and grace by Jesus Christ, as he is his
   God and our God, his Father and our Father -- is peculiar unto gospel
   worship, and contains a signal part of its glory. We do not only
   worship God as a Father, -- so the very heathens had a notion that he
   was the Father of all things, -- but we worship him who is the Father;
   and as he is so, both in relation to the eternal generation of the Son,
   and the communication of grace by him unto us, as our Father. So, "No
   man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the
   bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," John i. 18. This access in
   our worship unto the person of the Father, as in heaven, the holy place
   above, as on a throne of grace, is the glory of the gospel. See Matt.
   vi. 9; Heb. iv. 16, x. 19-21.

   (2.) The Son is here considered as a Mediator -- through him we have
   this access unto the Father. This is the glory that was hidden from
   former ages, but brought to light and displayed by the gospel. So
   speaks our blessed Saviour himself unto his disciples: "Whatsoever ye
   shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye
   asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive," John xvi. 23, 24.
   To ask God expressly in the name of the Son, as mediator, belongs unto
   the glory of the gospel worship.

   The especial instances of this glory are more than can be enumerated.
   The chief of them may be reduced to these three heads:--

   1st. It is he who makes both the persons of the worshippers and their
   duties accepted of God. See Heb. ii. 17, 18, iv. 16, x. 19.

   2dly. He is the administrator of all the worship of the church in the
   holy place above, as its great High Priest over the house of God, Heb.
   viii. 2; Rev. viii. 3.

   3dly. His presence with and among gospel worshippers in their worship
   gives it glory. This he declares and promises, Matt. xviii. 19, 20, "If
   two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall
   ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For
   where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
   midst of them."

   All success of the prayers of the church dependeth on, and ariseth
   from, the presence of Christ amongst them: he is so present for their
   assistance and for their consolation. This presence of a living Christ,
   and not a dead crucifix, gives glory to divine worship. He who sees not
   the glory of this worship, from its relation unto Christ, is a stranger
   unto the gospel, with all the light, graces, and privileges of it.

   (3.) It is in one Spirit that we have access unto God in his worship:
   and in his administration doth the apostle place the glory of it, in
   opposition unto all the glory of the Old Testament, as doth our Lord
   Jesus Christ also in the place before referred unto; for, --

   1st. The whole ability for the observance and performance of it,
   according to the mind of God, is from him alone. His communication of
   grace and gifts unto the church is that alone which makes it to give
   glory to God in his divine service. If this should cease, all
   acceptable worship would cease in the world. To think to observe the
   worship of the gospel without the aid and assistance of the Spirit of
   the gospel, is a lewd imagination. But where he is, there is liberty
   and glory, 2 Cor. iii. 17, 18.

   2dly. By him the sanctified minds of believers are made temples of God,
   and so the principal seal of evangelical worship, 1 Cor. iii. 16, vi.
   19. This temple being of God's own framing, and of his own adorning by
   his Spirit, is a much more glorious fabric than any that the hands of
   men can erect.

   3dly. By him is the church led into internal communion and converse
   with God in Christ, in light, love, and delight, with holy boldness;
   the glory whereof is expressed by the apostle, Heb. x. 19, 21, 22.

   In these things, I say, doth the true glory of evangelical worship
   consist; and if it doth not, it hath no glory in comparison of that
   which did excel in the old legal worship. For the wit of man was never
   yet able to set it off with half the outward beauty and glory that was
   in the worship of the temple. But herein it is that it not only leaves
   no glory thereunto in comparison, but doth unspeakably excel whatever
   the wit and wealth of men can extend unto.

   But there is a spiritual light required, that we may discern the glory
   of this worship, and have thereby an experience of its power and
   efficacy in reference unto the ends of its appointment. This the church
   of believers hath. They see it as it is a blessed means of giving glory
   unto God, and of receiving gracious communications from him; which are
   the ends of all the divine institutions of worship: and they have
   therein such an experience of its efficacy, as gives rest, and peace,
   and satisfaction, unto their souls. For they find, that as their
   worship directs them unto a blessed view, by faith, of God in his
   ineffable existence, with the glorious actings of each person in the
   dispensation of grace, which fills their hearts with joy unspeakable;
   so also, that all graces are exercised, increased, and strengthened in
   the observance of it, with love and delight.

   But all light into, all perceptions of this glory, all experience of
   its power, was, amongst the most, lost in the world. I intend, in all
   these instances the time of the papal apostasy. Those who had the
   conduct of religion could discern no glory in these things, nor obtain
   any experience of their power. Be the worship what it will, they can
   see no glory in it, nor did it give any satisfaction to their minds;
   for having no light to discern its glory, they could have no experience
   of its power and efficacy. What, then, shall they do? The notion must
   be retained, that divine worship is to be beautiful and glorious. But
   in the spiritual worship of the gospel they could see nothing thereof;
   wherefore they thought necessary to make a glory for it, or to dismiss
   it out of the world, and set up such an image of it as might appear
   beautiful unto their fleshly minds, and give them satisfaction. To this
   end they set their inventions on work to find out ceremonies,
   vestments, gestures, ornaments, music, altars, images, paintings, with
   prescriptions of great bodily veneration. This pageantry they call the
   beauty, the order, the glory, of divine worship. This is that which
   they see and feel, and which, as they judge, doth dispose their minds
   unto devotion. Without it they know not how to pay any reverence unto
   God himself; and when it is wanting, whatever be the life, the power,
   the spirituality of the worship in the worshippers -- whatever be its
   efficacy unto all the proper ends of it -- however it be ordered
   according unto the prescription of the word, -- it is unto them empty,
   indecent; they can neither see beauty nor glory in it. This light and
   experience being lost, the introduction of beggarly elements and carnal
   ceremonies in the worship of the church, with attempts to render it
   decorous and beautiful by superstitious rites and observances, --
   wherewith it hath been defiled and corrupted, as it was and is in the
   Church of Rome, -- was nothing but the setting up a deformed image in
   the room of it. And this they are pleased withal. The beauty and glory
   which carving, and painting, and embroidered vestures, and musical
   incantations, and postures of veneration, do give unto divine service,
   they can see and feel; and, in their own imagination, are sensibly
   excited unto devotion by them. But hereby, instead of representing the
   true glory of the worship of the gospel, wherein it excels that under
   the Old Testament, they have rendered it altogether inglorious in
   comparison of it; for all the ceremonies and ornaments which they have
   invented for that end come unspeakably short, for beauty, order, and
   glory, of what was appointed by God himself in the temple, -- scarce
   equalling what was among the Pagans.

   It will be said, that the things whereunto we assign the glory of this
   worship are spiritual and invisible. Now, this is not that which is
   inquired after; but that whose beauty we may behold, and be affected
   with: and this may consist in the things which we decry, at least in
   some of them; -- though I must say, if there be glory in any of them,
   the more they are multiplied the better it must needs be. But this is
   that which we plead:-- men, being not able, by the light of faith, to
   discern the glory of things spiritual and invisible, do make images of
   them unto themselves, as gods that may go before them; and these they
   are affected withal: but the worship of the church is spiritual, and
   the glory of it is invisible unto eyes of flesh. So both our Saviour
   and the apostles do testify in the celebration of it: "We are come unto
   mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
   Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
   assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and
   to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
   and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
   sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel," Heb. xii.
   22-24. The glory of this assembly, though certainly above that of
   organs, and pipes, and crucifixes, and vestments, yet doth not appear
   unto the sense or imaginations of men.

   That which I design here is, to obviate the meretricious allurements of
   the Roman worship, and the pretences of its efficacy to excite devotion
   and veneration by its beauty and decency. The whole of it is but a
   deformed image of that glory which they cannot behold. To obtain, and
   preserve in our hearts, an experience of the power and efficacy of that
   worship of God which is in spirit and in truth, as unto all the real
   ends of divine worship, is that alone which will secure us. Whilst we
   do retain right notions of the proper object of gospel worship, and of
   our immediate approach by it thereunto, -- of the way and manner of
   that approach, through the mediation of Christ, and assistance of the
   Spirit; whilst we keep up faith and love unto their due exercise in it
   (wherein, on our part, the life of it doth consist), preserving an
   experience of the spiritual benefit and advantage which we receive
   thereby, we shall not easily be inveigled to relinquish them all, and
   give up ourselves unto the embraces of this lifeless image.

   Sect. III. It is a universal, unimpeachable persuasion among all
   Christians, that there is a near, intimate communion with Christ, and
   participation of him, in the supper of the Lord.

   He is no Christian who is otherwise minded. Hence, from the beginning,
   this was always esteemed the principal mystery in the agenda of the
   church; and that deservedly, for this persuasion is built on infallible
   divine testimonies. The communication of Christ herein, and our
   participation of him, are expressed in such a manner as to demonstrate
   them to be peculiar, -- such as are not to be obtained in any other way
   or divine ordinance whatever; not in praying, not in preaching, not in
   any other exercise of faith on the word or promises. There is in it an
   eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ, with a spiritual
   incorporation thence ensuing, which are peculiar unto this ordinance.
   But this especial and peculiar communion with Christ, and participation
   of him, is spiritual and mystical, by faith, -- not carnal or fleshly.
   To imagine any other participation of Christ in this life but by faith,
   is to overthrow the gospel. To signify the real communication of
   himself and benefits of his mediation unto them that believe, whereby
   they should become the food of their souls, nourishing them unto
   eternal life, in the very beginning of his ministry, he himself
   expresseth it by eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood; John
   vi. 53, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his
   blood, ye have no life in you." But hereon many were offended, as
   supposing that he had intended an oral, carnal eating of his flesh, and
   drinking of his blood; and so would have taught them to be cannibals.
   Wherefore, to instruct his disciples aright in this mystery, he gives
   an eternal rule of the interpretation of such expressions, verse 63,
   "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the
   words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." To
   look for any other communication of Christ, or of his flesh and blood,
   but what is spiritual, is to contradict him in the interpretation which
   he gives of his own words.

   Wherefore, this especial communion with Christ, and participation of
   him, is by faith. If it were not, unbelievers ought all to partake of
   Christ as well as those that believe, -- which is a contradiction: for
   to believe in Christ, and to be made partakers of him, are one and the
   same. We must, therefore, find this peculiar participating of Christ in
   the special actings of faith, with respect unto the especial and
   peculiar exhibition of Christ unto us in this ordinance.

   And these actings of faith are diverse and many, but maybe referred
   unto four heads:--

   1. It acts itself by obedience unto the authority of Christ in this
   institution. This is the foundation of all communion with Christ, or
   participation of him, in any ordinance of divine worship whatever, that
   is peculiarly of his own sovereign appointment; and that in and with
   such circumstances (as unto the time or season and manner of it) as
   require especial actings of faith with respect thereunto; for the
   institution of this ordinance was in the close of his ministry or
   prophetical office on the earth, and in the entrance of the exercise of
   his priestly office in offering himself a sacrifice unto God for the
   sins of the church. Between them both, and to render them both
   effectual unto us, he interposed an act of his kingly office, in the
   institution of this ordinance; and it was in "the same night in which
   he was betrayed," when his holy heart was in the highest exercise of
   zeal for the glory of God, and compassion for the souls of sinners.
   Faith hath herein an especial regard unto all these things. It doth not
   only act itself by a subjection of soul and conscience unto the
   authority of Christ in the institution, but respects also the exerting
   of his authority in the close of his prophetical, and entrance of the
   exercise of his sacerdotal office on the earth; with all those other
   circumstances of it which recommend it unto the souls and consciences
   of believers. This is peculiar unto this ordinance, and unto this way
   of the participation of Christ. And herein faith, in its due exercise,
   gives the soul an intimate converse with Christ.

   2. There is in this divine ordinance a peculiar representation of the
   love and grace of Christ in his death and sufferings, with the way and
   manner of our reconciliation unto God thereby. The principal design of
   the gospel is, to declare unto us the love and grace of Christ, and our
   reconciliation unto God by his blood. Howbeit, herein there is such an
   eminent representation of them, as cannot be made by words alone. It is
   a spiritual image of Christ proposed unto us, intimately affecting our
   whole souls. These things, -- namely, the ineffable love and grace of
   Christ, the bitterness of his sufferings and death in our stead, the
   sacrifice that he offered by his blood unto God, with the effect of it
   in atonement and reconciliation, -- being herein contracted into one
   entire proposal unto our souls, faith is exercised thereon in a
   peculiar manner, and so as it is not in any [other] divine ordinance or
   way of the proposal of the same things unto us. All these things are,
   indeed, distinctly and in parts, set before us in the Scripture, for
   our instruction and edification: but as the light, which was first made
   and diffused unto the whole creation, did suffice to enlighten it in a
   general way, yet was far more useful, glorious, and conspicuous, when
   it was reduced and contracted into the body of the sun; -- so the
   truths concerning Christ, as they are diffused through the Scripture,
   are sufficient for the illumination and instruction of the church; but
   when, by divine wisdom and institution, they are contracted into this
   ordinance, their taste and efficacy is more eminent and communicative
   unto the eyes of our understandings, -- that is, our faith, -- than as
   merely proposed by parts and parcels in the word. Hereby faith leads
   the soul unto a peculiar communion with Christ; which is thereon made
   partaker of him in an especial manner.

   3. Faith, herein, respects the peculiar way of the communication and
   exhibition of Christ unto us, by symbols, or sensible outward signs of
   bread and wine. It finds the divine wisdom and sovereignty of Christ in
   the choice of them, having no other foundation in reason or the light
   of nature: and the representation that is made herein of him, with the
   benefits of his death and oblation, is suited unto faith only, without
   any aid of sense or imagination; for although the symbols are visible,
   yet their relation unto the things signified is not discernible unto
   any sense or reason Had he chosen for this end an image or a crucifix,
   or any such actions as did, by a kind of natural and sensible
   resemblance, show forth his passion, and what he did and suffered,
   there had been no need of faith in this matter; and therefore, as we
   shall see, such things are found out unto this end, by such as have
   lost the use and exercise of faith herein. Besides, it is faith alone
   that apprehends the sacramental union that is between the outward signs
   and the things signified, by virtue of divine institution; and hereby
   the one [latter] (that is, the body and blood of Christ) are really
   exhibited and communicated unto the souls of believers, as the outward
   signs are unto their bodily senses, -- the signs becoming, thereby,
   sacramentally, unto us what the things signified are in themselves, and
   are therefore called by their names. Herein there is a peculiar
   exercise of faith, and a peculiar participation of Christ, such as are
   in no other ordinance whatever. Yea, the actings of faith with respect
   unto the sacramental union and relation between the signs and things
   signified, by virtue of divine institution and promise, is the
   principal use and exercise of it herein.

   4. There is a peculiar exercise of faith in the reception of Christ, as
   his body and blood are tendered and exhibited unto us in the outward
   signs of them; for though they do not contain carnally the flesh and
   blood of Christ in them, nor are turned into them, yet they really
   exhibit Christ unto them that believe, in the participation of them.
   Faith is the grace that makes the soul to receive Christ, and whereby
   it doth actually receive him. To "as many as received him, to them gave
   he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his
   name," John i. 12. And it receives him according as he is proposed and
   exhibited unto us in the declaration and promise of the gospel, wherein
   he is proposed; it receives him by the gracious assent of the mind unto
   this truth, the choice of him, cleaving and trusting unto him with the
   will, heart, and affection, for all the ends of his person and offices,
   as the mediator between God and man: and in the sacramental mysterious
   proposal of him, his body and blood, -- that is, in the efficacy of his
   death and sacrifice, -- in this ordinance of worship, faith acts the
   whole soul in the reception of him unto all the especial ends for which
   he is exhibited unto us in this way and manner. What these ends are,
   which give force and efficacy unto the actings of faith herein, this is
   not a proper place to declare.

   I have mentioned these thins, because it is the great plea of the
   Papists at this day, in behalf of their transubstantiation, that, if we
   reject their oral or carnal manducation of the flesh of Christ and
   drinking of his blood, there cannot be assigned a way of participation
   of Christ, in the receiving of him in this sacrament, distinct from
   that which is done in the preaching of the word. But hereby, as we
   shall see, they only declare their ignorance of this heavenly mystery.
   But of this blessed, intimate communion with Christ, and participation
   of him in the divine institution of worship, believers have experience
   unto their satisfaction and ineffable joy. They find him to be the
   spiritual food of their souls, by which they are nourished unto eternal
   life by a spiritual incorporation with him. They discern the truth of
   this mystery, and have experience of its power. Howbeit, men growing
   carnal, and being destitute of spiritual light, with the wisdom of
   faith, utterly lost all experience of any communion with Christ, and
   participation of him in this sacrament. On the principles of gospel
   truth, they could find nothing in it; no power, no efficacy, -- nothing
   that should answer the great and glorious things spoken of it: nor was
   it possible they should; for, indeed, there is nothing in it but unto
   faith, -- as the light of the sun is nothing to them that have no eyes.
   A dog and a staff are of more use to a blind man than the sun; nor is
   the most melodious music any thing to them that are deaf. Yet,
   notwithstanding this loss of spiritual experience, they retained the
   notion of truth, that there must be a peculiar participation of Christ
   in this sacrament distinct from all other ways and means of the same
   grace.

   Here the wits of men were hard put to it to find out an image of this
   spiritual communion, whereof in their minds they could have no
   experience; yet they fashioned one by degrees, and after they had
   greatened the mystery in words and expressions (whereof they knew
   nothing in its power), to answer unto what was to be set up in the room
   of it, until they brought forth the horrid monster of
   transubstantiation, and the sacrifice of the mass. For hereby they
   provided that all those things which are spiritual in this communion
   should be turned into and acted in things carnal: bread shall be the
   body of Christ carnally, the mouth shall be faith, the teeth shall be
   the exercise, the belly shall be the heart, and the priest shall offer
   Christ unto God. A viler image never was invented; and there is nothing
   of faith required herein; -- it is all, but a fortifying of imagination
   against all sense and reason. Because there is a singular mystery in
   the sacramental union that is between the external signs and the things
   signified, -- whence the one is called by the name of the other, as the
   bread is called the body of Christ, -- which faith discerns in the
   exhibition and receiving of it, they have invented, for a
   representation hereof, such a prodigious imagination, of the real
   conversion or transubstantiation of the substance of the bread and wine
   into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, as overthrows all
   faith, reason, and sense also. And in the room of that holy reverence
   of Christ himself, in his institution of this ordinance, in the
   mystical exhibition of himself unto the souls of believers, in the
   demonstration of his love, grace, and sufferings for them, they have
   set up a wretched image of an idolatrous adoration and worship of the
   "Host," as they call it, to the ruin of the souls of men. And --
   whereas the Lord Jesus Christ, "by one offering, perfected for ever
   them that are sanctified," appointing this ordinance for the
   remembrance of it -- having lost that spiritual light whereby they
   might discern the efficacy of that one offering, so long since
   accomplished, in the application of it by this ordinance unto the
   actual perfecting of the church, they have erected a new image of it,
   in a pretended daily repetition of the same sacrifice; wherein they
   profess to offer Christ again for the sins of the living and the dead,
   unto the overthrow of the principal foundation of faith and religion.
   All these abominations arose from the loss of an experience of that
   spiritual communion with Christ, and the participation of him by faith,
   which there is in this ordinance by divine institution. This cast the
   thoughts of men on invention of these images, to suit the general
   notion of truth unto the superstition of their carnal minds Nor is it
   ordinarily possible to retrieve them from these infatuations, unless
   God be pleased to communicate unto them that spiritual light whereby
   they may discern the glory of this heavenly mystery, and have an
   experience of the exhibition of Christ unto the souls of believers
   therein without these. From innumerable prejudices and inflamed
   affections towards their idols, they will not only abide in their
   darkness against all means of conviction, but endeavour the temporal
   and eternal destruction of all that are otherwise minded.

   This image, like that of Nebuchadnezzar, was once set up in this
   nation, with a law, that whoever would not bow down to it, and worship
   it, should be cast into the fiery furnace. God grant it to be so no
   more! But if it should, there is no preservation against the influence
   of force and fires, but a real experience of an efficacious
   communication of Christ unto our souls in this holy ordinance,
   administered according to his appointment. This, therefore, is that we
   ought with all diligence to endeavour; and this, not only as the only
   way and means of our edification in this ordinance, by an exercise in
   grace, the strengthening of our faith and present consolation, but as
   the effectual means of our preservation in the profession of the truth,
   and our deliverance from the snares of our adversaries. For whereas it
   is undeniable that this peculiar institution, distinct from all others,
   doth intend and design a distinct communication and exhibition of
   Christ; if it be pressed on us that these must be done by
   transubstantiation and oral manducation thereon, and can be no
   otherwise, nothing but an experience of the power and efficacy of the
   mystical communion with Christ in this ordinance, before described,
   will preserve us from being ensnared by their pretences. There is not,
   therefore, on all accounts of grace and truth, any one thing of more
   concernment unto believers, than the due exercise of spiritual light
   and faith unto a satisfactory experience of a peculiar participation of
   Christ in this holy institution.

   II. The same is fallen out amongst them with reference unto the church,
   and all the principal concerns of it; -- having lost or renounced the
   things which belong unto its primitive constitution, they have erected
   a deformed image in their stead; as I shall manifest in some instances.

   Sect. IV. It is an unquestionable principle of truth, that the Church
   of Christ is in itself a body, -- such a body as hath a head, whereon
   it depends, and without which it would immediately be dissolved.

   A body without a head is but a carcase, or part of a carcase; and this
   head must be always present with it. A head distant from the body, --
   separated from it, not united unto it by such ways and means as are
   proper unto their nature, -- is of no use. See Eph. iv. 15, 16; Col.
   ii. 19.

   But there is a double notion of a head, as there is of a body also; for
   they both of them are either natural or political. There is a natural
   body, and there is a political body; and, in each sense, it must have a
   head of the same kind. A natural body must have a head of vital
   influence, and a political body must have a head of rule and
   government. The church is called a body, -- compared to it, -- is a
   body in both senses, or in both parts of the comparison; and in both
   must have a head. As it is a spiritually living body, compared to the
   natural, it must have a head of vital influence, without which it
   cannot subsist; and as it is an orderly society for the common ends of
   its institution, compared unto a political body, it must have a head of
   rule and government, without which neither its being nor its use can be
   preserved. But these are only distinct considerations of the church,
   which is every way one and the same. It is not two bodies; for then it
   must have two heads: but it is one body, under two distinct
   considerations, which divide not its essence, but declare its different
   respects unto its head.

   And in general, all who are called Christians are thus far agreed, --
   nothing is of the church, nothing belongs unto it, which is not
   dependent on, which is not united to, the head. That which holds the
   head is the true church; that which doth not so, is no church at all.
   Herein we agree with our adversaries; namely, that all the privileges
   of the church, all the right and title of men thereunto, depend wholly
   on their due relation to the head of it, according to the distinct
   considerations of it. Be that head who or what it will, that which is
   not united unto the head, which depends not on it, which is separated
   from it, belongs not to the church. This head of the church is Christ
   Jesus alone; for the church is but one, although, on various
   considerations, it be likened unto two sorts of bodies. The catholic
   church is considered either as believing, or as professing; but the
   believing church is not one, and the professing another. If you suppose
   another catholic church besides this one, whoso will may be the head of
   it, we are not concerned therein; but unto this church Christ is the
   only head. He only answers all the properties and ends of such a head
   to the church. This the Scripture doth so positively and frequently
   affirm, without the least intimation, either directly or by
   consequence, of any other head, that it is wonderful how the
   imagination of it should befall the minds of any, who thought, it not
   meet at the same time to cast away their Bibles.

   But, whereas a head is to be present with the body, or it cannot
   subsist, the inquiry is, How the Lord Christ is so present with his
   church? And the Scripture hath left no pretence for any hesitation
   herein; for he is so by his Spirit and his word, by which he
   communicateth all the powers and virtues of a head unto it continually.
   His promises of this way and manner of his presence unto the church are
   multiplied; and thereon doth the being, life, use, and continuance of
   the church depend. Where Christ is not present by his Spirit and word,
   there is no church; and those who pretend so to be, are the synagogues
   of Satan. And they are inseparable and conjunct in their operation, as
   he is the head of influence unto the church, as also as he is a head of
   rule; for, in the former sense, the Spirit worketh by the word, and in
   the latter, the word is made effectual by the Spirit. But the sense and
   apprehension hereof was for a long time lost in the world, amongst them
   that called themselves "the church." A head they did acknowledge the
   church must always have, without which it cannot subsist; and they
   confess that, in some sense, he was a head of influence unto it. They
   knew not how to have an image thereof; though by many other pernicious
   doctrines they overthrew the efficacy and benefit of it. But how he
   should be the only head of rule unto the church they could not
   understand; they saw not how he could act the wisdom and authority of
   such a head, and without which the church must be headless. They said,
   he was absent and invisible, -- they must have one that they could see,
   and have access unto; he is in heaven, and they know not how to make
   address to him, as occasion did require: all things would go to
   disorder, notwithstanding such a headship. The church is visible, and
   it must, they thought, have a visible head. It was meet, also, that
   this head should have some such grandeur and pomp in the world as
   became the head of so great and glorious a society as the church is.
   How to apply these things unto Christ and his presence with the church,
   by his word and Spirit, they knew not. Shall they, then, forego the
   principle, that the church is to have such a head and supreme ruler?
   That must not be done, but be sacredly retained; not only because to
   deny it, in general, is to renounce the gospel, but because they had
   found out a way to turn it unto their own advantage. They would
   therefore make an image of Christ, as this head of the church, to
   possess the place and act all the powers of such a head; for the
   church, they say, is visible, and must have a visible head: as though
   the catholic church, as such, were any other way visible but as the
   head of it is, -- that is, by faith. That there must be a head and
   centre of union, wherein all the members of the church may agree and be
   united, notwithstanding all their distinct capacities and
   circumstances, and how this should be Christ himself, they know not;
   that without a supreme ruler present in the church, to compose all
   differences, and determine all controversies, even those concerning
   himself, which they vainly pretend unto, they expressly affirm there
   never was a society so foolishly ordered as that of the church. And
   hereon they conclude the insufficiency of Christ to be this sole head
   of the church; another they must have for these ends. And this was
   their pope, -- such an image as is one of the worst of idols that ever
   were in the world. Unto him they give all the titles of Christ, which
   relate unto the church; and ascribe all the powers of Christ in and
   over it, as unto its rule, to him also. But here they fell into a
   mistake; for, when they thought to give him the power of Christ, they
   gave him the power of the dragon to use against Christ, and those that
   are his. And when they thought to make an image of Christ, they made an
   image of the first beast, set up by the dragon, which had two horns
   like a lamb, but spake as a dragon; whose character and employ is at
   large described, Rev. xiii. 11-17.

   This is the sum of what I shall offer on this head:-- those who called
   themselves "the church," had lost all spiritual light, enabling them to
   discern the beauty and glory of the rule of Christ over the church, as
   its head; and hereon their minds became destitute of all experience of
   the power and efficacy of his Spirit and word, continually to order the
   affairs thereof, in the ways, and through the use of means, by himself
   appointed; they knew not how to acquiesce in these things, nor how the
   church could be maintained by them: wherefore, in this case, "they
   helped every one his neighbour, and every one said to his brother, Be
   of good comfort; so the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that
   smootheth with the hammer, him that smiteth the anvil." They set
   themselves, in their several capacities, to frame this idol, and set
   him up in the place and stead of Christ; so fixing him in the temple of
   God, that he might show himself from thence to be as God. Neither will
   this idol be ever cast out of the church, until the generality of
   Christians become spiritually sensible of the authority of Christ
   exerting itself, in the rule of the church, by his Spirit and his word,
   unto all the ends of unity, order, peace, and edification. Until that
   be done, a pope, or something like him, will be thought necessary unto
   these ends. But never was there a more horrid, deformed image made of
   so beautiful and glorious a head: all the craft of Satan, all the wits
   of men, cannot invent any thing more unlike Christ, as the head of the
   church, than this Pope is. A worse figure and representation of him
   cannot possibly be made.

   This is he of whom nothing not great, nothing common, nothing not
   exceeding the ordinary state of mankind, on the one hand or the other,
   is thought or spoken. Some say he is "the head and husband of the
   church," "the vicar of Christ over the whole world," "God's
   vicegerent," "a vice-god," "Peter's successor," "the head and centre of
   unity" unto the whole catholic church, endued with a plenitude of
   power, with other ascriptions of the same nature innumerable; whereon
   it is necessary unto every soul, under pain of damnation, to be subject
   unto him; -- others aver that he is "antichrist," "the man of sin,"
   "the son of perdition," "the beast that came out of the earth with two
   horns like a lamb, and a voice like the dragon," "the false prophet,"
   "the idol shepherd," "the evil servant that beateth his
   fellow-servants," "the adulterer of a meretricious and false church:"
   and there is no mean betwixt these; -- he is undoubtedly the one or the
   other. The Lord Jesus Christ, who hath determined this controversy
   already in his word, will ere long give it its ultimate issue in his
   own glorious person, and by the brightness of his coming. And this is
   an eminent idol in the Chamber of Imagery in the Roman Church. But at
   present it is evident wherein lies the preservation of believers from
   being inveigled to bow down to this image, and to worship it. A due
   sense of the sole authority of Christ in and over his church, with an
   experience of the power of his word and Spirit unto all the ends of its
   rule and order, will keep them unto the truth herein; and nothing else
   will so do. And if once they decline from this in any instances, seem
   they never so small, so as to admit of any thing in the church or its
   worship which cloth not derive immediately from his authority, they
   will be disposed to admit of another guide and head in all other things
   also.

   Sect. V. Again: it is a notion of truth, that the Church of Christ is
   beautiful and glorious.

   There are many prophecies and predictions concerning it, that so it
   should be; and there are sundry descriptions given of it as such. Its
   relation unto Christ, with his love unto it, and valuation of it, do
   require that it should be so glorious; yea, his great design towards it
   was to make it so to be, Eph. v. 25-27. This, therefore, all do agree
   in who profess Christian religion; but what that glory is, and wherein
   it doth consist, -- whence it is, and is said to be glorious, -- is not
   agreed upon. The Scripture, indeed, plainly declares this glory to be
   spiritual and internal; -- that it consists in its union unto Christ,
   his presence with it, the communication of his quickening Spirit unto
   it, the clothing of it with his righteousness, in its sanctification
   and purification from the defilement of sin, with its fruitfulness in
   obedience, unto the praise of God. Add hereunto the celebration of
   divine worship in it, with its rule and order, according to the
   commandment of Christ, and we have the substance of this glory. And
   this glory believers do discern, so as to be satisfied with its
   excellency. They know that all the glories of the world are no way to
   be compared to it; for it consists in, and arises from, such things as
   they do value and prefer infinitely above all that this world can
   afford. They are a reflection of the glory of God or of Christ himself
   upon the church; yea, a communication of it thereunto. This they value
   in the whole, and in every member of it; neither the nature, use, nor
   end of the church, will admit that its glory should consist in things
   of any other nature. But the generality of mankind had lost that
   spiritual light wherein alone this glory might be discerned. They could
   see no form or beauty in the spouse of Christ, as only adorned with his
   graces. To talk of a glorious state of men, whilst they are poor and
   destitute, it may be, clothed with rags, and haled into prisons or to
   stakes, as hath been the lot of the church in most ages, was, in their
   judgment, a thing absurd and foolish. Wherefore, seeing it is certain
   that the Church of Christ is very glorious and illustrious in the sight
   of God, holy angels, and good men, a way must be found out to make it
   so, and so to appear in the world. Wherefore they agreed on a lying
   image of this glory, -- namely, the dignity, promotion, wealth,
   dominion, power, and splendour, of all them that had got the rule of
   the church. And although it be evident unto all that these things
   belong unto the glories of this world, which the glory of the church is
   not only distinguished from, but opposed unto, yet it [they?] must be
   looked on as that wherein it is glorious; and it is so, though it have
   not one saving grace in it, as they expressly affirm. When these things
   are attained, then are all the predictions of its glory accomplished,
   and the description of it answered. This corrupt image of the true
   spiritual glory of the church, -- arising from an ignorance of it, and
   want of a real experience of the worth and excellency of things
   internal, spiritual, and heavenly, -- hath been attended with
   pernicious consequents in the world. Many have been infatuated by it,
   and enamoured of it, unto their own perdition. For, as a teacher of
   lies, it is suited only to divert the minds of men from a comprehension
   and valuation of that real glory, wherein if they have not an interest,
   they must perish forever.

   Look into foreign parts, as Italy and France, where these men pretend
   their church is in its greatest glory: what is it but the wealth, and
   pomp, and power of men, for the most part openly ambitious, sensual,
   and worldly? Is this the glory of the Church of Christ? Do these things
   belong unto his kingdom? [No;] but by the setting up of this image, by
   the advancement of this notion, all the true glory of the church hath
   been lost and despised. Yet these things, being suited unto the designs
   of the carnal minds of men, and satisfactory unto all their lusts, --
   having got this paint and gilding on them, that they render the Church
   of Christ glorious, -- have been the means of filling this world with
   darkness, blood, and confusion. For this is that glory of the church
   which is contended for with rage and violence. And not a few do yet
   dote on these images, who are not sharers in the advantage it brings
   unto its principal worshippers, whose infatuation is to be bewailed.

   The means of our preservation from the adoration of these images also
   is obvious, from the principles we proceed upon. It will not be done
   without light to discern the glory of things spiritual and invisible;
   wherein alone the church is glorious. And in the light of faith they
   appear to be what indeed they are in themselves, -- of the same nature
   with the glory that is above. The present glory of the church, I say,
   is its initiation into the glory of heaven, and in general of the same
   nature with it. Here it is in its dawnings and entrances; there, in its
   fulness and perfection. To look for any thing that should be cognate,
   or of near alliance unto the glory of heaven, or any near resemblance
   of it, in the outward glories of this world, is a fond imagination. And
   when the mind is enabled to discern the true beauty and glory of
   spiritual things, with their alliance unto that which is above, it will
   be secured from seeking after the glory of the church in things of this
   world or putting any value on them unto that end.

   That self-denial also, which is indispensably prescribed in the gospel
   unto all the disciples of Christ, is requisite hereunto; for the power
   and practice of it is utterly inconsistent with an apprehension that
   secular power, riches, and domination, do contribute any thing unto the
   church's glory. The mind being hereby crucified unto a value and
   estimation of these things, it can never apprehend them as any part of
   that raiment of the church wherein it is glorious. But where the minds
   of men, through their native darkness, are disenabled to discern the
   glory of spiritual things, and, through their carnal, unmortified
   affection, do cleave unto, and have the highest esteem of, worldly
   grandeur, it is no wonder if they suppose the beauty and glory of the
   church to consist in them.

   Sect. VI. I shall add one instance more with reference unto the state
   of the church; and that is in its rule and discipline.

   Here, also, hath been as fatal a miscarriage as ever fell out in
   Christian religion. For the truth herein being lost, as unto any sense
   and experience of its efficacy or power, a bloody image, destructive to
   the lives and souls of men, was set up in the stead thereof. And this
   also shall be briefly declared. There are certain principles of truth
   with respect hereunto that are acknowledged by all; as, --

   1. That the Lord Christ hath appointed a rule and discipline in his
   church, for its good and preservation. No society can subsist without
   the power and exercise of some rifle in itself; for rule is nothing but
   the preservation of order, without which there is nothing but
   confusion. The church is the most perfect society in the earth, as
   being united and compacted by the best and highest bonds which our
   nature is capable of, Eph. iv. 16; Col. ii. 19. It must, therefore,
   have a rule and discipline in itself; which, from the wisdom and
   authority of Him by whom it was instituted, must be supposed to be the
   most perfect.

   2. That this discipline is powerful and effectual unto all its proper
   ends. It must be so esteemed, from the wisdom of Him by whom it is
   appointed; and it is so accordingly. To suppose that the Lord Christ
   should ordain a rule and discipline in his church, that in itself, and
   by its just administration, should not attain its ends, is to reflect
   the greatest dishonour upon him. Yea, if any church or society of
   professed Christians be fallen into that state and condition, wherein
   the discipline appointed by Christ cannot be effectual unto its proper
   ends, Christ hath forsaken that church or society. Besides, the Holy
   Ghost affirms that the ministry of the church, in the administration of
   it, is "mighty, through God," unto all its ends, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5.

   3. The ends of this discipline are the order, peace, purity, and
   holiness of the church, with a representation of the love, care, and
   watchfulness of Christ over it, and a testimony unto his future
   judgment. An imagination of any other ends of it hath been its ruin.

   And thus far all who profess themselves Christians are agreed, at least
   in words. None dare deny any of these principles; no, not to secure
   their abuse of them, which is the interest of many.

   4. But unto them all we must also and, and that with the same
   uncontrollable evidence of truth, that the power and efficacy of this
   discipline, which it hath from the institution of Christ, is spiritual
   only, and hath all its effects on the souls and consciences of those
   who profess subjection unto him, with respect unto the ends before
   mentioned. So the apostle expressly describes it, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5, "For
   the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to
   the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every
   high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and
   bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."
   These are the ends, as of preaching of the gospel, so of the discipline
   of the church; and these are the ways and means of its efficacy:-- it
   is spiritually mighty, through God, unto all these ends; and others it
   hath none. But we shall immediately see the total reverse of this
   order, in an image substituted in the room of it.

   5. Of the power and efficacy of this spiritual discipline unto its
   proper end, the primitive Christians, at least, had experience. For
   three hundred years, the church had no other way or means for the
   preservation of its order, peace, purity, and holiness, but the
   spiritual efficacy of this discipline on the souls and consciences of
   professed Christians. Neither did it fail therein, nor were the
   churches any longer preserved in peace and purity, than whilst they had
   this discipline alone for their preservation, without the least
   contribution of assistance from secular power, or any thing that should
   operate on the outward concerns of mankind. And there can be no other
   reason given, why it should not be of the same use and efficacy still
   unto all churches, but only the loss of all those internal graces which
   are necessary to make any gospel institution effectual: wherefore, all
   sense and experience hereof -- of the spiritual power and efficacy of
   this discipline -- was utterly lost amongst the most of them that are
   called Christians. Neither those who had assumed a pretence of the
   administration of it, nor those towards whom it was administered, could
   find any thing in it that did affect the consciences of men, with
   respect unto its proper ends. They found it a thing altogether useless
   in the church, wherein none of any sort would be concerned. What shall
   they now do? what course shall they take? Shall they renounce all those
   principles of truth concerning it which we have laid down, and exclude
   it, both name and thing, out of the church? This probably would have
   been the end of it, had they not found out a way to wrest the pretence
   of it unto their unspeakable advantage. Wherefore they contrived and
   made a horrid image of the holy spiritual rule and discipline of the
   gospel: an image it was, consisting in outward force and tyranny over
   the persons, liberties, and lives of men; exercised with weapons mighty
   through the devil to cast men into prison, and to destroy them. Hereby
   that which was appointed for the peace and edification of the church
   being lost, an engine was framed, under its name and pretence, unto its
   ruin and destruction; and so it continues unto this day. It had never
   entered into the hearts of men to set up a discipline in the Church of
   Christ by law, courts, fines, mulcts, imprisonments, and burnings, but
   that they had utterly lost in themselves, and suffered to be lost in
   others concerned, all experience of the power and efficacy of the
   discipline of Christ towards the souls and consciences of men. But
   hereon they laid it aside, as a useless tool, that might do some
   service in the hands of the apostles and the primitive churches, whilst
   there was spiritual life and sense left amongst Christians; but as unto
   them, and what they aimed at, it was of no use at all. The deformity of
   this image in the several parts of it; its universal dissimilitude unto
   that whose name it bears, and which it pretends to be; the several
   degrees whereby it was forged, framed, and erected; with the occasions
   and advantages taken for its exaltation, would take up much time to
   declare: for it was subtly interwoven with other abominations, in the
   whole Mystery of Iniquity, until it became the very life or animating
   principle of Anti-christianism. For, however men may set light by the
   rule and discipline of Christ in his church, and its spiritual power or
   efficacy towards the souls and consciences of men, the rejection of it,
   and the setting up of a horrid image of worldly power, domination, and
   force in the room of it, and under its name, is that which began,
   carried on, and yet maintains, the fatal apostasy in the Church of
   Rome.

   I shall instance only in one particular. On the change of this rule of
   Christ, and, together with it, the setting up of Malizzim, or an image,
   or "god of forces," [Dan. xi. 38,] in the stead of it; they were
   compelled to change all the ends of that discipline, and to make an
   image of them also. For this new instrument of outward force was of no
   use with respect unto them; for they are, as was declared, the
   spiritual peace, purity, love, and edification of the church. Outward
   force is no way meet to attain any of these ends. Wherefore, they must
   make an image of these also, or substitute some dead form in their
   room; and this was a universal subjection unto the pope, according unto
   all the rules, orders, and canons which they should invent. Uniformity
   herein, and canonical obedience, is all the end which they will allow
   unto their church discipline; and these things hang well together, for
   nothing but outward force by law and penalties is fit to attain this
   end. So was there an image composed and erected of the holy discipline
   of Christ, and its blessed ends, consisting of these two parts, outward
   force and feigned subjection. For hardly can an instance be given in
   the world of any man who ever bowed down to this image, or submitted
   unto any ecclesiastical censure, out of a conscientious respect unto
   it. Force and fear rule all.

   This is that discipline in whose execution the blood of an innumerable
   company of holy martyrs hath been shed, -- that wherein all the vital
   spirits of the Papacy do act themselves, and whereby it doth subsist;
   and although it be the image of jealousy, or the image of the first
   beast, set up by the dragon, yet it cannot be denied, but that it is
   very wisely accommodated unto the present state of the generality of
   them that are called Christians amongst them. For being both blind and
   carnal, and having thereby lost all sense and experience of the
   spiritual power of the rule of Christ in their consciences, they are
   become a herd not fit to be governed or ruled any other way. Under the
   bondage of it, therefore, they must abide, till the vail of blindness
   be taken away, and they are turned unto God by his word and Spirit; for
   "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there," and there alone, "is
   liberty."

   Sect. VII. Unto the foregoing particular instances, with respect unto
   the church, I shall yet add one more general; which is indeed
   comprehensive of them all, or the root from whence they spring, -- a
   root bearing gall and wormwood: and this is concerning the catholic
   church.

   What belongs unto this catholic church, what is comprised in its
   communion, the apostle declares, Heb. xii. 22-24. It is the
   recapitulation of all things in heaven and earth in Christ Jesus, Eph.
   i. 10; -- his body, his spouse or bride, the Lamb's wife, the glorious
   temple wherein God doth dwell by his Spirit; -- a holy mystical
   society, purchased and purified by the blood of Christ, and united unto
   him by his Spirit, or the inhabitation of the same Spirit in him and
   those whereof it doth consist. Hence they with him, as the body with
   its head, are mystically called Christ, 1 Cor. xii. 12. And there are
   two parts of it, the one whereof is already perfected in heaven, as
   unto their spirits; and the other yet continued in the way of faith and
   obedience in this world. Both these constitute "one family in heaven
   and earth," Eph. iii. 15; -- in conjunction with the holy angels, one
   mystical body, one catholic church. And although there is a great
   difference, in their present state and condition, between these two
   branches of the same family, yet are they both equally purchased by
   Christ, and united unto him as their head, having both of them
   effectually the same principle of the life of God in them. Of a third
   part of this church, neither in heaven nor in earth, in a temporary
   state, participant somewhat of heaven, and somewhat of hell, called
   purgatory, the Scripture knoweth nothing at all; neither is it
   consistent with the analogy of faith, or the promises of God unto them
   that do believe, as we shall see immediately. This church, even as unto
   that part of it which is in this world, as it is adorned with all the
   graces of the Holy Spirit, is the most beautiful and glorious effect,
   -- next unto the forming and production of its Head, in the incarnation
   of the Son of God -- which divine wisdom, power, and grace will extend
   themselves unto here below. But these things -- the glory of this state
   -- is visible only unto the eye of faith; yea, it is perfectly seen and
   known only to Christ himself. We see it obscurely in the light of faith
   and revelation, and are sensible of it according unto our participating
   of the graces and privileges wherein it doth consist.

   But that spiritual light which is necessary to the discerning of this
   glory was lost among those of whom we treat. They could see no reality
   nor beauty in these things, nor any thing that should be of advantage
   unto them. For upon their principle, of the utter uncertainty of men's
   spiritual estate and condition in this world, it is evident that they
   could have no satisfactory persuasion of any concernment in it. But
   they had possessed themselves of the notion of a catholic church;
   which, with mysterious artifices, they have turned unto their own
   incredible secular advantage. This is that whereof they boast,
   appropriating it unto themselves, and making it a pretence of
   destroying others, what lies in them, both temporally and eternally.
   Unto this end they have formed the most deformed and detestable image
   of it that ever the world beheld; for the catholic church which they
   own, and which they boast that they are, instead of that of Christ, is
   a company or society of men, unto whom, in order unto the constitution
   of that whole society, there is no one real Christian grace required,
   nor spiritual union unto Christ, the head, but only an outside
   profession of these things, as they expressly contend; -- a society
   united unto the Pope of Rome, as its head, by a subjection unto him and
   his rule, according to the laws and canons whereby he will guide them.
   This is the formal reason and cause constituting that catholic church
   which they are, which is compacted in itself by horrid bonds and
   ligaments, for the ends of ambition, worldly domination, and avarice;
   -- a catholic church openly wicked in the generality of its rulers, and
   them that are ruled; and in its state cruel, oppressive, and dyed with
   the blood of saints, and martyrs innumerable. This, I say, is that
   image of the holy catholic church, the spouse of Christ, which they
   have set up. And it hath been as the image of Moloch, that hath
   devoured and consumed the children of the church; whose cries, when
   their cruel stepmother pitied them not, and when their pretended
   ghostly fathers cast them into the flames, came up unto the ears of the
   Lord of hosts; and their blood still cries for vengeance on this
   idolatrous generation. Yet is this pretence of the catholic church
   pressed, in the minds of many, with so many sophistical artifices,
   through the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in
   wait to deceive, proposed with the allurements of so many secular
   advantages, and imposed ofttimes on Christians with so much force and
   cruelty, that nothing can secure us from the admission of it, unto the
   utter overthrow of religion, but the means before insisted on. A
   spiritual light is necessary hereunto, to discern the internal
   spiritual beauty and glory of the true catholic church of Christ. Where
   this is in its power, all the paintings and dresses of their deformed
   image will fall off from it, and its abominable filth will be made to
   appear. And this will be accompanied with an effectual experience of
   the glory and excellency of that grace in the souls of those that
   believe, derived from Christ, the sole head of this church, whereby
   they are changed "from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord."
   The power, life, and sweetness hereof, will give satisfaction unto
   their souls, to the contempt of the pretended order, or dependence on
   the pope as a head. By these means the true catholic church, -- which
   is the body of Christ, the fulness of him that filleth all in all, --
   growing up unto him in all things who is the head, despiseth this
   image, and Dagon will fall to the ground when this Ark is brought in;
   yea, though it be in his own temple.

   III. In the farther opening of this Chamber of Imagery, we shall yet,
   if it be possible, see greater abominations; at least, that which doth
   next ensue is scarce inferior unto any of them that went before.

   Sect. VIII. It is a principle in Christian religion, an acknowledged
   verity, that it is the duty of the disciples of Christ, especially as
   united in churches, to propagate the faith of the gospel, and to make
   the doctrine of it known unto all as they have opportunity; yea, this
   is one principal end of the constitution of churches, and officers in
   them, Matt. v. 13-16; 1 Tim. iii. 15.

   This our Lord Jesus Christ gave in special charge unto his apostles at
   the beginning, Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; Mark xvi. 15, 16. Hereby they were
   obliged unto the work of propagating the faith of the gospel, and the
   knowledge of him therein, in all places, and were justified in their so
   doing. And this they did with that efficacy and success, that, in a
   short time, like the light of the sun, "their sound went into all the
   earth, and their words unto the ends of the world," Rom. x. 18; and the
   gospel was said to be "preached to every creature which is under
   heaven," Col. i. 23. The way, therefore, whereby they propagated the
   faith, was by diligent, laborious preaching of the doctrine of the
   gospel unto all persons in all places, with patience and magnanimity in
   undergoing all sorts of sufferings on the account of it, and a
   declaration of its power in all those virtues and graces which are
   useful and exemplary unto mankind. It is true, their office and the
   discharge of it is long since ceased; howbeit it cannot be denied but
   that the work itself is incumbent, in a way of duty, on all churches,
   yea, on all believers, as they have providential calls unto it, and
   opportunities for it. For it is the principal way whereby they may
   glorify God and benefit men in their chiefest good; which, without
   doubt, they are obliged unto.

   This notion of truth is retained in the Church of Rome: and the work
   itself is appropriated by them unto themselves alone. Unto them, and
   them only, as they suppose, it belongs to take care of the propagation
   of the faith of the gospel, with the conversion of infidels and
   heretics. Whatever is done unto this purpose by others, they condemn
   and abhor. What do they think of the primitive way of doing it, -- by
   personal preaching, sufferings, and holiness? Will the pope, his
   cardinals and bishops, undertake this work or way of the discharge of
   it? Christ hath appointed no other; the apostles and their successors
   knew no other; -- no other becomes the gospel, nor ever had success.
   No; they abhor and detest this way of it. What, then, is to be done?
   Shall the truth be denied? shall the work wholly and avowedly be laid
   aside? Neither will this please them; because it is not suited unto
   their honour: wherefore they have erected a dismal image of it, unto
   the horrible reproach of Christian religion. They have, indeed,
   provided a double painting for the image which they have set up. The
   first is the constant consult of some persons at Rome, which they call
   "Congregatio de Propaganda Fide," -- a council for the propagation of
   the faith; under the effect of whose consultations Christendom hath
   long groaned: and the other is, the sending of missionaries, as they
   call them, or a surcharge of friars from their over-numerous
   fraternities, upon their errands into remote nations.

   But the real image itself consists of these three parts:-- 1. The
   sword; 2. The inquisition; 3. Plots and conspiracies.

   By these it is that they design to propagate the faith and promote
   Christian religion; and if hell itself can invent a more deformed image
   and representation of the sacred truth and work, which it is a
   counterfeit of, I am much mistaken.

   1. Thus have they, in the first way, carried Christian religion into
   the Indies, especially the western parts of the world so called. First
   the Pope, out of the plenitude of his power, gives unto the Spaniard
   all those countries and the inhabitants of them, that they may be made
   Christians. But Christ dealt not so with his apostles, though he were
   Lord of all, when he sent them to teach and baptize all nations. He
   dispossessed none of them of their temporal rights or enjoyments, nor
   gave to his apostles a foot-breadth of inheritance among them. But upon
   this grant, the Spanish Catholics propagated the faith, and brought in
   Christian religion amongst them. And they did it by killing and
   murdering many millions of innocent persons; as some of themselves say,
   more than are alive in Europe in any one age. And this savage cruelty
   hath made the name of Christians detestable amongst all that remained
   of them that had any exercise of reason; [only] some few slavish brutes
   being brought by force to submit unto this new kind of idolatry. And
   this we must think to be done in obedience unto that command of Christ,
   "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He
   that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth
   not shall be damned." This is the deformed image which they have set up
   of obedience unto his holy commands; whereunto they apply that voice to
   Peter with respect unto the eating of all sorts of creatures, "Rise,
   Peter; kill, and eat." So have they dealt with those poor nations whom
   they have devoured. But blood, murder, and unjust war (as all war is
   for the propagation of religion), with persecution, began in Cain, who
   derived it from the devil, that "murderer from the beginning;" for he
   "was of that wicked one, and slew his brother," [John iii. 12.] Jesus
   Christ, the Son of God, was manifested to "destroy the works of the
   devil," [1 John iii. 8.] And he doth it in this world by his word and
   doctrine, judging and condemning them. And he does it in his disciples
   by his Spirit, extirpating them out of their minds, hearts, and ways;
   so as that there is not a more assured character of a derivation from
   the evil spirit, than force and blood in religion for the propagating
   of it.

   2. The next part of this image, the next way used by them for the
   propagating of the faith, and the conversion of them they call
   heretics, -- is the Inquisition. So much hath been declared and is
   known thereof, that it is needless here to give a portraiture of it. It
   may suffice, that it hath been long since opened, like Cacus's den, and
   discovered to be the greatest arsenal of cruelty, the most dreadful
   shambles of blood and slaughter, that ever was in the world. This is
   that engine which hath supplied the scarlet whore with the blood of
   saints, and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, until she was drunk with
   it. And this is the second way or means whereby they propagate the
   faith of the gospel, and endeavour, as they say, the conversion of the
   souls of men; this is the second part of that image which they have set
   up instead of the holy appointment of Jesus Christ.

   3. The third way they insist on unto this purpose, -- the third part of
   this image, -- consists in plots and contrivances to murder princes, to
   embroil nations in blood, to stir up sedition unto their ruin,
   inveigling and alluring all sorts of vicious, indigent, ambitious
   persons, into an association with them, so as to introduce the Catholic
   religion in the places which they design to subvert. This engine for
   the propagation of the faith hath been plied with various successes in
   many nations of Europe, and is still at work unto the same purpose. And
   hereunto belong all the arts which they use for the infatuation of the
   minds of princes and great men, -- all the baits they lay for others of
   all sorts, to work them over into a compliance with their designs.

   Of these parts, I say, is that dreadful image made up and composed,
   which they set up, embrace, and adore, in the room of the holy way for
   the propagation of the gospel appointed by Jesus Christ. In his way
   they can see no beauty, they can expect no success; -- they cannot
   believe that ever the world will be converted by it, or be brought in
   subjection unto the pope; and therefore betake themselves unto their
   own. Faith, prayer, holiness, preaching, suffering, all in expectation
   of the promised presence and assistance of Christ, are no ways, for
   efficacy, success, and advantage, to be compared unto the sword,
   inquisition, and underhand designings. And this also is that which they
   call zeal for the glory of God, and the honour of Christ! -- another
   deformed image which they have brought into religion. For whereas that
   grace consists principally in postponing self, and all self-concerns,
   with an undervaluation of them, unto the glory of God, and the special
   duties whereby it may be promoted, this impious design to destroy
   mankind by all ways of subtlety and cruelty, unto their own advantage,
   is set up in the room of it. But the consideration of the nature and
   spirit, of the use and end, of the gospel, -- of the design of Christ
   in it and by it, -- is sufficient to preserve the souls of men, not
   utterly infatuated, in an abhorrency of this image of its propagation.
   It is that wherein "the god of this world," by the help of their
   blindness and lusts, hath put a cheat on mankind, and prevailed with
   them, under a pretence of doing Christ honour, to make the vilest
   representation of him to the world that can be conceived. If he hath
   appointed this way for the propagating of the gospel, he cannot well be
   distinguished from Mohammed; but there is nothing more contrary unto
   him, -- nothing that his holy soul doth more abhor. And had not men
   lost all spiritual sense of the nature and ends of the gospel, they
   could never have given up themselves unto these abominations. For any
   to suppose that the faith of the gospel is to be propagated by such
   cruelty and blood, -- by art and subtlety, -- by plots, conspiracies,
   and contrivances, -- any way but by the foolishness of preaching,
   which, unto that end, is the power and wisdom of God, -- is to declare
   his own ignorance of it, and unconcernment in it. And had not men
   conceived and embraced another religion than what is taught therein, or
   abused a pretence thereof unto ends and advantages of their own, this
   imagination of the propagation of it had never taken place in their
   minds, it is so diametrically opposite unto the whole nature and all
   the ends of it.

   Sect. IX. There is yet amongst them another image of a general
   principle, no less horrid than that before mentioned, and that with
   respect unto religious obedience. It is the great foundation of all
   religion, and in especial of Christian religion, that God in all things
   is to be obeyed, absolutely and universally.

   Of all our obedience, there is no other reason, but that it is his
   will, and is known unto us so to be. This follows necessarily from the
   infinite perfections of the divine nature. As the first Essential
   Verity, he is to be believed in what he reveals, above and against all
   contradiction from pretended reasons, or any imaginations whatever; and
   as he is the only Absolute Independent Being, Essential Goodness, and
   the Sovereign Lord of all things, he is, without farther reason,
   motive, or inducement, to be absolutely obeyed in all his commands. An
   instance whereof we have in Abraham offering his only son without
   dispute or hesitation, in compliance with a divine revelation and
   command.

   It will seem very difficult to frame an image hereof amongst men, with
   whom there is not the least shadow of these divine perfections, --
   namely, Essential Verity and Absolute Sovereignty in conjunction with
   Infinite Wisdom and Goodness; which alone render such an obedience
   lawful, useful, or suitable unto the principles of our rational
   natures. But those of whom we speak have not been wanting unto
   themselves herein, especially the principal craftsmen of this
   image-trade. The order of the Jesuits have made a bold attempt for the
   framing of it. Their vow of blind obedience (as they call it) unto
   their superiors, whereby they resign the whole conduct of their souls,
   in all the concernments of religion, in all duties toward God and man,
   unto their guidance and disposal, is a cursed image of this absolute
   obedience unto the commands of God which he requireth of us. Hence the
   founder of their order was not ashamed, in his Epistle ad Fratres
   Lusitanos, to urge and press this blind obedience from the example of
   Abraham yielding obedience unto God, without debate or consideration;
   as if the superiors of the order were good, and not evil and sinful
   men. Whilst this honour was reserved unto God, whilst this was judged
   to be his prerogative alone, -- namely, that his commands are to be
   obeyed in all things, without reasonings and examinations as unto the
   matter, justice, and equity of them, merely because they are his, which
   absolutely and infallibly concludes them good, holy, and just, -- the
   righteous government of the world, and the security of men in all their
   fights, were safely provided for; for he neither will nor can command
   any thing but what is holy, just, and good: but, since the ascription
   of such a god-like authority unto men, as to secure blind obedience
   unto all their commands, innumerable evils, in murders, seditions, and
   perjuries, have openly ensued thereon. But, besides those particular
   evils, in matter of fact, which have proceeded from this corrupt
   fountain, this persuasion at once takes away all grounds of peace and
   security from mankind; for who knows what a crew or sort of men called
   the Jesuits' superiors, known only by their restless ambition and evil
   practices in the world, may command their vassals, who are sworn to
   execute whatever they command, without any consideration whether it be
   right or wrong, good or evil?

   Let princes, and other great men, flatter themselves whilst they
   please, that, on one consideration or other, they shall be the objects
   only of their kindness; if these men, according to their profession, be
   obliged in conscience to execute whatever their superiors shall command
   them, -- no less than Abraham was, to sacrifice his son on the command
   of God, they hold their lives at the mercy and on the good nature of
   these superiors, who are always safe out of the reach of revenge. It is
   marvellous, that mankind doth not agree to demolish this cursed image,
   or the ascription of a god-like power unto men to require blind
   obedience unto their commands, especially considering what effects it
   hath produced in the world. All men know by whose device it was first
   set up and erected; -- by whom, by what means, and unto what end, it
   was confirmed and consecrated: and, at this day, it is maintained by a
   society of men of an uncertain extract and original, like that of the
   Janizaries in the Turkish empire, -- their rise being generally out of
   obscurity, among the meanest and lowest of the people. Such they are,
   who, by the rules of their education, are taught to renounce all
   respect unto their native countries, and alliances therein, but so as
   to make them only the way and matter for the advancement of the
   interest of this new society. And this sort of men being nourished,
   from their very first entrance into the conduct of the society, unto
   hopes and expectations of wealth, honour, power, interest in the
   disposal of all public affairs of mankind, and the regulation of the
   consciences of men, it is no wonder if, with the utmost of their arts
   and industry, they endeavour to set up and preserve this image which
   they have erected, from whence they expect all the advantage which they
   do design. But hereof I may treat more fully when I come to speak of
   the image of Jealousy itself.

   Sect. X. From these generals I shall proceed unto more particular
   instances; and those, for the most part, in important principles of
   religion, wherein Christian faith and practice are most concerned: and
   I shall begin with that which is of signal advantage unto the framers
   of these images, -- as the other also are in their degree, for by this
   craft they have their livelihood and wealth, -- and most pernicious to
   the souls of other men.

   It is a principle of truth, and that such as wherein the whole course
   of Christian obedience is concerned, that there is a spiritual
   defilement is sin.

   This the Scripture everywhere declares, representing the very nature of
   it by spiritual uncleanness. And this uncleanness is its contrariety
   unto the holiness of the divine nature, as represented unto us in the
   law. This defilement is in all men equally by nature; -- all are alike
   born in sin, and the pollution of it: "Who can bring a clean thing out
   of an unclean?" And it is in all personally, in various degrees; some
   are more polluted with actual sins than others, but all are so in their
   degree and measure. This pollution of sin must be purged and taken
   away, before our entrance into heaven; for no unclean thing shall enter
   into the kingdom of God. Sin must be destroyed in its nature, practice,
   power, and effects, or we are not saved from it. This purification of
   sin is wrought in us, initially and gradually, in this life, and
   accomplished in death, when the spirits of just men are made perfect.
   In a compliance with this work of God's grace towards them, whereby
   they purify themselves, consists one principal part of the obedience of
   believers in this world, and of the exercise of their faith. The
   principal, internal, immediate, efficient cause of this purification of
   sins, is the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of
   God, cleanseth us from all our sins, 1 John i. 7. The blood of Jesus
   purgeth our consciences from dead works, Heb. ix. 14. He washeth us in
   his own blood, Rev. i. 5. And there is an external helping cause
   thereof; which is trials and afflictions, made effectual by the word,
   and accomplished in death.

   But this way of purging sins by the blood of Christ is mysterious.
   There is no discerning of its glory but by spiritual light, -- no
   experience of its power but by faith. Hence it is despised and
   neglected by the most, that yet outwardly profess the doctrine of the
   gospel. Men generally think there are a thousand better ways for the
   purging of sin than this by the blood of Christ, which they cannot
   understand. See Mic. vi. 6, 7. It is mysterious in the application of
   it unto the souls and consciences of believers by the Holy Ghost. It is
   so, in the spring of its efficacy, which is the oblation of it for a
   propitiation; and in its relation unto the new covenant, which first it
   establisheth, and then makes effectual unto this end. The work of it is
   gradual and imperceptible unto any thing but the eyes of faith, and
   diligent spiritual experience.

   Again; it is so ordered by divine wisdom, as strictly to require, to
   begin, excite, and encourage the utmost diligence of believers in a
   compliance with its efficacy unto the same end. What Christ did for us,
   he did without us, without our aid or concurrence. As God made us
   without ourselves, so Christ redeemed us; but what he doth in us, he
   doth also by us; what he works in a way of grace, we work in a way of
   duty. And our duty herein consists, as in the continual exercise of all
   gracious habits, renewing, changing, and transforming the soul into the
   likeness of Christ (for he who hopes to see him, "purifieth himself, as
   he is pure"); so also in universal, permanent, uninterrupted
   mortification unto the end; -- whereof we shall speak afterward. This
   also renders the work both mysterious and difficult. The improvement of
   afflictions unto the same end is a principal part of the wisdom of
   faith; without which they can be of no spiritual use unto the souls of
   men.

   This notion of the defilement of sin, and that of the necessity of its
   purification, were retained in the Church of Rome; for they could not
   be lost, without not only a rejection of the Scripture, but the
   stifling of natural conceptions about them, which are indelibly fixed
   in the consciences of men. But spiritual light into the glory of the
   thing itself, or the mystical purification of sin, with an experience
   of the power and efficacy of the blood of Christ, as applied unto the
   consciences of believers unto that end by the Holy Ghost, were lost
   amongst them. In vain shall we seek for any thing of this nature,
   either in their doctrine or their practice. Wherefore, having lost the
   substance of this truth, and all experience of its power, to retain the
   use of its name, they have made sundry little images of it, -- creeping
   things, -- whereunto they ascribe the power of purging sin; such as
   holy water, pilgrimages, disciplines, masses, and various commutations.
   But they quickly found, by experience, that these things would neither
   purify the heart, nor pacify the consciences of sinners, any more than
   the blood of bulls and of goats could do it under the law; yea, any
   more than the lustrations and expiations of sin amongst the heathen
   could effect it. Wherefore they have at length formed a more stated and
   specious image of it, to serve all the turns of convinced sinners. And
   this is a purgatory after this life; that is, a subterraneous place and
   various means, where and whereby the souls of men are purged from all
   their sins and made meet for heaven, when the Lord Christ thinks meet
   to send for them, or the pope judges it fit to send them to him.
   Hereunto, let them pretend what they please, the people under their
   conduct do trust a thousand times more for the purging of their sins
   than unto the blood of Christ; but it is only a cursed image of the
   virtue of it, set up to draw off the minds of poor sinners from seeking
   an interest in a participation of the efficacy of that blood for that
   end, which is to be obtained by faith alone, Rom. iii. 25. Only, they
   have placed this image behind the curtain of mortality, that the cheat
   of it might not be discovered. None, who find themselves deceived by
   it, can come back to complain or warn others to take care of
   themselves. And it was, in an especial manner, suited unto their
   delusion who lived in pleasures or in the pursuit of unjust gain,
   without exercise of afflictions in this world. From these two sorts of
   persons, by this engine, they raised a revenue unto themselves beyond
   that of kings or princes; for all the endowments of their religious
   houses and societies were but commutations for the abatement of the
   fire of this purgatory. But whereas in itself it was a rotten post,
   that could not stand or subsist, they were forced to prop it with many
   other imaginations. For unto this end, to secure work for this
   purgatory, they coined the distinction of sins into mortal and venial;
   -- not as unto their end, with respect unto faith and repentance, nor
   as unto the degrees of sin, with respect unto the aggravations, but as
   unto the nature of them; some of them being such (namely, those that
   are venial) as were capable of a purging expiation after this life,
   though men die without any repentance of them. And when this was done,
   they have cast almost all the sins that can be named under this order;
   and hereon this image is become an engine to disappoint the whole
   doctrine of the gospel, and to precipitate secure sinners into eternal
   ruin. And to strengthen this deceiving security, they have added
   another invention, of a certain storehouse of ecclesiastical merits,
   the keys whereof are committed to the pope, to make application of
   them, as he sees good, unto the ease and relief of them that are in
   this purgatory. For, whereas many of their church and communion have,
   as they say, done more good works than were needful for their salvation
   (which they have received upon a due balance of commutative justice),
   the surplus age is committed to the pope, to commute with it for the
   punishment of their sins who are sent into purgatory to suffer for
   them; -- than which they could have found out no engine more powerful
   to evacuate the efficacy of the blood of Christ, both as offered and as
   sprinkled, and therewith, the doctrine of the gospel concerning faith
   and repentance. Moreover, to give it farther countenance (as one lie
   must be thatched with another, or it will quickly rain through), they
   have fancied a separation to be made between guilt and punishment, so
   as that when the guilt is fully remitted and pardoned, yet there may
   punishment remain on the account of sin. For this is the case of them
   in purgatory; -- their sins are pardoned, so as that the guilt of them
   shall not bind them over to eternal damnation, though "the wages of sin
   is death;" yet they must be variously punished for the sins that are
   forgiven. But as this is contradictory in itself, it being utterly
   impossible there should be any punishment properly so called but where
   there is guilt as the cause of it; so it is highly injurious both to
   the grace of God and blood of Christ, in procuring and giving out such
   a lame pardon of sins, as should leave room for punishment next to that
   which is eternal. These are some of the rotten props which they have
   fixed on the minds of persons credulous and superstitious, terrified
   with guilt and darkness, to support this tottering, deformed image, set
   up in the room of the efficacy of the blood of Christ, to purge the
   souls and consciences of believers from sin. But that whereby it is
   principally established and kept up is, the darkness, ignorance, guilt,
   fear, terror of conscience, accompanied with a love of sin, that the
   most among them are subject and obnoxious unto; being disquieted,
   perplexed, and tormented with these things, and utterly ignorant of the
   true and only way of their removal and deliverance from them, they
   greedily embrace this sorry provision for their present ease and
   relief, being accommodated unto the utmost that human or diabolical
   craft can extend unto, to abate their fear, ease their torments, and to
   give security unto their superstitious minds. And hereby it is become
   to be the life and soul of their religion, diffusing itself into all
   the parts and concerns of it, -- more trusted unto than either God, or
   Christ, or the gospel.

   Spiritual light and experience, with the consequents of them in peace
   with God, will safeguard the minds of believers from bowing down to
   this horrid image, though the acknowledgments of its divinity should be
   imposed on them with craft and force: otherwise it will not be done;
   for without this there will a strong inclination and disposition,
   arising from a mixture of superstitious fear and love of sin, possess
   the minds of men to close with this pretended relief and satisfaction.
   The foundation of our preservation herein lies in spiritual light, or
   an ability of mind, from supernatural illumination, to discern the
   beauty, glory, and efficacy of the purging of our sins by the blood of
   Christ. When the glory of the wisdom and grace of God, of the love and
   grace of Christ, of the power of the Holy Ghost herein, is made
   manifest unto us, we shall despise all the paintings of this invention,
   -- Dagon will fall before the ark; and all these things do gloriously
   shine forth and manifest themselves unto believers in this mysterious
   way of purging all our sins by the blood of Christ. Hereon will ensue
   an experience of the efficacy of this heavenly truth in our own souls.
   There is no man whose heart and ways are cleansed by the blood of
   Christ, through the effectual application of it by the Holy Spirit, in
   the ordinance of the gospel, but he hath, or may have, a refreshing
   experience of it in his own soul; and, by the power which is
   communicated therewith, he is stirred up unto all that exercise of
   faith, and all those duties of obedience, whereby the work of purifying
   and cleansing the whole person may be carried on toward perfection. See
   2 Cor. vii. 1; 1 Thess. v. 23, i.John iii. 3. And he who is constantly
   engaged in that work with success, will see the folly and vanity of any
   other pretended way for the purging of sins, here or hereafter. The
   consequent of these things is, peace with God; for they are assured
   pledges of our justification and acceptance with him, and being
   justified by faith, we have peace with God. And where this is attained
   by the gospel, the whole fabric of purgatory falls to the ground; for
   it is built on these foundations, that no assurance of the love of God,
   or of a justified state, can be obtained in this life; -- for if it may
   be so, there can be no use of purgatory. This, then, will assuredly
   keep the souls of believers in a contempt of that, which is nothing but
   a false relief for sinners, under disquietment of mind for want of
   peace with God.

   Sect. XI. Some other instances of the same abomination I shall yet
   mention, but with more brevity, and sundry others must at present be
   passed over without a discovery. It is the known method of gospel faith
   and obedience, -- the way of God's dealing with believers in the
   covenant of grace, -- that, after their initiation and implantation
   into Christ, they should labour to thrive and grow in grace, by its
   continual exercise, until they come to be strengthened and confirmed
   therein. [348] And this, in the ordinary way of God's dealing with the
   church, they shall never fail of, unless it be through their own
   neglect: for there are many divine promises to this purpose, and it
   lies in the nature of the things themselves; for the seeds of grace are
   of that kind of habits which will be increased and strengthened by
   exercise. Wherefore, this confirmation in grace is that whereof
   believers have a blessed experience.

   This truth, in general, of an implantation into Christ, and the ensuing
   confirmation in grace, is universally assented unto; none can deny it
   without denying the whole doctrine of the gospel. But the sense and
   experience of it was lost amongst them of whom we treat; yet would they
   not forego the profession of the principle itself, -- which would have
   proclaimed them apostates from the grace of Christ. Wherefore they
   formed an image of it, or images of both its distinct parts, which they
   could manage unto their own ends, and such as the carnal minds of men
   could readily comply with and rest in. As in the other sacrament they
   turned the outward signs into the things signified, so in this of
   baptism, they make it to stand in the stead of the thing itself; which
   is to make it, if not an idol, yet an image of it. The outward
   participation of that ordinance with them is regeneration and
   implantation into Christ, without any regard unto the internal grace
   that is signified thereby; so that which in itself is a sacred figure,
   is made an image to delude the souls of men.

   And that which they would impose in the room of spiritual confirmation
   in grace is yet more strange. The image which they set up hereof is
   episcopal imposition of hands. When one that hath been baptized can
   answer some few questions out of a catechism, though he be very
   ignorant, and openly vicious in his conversation, by this laying on of
   hands he is confirmed in grace.

   It may be some will say, there is no great matter, one way or other, in
   things of this sort; they may be suffered to pass at what rate they
   will in this world. I confess I am not so minded. If there be any thing
   in them but mere formality and custom, -- if they are trusted unto as
   the things whose names they bear, -- they are pernicious unto the souls
   of men. For if all that are outwardly baptized should thereon judge
   themselves implanted into Christ, without regard unto the internal
   washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost; and all who
   have had this imposition of hands should, without more ado, suppose
   themselves confirmed in grace, -- they are in the ready way to eternal
   ruin.

   Sect. XII. It is granted among all Christians, that all our helps, our
   relief, our deliverance from, sin, Satan, and the world, are from
   Christ alone.

   This is included in all his relations unto the church, -- in all his
   offices, and the discharge of them; and is the express doctrine of the
   gospel. It is no less generally acknowledged, -- at least the Scripture
   is no less clear and positive on it, that we receive and derive all our
   supplies of relief from Christ by faith: other ways of the
   participation of any thing from him, the Scripture knoweth not.
   Wherefore, it is our duty, on all occasions, to apply ourselves unto
   him by faith, for all supplies, reliefs, and deliverances: but these
   men can find no life nor power herein; at least, if they grant that
   somewhat might be done this way, yet they know not how to do it, being
   ignorant of the life of faith, and the due exercise of it. They must
   have a way more ready and easy, exposed to the capacities and abilities
   of all sorts of persons, good and bad; yea, that will serve the turn of
   the worst of men unto these ends. An image, therefore, must be set up
   for common use, instead of this spiritual application unto Christ for
   relief; and this is the making of the sign of the cross. Let a man but
   make the sign of the cross on his forehead, his breast, or the like, --
   which he may as easily do as take up or cast away a straw, -- and there
   is no more required to engage Christ unto his assistance at any time.
   And the virtues which they ascribe hereunto are innumerable. But this
   also is an idol, a teacher of lies, invented and set up for no other
   end but to satisfy the carnal minds of men with a presumptuous
   supposition, in the neglect of the spiritually laborious exercise of
   faith. An experience of the work of faith, in the derivation of all
   supplies of spiritual life, grace, and strength, with deliverance and
   supplies, from Jesus Christ, will secure believers from giving heed
   unto this trifling deceit.

   Sect. XIII. One thing more, amongst many others of the same sort, may
   be mentioned. It is a notion of truth, which derives from the light of
   nature, that those who approach unto God in divine worship should be
   careful that they be pure and clean, without any offensive defilements.

   This the heathens themselves give testimony unto, and God confirmed it
   in the institutions of the law. But what are these defilements and
   pollutions which make us unmeet to approach unto the presence of God,
   -- how and by what means we may be purified and cleansed from them, --
   the gospel alone declares. And it doth, in opposition unto all other
   ways and means of it, plainly reveal, that it is by the sprinkling of
   the blood of Christ upon our consciences, so to purge them from dead
   works, that we may serve the living God. See Heb. ix. 14, x. 19-22. But
   this is a thing mysterious: nothing but spiritual light and saving
   faith can direct us herein. Men, destitute of them, could never attain
   an experience of purification in this way. Wherefore they retained the
   notion of truth itself, but made an image of it for their use, with a
   neglect of the thing itself. And this was the most ludicrous that could
   be imagined; namely, the sprinkling of themselves and others with that
   they call holy water when they go into the places of sacred worship;
   which yet also they borrowed from the Pagans. So stupid and sottish are
   the minds of men, so dark and ignorant of heavenly things, that they
   have suffered their souls to be deceived and ruined by such vain,
   superstitious trifles!

   This discourse hath already proceeded unto a greater length than was at
   first intended; and would be so much more, should we look into all
   parts of this Chamber of Imagery, and expose to view all the
   abominations in it. I shall therefore put a close unto it, in one or
   two instances, wherein the Church of Rome doth boast itself as
   retaining the truth and power of the gospel in a peculiar manner,
   whereas in very deed they have destroyed them, and set up corrupt
   images of their own in their stead.

   Sect. XIV. The first of these is, the doctrine and grace of
   mortification.

   That this is not only an important evangelical duty, but also of
   indispensable necessity unto salvation, all who have any thing of
   Christian religion in themselves must acknowledge. It is also clearly
   determined in the Scripture, both what is the nature of it, with its
   causes, and in what acts and duties it doth consist; for it is
   frequently declared to be the crucifying of the body of sin, with all
   the lusts thereof. For mortification must be the bringing of something
   to death; and this is sin: and the dying of sin consists in the casting
   out of all vicious habits and inclinations, arising from the original
   depravation of nature. It is the weakening and graduate extirpation or
   destruction of them, in their roots, principles, and operations,
   whereby the soul is set at liberty to act universally from the contrary
   principle of spiritual life and grace. The means, on the part of
   Christ, whereby this is wrought and effected in believers, is the
   communication of his Spirit unto them, to make an effectual application
   of the virtue of his death unto the death of sin; for it is by his
   Spirit that we mortify the deeds of the flesh, and the flesh itself,
   and that, as we are implanted by him into the likeness of the death of
   Christ. By virtue thereof we are crucified, and made dead unto sin; in
   the declaration of which things the Scripture doth abound. The means of
   it, on the part of believers, is the exercise of faith in Christ, as
   crucified; whereby they derive virtue from him for the crucifying of
   the body of death: and this exercise of faith is always accompanied
   with diligence and perseverance in all holy duties of prayer, with
   fasting, godly sorrow, daily-renewed repentance, with a continual watch
   against all the advantages of sin. Herein consists, principally, that
   spiritual warfare and conflict that believers are called unto. This is
   all the killing work which the gospel requires. That of killing other
   men for religion is of a later date, and another original. And there is
   nothing, in the way of their obedience, wherein they have more
   experience of the necessity, power, and efficacy of the graces of the
   gospel.

   This principle of truth, concerning the necessity of mortification, is
   retained in the Church of Rome; yea, she pretends highly unto it, above
   any other Christian society. The mortification of their devotionists is
   one of the principal arguments which they plead, to draw unwary souls
   over unto their superstition. Yet, in the height of their pretences
   unto it, they have lost all experience of its nature, with the power
   and efficacy of the grace of Christ therein; and have, therefore,
   framed an image of it unto themselves For, --

   1. They place the eminency and height of it in a monastical life, and
   pretended retirement from the world. But this may be, hath been, in all
   or the most, without the least real work of mortification in their
   souls; for there is nothing required in the strictest rules of these
   monastic votaries but may be complied withal, without the least
   effectual operation of the Holy Spirit in their minds, in the
   application of the virtue of the death of Christ unto them; besides,
   the whole course of life which they commend under this name, is neither
   appointed in, nor approved by, the gospel. And some of those who have
   been most renowned for their severities therein were men of blood,
   promoting the cruel slaughter of multitudes of Christians, upon the
   account of their profession of the gospel: in whom there could be no
   one evangelical grace; "for no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
   him."

   2. The ways and means which they prescribe and use for the attaining of
   it, are such as are no way directed by the divine wisdom of Christ in
   the Scripture; -- such as multiplied confessions to priests, irregular,
   ridiculous fastings, penances, self-macerations of the body, unlawful
   vows, self-devised rules of discipline and habits, with the like
   trinkets innumerable. Hence, whatever their design be, they may say of
   it, in the issue, what Aaron said of his idol, "I cast the gold into
   the fire, and there came out this calf." They have brought forth only
   an image of mortification, diverting the minds of men from seeking
   after that which is really and spiritually so. And under this pretence
   they have formed a state and condition of life that hath filled the
   world with all manner of sins and wickedness; and many of those who
   have attained unto some of the highest degrees of this mortification,
   on their principles, and by the means designed unto that end, have been
   made ready thereby for all sorts of wickedness.

   Wherefore, the mortification which they retain, and whereof they boast,
   is nothing but a wretched image of that which is truly so, substituted
   in its room, and embraced by such as had never attained any experience
   of the nature or power of gospel grace in the real mortification of
   sin.

   Sect. XV. The same is to be said concerning good works, -- the second
   evangelical duty whereof they boast.

   The necessity of these good works unto salvation, according unto men's
   opportunities and abilities, is acknowledged by all; and the glory of
   our profession in this world consisteth in our abounding in them: but
   their principle, their nature, their motives, their use, their ends,
   are declared and limited in the Scripture; whereby they are
   distinguished from what may seem materially the same in those which may
   be wrought by unbelievers. In brief, they are the acts and duties of
   true believers only; and they are in them effects of divine grace, or
   the operation of the Holy Ghost; for they are "created in Christ Jesus
   unto good works, which God hath ordained that they should walk in
   them." But the principal mystery of their glory, which the Scripture
   insists upon, is, that although they are necessary, as a means unto the
   salvation of believers, yet are they utterly excluded from any
   influence unto the justification of sinners; -- so there was never any
   work, evangelically good, performed by any who were not before freely
   justified.

   Unto these good works those with whom we have to do lay a vehement
   claim, as though they were the only patrons of them, and pleaders for
   them; but they have also excluded them out of Christian religion, and
   set up a deformed image of them, in defiance of God, of Christ, and the
   gospel. For the works they plead for are such as so far proceed from
   their own free will, as to render them meritorious in the sight of God.
   They have confined them partly unto acts of superstitious devotion,
   partly unto those of charity, and principally unto those that are not
   so; -- such are the building of monasteries, nunneries, and such
   pretended religious houses, for the maintenance of swarms of monks and
   friars, filling the world with superstition and debauchery. They make
   them meritorious, satisfactory; yea, some of them, which they call of
   supererogation, above all that God requireth of us, and the causes of
   our justification before God. They ascribe unto them a condignity of
   the heavenly reward, making it of works, and so not of grace; with many
   other defiling imaginations. But whatever is done from these
   principles, and for these ends, is utterly foreign unto those good
   works which the gospel enjoineth as a part of our new or evangelical
   obedience. But having, as in other cases, lost all sense and experience
   of the power and efficacy of the grace of Christ, in working believers
   unto this duty of obedience, unto the glory of God and benefit of
   mankind, they have set up the image of them, in defiance of Christ, his
   grace, and his gospel.

   These are some of the abominations which are portrayed on the walls of
   the Chamber of Imagery in the Church of Rome; and more will be added in
   the consideration of the image of Jealousy itself; which, God willing,
   shall ensue in another way. These are the shadows which they betake
   themselves unto, in the loss of spiritual light to discern the truth
   and glory of the mystery of the gospel, and the want of an experience
   of their power and efficacy, unto all the ends of the life of God in
   their own minds and souls. And although they are all of them expressly
   condemned in the letter of the Scripture, which is sufficient to secure
   the minds of true believers from the admission of them, yet their
   establishment, against all pleas, pretences, and force, for a
   compliance with them, depends on their experience of the power of every
   gospel truth unto its proper end, in communicating unto us the grace of
   God, and transforming our minds into the image and likeness of Jesus
   Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [348] This section was first given in the folio edition of Owen's
   Sermons and Tracts, published in 1721. It does not appear in the sermon
   as printed in the "Morning Exercises." -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   Sermon XVI.

   An humble testimony

   unto the goodness and severity of God in his dealing with sinful
   churches and nations;

   or,

   the only way to deliver a sinful nation from utter ruin by impendent
   judgments:

   in a discourse on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,

   Luke xiii. 1-4.

   "Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my
   people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins" -- Isa.
   lviii. 1.

   "In publico discrimine omnis homo miles est."
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   In his own preface to the reader Dr Owen very briefly alludes to the
   circumstances which had induced him to deliver to "a private
   congregation" several discourses on Luke xiii. 1-5, and afterwards to
   publish the substance of them in the following discourse. For obvious
   reasons, he evinces great caution in referring to passing events,
   which, about the time the discourse was published, excited "continual
   apprehensions of public calamities" in the minds of all the friends of
   liberty and order. The nation had been agitated with stormy discussions
   about the Exclusion Bill. The Whig party were bent on preventing the
   accession of James, the Duke of York, to the British throne on the
   demise of Charles II. In the agitation which shook the country in
   consequence of this attempt, "a whole year," says Macaulay, "elapsed,
   -- an eventful year, which has left lasting traces in our manners and
   language ... On the one side, it was maintained that the constitution
   and religion of the state would never be secure under a Popish king; --
   on the other, that the right of James to wear the crown in his turn was
   derived from God, and could not be annulled, even by the consent, of
   all the branches of the Legislature."

   The bill had been several times introduced into the House of Commons,
   -- in 1679, in November 1680, a third time in the following January,
   and finally, in the Parliament which met at Oxford in March 1681, when
   the Whig measures were defeated by the dissolution of the Parliament
   only seven days after it had met.

   Whatever judgment be formed as to the expediency of the Exclusion Bill,
   the strenuous exertions which the Whigs and Nonconformists made to
   secure the success of that measure, enable us to estimate the alarm and
   forebodings which filled their minds, when the power of the Court had
   triumphed.

   Apart, however, from this defeat, there were other causes of anxiety
   and apprehension. Dissenters were subjected to severe and increasing
   oppression; and while the friends of the popular cause were
   disconcerted and baffled, a manifest reaction was taking place
   throughout England in favour of the Court. It was this change of public
   sentiment, and decay of patriotic zeal -- arising in some degree from
   growing indifference to religious principle -- that led our author to
   entertain, at this juncture, gloomy views in regard to the prospects of
   the nation, and to issue a solemn and urgent warning to his countrymen.

   The discourse of Dr Owen is extremely suitable to the crisis which had
   elicited it. While he makes no reference to the proceedings of the
   government, he dwells upon evangelical truths and duties, in a strain
   peculiarly fitted to elevate his readers above unworthy fears, and to
   make the danger to which they might feel themselves exposed a motive to
   repentance and godliness. "The Testimony,' "says Orme, "contains much
   of that practical wisdom which the Doctor had acquired from his long
   and deep study of the Word of God, and from his extensive experience in
   the ways of Providence." The discourse was published in the year 1681.
   -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

To the reader.

   The ensuing discourse contains the substance of sundry sermons preached
   in a private congregation. Some who heard them, considering the
   subject-matter treated of, and the design in them with respect unto the
   present state of things in this nation, did judge that it might be
   convenient and seasonable to make them more public, for the use and
   benefit of others; but, knowing how remote I was from any such
   intention in their first composure, and how naked they were of all
   ornaments that might render them meet for public view, I was unwilling
   for a season to comply with their desires. Neither was it their
   importunity (which, as they did not use, so I should not in this case
   have valued), but their reasons, that prevailed with me, to consent
   that they might be published by any that had a mind thereunto; which is
   all my concernment therein. For they said, that whereas the land
   wherein we live is filled with sin, and various indications of God's
   displeasure thereon, yet there is an unexemplified neglect in calling
   the inhabitants of it unto repentance, for the diverting of impendent
   judgments. The very heathen, they said, upon less evidence of the
   approaches of divine vengeance than is now amongst us, did always
   solemnly apply themselves to their deities, for the turning it away.
   Wherefore, this neglect amongst us they supposed to be of such ill
   abode, [349] as that the weakest and meanest endeavour for relief under
   it might be of some use; and of that nature I cannot but esteem this
   discourse to be.

   They added, moreover, that whereas, on various accounts, there are
   continual apprehensions of public calamities, all men's thoughts are
   exercised about the ways of deliverance from them; but whereas they fix
   themselves on various and opposite ways and means for this end, the
   conflict of their counsels and designs increaseth our danger, and is
   like to prove our ruin. And the great cause hereof is, a general
   ignorance and neglect of the only true way and means whereby this
   nation may be delivered from destruction under the displeasure of God.
   For if their thoughts did agree and centre therein, as it would
   insensibly work them off from their present mutual destructive
   animosities; so also it is of such a nature as would lead them into a
   coalescency in those counsels, whose fruit would be the establishment
   of truth, with righteousness and peace. Now, this way is no other but
   sincere repentance, and universal reformation in all sorts of persons
   throughout the nation.

   That this is the only way for the saving of this nation from impending
   judgments and wasting desolations, -- that this way will be effectual
   unto that end when all others shall fail, -- is asserted and proved in
   this discourse, from the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, to
   confront the wisdom of politicians, who are otherwise minded, with a
   plain word of truth and power.

   It was hoped also by them, that some intimation of their duty might be
   hereby given unto those who, having the ministerial oversight of the
   generality of the people, do divert their minds unto the petty
   differences and contests, whilst the fire of God's displeasure for sin
   is ready to devour their habitations. And the truth is, if they persist
   in their negligence, if they give not a public evidence, at this
   season, of their zeal for repentance and reformation of life among all
   sorts of persons, -- going before them in their example and endeavours
   unto the promotion of them, -- I understand not how they will give an
   account of their trust and duty to God or men.

   And therefore, were I worthy to give advice to any of my brethren in
   the ministry, who are in the same condition with myself as unto outward
   circumstances, it should be this only, namely, that whilst others do
   seek to obstruct them in the whole discharge of their duty, and to
   deprive the church of the benefit of their labours, they would, by
   their own personal example, by peculiar endeavours in their
   congregations, among all that hear them, and on every occasion, so
   press the present calls of God unto repentance, and so promote the work
   of a visible reformation, as eminently to help in saving of the nation
   from approaching judgments, and therein of them also who design their
   trouble; -- and I doubt not but most of them are already engaged and
   forward herein.

   This shall be our testimony, and our peace, in whatever may befall us
   in this world.

   Let us not satisfy ourselves, that our congregations are in so good a
   posture as that they may continue for our lives; and so be like ill
   tenants, who care not if their houses fall upon the expiration of the
   term of their interest in them. That reparation is required of us which
   may make them serve for succeeding generations.

   And when any church is so unobservant of its own decays as to be
   negligent of endeavours for proportionable reformation, -- if, after a
   while, any will deliver their own souls, it must be by a departure from
   them that hate to be reformed.

   It is a fond imagination, that churches may render their communion
   useless and dangerous only by heresy, tyranny, and false worship; -- an
   evil, worldly, corrupt conversation in the generality of their members,
   contrary to the doctrine of the gospel, not opposed and contradicted by
   a constant endeavour for sincere reformation, is no less ruinous unto
   the being of churches than any of these other evils.

   On these and such like considerations, I was not unwilling that this
   plain discourse should be exposed to public view, hoping that it might
   stir up others of greater abilities and opportunities more effectually
   to pursue the same design. I do not think it needful to make any
   apology for the plainness both of the matter and style in this small
   treatise.

   The least endeavour to attire a discourse of this nature with the
   ornaments of speech or language, is even ridiculous; it is more fit to
   bear the furrows of sighs and tears, than to be smoothed and flourished
   with the oily colours of elegance and rhetoric.

   And as for the obvious plainness of the matter contained in it, it is
   suited, as I judge, unto them whose good is principally designed
   therein. Plain men have sinned as well as others, though it may be not
   unto so high a degree, nor in such an outrage of excess. However, on
   many considerations, they are likely first to suffer, unless impendent
   judgments are diverted by repentance.

   I do but a little plead with every man for himself and in his own
   cause. Neither, however wise or learned men may be, is it meet, in this
   case, to treat them otherwise. It is to no purpose to make a fine
   speech unto such as are falling into a lethargy, nor to discourse
   learnedly of the art of navigation unto them that are ready to perish
   in a storm; they must be plain words and plain things that are forcible
   in this case. And those by whom they are despised, from any principle
   of self-elation, give but an uncomfortable indication of what will be
   the issue of their dangers.

   Let, therefore, the reader but candidly excuse and pass by the trouble
   which he will be put unto by the frequent mistakes of the press,
   especially in mispointings, rendering the sense sometimes obscure and
   unobvious; and I have, on the behalf of the treatise itself, no more to
   desire of his forbearance.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [349] Abode is an old English word signifying omen or prognostic, --
   from "bode," to portend. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon XVI. An humble testimony unto the goodness and severity of God in his
dealing with sinful churches and nations.

   "There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans,
   whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus,
   answering, said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners
   above all the Gall leans, because they suffered such things? I tell
   you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those
   eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye
   that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell
   you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." -- Luke
   xiii. 1-5.

   It is a part and duty of spiritual wisdom, as also an evidence of a due
   reverence of God, to take notice of extraordinary occurrences in the
   dispensations of his providence; for they are instructive warnings, and
   of great importance in his government of the world. In them the "voice
   of the Lord crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see his
   name." And there is a mark left on them, -- as profligate persons, --
   who will not see when his hand is so lifted up. An example of this
   wisdom is given us here in our blessed Saviour, who, on the report that
   was made unto him of some severe providential accidents, then newly
   fallen out, gives an exposition of the mind of God in them, with an
   application of them unto the present duty of them that heard him, and
   ours therein.

   Some things may be observed in general, to give light into the context,
   and the design of our Saviour in this holy discourse.

   I. The time when the things mentioned did fall out, and wherein our
   Saviour passed his judgment on them.

   1. It was a time of great sin, -- of the abounding of all sorts of
   sins. The nation as such, in its rulers and rule; the church as such,
   in its officers, order, and worship; and the generality of the people,
   in their personal capacities, were all overwhelmed in provoking sins.
   Hypocrisy, oppression, cruelty, superstition, uncleanness, persecution,
   impenitency, and security, -- all proceeding from unbelief, -- had
   filled the land, and defiled it. We have a sufficient account of this
   state of things in the story of the gospel, so as that it needs no
   other confirmation. Yea, so wicked were the people, and so corrupt the
   church-state, and so impenitent were the generality of them therein,
   that it suited the righteousness and holiness of God to revenge on that
   generation, not only their own sins, but the sins also of all wicked
   persecutors from the foundation of the world; -- a thing which he doth
   not do but on high provocations. Luke xi. 50, 51, "That the blood of
   all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may
   be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel, unto the blood
   of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I
   say unto you, It shall be required of this generation."

   There is in this commination an appearance of severity beyond the rule
   established, Exod. xx. 5. There, God declares that he is "a jealous
   God;" which title he assumes to himself with respect unto the highest
   provocations; -- that he "will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon
   the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate
   him." But here, the vengeance and punishment due unto the sins of a
   hundred generations, is threatened to be inflicted on that which was
   present.

   Something, in our passage, may be spoken for the vindication of divine
   justice herein, seeing we may be more concerned in that divine
   commination than the most are aware.

   (1.) The case here is particular. That in the commandment respects the
   common case of all false worshippers and their posterity; but this
   respects persecution, unto blood and death, of the true worshippers of
   God. Now, though God be very much provoked with the sins of false
   worshippers, yet he can either bear with them, or pass over their sins
   with lesser punishments, or at least for a long season; but when they
   come to persecution, and the blood of them who worship him in spirit
   and in truth, in his appointed season he will not spare them; -- their
   own, and the iniquities of their predecessors, shall be avenged on
   them; which will be the end of the anti-christian church-state after
   all its present triumph.

   (2.) All those who, from the beginning of the world, suffered unto
   blood on the account of religion, suffered in the cause of Christ, for
   their faith in him, and confession of him; namely, as he was promised
   unto the church. Unto him and his office did Abel, by faith, bear
   testimony in the bloody sacrifice that he offered. So it is said that
   Moses, in his danger for killing the Egyptian, bare "the reproach of
   Christ," because he did it in faith of the promised seed; which was
   Christ. They were, therefore, all slain in the cause of Christ. And
   whereas this generation was to slay Christ himself, and did so, they
   did, therein, approve of and justify all the blood that was shed in the
   same cause from the foundation of the world; and made themselves justly
   liable unto the punishment due unto it. Hence, our Saviour tells them,
   Matt. xxiii. 35, that they, the men of that generation, slew Zechariah,
   who was actually slain many hundred years before.

   (3.) Our blessed Saviour mentions Abel and Zechariah particularly. This
   Zechariah, called the son of Barachias, was undoubtedly the Zechariah
   mentioned, 2 Chron. xxiv. 20-22. For concerning those two alone it is
   observed, that the one dead, and the other dying, "cried for
   vengeance." So God testifieth of the blood of Abel, Gen. iv. 10. And
   Zechariah, when he died, said, "The Lord look upon it, and require it."
   Hence the apostle affirms, that "Abel being dead, yet speaketh," Heb.
   xi. 4; that is, his blood did so, -- it did so then, and it spake for
   vengeance, as he intimates, chap. xii. 24. It did so before and until
   the destruction of Jerusalem: for in the rejection and absolute
   destruction of that apostatized church and people, the blood of all
   that suffered under the Old Testament was expiated. Abel's blood cries
   no more; nor doth God look any more on the blood of Zechariah to
   require it.

   But the mine voice and cry is now continued by another sort of men;
   namely, those who have suffered in the cause of Christ since his
   coming, according to the promise, Rev. vi. 9, 10. And this cry shall be
   continued until the appointed time doth come for the utter destruction
   of the antichristian, apostatized church-state.

   When a sinful church or people have passed the utmost bounds of divine
   patience and forbearance, they shall fall into such abominable, crying
   sins and provocations as shall render the utmost vengeance beneath
   their deserts. So Josephus affirms of this generation, after they had
   rejected and slain the Lord Christ, that they fell into such a hell of
   provoking abominations, that if the Romans had not come and destroyed
   them, God would have sent fire and brimstone upon them from heaven, as
   he did on Sodom.

   And we may, by the way, observe from hence, --

   It is a dangerous thing to live in the times of declining churches,
   when they are hastening unto their fatal period in judgments; such as
   will inevitably befall them all and every one.

   And it is so for these three reasons:--

   [1.] Because such times are perilous through temptations from the
   abounding of the lusts of men in all uncleanness and wickedness. So the
   apostle states it, 2 Tim. iii. 1-5. If any think they are free from
   danger, because as yet they feel no evil, whilst the lusts of men
   professing Christian religion visibly and openly abound and rage in the
   world, they will be mistaken.

   [2.] Though destruction do not immediately befall them, yet, when they
   have passed the time of divine patience designing their reformation,
   they shall precipitate themselves into bloody abominations, as did the
   church of the Jews.

   [3.] Judgment shall at length overtake them, and God will revenge on
   them the sins and provocations -- especially the persecutions and blood
   -- of them that went before them, and led them into their apostasy. So
   when he shall come to destroy mystical Babylon, or the antichristian
   church-state, it is said, that "in her was found the blood of the
   prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth,"
   Rev. xviii. 24. Even the blood of saints that was shed by pagan Rome
   shall be avenged on antichristian Rome, after she hath espoused the
   cause and walked in the way of the other, justifying in her own
   practice what they had done.

   2. It was a time wherein judgments were near approaching; -- so our
   Saviour himself affirms it to have been, Luke xix. 42-44, "If thou
   hadst known, ... in this thy day." They had now but a day, and that now
   almost ready to expire, though they saw it not, nor would believe it.
   But the day of their desolation approached continually, and when the
   apostle wrote his Epistle to the Hebrews, was making its entrance upon
   them, chap. x. 25, "Ye see the day approaching." And we may hence
   learn, --

   (1.) That in the approaching of desolating judgments on a sinful,
   provoking church or nation, God is pleased to give previous intimations
   of his displeasure, as well in the works of providence as by the rule
   of his word. Such were those here so interpreted by our Saviour in such
   a season.

   This, I say, is the ordinary process of divine Providence; and, it may
   be, no nation, heathen or Christian, ever utterly perished without
   divine warnings of their approaching desolation Some, indeed, seem to
   be taken away with a sudden surprisal, as God threateneth, Ps. lviii.
   9-11.

   But this is from their own security, and not for want of warnings. So
   the old world before the flood had warnings sufficient of their
   destruction, by the preaching of Noah, and the building of the ark, by
   which he "condemned the world," Heb. xi. 7, or left them inexcusable,
   to divine vengeance. Yet they took no notice of these things, but were
   surprised with the flood, as if they had never heard or seen any thing
   that should give them warning of it; as our Saviour declares, Matt.
   xxiv. 38, 39. And when the time comes of the destruction of mystical
   Babylon, she shall say, in that very day wherein her judgments come
   upon her, "I sit as a queen, and shall see no sorrow," notwithstanding
   all her warnings in the pouring out of the vials of previous judgments,
   Rev. xviii. 7, 8.

   (2.) It is the height of security, in such a time and season, either to
   neglect the consideration of extraordinary providences, or to
   misinterpret them, as any thing but tokens of approaching judgments, if
   not prevented.

   Nothing can be questioned herein without an arraignment of the divine
   wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the interpretation and application
   that he makes of these accidents. No doubt but they were neglected and
   despised by the most as common things; -- to take any great notice of
   such occurrences is esteemed pusillanimity or superstition. So it is by
   many at this day, wherein all things, as we shall see afterward, are
   filled with tokens of divine displeasure; but things will come shortly
   unto another account. In the meantime, it is safe to follow this divine
   example, so as to find out sacred warnings in such providential
   occurrences.

   II. The providential accidents spoken of are two, and of two sorts.

   1. The first was that wherein the bloody cruelty of men had a hand, --
   "The Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices."
   When this was done, on what occasion, and what was the number of the
   persons so slain, the Scripture is silent. However, it is certain that
   it was done at Jerusalem; for sacrifices might not be offered anywhere
   else. Thither came the Galileans with their sacrifices; -- that is,
   either the beasts which they brought to the priests to offer for them,
   for they might not offer sacrifices themselves; or the paschal lamb,
   which they might slay themselves.

   Whilst they were engaged in this work, Pilate, the bloody Roman
   governor (on what occasion or provocation is unknown), came upon them,
   and slew them in a cruel manner; intimated in that expression, that "he
   mingled their blood with their sacrifices." And this providence is the
   more remarkable, in that it fell out whilst they were engaged in their
   sacred worship; -- which carries an indication of divine severity. And,
   it may be, there was, as it is in the ruin of mankind every day,
   occasion taken for it from the difference that was between two wicked
   governors, Pilate and Herod, unto whose jurisdiction these Galileans
   did belong, in whose blood Pilate thought to revenge himself on his
   enemy. However, they both combined at last in the killing of Christ, --
   as others use to do in the world; and so made themselves friends,
   leaving their example to their successors.

   2. The other was a mere effect of divine Providence; -- the death of
   eighteen men by the fall of a tower in Siloam; that is, a place of
   waters, and a running stream in Jerusalem itself. And our Lord Jesus
   Christ declares herein, not only that all such accidents are disposed
   by the providence of God, but that he speaks in them for our
   instruction.

   Both these, as they were warnings, as we shall see, so they were
   figures of the approaching destruction of the city and people; for
   that, in the first place, is the perishing here intended, as is
   manifest in the ensuing parable, wherein the church-state of the Jews
   is compared unto a barren fig-tree, which was to be cut down and
   destroyed. And, accordingly, that destruction did befall them, partly
   by the bloody cruelty of the Romans, and partly by the fall and ruin of
   the temple, towers, and walls of the city; both included in the word,
   "likewise:" "Ye shall likewise perish," or in like manner. But although
   they were of various kinds, and men might evade the consideration of
   them on several pretences, the one being nothing but the tyrannical
   fury of Pilate, the other only a somewhat unusual accident, -- yet our
   Lord Jesus Christ finds out the hand and counsel of God in them both,
   and declares the same language to be spoken in them both. Signs of the
   same event are doubled, to show the certainty of it, like Pharaoh's
   dreams.

   And we may observe, --

   First. That all sorts of unusual accidents, or effects of Providence,
   in a season of sin and approaching judgments, are of the same
   indication, and ought to have the same interpretation.

   So is the same application made of both these different signs and
   warnings by our Saviour; -- they have, saith he, the same language, the
   same signification. There was nothing at this time [that] more hardened
   the Jews unto their utter ruin, than the false application they made of
   providential signs and warnings, which were all multiplied among them,
   as boding their good and deliverance, when they were all tokens of
   their approaching ruin. For when such things are rejected as warnings,
   calling to repentance and reformation, as they were by them, on a
   presumption that they were signs of God's appearance on their behalf,
   they became to be nothing but certain forerunners of greater judgments,
   and infallible tokens of destruction; and so they will be to them
   likewise by whom they are yet despised.

   Secondly. God is pleased sometimes to give warnings of approaching
   judgments, not only as unto the matter of them, that they shall be
   accompanied with severity, but also as unto the especial nature and
   manner of them. So was it with these two signs, of blood by the sword,
   and death by the fall of the tower; representing as in a glass that
   common calamity which was to befall the city and nation. And I pray God
   that the prodigious appearance of fiery meteors, like swords, armies,
   and arms, with other things of the like nature, may not be sent to
   point out the very kind and nature of the judgments which are coming on
   England, if not diverted; for as unto these signs not only the
   Scripture, but all heathen stories are filled with an account of them.
   Before the approach of desolating judgments, nature, the common parent
   of mankind, did always put itself forth in irregular, unusual actings,
   -- in fiery meteors, comets, earthquakes, strange appearances in the
   air, voices heard, and the like.

   The brute elements tremble at the approaches of God in his judgment
   against the inhabitants of the earth. So the prophet expresseth it,
   Hab. iii. 10, "The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the
   overflowings of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and
   lifted up his hands on high."

   They are, as it were, cast into a posture of trembling and
   supplication. And AEschylus, a heathen poet in Justin Martyr, [thus
   writes]:--


   Tremei d' ore, kai gaia kai pelorios

   Buthos thalasses, koreon hupsos mega,

   Hotan epiblepse gorgon omma despotou.

   "When the dreadful eye of God (in his providence) is lifted up," all
   things tremble before it.

   III. In the interpretation and application made of these severe
   accidents by our Saviour, in his divine wisdom, we may observe, --

   1. Especial judgments in such a season, befalling in any, do not prove
   an especial guilt or provocation in them. This our Saviour expressly
   denies, and that with respect unto both the instances insisted on, and
   that distinctly, verses 2, 4. I do not hence absolutely establish a
   general rule as unto all times and persons. For, -- First, The
   observation is here confined and limited unto such a season as that
   under consideration; namely, a time of provoking sins in the generality
   of the people, and approaching judgments. In such a season, no
   assignation of especial guilt ought to be made on especial calamitous
   sufferings. Secondly, Some persons may be guilty of such daring,
   presumptuous sins, that if they are overtaken with especial judgments
   in this world, it is the height of impiety not to own the especial
   revenging hand of God in their destruction. Such was the death of
   Herod, Acts xii. 22, 23.

   2. Judgments on private men in such a season are warnings to the
   public. This is intimated by our Saviour in this place; namely, that
   God uses a sovereignty herein, by singling out whom he pleaseth, to
   make them examples unto others. This, saith he, was the sole reason, as
   far as you are concerned to judge or know, why God brought these sore
   destructions upon them; namely, that by these warnings he might call
   you to repentance. Yet, I judge, God doth not ordinarily exercise his
   sovereignty in this kind, unless it be when all have deserved to be
   destroyed: and then, as in the sedition and mutiny of military legions,
   they decimated them, or slew some for an example and terror unto
   others; so God calls out of a guilty multitude whom he pleaseth, to
   make previous instances of approaching judgments.

   3. Those who first fall under judgments are not always the worst that
   judgments shall befall; nor are the first judgments usually the most
   severe; -- so it is plain in these instances, And because we have
   instances of this nature amongst us, we should consider how to make a
   right judgment concerning them. And these three things we may safely
   determine:-- 1. That those who suffered were sinners also, though they
   were not so only, or in an especial manner. [350] This is necessary
   unto the vindication of the justice of God. 2. That he who hath made
   them warnings unto us, might have made us warnings unto them. Herein
   his sovereignty and mercy towards us who escape is manifest. 3. That we
   also have a hand in that guilt, forerunning such providences so far as
   there is any thing penal in them. For such private previous judgments
   are the effect of public provocations.

   IV. Here is a sure rule given us of the interpretation of severe
   providences in such a season as that here intended; -- such, I mean, as
   we have had amongst us, in plague, and fire, and blood; and such as we
   have the signs and tokens of at this time in heaven and earth. For
   three things we are here taught safely to conclude concerning them:--
   First, That they are warnings from God. This our Saviour plainly
   declares in the interpretation and application of these two instances.
   Secondly, That their voice and language is a call to repentance and
   reformation: "Except ye repent," etc. Thirdly, When they are neglected
   as warnings, calling to repentance, they change their nature, and
   become certain signs of approaching destruction. And in the observation
   of these rules of interpretation of providential severities given us by
   our Saviour, we may be preserved from the excesses of neglecting, on
   the one hand, what is contained in them, and of rash judging of men or
   causes, on the other.

   These things being premised for the opening of the words, the truth
   wherein we are instructed by them appears to be this:--

   When a land, a nation, a city, a church, is filled with sin, so as that
   God gives them warnings or indications of his displeasure by previous
   judgments, or other extraordinary signs, if they are not as warnings
   complied withal by repentance and reformation, they are tokens of
   approaching judgments, that shall not be avoided.

   This is the sacred truth which our Lord Jesus Christ doth here
   recommend to our observation. It is the great rule of divine
   Providence, with the especial seal of our Lord Christ annexed to it, "I
   tell you, Nay; but, unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
   When warnings for instruction are not received, they are tokens of
   destruction. This is a truth which none almost deny, and none almost
   believe. Had it been believed, many desolating judgments in former ages
   had been prevented; nations and cities should have abode in prosperity,
   which are now sunk into ruin, yea, into hell. See Luke xix. 41-44;
   Matt. xi. 23. And were it believed in the days wherein we live, it
   would be the means of saving a poor nation from otherwise inevitable
   ruin. The state, is so with us, that, unless we repent, we shall
   perish. I do not prescribe unto the sovereignty of God in his
   providential administrations. He can, if he please, suffer all his
   warnings to be despised, all his calls neglected, yea, scoffed at, and
   yet exercise forbearance towards us, as unto a speedy execution of
   judgment. But woe unto them with whom he so deals; for it hath only
   this end, that they may have a space to fill up the measure of their
   iniquities, and so be fitted for eternal destruction, Rom. ix. 22.

   There is a threefold issue and event of the state we have described.

   1. When a sinful church or nation so attend unto God's warnings in
   previous judgments, and other signs of his displeasure, as to comply
   with them by repentance and reformation. This is a blessed issue, which
   will certainly divert all impendent judgments; as shall be afterward
   declared.

   2. When, by reason of the neglect of them, and want of compliance with
   them, God doth bring distress and calamities upon a people in general.
   This is a sad event. But, however, under it God doth often preserve a
   seed and remnant which, being brought through the fire, and thereby
   purged and purified, though but as a poor and afflicted people, yet
   they shall be preserved as a seed and reserve for a better state of the
   church. See Zech. xiii. 8, 9; Isa. vi. 11-13, xxiv. 6, 13; Zeph. iii.
   12; Ezek. v. 2, 12.

   3. When God utterly forsakes a people, he will regard them no more, but
   give them up unto idolatry, false worship, and all sorts of wickedness.
   When he says, "Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more
   and more," -- this is the sorest of judgments. "Woe also to them,"
   saith the Lord, "when I depart from them!" Hos. ix. 12. Of such a
   people there shall be neither hope nor remnant, Ezek. xlvii. 11. Who
   would not rather see a nation suffering under some judgments, as the
   effects of God's displeasure for the neglect of his warnings, whereby
   it may be purged, and purified, and restored, than to be left under
   idolatry and all manner of wickedness forever?

   But the way is here proposed for the avoidance of these evils. And
   these things will be more fully spoken unto afterward.

   I shall first give some evidences of the truth laid down, and then the
   reason of it; which will make way for what I principally intend.

   I shall not insist on the especial kind of warnings or signs here
   mentioned, but only on the general nature of divine warnings, by the
   word or otherwise, in such a season as wherein an abounding of sin is
   accompanied with great evidences of approaching judgments.

   1. According unto this rule was the dealing of God with the old world;
   which is set forth unto us for an example. See 1 Pet. iii. 20; 2 Pet.
   ii. 5.

   The men of the old world were a sinful, provoking generation. God gave
   them warning of his displeasure by the preaching of Noah, and other
   ways. During his ministry, the long-suffering of God waited for their
   repentance and reformation; for this was the end both of the season and
   of the ministry granted unto them therein: but when it was not complied
   withal, he brought the flood on those ungodly men.

   2. So he dealt with the church under the Old Testament. A summary
   account is given of it, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15-17. After a contempt of all
   God's previous warnings, with a neglect of repentance and reformation,
   the time came when there was no remedy, but the city and temple must be
   destroyed, and the people be partly slain, and partly carried into
   captivity. Accordingly, there is a general rule established for all
   times and seasons, Prov. xxix. 1.

   3. Neither have his dealings been otherwise with the churches of the
   New Testament. All those of the first plantation have been ruined and
   destroyed by the sword of God's displeasure, for impenitency under
   divine calls and warnings.

   4. God gave an eminent instance hereof in the ministry of Jeremiah the
   prophet. He gives him the law of his prophecy, chap. xviii. 7, 8, "At
   what instant 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 their evil, I will
   repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." Here is the whole
   of the truth laid down represented unto us. The nation and kingdom
   especially intended was that of the people and church of the Jews.
   Concerning them it is supposed that they were evil, -- that sin
   abounded amongst them. In this state God gave them warning by the
   ministry of Jeremiah, as he did otherwise also. The voice of these
   warnings was, that they should repent them of their evil, and reform
   their ways. On a supposition whereof he promises to remove the
   judgments which they had deserved, and which were impendent over them:
   upon their failure herein, he declares that fearful desolation should
   befall them; as it did afterward, verses 15-17. According to this rule,
   the prophet persisted in his ministry. The sum of his sermon was this:
   It is a time of great sin and provocation; -- these and these are your
   sins; -- these are evident tokens of God's displeasure against you, and
   of the near approaching of desolating judgments. In this state, repent,
   return, and reform your ways, and you shall be delivered:-- in case you
   do not, utter destruction shall come upon you.

   But the princes, the priests, and generally all the people, set
   themselves against him herein, and would not believe his word.

   And by three things they countenanced themselves in their unbelief and
   impenitency, that they should be delivered; although they did not
   repent nor reform their ways.

   First. By their privileges; -- that they were the only church and
   people of God, who had the temple and his worship amongst them: as if
   he should say, The best reformed church in the world. This they
   directly confront his ministry withal, chap. vii. 3, 4. They fear none
   of his threatenings, they despise his counsel for their safety, approve
   their ways and their doings, because they were the church, and had the
   temple for their security.

   Secondly. By their own strength for war, and their defence against all
   their enemies. They gloried in their wisdom, their might, and their
   riches; as he intimateth, chap. ix. 23.

   Thirdly. By the help and aid which they expected from others,
   especially from Egypt. And herein they thought once that they had
   prevailed against him, and utterly disproved his rule of safety by
   reformation only; for when the Chaldeans besieged the city, by whom the
   judgments he had threatened them withal were to be executed, Pharaoh,
   the king of Egypt, coming up against them, they departed from Jerusalem
   for fear of his army, chap. xxxvii. 5, 11. Hereon, no doubt, they
   triumphed against him, and were satisfied that their own way for
   deliverance was better than that troublesome way of repentance and
   reformation which he prescribed unto them. But he knew from whom he had
   his message, and what would be the event of the false hopes and joys
   which they had entertained. So he tells them, verses 9, 10, "Deceive
   not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for
   they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the
   Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men
   among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn
   this city with fire." Which accordingly came to pass.

   And so it will be with any other people, against all pleas and
   pretences to the contrary.

   Let the case be stated according as it is laid down in the proposition,
   and explained in the instance of Jeremiah.

   Suppose a church or people do abound with provoking sins; that, during
   the time of God's patience towards them, and warning of them, there are
   signs and tokens of his displeasure and of impendent judgments; -- let
   them feed themselves so long as they please with hopes of deliverance
   and safety, -- unless they comply with the calls of God unto repentance
   and reformation, they will fall under desolating judgments, or be
   utterly forsaken of God forever.

   The grounds and reasons of this rule and order in divine dispensations
   are many, plain and obvious; which I shall not at large insist upon.

   I shall only at present mention some of them; because those of the most
   evidence and importance will accrue afterward unto our consideration:--

   1. This rule of proceeding is suited unto the righteousness of God in
   the government of the world, in the inbred light of the minds of men.
   This notion, that judgment or divine vengeance will overtake impenitent
   sinners, who have been previously warned of their sin, is that which we
   are not taught, which we do not learn from one another, -- which is not
   only the voice of divine revelation, but that which is born with us,
   which is inseparable from our nature; the light and conviction whereof,
   neither with respect unto ourselves or others, we can avoid. This is
   the voice of nature in mankind, Impenitent sinners, incurable by
   warnings, are the proper objects of divine displeasure. And the
   absolute impunity of such persons would be a great temptation unto
   atheism, as the suspension of deserved judgments on provoking sinners
   is with some at this day. But ordinarily and finally, God will not act
   contrary unto the inbred notions of his righteousness in the government
   of the world, which he himself hath implanted in the minds of men. But
   as for the times, seasons, and ways of the execution of his judgments,
   he hath reserved them unto his own sovereignty.

   2. It is needful unto the vindication of the faithfulness of God in his
   threatenings, given out by divine revelation. By this he hath always,
   from the beginning of the world, testified unto his own holiness and
   righteousness, whereof they are the most proper expressions. Those
   first recorded of them are in the prophecy of Enoch, Jude 14, 15. And
   they have been since continued in all ages. But whereas the wisdom of
   God, acting in righteousness, hath been accompanied with patience and
   forbearance in the accomplishment of these threatenings, there have
   been, and yet are, mockers and scoffers at these divine threatenings,
   as though they were a mere noise, of no efficacy or signification. So
   the apostle declares the thoughts of the minds of men profane and
   ungodly, 2 Pet. iii. 3, 4. Wherefore, there is a condecency unto the
   divine excellencies, that God, in his own way and time, should
   vindicate his faithfulness in all his threatenings.

   3. God hereby manifests himself to be a God hearing prayers, regarding
   the cries of his poor and distressed witnesses in the world. When the
   world abounds in provoking sins, especially in blood and persecution,
   there is a conjunct cry unto God of those that have suffered, and those
   that do suffer, in heaven and earth, for vengeance on obstinate,
   impenitent sinners. See Luke xviii. 7, 8; Rev. vi. 10. The voices of
   all those, I say, who have suffered unto death in foregoing ages, for
   the testimony of Jesus, and are now in heaven, in a state of expectancy
   of complete glory, with all those of them whose sighs and groans under
   their oppressors do at present ascend unto the throne of God, have the
   sense in them, by divine interpretation, that punishment be inflicted
   on impenitent sinners; as is plainly expressed by our Saviour in that
   place of the gospel affirming that he will avenge his elect speedily,
   who cry unto him day and night. Herein God will vindicate his glory, as
   the God that hears prayers.

   4. A sense of this divine truth is a great and effectual means of God's
   rule in the hearts of men in the world, setting bounds to their lusts,
   and restraining that superfluity of wickedness and villainy which would
   otherwise take away the distinction, as to sin, between the earth and
   hell. If men can at any time free themselves from the terror and
   restraining power of this consideration, that vengeance is always
   approaching towards impenitent sinners, there is nothing so vile, so
   profane, so flagitious, as that they would not wholly give up
   themselves unto it, Eccles. viii. 11, "Because sentence against an evil
   work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men
   is fully set in them to do evil." And God knows, that if impunity in
   this world should always accompany provoking sinners, the temptation
   would be too strong and powerful for the faith of weak believers; which
   he will therefore relieve by frequent instances of his severity.

   In a successive continuation of previous judgments on impenitent
   sinners, there is an uncontrollable evidence given of the certainty of
   that final judgment which all mankind shall be called unto. So the
   apostle proves it, and intimates that it is a foolish thing, the effect
   of obstinacy in sin, -- if men do not learn the certain determination
   and approach of the eternal judgment, from the drowning of the old
   world, the conflagration of Sodom, with the like instances of divine
   severity, 2 Pet. iii. 3.

   My present inquiry hereon is, What is our own concernment in these
   things, -- what are we, for our own good, to learn by the blessed
   instruction given us by our Lord Jesus Christ, in his interpretation of
   the providential occurrences mentioned in the text?

   And this I shall manifest by an impartial inquiry into the things
   ensuing:--

   I. When doth a church, a nation, a people, or city, so abound in sin,
   as to be immediately and directly concerned in his divine warning; and
   what, in particular, is the case of the nation wherein we live, and our
   own therein?

   II. Of what sort are those desolating judgments, which, in one way and
   sense or another, are impendent with respect unto such a church or
   nation, and, consequently, unto ourselves, at this season?

   III. What warnings, calls, and indications of divine displeasure, and
   the approach of calamitous distresses, doth God usually grant, and what
   he hath given, and is giving unto us at present?

   IV. What is the equity, and wherein it doth consist, of the divine
   constitution here attested by our blessed Saviour, that in such a case
   repentance and reformation, and nothing else, shall save and deliver a
   church, a people, a nation, from ruin?

   V. Whereas this rule is so holy, just, and equal, whence is it that all
   sorts of men are so unwilling to comply with it, even in the utmost
   extremity, when all other hopes do fail and perish; and whence is it so
   amongst ourselves at this day?

   VI. What is required unto that reformation which may save any nation --
   this wherein we live -- from desolating calamities when they are
   deserved?

   VII. From what causes at present such a reformation may be expected,
   and by what means it may be begun and accomplished, so as to prevent
   our utter ruin?

   VIII. What is the duty, what ought to be the frame of mind in true
   believers, what their walk and work, in such a season, that, in case
   all means of delivery do fail, they may be found of Christ in peace at
   his coming; for it is but "yet a little while, and he that shall come
   will come, and will not tarry?"

   These things are necessary to be inquired into, that we may help to
   beat out the paths of truth and peace, -- the only ways that lead unto
   our deliverance. The nation is filled with complaints and fears: mutual
   charges on one party and another, as unto the causes of our present
   troubles and approaching dangers, -- various designs and contrivances,
   with vain hopes and vehement desires of this or that way or means of
   help and deliverance, -- cruel hatred and animosities on differences in
   religion, designing no less than the extirpation of all that is good
   therein, -- do abound in it, by all means rending itself in pieces,
   wearying itself in the largeness of its ways; and yet [it] says not
   that there is no hope. But for the most part, the true causes of all
   our troubles and dangers, with the only remedy of them, are utterly
   neglected. The world is filled, yea, the better sort of men in it, with
   other designs, other discourses; -- we hear rarely of these things from
   the pulpits (which are filled with animosities about petty interests,
   and private difference in the approaches of public ruin), nor in the
   counsel of those who pretend to more wisdom. Some think they shall do
   great things by their wisdom and counsel, some by their authority and
   power, some by their number, some by owning the best cause, as they
   suppose; and with many such-like notions are the minds of men
   possessed. But the truth is, the land abounds in sin, -- God is angry,
   and risen out of his holy place, -- judgment lies at the door; and in
   vain shall we seek for remedy or healing any other way than that
   proposed. This, therefore, we shall inquire into.

   The first thing supposed in the proposition before laid down was taken
   from the circumstance of the time wherein, and with reference
   whereunto, our Lord Jesus Christ delivered the rule of the necessity of
   repentance and reformation, unto an escape from total destruction; and
   this was a time when sin greatly abounded in the church and nation. And
   this supposition is the foundation of the truth of the whole assertion;
   for in other cases it may not always hold.

   I. Our first inquiry must, therefore, be, -- "When is a people or
   nation so filled with sin, or when doth sin so abound among them, as,
   in conjunction with the things afterward to be insisted on, to render
   their salvation or deliverance impossible, without repentance and
   reformation?" And it doth so, --

   First. When all sorts of sin abound in it. I do not judge that every
   particular sin, or kind of sinning, that may be named, or may not be
   named, is required hereunto; nor is it so, that there should be the
   same outrage in public sins -- for instance, in blood and oppression --
   as there hath been at some times, and in some places of the world, the
   dark places of the each being filled with habitations of cruelty; nor
   is it so, that sin doth reign at that height, and rage at that rate, as
   it did before the flood, or in Sodom, or before the final destruction
   of Jerusalem, or as it doth in the kingdom of Antichrist: for in that
   case there is no room or place either for repentance or reformation.
   God hides from them the things that concern their peace, that they may
   be utterly and irrecoverably destroyed. But this, I will grant, is
   required hereunto, -- namely, that no known sin that is commonly
   passant in the world can be exempted from having a place in the public
   guilt of such a church or nation. If any such sin be omitted in the
   roll of the indictment, peace may yet dwell in the land. It would be
   too long, and not to my purpose, to draw up a catalogue of sins -- from
   the highest atheism, through the vilest uncleanness, unto the lowest
   oppression that are found amongst us. I shall only say, on the other
   hand, that I know no provoking sin, condemned as such in the book of
   God, whereof instances may not be found in this nation. Who dares make
   this a plea with God for it, namely, that yet it is free and innocent
   from such and such provoking sins? "Produce your cause, saith the Lord;
   bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob;" let us stand
   up, if we can, and plead for ourselves herein. But the only way whereby
   we may come to plead with God in this matter is fully described, Isa.
   i. 16-20. It must be repentance and reformation, laying a ground for
   pleading and arguing with God for pardon and mercy, that must save this
   nation, if it be saved, and not a plea for exemption from judgments on
   the account of our innocency. This is that which, of all things, God
   most abhorred in the people of old, and which all the prophets
   testified against in them.

   But yet, to speak somewhat more particularly unto the first part of the
   proposition, in reference unto ourselves, -- There are four sins, or
   four sorts of sins, or ways in sinning, which, unless God prevent, will
   be the ruin of this nation.

   1. The first is atheism, -- an abomination that these parts of the
   world were unacquainted withal until these latter ages. I do not speak
   concerning speculative or opinionative atheism, in them that deny the
   being of God, or, which is all one, his righteous government of the
   world; for it will not avail any man to believe that God is, unless
   withal he believe that "he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek
   him;" -- yet, of this sort it is to be feared that there are many
   amongst us; yea, some that make great advantages of religion, do live
   and talk as if they esteemed it all a fable. But I speak of that which
   is called practical atheism, -- when men live and act as if they were
   influenced by prevalent thoughts that there is no God. Such the nation
   is replenished withal, and it exerts itself especially two ways:--

   (1.) In cursed oaths and blasphemous execrations, whereby the highest
   contempt is cast on the divine name and being. The most excellent
   Thuanus, [351] giving an account of the Parisian massacre, with the
   horrible desolations that ensued thereon, ascribes it, in the first
   place, unto the anger of God revenging the horrid oaths and monstrous
   blasphemies which, from the court, had spread themselves over all the
   nation, Hist., lib. liii. Nor is it otherwise among us at present;
   though not generally amongst all, yet amongst many, and those
   unpunished.

   (2.) Boldness, confidence, and security in sinning. Many are neither
   ashamed nor afraid to act, avow, yea, and boast of the vilest of sins.
   The awe that men have of the knowledge, conscience, and judgment of
   others, concerning their evil and filthy actions, is one means whereby
   God rules in the world for the restraint of sin. When the yoke hereof
   is utterly cast away, and men proclaim their sins like Sodom, it is the
   height of practical atheism. Nor, I think, did it ever more abound in
   any age than in that wherein we live.

   2. The loss of the power of that religion whose outward form we do
   retain. We are all Protestants, and will abide to be of the Protestant
   religion. But wherein? In the Confession, and all the outward forms of
   the rule and worship of the church. But are men changed, renewed,
   converted to God, by the doctrine of this religion are they made
   humble, holy, zealous, fruitful in good works by it? -- have they
   experience of the power of it in their own souls, in its transforming
   of them into the image of God? Without these things, it is of very
   little avail what religion men profess, This is that which is of evil
   abode to the professors of the Protestant religion at this day through
   the world. The glory, the power, the efficacy of it, are, if not lost
   and dead, yet greatly decayed; and an outward carcase of it, in
   articles of faith and forms of worship, doth only abide. Hence have the
   Reformed Churches, most of them, "a name to live," but are dead; living
   only on a traditional knowledge, principles of education, advantages
   and interest; -- in all which the Roman religion doth every way exceed
   them, and will carry the victory, when the contest is reduced unto such
   principles only. And unless God be pleased, by some renewed effusion of
   his blessed Spirit from above, to revive and reintroduce a spirit of
   life, holiness, zeal, readiness for the cross, conformity unto Christ,
   and contempt of the world, in and among the churches which profess the
   Protestant religion, he will ere long take away the hedge of his
   protecting providence, which now for some ages he hath kept about them,
   and leave them for a spoil unto their enemies. So he threateneth to do
   in the like case, Isa. v. 5, 6. Such is the state described, 2 Tim.
   iii. 1-5.

   3. Open contempt and reproach, of the Spirit of God, in all his divine
   operations, is another sin of the same dreadful abode. Our Lord Jesus
   Christ tells us, that he who "speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall
   not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to
   come," Matt. xii. 32; -- that is, those who persist in opposing or
   reproaching the Holy Ghost, and his dispensation and operations under
   the New Testament, shall not escape vengeance and punishment even in
   this world; for so it befell that generation unto whom he spake. For
   continuing to do despite unto the Spirit of grace, wrath at length came
   upon them, even in this world, unto the utmost; which is the sense of
   the place. Now, scarcely, where the name of Christ was known, did this
   iniquity more abound than it doth at this day amongst us; for not only
   is the divine person of the Holy Spirit by some denied, and the
   substance of the preaching and writing of many is to oppose all his
   peculiar operations, but they are all made a scoff, a derision, and a
   reproach, openly and on all occasions, every day. Especially as he is a
   Spirit of regeneration and supplication, he is the object of multiplied
   sober blasphemies. This iniquity will be revenged.

   4. The abounding of uncleanness, which, having broken forth from a
   corrupt fountain, hath overspread the land like a deluge. These sins, I
   say, among others, have such a predominancy among us, as to threaten
   perishing, without repentance.

   Secondly. It is required, that all sorts and degrees of persons are
   concerned in the guilt of some of these provoking sins; for destruction
   is threatened unto all: "Ye shall all likewise perish;" -- all, not
   universally, "pro singulis generum;" but generally, "pro generibus
   singulorum." Therefore all must be, in some way, guilty of them. And
   this they may be three ways:--

   1. Personally, in their own hearts, lives, and practices; which
   includes a great multitude.

   2. By not hindering and preventing these sins in others, so far as
   their duty leads and their power enables them unto. What number of
   magistrates, of ministers, of parents, of masters of families are
   comprised herein, is evident unto all, especially ministers. See Mal.
   ii. 7, 8; Jer. xxiii. 14, 15.

   3. By not mourning for what they cannot help or remedy; for it is such
   alone as shall be exempted from public calamities, Ezek. ix.: and this,
   in some measure, takes us all in. And the due consideration hereof is
   necessary upon a double account:--

   (1.) It is so unto the manifestation of the glory of God in public
   calamities and desolations, when the sword slays suddenly, and destroys
   the righteous with the wicked. One way or other, in one degree or
   another, we have all of us an access unto the guilt of those things
   whereby such judgments are procured. Who can say he is innocent? who
   can complain of his share and interest in the calamities that are
   coming upon us? who can plead that he ought to be exempted? There will
   be at last an eternal discrimination of persons; but as unto temporal
   judgments, we must own the righteousness of God if we also fall under
   them. And, --

   (2.) It is so, for the humbling of our souls under a sense of sin;
   which would better become some of us, than feeding on the ashes of
   reserves for exemption in the day of distress.

   Some may suppose, that, by reason of their personal freedom from those
   public provoking sins which abound in the nation, -- that on one
   account or other, by one means or other, they shall be safe, as in some
   high place, whence they may look down and behold others in distress and
   confusion. But it is to be feared their mistake will serve only to
   increase their surprisal and sorrow.

   But yet farther; even the practice of provoking sins abounds among all
   sorts of persons. I do not say that all individuals amongst us are
   guilty of them; for were it so, our case were irreparable, like that of
   Sodom, when there were not ten righteous persons to be found in it, --
   that is, such as were free from the guilt of those sins whose cry came
   up to heaven; for then there would be no room for repentance or
   reformation. But whereas there are several sorts and degrees of
   persons, some high and some low, some rulers and some ruled, some rich
   and some poor, -- there is no order, sort, or degree, in court, city,
   country, church, or commonwealth, that are free from provoking sins
   Individuals of all sorts may be so, but no entire sort is so. And this
   farther entitles a nation unto the condition inquired after.

   Thirdly. It is so when the world is full of such sins as are its own,
   -- as are proper to it; and the churches or professors, of such as are
   peculiar unto them. If either of these were free from their several
   provocations, there might be yet room for patience and mercy. And these
   are distinct.

   The sins of the world are, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
   eyes, and the pride of life," -- sensuality, luxury, uncleanness,
   covetousness, ambition, oppression, and the like, with security. In
   these things the nation is fertile towards its own ruin.

   The sins peculiar unto churches and professors are intimated by our
   blessed Saviour in his charge on the Asian churches, Rev. ii. 3 --
   decays in grace, loss of faith and love, barrenness in good works,
   deadness, formality, coldness in profession, self-pleasing, pride,
   hypocrisy, want of zeal for God and delight in him, divisions among
   themselves, and conformity unto the world. And some of these things at
   present are so prevalent among us, that they can never be sufficiently
   bewailed.

   It is no small evidence that the day of the Lord is nigh at hand,
   because the virgins are all slumbering. And it is not unlikely that
   judgment will begin at the house of God. All flesh hath corrupted its
   way; and therefore the end of all, as to its present condition, is at
   hand.

   Fourthly. It is so when the sins of a people are accompanied with the
   highest aggravations that they are capable of in this world; and those
   arise from hence, -- when they are committed against warnings, mercies,
   and patience. These comprise the ways and means which God in his
   goodness and wisdom useth to reclaim and recall men from their sins;
   and by whomsoever they are despised, they treasure up unto themselves
   "wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous
   judgment of God," Rom. ii. 4, 5. What can save a people, by whom the
   only remedies of their relief are despised? What warnings and previous
   judgments we have had in this nation shall be afterward spoken unto.
   That there hath been no effect, no fruit of them, is evident unto all.
   Their language is, "Except ye repent, ye shall perish." Who hath
   complied with the calls of God herein? what reformation hath been
   engaged in on this account? Have we not turned a deaf ear to the calls
   of God? Who hath mourned? who hath trembled? who hath sought for an
   entrance into the chambers of providence in the day of indignation? By
   some these warnings have been despised and scoffed at; by some, put off
   unto others, as their concernment, -- not their own; by the most,
   neglected, or turned into matter of common discourse, without laying
   them to heart.

   And as for mercies, the whole earth hath been turned into a stage for
   the consumption of them on the lusts of men. The nation hath been
   soaked with "showers of mercies," enough to have made it very fruitful
   unto God; but, through a vicious, malignant humour in the hearts of
   men, there have been truly brought forth nothing but pride, vanity,
   gallantry, luxury, and security, in city and country, everywhere. The
   pestilent, deceitful art of sin, hath turned the means of our
   conversion unto God into instruments of rebellion against God. How will
   England answer for abused mercies in the day of visitation And in all
   these things hath the patience also of God been abused, which hath been
   extended unto us beyond all thoughts and expectations. And yet, men of
   all sorts please themselves; as if that, were they over this or that
   difficulty, all would be well again, without any return unto God.

   Fifthly. These things render impendent judgments inevitable, without
   repentance and reformation, when they are committed in a land of light
   and knowledge. Such the land hath been; and wherein yet there is any
   defect therein, it is a part of the sin and punishment of the nation.
   See Isa. xxvi. 10. From the light that was in it, it might well be
   esteemed "a land of uprightness;" but how it hath been rebelled
   against, hated, opposed, maligned, and persecuted, in all the fruits of
   it, is rather (for the sake of some) to be bewailed than declared.

   And thus much may suffice to be spoken unto the first supposition in
   our proposition concerning the sins of a church, nation, or people,
   which unavoidably expose them unto desolating judgments, when God gives
   indication of their approach, unless they are prevented by repentance;
   and we have seen a little, and but a little, of what is our concernment
   herein.

   II. Our second inquiry is, "Of what sort those judgments are, which, in
   a time of great provocation, are to be looked on as impendent, and
   ready to seize on us?" And they are of three sorts:--

   First. Such as are absolute, decretory, and universal.

   There is mention in the Scripture of judgments threatened, which God
   hath, as it were, repented him of, and changed the actings of his
   providence, that they should not be inflicted. See Amos vii. 3, 6. And
   there are judgments threatened, which have been diverted by the
   repentance of men; as it was in the case of Nineveh. But in this case,
   neither will God repent, nor shall man repent; but those judgments
   shall be universal and unavoidable. And of this sort we have three
   instances recorded in Scripture; -- two are past, and one is yet for to
   come:--

   1. The first is that of the old world. It is said that, upon their
   provocations, "God repented him that he had made man on the earth;"
   that is, he would deal with him as if he had done so, -- which must be
   by a universal destruction. He would not repent of the evil he had
   determined; but positively declared that "the end of all flesh was come
   before him." Nor did man repent; for, as our Saviour testifies, they
   continued in their security "until the day that Noah entered into the
   ark," Matt. xxiv. 38. Yet it may be observed, that, after things were
   come to that pass that there was no possibility of turning away the
   judgment threatened, yet God exercised forbearance towards them, and
   gave them the outward means of repentance and reformation, 1 Pet. iii.
   20. They had amongst them the ministry of Noah, a preacher of
   righteousness, and that continued for a long season, in the patience of
   God.

   [And let none please themselves, that they have the outward means of
   the ministry continued unto them; for notwithstanding that fruit of
   God's patience, their destruction may be inevitable. For as God may
   grant it unto them to satisfy his own goodness, and glorify his
   patience; so unto them it may have no other end but the hardening of
   them in their sin, and the aggravation of their sins, Isa. vi. 9-12.
   And this example of the old world is frequently proposed, and that to
   Christians, to professors, to churches, to deliver them from security
   in a time of approaching judgments.] [352]

   2. The second instance hereof was in the Judaical church-state; -- the
   people, nation, temple, worship, and all that was valuable among them.
   This judgment also, in its approach, was such as with respect whereunto
   God would not repent, and man could not repent, although a day, a time
   and space, of repentance was granted unto them. So it is declared by
   our Lord Jesus Christ, Luke xix. 41-44. They had a day, -- it was
   theirs in a peculiar manner, -- a day of patience and of the means of
   conversion, in the ministry of Christ and his apostles. Yet, saith he,
   the things of thy peace are now hid from thee; -- so as that they must
   irrecoverably and eternally perish. So is their state described by the
   apostle, 1 Thess. ii. 14-16.

   But it may be said, If their destruction was so absolutely determined
   that it was impossible it should be either longer suspended or
   diverted, unto what end did God grant them a day -- such a day of grace
   and patience -- which they could not make use of? I answer, He did it
   for the manifestation of the glory of his grace, righteousness, and
   severity; and that these two ways:--

   (1.) In the calling, conversion, and gathering of his elect out of the
   perishing multitude of them that were hardened. During the continuance
   of that day of grace and patience among them, for about the space of
   forty years, all the elect of that generation were converted to God,
   and delivered from the curse that came upon the church and nation. For
   although I will not say but some of them might suffer, yea, fall, in
   the outward public calamities of that season; yet they were all
   delivered from the wrath of God in them, and saved eternally.

   Hereof the apostle gives an account, Rom. xi. 5-10. It is therefore, in
   a time of great provocations, no certain evidence that inevitable
   public judgments are not approaching, because the word and other means
   of grace are effectual to the conversion of some amongst us; for God
   may hereby be gathering of his own unto himself, that way may be made
   for the pouring out of his indignation on them that are hardened.

   (2.) He did it that it might be an aggravation of their sin, and a
   space to fill up the measure of their iniquity; to the glory of his
   severity in their destruction, -- "Towards them that fell, severity."
   They had time to contract all the guilt mentioned by the apostle, 1
   Thess. ii. 14-16; and were brought into the state and condition
   described by the same apostle, Heb. x. 26-30. See Isa. vi. 10-12.

   Of this judgment and destruction, that of the old world was a precedent
   and token, which was despised by those obdurate sinners, 2 Pet. iii.
   5-7.

   3. The third instance of a judgment of this nature, which is yet to
   come, is in the destruction of Antichrist, and the idolatrous kingdom
   of the great adulteress and the persecuting beast. With respect
   hereunto, also, God will not repent, nor shall men do so; so that it is
   inevitable. So is it declared, Rev. xviii. 8. This God hath determined,
   and it shall be accomplished in its appointed season; "for strong is
   the Lord God who judgeth" them, and none shall deliver them out of his
   hand, because of the improbability of it, because of the great power of
   Babylon in itself, and in its allies, the kings and merchants of the
   earth. The omnipotency of God is engaged to secure the church of its
   destruction; "strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." She also hath
   her day, wherein she will not, wherein she shall not, repent. When God
   begins to execute his plagues against her, none that belong unto her
   will repent of any of their abominations, Rev. ix. 20, 21, xvi. 9, 11.
   Yet is there a day of patience continued unto this idolatrous,
   persecuting church; -- partly that they may "fill up the measure of
   their iniquities;" and partly that God may, by the word and means of
   grace, gather out all his people from amongst them, according unto his
   call, Rev. xviii. 4. And our slowness in coming forth from them is
   probably one means of prolonging the day of her desolation. And now the
   Lord Jesus Christ seems to say unto his people what the angel said unto
   Lot, when he led him out of Sodom, Make haste to escape, for I cannot
   do any thing until you are escaped, Gen. xix. 22. And I hope the time
   is approaching wherein he will deal with his people as the angel dealt
   with Lot, verse 16. They are apt to linger, and know not how to leave
   the outward accommodation of the Babylonish state, nor clear themselves
   of innumerable prejudices received therein; but he, being merciful unto
   them, will at length lay hold on them by the word of his power, and
   take them out of the city in a complete relinquishment of that cursed
   state.

   Now, unto this sort of judgments there are two things concurring:--

   1. That there is a determinate decree concerning them.

   2. That there is a judicial obduration upon the people whom they are
   determined against, accompanying them; that no calls to repentance or
   reformation shall be complied withal so as to divert them. I am
   satisfied, upon such evidence as I shall give afterward, that this is
   not the condition of England; howbeit we have cause enough to tremble
   at the severest of divine judgments.

   Secondly. The second sort of judgments are such as are deservedly
   threatened and determined, yet so as that no judicial hardness doth go
   along with them, to make utterly void the preceding day of grace and
   patience, and all reformation impossible.

   They cannot, they shall not, be utterly removed, by a total deliverance
   from them; but yet they may have many alleviations and mitigations, and
   be sanctified unto them whom they do befall. A full instance hereof we
   have in the Babylonish captivity, as an account is given us of it, 2
   Kings xxiii. 25-27, "Like unto him was there no king before him, that
   turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with
   all his might, according to all the law of Moses: neither after him
   arose there any like him. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the
   fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against
   Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him
   withal. And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as
   I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem, which I
   have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there."

   God had decreed and determined to cast off Judah and Jerusalem for
   their sin, -- to bring a wasting desolation upon them. When this
   judgment was approaching, Josiah endeavours a thorough reformation of
   all things in the land, religious, civil, and moral; yet would not God
   revoke his sentence of a great calamity on the whole nation. The secret
   reason hereof was, that the body of the people was hypocritical in that
   reformation, and quickly returned unto their former abominations, Jer.
   iii. 10, "Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but
   feignedly, saith the Lord." See chap. iv. 18. Howbeit, this reformation
   of Josiah was accepted with God, and had its influence into the
   mitigation or sanctification of the ensuing desolation.

   And this sort of judgment is very different from that before insisted
   on. For, --

   1. It is but partial; there is a remnant always left among a people,
   that shall escape it. So was there in those days; there was an escape
   of it, a remnant whom God delivered and preserved; -- which were as a
   blessing in the cluster, on the account whereof the whole was not
   utterly destroyed. This the Scripture very much insists on, Isa. lxv.
   6-8; Zech. xiii. 8, 9; Amos ix. 8, 9.

   2. As it is not total, so it is not final. Even in the severity of his
   wrath, God designed the recovery of that people again in the appointed
   season, -- giving promises thereof unto them that feared him. And so it
   came to pass, in the return of their captivity. See the history hereof,
   Jer. xxxi. 32. God may have, for our sins, determined a desolating
   calamity on this nation; yet if there be not a judiciary hardness upon
   us, it may only be partial, and recoverable; -- not as it was with
   Israel, 1 Kings xiv. 10. See Jer. iv. 27, v. 18, xxx. to xxxii.

   3. It was sanctified and blessed unto them who were upright and
   sincere, and who endeavoured the removal of it by reformation, though
   they suffered in the outward calamity. The good figs, or those typed by
   them, were carried into captivity; but the dealing of God with them
   therein was in mercy, Jer. xxiv. 6, 7, "I will," saith God, "set mine
   eyes upon them for good: and I will build them, and not pull them down;
   and I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they
   shall be my people, and I will be their God." Whatever was their
   outward condition, those internal, spiritual mercies and privileges
   made it sweet and useful unto them. The third part was brought through
   the fire, Zech. xiii. 8, 9.

   4. God makes this sort of judgment a means fully to reclaim and reform
   them, as many of those who in general suffer under them. They are God's
   furnace, but not to burn; -- they purify and cleanse as silver is
   tried, and do not bum up as stubble is consumed. So was that church by
   their captivity purged from their idols forever. And many other
   differences of the like nature might be assigned.

   And in the consideration of this sort of judgments lies our
   concernment. Who knows but that God, for our horrible neglect and
   contempt of the gospel, with all the cursed immoralities and
   abominations which have ensued thereon, and the cold, dead frame of
   professors under various means of instruction, hath determined to bring
   a wasting calamity on this nation, and that he will not turn away from
   the fierceness of his wrath, but it shall overtake us? If there be a
   judicial hardness upon the land, so as that there is no repentance, no
   reformation endeavoured in this day of patience and forbearance which
   we yet enjoy, our desolation will be total, unsanctified, irrevocable;
   and though another people may be raised up to profess the gospel in the
   land, yet shall we be unconcerned in the mercy. So hath it been before
   in this nation, and in all the Christian nations of Europe. Woe unto
   us, if we thus betray the land of our nativity, -- if we thus give it
   up to be a hissing and astonishment! Hearken not unto vain words; this
   or that way we shall be delivered: it is the day of our trial, and who
   knows what will be the evening thereof? But, on the other hand,
   although a public calamity should be determined irrevocably against us,
   if we use the day of forbearance unto the ends of it, -- in repentance
   and returning unto God, -- we shall at length have all the advantages
   before mentioned. It will be but partial; it will be but for a time; it
   will be sanctified; -- it will purify the church, and restore it unto a
   more glorious state than ever before.

   Thirdly. There are judgments which are deserved and threatened, but not
   decreed and determined, which may be absolutely diverted and escaped.
   This sort of judgments is frequently mentioned in the Scripture; and so
   also are frequent deliverances from them, by the ways and means of
   God's appointment.

   And concerning them we may observe, --

   1. That this threatening of approaching judgments, which yet may be
   averted, is a declaration of the ordinary rule of divine justice,
   according whereunto a nation or people, without an interposition of
   sovereign mercy, ought to be destroyed.

   God doth not threaten, he doth not give warnings, signs, or indications
   of approaching judgments, but when they are deserved, and may
   righteously be executed; nor is there any known rule of the word to
   give an assurance of the contrary. All that can be said is, "Who knows
   but that the Lord may repent, and turn from the fierceness of his
   wrath?"

   2. The threatening of them is an ordinance of God, to call us unto the
   use of such means as whereby they may be prevented.

   He foretells our destruction, that we may not be destroyed; as it was
   in the case of Nineveh. And this is the only symptom whereby we find
   out and discern the nature of threatened impendent judgments. If the
   consideration of them be an ordinance of God, stirring us up to the
   diligent use of the means whereby they may be prevented, the design of
   God is to give in deliverance in the issue. If it doth not, they are
   inevitable. God holds the balance yet in his hand, and we know not
   which way we incline. The best prognostication we can take, is from the
   frame of our own hearts under the threatenings of them.

   Here lies the trial of this poor land and nation at this day; judgment
   is deserved, judgment is threatened, judgment is approaching, -- the
   clouds are the dust of his feet. If all sorts of men turn not to God by
   repentance, -- if we are not humbled for our contempt of the gospel and
   outrage against it, -- if we leave not our provoking sins, -- evil will
   overtake us, and we shall not escape. And yet, on the other hand, by a
   due application unto him who holds the balance in his hand, mercy may
   glory against justice, and we may have deliverance.

   Those great men who suppose all things pervious unto their wisdom, and
   conquerable by their industry, who have a thousand flattering
   contrivances for the safety of a nation, cannot more despise these
   things than I do all their counsels without them. And when they shall
   be at a loss, and shall find one disappointment following on the neck
   of another, those who attend unto the advice of God in this case shall
   find rest and peace in their own souls. And as for them who scoff at
   these things, and say, "Where is the promise of his coming?" -- that
   is, in the way of judgment, -- "for since the fathers fell asleep, all
   things continue as they were from the creation;" there needs no regard
   unto God in these things; trouble us not with the fooleries of your
   repentance and reformation; -- God will "laugh at their calamity,"
   etc., Prov. i. 26, to the end.

   This is the second thing we were to insist on, for the clearing and
   confirmation of the general proposition before laid down.

   III. Our third inquiry is, "What evidences we have at present, or what
   warnings we have had, of approaching judgments?" for this also belongs
   unto the indispensable necessity of repentance and reformation, upon
   the approaching of troubles. And they are the ordinances of God unto
   that end; which when they are despised, desolating judgments will
   ensue.

   And we may, unto this end, observe these things:--

   First, Ordinarily, God doth not bring wasting, desolating judgments on
   any people, church, or nation, but that he gives them warnings of their
   approach.

   I say, he doth not ordinarily do so; for he may, if he please, surprise
   a wicked, provoking generation of men with the most dreadful
   destructions; as he did Sodom and Gomorrah of old. And very many daily
   are so surprised, as unto their own apprehensions; though, really, God
   had given them signs of what was coming upon them, but they regarded
   them not, and so perished as in a moment. But ordinarily, before he
   executes great and severe judgments, he gives such indications, signs,
   and warnings of their coming, as that men should be forced to take
   notice of them, unless they be absolutely hardened and blinded. So he
   dealt with the old world, in the building of the ark, and the ministry
   of Noah; so he dealt with the church under the Old Testament, in and by
   the ministry of the prophets, -- see Amos iii. 6-8; and so he hath done
   with all others, who have had any knowledge of him or of his ways. They
   that are wise may discern these things, Hos. xiv. 9; Matt. xvi. 3; Mic.
   vi. 9; Dan. xii. 10. And in all heathen stories of the times that
   passed over them, we find remarks of strange indications of approaching
   desolations. And he doth it for two ends:--

   1. For the satisfaction of his own goodness and love to mankind in the
   exercise of patience and forbearance unto the utmost, Hos. vi. 4; as
   also for the manifestation of the glory of his justice, when he comes
   to execute the severity of his wrath. When men are surprised with
   public calamities, they shall not be able to say, Would none tell us of
   their approach? would none give us warning of them? -- had we been told
   of the terror of the Lord in his judgments, we would have turned from
   our iniquities, that we might have escaped. In this case, it is usual
   with God in the Scripture to call heaven and earth to witness against
   men, that he did warn them, by various means, of what would befall them
   in the end. This is our principal reason why this weak but sincere
   "Testimony for God" is published. And this shall be an aggravation of
   their misery in the day of their distress, when they shall seriously
   reflect upon themselves as unto their folly, guilt, and obstinacy, in
   despising the warnings which they had received; -- which is a great
   part of the punishment of the damned in hell, Ezek. xxxix. 23, 24.

   2. God doth it for the end under consideration; namely, that they may
   be a means to call a poor guilty people unto that repentance and
   reformation whereby impendent judgments may be diverted.

   Secondly. There are five ways whereby God giveth warning of the
   approach of desolating judgments when a land is full of sin:--

   1. He doth it by lesser previous judgments and severities. So was it in
   the instances in the text. The destruction of some by the sword and the
   fall of a tower, was a warning to the whole nation of the approach of a
   public calamity, unless they repented. As particular instances are
   given us hereof in the Scripture, so we have a general account of this
   method of divine Providence, Amos vii. 1-9. First, God sent the
   judgment of the grasshoppers, which eat up all the grass of the land,
   and so occasioned a famine. This judgment being not improved unto
   repentance, he "called to contend by fire, which devoured the great
   deep, and did eat up a part," or consumed their treasure, devouring a
   part of their substance. But when this also was neglected, then came
   the "plumb-line" of a levelling desolation.

   2. He doth it by extraordinary and preternatural operations in the
   works of nature: such as are comets or blazing stars, fiery meteors,
   dreadful phantoms or appearances in the air, voices, predictions of
   uncertain original, mighty winds, earthquakes, stopping the course of
   rivers, and the like. An account of these things, as they were to
   foretell and fore-signify the fatal destruction of Jerusalem, is given
   us by our Saviour, Luke xxi. 25, 26. And the story of the event in
   Josephus is an admirable exposition of this prophecy of our blessed
   Saviour. See Rev. vi. 13, 14. The frame of nature is, as it were, cast
   into a trembling disorder upon the approaches of God in his wrath and
   fury, and puts itself forth in extraordinary signs of its astonishment;
   trembling for the inhabitants of the earth, and calling on them to
   repent, before the wrath of the Terrible One do seize upon them. So in
   the Scripture, the seas and rivers, mountains and hills, are
   represented as mourning, shaking, trembling at the presence of God,
   when he comes to execute his judgments. See Hab. iii. 6, 8, 10, "He
   drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were
   scattered, the perpetual hills did bow. Was the Lord displeased against
   the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against
   the sea? The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of
   the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his
   hands on high."

   The mountains, hills, seas, rivers bowed, trembled, and lifted up their
   hands, as crying for compassion. See Ps. xcvii. 2-6. By these signs and
   tokens in heaven and earth cloth God give warnings of his coming to
   judge the inhabitants of the earth. God doth not work these strange
   things in heaven above, and the earth beneath, that they should be
   gazed at only, and made a matter of talk; not that they should be
   subjects of some men's curiosity, and of the scorn of others. There is
   a voice in them all, -- a voice of God; and it will be to their hurt by
   whom it is not heard and understood.

   3. He doth the same constantly, by the light of his word. The general
   rule of God's ordinary dispensation of providence is fully laid down in
   the Scripture: "God hath magnified his word above all his name;" so as
   that no works of providence shall be unsuited to the rule of the word,
   much less contrary to it, or inconsistent with it. And if we were wise
   to make application of it unto present affairs and occasions, we
   should, in most instances, know in general what God is doing. Of old it
   was said, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing," -- that is, in the way
   of judgments, "but he revealeth his secret to his servants the
   prophets," Amos iii. 7. What they had by immediate revelation, we may
   have, in a measure, by the rule of the word, and the declaration which
   God hath made therein how he will deal with a sinful, provoking people.
   So, having threatened various sorts of judgments, the prophet adds,
   "Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read: no one of these shall
   fail," Isa. xxxiv. 16.

   That this great means of divine warnings may be useful unto us, we are
   to consider, --

   (1.) What are the stable rules given in the Scripture concerning sin,
   repentance, impenitence, and judgments. Such rules abound in it: and no
   dispensations of Providence shall interfere with them. God will not
   give such a temptation unto faith that any of his works should be
   contradictions unto his word. And if we will learn our present
   condition from these rules, it will be an antidote against security.

   (2.) Consider the instances recorded therein of God's dealings with
   sinful, provoking nations and churches. This God himself directed the
   people of old unto, when they boasted of their church privileges,
   sending them to Shiloh, which he had destroyed. And when we find a
   record in the book of God concerning his severity towards any nation in
   our circumstances, it is our duty to believe that he will deal so with
   us also in his time, unless we repent.

   (3.) Always bear in mind our infallible guidance as unto God's final
   dealing with impenitent sinners. This the whole Scripture constantly,
   equally, universally witnesses unto, that it shall be eternal
   destruction; and this will preserve us from distracting surprisals,
   when we find things fall out beyond our expectation in a way of
   severity.

   (4.) Consider those signs, marks, and tokens of approaching judgments
   which are set up in the world; which whoso doth wisely consider, he
   will not fail in his prognostication of future events. Among these,
   abounding in sin with security, in such persons, nations, cities, and
   churches, as God is pleased by the gospel to take near unto himself in
   a peculiar manner, is the most eminent. For those signs are buoys,
   fixed to show where we shall certainly make shipwreck if we approach
   unto them. When these rules are observed, when they are diligently
   attended unto and complied withal, so as that we receive instruction
   from them, I shall say with some confidence, that every believer shall
   know what God is doing in a way of judgment, so far as is necessary
   unto his guidance in his own duty, wherein he shall find acceptance,
   and not provoke God in the neglect of it.

   4. God hath appointed the ministry of the word unto the same end. The
   principal end of the ministry under the gospel is the dispensation of
   the word of reconciliation. But neither is yet this work of giving
   warning of approaching judgments exempted from that office and duty.
   Christ himself in his ministry preacheth here on this subject. They are
   watchmen and overseers; and their duty herein is graphically expressed,
   Ezek. xxxiii. 2-9. When God placeth any as a watchman for a people, one
   part of his duty is to look diligently after the approach of dangers
   and evils, -- such, I mean, as come on the account of sin; and thereon
   to awaken and stir up the people to take care of themselves that they
   be not destroyed. The shepherd is not only to provide good pasture for
   his sheep, but to keep them from danger. The watchman "hearkened
   diligently with much heed, and he cried, A lion," Isa. xxi. 7, 8.
   Having made a discovery of approaching danger, he cries out to the
   people, to warn them of it. But if the watchmen are slothful and
   sleepy; if they are dumb dogs, and cannot bark when evil cometh; if
   they are light and treacherous persons, blind guides that have no
   vision; if they also are under a spirit of slumber and security, so as
   that the people are not warned by them of their danger, -- this is one
   of the most severe tokens of wrath approaching. It is a great warning,
   when God takes away the means of warning; -- when he says unto a
   people, "I will warn you no more," by giving them such watchmen as are
   neither faithful nor able to warn them, and by taking away those that
   are.

   5. God gives warnings hereof, by bringing a people into such a posture,
   condition, and circumstances, as do in their own nature tend unto ruin.
   Such are cross interests among themselves, incurable divisions,
   contrary and unsteady counsels, weakness in spirit and courage, mutual
   distrusts, effeminacy through luxury, with one or other insuperable
   entanglement; which are the ways and means whereby nations precipitate
   themselves into a calamitous condition. In general, as unto this
   previous warning of approaching judgments, God threatens to send among
   a people who are tending towards ruin, a "moth," and a "hornet." The
   moth he threatens, Isa. li. 8; Hos. v. 12. Somewhat shall eat up and
   devour the strength and sinews of the counsels of a nation, as a moth
   devoureth a garment. Whilst it lies still, it seems, it may be, to be
   sound and firm; -- hold it up to the light, and it appears full of
   holes, and is easily torn with the finger. So is it with a nation; --
   whatever outward peace it seems to enjoy, when it is decayed in the
   wisdom and strength of its counsels, it is easily torn in pieces. And
   in like manner he sends the hornet unto the same end, Exod. xxiii. 28;
   Deut. vii. 20; -- that is, that which shall vex, disquiet, and torment
   them, that they shall be ready every one to strike himself, or the next
   that he meeteth withal. And many of these hornets are at present among
   us.

   These are some of the ways whereby God warneth a people, church, or
   nation, of approaching judgments.

   It concerneth us, now, to inquire how it is, how it hath been with us,
   with reference hereunto. And I say, --

   1. It is not necessary that God should use all these ways of warning of
   a sinful people of approaching desolations, if not prevented by
   repentance. It is enough, unto the ends of this dispensation of divine
   wisdom and goodness, if he make use of some of them, or of any one of
   them in an eminent manner. Wherefore, if any of them have been wanting
   among us, yet if we have had others of them, it is sufficient to render
   us inexcusable if we repent not. But, --

   2. The truth is, we have, upon the matter, had them all, and they have
   abounded amongst us.

   We have had the previous judgments of plague, fire, and war.

   Some may say they were desolating judgments themselves; and so indeed
   they were. But whereas sin still aboundeth, and no reformation ensued
   upon them in any places, among any sort of persons, they were but
   warnings of what is yet to come, if not prevented; and their language
   is, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

   We have had a multiplication of signs, in the heaven above, and in the
   earth beneath; such as all mankind have ever esteemed forerunners of
   public calamities; and the more they are despised, the louder is their
   voice to the same purpose. God hath continued hitherto his word amongst
   us, wherein the ordinary rule of his providence in these things is
   openly declared. And if those unto whom the declaration of the word of
   God, in the dispensation of it, is committed, have not faithfully
   warned the people of their danger, their blood may be found at their
   door. Herein, at present, lies our greatest strait. The efficacy of all
   other calls of God unto repentance depends much on the application of
   them unto the souls and consciences of men in the preaching of the
   word. But whilst by some this work is despised, at least counted
   unnecessary, by some it is neglected utterly; and others, by reason of
   their private capacities, whereby they are disenabled to speak unto
   magistrates, cities, or the community of the people, think not
   themselves concerned therein, [and] it is almost wholly laid aside. For
   what, will some say, doth this speaking unto a few in a retirement
   signify, as unto a general reformation of the people of the land? But
   whereas we have all sinned in our measures, -- churches, and all sorts
   of more strict professors of religion, -- it is every one's duty to be
   pressing these warnings of God within his own bounds and precincts. And
   if each of us should prevail but with one to return effectually to God,
   it will be accepted with him, who, in such a season, seeks for a man to
   stand in the gap, to turn away his wrath, and will save a city for the
   sake of ten, if they be found therein. Let us not pretend that the
   repentance and reformation called for respect the public enormous sins
   of the nation, in atheism, profaneness, sensuality, luxury, pride,
   oppression, hatred of the truth, contempt of the ministry of the
   gospel, and the like. They do so, indeed, but not only; -- they respect
   also the decays in faith, love, zeal, with love of the world,
   conformity unto it, lukewarmness, that are found amongst the most
   eminent professors of religion. This is our present wound; here lies
   our weakness, -- namely, in the want of a quick, active, zealous
   ministry, to call and stir up magistrates and people to effectual
   repentance, and turning to God. Unless this be given unto us, I fear we
   cannot be saved. If it be otherwise, -- if we have a ministry that
   really do attend unto their duty in this matter, -- I beg their pardon
   for other apprehensions: but then I shall think it the most pregnant
   sign of approaching destruction; seeing it is apparent unto all that
   their endeavours have neither fruit nor success.

   So far have we proceeded with our proposition, -- namely, that sin
   abounds amongst us; that judgments are approaching; that God hath
   giver, us manifold warnings of their so doing.

   IV. That which, in the next place, we are to speak unto is, "The equity
   of this divine constitution, -- that, in the ordinary way of God's rule
   and dispensation of his providence, repentance and reformation shall
   turn away impendent judgments, and procure unto a people a blessed
   deliverance; and nothing else shall do it:" "Except ye repent, ye shall
   perish."

   That upon repentance they shall be saved and delivered, is intended in
   the same rule. This is the unalterable law of divine Providence; this
   shall do it, and nothing else shall so do. The wisdom and power of men
   shall not do it; fasting and prayer, whilst we continue in our sins,
   shall not do it. Repentance alone is made the condition of deliverance
   in this state of things.

   Upon this rule did God vindicate the equity of his ways against
   repining Israel, Ezek. xviii. 29-32: Can any thing be more just and
   equal? Ruin and utter desolation are ready to fall upon the whole
   people. This you have deserved by your iniquities and multiplied
   provocations. In strict justice, they ought immediately to come upon
   you. But "my ways are equal;" I will not deal with you in a way of
   strict justice; I will do it in equity, which is a meet temperature of
   justice and mercy. And this I make evident unto you herein, in that,
   whilst the execution of judgment is only threatened and suspended, if
   you make unto yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, in sincere
   repentance, -- if you cast away all your transgressions by thorough
   reformation of your lives, -- iniquity shall not be your ruin. What can
   be more just, righteous, and equal? Who can complain if, after all
   this, evil should overtake you, and you shall not escape? The same he
   pleads again, chap. xxxiii. 10, 11, as in many other places.

   That this divine constitution (namely, that repentance and reformation
   shall save a church, people, or nation, in the state before described,
   and that nothing else shall do so, however men may please and pride
   themselves in their own imaginations) is equal, just, and good, -- that
   it is meet it should be so, that it hath a condecency unto the divine
   excellencies, and the rule of righteousness in government, -- is
   evident; for, --

   First. The notion of this rule is inbred in mankind by nature, as was
   mentioned before. There is no man, unless he be atheistically
   profligate, but, when he apprehends that evil and ruin, especially as
   unto his life, is ready to overtake him, and seize upon him, but he
   reflects on his sins, and comes to some resolutions of forsaking them
   for the future, so he may be at present delivered from his deplorable
   condition. Now, all this ariseth from these indelible notions ingrafted
   on the minds of men:-- that all evil of punishment is from God; that it
   is for sin; that there is no way to avoid it but by repentance and
   reformation. And those who will not improve this natural light with
   respect unto the public, will be found, as it were, whether they will
   or no, to comply with it when it comes to be their own case in
   particular. Herein lies a thousand testimonies unto the equity of this
   divine constitution.

   Secondly. When this rule is complied withal, -- when repentance and
   reformation do ensue upon divine warnings, whereby peace with God is in
   some measure attained, -- it will give men trust and confidence in him,
   with expectation of divine relief in their distress; which is the most
   effectual means for men to be instrumental unto their own deliverance:
   and, on the other side, when it is neglected, when evil approaches,
   guilt and terror will haunt (the minds of men, and they shall not be
   able to entertain one thought of divine help; which will render them
   heartless, helpless, senseless, and betray them into cowardice and
   pusillanimity, however they may boast at present. If these two sorts
   are opposed, ten shall chase a hundred, and a hundred put a thousand to
   flight. And if any nation do openly refuse a compliance with this
   constitution, if God should send another to invade them, in a way of
   judgment, they would melt away before them as wax before the fire. When
   evils compass us about, and are ready to seize upon us, a reflection on
   the neglect of this rule will disturb our counsels, distract our
   thoughts, distress our minds, weaken our confidence in God, and
   dishearten the stoutest of the sons of men, giving them up a prey to
   their enemies.

   Thirdly. This rule or constitution hath an impression of all divine
   excellencies upon it; namely, of the goodness, patience, wisdom,
   righteousness, and holiness of God.

   If, when judgments are approaching and deserved, men could divert them
   by their wisdom, courage, or diligence, it would reflect dishonour on
   God in the government of the world. See Isa. xxii. 7-11. But in this
   way of the deliverance of any people, there is a salvo for the glory of
   all the divine excellencies, as is manifested unto all.

   When, therefore, in this state, impendent judgments are not absolutely
   determined, yet so deserved as that, upon a supposition of continuance
   in those sins whereby they are deserved, the glory of divine justice
   cannot be vindicated in the absolute impunity; and whereas God hath now
   prepared all things, and made them ready for their execution, all means
   and instruments being girt unto the work, his sword is whetted, and his
   arrows are fixed in the bow, he will first give warning, then give
   space and time for repentance, and requires no more for the laying
   aside of all his preparations for destruction, -- surely his ways are
   equal, kind, and full of mercy.

   If men will look for, if they will expect deliverance, without a
   compliance with these good, holy, just, gracious, equal terms, they
   will find themselves, in the issue, wofully deceived. And if, after all
   this, we in this nation should be found in a neglect hereof, -- if the
   nation should continue in its present frame, wherein, of all other
   means of safety, this seems to be least thought of or regarded, -- what
   shall we plead for ourselves? who shall pity us in the day of distress?
   Most men now despise these things; but can their hearts endure, or can
   their hands be strong, in the day that the Lord shall deal with them?
   But, --

   V. Whereas this way, this means of deliverance, is so just, so equal,
   so reasonable, manifesting itself to the consciences and reason of
   mankind, owned by the very heathens, and fully confirmed by divine
   revelation, our next inquiry must be, "Whence it is that there is such
   an unreadiness, such an unwillingness to comply with this duty as there
   is; that so many difficulties are esteemed to be in it, -- so as that
   there is little hope it will be found among us in a prevalent degree?"

   If men, especially such as are great, and esteem themselves to be wise,
   are told that this is the way to save and deliver the nation, they turn
   away in a wrath, as Naaman did when the prophet bid him wash and be
   clean, when he would have rather expected an injunction of some heroic
   exploits:-- These are thoughts for weak and pusillanimous souls, who
   understand nothing of state affairs. But it will ere long appear who is
   wisest, -- God or men. But a hard thing it is to prevail with any to
   think well of it, or to go about it, or to judge that it is the only
   balm for our wounds.

   To find out the cause hereof, I shall briefly consider all sorts of
   persons who are concerned to plant this healing tree, whose root is
   repentance, and whose fruit is reformation of life. And they are of
   three sorts:-- 1. Magistrates; 2. Ministers; 3. The people themselves.

   Unless there be a concurrence of the endeavours of them all, in their
   several places and duties, there will be no such public work of
   repentance and reformation wrought as is suited unto the turning away
   of public calamities. But yet, though it be the express duty of them
   all, though it be their interest, though it cannot be omitted but at
   their utmost peril, as unto temporal and eternal events, yet it is a
   marvellous hard and difficult work to prevail with any of them to
   engage vigorously in it. Some do not think it necessary; -- some, after
   conviction of its necessity, either know not how to go about it, or
   linger in its undertaking, or are quickly wearied; -- some wish it were
   done, so as that they may not be at the trouble of it.

   Let us consider them distinctly, --

   First. As unto magistrates. When Jehoshaphat set himself to reform the
   church, or his kingdom, to escape the judgment that was denounced
   against them, he appointed for magistrates and judges men fearing God
   and hating covetousness. And his charge unto them was, "Let the fear of
   the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it. Thus shall ye do in the fear
   of the Lord, faithfully, and with a perfect heart," 2 Chron. xix. 7, 9.
   Without this there will be no public reformation; and therefore the
   first difficulty of it ariseth from this sort of persons, and that upon
   two accounts:--

   1. That magistrates themselves do live in sin, and love it, and hate to
   be personally reformed; yea, take delight in them that openly live in
   sin also, -- which is the height of wickedness, Rom. i. 32. When
   magistrates are profane swearers, or scoffers at the power of religion,
   or drunkards, or unclean persons, or covetous oppressors, a great
   obstruction must needs be laid in the way of public repentance and
   reformation; neither doth this difficulty at present arise merely from
   their personal sins and miscarriages, but also from the want of
   conviction, and a sense of their duty in their places, with the account
   which they must give thereof. For, --

   2. They seem not to believe that the attempting of this work is any
   part of their duty, or that they are concerned therein. Let it,
   therefore, be never so reasonable, so equal, so important, so necessary
   unto the deliverance and salvation of any people, if those who should
   further it in the first place do obstruct and hinder it, it will be
   attended with difficulties. Ill examples and negligence have ruined
   this nation.

   Wherefore, we may lay it down as an assured truth, which the text will
   confirm, --

   That unless magistrates, who have the visible conduct of the people,
   are convinced that it is their duty to promote the work of repentance
   and reformation at this time, by their own example, and in the
   discharge of their offices, the case of this nation is deplorable, and
   not to be relieved but by sovereign grace and mercy. For what shall the
   people do, when they see their guides, unto whose pattern they conform
   themselves, utterly regardless of any such thing? This is one means of
   the difficulty which is found among us, of affecting the minds of men
   with this equal constitution.

   Secondly. Those who are principally concerned herein are ministers, or
   those who have the administration of the word and ordinances of the
   gospel committed unto them. Unto these is this work given in charge in
   an especial manner. They have the principal means of repentance and
   reformation committed to their management. From them is the beginning
   and carrying on of this work expected and required. Hereof, as unto
   their sincerity and diligence, they must give an account at the last
   day. And if this spring be stopped, whence should the refreshing waters
   of repentance and reformation arise? But yet herein the principal
   difficulty of the whole work doth consist. For, --

   1. Some there are, pretending unto this office, in whom lies no small
   part of the evil that is to be reformed; -- persons who labour among
   the most forward to fill up the measure of the iniquities of this
   nation; such as whose ignorance, negligence, profaneness, and
   debauchery, are, in all their effects, transfused and communicated unto
   all that are about them. Shall we expect that such persons will be
   instrumental in the reforming of others, who hate to be reformed
   themselves? Jer. xxiii. 15. It was so of old. But, --

   2. There are very few of this sort of persons who will be at the charge
   of carrying on this work. They may quickly find what it will cost them;
   for unless they are exemplary in it themselves, it is in vain once to
   attempt the pressing of it upon others. They cannot go about it without
   great retrenchings of that which they have esteemed their liberty in
   the course of their conversations. All compliance with unreformed
   persons, for secular ends; all conformity unto the course of the world,
   in jollities and pride of life; all ostentation of riches, wealth, and
   power; all self-seeking and self-pleasing; all lightness and carnal
   confidences, -- must utterly be cast away. And not only so, but unless,
   by incessant prayers and supplications, with earnestness and
   perseverance, they labour for fresh anointings with the Spirit of grace
   in their own souls, that faith, and love, and zeal for God, and
   compassion for the souls of men, and readiness for the cross, may
   revive and flourish in them, -- they will not be useful, nor
   instrumental in this work. And is it any wonder that the most of them
   think it better to suffer things to go on at the present rate, than to
   venture at that which will cost them so dear in its pursuit The truth
   is, I know very few, if any, who are meet and fit to engage in this
   work in a visible eminent manner; -- those who have the best, almost
   the only, opportunities for it, seem to be asleep.

   3. Besides the charge they must be at themselves, they perceive the
   opposition they shall meet withal from others. They find that they
   shall not only disoblige and provoke all sorts of persons, and lose
   many of their useful friends, but also expose themselves unto obloquy,
   scorn, contempt, and reproach of all sorts. He is a lost man in this
   world, who, without respect of persons, will engage seriously in this
   work; every day he shall find one or other displeased, if not provoked.
   This neither they nor their families can well bear withal. Indeed, the
   hardest and most difficult service that ever God called any of his
   ministers unto, excepting only Jesus Christ and his apostles, hath been
   in the endeavouring the reformation of backsliding or
   spiritually-decayed churches These are the two witnesses which, in all
   ages, have prophesied in sackcloth. Such was the ministry of Elijah,
   which brought him unto that conclusion, and an earnest longing to be
   delivered by death from his work and ministry, 1 Kings xix. 4. So was
   that of Jeremiah, in the like season, whereof he so complains, chap.
   xv. 10. John the Baptist, in the same work, lost first his liberty,
   then his life. And, in after ages, Chrysostom, for the same cause, was
   hated by the clergy, persecuted by the court, and at length driven into
   banishment, where he died. Most men care not how little a share they
   have in such a work as this, whose reward will reach them according to
   the proportion of their engagement in it. All churches, all persons
   almost, would willingly be let alone in the condition wherein they are;
   -- they that would press them unto due reformation, ever were, and ever
   will be, looked on as their troublers.

   Hence, then, it is that our wound is incurable:-- Few of this sort, are
   convinced of the present necessity of this duty; they hope things are
   indifferently well with them and their flocks, -- that they may endure
   their time well enough. Few are willing to undergo the charge and
   trouble of it, -- to put all their present circumstances into disorder.
   Few have received an anointing for the work; many are able to dispute
   against any attempts of it; and not a few have expectations of strange
   deliverances without it. What is left us in this case shall afterward
   be declared.

   Thirdly. It is difficult also on the account of the people that are to
   be reformed. It is hard to convince them of its necessity, -- hard to
   persuade them to endeavour it, -- hard to get them to persevere in
   attempts for it.

   Some of the reasons hereof we may briefly consider; as, --

   1. That self-justification and approbation of themselves which all
   sorts of persons, both by nature and by incurable prejudices, are
   inclined unto, lie at the bottom of this fatal negligence. When they
   see all things amiss, they will grant that there is some reformation
   necessary; but that it is so for others, and not for them. Those that
   are worse than they (as there are but few who do not think, on one
   pretence or other, that there are many worse than themselves), they
   suppose this duty is necessary unto, -- but not unto them. And if there
   are none visibly so, yet they will make them, and judge them so to be.
   But whilst men have a form of godliness, though they deny the power
   thereof, they will justify themselves from all need of reformation.
   Churches will do so, and all sorts of professors of religion will do
   so, -- especially if they have any peculiar notion or practice which
   they value themselves upon. So was it with the Jews of old, Jer. vii.
   9, 10; and with the Pharisees in the days of our Saviour, John ix. 40.
   It is so at this day; and it is a rare thing to meet with any who will
   own themselves to stand in need of real laborious reformation.

   Hence it is that no churches would ever reform themselves; which hath
   been the cause of all division and separation, whereby some have been
   saved from a general apostasy. They all approve themselves in their
   state and condition; which is come to that height in the papal church
   that they boast themselves infallible, and not capable of reformation
   in any thing. I pray God secure others from the like presumptions! It
   will be their ruin by whom they are entertained. Yet so it is at this
   day. Most churches think they need more revenues, more honour, more
   freedom from opposition, more submission of all men unto them; but they
   almost abhor the thought that they stand in need of any reformation.

   2. The nature of the work itself renders it difficult; for it requires
   a general change of the course wherein men have been engaged; -- a
   thing as difficult as to cause the streams of a mighty river to change
   their course and run backward. Vicious habits must be subdued, --
   inclinations riveted in the mind by long practice and custom be cast
   out, -- ways of conversation promoted and strengthened by all sorts of
   circumstances changed; -- which render the work unto some men
   impossible. So the prophet declares it, Jer. xiii. 23, "Can the
   Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also
   do good, that are accustomed to do evil." Men cannot easily unlearn
   what they have been so taught or accustomed unto. The mighty power of
   God on the souls of men, both as unto individual persons and whole
   societies, is required unto this change. So it may be wrought, and not
   otherwise, Isa. xi. 6-9.

   3. The advantage which many may make unto themselves by the present
   posture of things, and fear of alterations by reformation, is a
   mountain in the way, -- a mighty obstacle against entertaining serious
   thoughts about it.

   4. The Scripture most frequently casts the cause hereof on men's
   security in their earthly enjoyments. This keeps them safe from hearing
   God's calls, or taking notice of his warnings. And therefore it is laid
   down as the cause and constant forerunner of all desolating judgments.
   It is at large insisted upon by our Saviour himself, Matt. xxiv. 37-39;
   Luke xvii. 26-29.

   Now, this security is like the disease in the body which is commonly
   called the scurvy; -- it is not any single distemper or disease, but a
   complication or concurrence of many prevalent distempers. Security is
   not the name of any one vicious habit or inclination of the mind, but
   it is a concurrent complication of many; -- spiritual stupidity and
   sloth, called a spirit of slumber, love of the world, carnal wisdom,
   groundless hopes of life, all proceeding from unbelief, do concur in
   its constitution. And if a practice in a course of sin have for some
   season ensued on these principles, whereby conscience comes to be
   seared, or is made senseless, the case of those in whom it is, is for
   the most part remediless. And not a few of this sort are amongst us.

   And many other reasons there are rendering this work full of
   difficulty, though it be so necessary, so just and equal. As for those
   by whom all these things are despised, and even scoffed at, something
   shall be spoken afterward unto them, or concerning them.

   But yet, this consideration ought not to deter any from endeavouring
   the discharge of their own duty herein. For, as we have seen it is
   indispensably necessary, that we and the nation may be saved from
   desolating judgments; so we shall see afterward how and by what means
   this difficulty may be surmounted, and those obstacles removed out of
   the way. However, happy will they be, be they never so few, never so
   poor, never so unknown to the world, whom God shall find so doing, when
   he ariseth out of his place to shake the earth terribly!

   VI. I shall, therefore, in the next place, to bring all things nearer
   home, inquire, "What is the nature of that repentance and reformation
   which at this time God requires of us all, that we may not perish in
   his sore displeasure?"

   After a devastation made of the treasure of the Roman empire by sundry
   tyrants successively, Vespasian coming to the government, acquainted
   the senate that there was need of so many millions of money, that the
   empire might stand; -- not that it might flourish and grow vigorous,
   whereunto much more was required, but that it might be preserved from
   dissolution and ruin. And I shall propose, not what is requisite to
   render the church of God in this nation orderly, beautiful, and
   vigorous, but only what is necessary that it may stand and live, by a
   deliverance from desolating judgments. And, --

   First. The repentance which, in any case, God requireth absolutely, is
   that which is internal and real, in sincere conversion unto himself,
   accompanied with fruits meet for such repentance. So is it declared,
   Ezek. xviii. 30, 31, "Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel,
   every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn
   yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your
   ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have
   transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will
   ye die, O house of Israel?" A new heart and a new spirit, or real
   internal conversion unto God, by the grace of the covenant, is required
   in this repentance, as the renunciation and relinquishment of all
   iniquities must be the fruit of it. So also is it expressed, Isa. i.
   16, 17. Internal purification of the heart, with the practice of
   universal obedience, and abstinence from all sin, is that which God
   requires.

   This is that repentance which was the subject of the ministry of John
   the Baptist; on the neglect whereof he threatened the people with final
   excision; which, accordingly, not long after befell them, Matt. iii.
   8-10. God doth not require a feigned repentance, or that which is
   merely outward and temporary. In this case, see Joel ii. 12, 13. But,
   --

   Secondly. Where there is repentance and reformation that are real in
   the root or cause of them, -- which is an effectual conviction of sin,
   and sense of ensuing, approaching judgments, giving testimony of
   sincerity in its fruits, by an abstinence from open provoking sins, and
   the performance of known duties (unto its sincerity in both which a
   sense and reverence of God is owned), -- though it be not in many, in
   the most, it may be in few, absolutely sincere and holy, yet may it
   prevail to the turning away of threatened judgments, at least for a
   season.

   These things, therefore, are required unto this repentance:--

   1. A real conviction of sin in them that are called unto it, or do make
   profession of it. If this lie not in the foundation, no expression of
   repentance, no profession of reformation, is of any value in the sight
   of God; -- yea, it is a mocking of him; which is the highest
   provocation. Men without this conviction may be driven to somewhat that
   looks like repentance and reformation, as the keeping of days of
   fasting or humiliation by outward force or compulsion of law; but there
   is nothing in what they do of what we inquire after. By such days and
   ways they shall never save the nation, Jer. iii. 10.

   2. A real sense of God's displeasure, and the approach of desolating
   judgments. It is not enough that we have a conviction and sense of our
   own sins, but we must have them also of the sins of the nation, whereby
   God is provoked to anger; and apprehensions of his displeasure are to
   influence our minds in all that we go about herein. Unless these abide
   and dwell in our minds, -- unless they accompany us continually in all
   our ways and occasions, -- rise and lie down with us, -- we shall not
   cordially engage in this duty.

   3. Real reformation, in an abstinence from all known sin, and the
   avowed fruits of a reformed conversation, are required hereunto, Matt.
   iii. 10.

   4. That it be persisted in, Heb. vi. 1.

   On these suppositions, that this repentance is useful unto the end
   proposed is made fully evident in the instances of Nineveh and of Ahab,
   1 Kings xxi. 27-29. Ahab, in his repentance and humiliation, manifested
   a deep sense of the guilt of sin and divine displeasure. "Seest thou,"
   saith God to Elijah, "how he humbleth himself?" It might easily be
   known and taken notice of. There is a humiliation described by the
   prophet Isa. viii. 1-5, which God abhorreth, and which shall be
   profitable for nothing. Such have been the humiliations among us, for
   the most part. But although it be the duty of every man to endeavour
   that his repentance and reformation do consist in a sincere, internal,
   cordial conversion unto God, -- which the divine calls do intend, --
   without which it will not be of advantage unto his own soul, as unto
   his eternal condition; yet as unto the turning away of temporal
   calamities, at least as to the suspension of them, such a public
   repentance and reformation as evidence themselves in their fruits to
   proceed from a real sense of sin and judgment, may be useful and
   prevalent. In brief, the repentance which God requireth with respect to
   his covenant, that the souls of men may be saved, unto the glory of his
   grace by Jesus Christ, -- is internal, spiritual, supernatural, whereby
   the whole soul is renewed, changed, and turned unto himself. But as God
   is the supreme governor of the world, in temporal things, with respect
   unto the dispensation of his providence in mercies and judgments, there
   may be a repentance and reformation wherein his glory is vindicated, in
   a visible compliance with his calls and warnings, and an acknowledgment
   of him in his righteous judgments, which may be of use unto the end
   proposed. Besides, wherever there is a general reformation of life
   sincerely attempted, it is to be believed that in many it is spiritual
   and saving.

   5. The repentance and reformation required must be suited unto the
   state and condition of those who are called thereunto. All are to
   consider what is amiss in them, as unto their own state and condition,
   Isa. lv. 7, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man
   his thoughts;" -- every one his own way and thoughts in their present
   condition.

   Wherefore the persons intended in this call are of two sorts:--

   (1.) Such as are wicked, as unto their state and condition, -- persons
   unconverted, unregenerate, -- not born of God; and, (2.) Such as are
   sincere believers, really converted unto God.

   The call of God is unto both sorts, -- repentance and reformation are
   required of them both; and they are so in a suitableness unto their
   different conditions.

   In each of these sorts there are various degrees of sin and
   provocation. Some of the first sort are openly flagitious, -- public,
   habitual sinners, -- such as whose sins "go beforehand unto judgment,"
   as the apostle speaks, 1 Tim. v. 24; and some are more sober in their
   outward conversation. The call of God respects them in all their
   several degrees of sinning: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
   unrighteous man his thoughts;" -- those which are his own, which are
   proper to him. None doubts, unless it be themselves, that the first
   sort ought to reform themselves; -- the generality of men cry out
   against them, and fear that for their sins, especially if they be
   persons in high places, the judgments of God will come upon the land.

   But if those of the other sort also, who are apt to justify themselves
   because they run not out unto the same excess of riot with them, do not
   apply themselves unto the repentance and reformation which are proper
   unto their state and condition, the will of God is not answered in his
   warnings. Yet it is the impenitency of this sort of men that is the
   most dangerous symptom at this day in the nation. Their unshaken
   security keeps all that truly fear God in a trembling posture.

   Thirdly. It is so with churches peculiarly reformed, and true believers
   in them; as also all other true believers who walk more at large. They
   also are called unto repentance and reformation, and that according to
   their state and their respective degrees therein; for some are more
   guilty than others in decays of faith, love, zeal, holiness, and
   fruitfulness in obedience, with conformity to the world. And if there
   should be a public reformation in the nation as to outward provoking
   sins, yet if these of this sort do not reform themselves, according as
   their condition doth require, the desired deliverance would scarcely be
   obtained. And woe be to such persons, if, through their neglect of
   their duty, the whole nation should be exposed to ruin! Wherefore, --

   Fourthly. The reformation called for, as the condition of escaping of
   impendent judgments, must be universal, -- at least general, -- amongst
   all sorts and degrees, all orders and estates of men. All sorts have
   sinned, all sorts are threatened; and therefore repentance is required
   of all, if we would not perish. It is so of magistrates and ministers,
   of nobles and common people, in city and country; and that to be
   evidenced by its fruits, so as that it may be said of us, See you not
   how they humble themselves?

   But if this be so, some may be apt to say, It seems, if all do not set
   their hearts and hands unto this work, if all sorts do not engage in
   it, there is no good effect to be hoped or looked for; but when shall
   we see any such thing? when shall we see the generality of all sorts of
   men in this nation cordially to go about this work of repentance and
   reformation? -- as good, therefore, let it alone as go about to attempt
   it.

   I answer, -- 1. If you can be content to perish with the impenitent and
   unreformed, you may choose to do as they do. If you would avoid their
   punishment, you must avoid their sin, especially their refusal to turn
   on the call of God.

   2. Some must begin this work, and be exemplary unto others; -- and
   blessed are they of the Lord who shall receive the grace and honour so
   to do. Let us not, then, sit looking on others, to see what they will
   do, but immediately engage unto our own duty.

   3. The duty herein of no one private person, much less of whole
   churches, shall be lost, though the nation should not be reformed in
   general. For, --

   (1.) They shall deliver their own souls; and if they be not saved (as I
   believe they would be in an eminent manner) from somewhat of the
   outward part of a public calamity, yet they should be from all the
   wrath and displeasure of God in it.

   (2.) A few -- for aught I know, one man -- may sometimes prevail with
   God for the suspending, at least, of judgments threatened unto a whole
   nation. And hereby, --

   (3.) They shall give unto others a farther season of repentance, which
   God can bless and make effectual unto them. -- There are, therefore,
   blessed encouragements unto all churches, unto all individual persons,
   to endeavour a compliance with the present calls of God, though the
   body of the people should not be gathered.

   VII. Our next inquiry is, "Whence or from what causes such a
   reformation may be expected as may be useful unto the turning away of
   impendent judgments?" And these causes are either supreme or
   subordinate.

   The supreme cause hereof must be the sovereign grace of God, in fresh
   effusions of his Spirit on the souls of men, to turn them unto himself.
   Without this, all other ways and means of attaining it will be in vain.
   This is everywhere in the Scripture attested unto as the only supreme,
   efficient cause of the conversion of men unto God. And unto that state
   are things come amongst us, that unless we are made partakers of it in
   a somewhat more than ordinary manner, our breaches cannot be healed.
   Whether we have grounds or no to expect any such thing, shall be
   afterward considered. At present there seems to be no other hopes of
   it, but only because it is a sovereign act of divine grace, which hath
   been exemplified in the church of old. There seems, indeed, rather, as
   yet, to be a withdrawing of the communications of the Holy Spirit in
   effectually prevalent grace on the part of God, and a contempt of them
   on the part of men; but sovereignty can conquer all obstacles. This way
   did God heal and recover his church of old, when all other means, all
   mercies, afflictions, and judgments, failed, Ezek. xxxvi. 22-28. And it
   may at present be for a lamentation, that this work of grace is so
   disregarded by the most, so despised by many, and so little cried for
   by the residue. But without it, in vain shall we use any other
   remedies; we shall not be healed. It is not the best projections of men
   for reformation by this or that order or state of things in church or
   state, that, without this, will be of advantage unto us.

   The subordinate causes hereof must be the diligent discharge of their
   duty by magistrates and ministers.

   I shall but name these things, that I give no place to complaints or
   indignation, though just, and almost necessary. And, --

   First. As unto the furtherance of it by magistrates, it must consist in
   three things:--

   1. By evidencing that the promotion of it is their interest. Unless it
   be understood so to be, whatever else they do in the countenance of it
   will be of no use nor advantage. For this is that which the generality
   will conform unto or comply withal. And if it be once understood that
   reformation is what they desire, what they design, what they place
   their chief interest in, -- as it was with David, Hezekiah, Josiah, and
   others, -- it will have an influence on the people, not inferior unto
   what the design of Jeroboam, in pursuit of his corrupt interest, had on
   the people of Israel to sin, All other means are dead, unless they are
   enlivened by an evidence of reality in the minds of magistrates, and a
   high concernment in the prosperity of their work Let them make what
   laws and orders they please, appoint what outward means they can
   devise, -- unless it be made uncontrollably evident that it is their
   cordial design, and what they place their chief interest in, they will
   not be available. Add hereunto, --

   2. The due execution of laws against flagitious immoralities. And, --

   3. An encouraging example in their own persons; without which all
   things will grow worse and worse, whatever else be done. Men seem to be
   weary, in some measure, of the dismal effects of sin; but they seem not
   to be weary of sin. Unto this weariness they yet want motives,
   encouragements, and examples. And it is strange unto me, that, in all
   our fears and dangers, -- in the divisions of our councils and
   confusions amongst all sorts of men, under a high profession of zeal
   for the Protestant religion in the nation, and the preservation of it,
   -- that this only expedient for our relief and safety lies wholly
   neglected.

   As unto ministers, the faithful discharge of their duty, in preaching,
   prayer, and example, is required hereunto. Should I stay to show the
   necessity hereof at this season; as also what is required thereunto, --
   what care, what diligence, what watchfulness, what compassion, what
   zeal, what exercise of all gospel grace, with the over-neglect of these
   things among many, -- it would take up a volume, rather than become a
   place in this present inquiry.

   But I proceed unto that which is more our immediate concernment.
   Wherefore, --

   VIII. "What if all these means do fail? -- what if all expectations
   from them be in vain? what is incumbent on them in particular who are
   really sensible of these things, -- namely, of the abounding of
   provoking sins, and the near approach of deserved judgments?"

   That which I design herein is, to give some directions as unto what
   frame of heart ought to be found in us, and the practice of what duties
   we ought to be found in at such a season as this is. It is no common,
   no easy thing, to wait for the Lord in the way of his judgments, Isa.
   xxvi. 8, 9. There is inward soul-work night and day, as well as outward
   duties, required unto it. That God may be glorified in a due manner,
   that we may be "found in peace," whatever be the event of things, --
   that we may be useful unto others, and in all serve the will of God in
   our generation, -- are all expected from us in a way of duty.

   Unto this end, the ensuing directions may be made use of:--

   First. Take heed of stout-heartedness, and a contempt or neglect
   thereby of divine warnings. There is a generation who, either really or
   in pretence, are bold, fearless, stout-hearted, regardless of these
   things; they seem to provoke and dare God to do his utmost, -- all that
   he seems to threaten. So they speak, Isa. v. 19, "Let him make speed,
   and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the
   Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it." Here is
   much talk, indeed, of the judgments of God, and of their near approach:
   When shall we see them? why do not they come? when shall he bring forth
   his work?

   This hath been the great controversy between the church and the wicked
   world from the beginning of it. Those that truly feared God were always
   testifying that God would come, and take vengeance on them for their
   impieties and impenitency; but because these judgments were not
   speedily executed, the sinful world did always despise their warnings,
   and scoff at their message. So Enoch, the seventh from Adam, he
   preached and prophesied of these things, -- namely, of the coming of
   God to take vengeance on ungodly men, Jude 14, 15. And this message was
   scoffed at, as is evident, because no reformation ensued thereon, until
   the flood took them all away. So was it with Noah and his preaching;
   and so it hath been with all that fear God, in their several
   generations. And this was one especial thing that the pagans laughed
   and mocked at the primitive Christians about, -- as is plain in
   Lucian's "Philopatris." [353] So the apostle Peter gives us an account
   both of what was past, and what would afterward come to pass, 2 Pet.
   iii. 3 unto the end.

   And such as these abound amongst us. All the warnings of God have been
   turned into ridicule, previous judgments despised, and sin itself made
   a scoff of. But, of all others, God most abhorreth this sort of men.
   They are said to be "far from righteousness," Isa. xlvi. 12. Unto such
   he speaks in his wrath, "Hear, ye despisers; wonder, and perish." Yea,
   the Scripture is full with the severest threatenings against this sort
   of men; nor shall any, in the appointed season, drink deeper of the cup
   of God's indignation. See Isa. xxviii. 14, 15; Deut. xxix. 19, 20. Such
   secure despisers, such scoffers at approaching judgments, such deriders
   of the signs and tokens of them, God will deal withal. And some there
   are who, -- it may be, not from the same spirit of open profaneness,
   but out of prejudices, corrupt arguings, pretended observations of
   things past, disbelief of all they do not feel, and such like effects
   of long security, -- do utterly scorn and scoff at all these things
   They account it a matter of weakness, pusillanimity, or superstition,
   to concern themselves in these warnings of Providence, or the
   explication of them by the word. But their judgment sleepeth not. And
   it may be observed, and will be found true, that when judgments do
   really approach, of all sorts of men they are the most cowardly,
   distracted, fearful, and void of counsel. For when God begins to deal
   with them, their hearts cannot endure, nor their hands be strong. He
   smites through their loins, and filleth them with a spirit of horror
   and fear, that they shall tremble like the leaves of the forest. In
   that day you may say unto them, as Zebul did to boasting Gaal, upon the
   approach of Abimelech, his enemy, "Where is now thy mouth wherewith
   thou saidst, Who is Abimelech?" Where is now your mouth and your
   vauntings with respect unto these judgments of God? So Micaiah the
   prophet told Zedekiah the false prophet, in his boasting and confidence
   of success, 1 Kings xxii. 25, With all thy confidence and boasting,
   thou shalt be one of the first that shall endeavour to fly and hide
   thyself. Yea, this sort of persons are commonly the most ridiculous and
   contemptible, when real danger overtakes them, of any sort of men in
   the world.

   That which God requires of us, in such a season, is called in Scripture
   "trembling:" "They that tremble at my word." This he regards, this he
   accepts, this he approveth of, Isa. lxvi. 2, 5; Jer. v. 22. It is not a
   weakening, an astonishing, heartless consternation of spirit that is
   intended; -- not such a dread and terror as should obstruct us in the
   cheerful performance of duty, and preparation to comply with the will
   of God; such is that mentioned, Deut. xxviii. 66, 67, -- which is the
   most severe of judgments: but it is an awful reverence of the greatness
   and holiness of God, in the way of his judgments, casting out all
   carnal security, self-confidence, and contempt of divine warnings, so
   bringing the soul into a submissive compliance with the will of God in
   all things. But look well, in the first place, that this evil, on no
   pretences, do make any approach unto you.

   If one evil seems to be diverted, do not say, with Agag, "Surely the
   bitterness of death is past" (which will prove an entrance into this
   evil frame), and so grow regardless of your duty. God expects other
   things from you. "The lion," saith he, "hath roared, who will not
   fear?" Amos iii. 8. There is the voice of a lion roaring for his prey
   in the present divine warnings: take heed that you despise not that
   which, when it comes to pass, you can neither abide nor avoid.

   Secondly. Take heed of a frame of heart that is regardless of these
   things. We have a sort of men who, although they will not (they dare
   not) openly, as others, despise divine warnings, yet they see all
   things in such a light as suffers them not to take notice of any
   concernment of their own in them, Ps. xxviii. 5; Jer. xxxvi. 24. The
   land is filled with sin; -- it is true, but they are the sins of other
   men, not theirs. There are tokens and signs of God's displeasure, in
   heaven above, and the earth beneath; -- but men are not agreed whether
   these things be of any signification or no: some say Yea, and some Nay;
   but they are new and strange, and so are meet to be the subject of
   discourse. Previous judgments have been upon us; -- they are but such
   accidents as fall out frequently in the world. But the divisions among
   ourselves, and contrivances of our adversaries, seem to threaten ruin
   to the nation; -- it may be so, but these things belong unto our
   rulers; and men are divided about this also: some say one thing, and
   some another; some say there was a plot, and some say there was none.
   In the meantime they are filled with their own occasions, and will not
   be diverted from them unto any serious regard of God in his present
   dispensations; like the "wild ass in her occasion, who can turn her
   away?" Jer. ii. 24. Of this frame the prophet complains, as that which
   God will surely avenge, Isa. xxvi. 11, "Lord, when thy hand is lifted
   up, they will not see; but they shall see and be ashamed, for their
   envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them."

   Others look on all things in another light, and under another notion;
   for whereas it is part of our sin and punishment in this nation, an
   evident fruit of the evil of our ways, that we are divided into
   designing parties, the one seeking the ruin of the other, they consider
   all providences as relating unto such differences. This gives them a
   zealous concernment in them, and continued talk about them; but the
   will, work, and design of God in them, are not laid to heart.

   Some are so well pleased with their present advantages, in promotions,
   dignities, and wealth, as their interest, that they cannot endure to
   think of these things. Whatever warnings are portended of approaching
   judgments, they look on them as the threatenings of such as have
   ill-will against them, and would have these things to portend their
   trouble. Guilt makes them fearful and sensible, and they think it best
   to hide those things from themselves, which, if they are so, they
   cannot remedy.

   To free us from this miscarriage also, this unanswerableness unto the
   mind of God in his present dispensation, we may consider, --

   1. That a deep consideration of, and inquiry into, the mind of God in
   such a season as we have described, is required of us in a way of duty.
   It is our sin to neglect it, and that attended with many aggravations.
   It is not a thing that we may attend unto or omit, as it seems
   convenient; but it is required as a duty of us, without which we cannot
   glorify God in a due manner.

   He that is not daily exercised with prevalent thoughts about the
   present ways of God in the approach of his judgments, lives in such a
   neglect of duty as will bring in a negligence and coldness in all other
   duties whatsoever; for this is certain, that when God calls unto any
   especial duty in an extraordinary way or manner, in any season, those
   by whom it is neglected are really cold, formal, and negligent in all
   other ordinary duties whatever. That grace which will not be excited
   unto especial duties on extraordinary occasions, is very lifeless in
   all other things. This is the best note to try, if not the truth, yet
   the power of grace. When it is in its vigour and due exercise, it makes
   the soul to be ready, inclinable, and disposed unto all intimations of
   the divine will and pleasure; as speaks the psalmist, "Thou shalt guide
   me by thine eye, and lead me with thy counsel." He attended to each
   look and guidance of divine Providence, to comply with it, when others
   must be forced with strong curbs and bridles, like the horse and mule.

   2. It is such a duty as whereunto real wisdom and diligence are
   required. We think it needful to use our wisdom about other things, --
   our own affairs; but in this it is most necessary. "The Lord's voice
   crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name," Mic.
   vi. 9. Ordinary, slight, and transient thoughts will not answer this
   duty. Such all men that are sober cannot but have; and their discourse
   is answerable thereunto. But consideration, with diligence and
   prudence, is required of us. Let these testimonies be consulted to this
   purpose, Ps. lxiv. 9; Deut. xii. 30; Hos. xiv. 9; Ps. cvii. 43. Prayer,
   study, and meditation, are all diligently to be engaged herein.

   Thirdly. Take heed of vain confidences. Men are apt, in such seasons,
   to fix on one thing or other, wherewith they relieve and support
   themselves; and there is not any thing that is more effectual to keep
   them off from this duty and the frame of spirit which is required in
   them. If you speak with any man almost, you may, with a little heed,
   discover wherein his confidence doth lie, and what it is that he trusts
   unto. But, saith the prophet unto such persons, "The Lord hath rejected
   thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them," Jer. ii. 37.

   There are sundry sorts of vain confidences wherewith men are apt to
   relieve their minds in such a season, so as to countenance themselves
   in their security and a neglect of this especial duty. Two in
   particular I shall only mention, as I do only name the heads of things,
   which might be much enlarged:--

   1. The first is some certain privileges whereon they trust for an
   exemption from common calamities; -- they are the church, -- they are
   the people of God, -- they are separated from the world, and persecuted
   by it; and hence there is a secret reserve in their minds, that indeed
   they shall not be in trouble as other men. So was it with the Jews of
   old: when they were threatened with the judgments of God for their
   sins, and called thereon to repentance, they justified themselves in
   their ways, and despised all divine warnings, on a confidence they had
   in their church privileges. They cried against the prophet, "The temple
   of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are
   these," and no evil shall come nigh us, Jer. vii. 4. And in confidence
   hereof, -- namely, that they were the church, and enjoyed the
   privileges belonging thereunto, and the solemn worship of God therein,
   -- they gave themselves up unto all abominable immoralities, under an
   assurance of impunity by their privileges; as the prophet upbraids
   them, verses 8-10, "Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot
   profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely,
   and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not,
   and say you shall be delivered?" [354] At this day all sorts of men
   claim a refuge in their privileges. Those who design the ruin of the
   nation, and of all true religion therein, do it with confidence of
   success from hence, That they are the church, -- that the temple of God
   is with them, -- that all the privileges belonging unto the church are
   theirs, and so are the promises made unto it. And such is the
   infatuating efficacy of their prejudicate persuasion herein, that it
   hath had two marvellous effects; -- the one against the light of
   nature, and the other against the fundamental principles of religion.

   For, first, under the influence of this confidence they have engaged
   into as vile immoralities as ever were perpetrated under the sun; --
   murder, persecution, assassinations, dying in falsehoods, with a
   general design to pursue the same ways unto the utmost, in the
   destruction of multitudes of innocent persons, as they did formerly in
   Ireland. But what if they do all those abominations? yet they are the
   church! the promises and privileges of it are theirs! and all they do
   is accepted with God! -- a principle tending directly to the vilest
   atheism. Again; although God, in a marvellous, yea, a miraculous
   manner, hath discovered and frustrated their hellish designs, and
   brought many of them into the pit they digged for others, yet they will
   accept of no rebuke from God, but go on in an obstinate presumption
   that they are the church, and shall prevail at last. And that church
   which shall prevail by these means, no doubt they are. Some, indeed,
   pretend highly to be the church; but they lay claim, so far as I can
   find, to no other advantages thereby but dignities and promotions. And
   others also are apt to relieve themselves with this confidence, that
   they are the people of God, and shall have an especial interest in
   deliverance on that account. And I say, Far be it from me to weaken any
   persuasion of God's especial regard of those that are truly big God
   hath a peculiar people in the world, let the world scoff at it whilst
   they please, unto whom all the promises of the Scripture and all the
   privileges of the church do belong. These promises they ought to mix
   with faith, and plead before God continually; and they shall be all
   accomplished towards them, in the way and time of God's appointment.
   Nor do any sort of dissenting professions, as they are called, that I
   know of, appropriate this right and privilege unto themselves, unto the
   exclusion of others; but extend it to all who are sincere believers.
   But this is that which I say concerning all sorts of men, -- That if an
   apprehension or persuasion that they are the church or people of God do
   keep them off from that duty of repentance and reformation which God
   calls unto, it is a confidence which God rejecteth, and in which they
   will not prosper. I desire to ask of any, Hath not the church sinned?
   have not professors sinned? are there not sins amongst us against the
   Lord our God proper unto our state, and according to our measure? If it
   be so, our being the people of God, any of us, if we are so, unless we
   repent, doth only, as unto these providential dispensations, expose us
   unto his just severity; for judgment must begin at the house of God, --
   it must begin at us. Take heed of this failing reserve. I have observed
   much security to arise from hence, and great negligence of known
   duties. If you are the people of God, you had the more need to tremble
   at his judgments, and at the tokens of his displeasure. Especially
   ought it to be so with you at this day, when God seems in a peculiar
   manner to be "displeased with the rivers," as the prophet speaks, Hab.
   iii. 8, -- those who should send forth streams of refreshment unto the
   nation. To me, at present, all things appear in that condition, that
   there is no reserve left, as unto public judgments, but only in
   sovereign grace and mercy, to be waited for in a way of repentance and
   reformation. As unto our privileges, God speaks unto us as he did to
   the people of old concerning their ornaments, Exod. xxxiii. 5, Put them
   off, "that I may know what to do unto thee." We are to lay aside our
   pleas and pretences, betaking ourselves to sovereign grace and mercy
   alone.

   2. Another ground of vain confidence may be, an unjust expectation of
   an accomplishment of such Scripture promises, prophecies, and
   predictions, as are not applicable unto our present condition.

   It is undeniable, that there are such promises, prophecies, and
   predictions concerning the deliverance of the church, the ruin of its
   adversaries, the glory and beauty of the kingdom of Christ, as those
   intended. For although the most of that kind in the Old Testament are
   of a spiritual interpretation, and have their accomplishment in all the
   elect in every age, whatever be their outward state and condition; yet
   that there are such also as concern the state of the church in this
   world, and the ruin of all its antichristian enemies, with peace and
   glory ensuing thereon, cannot be denied.

   And concerning them we may observe sundry things, that we may not abuse
   them into vain and groundless confidences in such a season as this
   is:--

   (1.) That we ought to have a firm faith of their accomplishment in
   their proper season. The rule of them all is that of the prophet, "I
   the Lord will hasten it in his time," Isa. lx. 22; as it is also Hab.
   ii. 2, 3. Though they seem to be prolonged, and tarry beyond their
   proper season, yet they have their fixed and determinate time, beyond
   which they shall not tarry. And two things I would offer on this
   occasion:--

   [1.] That we are not only to believe their accomplishment, but to be in
   the actual exercise of faith about it; for without this, we shall want
   a great supportment of patient long-suffering in every time of trial.
   And by this faith do we take in the power and comfort of things
   promised, things not actually enjoyed; for "faith is the substance of
   things hoped for," Heb. xi. 1, -- that which gives a previous
   subsistence in the mind and soul, as unto the benefit and comfort of
   them, of "the things hoped for." And those whose minds are exercised
   unto these things do know what benefit they have by such a perception
   of them. They are carried sometimes, by a way of believing, into
   communion with them who lived in the old world, as they had with us in
   the expectation of what we enjoy; and into the same kind of communion
   with those who hereafter shall enjoy the accomplishment of those
   promises which may yet be afar off.

   [2.] This faith ought to be most firm when all things seem to conspire
   in rendering the accomplishment of such promises not only improbable,
   but also impossible, as unto present outward causes; as in the state of
   things at this day in the world. There are no visible or appearing
   means of the fulfilling any of them, -- yea, the whole world is joined
   in a conspiracy to defeat them; but true faith riseth against those
   oppositions, and is prevalent against them all.

   For, having God alone -- his power, faithfulness, and truth -- for its
   object, it values not the opposition that men can make against them.
   That shall be done in this kind which God is able to do, let men do
   what they please. God laughs all their proud attempts to scorn; and so
   may the virgin daughter of Zion also.

   (2.) It is our duty to pray for the accomplishment of all the promises
   and predictions that are on record in the book of God concerning the
   kingdom of Christ and his church in this world. God will do these
   things; yet for all of them he will be sought unto by the house of
   Israel. This hath been the practice of believers in all ages, both
   under the Old Testament and the New. Prayer for the accomplishment of
   promises hath been the life-breath of the church in all ages; and faith
   hereby brings in great refreshment unto the soul. And the greatest
   evidence of its approach will be a plentiful effusion of the Holy
   Spirit in the hearts of believers, be they few or more at any time in
   the world, stirring them up and enabling them to pray effectually and
   fervently for their accomplishment; as in the example of Dan. ix. 1-3.
   Wherefore, --

   (3.) There are three things considerable in such promises and
   predictions:-- [1.] The grace and mercy that is in them; [2.] The
   suitableness of that grace and mercy unto the state of believers at any
   time; [3.] The literal accomplishment of them in their outward
   circumstances. The two former belong unto us at all times, and we may
   plead with God in faith for the effects of them in all our trials and
   distresses.

   With respect hereunto it is that the people of God have faith in him
   against the world, with all their enemies and oppressors, which they
   have been so reproached withal, as the Lord Christ was with his faith
   unto the same purpose, Ps. xxii. 8. When things seem to go evil with
   them, when they are shut up in the hands of their enemies and
   oppressors, as the Lord Christ was upon the cross, the world is ready
   to reproach them with their confidence in God, and their owning
   themselves to be his people; but they faint not herein. However things
   may go for a season, they are secured of the grace and mercy which is
   in the promises; which are suited unto all their wants, all that they
   can desire absolutely, yea, their full deliverance, when it is best for
   them. But, --

   (4.) Remember, that, as unto the application of the accomplishment of
   such promises and predictions, in their outward effects, unto certain
   times and seasons, many have been woefully mistaken; which hath been
   the ground and occasion of very scandalous miscarriages, The world hath
   scarce seen greater outrages of sin and wickedness than have been
   countenanced by this pretence, that such or such a time was now come,
   and that therein such and such things were to be done by those who made
   such interpretations and applications. For when such a conceit befalls
   the minds of men, it sets them loose from all rules but their own
   inclinations. And many have, from such apprehensions, fallen under sad
   and scandalous disappointments. Wherefore, --

   (5.) Such an expectation or confidence of the events of promises,
   prophecies, and predictions, as hinders men from applying their minds
   thoroughly unto the present duties that God calls for, is heedfully to
   be watched against. I have heard many arguing and pleading for the
   strengthening of such confidences, but I never saw good effect of them.
   They please for the present; they profit not.

   The story of the prophets Jeremiah and Hananiah is applicable in this
   case, Jer. xxviii. And it is certain that, before the final destruction
   of Jerusalem, that which principally hardened the people unto their
   utter ruin, so as they would hearken neither to the voice of God nor
   man for their safety, was a presumption they had, that at that time
   their Messiah would come and save them.

   (6.) Few know of what sort that day of the Lord will be, which they
   desire, long for, and expect. We know how it proved unto the church of
   the Jews, Mal. iii. 1, 2. A day may be coming which, although it may be
   a glorious issue, yet it may consume all the hopes that men have
   treasured up in their expectation of it. But I will not touch farther
   on these things:-- my design is only to take us all off from such vain
   confidences as may obstruct us in a diligent attendance unto those
   duties which God at this season calls us unto; which shall be declared
   immediately.

   3. Some place their confidence in secret reserves which they have in
   themselves, that however it go with others, yet they shall escape well
   enough: They are rich, and they intend to be wise:-- they intend not to
   be engaged in any thing, civil or religious, that should prejudice them
   in their possessions:-- whilst things pass at the cheap rate of
   talking, they will be like unto others; but when trials come, they will
   make a safe retreat. We have their character and their doom, Jer.
   xxviii. 15-17.

   Fourthly. A fourth direction for our deportment in such a season is,
   that we diligently consider and search our own hearts and ways, to find
   out and understand how it is between God and our souls. This direction
   is given us, Lam. iii. 39, 40, "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a
   man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and
   turn again to the Lord." When trials and punishments draw nigh, or are
   upon us, it is not our business nor duty to lie complaining under them,
   but so to search and try our ways as to turn unto the Lord. This is the
   first word of the voice of God in approaching judgments, "Search
   yourselves, try your hearts and your ways, -- try how it is with you."
   At such a season, to pass by the consideration of ourselves, of our
   state, of our walk, of our actions, in an ordinary manner, or with
   slight or common thoughts, is to despise the voice of God. God speaks
   aloud: "The voice of God crieth unto the city." He doth so by the ways
   before mentioned; -- he speaks articulately, distinctly, so as that a
   man of wisdom may see his name, and know his mind; -- he speaks unto
   us, and says, Search now yourselves.

   And in this search, respect is to be had unto the things ensuing:--

   1. In general, search into your state and condition. Try whether it be
   built on a good foundation; -- on the rock, by faith; or on the sand,
   by profession only; -- whether it will hold His trial who will bring it
   to the refiner's fire: "He shall slay the hypocrite with the breath of
   his mouth." And many dreadful discoveries will be made of the false and
   rotten states of men when the Lord's day of trial shall come. This is
   one certain end of a fiery trial, namely, to discover and consume the
   profession of hypocrites; as hath been done in part already.

   2. With respect unto those ways and sins which are the peculiarly
   provoking sins of churches and professors; -- such as the Lord Christ
   testifieth his displeasure against in them, and which may have as great
   an influence into the procurement of temporal judgments as the more
   flagitious sins of open sinners: such are decays in love, zeal, and
   fruits of obedience; want of delight, warmth, and life in the
   ordinances of gospel worship; with pride, elation of mind,
   self-conceit, and barrenness in good works. If we would know what are
   the sins, in churches and professors, that the Lord Christ is so
   displeased with as to threaten his departing from them, we cannot
   better learn it than in the declaration of his mind which he makes unto
   the churches of Asia, Rev. ii. 1, iii. 1 And these are the things which
   he chargeth on them. For persons under the capacities of church members
   and professors, to content themselves with such a search of their
   outward actions and duties of all sorts, religious, moral, and civil,
   as none may justly cast blame upon them, it no way answers the search
   that God calls them unto. How is it as unto the inward frame of the
   heart? What is the vigour and power of faith and love in you? How do
   they act themselves? What is your real delight in the ways of God?
   Where is your fruitfulness in works of charity and mercy? Where is your
   readiness to forgive your enemies? Are there no failings, no decays in
   these things? Are there no indispositions, deadness, and coldness in
   duties grown upon you? How is it as unto constant meditation on
   spiritual things, and the fixing your affections on things that are
   above? With respect unto these things ought we to search ourselves
   diligently in such a day as this is; and if we find ourselves under
   decays in them, let us know of a truth that God calls us unto
   repentance, on pain of his highest displeasure.

   For our parts, we cannot search into, we cannot judge, the hearts of
   others, any other way but by the application of the word unto their
   consciences; but I must needs say, that if men's outward actions be an
   indication of the inward frame of their minds, there is reason enough
   for the most of us to be jealous over ourselves herein.

   3. With respect unto your callings, circumstances, and inclinations,
   and the sins that are peculiar unto them. There are sins which are very
   apt to insinuate themselves into the callings and circumstances of men,
   both of high and low degree, that do easily beset them; as, hardness,
   oppression, severity, and unmercifulness, in those that are great and
   have large possessions; and deceit, equivocations, over-reachings, in
   those of more ordinary employments. I speak not of these at present;
   they are of the number of those which "go beforehand unto judgment."
   But these things -- namely, men's callings, circumstances, and
   inclinations -- are apt to influence their mind with vicious habits,
   and to render their ways crooked. Pride of life, self-conceit,
   negligence in holy duties, distempered passions and lusts, devouring
   cares, carnal fears, with other hurtful evils, do spring from these
   things, if not watched against. In reference unto them, therefore, are
   we called to search ourselves in a day wherein God is pleading with us.
   With respect unto them ought we to be exceeding jealous over ourselves;
   for verily they have rendered the ways and walkings of the generality
   of professors a great provocation unto Christ Jesus.

   4. In an especial manner with a respect unto love of the world, and
   conformity thereunto. This is that which the Lord Jesus Christ will not
   always bear withal in his churches; for it lies in opposition unto the
   whole work of faith and all the precepts of the gospel. It is not
   against this or that command only, but it is against the whole design
   of the gospel, and the grace administered therein.

   Now, at present, concerning our outward conformity unto the world,
   there needs no great search to be made. It is open and evident unto
   all; so that, as unto attire, fashions, manner of ordinary converse,
   misspense of time, feastings of rich ones, and jollities, there is
   little difference left between professors and the world; -- which God
   will not long bear with them in; especially not in those who have
   increased their wealth in, and grown into conformity with, the world,
   whilst others, under the same profession, have been harassed,
   imprisoned, impoverished, and ruined by the world. And as for
   inordinate love unto the world, I have spoken so often to it, treated
   so much of it, that I shall not here again insist upon it. I shall only
   say, that when men grow proud, high-minded, and value themselves
   according to the increase of their earthly enjoyments, and think
   themselves wronged if others do not also so value them, it is in vain
   for them to pretend that their hearts do not inordinately cleave unto
   the world and the things of it.

   This self-searching is the first duty we are at this season called
   unto; and if we are negligent or overly herein, we shall not answer the
   mind and will of God in any one duty or instance of any other kind. We
   are, therefore, herein to call in God and men unto our aid and
   assistance, as also to stir up ourselves unto it with diligence and
   perseverance. So the psalmist, lest he should not be able to make a
   diligent, effectual examination of himself and his ways, cries unto God
   to search and try him, that he might be known unto himself, especially
   with respect unto any evil way of sin or wickedness, Ps. cxxxix. 23,
   24. So we ought to cry for fresh communications of the Holy Spirit of
   God in his convincing efficacy, to acquaint us thoroughly with
   ourselves, and to deliver us from all self-deceivings in this matter.
   For when we go about this search, a thousand pretences and arguings
   will arise, to the concealment or countenance of self and sin against a
   discovery and pursuit. Nothing can remove and scatter them but the
   power of the Holy Spirit acting in his convincing efficacy. The whole
   deceit of the heart in such a season will be put forth, to hide,
   palliate, excuse, and countenance such frames and actings as ought to
   be seized on and brought to judgment. There is need of the "candle of
   the Lord, to search the inward parts of the belly," Prov. xx. 27; -- of
   spiritual light, to look into the secret recesses of the mind and
   affections, to discover what is amiss in them. And there is need of
   spiritual strength, to cast down all the strongholds and fortifications
   of sin; which will be all set up at such a time, and will not be
   demolished or scattered without powerful actings of grace. This,
   therefore, in the first place, we are to apply ourselves unto, if we
   intend any success in this work of self-examination.

   So also are we to pray that the word, in the preaching and dispensation
   of it, may be effectual unto the same end, -- that we may find it quick
   and powerful, Heb. iv. 12, -- that it may so judge the secrets of our
   hearts, 1 Cor. xiv. 25, that we may fall down and judge ourselves also.
   To hide ourselves at such a season from the power of the word, is an
   open evidence of a ruining security.

   This work, in the use of these means, is to be called over and
   persisted in, if we design a compliance with the present calls of God,
   or an endeavour to be found of him in peace when he cometh.

   Fifthly. To be deeply humbled before the Lord for our own sins, with a
   relinquishment of them all thereon, is the principal part of our duty
   in this season. This the whole Scripture testifieth unto, speaking of
   these things. Without this, all that we do, or can do, signifies
   nothing, as unto a compliance with the calls of God. This is the end of
   the search before insisted on. We are to find out, to know every one
   the plague, the stroke, the disease of his own heart, so as to be
   humbled before the Lord for it.

   And unto this humiliation it is required, --

   1. That it be internal and sincere. There is a humiliation commonly
   expressing itself in the observation of days of fasting and prayer;
   which oftentimes is but the hanging down of the head like a bulrush for
   a day. However, it may be so carried, sometimes, as to divert or
   prolong the execution of threatened judgments; but that which God
   requireth of us is to be in the fixed affections of the heart. When the
   Lord Christ comes to enjoin repentance and reformation, he gives
   himself that title, "I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts," Rev.
   ii. 23. It is an internal, hidden work which he looks after, in our
   humiliation for sin. So saith David in the same case, "Thou requirest
   truth in the inward parts," Ps. li. Truth or sincerity in the
   affections is that which God regards in our humiliation; which answers
   the charge in the prophet, "Rend your hearts, and not your garments;"
   -- inward power, not outward signs, are accepted with God in this
   matter. Let us every one take it on our own souls, every one charge his
   own conscience in private, with the performance of this duty. God will
   bear no longer with pretences; no outward appearances or evanid
   affections, in a temporary humiliation for a day, though in the
   observation of the most solemn duties required on such a day, will
   answer the mind of God herein. For, --

   2. It must be extraordinary. Humiliation for our own sins is a duty
   constantly incumbent on us. To walk humbly with God is the principal
   thing that he requires of us in this world, Mic. vi. 8. Hereof
   self-abasement, in a sense of sin, is the life and soul; the principle
   of all other acts and duties belonging thereunto. But when the calls of
   God are extraordinary, as they are at this day, it is necessary that we
   attend hereunto in an extraordinary manner. Failing in the necessary
   degrees of a duty renders it ineffectual and unacceptable. If, as unto
   times and seasons, ways, means, and manner, of this duty, we do not
   apply ourselves unto it with more than ordinary diligence, and with
   great intention of mind, we fail in what is expected from us. To deal
   with God on extraordinary occasions in an ordinary frame of spirit, is
   to despise him; or argues, at least, no due reverence of him in his
   judgments, nor a due apprehension of our own concerns in them.

   3. It is required that humiliation for sin be accompanied with a
   relinquishment of sin: "He that confesseth his sins, and forsaketh
   them, shall find mercy." Confession is grown a cheap and easy labour,
   whether it be read out of a book, or discharged by virtue of spiritual
   gifts. Humiliation may be pretended when it is not, and expressed when
   it is transitory; -- no way answering the mind and will of God. But the
   real relinquishment of sinful frames, sinful ways, sinful neglects, can
   neither be pretended nor represented better than it is. He that thinks
   he hath nothing to forsake, -- no evil way, no sinful negligence, no
   frame of heart, -- will be awakened to a better knowledge of himself
   when it is too late. This we may, therefore, evidently try ourselves
   by:-- What real change hath there been in us, in compliance with the
   calls of God? what have we relinquished in our ways, frames, or
   actings? what vain thoughts are utterly excluded, whereunto we have
   given entertainment? what passions or affections have been reduced into
   order, which have exceeded their due bounds and measures? what vain
   communication, formerly accustomed unto, hath been watched against and
   prevented? what dissimulation in love hath been cured or cast out? what
   irregular actings, in our persons, families, or occasions of life, have
   been forsaken? An inquiry into these things will give us real, sensible
   evidence whether our humiliation for our own sins be compliant with the
   present calls of God.

   Sixthly. Another duty of the season is, that we mourn for the sins of
   others, -- of those especially in whom we are providentially concerned;
   as relations, churches, the whole people of the land of our nativity,
   with whom we are engaged by manifold bonds and means of conjunction. It
   is well known that this sincere mourning for the sins of the places and
   times wherein we live, of the people and churches whereunto we do
   belong, is eminently approved of God, and a token unto themselves in
   whom that sense is of deliverance in a day of calamity, Ezek. ix. 4-6.
   To have minds careless and regardless of the sins of other men, is a
   great evidence of want of sincerity in our profession of the
   detestation of sin. Many pretences there are of it; -- as, that they
   will not hear us; -- we are not concerned in them; -- that they are
   wicked enemies of God, and the worse they are, the more will their
   destruction be hastened. By such pretences do men deceive their souls
   into a neglect of this duty, yea, unto provoking sin, such as this is.

   It is a matter of sorrow unto them that truly fear God, and have any
   concernment in his glory, or the honour of Christ, that the whole
   world, so far as we know, is filled with all abominable, provoking
   sins. It lies under a deluge of sin, as it lay of old under a flood of
   waters; -- only here and there appeareth an ark, that is carried above
   it. Atheism, antiscripturism, disbelief of gospel mysteries, contempt
   of the religion which they themselves profess, amongst all sorts of
   Christians, -- the loss of all public faith and trust, with a litter of
   unclean lusts, ambition, pride, covetousness, in many who have the
   outward conduct of the church, -- have spread themselves over the face
   of the earth. When God thus deals with the world, when he gives it up
   unto this open profligate excess which now abounds in it, it becomes,
   unto all that truly fear him, a place of darkness and sorrow, which
   calls for a mourning frame of heart.

   It is so, much more as unto the land of our nativity. From a
   conjunction with this people in blood, language, manners, laws, civil
   interests, relations, arising from the common law of nativity, in a
   place limited and bounded by Providence unto especial ends, we cannot
   but have a great concernment in their good or evil. It is greater from
   hence, that the same true religion hath been professed in the whole
   nation, with innumerable privileges accompanying it.

   On these and the like considerations, the whole nation is laid under
   the same law of providence for good or evil.

   In the sin, therefore, of this people, we are in a peculiar manner
   concerned; and shall be so in their sufferings.

   Whether sin abound in the land at present, we have already made
   inquiry; and nothing spoken before shall be repeated. If we have not a
   sense of these provocations, -- if we endeavour not to affect our
   hearts with them, and mourn over them, -- we are very remote from that
   frame which God calls unto.

   And this mourning for the sins of others ariseth from a double
   spring:-- 1. Zeal for the glory of God; 2. Compassion for the souls of
   men, -- yea, for the woeful, calamitous state and condition which is
   coming upon them even in this world.

   Surely, those who are true believers cannot but be concerned in all the
   concerns of the glory of God. If in all our afflictions he is
   afflicted, in all the sufferings of his glory we ought to suffer. In
   the blessed direction given us for our prayers, as unto what we ought
   to pray for, that which in the first place is prescribed, as that which
   principally and eminently we ought to insist on, is the glory of God in
   the sanctification of his name, the progressive coming of the kingdom
   of Christ, and the accomplishment of his will by the obedience of men
   in the world. If we are sincere herein, if we are fervent in these
   supplications, is it nothing unto us, when all these things are quite
   contrary amongst us? When the name of God is blasphemed, and all things
   whereon he hath placed his name are derided; -- when the whole internal
   interest and kingdom of Christ are opposed, and the outward court of
   the temple given everywhere to be trodden down of the Gentiles; -- when
   all manner of sins abound, in opposition unto the will and commands of
   God; -- when the earth is almost as unlike unto heaven as hell itself;
   -- is there nothing to be mourned for herein? We are for the most part
   selfish; and so it may go well with ourselves, according to the extent
   of our relations and circumstances, we are not greatly moved with what
   befalls others. There is evil enough herein; but shall we be, moreover,
   so minded towards Jesus Christ, that whilst we are in safety, we care
   not though his concernments are in the utmost hazard? Do we love the
   name of God, the ways of God, the glory of God in his kingdom and rule?
   -- we cannot but be deeply affected with the suffering of them all in
   these days.

   The other spring of this mourning frame, is compassion for the souls of
   sinners, and their persons also, in the approach of calamitous
   desolations.

   I am hastening to an end, and cannot insist on these things: this only
   I shall say, he that can take a prospect of the eternally miserable
   condition of multitudes among whom we live, and the approaching
   miseries which, without repentance and reformation, will not be
   avoided, and not spend some tears on them, hath a heart like a flint or
   adamant, that is capable of no impression.

   Seventhly. It is a season wherein we are called to a diligent, heedful
   attendance unto the duties of our stations, places, and callings; --
   duties in our church relations, duties in our families, duties in our
   callings and manner of conversation in the world. This is the advice
   given by the apostle, with respect unto such a season, 2 Pet. iii. 11,
   14, "Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of
   persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness?
   Wherefore, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without
   spot, and blameless." Without a sacred diligence in all these duties,
   we cannot be found in peace of the Lord Christ when he comes to judge
   the world, and purify his church with a fiery trial.

   Negligence, coldness, and sloth in these things, are tokens of
   approaching judgments. And of some of them at this day the generality
   of professors seem to be almost weary, and to attend unto them in a
   very indifferent and overly manner. But we may know assuredly, that if
   we thrive not in our diligence in these things, if the vigour of our
   spirits in watchfulness be not engaged in them, we are not compliant
   with the present calls of God.

   Eighthly. It is required of us that we cry earnestly, continually, with
   perseverance, for such an effusion of the Holy Spirit from above, as
   may dispose and work the inhabitants of the land unto repentance and
   reformation.

   That this is the only way, the only means of relief, of a sanctified
   deliverance from desolating judgments, bath been declared. And this is
   the only way which some of us have to help and assist the nation in its
   distress. Wherefore, by a constant continuance in supplication for such
   effusions of the Holy Spirit, we shall have a threefold advantage:--

   1. We shall hereby discharge the duty we owe unto the land of our
   nativity in such a way as none can deny or hinder.

   We owe a duty unto it on all good accounts, -- moral, political,
   spiritual. We are, for the most of us, shut up from giving any other
   assistance unto it, by advice, counsel, or action. This is that which
   none can hinder, -- wherein the poorest may be as useful and
   serviceable as the mighty. And if it be diligently attended unto, it
   will be far above whatever can be contributed by wisdom, wealth, or
   strength, unto the same end. For by this means we shall be saved, or
   perish.

   2. It will preserve our own hearts in the best frame for what we
   ourselves may be called unto. He that is earnest and sincere in his
   supplications for the communication of the Spirit unto others, shall
   not want blessed supplies of him in his own soul He will not withdraw
   from them, as unto themselves, who so esteem, prize, and value his work
   towards others.

   3. We shall hereby give testimony unto God and his grace against the
   cursed profaneness of the world, who reject and despise this only means
   of relief and deliverance; for when all other remedies fail, if God
   will not utterly forsake a church or people, he doth constantly assign
   this as the only means of their safety. See Jer. xxxi. 31-33; Ezek. xi.
   17-19, xxxvi. 25-27. This way the world despiseth, regardeth not;
   wherefore we can in nothing give a greater testimony unto God than by
   insisting on this way with faith and patience, contemning the
   reproaches of the world on the account of it.

   Ninthly. Let us labour ourselves to be exemplary in reformation,
   thereby to promote it among others. Let us plead and exhort what we
   will, unless we give an evidence in our own persons of the necessity
   which we judge that there is of present reformation, we shall be of
   little use unto the promotion of it.

   Many retrenchments of liberty in conversation may be made among the
   best of us; many duties may be attended with more diligence; many
   causes of offence avoided; many evidences given of a deep sense of
   deserved judgments, and of our reverence of the name of God therein; --
   much fruitfulness in charity and good works be declared.

   I have heard that in the country, where a man is looked on to be a wise
   man and a good husbandman among his neighbours, they will note the
   times of his ploughing, sowing, and manuring his ground, and not
   undertake any thing until they find him going before them in it. And if
   men are looked on in a peculiar manner as professors of religion at
   such a time as this, under calls and warnings from God for repentance
   and reformation, the eyes of other men will be towards them, to see
   what they do on this occasion. And if they find them, as unto all
   outward appearance, careless and negligent, they will judge themselves
   unconcerned, and abide in their security. Wherefore, so far as I know,
   if such persons be not exemplary, not only in repentance, but also in
   the evidence and demonstration of it by its outward fruits, they may
   be, and are, the great obstructers of the reformation of the cities,
   towns, and places wherein they do inhabit; nor can any contract the
   guilt of a greater sin. And if God should bring an overflowing scourge
   on the inhabitants of this land, because they have not turned unto him
   at his calls, it is most righteous that they should share in the
   judgment also who were an occasion of their continuance in security, --
   a matter we have all just cause to tremble at.
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   [350] These things were spoken on the burning of several persons to
   death in one of the late fires in London.

   [351] Jacques-Auguste de Thou, born at Paris in 1553, was made one of
   the presidents of the Parlement de Paris in 1594. The first eighteen
   books of his History were published in 1604. Though a Roman Catholic,
   he gives a candid and graphic description of the horrors of St
   Bartholomew's day; on which account, and for other similar reasons, his
   work was placed on the "Index Expurgatorius," in 1609. -- Ed.

   [352] These brackets occur in the original edition, and are retained as
   they seem to indicate the digressive character of the remark contained
   in the paragraph. -- Ed.

   [353] The small piece entitled "Philopatris" has been ascribed to
   Lucian. It consists of a dialogue, in which Triepho and Critias discuss
   the respective merits of Paganism and Christianity, with a scoffing and
   sarcastic tone, indicating belief in neither. Reference is made by
   Critias to some predictions he had heard among the Christians, that
   disaster and ruin were speedily to overtake the Roman empire. As if in
   ridicule and confutation of the prophecy, no sooner has he ended than
   Cleolaus makes his appearance, with the announcement of success and
   victory recently achieved by the Roman armies in the East. The dialogue
   concludes with a proposal to worship the unknown god of the Athenians.
   From the intimate knowledge evinced respecting the views and habits of
   the Christians, it has been inferred that Lucian must once have been a
   Christian himself; but, since the middle of last century, strong
   suspicions have been entertained that Lucian is not the author of this
   dialogue, but that it belongs to the time of Julian the apostate. --
   Ed.

   [354] The last clause is not according to the authorized version, but
   seems another translation of the words, to which Owen was inclined.
   Blayney renders it, "And say, Deliver us," etc. -- Ed.
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   Posthumous sermons

   Part i.

   A sermon published MDCXC.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   The following is the first of Owen's posthumous Sermons. It was
   preached on the occasion of a fast, December 22, 1681; and was
   published separately, in 1690, with the subjoined quaint preface by
   Daniel Burgess. The latter was the son of an excellent Nonconformist
   minister, Daniel Burgess, who was ejected from Collinburn, Wiltshire,
   under the Bartholomew Act, 1662. The son was a somewhat eccentric but
   celebrated and much-respected preacher in London, -- a kind of Latimer
   among the Nonconformists of his time. He died in 1713, and his funeral
   sermon was preached by Matthew Henry:--

   "To the Reader -- Upon the desire of some interested in the publication
   of this sermon, I have perused it, and do communicate these my thoughts
   concerning it.

   "There appear unto me in it those two things, which do above all others
   commend any sermon, or any other book, -- namely, most weighty and
   seasonable argument, with very judicious and methodical management.

   "If I am able to judge, the management speaks arma virumque, the man
   and his furniture; and it is, like its great author, well known to this
   age, and like to be so unto future ones by his writings, in more than
   one language. There is a favour due unto all posthumous pieces, -- of
   which sort this is; but there is little need that this piece seems to
   have of it.

   "As for its argument, it is very salvation; and that not merely
   personal or domestical, but national. This, if any thing, will be
   acknowledged momentous; and now, if ever, it must be acknowledged
   seasonable; -- now, in this our day, known only to the Lord;' -- nay,
   now, that it is neither day nor night, as the prophet speaks; -- now,
   that city and country are crying, Watchman, what of the night?
   watchman, what of the night?' -- now, that the three frightful signs of
   approaching night are so upon us; I mean, shadows growing long,
   labourers going apace home, and wild beasts going boldly abroad. Quis
   talia fando temperet `a lachrymis?'

   "In a word, here is that which will sufficiently recommend itself to
   all serious readers. It is the complaint of many, that our booksellers'
   shops are become heaps of dry sand, in which many a rich stone is lost:
   but it is known to all, that diamonds will be found out by their own
   lustre; and I make no great question but so this sermon will be. That
   it may be so, and may go much abroad, and do good wherever it comes, is
   the prayer of

   "Thy servant in Christ Jesus,

   "D. Burgess "

   "From my house in Bridges Street, in Covent Garden, Aug. 7, 1690."
     __________________________________________________________________

   Posthumous sermons.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon. Seasonable words for English protestants.

   "For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord
   of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of
   Israel." -- Jer. li. 5.

   This chapter and the foregoing are an eminent prophecy and prediction
   of the destruction of Babylon and of the land of the Chaldeans, -- of
   the metropolitical city of the empire and of the nation itself. There
   is a double occasion for the inserting of these words. The first is, to
   declare the grounds and reasons why God would bring that destruction
   upon Babylon, and upon the land of the Chaldeans. The words of verse 4
   are, "The slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that
   are thrust through in her streets." Why so? "For," saith he, "Israel
   hath not been forsaken." The reason why God will destroy the empire of
   Babylon is, because he will remember Israel, and what they have done
   against him. This lies in store for another Babylon, in God's appointed
   time. The second reason is, that it may be for the comfort, for the
   supportment of Israel and Judah under that distress which was then
   befalling them, upon the entrance of this Babylon in the land of the
   Chaldeans. "Notwithstanding all," saith he, "yet Israel is not
   forsaken, nor Judah of his God.'?"

   We are called this day to join our cries with the nation in the behalf
   of the land of our nativity. And though it hath been, as most of you
   know, my constant course, on such solemn days as these are, to treat in
   particular about our own sins, our own decays, our own means of
   recovery; yet, upon this occasion, I shall, as God shall help me, from
   these words, represent unto you the state of the nation wherein we
   live, and the only way and means for our deliverance from universal
   destruction. To declare our interest herein, some things must be
   observed concerning this Babylon, whose destruction is so solemnly
   prophesied of in this and the foregoing chapter; and I must observe
   three things concerning it:--

   First, That Babylon was the original of apostasy from the natural
   worship of God unto idolatry in the whole world. There was great
   iniquity before the flood, but no mention of any idolatry. There was a
   natural worship of God throughout the world that was not corrupted with
   idolatry. There is no mention of it until the building of Babel; there
   it began. The tower which they built they turned into a temple of
   Belus, whom they had made a god, and laid his image in the top of it.
   There was the original. You shall see immediately how we are concerned.
   There was the original of apostasy from natural worship unto idolatry.

   Secondly. Their idolatry. The idolatry that there began consisted in
   image-worship, in the worshipping of graven images; which was their
   idolatry that they set up with respect unto men departed, whom they
   worshipped by them. Four times in this prophecy doth God say he will
   "take vengeance on their graven images." And from Isa. xl. to the end
   of you have a description of the idolatry of Babylon, -- that it all
   consisted in making carved idols and graven images. The rest of the
   world, especially of the eastern, nations, fell into the worshipping of
   the sun, which they called Baal, and Moloch, and Chemosh, -- all names
   of the sun; and the worship of the moon, which they called Ashtaroth
   and the queen of heaven; but the idolatry of Babylon was by graven
   images and idols.

   Thirdly. They were, so far as appears upon record, the first state in
   the world that ever persecuted for religion, that oppressed the true
   worshippers of God, as such; as being "mad upon their idols," as the
   prophet saith they were, -- they were inflamed upon them. They were the
   first that oppressed the church because of its worshipping of God, and
   destroyed that worship among them. Hence the church prays in this
   chapter, "The vengeance of the Lord and of his temple be upon Babylon:"
   -- not only the vengeance of the Lord for destroying of his people, but
   the vengeance of his temple, for destroying of his worship, be upon
   Babylon, -- "shall Zion say." "Others have afflicted me," saith he in
   the same chapter; "but this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath
   broken my bones." They were the great oppressors of the church.

   Upon these three accounts (which is that I would observe), the name of
   Babylon, and all that is spoken of it in the Old Testament, is
   transferred to the apostate Church of Rome in the New, and all applied
   unto it, in the Book of the Revelation; and that upon this great
   analogy, which I shall now briefly show:--

   Why doth God call the apostate state of the church, under the New
   Testament, "Babylon, Babylon the Mystery?" For these three reasons:--

   First. As old Babylon was the rise and spring of apostasy from natural
   worship in the world unto idolatry, so this new Babylon was the rise
   and spring of apostasy from evangelical worship in the world unto
   idolatry. Mark the analogy. Hence she is called "The mother of
   harlots;" that is, she that had brought forth all the idolatrous
   churches and worship that were in the world. Did Babylon begin to
   apostatize into idolatry from natural worship? so Rome began to
   apostatize into idolatry from spiritual, evangelical worship. Therefore
   the Holy Ghost calls her Babylon.

   Secondly. The peculiar idolatry of Babylon consisted in image-worship,
   -- the worshipping of men departed under images made to their likeness.
   And the peculiar idolatry of Rome consists in image-worship, -- the
   worshipping of saints departed; which is a great part of their
   idolatry. And therein they are Babylon also.

   Thirdly. As Babylon was the spring of all persecution against, and
   oppression of, the church of God under the Old Testament, so Rome hath
   been the spring of all persecution and oppression of the church of God,
   since the apostasy, under the New Testament.

   On these accounts hath the Holy Ghost, in infinite wisdom, transferred
   over the name, and state, and other things spoken of Babylon from the
   old unto the new.

   I have mentioned this, that you may see the interest of England in this
   text of Scripture. So far as the truth of religion is owned in this
   nation, so far as there is a testimony given against idolatry, we are
   to God as Israel and Judah, though the land be filled with sin. At the
   time of this prophecy, Israel and Judah were in danger of present
   destruction and desolation from the old Babylon; and if we do not mock
   God in all we do, we are under apprehensions that England, and the
   church of God in England, is under danger of the same desolation and
   destruction from new Babylon, upon the same account and principle. If
   we do not mock God, this is that we profess at this day. Wherefore the
   parallel runs thus far equal. Such as was Babylon of old, such is that
   at present; such as was the danger of Israel and Judah from them at
   that day, such is the danger of England from the new at this present.
   This is spoken in general.

   For the opening of the words, observe these three things:--

   First. That there is in them a reduplication of the names or titles of
   God. He is in this verse called by the name of "The Lord of hosts," and
   by the name of "The Holy One of Israel." Where there are such
   reduplications of the name of God or any of his titles, the Holy Ghost
   would have us take notice that it is a matter of great importance
   whereof he speaks.

   Secondly. There is a distribution and application of these names of God
   unto distinct occasions, suitable unto them.

   1. There is in it mentioned an intimation of a surprisal with some
   protection or deliverance. Whom shall it be done by? "The Lord of
   hosts," saith he, "the Lord his God." And he doth not in vain add
   immediately, "The Lord of hosts," that title of God, -- he who hath the
   host above and the host below in his sovereign disposal. God's host
   above are all the holy angels, and all the heavenly bodies in their
   influences. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera; and he
   hath lately hung forth among us a flag or ensign of his host above,
   intimating that he is arising in his indignation, as "the Lord of
   hosts," and hath hung forth an ensign before his coming, full of dread
   and terror. And he is "the Lord of hosts" here below, of all men and of
   all creatures, disposing of them as seems good unto him. The prophet
   adds this name of God, because of the unspeakable greatness of the
   thing he mentions; namely, that Israel should not be forsaken, nor
   Judah, while the land was so filled with sin, and the whole interest of
   Babylon so coming upon them.

   2. The other title of God is, "The Holy One of Israel." This is applied
   peculiarly unto their sin: "The land is filled with sin against the
   Holy One of Israel." It is the greatest, it is the highest aggravation
   of sin, that it is against the holiness of God, "who is a God of purer
   eyes than to behold iniquity." So hath the wisdom of the Holy Ghost
   applied these two distinct titles of God unto the two distinct
   considerations of the people; -- first, of their protection, that he is
   "The Lord of hosts;" secondly, as of their sin, that he is "The Holy
   One of Israel."

   Thirdly. The third thing is this:-- That in this woeful state there is
   yet an intimation made of a covenant-interest of Judah in God, and that
   God did yet own them as his in covenant: "Israel hath not been
   forsaken, nor Judah of his God." Brethren! no man, I think, hath less
   of faith than I, -- no man doth more despond; but if I could see these
   two things in concurrence, "His God," and "The Lord of hosts," (that
   is, sovereign grace, according to his covenant; and sovereign power,
   according to his providence,) -- there is ground for any man's faith to
   build upon: "His God, the Lord of hosts." Nothing but sovereign grace
   and sovereign power can preserve a people, when their land is full of
   sin against the Holy One of Israel, and destruction seems to encompass
   them, from the interest of Babylon.

   I shall speak yet a little more particularly. You may consider in the
   words, --

   1. That which is mentioned in the last place; -- the state of the
   people at this time: "Their land was filled with sin against the Holy
   One of Israel."

   2. An intimation of approaching, deserved destruction on that account:
   "Though the land;" -- it is in that condition that it ought to look for
   nothing but destruction.

   3. A strange and wonderful surprisal, notwithstanding this, in
   sovereign grace and power: "Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of
   his God, the Lord of hosts.

   What I shall speak to is this:--

   When a land is filled with sin against the Lord, let men's hopes and
   expectations be what they will, they are in danger of utter
   destruction, and cannot be saved but by the actings of sovereign grace
   and power.

   I shall for the handling hereof (at least I design to) do these three
   things:-- I. Show when a land is filled with sin against the Holy One
   of Israel. II. Gather up what evidences we have that England is not yet
   utterly forsaken of God. III. Manifest what is indispensably required
   of us, that we may not be given up unto that utter desolation and
   destruction that lieth at the door.

   I do believe that I am not in my thoughts far from your case, -- far
   from the case of the nation. I do not search for things to speak to; I
   shall speak only those that are compliant with the common reason and
   understanding of all sober persons.

   I. There are three ways whereby a land may be said to be filled with
   sin:--

   1. When the sins of a land or nation are come to the full, to the
   utmost measure that God hath allotted to them in his patience. There is
   such an allotment of patience to every nation under heaven, and when it
   comes to its appointed issue, no means under heaven can defer or delay
   their destruction one day. Thus saith God before the flood, "The land
   is filled with sin, the whole earth with violence; -- a flood shall
   take them away." The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah came up to God; they had
   filled up their measure; -- God sent fire and brimstone to destroy
   them. "You shall not yet go into Canaan." Why? "The iniquity of the
   Amorites is not yet full." There is a time appointed, wherein the
   iniquity of the Amorites shall come up to its full measure, beyond
   which their destruction shall not be delayed. This was not now the case
   of Israel and Judah. It proved afterward to be their case, as the
   apostle describes it, 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16, "Who both killed the Lord
   Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please
   not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the
   Gentiles, that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for
   the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." How come? They have
   filled their measure, reached to their bounds; -- "wrath is come upon
   them to the uttermost." I hope, I pray, that this is not, that this may
   not be, the state of England; -- that our land is not so filled with
   sin, as that God's decree of absolute and universal desolation should
   be gone forth against us.

   2. A land may be said to be filled with sin, when it is come to that
   degree and measure, as that God will not pass it by without some
   severe, desolating judgment. He will not utterly forsake it, he will
   not utterly destroy it; but let all mankind do what they will, he will
   not pass it by without some severe, desolating judgment. Such was their
   case even at this time; -- you may see in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16, "But they
   mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his
   prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till
   there was no remedy." It was impossible that the judgment of God should
   be turned away from them. In this state God saith, "Pray not for this
   people; my heart shall not be toward them," (until he had brought his
   judgment upon them;) -- "though Moses and Samuel stood before me, I
   will not hear them." [355] Ay, but what if reformation come in? "Nay,
   nay," saith he, "it is determined against them; -- reformation shall
   not save them." See 2 Kings xxiii. 25, 26, where there is an account
   given of the greatest reformation that ever was wrought in Judah, by
   Josiah. So it is said, "Like unto him was there no king before him,
   that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and
   with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after
   him arose there any like him," -- having reformed the whole nation.
   Then, sure, all will be well. See the next words, "Notwithstanding the
   Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his
   anger was kindled against Judah... And the Loan said, I will remove
   Judah also out of my sight." There is a time and season when God,
   although he will not utterly destroy and forsake a nation for ever, yet
   he will not pass them by, until he hath brought a severe, destructive
   scourge upon them. Whether this be the state of England at this day, or
   no, God only knows, and of mankind not one. Whether we are come to that
   state wherein there is no remedy, wherein nothing we do shall prevent
   desolating judgments, I say, God only knows, and of men not one.

   3. A land is filled with sin, when it is come to such a degree and
   measure, as that there is no rule of the word, nor any prognostic from
   Providence, nor any conjecture from the state of things, that can give
   any determination what will be the issue. Judgment is deserved; and
   there is nothing remains but to look upon the balance as it is held in
   the hand of sovereignty: which way it will turn God only knows. The
   decree is not yet gone forth. In this your state, God doth not say,
   "Pray not for this people;" God doth not say, "Though you reform, I
   will not turn from the fierceness of my wrath:" but God saith, "Who
   knows if God will return and leave a blessing? who knows if God will be
   entreated, and have mercy?" He leaves it upon the absolute pleasure of
   sovereignty, to give us encouragement to wait upon him. Because I take
   this -- yea, and I take it in the best of my hopes -- to be that
   wherein we are concerned, pray take these two things along with you,
   before I go to show it in particular:-- The first is, that, in this
   state, if God gives time and space, there is encouragement enough left
   to make our applications to him for the removal of impending judgments.
   Methinks sometimes I see by faith the Lord high lift up upon his
   throne, and his train filling the temple with his glory, and holding
   the balance of this nation in his hand, and [that he] can turn it to
   mercy or judgment, as seems good unto him. While it is so, -- while
   though the woman be put into the ephah, yet the talent of lead is not
   laid upon her, [Zech. v. 7,] -- there is time for intercession, yet
   time for the interposition of God. And, secondly, I say, -- and do you
   take it as you see good, but I will tell you my persuasion, -- that if
   there be not a compliance with the calls of God unto this nation, upon
   this suspension and arrest of judgment that we are under, we shall as
   certainly perish as if we were in either of the two former conditions.
   If the Chaldeans were all wounded men, -- if there was no hope, no
   strength, no relief, in the papal cause, -- they shall rise up and
   smite, as in the day wherein "Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel," and "the
   mother was dashed in pieces upon her children," Hos. x. 14; -- unless
   there be a compliance with the calls of God in the days wherein we
   live.

   Let us, then, a little, as God will give strength, inquire when a
   nation is so filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel as
   certainly to put the balance into the hands of sovereignty, and to take
   off all rules and prognostics (which, with great grief, I have heard
   sometimes insisted, upon), and reduce us merely to the hand of
   sovereignty. When is it that a land is so filled with sin?

   (1.) A land is so filled with sin, when all sorts of provoking sins do
   abound in it; -- when there is no exception to be put into the
   indictment; -- when there is no provoking sin that can be thought on
   that is not in the nation. For if there be but one provoking sin
   absolutely excluded, there is room for mercy to dwell. Who now shall
   plead for England? who shall put in an exception for England into this
   indictment? Oh, poor England! among all thy lovers thou hast not one to
   plead for thee this day! From the height of profaneness and atheism,
   through the filthiness of sensuality and uncleanness, down to the
   lowest oppression and cheating, the land is filled with all sorts of
   sin. If there be any that can put in an exception as to any provoking
   sin that is not among us, let them stand forth and plead the cause of
   this nation. I profess my mouth is stopped. "The land is filled with
   sin against the Holy One of Israel." It is to no purpose to enumerate
   our sins, -- the roll is too long to be read at this time; and I am
   sorry it hath been cut, and thrown into the fire, when it hath been
   spoken of, contemned, and despised, as Jeremiah's was by Jehoiakim. But
   so it is.

   (2.) A land is so filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel, when
   all sorts of persons in a land are guilty of provoking sins. Pray,
   mistake me not; I do not say all persons of all sorts. God forbid. If
   it had been so, we had long since been like unto Sodom and Gomorrah.
   "If the Lord of hosts had not left us a small remnant, we should have
   been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah," Isa. i. 9.
   But, whereas there are many sorts of persons, -- rulers, and them that
   are ruled; high and low, rich and poor; in court, in city, in country;
   I say, all sorts of persons have been guilty of these provoking sins,
   -- we, and our princes, as Daniel speaks, and our rulers, and the
   people, the inhabitants of the land of all sorts, -- who shall plead
   here for England? who shall bring forth a sort of persons? Nay, it is
   not so in the throne; -- nay, it is not so at court; -- nay, it is not
   so among the clergy; -- nay, it is not so in the city; -- nay, it is
   not so in the country; -- it is not so with the rich; it is not so with
   the poor. Let any one that can, bring in a plea for this poor nation,
   that we may not conclude the land is filled with sin against the Holy
   One of Israel.

   But you will say, "Here lies an exception: There are many persons, many
   churches, free from these flagitious and provoking sins; -- there is a
   sort of persons, churches, and professors, who walk in the fear of God,
   and are free from all these sins: and, therefore, it doth not extend to
   all sorts."

   Brethren, you know my mind full well in this matter. I have been for
   these three last years upon all occasions inculcating it upon you. I
   acknowledge, the churches in this nation are not guilty of those sins
   whereby God is provoked against the nation to bring on national
   judgments; but I do say, that churches and professors in this nation
   are guilty of those sins for which Christ will bring correcting
   judgments upon churches and professors: so that we are all in the same
   way and bottom, though not all upon the same account. The land is
   filled with sin. How are your thoughts concerned in these things,
   brethren? I confess to you I speak my heart, my conscience, as in the
   presence of God, and as that which you are concerned to consider.

   I have given you two evidences that this land is so filled with sin
   against the Holy One of Israel. I will give you two more.

   (3.) When the sins of a land have upon them the greatest aggravations
   that national sins are capable of. What are they? They are plain:--
   they are against warnings, and against mercies; all sorts of sins in
   all sorts of persons, against all sorts of warnings and against all
   sorts of mercies. God hath not left this land without warnings in
   heaven above, and in earth beneath. Was there no warning given us in
   the wasting, desolating plague? [356] no warning in the consuming,
   raging fire? [357] no warning in the bloody war [358] that ensued
   thereon? no warning in all the prodigious appearances in heaven above
   that we have had? -- none in that [359] which at present hangs over us,
   as an ensign of God's supernal host? I acknowledge there hath been, I
   fear, a weakness in one kind of warning, -- by the public dispensation
   of the word. But God hath not left himself without witness: he hath
   multiplied warnings, and they have not been complied withal. Have they,
   brethren? "Were they at all afraid," saith Jeremiah, "when the roll was
   read? or, did they rend their clothes?" Jer. xxxvi. 24. No, not at all.
   Have these warnings of God been complied withal? Hath the voice of God
   in them been heard? Hath the nation been afraid? Have they rent their
   clothes and returned to the Lord? They have not. We yet continue, God
   help us! in a state of sin against warnings. And as for mercies, -- the
   mercies of peace and plenty have been the food of lust, of covetousness
   and sensuality, and have pampered us in wantonness, to the rending and
   tearing one another.

   (4.) When, in the secret workings of God's providence, there is an
   inclination in a sinful people unto a compliance with them [those] from
   whom their destruction is like to proceed, it is a sign that God is
   withdrawn from them, and that the land is so filled with sin. When
   Israel was to be destroyed by the Assyrian, when Israel saw his
   sickness, he sent to the king of Assyria, applied himself to the king
   of Assyria, by whom he was to be destroyed, Hos. v. 13. When Judah saw
   his sickness, all his inclinations and applications were unto the
   Babylonians and Chaldeans, by whom he was to be destroyed. The prophet
   Ezekiel hath a whole chapter to tell you of the fondness of that people
   upon the Babylonians before their destruction. Ezek. xxiii., "They were
   all like princes and mighty men, and thou wast in love with them, and
   committedst adultery with them;" that is, partookest and compliedst
   with their idolatry. When it is so, it is evident that God is greatly
   withdrawn from such a people, and that they are nigh unto their
   desolation.

   What shall we plead for England in this matter? Is it not known what
   wretched and vile compliances we have had with a neighbour nation, the
   French, -- following their manners, imitating their customs, promoting
   their interest, advancing their reputation, when every man almost among
   us talked of nothing but that we should be destroyed by the French? --
   an eminent token of the hand of God upon us, and that the land is so
   filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel. Nay, go farther; --
   whence is it (for we bear ourselves herein not only upon the truth of
   the thing itself, but also upon the proclamation inviting us upon this
   day), whence is it that we fear the judgments of God? whence do we fear
   desolation, confusion, destruction upon this nation, -- to our
   religion, to our liberties, to our lives? Is it not from the papal
   interest? There is it stated by our rulers, and in the thoughts of all
   sober persons. And had we been wise, we might have seen it many years
   ago. But what have we been doing for some ages? Deserting our
   principles, forsaking the foundation we stood upon against the Papacy,
   foregoing those avowed principles of the first reformers, pleading for
   compliance, pleading for a possibility of reconciliation, -- avowing
   them to be a true church. And, in one word, if the power of the
   protestant religion had not been preserved in the body of the people,
   it had, by some, been long ago given up to the papal interest, and this
   working effectually among us at a time when we were in dread (all that
   were wise and considerative) that there would from thence arise the
   desolation and destruction of this church.

   I have given you these evidences that this land of ours is so filled
   with sin against the Holy One of Israel; -- and if they can answer it,
   and disprove it, no man shall more rejoice in it than myself.

   I should, in the next place, show the danger that land is in when
   things lie in this equal balance. For, I pray, observe, I have not
   given these things to prove the land hath filled up its measure of
   iniquity, and must certainly be destroyed; I have not given them to
   prove absolutely that there is a decreed judgment that cannot be
   diverted, -- that there is no remedy, -- that, notwithstanding
   reformation, God will say, "I will not turn away the fierceness of mine
   anger;" -- but I have given them only to prove, that we are in that
   state and condition wherein there is no certain rule of the word, no
   indication of Providence, no rational consideration of the state of
   things that can give us any security of protection or deliverance; but
   that we are absolutely resolved upon sovereign grace and mercy: and
   without relief from thence, I shall only say, as to the proof of the
   proposition, what the prophet saith, Isa. xxxiv. 16, "Seek ye out of
   the book of the Lord, and read: no one of these things shall fail."

   To omit all the considerations and all the proof I intended, that
   sovereign grace and mercy must be our relief, if ever we be relieved, I
   proceed unto the second thing; which is, --

   II. To give in evidences that England is not yet utterly forsaken of
   the Lord its God, the Lord of hosts, though the land be thus filled
   with sin. So that there is ground of encouragement yet remaining to
   apply ourselves to God. And, in truth, I will tell you the best I can
   think of:--

   1. The large and wonderful discovery of the horrible plot, of the
   horrible Popish plot, [360] laid for the ruin, destruction, and
   desolation of the nation, is an evidence that England is not yet, I
   say, utterly forsaken of the Lord its God. It was not discovered by our
   rulers, from whom it was hid. It was not discovered by the severe
   indagation and watchfulness of ministers of state from foreign
   intelligence, -- the usual way of discovering such plots. It was not
   discovered by persons of authority and interest, to warrant the
   discovery. It was not so in a time when the nation was awake, and
   looked about them, and were jealous of such things; but in the deepest
   security. It hath admitted, -- it hath met with all the endeavours of
   hell and men for the covering of it; yet, through the conduct of the
   holy providence of God, it hath broke forth to that discovery, as that
   it is publicly proclaimed to all the nation. I say, with the wife of
   Manoah," If God would have destroyed us, he would not have showed us
   this thing." If he had utterly forsaken us, he would have left us to
   have been swallowed up, when we should not have had leisure to have
   cried, Alas! To me, I say, it is an evidence that England is not yet
   utterly forsaken.

   2. That God hath stirred up some, at least, of the nobles and our
   rulers to follow on this discovery, to bring it forth to light, and to
   pursue them to condign punishment who were the contrivers, authors,
   abettors, and carriers on of that bloody design. I will not speak one
   word or syllable to their dishonour or disrespect who deserve both
   honour and respect from us: but this I will say, that if I know them,
   or any thing of them, this is not from themselves; this is from the
   clothing of the Spirit of God, and anointing to this very work, and is
   not from themselves, nor their own principles, nor their own
   inclinations, but the hand of God in them and upon them. Add hereunto
   the strange and wonderful quiet disposure of the magistracy of this
   city into the hand of persons prudent, diligent, and watchful, whom we
   have reason to pray for, and bless God for. And it is strengthened by
   the stirring up of a spirit in the common people unto an unheard-of
   heat and earnestness in bearing witness and testimony against Popery
   and all their abominations, in such a manner as hath not fallen out in
   any nation under heaven; and this acted above and beyond their spirits
   and principles. These things, to me, are some evidences that England is
   not yet utterly forsaken of the Lord its God, though the land be full
   of sin.

   3. I could instance in the embroilments of foreign nations abroad. At
   this time they are all quiet; but who is there that doth not know that
   they all stand as it were on the tiptoe, looking who shall first begin
   to cut throats and kill men? Even all the nations in Europe are in this
   posture at this day. Though they are quiet this cold weather, yet, "Who
   shall begin first? who shall make the attack? and who shall defend?" is
   the talk of all Europe, -- whereby some of them may have been hindered
   from a public contributing to the ruin of this poor nation.

   4. It is an evidence that England is not yet forsaken, in that a
   secret, efficacious influence of divine Providence hath preserved the
   body politic of the nation in its being and union, when all the
   ligaments of law and mutual trust have been broken. There hath been
   such a dissolution of mutual trust, and all ordinary ligaments of the
   politic union of a nation, that if God had not powerfully grasped the
   whole in his hand, we had long since been in confusion, and every man's
   sword had been in the side of his brother and his neighbour. But to
   this day we are preserved in peace, by a secret, influential power of
   divine wisdom and providence, -- whose footsteps I would adore more and
   more; which is so much the more excellent, in that it is not visible,
   and by outward force, but merely upon the minds of men. This is, to me,
   another evidence that England is not yet forsaken of its God, the Lord
   of hosts.

   5. My last is this, -- That after God hath, by so many ways and so many
   means, declared unto us his displeasure against our sin, having
   declared the sentence in his word, yet he hath visibly granted an
   arrest of judgment. "The sentence shall not be put in execution," saith
   God, "while I give this people a time, and space, and season of
   repentance and reformation." Alas! if God had utterly forsaken us, he
   would have taken us off in the midst of our security; evil would have
   risen, and we should have known the morning of it; destruction would
   presently have overtaken us. But now God hath given us various calls,
   various warnings, and leaves us a space, as yet, to see what we will
   do, and what will become of us. "I will give them a trial," saith God;
   "the decree shall not yet go forth, -- judgment shall not yet come
   forth to execution; I will give them a space for repentance." And this
   consideration hath a double corroboration of this blessed space and
   season God hath given us, for to apply ourselves so far to his call as
   to remove his judgments that are impending over us.

   (1.) The first is, that he hath reserved a remnant among us that do
   make use of this space and season to apply themselves unto the throne
   of grace, and to cry mightily for mercy. God hath not taken his Holy
   Spirit from us. God hath not said, by any open work or secret
   intimation of providence, "Pray no more for this people; my heart shall
   not be toward them." He hath not said so; and, therefore, there are yet
   among us precious souls who do lift up prayers to God night and day,
   not only for themselves and families, not only for the church of God,
   but for this poor land of our nativity, that, if it were the will of
   God, we may not see it soaked in blood; -- that God would not come
   forth to destroy it with a curse; -- that God would pity, and spare,
   and have mercy upon it; -- that he would not make it an "Aceldama," --
   a field of blood. There are many cries to God to this purpose. So that
   there are some by whom this space and season God hath given us is made
   use of.

   (2.) It hath strength from this, that there is an invitation and
   encouragement given to the whole nation to join together in their cries
   to God this day for the same end and purpose. I confess to you (give me
   leave to speak it), I am afraid the body of the nation, considering
   their conduct in this sort of duty, will make no great work of it,
   towards the averting of judgments in such a day as this is. And I am
   afraid, also, that the approaching carnival, or time of feasting, will
   quickly blot out all impressions that ought to be in the minds of men
   from such a day as this is. This is all I can say, -- God is publicly
   acknowledged; and what influence that may have in a farther suspension
   of judgment, till the nation be better prepared to seek unto him, I
   know not.

   Methinks these are evidences (to me they are) that England is not yet
   utterly forsaken of the Lord its God:-- The miraculous discovery of the
   plot for our destruction; -- the pursuit of it by some of our rulers,
   and the body of the nation; -- the embroilment of foreign nations in
   their own concerns; -- the preservation of the political interest and
   body, when all the ligaments of law, and love, and trust were
   dissolved; -- the space and season that God gives us (that we are not
   immediately hurried into blood and confusion), attended with a spirit
   of prayer in some of God's own people, and with a public acknowledgment
   of God in this day in the nation.

   III. I should now proceed to my last thing, -- to show you, that in
   this state, wherein a land is so filled with sin as absolutely to put
   the determination of all things into the hand of sovereignty, and where
   yet there remains some evidences that God hath not utterly forsaken us,
   what is required of us, what is expected from us, that may be a means
   to turn away the wrath and displeasure of God from this poor land and
   nation.

   I should have spoken to the following things:--

   1. That whatsoever be the language of God's calls, unless there be a
   general compliance with them, this land cannot be saved.

   2. I should have shown you, that all the diligence, and the courage,
   and the watchfulness of the rulers, shall not be able to preserve us
   from that destruction which we have deserved; -- unless something else
   be done ere long, their hearts will faint, and their hands fail, and
   their thoughts be divided. For that alone will not do.

   3. Prayer will not do in this case; though that be necessary and
   required, it will not do it. God doth not cry to us merely that we
   should cry to him. "Why criest thou?" said God to Joshua; "there is an
   accursed thing. Why dost thou lie upon thy face, and cry, and pray,
   when judgment is coming upon you? There is an accursed thing got among
   you." It is so with us.

   4. To speak very plain in a plain case; -- the state of this nation is
   such, let our expectation and our hopes be what they will, and
   prognostics be multiplied, God can multiply upon another hand; -- the
   case of this nation is such, that without repentance evidenced, and
   universal reformation sincerely endeavoured, England cannot be saved,
   -- will not be saved; -- God will forsake it, -- destruction from the
   Lord will overtake us.

   5. I should have told you, also, what I judge indispensably necessary,
   that any such reformation may be obtained in this nation; as, --

   (1.) That there be, through the providence of God, provided another
   manner of administration of the word throughout the nation than at
   present there is; which is the only means of conviction, and conversion
   unto God.

   Signs, and wonders, and judgments, terrify; -- it is the word that must
   reform, and turn to God. And if the state of things continue so, that
   some who are able and wise for the work are forbid, and others, that
   engross all to themselves, are either unable or negligent in it, -- I
   have no great hopes of seeing reformation in this land.

   (2.) Unless the generality of magistrates be better principled for, and
   better instructed in, their office, than as yet they seem to be, a
   reformation will not be carried through this nation. And, --

   (3.) Which is the principal, -- That those who have been examples in
   sinning, and in drawing others to sin, become examples in repenting,
   and reforming, and turning to God.

   (4.) Lastly, That the whole nation be stirred up, and do not faint in
   the pursuit of it.

   I have scarce been able to speak the heads of these things unto you. I
   wish I had strength to speak all that is in my thoughts and heart upon
   this matter unto this whole nation; for hereon, and not on any thing
   else, depends the deliverance and safety of it.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [355] [See Jer. vii. 16, xi. 14, xv. 1.]

   [356] The plague in 1665, which cut off 68,596 of the population,
   according to the London bills of mortality.

   [357] The fire which destroyed a large part of London in 1666.

   [358] Most probably the war with the Dutch, which had begun in 1665,
   and in the course of which the Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames, and
   destroyed the ships of war at Chatham.

   [359] Probably the celebrated comet of 1680-81, known by the name of
   Halley's comet. The observations made by Halley and Flamsteed on this
   body are partly the basis, on which Newton, from the theory of
   gravitation, proved the orbit of comets. It was visible for a
   considerable time, and shone with great brilliance.Some knowledge of
   the facts alluded to is needed, to appreciate the force and pertinence
   of Owen's appeals; though, in the progress of science, a different
   inference would now be drawn from such celestial phenomena as the comet
   and the meteor. -- Ed.

   [360] The allusion is to the Popish Plot which Titus Oates was thought
   to have discovered. He was a clergyman of infamous character. Expelled
   from his benefice in the Church of England, he had entered the Jesuit
   college of St Omer. Thence he returned to England, and in 1678 lodged
   information before Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey that the Roman Catholics
   were busy with a scheme for burning London, landing a French army in
   Ireland, and assassinating the king. Sir E. Godfrey, who, as justice of
   the peace, had received the depositions of Oates, was shortly
   afterwards found dead in a field near London; and it was evident that
   he had been murdered. Papers were found on Edward Coleman, a Roman
   Catholic emissary, which afforded some corroboration to the story of
   Oates. These facts secured universal credit at the time for the
   allegations of Oates. The importance which Dr Owen attaches to this
   plot must evidently be understood in the light of the prevailing and
   universal impression among British Protestants at the time when the
   sermon was delivered. -- Ed.
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     __________________________________________________________________
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   Posthumous sermons

   Part ii.

   Sermons published MDCCXXI.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prefatory note.

   Under the second division of the Posthumous Sermons of Owen are
   included all the previously unpublished discourses which appeared in
   the folio edition of his Sermons and Tracts, 1721. The editors of that
   volume state, after alluding to his sermons formerly printed, -- "With
   these are printed a considerable number of sermons and other tracts
   never before published, which we do assure the public are genuine, -- a
   great part of them having been transcribed from his own copies, and the
   rest taken from his mouth by a gentleman of honour and known
   integrity."

   The gentleman referred to was Sir John Hartopp. Dr Isaac Watts, on the
   death of that baronet, preached a well-known and beautiful sermon on
   "The Happiness of Separate Spirits." "When I name Sir John Hartopp,"
   said the preacher, "all that knew him will agree that I name a
   gentleman, a scholar, and a Christian." In the course of the tribute he
   pays to the memory of the deceased, he alludes to the cordial
   friendship that long subsisted between Sir John and "that great and
   venerable man, Dr Owen;" and mentions that he had supplied Asty with
   important information for his brief memoir of our author. Sir John
   Hartopp deserved the warm eulogy of Dr Watts. He was a good man, and
   the friend of good men. He was thrice elected Member of Parliament for
   Leicestershire, at the time when the attempt was made to exclude the
   Duke of York from the crown. He attended the ministry of Owen in
   London, and was in the habit of taking notes in short-hand of his
   sermons, which he afterwards transcribed in full. From these
   manuscripts most of the posthumous sermons of our author have been
   derived. He died in 1722, after the publication of the folio edition of
   Owen's Sermons; and his name, therefore, is a voucher for the
   genuineness of all the discourses contained in this division.

   Two discourses on "The Strength of Faith" are here given first, because
   connected with one on the same text in the preceding volume, -- vol.
   viii. p. 207. The discourses which bear no date fellow. The subsequent
   discourses in this division are arranged according to the years in
   which it has been ascertained that they were preached. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Posthumous sermons.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon I. The strength of faith.

   "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was
   strong in faith, giving glory to God. -- Rom. iv. 20.

   In this chapter the apostle singleth out a signal example, to make good
   the conclusion which, by sundry convincing demonstrations, he had
   proved in the foregoing chapter; namely, that the justification of a
   sinner could by no means be brought about nor accomplished but by the
   righteousness of faith in Christ. This, I say, in the example of
   Abraham, and from the testimonies given concerning him, and the way
   whereby he was justified before God, the apostle proves from the
   beginning of the chapter to the end of verse 17. From thence to the end
   of verse 22 he describes that faith of Abraham whereby he obtained
   acceptation with God; that in all things he might propose him as an
   example and an encouragement unto us.

   Among the many excellencies which are given in, in the description of
   this faith of his, arising from its cause, object, matter, and manner,
   not now to be insisted on, this is none of the least which is mentioned
   in my text, "He staggered not."

   There is a meiosis in the words, wherein, by a negation, the contrary
   to what is denied is strongly asserted: "He staggered, not by
   unbelief;" that is, he was steadfast in believing, or, as it is
   expounded in the close of the verse, "he was strong in faith."

   The words may yield us these two observations:--

   Observation 1. All staggering at the promises of God is through
   unbelief.

   Saith the apostle, "He staggered not through unbelief." Men are apt to
   pretend many other reasons, and do use other pleas; but the truth is,
   all our staggering is through unbelief. But this proposition from these
   words I have long since, in another way, proved, evinced, and applied.
   [361] There is another proposition lies in the text, and that I shall
   now apply myself unto, which is this:--

   Obs. 2. Steadfastness in believing the promises is exceeding acceptable
   unto God.

   In treating upon this subject, I shall do these two things:-- I.
   Explain the terms of the proposition. II. Give the proof of it.

   I. As to the former of these, --

   1. There is the object concerning which the affirmation is laid down:
   "The promises," the promises of God. The promises of God are the
   declaration of the purposes of his grace towards his elect, according
   to the tenor of the covenant. That pointed unto in my text was the old
   great promise of Christ, which contains in it all others; because "in
   him all the promises of God are yea and amen," 2 Cor. i. 20. So that
   although I shall speak nothing but what will be true with reference to
   every promise of God whatever, yet I shall bear a chief respect to the
   promises that exhibit Christ and the free grace of God in him unto
   sinners; -- steadfastness in believing these promises.

   2. There is the act that is exercised about this object; and that is,
   believing. It is steadfastness in believing we speak of.

   I shall not make it my design to insist much on the nature of faith,
   and to debate the differences that are among men about it. Only so much
   must be spoken concerning it as may give us an acquaintance with that
   whereof we are treating.

   How many have been the disputes of men about the nature of faith -- the
   subject, proper object, formal reason of it -- all know. And how little
   the church of God is beholding to men, who have made it their business
   to involve things of general duty, and absolute necessity unto all
   believers, in intricate disputes, -- men that will duly weigh it may
   easily know. By some men's too much understanding, others are brought
   to understand nothing at all. He that would have the things of his own
   spiritual experience and daily duty made unintelligible to him, let him
   consider them as stated in men's philosophical disputes about them.
   Thus, some place faith in one distinct faculty of the soul, some in
   another, and some say there are no such things as distinct faculties in
   the soul. Some place it in both the chief, -- the understanding and the
   will; and some say, it is impossible that one habit should have its
   residence in two faculties.

   For my part, my intention principally is, to speak to such as God
   chooseth, -- the poor and foolish of the world. And the means whereby
   he will bring them to himself are not, I am sure, above that
   understanding which the Son of God hath given them, 1 John v. 20. And
   whereas the general way, in treating of faith, is, for the most part,
   to use strictness of expression, that so it may be delivered in a
   philosophical exactness; the constant way of the Holy Ghost is, by
   metaphorical expressions, accommodations of it to things of sense and
   daily usage in the meanest, to give a relish and perception of it to
   all that are interested in it. And so shall I labour to speak, that
   every one that doth believe may know what it is to believe.

   Only observe this, by the way, -- that I speak of believing and of
   faith in respect of that end, and to that purpose only, in reference
   whereunto Paul here treats of it; that is, in respect of justification
   and our acceptation with God. I say, then, --

   (1.) That faith, or believing, in this restrained sense, doth not
   consist solely in the assent of the mind to the truth of the promises,
   or of any promise. When one affirms any thing to us, and we say we
   believe him, -- that is, that the thing he speaks is true, -- then
   there is this assent of the mind. Without this there is no faith. But
   this alone is not the faith we speak of. This alone and solitary the
   devils have, and cannot choose but have it, James ii. 19. They believe
   that which makes them tremble, on the authority of God who revealeth
   it.

   But you will say, "The devil believes, only the threats of God, -- that
   which makes him tremble; and so his belief is not a general assent, but
   partial; -- and is thereby distinguished from our assent; which is to
   all that God hath revealed, and especially the promises."

   I answer, The devil believes the promises no less than he doth the
   threats of God; that is, that they are true, and shall be accomplished.
   It is part of his misery, that he cannot but believe them. And the
   promises of God are as much suited to make him tremble as his
   threatenings. The first promise to us was couched in a threatening to
   him, Gen. iii. 15. And there is no promise wherein a threatening to him
   is not couched. Every word concerning Christ, or grace by him, speaks
   his downfall and ruin. Indeed, his destruction lies more in promises
   than threats. Promises are what weakens him daily, and gives him a
   continual foretaste of his approaching destruction.

   On this consideration it is evident, that believing, or faith, cannot
   be solely an assent to the truth of these promises upon the fidelity of
   the promiser; but this it is also, or originally. Hence it is called,
   "the receiving the testimony of God," and, therein, "setting to our
   seal that God is true," John iii. 33. But yet, I think there is
   somewhat more in receiving of the testimony of God, and setting our
   seal to it (agreeing, as in contracts, that so it is, and so it shall
   be), than the bare assent of the mind to the truth of the promises;
   although, in ordinary speech, to receive a man's testimony, is no more
   than to believe [that] what he saith, of that concerning which he
   speaks, is true. But there seems, moreover, in the annexed expression
   of "setting to our seal," that that is included which he speaks of to
   Job, Job v. 27, "Hear it, and know it for thy good." There is a
   receiving of it for ourselves, in those expressions; which adds much to
   a bare assent. I say, then, this assent is of faith, though it be not
   faith. And in saying it is not justifying faith, we do not deny it, but
   affirm it to be faith in general. The addition of a peculiar assent
   destroys not the nature of a thing. Now, faith in general is such an
   assent as hath been described.

   (2.) It is not in the sole consent of the will to close with the
   promise, as containing that which is good and suitable. There is the
   matter of the promise to be considered in believing, as well as the
   promise itself. Christ, with his righteousness and benefits, is, as it
   were, tendered unto us therein. Whence, by believing we are said to
   accept of, to "receive the atonement," Rom. v. 11. Now, to consent that
   the matter of the promise -- that which is exhibited in the word of it
   -- is good and desirable, and [that it is] so to us, and to choose it
   on that account, is required to believing also; and it is properly the
   receiving of Christ, John i. 12. But yet it is not only precisely and
   exclusively this. Sarah's faith, Heb. xi. 11, is described by this,
   that she "judged him faithful who had promised." And this is of the
   nature of faith, as was said before, the judging him faithful that
   promiseth, and assenting to the truth of his promises on that account.
   Now, the first of these may be without the second, -- our assent may be
   without the consent of the will; but the latter cannot be without the
   former. But yet, there is such an assent as will certainly produce this
   choice also.

   (3.) I suppose I need not say, it doth not entirely consist in the
   good-liking of the affections, and embracing the things promised. The
   stony ground received the word presently, and with joy, Matt. xiii. 20.
   It is said, verse 5, that the seed sprung up immediately, because it
   had not depth of earth. Where men have warm affections, but not
   thoroughly-prepared minds and hearts, they presently run away with the
   word, and profess great matters from it; but where it is laid in deep,
   it is longer commonly before it appears. When a man receives the word
   only in the affections, the first touch of them cannot be hid;
   instantly he will be speaking of it, melt under it, and declare how he
   is affected with it: "Oh, this sermon hath done me good indeed!" But
   yet this is not faith, when it is alone. They receive the word with
   joy, but have not root in themselves, verses 20, 21. When Christ
   promised "the bread of life," -- that is, himself, -- John vi., how
   many were instantly affected with it, and carried out to strong desires
   of it! "Lord," say they, "evermore give us this bread," verse 34. They
   like it, they desire it, at that season; their affections are taken
   with it: but yet they were but proskairoi, "temporary," not true
   believers; for after a season "they went back, and walked no more with
   Christ," verse 66. Those "who have a taste of the heavenly gift," Heb.
   vi. 4, do you not think they like the taste, and are affected with it?
   There are, indeed, innumerable deceits in this business. I might show
   on how many false and corrupt accounts, on what sandy foundations, many
   men's affections may be exceedingly taken with the word of promise,
   preached or considered; so that there is no concluding of believing to
   lie in any such thing. When affections go before believing, they are
   little worth; but when they follow it, they are exceeding acceptable
   and precious in the sight of God.

   (4.) It is not solely "fiducia," -- a trust, affiance, or confidence.
   There is a twofold fiducial trust; -- one whereby we trust in Christ
   for the forgiveness of sin; which you may call adherence. It is such a
   cleaving to Christ, as that we trust in him for the forgiveness of
   sins, and acceptation with God. And so much as we trust, so much we
   adhere, and no more. There is also a trust that our sins are forgiven
   us; we trust or rest upon it. Now, it cannot be that either of these
   should be faith entirely, and that the whole of it should be included
   in them. There is something more in believing than in trusting; and
   something more in trusting than is absolutely necessary to preserve the
   entire notion of believing: for we may believe that wherein we do not
   trust. But yet this I grant, that where there is believing in Christ,
   there will be trusting in him, more or less. And when faith is
   increased to some good height, strength, and steadfastness, it is
   mainly taken up in trust and confidence, John xiv. 1. So to believe as
   to free our hearts from trouble and disquietment, upon any account
   whatever, is to trust properly; and that doubting, and staggering, and
   fear, which in Scripture we find condemned as opposite to faith, are
   indeed directly opposite to this fiduciary reposing our souls on
   Christ. So the apostle describes his faith or believing, 2 Tim. i. 12.
   So to believe as to be persuaded that God is able to keep what we
   commit to him, is to put our trust in him.

   (5.) Having spoken thus much of these particulars, waiving all the
   arbitrary determinations of the schools, and exactness of words, as to
   philosophical rules and terms, I shall give you such a general
   description of faith, or believing, as may answer in some measure the
   proper and metaphorical expressions of it in the Scriptures; where it
   is termed, looking or seeing, hearing, tasting, resting, rolling
   ourselves, flying for refuge, trusting, and the like.

   [1.] There must be, what I spake of in the first place, an assent to
   the whole truth of the promises of God, upon this ground and bottom, --
   that he is able and faithful to accomplish them. This certainly is in,
   if it be not all, our receiving the testimony or witness of God, John
   iii. 33. Sarah, of whom we spake before, received the testimony of God.
   How did she do it? She "judged him faithful who had promised," Heb. xi.
   11. This God proposes to us in the first place. Eternal life is
   promised by God, who cannot lie, Tit. i. 2; that is, who is so
   faithful, as that it is utterly impossible he should deceive any. So
   Heb. vi. 17, 18, "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the
   heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an
   oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God
   to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to
   lay hold upon the hope set before us." The design of God is, that we
   may receive encouragement in our flying for refuge to the hope set
   before us, -- that is, in believing. What doth he propose to this end?
   Why, his own faithfulness and immutability, on the account of the
   engagement of his word and oath. Abraham's faith spoken of, Rom. iv.,
   compriseth this, -- yea, is commended from it, verse 21.

   The Scripture, indeed, mentions sundry properties of God, on the credit
   whereof, if I may so speak, our souls are to assent to the truth of his
   promises, and to acquiesce therein. Two especially are usually named:--

   1st. His power: "He is able." So Rom. iv. 21, xi. 23.

   2dly. His faithfulness: as in the places before mentioned, and sundry
   others.

   The sum is, that on the account of God's faithfulness and power, this
   we are to do, if we will believe; -- we are to assent to the truth of
   his promises, and the certainty of their accomplishment. If this be not
   done, it is in vain to go forward. Let, then, those who intend any
   advantage by what shall afterward be spoken, stay here a little, and
   consider how they have laid this foundation. Many there are who never
   come to any stability all their days, and yet are never able to fix on
   any certain cause of their shaking and staggering. The foundation was
   laid disorderly. This first closing with the faithfulness and power of
   God in the promises, was never distinctly acted over in and by their
   souls. And if the foundation be weak, let the building be never so
   glorious, it will totter, if not fall. Look, then, to this beginning of
   your confidence, that this fail you not. And when all other holds fail,
   this will support you from utter sinking, if at any time you are
   reduced to that condition that you have nothing else.

   [2.] Over and above this, faith, in the Scripture, is expressed (and we
   find it by experience) to be the will's consent unto, and acceptance
   of, the Lord Jesus Christ as mediator, -- he that accomplished his work
   as the only way of going to the Father, as the sole and sufficient
   cause of our acceptation with him, as our only righteousness before
   him.

   It hath been said, that faith is the receiving of Christ as a priest,
   and a lord, to be saved by him, and ruled by him. This sounds excellent
   well. Who is so vile that, endeavouring to believe, is not willing to
   be ruled by Christ, as well as saved by him? A faith that would not
   have Christ to be Lord to rule us, is that faith alone which James
   rejects. He that would be saved by Christ, and not ruled by him, shall
   not be saved by him at all. We are to receive a whole Christ, not by
   halves; -- in regard of all his offices, not one or another.

   This sounds well, makes a fair show, and there is, in some regard,
   truth in what is spoken; but "Latet anguis in herba," -- Let men
   explain themselves, and it is this: The receiving of Christ as a king,
   is the yielding obedience to him. But that subjection is not a fruit of
   the faith whereby we are justified, but an essential part of it; so
   that there is no difference between faith and works or obedience, in
   the business of justification, both being alike a condition of it.

   When I lately read one saying, "That this was one principle that the
   Church of England went on, in the Reformation, that faith and works
   have the same consideration in the business of justification," I could
   not but stand amazed, and conclude that either he or I had been asleep
   ever since we were born; or that there were two Churches of England, --
   one that I never knew, and another that he never knew; or else that
   prejudice is powerful, and makes men confident. Is that the doctrine of
   the Church of England, as they call it? When, where, by whom was it
   taught, but by Papists and Socinians, until within a very few years, in
   England? What place hath it in confessions, homilies, liturgies,
   controversy writers, or any else of repute for learning and religion in
   England? But this is no place for contest.

   Others at length mince the matter, and say, that faith and works have
   the same respects to our justification that shall be public and solemn
   at the last day, at the day of judgment. And is this all that they have
   intended? How they will justify themselves at the day of judgment for
   troubling the peace of the saints of God, and shaking the great
   fundamental articles of the Reformation, I know not; but it is no news,
   for men loving novelties to dispute themselves they know not whither,
   and to recoil or retire unhandsomely.

   It is true, then, we acknowledge, that faith receives Christ as a lord,
   as a king; and it is no true faith that will not, doth not do so, and
   put the soul upon all that obedience which he, as the captain of our
   salvation, requires at our hands. But faith, as it justifies (in its
   concurrence, whatever it be, thereunto), closeth with Christ for
   righteousness and acceptation with God only. And, give me leave to say,
   it is in that act no less exclusive of good works than of sin. It
   closeth with Christ in and for that, on the account whereof he is our
   righteousness, and for and by which we are justified.

   But you will say, "This makes you Solifidians; [362] and are you not
   justly so accounted?"

   I say, So was Paul a Solifidian, whose epistles will confute all the
   formalists and self-justiciaries in the world. We are Solifidians as to
   justification:-- Christ, grace, and faith are all. We are not
   Solifidians as to salvation nor gospel conversation, nor the
   declaration of the efficacy of our believing. Such Solifidians as
   exclude every thing from an influence in our justification but our
   acceptation by the grace of God, on faith's receiving of Christ for
   righteousness and salvation, were all the apostles of Jesus Christ.
   Such Solifidians as exclude or deny the necessity of works and gospel
   obedience to him that is justified, -- or that say, a true and
   justifying faith may consist without holiness, works, and obedience, --
   are condemned by all the apostles, and James in particular.

   This, then, I say, is required to faith, or believing, -- that we thus
   receive Christ. John i. 11, "His own received him not." The not
   receiving of Christ for such purposes as he is sent unto us by the
   Father, is properly unbelief; and therefore, as it follows, the so
   receiving him is properly faith, or believing, verse 12. Thus, in
   preaching the gospel, we are said to make a tender or proffer of
   Christ, as the Scripture doth, Rev. xxii. 17. Now, that which answers a
   tender or proffer, is the acceptance of it. So that the soul's willing
   acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ for our righteousness before God,
   being tendered to us in the promises of the gospel for that end and
   purpose, from the love of the Father, is the main of that believing
   which is so acceptable unto God.

   [3.] Add hereunto that which I cannot say is absolutely of the nature
   of faith, but in some degree or other (secret or more known to the
   soul) a necessary concomitant of it; and that is, the soul's resting
   and quieting itself, and satisfying its affections, in its interest in
   and enjoyment of a sweet, desirable Saviour. This is called, "cleaving
   unto the Lord," Joshua, Josh. xxiii. 8, -- the fixing and fastening our
   affections on God, as ours in covenant. This is the soul's resting in
   God, its affiance and trusting in him.

   And in these three things, which are intelligible to the meanest soul,
   and written evidently in the words of the Scripture, and in the
   experience of those who have to do with God in Christ, do I place the
   believing which is so acceptable to God.

   3. There is, next, the qualification of this believing, as laid down in
   the proposition; and that is, steadfastness, -- steadfastness in
   believing. This is included in the negative. It is said of Abraham that
   "he staggered not;" that is, he was steadfast. To clear this up a
   little, take these few observations:--

   (1.) Faith, or believing, consists in such an habitual frame of heart,
   and such actings of the soul, as are capable of degrees of straitening
   or enlargement, of strength and weakness. Hence there is mention in the
   Scripture of great faith, "O woman, great is thy faith;" and of little
   faith, "O ye of little faith;" -- of strong faith, Abraham "was strong
   in faith;" and of weak faith, or being weak in faith, "him that is weak
   in the faith receive;" -- of faith with doubting, "O ye of little
   faith, why did ye doubt?" and of faith excluding doubting, "Being
   strong in faith, he staggered" or "doubted not."

   (2.) That faith in every respect is equal as unto sincerity, and
   differs only in degrees; yea, it is equal in respect of the main
   effects and advance of it, -- in justification, perseverance, and
   salvation. A little faith is no less faith than a great faith; yea, a
   little faith will carry a man as safely to heaven, though not so
   comfortably, nor so fruitfully, as a great faith. Now, --

   (3.) Steadfastness respects those different degrees of faith. It is not
   of the nature of faith, but bespeaks such a degree of it as is
   acceptable to God that we should have, and every way advantageous to
   ourselves. It is mentioned by Peter, 2 Pet. iii. 17, "Beware lest ye
   fall from your own steadfastness," or decline from that stability in
   believing which you have attained; and by Paul, Col. ii. 5. So that, --

   (4.) There may be a true faith, that yet may have many troublesome,
   perplexing doubtings accompanying it, many sinful staggerings and
   waverings attending it; and yet not be overthrown, but continue true
   faith still. Men may be true believers, and yet not strong believers. A
   child that eats milk hath as truly the nature of a man, as he that,
   being grown up, lives on strong meat. Now, steadfastness denotes
   stability in believing, in respect of the three things before
   mentioned, and by it faith is denominated strong and effectual. And it
   argues, --

   [1.] A well-grounded, firm, unshaken assent to the truth of the
   promises; and so it is opposed to wavering, James i. 5, 6.

   [2.] A resolved, clear consent to receive and close with Christ, as
   tendered in the promise, for life; and so it is opposed to doubting, --
   that is, troublesome, disquieting, perplexing doubts.

   [3.] The settled acquiescence of the soul in the choice made and the
   close consented unto; and so it is opposed to abiding trouble, John
   xiv. 1.

   This steadfastness in believing doth not exclude all temptations from
   without. When we say a tree is firmly rooted, we do not say that the
   wind never blows upon it. The house that is built on the rock is not
   free from assaults and storms. The Captain of our salvation, the
   beginner and ender of our faith, was tempted; and we shall be so, if we
   follow him. Nor doth it exclude all doubting from within. So long as we
   have flesh, though faith be steadfast, we shall have unbelief; and that
   bitter root will bring forth some fruit, more or less, according as
   Satan gets advantage to water it. But it excludes a falling under
   temptation, and consequently that trouble and disquietness which ensues
   thereon: as likewise abiding perplexing doubts, which make us stagger
   to and fro between hope and fear, questioning whether we close with
   Christ or not, -- have any interest in the promise or not; and is
   attended with disconsolation and dejectedness of spirit, with real
   uncertainty of the event.

   This, then, is that which I intend by steadfastness in believing, --
   the establishment of our hearts in the receiving of Christ, as tendered
   by the love of the Father, to the peace and settlement of our souls and
   consciences. And that our hearts should be thus fixed, settled, and
   established, -- that we should live in the sense and power of it, --
   is, I say, exceeding acceptable unto God.

   There is a twofold evil and miscarriage among us, in the great
   foundation business of closing with Christ in the promise. Some spend
   all their days in much darkness and disconsolateness, -- disputing it
   to and fro in their own thoughts, whether their portion and interest
   lie therein or not. They are off and on, living and dying, hoping and
   fearing, and commonly fear most when they have best hold, -- for that
   is the nature of doubting. When they are quite cast down, then they set
   themselves a-work to get up; and when they are up to any comfortable
   persuasion, instantly they fear that all is not well and right, -- it
   is not so with them as it should be: and thus they stagger to and fro
   all their lives, to the grief of the Spirit of God, and the discomfort
   of their own souls.

   Others, beginning a serious closing with Christ, upon abiding grounds,
   and finding it a work of difficulty and tediousness to flesh and blood,
   relapse into generals, inquire no more, but take it for granted that as
   much is done as they can accomplish; and so grow formal and secure.

   To obviate both these evils, I shall confirm the proposition laid down;
   but before I proceed to that, I shall draw some corollaries that arise
   from what hath been spoken in the explication of the proposition
   already insisted on:--

   Corollary 1. Though a little weak faith, where steadfastness is
   wanting, will carry a man to Christ in heaven, yet it will never carry
   him comfortably nor pleasantly thither.

   He who hath but a weak faith shall be put to many desperate plunges;
   every blast of temptation shall cast him down from his consolation, if
   not turn him aside from his obedience. At best, he is like a man bound
   in a chain on the top of a high tower; though he cannot fall, yet he
   cannot but fear. However, it will have a good issue.

   Corol. 2. The least true faith will do its work safely, though not so
   sweetly.

   True faith in the least degree, gives the soul a share in the first
   resurrection. It is of the vital principle which we receive when we are
   quickened. Now, be it never so weak a life we have, yet it is a life
   that shall never fail. It is of the seed of God, which abideth, --
   incorruptible seed, that dieth not. A believer is spirit, -- is
   quickened from the dead; be he never so young, never so sick, never so
   weak, he is still alive, and the second death shall have no power over
   him. A little faith gives a whole Christ. He that hath the least faith
   hath as true an interest, though not so clear an interest, in the
   righteousness of Christ as the most steadfast believer. Others may be
   more holy than he, but not one in the world is more righteous than he;
   for he is righteous with the righteousness of Christ. He cannot but be
   low in sanctification, for a little faith will bring forth but little
   or low obedience; if the root be weak, the fruit will not be great. But
   he is beneath none in justification. The most imperfect faith will give
   present justification, because it interests the soul in a present
   Christ. The lowest degree of true faith gives the highest completeness
   of righteousness, Col. ii. 10. You, who have but a weak faith, have yet
   a strong Christ. So that, though all the world should set itself
   against your little faith, it should not prevail. Sin cannot do it;
   Satan cannot do it; -- hell cannot do it, Though you take but weak and
   faint hold on Christ, he takes sure, strong, and unconquerable hold on
   you. Have you not often wondered, that this spark of heavenly fire
   should be kept alive in the midst of the sea? It is everlasting; a
   spark that cannot be quenched, -- a drop of that fountain that can
   never be wholly dried up. Jesus Christ takes special care of them that
   are weak in faith, Isa. xl. 11. On what account soever they are sick,
   and weak, and unable, this good Shepherd takes care of them. He shall
   rule, and they shall abide, Mic. v. 4.

   Corol. 3. There may be faith, a little faith, where there wants
   steadfastness, and [where there] is much doubting.

   Steadfastness is an eminent qualification, that all attain not to; so
   that there may be faith where there is doubting, though I do not say
   there must be. Doubtings in themselves are opposite to believing. They
   are, if I may so say, unbelieving. A man can hardly believe all his
   days, and never doubt; but a man may doubt all his days, and never
   believe. If I see a field overgrown with thistles and weeds, I can say,
   There may be corn there; but yet the thistles and weeds are not corn. I
   speak this, because some have no better bottom for their quiet, than
   that they have been disquieted, -- that they have doubted. Doubting may
   be where faith is; but we cannot conclude that where there is doubting,
   there is faith; for it may rise against presumption and security as
   well as against believing. Yet observe, there is a twofold doubting:--

   (1.) Of the end. Men question what will become of them in the close;
   they fluctuate about what will be their latter end. Did not Balaam do
   so when he cried, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my
   latter end be like his"? That wretched man was tossed up and down
   between hopes and fears. This is common to the vilest person in the
   world. It is but the shaking of their security, if they be alone.

   (2.) About the means. The soul doubts whether it loves Christ, and
   whether Christ loves it or not. This is far more genuine than the
   former. It discovers, at least, that such a soul is convinced of the
   excellency and usefulness of Christ, and that it hath a valuation for
   him; yea, perhaps this may be jealousy from fervency of love sometimes,
   and not always from weakness of faith. But, however, with these
   doubtings, faith, at least a little faith, may consist. So was it with
   the poor man who cried out, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."
   There is believing and unbelieving, faith and doubting, both at work at
   the same time in the same person, -- Jacob and Esau struggling in the
   same womb.

   Use. Let not men from their doubting conclude to their believing. He
   that satisfies himself that his field hath corn because it hath
   thistles, may come short of a harvest. If thy fears be more about the
   end than the means, -- more about future happiness than present
   communion with God, -- thou canst scarce have a clearer argument of a
   false, corrupt frame of heart. Some flatter themselves with this, that
   they have doubted and trembled; but now they thank God they are quiet
   and at rest. How they came to be so, they cannot tell; only, whereas
   they were disquieted and troubled, now all is well with them. How many
   of this sort have I known, who, whilst convictions have been warm upon
   them, have had many perplexing thoughts about their state and
   condition; after a while, their convictions have worn off, and their
   doubtings thence arising departed, and they have sunk down into a cold,
   lifeless frame! This is a miserable bottom of quiet. If there were no
   way of casting out doubts and fears but by believing, this were
   somewhat; but presumption and security will do it also, at least for a
   season.

   But these things fall in only by the way, in reference to what was
   spoken before.

   II. I proceed now to confirm the proposition laid down, according to
   the explanation given of it before:--

   1. And this I shall do first from Scripture testimonies:--

   (1.) Take the text itself: "He was strong in faith, giving glory to
   God." All that God requires of any of the sons of men is, his glory; --
   that he will not give unto another, Isa. xlii. 8. Let God have his
   glory, and we may take freely whatever we will; -- take Christ, take
   grace, take heaven, -- take all. The great glory which he will give to
   us, consists in giving him his glory, and beholding of it. Now, if this
   be the great thing, the only thing, that God requires at our hands, --
   if this be the all which he hath reserved to himself, that he be
   glorified as God, as our God, -- he that gives him that, gives him what
   is acceptable to him. Thus Abraham pleased God by being strong or
   steadfast in believing. He was strong in faith, and gave glory to God.

   The glory of God is spoken of in various senses in the Scripture:--

   [1.] The Hebrew word kvvd?, signifies "pondus," or "weight;" whereunto
   the apostle alludes when he speaks of "an eternal weight of glory," 2
   Cor. iv. 17. This is the glory of the thing itself. It likewise
   signifies splendour, or brightness, where the apostle, in like manner,
   speaks of "the brightness of glory," Heb. i. 3; which is the greatness
   and excellency of beauty in all perfections. In this sense, the
   infinite excellency of God, in his inconceivable perfections, raised up
   in such brightness as utterly exceeds all our apprehensions, is called
   his "glory." And so he is "The God of glory," Acts vii. 2, or, the most
   glorious God; and our Saviour is called "The Lord of glory," 1 Cor. ii.
   8, in the same sense. In this respect we can give no glory to God; we
   can add nothing to his excellencies, nor the infinite, inconceivable
   brightness of them, by any thing we do.

   [2.] Glory relates not only to the thing itself that is glorious, but
   to the estimation and opinion we have of it, -- that is, doxa; when
   that which is in itself glorious is esteemed so. The philosopher saith,
   "Gloria est frequens de aliquo fama cum laude;" or, "Consentiens laus
   bonorum, incorrupta vox bene judicantium de excellenti virtute." And,
   in this respect, that which is infinitely glorious in itself, may be
   more or less glorious in its manifestation and the estimation of it. So
   glory is not any of God's excellencies or perfections; but it is the
   esteem and manifestation of them amongst and unto others.

   This God declares to be his glory, Exod. xxxiii. 19. Moses desires to
   see the "glory" of God. This God calls his "face;" that is, the glory
   of God in itself. "This," saith God, "thou canst not see: Thou canst
   not see my face,' -- or, the brightness of my essential glory, the
   splendour of my excellencies and perfections." Well, what then? shall
   he have no acquaintance with it? After this God places him in a rock,
   and tells him, there he will show him his glory. And this he doth under
   the name of his "back parts;" that is, he will declare to him wherein
   and how his glory is manifested. Now, this Rock that followed them was
   Christ, 1 Cor. x. 4. The Lord places Moses in that rock to show him his
   glory; intimating that there is no glimpse of it to be obtained but
   only by them who are placed in Christ Jesus. Now, what is this glory of
   God which he thus showed to Moses? That he declares, Exod. xxxiv. 6; --
   causing his majesty, or some visible signs of his presence, "to pass
   before him," he proclaims the name of God, with many gracious
   properties of his nature and blessedness. As if he should say, "Moses,
   wouldst thou see my glory? This is it, that I may be known to be the
   Lord, the Load God, merciful and gracious;' -- let me be known to be
   this, and thus, and this is the glory I aim at from the sons of men."

   See, now, how steadfastness in believing gives glory to God. It
   advanceth and magnifieth all these properties of God, and gives all his
   attributes their due exaltation. An excellent estimation of them is
   included in it. Might I here descend to particulars, I could manifest
   that there is not any property of God, whereby he hath made himself
   known to us, but steadfastness in believing gives it the glory which in
   some measure is due unto it; and that all doubting arises from our
   calling some divine attribute into question. It were easy to show how
   this gives God the glory of his faithfulness, truth, power,
   righteousness, grace, mercy, goodness, love, patience, and whatever
   else God hath revealed himself to be.

   This, then, is the force of this first testimony: If the glory of God
   be all that he requires at our hands, and this steadfastness in
   believing gives him this glory, and this alone doth so, it must needs
   be acceptable unto him.

   (2.) A testimony of the same importance [363] is Heb. vi. 17, 18. "The
   heirs of the promise," those to whom it is made (the great promise of
   Christ), are believers; these are said here, "to fly for refuge,"
   kataphugontes, "the fliers with speed." The expression is evidently
   metaphorical. The allusion, say some, is taken from those who ran in a
   race for a prize. This, they say, the word kratesai that follows,
   (which signifies "to take fast hold on") doth import. Men that run in a
   race, when they attain the end, seize on, and lay fast hold of the
   prize.

   Our translators, by rendering the word "flying for refuge," manifest
   that they had respect to the manslayers flying to the city of refuge
   under the Old Testament: and this way go sundry interpreters. And I am
   inclined to this acceptation of the metaphor upon a double account:--

   [1.] Because I think the apostle would more willingly allude to a
   Hebrew custom, writing to the Hebrews touching an institution of God,
   and that directly typical of the matter he had in hand, than to a
   custom of the Greeks and Romans in their races, which hath not so much
   light in it, as to the business in hand, as the other.

   [2.] Because the design of the place doth evidently hold out a flying
   from something, as well as a flying to something; in which regard it is
   said, that there is "consolation" provided for them; namely, in their
   deliverance from the evil which they feared and fled from. Now, in a
   race there is indeed a prize proposed, but there is no evil avoided. It
   was otherwise with him that fled for refuge; for as he had a city of
   safety before him, so he had the avenger of blood behind him; and he
   fled with speed and diligence to the one, that he might avoid the
   other, Now, these cities of refuge were provided for the manslayer,
   who, having slain a man at unawares, and being thereby surprised with
   an apprehension of danger -- it being lawful for the avenger of blood
   to slay him -- fled with all his strength to one of those cities, where
   he was to enjoy immunity and safety.

   Thus a poor sinner, finding himself in a condition of guilt, surprised
   with a sense of it, seeing death and destruction ready to seize upon
   him, flies with all his strength to the bosom of the Lord Jesus, -- the
   only city of refuge from the avenging justice of God and curse of the
   law. Now, this flying to the bosom of Christ, -- the hope set before us
   for relief and safety, -- is believing. It is here called flying by the
   Holy Ghost, to express the nature of it to the spiritual sense of
   believers. What, now; doth he declare himself to be affected with their
   "flying for refuge," -- that is, their believing? Why, he hath taken
   all means possible to show himself abundantly willing to receive them.
   He hath engaged his word and promise, that they may not in the least
   doubt or stagger, but know that he is ready to receive them, and give
   them "strong consolation." And what is this consolation? Whence may it
   appear to arise? Whence did consolation arise to him who, having slain
   a man at unawares, should fly to a city of refuge? Must it not be from
   hence, -- the gates of the city would certainly be open to him, that he
   should find protection there, and be safe-guarded from the revenger?
   Whence, then, must be our strong consolation, if we thus fly for refuge
   by believing? Must it not be from hence, that God is freely ready to
   receive us, -- that he will in no wise shut us out, but that we shall
   be welcome to him; and with the more speed we come, the more welcome we
   shall be? This he convinces us of, by the engagement of his word and
   oath to that purpose. And what farther testimony would we have that our
   believing is acceptable to him?

   It is said, Heb. x. 38, "If any man draw back, my soul [the Lord's]
   shall have no pleasure in him." What is it to draw back? It is to
   decline from his steadfastness of believing. So the apostle interprets
   it, verse 39, "We are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of
   them that believe." Drawing back is opposed to believing. In these
   drawers-back that come not up to steadfastness in believing, nor labour
   so to do, the Lord's "soul hath no pleasure; "-- that is, he
   exceedingly abhors and abominates them; which is the force of that
   expression. His delight is in those who are steadfast in adhering to
   the promises; in them his soul takes pleasure.

   When the Jews treated with our Saviour about salvation, they ask him,
   "What shall we do, that we might work the work of God?" John vi. 28, --
   that work of God by which, they might come to be accepted with him;
   which is the cry of all convinced persons. Our Saviour's answer is,
   verse 29, "This is the work of God, that ye believe." "Will ye know the
   great work, wherein God is so delighted?" "It is this," saith he, "that
   ye believe,' and be steadfast therein."

   Hence, also, are many exhortations that are given us by the Holy Ghost
   to come up hereunto; as Heb. xii. 12; Isa. xxxv. But I shall not
   farther insist on testimonies, which exceedingly abound to this
   purpose. The farther demonstrations of the point ensue:--

   2. The next shall consist in the farther improvement of the first
   testimony concerning the glory of God, arising from our being steadfast
   in believing.

   This is granted by all, that God's ultimate end in all things he doth
   himself, and in all that he requires us to do, is his own glory. It
   cannot be otherwise, if he be the first, only independent being, and
   prime cause of all things, and their chiefest good. God having, then,
   placed his glory in that which cannot be attained and brought about
   without believing, in answer to his present constitution of things, it
   must needs be acceptable to him; as is a suitable means to a designed
   end to any one's acting in wisdom and righteousness.

   Bear in mind, I pray, what it is that I mean by believing. Though the
   word be general and large, yet in my intendment it is restrained to the
   particulars insisted on, -- namely, the constant establishment of our
   souls in receiving the Lord Jesus, tendered unto us in the truth and
   from the love of the Father, for the pardon of sins, and acceptation of
   our persons before God. This, I say, according to God's constitution of
   things in the covenant of grace, is necessary to bring about that end
   of glory to himself which he aims at. Hence he sums up his whole design
   to be "the praise of his glorious grace," Eph. i. 6.

   In Prov. xxv. 2, if I mistake not, this is clearly asserted, "It is the
   glory of God to conceal a thing," or "to cover a matter." I told you
   before what is the glory of God. It is not the splendour and majesty of
   his infinite and excellent perfections, which arise not from any thing
   he doth, but from what he is; but it is the exaltation, manifestation,
   and essence of those excellencies. When God is received, believed,
   known to be such as he declares himself, -- therein is he glorified;
   that is his glory. This glory, saith the Holy Ghost, arises from the
   covering a matter.

   What matter is this? It is not the glory of God to cover every matter,
   all things whatever; yea, it is his glory to "bring to light the hidden
   things of darkness." The manifestation of his own works "declares his
   glory," Ps. xix. 1. So doth the manifestation of the good works of his
   people, Matt. v. 16. It is, then, things of some peculiar kind that are
   here intended. The following opposition discovers this, "The honour of
   kings is to search out a matter." What matter is it that it is the
   glory of the king to find out? Is it not faults and offences against
   the law? Is it not the glory of magistrates to find out transgressions,
   that the transgressors may be punished? This is the glory of the
   magistrate, to inquire, find out, and punish offences, transgressions
   of the law. It is, then, in answer hereunto, a sinful thing, sin
   itself, that is the matter or thing which it is the glory of God to
   cover. But what is it to cover a sinful matter? It is that which is
   opposed to the magistrate's finding it out; -- what that is, we have a
   full description in Job xxix. 16, 17, "The cause I knew not, I searched
   out, and I brake the jaws of the wicked." It is to make judicial
   inquisition after, to find out hidden transgressions, that the
   offenders may be brought to condign punishment; so that God's
   concealing a matter is his not searching, with an intention of
   punishment, into sins and sinners, to make them naked to the stroke of
   the law. It is his hiding of sin from the condemning power of the law.

   The word here used is the same with that of David, Ps. xxxii. 1,
   "Blessed is the man whose sin is covered." And in sundry other places
   is it used to the same purpose; which is expressed, Mic. vii. 19, by
   "casting all our sins into the bottom of the sea." That which is so
   disposed of is utterly covered from the sight of men. So doth God
   express the covering of the sins of his people, as to their not
   appearance to their condemnation, -- they shall be "cast into the
   bottom of the sea." Hence are our sins, in the New Testament, said
   aphienai which we translate "forgiven," and "to forgive;" and aphesis,
   "forgiveness," in twenty places. The word signifies properly to
   "remove" or "dismiss" one; hamartemata aphienai, is "peccata missa
   facere," -- "to send or remove away our sins out of sight;" the same in
   substance with that which is here called "to cover." And so is the word
   used in another business, Matt. xxiii. 23, Aphekate ta barutera tou
   nomou, -- "You have omitted the weightier things of the law;" that is,
   you have laid them aside, as it were, out of sight, taking no care of
   them. Now, the bottom of all these expressions of removing, hiding,
   covering, and concealing sin, which gives life and significancy to
   them, making them import forgiveness of sin, is the allusion that is in
   them to the mercy-seat under the law. The making and use of it we have,
   Exod. xxv. 17, 18. It was a plate of pure gold, lying on the ark,
   called kprt?, or "a covering." In the ark was the law, written on
   tables of stone. Over the mercy-seat, between the cherubims, was the
   oracle representing the presence of God. By which the Holy Ghost does
   signify, that the mercy-seat was to cover the law, and the condemning
   power of it, as it were, from the eye of God's justice, that we be not
   consumed. Hence is God said to cover sin, because by the mercy-seat he
   hides that which is the strength and power of sin, as to its guilt and
   tendency unto punishment. The apostle calls this "mercy-seat," to
   hilasterion, Heb. ix. 5. That word is used but once more in the New
   Testament, and then Christ is called so, Rom. iii. 25, or hon proetheto
   ho hilasterion, -- "whom God hath proposed as a mercy-seat." Christ
   alone is that mercy-seat by whom sin, and the law from whence sin hath
   its rigour, is hidden. And from that typical institution is that
   expression in the Old Testament, "Hide me under thy wings," -- the
   wings of the cherubims, where the mercy-seat was; that is, in the bosom
   of Christ.

   Now, saith the Holy Ghost, thus to hide, to cover, to pardon sin by
   Christ, is the glory of God, wherein he will be exalted and admired,
   and for which he will be praised. Give him this, and you give him his
   great aim and design. Let him be believed in, trusted on, as God in
   Christ pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin, -- so reconciling
   the world to himself, and manifesting his glorious properties therein,
   -- and he hath his end.

   Should I now proceed to show what God hath done, what he doth, and will
   do, to set up his glory, it would make it evident, indeed, that he
   aimed at it. His eternal electing love lies at the bottom of this
   design. This is the tendency of it, -- that God may be glorified in the
   forgiveness of sin. The sending of his Son, -- a mystery of wisdom,
   goodness, and righteousness past finding out, -- with all that, by his
   authority and commission, he did; suffered, and doth, was, that his
   name might be glorified in this thing. Hath the new covenant of grace
   any other end? Did not God on purpose propose, make, and establish that
   covenant in the blood of his Son; that whereas he had, by his works of
   creation and providence, by the old covenant and law, given glory to
   himself in other respects, he might by this glorify himself in the
   hiding of iniquity? The dispensation of the Spirit for the conversion
   of sinners, with all the mighty works ensuing thereupon, is to the same
   and no other purpose. Wherefore doth God exercise patience,
   forbearance, long-suffering towards us, -- such as he will be admired
   for to eternity, -- such as our souls stand amazed to think of? It is
   only that he may bring about this glory of his, -- the covering of
   iniquity and pardoning of sin.

   Now, what is it that on our part is required, that this great design of
   God for his glory may be accomplished in and towards us? Is it not our
   believing, and steadfastness therein? I need not stay to manifest it;
   nor yet give farther light or strength to our inference from what hath
   been spoken, -- namely, that if these things are so, then our believing
   and steadfastness therein is exceeding acceptable to God.

   3. For the last demonstration of the point, I shall add the
   consideration of one particular that God useth in the pursuit of his
   glory, before mentioned; and that is, his institution and command of
   preaching the gospel to all nations, and the great care he hath taken
   to provide instruments for the propagation of it, and promulgation
   therein of the word of his grace, Matt. xxviii. 19, "Go preach the
   gospel to all nations;' -- to every creature,'?" Mark xvi. 15. What is
   this gospel, which he will have preached and declared? Is it any thing
   but a declaration of his mind and will concerning his gracious
   acceptation of believing, and steadfastness therein? This God declares
   of his purpose, his eternal, unchangeable will, -- that there is, by
   his appointment, an infallible, an inviolable connection between
   believing on Jesus Christ, the receiving of him, and the everlasting
   fruition of himself. This he declares to all; but his purpose to bestow
   faith effectually relates only to some: they "believe who are ordained
   to eternal life." But this purpose of his will -- that believing in
   Christ shall have the end mentioned, righteousness and salvation in the
   enjoyment of himself -- concerns all alike. Now, to what end hath the
   Lord taken care that this gospel shall be so preached and declared, and
   that to the consummation of the world, but that indeed our believing is
   acceptable to him?

   But I shall desist from the pursuit of this demonstration, wherein so
   many things offer themselves to consideration, as that the naming of
   them must needs detain me longer from my principal aim than I am
   willing.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [361] See the sermon on this text, vol. viii. p. 207.

   [362] A name derived from two Latin words, signifying faith alone. --
   Ed.

   [363] Importance sometimes occurs in the writings of Owen, under a
   signification attached to it by some old English writers, and according
   to which it is equivalent to import, meaning, signification. -- Ed.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon II.

   The use of the point insisted on is, to encourage to the duty so
   commended and exalted; or, it contains motives unto steadfastness in
   believing the promises. Amongst the many that are usually insisted on
   to this purpose, I shall choose out some few that seem to be most
   effectual thereunto:--

   Use 1. We shall begin with the consideration of God himself, even the
   Father; and that declaration of his love, kindness, tenderness,
   readiness, and willingness to receive poor believers, which he hath
   made of himself in Christ Jesus. According as our apprehensions are of
   him, and his heart towards us, so will the settlement of our souls in
   cleaving to him by believing be. We are, amongst men, free and easy
   with them whom we know to be of a kind, loving, compassionate
   disposition; but full of doubts, fears, and jealousies, when we have to
   deal with those who are morose, peevish, and froward. Entertaining hard
   thoughts of God, ends perpetually in contrivances to fly and keep at a
   distance from him, and to employ ourselves about any thing in the world
   rather than to be treating and conversing with him. What delight can
   any one take in him whom he conceives to be always furious, wrathful,
   ready to destroy? or, what comfortable expectation can any one have
   from such a one? Consider, then, in some particulars, what God declares
   of himself, and try, in the exercising of your thoughts thereon,
   whether it be not effectual to engage your hearts to steadfastness in
   believing the promises, and closing with the Son of his love tendered
   in them:--

   (1.) He gives us his name for our support, Isa. l. 10. He speaks to
   poor, dejected, bewildered, fainting sinners: "Give not over; let not
   go your hold; though you be in darkness to all other means of support
   and consolation, yet trust in the name of the Lord.' And," saith he,
   "in case you do so, this name shall be a strong tower unto you,'?"
   Prov. xviii. 10.

   And what this name of God, which is such a stay and safe defence, is,
   is declared at large, Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. This name of his, is that
   glory which he promised to show to Moses, chap. xxxiii. To be known by
   this name is that great glory of God which he aims to be exalted in;
   yea, and God is so fully known by his name, and the whole of the
   obedience he requireth of us is so ordered and disposed in the
   revelation thereof, that when our Saviour had made him and his whole
   will known from his bosom, he sums up his whole work in this, "I have
   manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the
   world," John xvii. 6. The manifestation of the name of God to the elect
   was the great work of Christ on the earth, as he was the prophet and
   teacher of his church. He declared the name of God, -- his gracious,
   loving, tender nature, -- his blessed properties, that were fit to
   encourage poor creatures to come to him, and to trust in him. This,
   then, is his name with whom we have to do in this matter; -- the name
   he hath given himself for us to know him and call him by, -- that we
   may deal with him as such, as his name bespeaks him to be. He is
   gracious, loving, ready to pity, help, receive us; delighting in our
   good, rejoicing in our approach to him. This he hath proclaimed of
   himself, -- this his only Son hath revealed him to be. He is not called
   Apollyon, a destroyer; but, the Saviour of men. Who would not venture
   on him, in and by the way which himself hath appointed and approved?

   (2.) As is his name, so is his nature. Saith he of himself, Isa. xxvii.
   4, "Fury is not in me." He speaks with reference to his church, to
   believers, of whom we are speaking. There is no such thing as that
   anger and wrath in God in reference to thee whereof thou art afraid.
   Hast thou had hard thoughts of him? Hast thou nothing but entertained
   affrighting reports concerning him, as though he were a devouring fire
   and endless burnings? "Be not," saith he, "mistaken; fury is not in
   me.'?" He hath not one wrathful, revengeful thought towards thee. No;
   take hold of his strength, and you shall have peace, verse 5. Nay, he
   is "love," 1 John iv. 8, 16; -- of an infinitely loving and tender
   nature, -- all love. There is nothing in him that is inconsistent with
   love itself. We see how a little love, that is but a weak affection in
   the nature of a man, will carry a tender father towards a child. How
   did it melt, soften, reconcile the father of the prodigal in the
   parable! "O my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee!" saith
   David, a poor father in distress for the death of a rebellious child.
   How will a child bear himself above dread and terror, under many
   miscarriages, upon the account of the love of a tender father! What,
   then, shall we say or think of Him who is love in the abstract, --
   whose nature is love? May we not conclude that certainly he "is
   merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy," as the
   psalmist speaks? Ps. ciii. 8. According as we are, by degrees, led into
   an acquaintance with God in his properties (for we are led into it by
   degrees and steps, not being able at once to bear all the glory which
   he is pleased here to shine upon us with), so are we amazed with his
   several excellencies. Experience of any property of God as engaged in
   Christ, and exercising itself for our good, is greatly conquering to
   the soul; but none so much as this, -- his being love, and ready to
   forgive on that account. Such is the frame of the church, Mic. vii. 18,
   "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by
   transgression?" Can it enter into the heart of man? O who is like to
   him! Is it possible he should be thus to sinners! This discovery
   overwhelms the soul, and strengthens it in faith and trust in him.

   There is a general compassion in God, by which he proceeds in the
   dispensation of his providence, that is too hard for the apprehensions
   of men when they come to be concerned in it. Poor Jonah was angry that
   he was so merciful, Jonah iv. 2, "I knew that thou wast not one for me
   to deal with: thou art so gracious and merciful, slow to anger, of such
   kindness, and repentest thee of the evil, that it is not for me, with
   any credit or reputation, to be engaged and employed in thy work and
   service." And if God be thus full of compassion to the world, which
   to-day is, and to-morrow shall be cast into the fire, is he not much
   more loving and tender unto you, "O ye of little faith?" Suit, then,
   the thoughts of your hearts, in your dealing with God, to this
   revelation which he hath made of his own nature. He is good, -- love
   and kindness itself; fury is not in him, -- he is ready to forgive,
   accept, embrace. And, --

   (3.) According to his name and nature, so are his dealings with us, and
   his actings towards us. From him who is so called, so disposed, we may
   expect that what he doth in a suitableness thereunto he will do with
   great readiness and cheerfulness, that so he may answer his name, and
   express his nature. "How, then, will he show and manifest these
   things?" See Isa. lv. 7, He will have mercy: he is love, -- he will
   have mercy; yea, "he will abundantly pardon." "But how will he do it?"
   Verse 8, Alas you cannot think how: his thoughts are not as your
   thoughts. You have poor, low, mean thoughts of God's way of pardoning;
   you can by no means reach to it, or comprehend it: raise your
   apprehensions to the utmost, yet you come not near it. Verse 9, "As the
   heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
   ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." "But doth not God, then,
   pardon as we do? -- come hardly to it, through many persuasions, and at
   length do it hekon aekonti ge thumo, -- with an unwilling kind of
   willingness,' that ingenuous spirits had almost as willingly have our
   wrath as our pardon?" No such thing. What he doth, he doth with his
   whole heart, and his whole soul, Jer. xxxii. 41; and rejoices in the
   doing of it, Zeph. iii. 17. He will have mercy, he will abundantly
   pardon; he will do it with his whole soul; he will rejoice in his so
   doing, and rest in his love. I know not what we can desire more, to
   assure us of free acceptance with him. You will say, perhaps, that this
   is but sometimes; and it is well if we can come nigh him in that
   season. Nay, but he is acting, herein suitably to his name and nature;
   his whole soul and his whole heart is in it: and therefore he will take
   a course for the accomplishing of it. Isa. xxx. 18, He will wait to be
   gracious. His heart is set upon it, and he will take advantage to
   accomplish his desire and design. And if our stubbornness and folly be
   such as to be ready to wear out his patience, -- to make him weary, as
   he complains, Isa. xliii. 24, and to cause him to serve beyond the
   limits of his patience, -- he will be exalted, take to himself his
   great power for the removal of our stubbornness, that he may be
   merciful unto us. One way or other he will accomplish the desire of his
   heart, the design of his grace.

   For the farther clearing of this truth, take along with you these few
   considerations of God's dealing with us, and his condescension therein,
   that he may act suitably to his own nature and name:--

   [1.] His comparing himself to creatures of the most tender and
   boundless affection, Isa. xlix. 15, 16. This is as high as we can go.
   The affection of a mother to a sucking child, the child of her womb, is
   the utmost instance that we can give of love, tenderness, and
   affection. "This," says God, "you cannot think, you ought not to
   imagine, that a tender, loving mother, should not have compassion on a
   sucking child, the son of her womb.' Things will act according to their
   natures, -- even tigers love their own offspring; and shall a woman
   forget her sucking child?' But yet," saith God, "raise up your
   apprehensions to this, take it for granted that she may do so, -- which
   yet, without offering violence to nature, cannot be imagined, -- yet I
   will not forget you;' -- this will not reach my love, nay affection."
   Were we as secure of the love of God to us, as we are of the love of a
   good, gracious mother to her sucking child, whom we see embracing of
   it, and rejoicing over it all the day long, we would think our estate
   very comfortable and secure. But, alas! what is this to the love of God
   to the meanest saint on the earth! What is a drop to the ocean! what is
   a little dying, decaying affection, to an infiniteness, an eternity of
   love! See the working of this love in God, Hos. xi. 8, 9; Jer. xxxi.
   20.

   [2.] His condescension to entreat us that it may be so, -- that he may
   exercise pity, pardon, goodness, kindness, mercy towards us. He is so
   full, that he is, as it were, pained until he can get us to himself,
   that he may communicate of his love unto us. "We pray you," says the
   apostle, "in Christ's stead, as if God by us did beseech you." What to
   do? what is he so earnest about? what would God have of us? Some great
   thing, some difficult service assuredly. "No," says he, "but, be
   reconciled to God,'?" 2 Cor. v. 20. Says God, "O ye sons of men, why
   will ye die?' I beseech you, be friends with me; let us agree; --
   accept of the atonement. I have love for you; take mercy, take pardon;
   do not destroy your own souls." "This is the rest wherewith ye may
   cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing," Isa. xxviii. 12.
   Remember how the Scripture abounds with exhortations and entreaties to
   this purpose.

   [3.] In condescension to our weakness, he hath added his oath to this
   purpose. Will we not yet believe him? will we not yet venture upon him?
   Are we afraid that if we put ourselves upon him, into his hand, he will
   kill us, we shall die? He gives us this last possible relief against
   such misgiving thoughts. "Swear unto me that I shall not die, is the
   utmost that any one requires, when, with the greatest ground of
   mistrust, he gives up himself to him that is mightier than he. "Now, as
   I live, saith the Lord,' I would not the death of a sinner," Ezek.
   xxxiii. 11. Methinks this should put an end to all strife. We have his
   promise and oath, Heb. vi. 18, and what would we have more? He is of an
   infinite loving and tender nature; he entreats us to come to him, and
   swears we shall not suffer by our so doing. Innumerable other instances
   of the like kind might be given, to evidence the actings of God towards
   us to be suitable to his name and nature, before insisted on.

   Now the end aimed at, as you know, in these considerations, is, by them
   to encourage our hearts in the belief of the promises. It is God with
   whom therein we have to do. The things we receive by our believing are
   excellent, desirable, what alone we want, and which will do us good to
   eternity. The difficulties of believing arise from our unworthiness,
   and the terror of him with whom we have to do. To disentangle our souls
   from under the power of such fears and considerations, this, in the
   first place, is proposed, -- the tender, gracious, loving nature of Him
   with whom herein we have to do. Fill your hearts, then, with such
   thoughts of God as these; exercise your minds with such apprehensions
   of him. The psalmist tells you what will be the issue of it, Ps. ix.
   10, "They that know thy name will put their trust in thee;" --
   establishment in believing will ensue. If we know the name of God, as
   by himself revealed, -- know the love and kindness wrapped up therein,
   -- we cannot but trust him. Let us be always thinking of God, with a
   clear persuasion that so it is; that he is gracious, loving, ready to
   receive us, delighting, rejoicing to embrace us, to do us good, to give
   us mercy and glory, -- whatever he hath promised in Christ; and it will
   exceedingly tend to the establishment of our hearts.

   But now, concerning the things that have been spoken, great caution is
   to be used. It is not a general notion of the nature of God that I have
   been insisting on; but the goodness and love of God to his in Christ
   Jesus. Wherefore, farther, to clear this whole business, and that a
   sure foundation may be laid of this great thing, I desire to add the
   following observations:--

   1st. I acknowledge that all that can be said, by all or any of the sons
   of men, concerning the goodness, loveliness, kindness of God in his own
   blessed nature, is inconceivably, infinitely below what it is in
   itself. What a little portion is it that we all know of his goodness!
   Though we have all his works and his whole word to teach us, yet, as we
   have no affections large enough to entertain it, so no faculty to
   receive or apprehend it. Admiration which is the soul's "nonplus," its
   doing it knows not what, the winding of it up until it stands still,
   ready to break -- is all that we can arrive unto in the consideration
   hereof. His excellencies and perfections in this kind are sufficient,
   superabundant, for the engagement of the love and obedience of all
   rational creatures; and when they can go no farther, they may, with the
   psalmist, call in all their fellow-creatures to the work. Nor can any
   man exercise himself in a more noble contemplation than that of the
   beauty and loveliness of God. "How great is his goodness! how great is
   his beauty!" They who have nothing but horrid, harsh apprehensions of
   the nature of God, -- that he is insupportably severe and wrathful, --
   know him not. To have thoughts of him as cruel and sanguinary; to make
   use of his greatness and infinite excellencies only to frighten,
   terrify, and destroy the work of his hands, who is good, and doth good,
   -- who made all things good, in beauty and order, and who loves all the
   things he hath made, -- who hath filled all that we see or can think on
   with the fruits of his goodness, -- is unreasonable, unjust, and
   wicked. Consider God and his works together as he made them, and in the
   order by him assigned to them; -- there is nothing in his nature
   towards you but kindness, benignity, goodness, power (exerted to
   continue to you the goodness first parted), grace, and bounty, in
   daily, continual additions of more.

   But, alas! they are sinners of whom we speak. It is true, in God, as he
   is by nature, there is an abundant excellency and beauty, a ravishing
   goodness and love, for the endearing of his creatures. As he made them,
   they could desire no more: the not loving him above all for his
   loveliness, for the suitableness of his excellencies to bind their
   hearts to him as their chiefest and only good, was the sin of some of
   them; but now the whole state of things is changed, upon supposition of
   the entrance of sin. God, indeed, is not changed; -- his excellencies
   and perfections are the same from eternity to eternity: but the
   creature is changed; and what was desirable and amiable before to him,
   ceases to be so to him, though it continue to be so in itself. He who,
   whilst he stood in the law of his creation, had boldness with God, --
   was neither afraid nor ashamed, -- after he had sinned, trembled at the
   hearing of his voice; yea, endeavoured to part with him for ever, and
   to hide himself from him. What property of God was more endearing to
   his creatures than his holiness? How is he glorious, lovely, desirable
   above all, to them who abide in his image and likeness! But as for
   sinners, they cannot serve him, because of his holiness, Josh. xxiv.
   19. In the revelation of God to sinners, together with the discovery of
   the excellencies before mentioned, -- of his goodness, kindness,
   graciousness, -- there is also a vision given of his justice, wrath,
   anger, severity, and indignation, against sin. These unconquerably
   interpose between the sinner and all emanations and fruits of goodness
   and love. Whence, instead of being endeared to God, their contrivance
   is that of Mic. vi. 6, 7; and upon a conviction of the successlessness
   of any such attempts, they cry out, "Who among us shall dwell with
   everlasting burnings?" Isa. xxxiii. 14. A desire to avoid him to all
   eternity is all that a sinner's most choice consideration of God, in
   his own essential excellencies, can lead him to. For who will set the
   thorns in battle against him? who will bring the stubble that is fully
   dry to a consuming fire? And therefore it is that those who propose
   general grace, from a natural goodness in God, as a ground of
   consolation to sinners, when they come to answer that objection, "Yea,
   but God is just, as well as merciful," do, with many good words, take
   away with one hand just as much as they give with the other.
   "Apprehend," say they, "God's gracious nature; he is good to all; trust
   upon it: believe not them that say otherwise." But he is just also, and
   will not let any sin go unpunished; and therefore cannot but punish sin
   according to its demerit. Where is now the consolation spoken of?
   Wherefore observe, --

   2dly. That since the entrance of sin, there is no apprehension -- I
   mean for sinners -- of a goodness, love, and kindness in God, as
   flowing from his natural properties, but upon an account of the
   interposition of his sovereign will and pleasure. It is most false
   which by some is said, -- that special grace flows from that which they
   call general grace, and special mercy from general mercy. There is a
   whole nest of mistakes in that conception. God's sovereign,
   distinguishing will is the fountain of all special grace and mercy. "I
   will," saith he, "cause all my glory to pass before thee;" and, "I will
   have mercy on whom I will have mercy," Exod. xxxiii. 19; Rom. ix. 15.
   Here is the fountain of mercy, even the will of God. He is of a
   merciful and gracious nature; but dispenses mercy and grace by his
   sovereign will. It is electing love that is at the bottom of all
   special grace, all special kindness; whence the election obtains, when
   the rest are hardened, Rom. xi. 7 [margin]. He blesseth us with
   spiritual blessings, according as he hath chosen us, Eph. i. 3, 4. God
   having made all things good, and imparted of the fruits of his goodness
   to them, might, without the least injury to, or restraint of, his own
   goodness, have given over all them who sinned, and came short of his
   glory, to an everlasting separation from him. That he deals otherwise
   with any of them, is not from any propensity in his nature and goodness
   towards their relief; but from his sovereign, wise, gracious will,
   wherein he most freely purposed in himself to do them good by Christ,
   Eph. i. 9.

   This I say, then, all considerations of the goodness and mercifulness
   of the nature of God, and of general grace on that account, are so
   balanced in the soul of a sinner by those of his justice and severity,
   -- so weakened by the experience all men have of the not exerting those
   properties effectually for the good of all that are pretended to have a
   right thereunto, -- that they are no ground, as so considered, of
   consolation to sinners. And if any one should venture to draw nigh unto
   God on the account of such general grace, he would meet the sword of
   justice before he would lay hold upon Him. So that, --

   3dly. Where there is mention in the Scripture made of the goodness of
   God, by which he reveals himself to be love, to be gracious and tender,
   it is not upon the general account of his perfections considered in
   himself, but on the new and special account of the free engagement of
   his attributes in Christ with regard to his elect. Such expressions, as
   far as they have a spiritual tendency, and are not restrained to the
   law of providence, belong to the covenant of grace, and God manifested
   in Christ. And this is that which is intended by our divines, who say
   that it is not naturally from the goodness of God that he doth good to
   sinners, but from his gracious will; for were it not for that, all
   communications of the other unto sinners would be everlastingly shut
   up.

   This, then, is that which we are to close withal, -- the gracious
   nature of God, even the Father, as manifested in Christ, on the ground
   of the atonement made for sin. This is he whom the poor, weak believer
   hath to do withal. This is he who invites us to the acceptation of
   Christ in the promises, -- he with whom we have principally to do in
   all this affair. He is love, -- ready, willing to receive and embrace
   those who come to him by Christ. Be convinced of his goodwill and
   kindness, his patience to us-ward, and we cannot but be established in
   closing with his faithfulness in his promises.

   4thly. Observe who it is of whom I am speaking. It is believers, those
   who are interested in God by Christ. Let others, then (such as are not
   so), take heed lest they abuse and wrest the doctrine of the grace of
   God to their own destruction. I know nothing is more common with men of
   vain and light spirits, formalists, yea, and open presumptuous sinners,
   than to say and think, "God is merciful; there is yet good hopes on
   that account. He made not men to damn them; and whatever preachers say,
   it will, at least it may, be well with us at last." But, poor
   creatures! even this God of whom we have been speaking, "is a consuming
   fire; -- a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity;" -- a God that
   will not let the least sin go unpunished. And the greater is his love,
   his goodness, his condescension to those who come in unto him upon his
   own terms by Christ; the greater will be his wrath and indignation
   against those who refuse his tender of love in his own way, and yet
   "add drunkenness to thirst, and say they shall have peace, though they
   walk in the imaginations of their own hearts."

   Use 2. Let a second motive be taken from the excellencies of the Lord
   Jesus Christ, whom, by believing, we do close with and receive. Now,
   the excellencies of his person are such, as not only may engage us to
   come to him to attain them, but they are all suited to encourage us in
   our coming, -- to support us, and make us steadfast in our believing.
   [364]

   Use 3. We may likewise to the same purpose consider the promises of
   God, wherein both his love and the excellency and suitableness of the
   Lord Jesus Christ are signally and eminently expressed. Many things to
   very good purpose are usually spoken of the promises; -- their nature,
   stability, preciousness, efficacy, centring all in one covenant, their
   confirmation in Christ, are usually insisted on; being those in
   particular which the soul in believing closes withal. I shall at
   present pitch on these two things:-- (1.) The infinite condescension
   the Lord useth in them for the obviating [of] all the objections and
   fears of our unbelieving hearts. (2.) The manifestation of his wisdom
   and love, in suiting them to the most pressing wants, troubles,
   disquietments, and fears of our souls, [so] that we must needs see his
   intendment in them to do us good.

   (1.) The first of these might be evinced by sundry sorts of instances.
   I shall insist on one only, -- and that is, the unexpected relief that
   is laid up in them for us, exhibiting grace and mercy when any thing in
   the world might rather be looked for. This, with the use of it, I shall
   manifest by an induction of some particular promises which are
   generally known to all:--

   Isa. xliii. 22-26. Here are persons guilty of sundry sinful follies.
   The Lord chargeth them home upon their consciences, to their trouble
   and disquietment; he makes them go with wounds and blows upon that
   account. They had neglected his worship, and not called on his name.
   And whereas they could not utterly cast off all performance of duties,
   yet what they did abide in the performance of was exceeding burdensome
   to them; they were weary of it, -- yea, weary of God therein, and of
   all spiritual communion and converse with him:-- "Thou hast been weary
   of me." Their convictions compelled them to do God some service; but it
   was, as we say, a death to them; -- they were weary of it; and most
   things, either as to the matter or manner that God required, they
   utterly neglected What, then, says God of himself in reference to this
   state of theirs? "Notwithstanding all my patience, thou hast made me
   weary of thee; like one that hath a hard service, that cannot abide in
   it. It is a bondage," says God, "for me to have any thing to do with
   thee." Suppose we now a poor soul, fully convinced that thus is the
   state and condition with him, -- so powerful is his unbelief and
   corruption, that he is weary of God and his ways: it may be he would
   faintly have it otherwise, and therefore binds himself to the
   performance of duties, if so be that God thereby may be flattered; --
   but withal, because of his innumerable follies, God also is weary of
   him, that he can bear the bondage of him no longer; he is "weary of
   serving." What can such a one conclude with himself, but that
   everlasting separation from God will be the close of this dispensation?
   He is weary of God, and God is weary of him; surely, then, they must
   part, and that for ever. What remedy is there, or can there be? Poor
   soul! lie down in darkness.

   But see, now, what God says in this case, and what an unexpected
   condescension there is in the word of promise. Is it, Be gone? Take a
   bill of divorce? Take thine own course, and I will take mine against
   thee? No; says God, "This is an estate and condition whereof I am
   weary, and thou art weary; -- I am weary of thy multiplying the guilt
   of sin; thou art wearied in serving the power of thy sin. I will put an
   end to this state of things; we will have peace again between us. I
   will blot out thy sins, and remember thine iniquities no more. I, even
   I, will do it." He redoubles the word passionately, emphatically, to
   call to mind who he is with whom in this condition we have to do: "?I,
   even I,' -- who am God, and not man; I, -- whose thoughts are not as
   your thoughts; I, -- who am great in mercy, and who will abundantly
   pardon; -- I will do it."

   Yea, but saith the poor convinced soul, "I know no reason why thou
   shouldst do so, -- I cannot believe it; for I know not upon what
   account I should be so dealt withal." Says God, "I know full well that
   there is nothing in thee upon the account whereof I should thus deal
   with thee; there is nothing in thee, but for what thou deservest to be
   everlastingly cut off; but quiet thy heart, I will do it for my own
   sake I have deeper engagements on my own account for this than thou
   canst look into."

   Doubtless, such a word as this, coming in when God and the soul are at
   the point of giving over and parting fellowship, -- when the soul is
   ready to do so indeed, and hath great cause to think that God will be
   first therein, -- then, contrary to all expectation, and above all
   hopes, -- must needs constrain it to cry out, as Thomas, upon sight of
   the wounds of Christ, "My Lord and my God." Let the soul that cannot
   get itself unto any steadfastness in closing with Christ in the
   promises -- that staggers, and is tossed to and fro between hopes and
   fears, being filled with a sense of sin and unworthiness, -- dwell a
   while upon the consideration of this unexpected surprisal, and give up
   itself to the power of it.

   Isa. lvii. 17, 18, gives me another instance to the same purpose. This
   seems to be the description of a man totally rejected of God. The most
   dejected sinner can hardly make a more deplorable description of his
   condition, though ready enough to speak all the evil of himself that he
   can think of. Let us see how things are disposed. There is an iniquity
   found in him and upon him, that the soul of God abhors. In this evil
   there is a continuance, until God manifest himself to take notice of
   it, and to be provoked with it: "I was wroth," saith God [according to
   the sense of the text quoted], "and took a course to let him know so. I
   laid my hand upon him, and smote him in some outward dispensation, that
   he could not but take notice that I was wroth. Upon this smiting it may
   be he begins to seek and pray, but I am not found of him; I hid me, --
   I let him pray, but took no notice of him, but hid myself in wrath.
   Surely this will do, he will now leave his iniquity and return to me.
   Nay," saith God, "he grows worse than ever; neglecting my smiting,
   hiding, wrath, he goes on frowardly in the ways of his own heart."

   God had appointed in the law, that when a son was rebellious against
   his parents, and grown incorrigible therein, he should be "stoned with
   stones." What shall be done, then, with this person, who is thus
   incorrigible under the hand of God? Says God, "?I have seen his ways,'
   -- it will not be better. Shall I destroy him, consume him, make him as
   Admah and Zeboim? Ah! my bowels are turned in me; my repentings are
   kindled together: I will heal him.' If he goes on thus, and no outward
   means will do him good, he must perish; but I will heal him.' He
   wounded his soul; I also wounded him in the blows I gave him when I was
   wroth. Is he not my dear son? ... Since I spake against him, I do
   earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him;
   I will surely have mercy upon him,'?" Jer. xxxi. 20, He shall have wine
   and oil, grace and pardon, for all his wounds. But, alas! he is not
   able to go one step in God's ways, he is so wonted to his own. "Leave
   that to me," saith God; "?I will lead him;' I will give him strength,
   guidance, and direction to go in my way, I will lead him, yea, and give
   him comfort' also."

   Now, if any one cannot in some measure bring his condition within the
   verge and compass of this promise, it is hard with him indeed. And as I
   know the necessity of that duty, and usefulness of searching our hearts
   for the fruits of the Spirit in us, whereby we are made meet for
   communion with God, -- which are all evidences of our acceptance with
   God, and pardon of sin thereon; so, I dare say, these are promises that
   will sufficiently warrant a perplexed soul to close with Christ, as
   tendered from the love of the Father, even when it can find in itself
   no other qualifications or conditions, but only such as render it every
   way unworthy to be accepted. We do not say to a poor, naked, hungry,
   harbourless man, "Go, get thee clothes, get thee food, get thee a
   habitation, and then I will give thee an alms: no, but, "Because thou
   wantest all these, therefore I will give thee an alms." "Because thou
   art poor, blind, polluted, guilty, sinful, I will give thee mercy,"
   says God.

   Yea, but at least a man's sense of his state and condition, with his
   acknowledgment of it, is needful to precede his closing with the
   promise. It is so as to his receiving of it, -- this oftentimes being
   the fruit and work of the promise as given itself. But as to the tender
   of the promise, and Christ in the promise, unto us, it is not so. When
   did God give the great promise of Christ to Adam? was it when he was
   sorrowing, repenting, qualifying his soul? No; but when he was flying,
   hiding, and had no thoughts but of separation from God. Clod calls him
   forth, and at once tells him what he had deserved, pronounces the
   curse, and gives him the blessing, "I raised thee up," saith Christ,
   "under the apple-tree; there thy mother brought thee forth Cant. viii.
   5. From the very place of sin Christ raiseth up the soul. So Isa. xlvi.
   12, "Hearken to me, ye stout-hearted, that are far from righteousness."
   Here are two notable qualifications, stout-heartedness, and remoteness
   from righteousness. What saith God to them? Verse 13, He discourses to
   them of mercy and salvation; and, chap. lv. 1, "Buy," saith he, "wine
   and milk." "Yea, but I have nothing to buy withal, and these things
   require a price." Indeed, so they do; but take them "without money, and
   without price." "But he calls on them only who are thirsty.'?" True;
   but it is a thirst of indigency and total want, not a thirst of
   spiritual desires; for in whomsoever that is, they have already tasted
   of this wine and milk, and are blessed, Matt. v. Nay, we may go one
   step farther. Prov. ix. 4, 5, Christ invites them to his bread and wine
   who have no heart [chsrlv?]. This, commonly, is the last objection that
   an unbelieving heart makes against itself, -- it hath no mind to
   Christ. Indeed he hath no heart for Christ. "But yet," saith Christ,
   "thou shalt not thus go off, -- I will not admit of this excuse; you
   that have no heart, turn in hither.'?"

   Now, I say, this obviating of all objections by unexpected appearances
   of love, mercy, and compassion in the promises, is a strong inducement
   unto steadfastness in believing. When a soul shall find that God takes
   for granted that all is true which it can charge itself withal; that
   its sin, folly, unbelief, heartlessness, is so as he apprehends it, and
   unconceivably worse than he can think; that he takes for granted all
   the aggravations of his sins, that lie so dismally in his eye, -- his
   backsliding, frowardness, greatness of sin, impotency, coldness at the
   present, not answering in affection to the convictions that are upon
   him; and notwithstanding all this, yet [says,] "Come, let us agree;
   accept of peace, close with Christ, receive him from my love;" --
   surely it cannot but in some measure engage it into a rest and
   acquiescence in the word of promise.

   (2.) The second part of this motive is taken from the suitableness of
   the promises to every real distress and cause of staggering whatever.
   My meaning is, that whereas we are exercised with great variety of
   doubts and fears, of pressures and perplexities, God hath tempered his
   love and mercy in Christ, as prepared in the promises, unto every one
   of these wants and straits whatever. Had God only declared himself to
   us as God almighty, God all-sufficient, he might justly require and
   expect that we should act faith on him in every condition. But,
   moreover, he hath, as it were, drawn out his own all-sufficiency in
   Christ into numberless streams, flowing in upon all our particular
   wants, distresses, and temptations whatever. When God gave manna in the
   wilderness, it was to be gathered and ground in mills, or beat in
   mortars, and fried in pans, before it could be eaten, Num. xi. 8; but
   the bread which came from heaven, the manna in the promises, is already
   ground, beaten, baked, ready for every one's hunger. It is useful, if
   you have a well about your house, whither you may repair to draw water;
   but when you have several pipes from a fountain, that convey water to
   every room, for every particular business, you are greatly to blame if
   your occasions are not supplied. We have not only a well of salvation
   to draw water from, but also innumerable streams flowing from that well
   into every empty vessel.

   I shall give one or two instances of this kind:--

   Isa. xxxii. 2: Here are four pressures and troubles mentioned,
   whereunto we may be exposed:-- [1.] The wind; [2.] A tempest; [3.]
   Dearth; [4.] Weariness.

   And unto all these is the man in the promise -- the Lord Jesus Christ,
   the King that "reigns in righteousness," verse 1 -- suited as a supply
   in them, or against them.

   [1.] The first proposed evil is the wind; -- and in respect hereof
   Christ is a "hiding-place." He that was ready to be cast from the top
   of a rock with a strong wind, would desire nothing more than a
   hiding-place until the strong blast were over. When fierce winds have
   driven a vessel at sea from all its anchors, so that it hath nothing to
   keep it from splitting on the next rock whereunto it is driven, a safe
   harbour, a hiding-place, is the great desire and expectation of the
   poor creatures that are in it. Our Saviour tells us what this wind is,
   Matt. vii. 25. The wind that blows upon and casts down false professors
   to the ground, is the wind of strong and urging temptations. Is this
   the condition of the soul? [do] strong temptations beat upon it, which
   are ready to hurry it down into sin and folly, -- that it hath no rest
   from them, one blast immediately succeeding another, -- that the soul
   begins to faint, to be weary, give over, and say, "I shall perish; I
   cannot hold out to the end?" Is this thy condition? See the Lord Christ
   suited unto it, and the relief that is in him in this promise, -- he is
   "a hiding-place." Saith he, "These temptations seek thy life; but with
   me thou shalt be safe." Fly to his bosom, retreat into his arms, expect
   relief by faith from him, and thou shalt be safe.

   [2.] There is a tempest; -- in reference whereunto Christ is here said
   to be "a covert." A tempest, in the Scripture, represents the wrath of
   God for sin. "He breaketh me," saith Job, "with a tempest," chap. ix.
   17, when he lay under a sense of the displeasure and indignation of
   God. He threatens to rain upon the wicked "an horrible tempest," Ps.
   xi. 6. A tempest is a violent mixture of wind, rain, hail, thunder,
   darkness, and the like. Those who have been at sea will tell you what a
   tempest means. Such was that in Egypt, Exod. ix. 23. There was thunder
   and hail, and fire running upon the ground; fire or dreadful lightning,
   mingled with hail, verse 24. What did men now do, upon the apprehension
   of this tempest? They made their servants and cattle flee into the
   houses, verse 20; got them into safe covert, that they might not be
   destroyed; -- and they were safe, accordingly.

   Suppose a poor creature to be under this tempest, full of sad and
   dreadful thoughts and apprehensions of the wrath of God; behind,
   before, round about, he can see nothing but hailstones and coals of
   fire; heaven is dark and dismal over him; he hath not seen sun, moon,
   or stars, in many days, -- not one glimpse of light from above, or
   hopes of an end. "I shall perish; the earth shakes under me; the pit is
   opening for me. Is there no hope?" Why, see how Christ is suited in
   this distress also. He is "a covert" from this tempest; get into him,
   and thou shalt be safe. He hath borne all this storm, as far as thou
   art concerned; abide with him, and not one hurtful drop shall fall upon
   thee, -- not one hair of thy head shall be singed with this fire. Hast
   thou fears? hast thou a sense of the wrath of God for sin? dost thou
   fear it will one day fall upon thee, and be thy portion? Behold a
   covert, a sure defence, is here provided.

   [3.] There is drought, causing barrenness, making the heart as a dry
   place, as a heath or a parched wilderness; -- in reference whereunto
   Christ is a river of water, abundantly, plentifully flowing for its
   refreshment. Drought in the Scripture denotes almost all manner of
   evil, it being the great, distressing punishment of those countries.
   When God threatens sinners, he says they "shall be like the heath in
   the desert, and shall not see when good" (or water) "cometh; but shall
   inhabit the parched places in the wilderness," Jer. xvii. 6; he shall
   be left to barrenness and want of all refreshment. And David complains,
   in his great distress, that his "moisture was turned into the drought
   of summer," Ps. xxxii. 4.

   Two things are evidently in this drought; -- want of grace or moisture,
   to make the soul fruitful; and want of rain or consolation, to make it
   joyful. Barrenness and sorrow, or disconsolation, are in this dry
   place. Let us, then, suppose this condition also. Doth the soul find
   itself like the parched ground? It hath no moisture to enable it to
   bring forth fruit, but is dry, sapless; all the fruits of the Spirit
   seem to be withered; -- faith, love, zeal, delight in God, not one of
   them flourishes; yea, it thinks they are quite dead; it hath no
   showers, not any drop of consolation, no refreshment, but pines away
   under barrenness and sorrow. What would now best suit such a condition?
   Why, turn in a stream of water upon this parched ground. Let there be
   springs in this thirsty place, let "water break out in the wilderness,
   and streams in the desert," as Isa. xxxv. 6, and how will all things be
   changed! Those things that hung their heads, and had no beauty, will
   flourish again; and the things that are ready to die will be revived.
   Why, in this condition Jesus Christ will be water, and that in
   abundance, -- rivers of water, that there shall be no want. He will, by
   his Spirit, give supplies of grace to make the soul fruitful; he will
   give in consolation to make it joyful.

   [4.] There is weariness; -- and in respect hereof Christ is said to be
   "the shadow of a great rock." Weariness of travel and labour, through
   heat and drought, is insupportable. He that is to travel in a thirsty
   land, dry and hungry, the sun beating on his head, will be ready, with
   Jonah in such a condition, to wish he were dead, to be freed of his
   misery. Oh, how welcome will "the shadow of a great rock" be to such a
   poor creature! If Jonah rejoiced in "the shade of a gourd," how much
   better is "the shadow of a great rock!" Many a poor soul, exercised
   with temptations, hindered in duties, scorched with a sense of sin, is
   weary in his journeying towards Canaan, in his course of obedience; and
   thinks with himself, it were better for him even to die than to live,
   having no hopes to come to his journey's end. Let now this poor soul
   lie down and repose himself a little under the shadow and safe-guarding
   protection of this Rock of ages, the Lord Jesus Christ, -- how will his
   strength and resolution come to him again!

   Thus, I say, is Christ in the promises peculiarly suited to all the
   several distresses that we may at any time fall into. I might multiply
   instances to this purpose; but this one may suffice to make good the
   consideration proposed, for the encouraging of us to believe, from the
   suiting of the grace in the promises to all our wants.

   Two things, then, may hence be deducted:--

   1st. The willingness of God that we should be established in believing.
   To what end should the Lord thus obviate all objections that can
   possibly arise in a misgiving heart, and accommodate grace in Christ to
   all perplexities and troubles we at any time lie under, were he not
   willing we should lay hold on that grace, own it, accept it, and give
   him the praise of it? If I should go to a poor man, and tell him, "Thou
   art poor, but see, here are riches; thou art naked, but here is
   clothing; thou art hungry and thirsty, here is food and refreshment;
   thou art wounded, but I have the most precious balm in the world:" --
   if I have no intent to have him partake of these riches, food, raiment,
   medicine, do not I egregiously mock and deride the man's misery and
   sorrow? Will a wise or good man do thus? Though many will deafen their
   ears to the cries of the poor, yet who almost is so desperately wicked
   as to delight himself in sporting at their misery, and increasing their
   sorrow? And shall we think that the God of heaven, "the Father of
   mercy, and God of all consolation," who is all goodness, sweetness, and
   truth (as hath been declared), when he doth so suit and temper his
   fulness to our wants, and suits his grace in Christ to all our fears
   and troubles for their removal, doth it to increase our misery, and
   mock our calamity? I speak of the heirs of promise, to whom they are
   made and do belong. Is it not time for you to leave disputing and
   questioning the sincerity and faithfulness of God in all these
   engagements? What farther, what greater security can we expect or
   desire? So that, --

   2dly. All unbelief must needs be at length totally resolved into the
   stubbornness of the will. "Ye will not come unto me," saith our
   Saviour, "that ye may have life." When all a man's objections are
   prevented and answered, -- when all his wants are suited, -- when a
   ground is laid that all his fears may be removed, and yet he keeps off
   and closes not, -- what can it be but a mere perverseness of will that
   rules him? Doth not such an one say, "Let the Lord do what he will, say
   what he can, though my mouth be stopped, that I have nothing wherewith
   to wrangle or contend any more, yet I will believe"? Let this, then, be
   another motive or encouragement, which, added to what was spoken before
   concerning God, even the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, is all I
   shall insist upon.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [364] Upon this head, in its several branches, see his book, "Of
   Communion with God;" part ii., chap. iii., digression 1, in the
   Doctrinal Division of his works, vol. ii.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon III. The nature and beauty of gospel worship.

   "For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."
   Eph. ii. 18.

   In the foregoing verses the apostle makes mention of a double
   reconciliation, wrought by the blood of the cross, -- the one, of the
   Jews and Gentiles unto God; the other, of the same persons one to
   another. There were two things in the law:-- First, Worship instituted
   under it; Secondly, The curse annexed unto it. The first of these being
   appropriated to the Jews, with an exclusion of the Gentiles, was the
   cause of unspeakable enmity and hatred between them. The latter, or the
   curse, falling upon both, was a cause of enmity between God and both of
   them. The Lord Jesus Christ, in his death removing both these, wrought
   and effected the twofold reconciliation mentioned. First, He brake down
   "the middle wall of partition between us," verse 14, and so "made both
   one;" that is, "between us," -- the Jews and Gentiles. He hath taken
   away all cause of difference that should hinder us to be one in him.
   And how hath he done this? By taking away "the law of commandments
   contained in ordinances," verse 15; -- that is, by abolishing that way
   of worship which was the Jews' privilege and burden, from which the
   Gentiles were excluded; so breaking down that wall of partition.
   Secondly, By the cross at his death he slew the enmity, or took away
   the curse of the law; so reconciling both Jews and Gentiles unto God;
   as verse 16. By bearing the curse of the law, he reconciled both unto
   God; -- by taking away and abolishing the worship of the law, he took
   away all grounds of difference amongst them.

   Upon this reconciliation ensueth a twofold advantage or privilege; --
   an access into the favour of God, who before was at enmity with them;
   and a new and more glorious way of approaching unto God in his worship
   than that shout which they were before at difference among themselves.

   The first of these is mentioned, Rom. v. 2. And that which there
   called, an "access into this grace wherein we stand," may in the text
   be called, an "access unto the Father;" that is, the favour and
   acceptance with God which we do enjoy. Thus our access unto God is our
   sense of acceptance with him upon the reconciliation made for us by
   Jesus Christ. But this seems not to me to be the special intendment of
   the text; for that access unto God here mentioned seems to be the
   effect of the reconciliation of the Jews and Gentiles among themselves,
   by the abolishing of the ceremonial worship; -- a new and more glorious
   way of worship being now provided for them both in common, is there
   expressed. Before the reconciliation made, one party alone had the
   privilege of the carnal worship then instituted; but now both parties
   have in common such a way of worship, wherein they have immediate
   access unto God; -- in which the apostle asserts the beauty and glory
   of the gospel worship of Jews and Gentiles above that which, enjoyed by
   the Jews, was a matter of separation and division between them. And
   this appears to be the intendment of the words from verse 17. That
   which is here asserted, is not an immediate effect of the
   reconciliation made by the blood of Christ on the cross, but of his
   preaching peace unto, and calling both Jews and Gentiles, -- gathering
   them unto himself, and so to the worship of God. Being called by the
   word of peace, both the one and the other, as to our worship, we have
   this access.

   And the following words, to the end of the chapter, do make it more
   plain and evident. Sundry things doth the apostle, upon the account of
   this their access unto God, speak of the Gentiles.

   First, Negatively, -- that they are no more "strangers and foreigners,"
   verse 19; that is, that they are not so in respect of the worship of
   God, as in that state and condition wherein they were before their
   calling, through a participation of the reconciliation made by the
   blood of Christ. The apostle had declared, verses 11, 12, they were the
   uncircumcision, aliens, foreigners; that is, men who had no share in,
   nor admittance unto, the solemn worship of God, which was impaled in
   the commonwealth of Israel. "But now," says he, "ye are so no more;"
   that is, you have a portion and interest in that worship wherewith God
   is well pleased.

   Secondly, Positively, the apostle affirms two things of them:-- first,
   That they are "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of
   God," verse 19; secondly, That they were built up to be "an holy
   temple," or "an habitation to God," verses 20-22. Both which relate to
   the solemn worship of God under the gospel. The first asserts them to
   be now members of the church; -- the latter, that by and among them God
   was worshipped with that divine service which came in the room of that
   which was appointed in the temple, now by Christ removed and taken
   away.

   This being the design of the Holy Ghost in this place, I shall present
   it in this one proposition unto you:--

   That it is an eminent effect and fruit of our reconciliation unto God
   and among ourselves, by the blood of Christ, that believers enjoy the
   privileges of the excellent, glorious, spiritual worship of God in
   Christ, revealed and required in the gospel.

   I shall, in the prosecution of this subject, -- I. Briefly prove that
   we obtain this privilege as a fruit, and upon the account of the
   reconciliation made by the blood of Christ. II. Show that the worship
   of the gospel is indeed so beautiful, glorious, and excellent, that the
   enjoyment of it is an eminent privilege: which I shall principally
   manifest from the text; and, in so doing, open the several parts of it.

   I. That believers enjoy this privilege as a fruit and effect of the
   death and blood of Jesus Christ, I shall confirm only with one or two
   places of Scripture, Heb. ix. 8, compared with chap. x. 19-22. Whilst
   the first tabernacle was standing, before Christ by his death had
   removed it, and the worship that accompanied it, -- which was the
   partition-wall mentioned that he brake down, -- there was no immediate
   admission unto God; -- the way into the holiest not made with hands,
   which we now make use of in the gospel worship, was not yet laid open,
   but the worshippers were kept at a great distance, making their
   application unto God by outward, carnal ordinances. The tabernacle
   being removed, now a way is made, and an entrance is given to the
   worshippers, into the holiest, in their worship. How is that obtained?
   by what means? Chap. x. 19-22, It is "by the blood of Jesus Christ," --
   by the rending of his flesh. This privilege of entering into the
   holiest, which is a true expressing of all gospel, worship, could no
   otherwise be obtained for nor granted unto believers, but by the blood
   of Christ. We "enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," by which
   he prepared, perfected, or "consecrated for us a new and living way"
   into it. Peter also gives us the same account of the rise of this
   privilege, 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5. That which is ascribed unto believers is,
   that they offer up "spiritual sacrifices, acceptable unto God by Jesus
   Christ." That is the worship whereof we speak. To fit them for, and
   enable them hereunto, they are "made a spiritual house, a holy
   priesthood;" -- they are both the temple wherein God dwells by his
   Spirit, and they are the priests that offer acceptable sacrifices unto
   him. By what means, then, do they attain this honour? By their "coming
   unto Christ," and that as he was "disallowed of men, and chosen of
   God." Herein the apostle includes the whole mystery of his death and
   blood-shedding, wherein he was most openly rejected of men, and most
   eminently owned of God in his accomplishment of the work of
   reconciliation.

   I shall not farther confirm the first part of the proposition, but
   proceed to evidence, --

   II. That the worship of God under the gospel is so excellent,
   beautiful, and glorious, that it may well be esteemed a privilege,
   purchased by the blood of Christ, which no man can truly and really be
   made partaker of but by virtue of an interest in the reconciliation by
   him wrought. For "through him we have an access by one Spirit unto
   God."

   This, as I said, I shall evince two ways:-- First, Absolutely.
   Secondly, Comparatively, in reference unto any other way of worship
   whatever.

   And the first I shall do from the text.

   It is a principle deeply fixed in the minds of men, yea, ingrafted into
   them by nature, that the worship of God ought to be orderly, comely,
   beautiful, and glorious. Hence men in all ages, who have thought it
   incumbent on them to imagine, find out, and frame the worship of God,
   or any thing thereunto belonging, have made it constantly their design
   to fix on things, either in themselves or in the manner of their
   performance (to their judgment), beautiful, orderly, comely, and
   glorious. And, indeed, that worship may be well suspected not to be
   according to the mind of God, which comes short in these properties of
   order and beauty, comeliness and glory. I shall add unto this only this
   reasonable assertion, which no man can well deny, -- viz., that what is
   so in his worship and service, God himself is the most proper judge.
   If, then, we evince not that spiritual gospel worship, in its own naked
   simplicity, without any other external adventitious helper or
   countenance, is most orderly, comely, beautiful, and glorious (the Holy
   Ghost in the Scripture being judge), we shall be content to seek for
   these things where else, as it is pretended, they may be found. To this
   end, --

   1. The first thing in general observable from these words is, that in
   the spiritual worship of the gospel the whole blessed Trinity, and each
   person therein distinctly, do in that economy and dispensation wherein
   they act severally and peculiarly in the work of our redemption, afford
   distinct communion with themselves unto the souls of the worshippers.
   So are they all here distinctly mentioned: "Through him" (that is,
   Jesus Christ, the Son of God) "we have access by one Spirit" (that good
   and holy Spirit the Holy Ghost) unto God, that is the Father;" for so
   is that name to be taken hupostatikos, "personally," when it is
   mentioned in distinction from the Son and Spirit. There is no act,
   part, or duty of gospel worship, wherein the worshippers have not this
   distinct communion with each person in the blessed Trinity. The
   particulars shall be afterward spoken unto.

   This is the general order of gospel worship, the great rubric of our
   service. Here in general lieth its decency, that it respects the
   mediation of the Son, through whom we have access, and the supplies and
   assistance of the Spirit, and a regard unto God as a Father. He that
   fails in any one of these, he breaks all order in gospel worship. If
   either we come not unto it by Jesus Christ, or perform it not in the
   strength of the Holy Ghost, or in it go not unto God as a Father, we
   transgress all the rules of this worship. This is the great canon,
   which if it be neglected, there is no decency in whatever else is done
   in this way. And this, in general, is the glory of it. Worship is
   certainly an act of the soul, Matt. xxii. 37. The body hath its share
   by concomitancy and subserviency to the direction of the mind. The acts
   of the mind and soul receive their advancements and glory from the
   object about which they are conversant. Now that, in this gospel
   worship, is God himself in his Son and Holy Ghost, and none else.
   Acting faith on Christ for admission; and on the Holy Ghost for his
   assistance (so going on in his strength); and on God, even the Father,
   for acceptance, -- is the work of the soul in this worship. That it
   hath any thing more glorious to be conversant about, I am as yet to
   learn. But these things will be handled apart afterward. This, in
   general, is the order and glory of that worship of which we speak.

   2. The same is evident from the general nature of it, -- that it is an
   access unto God. "Through him we have an access to God." There are two
   things herein that set forth the excellency, order, and glory of it:--
   (1.) It brings an access; (2.) The manner of that access, intimated in
   the word here used; it is prosagoge.

   (1.) It is an access, an approach, a drawing nigh unto God; so the
   apostle calls it a "drawing near," Heb. x. 22, "Let us draw near with a
   true heart;" that is, unto God, in "the holiest," verse 19. In the
   first, giving out of the law, and instituting the legal worship, the
   people were commanded to keep at a distance; and they were not, on pain
   of death, so much as to touch the mount where the presence of God was,
   Exod. xix. 12. And, accordingly, they stood afar off, whilst Moses drew
   near to the thick darkness where God was, chap. xx. 21. So, not only
   when the high priest went into the most holy place once a-year with
   blood (of which afterward), but when the priests in their courses went
   into the holy place to burn incense daily, the people were kept
   without, as Luke i. 10. But this gospel worship is our access or
   drawing nigh to God; no interposition of vails, or any other carnal,
   ordinance whatever. All is made open, and a new and living way of
   access given unto us, Heb. x. 20. And what, in general, can be added to
   set forth the glory of this worship, to a soul that knows what it is to
   draw nigh to God, I know not. The heathens of old derided the
   Egyptians, who, through many stately edifices, and with most pompous
   ceremonies, brought their worshippers to the image of an ape. I say no
   more; but let them look to it, how they will acquit themselves who
   frame much of their worship in a ceremonious access to an altar or an
   image. The plea of referring unto God at the last hath been common to
   all idolaters, of what sort soever, from the foundation of the world.

   (2.) It is a prosagoge that we have in this worship; -- a manuduction
   unto God, in order, and with much glory. It is such an access as men
   have to the presence of a king, when they are handed in by some
   favourite or great person. This, in this worship, is done by Christ. He
   takes the worshippers by the hand, and leads them into the presence of
   God; there presenting them (as we shall see), saying, "Behold I and the
   children which God hath given me," Heb. ii. 13. This is the access of
   believers; thus do they enter into the presence of God. Some, it may
   be, will be ready to say, that a man may be ashamed to speak such great
   things as these of poor worms, who have neither order in their way, nor
   eloquence in their words, nor comeliness in their worship. Let such men
   know that they must yet hear greater things of them: and it is meet,
   indeed, they should be in all things conformable unto Christ; and,
   therefore, have neither form, nor comeliness, nor beauty in themselves,
   their way, or their worship, to the eyes of the world, as Isa. liii. 2.
   And "the world knows not them" and their ways, because "it knew not
   him" nor his ways, 1 John iii. 1. But if God may be allowed to judge in
   his own matters, the spiritual worship of the saints is glorious, since
   in it they have such an access, such a manuduction unto God.

   3. From the immediate object of this worship; and that is God. We have
   an access to God. It is, as I said, the Father who is here peculiarly
   intended. God, as God, -- he who is the beginning and end of all, whose
   nature is attended with infinite perfection, -- he from whom a
   sovereignty over all doth proceed, -- is the formal object of all
   divine and religious worship. Hence, divine worship respects, as its
   object, each person of the blessed Trinity equally, not as this or that
   person, but as this or that person is God; that is the formal reason of
   all divine worship. But yet, as the second person is considered as
   vested with his office of mediation, and the Holy Ghost as the
   comforter and sanctifier of his saints; so God the Father is in
   peculiar manner the object of our faith, and love, and worship. So
   Peter tells us, 1 Epist. i. 21, that through Christ we "believe in God,
   that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory." Christ being
   considered as mediator, God that raised him from the dead -- that is,
   the Father -- is regarded as the ultimate object of our worship; though
   worshipping him who is the Father as God, the other persons are in the
   same nature worshipped. This whole matter is declared, Gal. iv. 6
   (which I cannot now particularly open), with this explanation, that in
   our access unto God, Christ being considered as the mediator, and the
   Holy Ghost as our comforter, advocate, and assister, the saints have a
   peculiar respect unto the person of the Father.

   There are two things that hence arise, evidencing the order, decency,
   and glory of gospel worship:-- (1.) That we have in it a direct and
   immediate access unto God; (2.) That we have access unto God as the
   Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and ours in him.

   (1.) This is no small part of the glory of this worship, that our
   access is unto God himself. When outward worship was in its height and
   glory, the access of the worshippers immediately was but unto some
   visible sign and pledge of God's presence. Such was the temple itself;
   such was the ark and the mercy-seat. So Paul, describing the tabernacle
   and temple worshippers, Heb. x. 1, calls them proserchomenous, "the
   comers unto sacrifices." There was, as it were, a stop upon their
   access, in the visible representations of God's majesty and presence to
   which they did approach. But now, in this spiritual worship of the
   gospel, the saints have direct and immediate access unto God, -- "the
   way into the holiest," not made with hands, being laid open unto them
   all. And where they are enjoined the use of any outward signs, as in
   the sacraments, it is not, as it were, to stop them there from entering
   into heaven, but to help them forward in their entrance; as all know
   who are acquainted with their true nature and use. I do not say that
   any of the worship of old was limited in the sensible pledge and tokens
   of God's presence; but only that the spirit of the worshippers was kept
   in subjection, so as to approach unto God only as he exhibited himself
   to their faith in those signs, and not immediately, as we do under the
   gospel.

   (2.) We have in this spiritual worship of the gospel access unto God as
   a Father. I showed, in the opening of the words, that God is distinctly
   proposed here as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in him our
   God and Father. Hence are we said to come "to the throne of grace,"
   Heb. iv. 16; that is, unto God as he is gloriously exalted in the
   dispensation of grace, in kindness, love, mercy, -- in a word, as a
   Father. God on the throne of grace, and God as a Father, is all one
   consideration; for, as a Father, he is all love, grace, and mercy to
   his children in Christ. When God came of old to institute his worship
   in giving of the law, he did it with the dreadful and terrible
   representation of his majesty, that the people chose not to come near,
   but went and "stood afar off, and said unto Moses, Speak thou with us,
   and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die," Exod.
   xx. 18, 19. And by this dreadful representation of the majesty of God,
   as the object of that worship, were they kept in fear and bondage all
   their days. But now are the saints encouraged to make their approach
   unto God as a Father; the glory whereof the apostle excellently
   expresseth, Rom. viii. 14, 15. That fear and bondage wherein men were
   kept under the law is now removed, and in the place thereof a spirit of
   children, with reverent boldness going to their father, is given unto
   us. This, I say, adds to the glory, beauty, and excellency of gospel
   worship. There is not the meanest believer but, with his most broken
   prayers and supplications, hath an immediate access unto God, and that
   as a Father; nor the most despised church of saints on the earth but it
   comes with its worship into the glorious presence of God himself. And
   this I shall add, by the way, -- that men's attempting to worship God
   who are not interested in this privilege of access unto him, is the
   ground of all the superstitious idolatry that is in the world. I shall
   instance in two things, which are the springs of all others:--

   [1.] Having not experience of the excellency of this privilege, nor
   being satisfied with the use of it, men have turned aside to the
   worship of saints and angels in heaven. This is the very substance of
   all the reasons that the Papists plead in the justification of that
   superstition: "To have access to God! It is too great a boldness to
   come to him immediately; and so it becomes us humbly to make use of the
   favourites of the court of heaven, of saints and angels, to desire them
   to entreat with God for us." Now, not to speak of their
   unacquaintedness with the mediation of Christ herein, which is plain
   infidelity, what is this but directly saying, "We understand nothing of
   gospel worship (wherein believers by Christ have a direct access with
   boldness' to God himself); and therefore it is that we had rather fix
   on this voluntary humility,' as the apostle calls it, Col. ii. 18, than
   venture on this access unto God"? This, I say, is the reasoning of men
   unacquainted with this part of the glory of gospel worship.

   [2.] Hence are they forced to invent outward, visible pledges and signs
   of God's presence, as they imagine, to which they may have access;
   seeing they are unacquainted with that which is directly unto God
   himself. Hence images and pictures, altars and the east, must be
   regarded in worship; with which they can have an immediate
   conversation, -- have an access in their thoughts to them, and, as they
   think, by them unto God. And on the same account must the sacraments be
   changed, and that which was appointed to assist us in our entrance unto
   God be made a god, that men may have an easy access unto him. Carnal
   men, that know nothing of the other, souls are not at all moulded or
   affected by any pure act of faith, are here stirred by their senses,
   and act by them in their worship. And this is the ground wherein all
   their pompous rites, invented by men in the worship of God, do grow; --
   even a design and engine to afford carnally-minded men somewhat to be
   conversant about in their worship, who have no principle to enable them
   to use this privilege of approaching unto God himself. It is true, they
   will say it is God alone whom they worship, and whom they intend to
   draw nigh unto; but I must needs say, that if they knew what it were to
   do so immediately by Christ, they would be satisfied therewith, and not
   seek such outward helps in their way as they do.

   4. It appears from the principal procuring cause and means of this our
   access to God; which is Jesus Christ, -- through him we have this
   access. This is a new spring of beauty and glory, which we must
   consider in the particulars of it. That access which the people of God
   had to the outward pledge of his presence, was by their high priest;
   and that not in his own person, but barely in his representation of
   them; and that but once a year: but in the worship of the gospel, the
   saints have an access through Christ unto God himself in their own
   persons, and that continually. Now, we have this access through Christ
   upon many accounts:--

   (1.) Because he hath purchased and procured this favour for us, that we
   should so approach unto God, and find acceptance with him. We are
   "accepted in the Beloved," Eph. i. 6. I must not stay to show how, by
   paying a ransom for us, and "bearing our iniquities," he hath answered
   the law, removed the curse, reconciled us to God, pacified his anger,
   satisfied justice, procured for us eternal redemption; all which
   belongs to his procuring for us this favour of acceptance with God. The
   apostle gives us the sum of it, Heb. ii. 17, He hath, as a high priest,
   "made reconciliation for the sins of the people;" on the account
   whereof they have an "access by faith into this grace," Rom. v. 1, 2.
   In this sense have we our access unto God through Christ. He hath
   purchased it for us. It is no small portion of the price of his blood.
   Nothing else could procure it; -- not all the wealth of the world, not
   all the worth of angels in heaven: none could do it but himself. Go
   into the most pompous, stately place of outward worship upon the earth,
   -- consider all the wealth and glory of its structure and ornaments; it
   is an easy thing for a wise man to guess what it all cost, and what is
   the charge of it. However, none so foolish, but can tell you it is all
   the price of money; it was bought with "silver and gold," and
   "corruptible things;" it is the "thick clay:" and he that hath most
   money may render that kind of worship most beauteous and glorious. But
   now the gospel worship of believers is the price of the "blood of the
   Son of God." Access to God for sinners could no other way be obtained.
   Let men, as the prophet speaks, "lavish gold out of their bags" (Isa.
   xlvi. 6) upon their idols; their self-invented worship shall come as
   short, in true glory and beauty, of the meanest prayers of poor saints,
   as the purchase of corruptible things doth of the fruit of the blood
   and death of the Son of God, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19.

   (2.) We have this access from Christ, inasmuch as he hath opened,
   prepared, and dedicated a way for us to enter into the presence of God.
   Favour being procured, a way of entrance is also to be provided;
   otherwise poor souls might say, "There is water, indeed, in the well;
   but the well is deep, and we have not wherewith to draw. There is an
   acceptance purchased for us in the presence of God; but by what way
   shall we come unto him?" I say, he hath provided for us also a way
   whereby we may enter, Heb. x. 19, 20, -- "By a new and living way." The
   way into the holiest, of old, was through the vail that hung always
   before; which the apostle calls "the second vail," chap. ix. 3. The
   form and use thereof you have, Exod. xxvi. 31, 32, etc. Through this
   vail the high priest entered into the holy place. Instead hereof, for
   an entrance into the presence of God in the holy place not made with
   hands, Christ hath provided and dedicated a "new and living way" for
   us. This way is himself; as he telleth Thomas, John xiv. 6, "I am the
   way." It is by him alone that any can obtain an access unto God. But as
   to our constant approach in worship, there is a peculiar respect had
   unto his suffering for us in the flesh. We enter "by his blood," and
   "through his flesh." How is that? As men being to go to some great
   potentate or general in an army have, it may be, some word or token
   which they show, declare, or make use of, if by any they are hindered
   in their address, -- so it is with believers. The law would stop them
   in their access to God; so would sin and Satan: but their being
   "sprinkled with the blood of Christ" is the token that lays all open
   unto them, and removes all obstacles out of the way; -- and when they
   come into the presence of God, it is the suffering of Christ in the
   flesh that they insist on as to their acceptation with him. They go to
   God through him, in his name, "making mention of his righteousness,
   death, and blood-shedding, pleading for acceptance on his account. This
   is their "new and living way" of going unto God; -- this path they
   tread, this entrance they use; and no man can obtain an access unto God
   but by an interest herein. I wonder not at all that men who know not
   this way -- who have no share, nor ever took one step in it -- do fix
   on any kind of worship whatever, rather than once make trial what it is
   to place the glory of their worship in an access unto God, seeing they
   have no interest in this way, without which all attempts after it would
   be altogether fruitless and vain. Now, this adds to the order, and
   increaseth the glory and beauty, of the spiritual worship of the
   gospel. Go to the mass-book and the rubric of it; -- you will see how
   many instructions and directions they give priests about the way of
   going into their sanctum and to their altars; -- how they must bow and
   bend themselves, sometimes one way sometimes another; sometimes kneel,
   sometimes stand; sometimes go backwards, sometimes forward. This is
   their way to the breaden god; this they call order, and beauty, and
   glory; and with such like things are poor, simple sots deluded, and
   carnal wretches, enemies to Christ and his Spirit, blinded to their
   eternal ruin. Surely, methinks, this way of gospel access to God is far
   more comely and glorious:-- it is in and by Christ, -- a way dedicated
   by himself on purpose; it is sprinkled with his blood; it is opened by
   his suffering in the flesh, and abides "new and living" for ever. Were
   not blindness come on men to the utmost, -- were it not evident that
   they can see nothing afar off, -- that they are wholly carnal and
   unspiritual, "savoring not the things of God," -- it were impossible
   that they should reject these pearls of the gospel for the husks of
   swine, such things as they shall never be able to vie with the old
   heathen in. This only may be said in their excuse, that they cast away
   and reject what they had no share in, for that which is most properly
   their own.

   (3.) We have this access through Christ, in that he is entered before
   us into the presence of God, to make way for our access unto him, and
   our acceptance with him. So the apostle, Heb. iv. 14, "We have a great
   high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." He
   is gone already into the presence of God to that purpose. The same
   apostle tells us, chap. vi. 19, 20, "Let us look to that within the
   vail, whither Jesus the forerunner is for us entered,'?" -- prodromos
   huper hemon eiselthen. The words are better rendered, "The forerunner
   for us is entered." He is a forerunner for us, -- one that is gone into
   the presence of God to declare that all his saints are coming to him,
   coming into his presence with their solemn worship and oblations; -- he
   is entered into heaven himself, to carry, as it were, tidings, and make
   way for the entrance of his saints. This is no small encouragement to
   follow him: he is gone before for us, and is in continual expectation
   of the coming of them whose forerunner he is; as is the manner of those
   who take that office. And this also adds to the glory of gospel
   worship, with them to whom Christ is precious and honourable: with them
   by whom he is despised, it is no wonder if his ways be so also. This
   belongs also to the rubric, and adds to the order of gospel worship. It
   is an access to God, even the Father, in the holy place not made with
   hands, on the account of the atonement made, and favour and acceptance
   purchased, by Jesus Christ, being sprinkled with his blood, and
   following him, as one that is gone before to provide admittance for us.
   Here is order and beauty too, if we have either faith or eyes to
   apprehend or perceive what is so.

   (4.) We have this access through Christ, as he is "the high priest over
   the house of God." This the apostle at large declares, and much insists
   upon, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. One or two places shall suffice to
   instance in. Chap. iv. 14-16: The inference which the apostle makes
   from this consideration, that Christ is our high priest entered into
   heaven, is, that we should draw nigh unto the throne of grace; and,
   because he is such a holy priest as he there describes, that we should
   draw nigh with boldness, or spiritual confidence of our acceptance with
   God. And this the apostle manageth at large throughout that epistle; --
   that notwithstanding all the outward glory and splendour of the legal
   worship, yet that which is appointed in the gospel is far to be
   preferred before it, inasmuch as the High Priest of this is unspeakably
   above the high priest by whom that was principally administered. And
   again, chap. x. 21, 22, the encouragement to draw nigh to God is taken
   from this, that we have a "high priest over the house of God." And it
   is also considerable, what the Holy Ghost requireth in them who should
   come nigh to worship God under the guidance and conduct of this blessed
   and merciful high priest. Is it that they have such vestments and
   ornaments in their admission? No; but faith, and sanctification, and
   holiness, are the three great qualifications of these worshippers. "Let
   us draw nigh," saith he, "in full assurance of faith," etc., "and our
   bodies washed with pure water;" -- that is, purified with the blood of
   Christ, typified in the water of baptism; or else, it may be,
   effectually cleansed in soul and body by the Holy Ghost, who is
   frequently compared to water the work of purifying and sanctifying the
   souls of believers.

   Upon this general head I might make a long stand, to evidence the
   beauty, order, and glory of the spiritual worship of God, in that it
   our access to God through Christ, "as the great high priest over the
   house of God." This, indeed, is so great, that the apostle makes it the
   sum of his whole dispute about the excellency of the gospel, and our
   coming to God thereby, Heb. viii. 1, 2. "This is," saith he, "upon the
   matter, the sum of all: Those with whom we have to do, they had a high
   priest, in whom, and the administration by him performed, consisted the
   glory of all their worship. We also," saith he, "have a high priest no
   less than they had; but herein there is no comparison between them and
   us, that we have such a high priest," -- whom he describes; -- first,
   from his own diginity, honour, and glory; he is "set on the right hand
   of the Majesty of heaven;" -- secondly, from his office or ministry, --
   namely, that he ministers not in a tabernacle, such as was that of
   Moses, and Solomon's temple, but in heaven itself, the place of the
   glorious presence and immediate manifestation of God's glory; -- which
   he calls "the tabernacle which the Lord pitched;" that is, which he
   appointed for the place of worship to his saints under the ministry of
   Christ, their high priest. And though other places are necessary here
   on earth for their assemblies, as they are men clothed with flesh and
   infirmities, yet there is none pitched, appointed, or consecrated for
   the holy and solemn acceptance of their service, but heaven itself;
   where the High Priest is always ready to administer it before God. And
   as to the assemblies here below, all places are now alike. And what can
   be more glorious than this, -- namely, that the whole spiritual worship
   of the gospel, performed here on earth by the saints, is administered
   in heaven by such a holy Priest, who is at the right hand of the throne
   of the majesty of God! and yet under his conduct we have by faith an
   entrance into the presence of God.

   Go to, now, you by whom the spiritual worship of the gospel is
   despised; [you] that -- unless it be adorned, as you say (or rather
   defiled), with the rites and ceremonies of your own invention -- think
   there is no order, comeliness, or beauty in it! set yourselves to find
   out whatever pleaseth your imaginations; borrow this of the Jews, that
   of the Pagans, all of the Papists that you think conducing to that end
   and purpose; lavish gold out of the bag for the beautifying of it; --
   will it compare with this glory of the worship of the gospel, that is
   all carried on under the conduct and administration of this glorious
   High Priest? It may be they will say that they have that too, and that
   ornaments do not hinder but that they have also their worship attended
   with that glory relating to the holy Priest. But do they think so
   indeed? and do they no more value it than it seems they do? Why are
   they not contented with it, but they must find out many inventions of
   their own to help to set it off? Surely it is impossible that men,
   thoroughly convinced of its spiritual excellency, should fall into that
   fond conceit of making additions of their own unto it. Nor do they seem
   rightly to weigh that the holy God doth, all along, oppose this
   spiritual excellency of gospel worship to the outward splendour of
   rites and ordinances, instituted by himself for a time; so that what
   men seek to make up in these things doth but absolutely derogate from
   the other; and all will one day know, whether it be for want of
   excellency in the spiritual administration of the gospel worship, under
   and by the glorious High Priest, or for want of minds enlightened to
   discern it, and hearts quickened to experience it, that some do lay all
   the weight of the beauty of gospel worship on matters that they either
   find out themselves, or borrow from others who were confessedly blind
   as to all spiritual communion with God in Christ. But if any man list
   to contend, "we have no such custom, neither the church of God;" only I
   hope it will not be accounted a crime, that any please themselves and
   are contented with that glory and beauty, in their worshipping of God,
   which is given unto it from hence, that they have in it an access to
   God by Jesus Christ, as the great high priest of their profession and
   service. However, I am sure this is, and may well be, an unspeakable
   encouragement and comfort in the duty of drawing nigh unto God, to all
   the saints, whether in their persons, families, or assemblies, -- that
   Jesus Christ is the great high priest that admits them to the presence
   of God; who is the minister of that heavenly tabernacle where God is
   worshipped by them. If we are but able, as the apostle speaks, to look
   to the things that are not seen, 2 Cor. iv. 18, -- that is, with eyes
   of faith, -- we shall find that glory that will give us rest and
   satisfaction; and for others, we may pray, as Elisha for his servant,
   that the Lord would open their eyes, and they would quickly see the
   naked, poor places of the saints' assemblies not only attended with
   horses and chariots of fire, but also Christ walking in the midst of
   them, in the glory wherewith he is described, Rev. i. 13-16; which
   surely their painted or carved images will be found to come short of.
   And if the Lord Jesus Christ be pleased, in his unspeakable love, to
   call his churches and ministers his "glory," as he doth, 2 Cor. viii.
   23, surely these may be contented to make him their only glory. To
   which purpose we may observe, --

   [1.] Our Saviour Christ warns us of some who thought to be heard for
   their heathenish "vain repetitions" and "much babbling," Matt. vi. 7. I
   will not make application of it unto any; but this I say, that men will
   not be a little mistaken, if they think to be heard for any carnal
   self-invented furtherance of their devotion. But here lies the joy and
   confidence of the poor saints, -- they have a merciful High Priest over
   the house of God, by whom they are encouraged to draw nigh with
   boldness to the throne of grace. He takes them by the hand, and leads
   them into the presence of God; where, through his means, they obtain a
   favourable acceptance.

   [2.] Nor need they be solicitous about their outward estate and
   condition. This was the misery of the Jews of old, -- that when they
   were driven from Jerusalem, and carried into captivity, they were
   deprived of all the solemn worship of God; they had no high priest, no
   sacrifice, no altar, tabernacle, or solemn assemblies, -- which were
   all tied to that place. Hence we find how bitterly David complains,
   when, by the persecution of Saul, he was for a season driven from the
   place of God's holy and solemn worship: be saw not the glorious
   ornaments of the high priest, nor the beautiful structure of the
   tabernacle, nor the order of the Levites and priests in worship. It is
   now otherwise with the people of God, be they never so poor, and
   destitute of all outward accommodations. Are their assemblies in the
   mountains, in the caves and dens of the earth? -- Christ, according to
   his promise, is in the midst of them as their high priest, and they
   have in their worship all the order, glory, and beauty (I mean,
   observing gospel rules) that in any place under heaven they can enjoy
   and be made partakers of. All depends on the presence of Christ, and
   their access to God by him; and he is excluded from no place, but
   thinks any place adorned sufficiently for him which his saints are met
   in or driven unto. Let the hands that hang down be lifted up, and
   feeble knees be strengthened; -- whatever their outward, distressed
   condition may be, here is order, beauty, and glory, in the worship of
   God, above all that the world can pretend unto!

   [3.] Here lies encouragement to them upon a spiritual account, as to
   the state of things between God and their own souls. They have
   discoveries made unto them of the glory, majesty, and holiness of God.
   They know that he is "a consuming fire;" -- they have visions of his
   excellencies, which the world is not acquainted with. They are also
   sensible of their own poverty, wretchedness, sin, weakness, -- how
   unfit, how unable to approach unto him, or to have to do with him in
   his holy worship; -- they are ashamed of their own prayers and
   supplications, and could oftentimes, when they are gone through, wish
   them undone again, considering how unanswerable they are to the
   greatness and holiness of God. In this condition there is a plentiful
   relief tendered to faith from the consideration of this High Priest.
   That this may be more evident, and that the beauty and glory of gospel
   worship may be by them farther discovered, I shall particularly insist
   on some parts of it:--

   First. Our High Priest bears and takes away all the sinfulness and
   failings that are in or do accompany the holy worship of his saints.
   The world is apt to despise the worship of the saints, as mean and
   contemptible, -- unmeet for the majesty of God. This puts them on the
   inventing of what they suppose more glorious and beautiful, though God
   abhors it. But the saints themselves know that of their defects, wants,
   and failings in their worship, that the world know not of, and how
   unfit it is and unsuited to the holy majesty of God, with whom they
   have to do. They know how the bitter root of unbelief in their hearts
   springs up and defiles them and their duties; -- how effectually vanity
   works in their minds, and a secret loathness in their wills, in their
   best duties and most solemn acts of worship; besides innumerable other
   sinful distempers, that oftentimes get ground and place in their
   hearts. These, they know, are the things that, in and of themselves,
   are enough to defile, pollute, and render abominable all their worship;
   yea, and if God should "mark what is amiss," the guilt of their holy
   worship is enough to make both it and them that perform it to be for
   ever rejected. But now, here is their relief; here beauty, glory, and
   order, is recovered to their worship; -- Christ, as their high priest,
   takes away all the evil, filth, and iniquity of their holy things, that
   they may be presented pure, and holy, and glorious before God. So did
   Aaron typically of old, Exod. xxviii. 38. Thus doth Christ, our high
   priest, really answer for all that is amiss. All failings, all
   miscarriages in his saints, them he takes on his own score; and what is
   from his Spirit, that enters into the presence of the holy God. So,
   Eph. v. 25-27, he presents it to himself, and by him it is presented
   unto God. By this means doth the Lord Christ preserve the glory and
   beauty of gospel worship, notwithstanding all the defects, and
   failings, and defilements, that, from the weakness and sins of his
   saints, do seem to cleave unto it.

   Secondly. This is not enough. Besides the weakness, sinfulness, and
   imperfections that attend their duties, for which they may be justly
   rejected, there is not any thing of worth in them for which they may be
   accepted; -- nothing that should yield a sweet savour unto God.
   Wherefore Christ, as the high priest by whom all believers have their
   access unto God, takes their duties and prayers, and adds incense unto
   them, that they may have a sweet savour in heaven, Rev. viii. 3. The
   altar is the place for the priests offering their sacrifices of
   prayers; and our altar is in heaven: other men may appoint theirs
   elsewhere. The Lord Christ, the high priest in the temple of God in
   heaven, and in the holy place not made with hands, is the angel that
   stands at the altar before the Lord, -- the golden altar of incense
   before the throne; -- not the altar for sacrifice, which he hath
   finished already, but only the altar of incense or intercession,
   remains. On this golden altar are the prayers of all saints offered.
   But how came they to be acceptable unto the Lord? Why, this high priest
   hath much incense, a bottomless store and treasure of righteousness
   that he adds unto them; which is the only sweet perfume in the presence
   of the Lord. This makes all their worship glorious indeed. Christ, the
   high priest, takes away the iniquity and failings of them, he adds his
   own righteousness unto it; and so in his own person offers it on the
   golden altar (that is, his own self) before the throne of God
   continually.

   Now, as this tends exceedingly to the consolation of believers, so it
   stains the glory of all the outward pompous worship that some are so
   delighted in. For believers, what can more tend to their comfort and
   encouragement, than that the Lord Christ takes their poor weak prayers,
   which themselves are oftentimes ashamed of and humbled for, and are
   ready to cry out against themselves by reason of them; and what by
   taking away the evil of them, what by adding the incense of his own
   righteousness, makes them acceptable at the throne of grace! They
   little know what beauty and glory those very duties which they perform
   and are troubled at are clothed withal: and for the beauty and glory of
   gospel worship, in comparison of all the self-invented rites of men,
   how will one thought of faith about this administration of Christ in
   heaven with the prayers of the saints, cast contempt and shame upon
   them! What is all their gaudy preparation, in comparison of the high
   priest of the saints offering up their prayers on the golden altar
   before the throne of God! This is order, comeliness, and beauty.

   Thirdly. Christ, as the high priest of the saints, presents both their
   persons and their duties in the presence of and before the Lord. This
   is that which was signified of old in the high priest's precious stones
   set in gold on his breast and shoulders, with the names of the children
   of Israel in them, Exod. xxviii. 21. Christ, our high priest, is
   entered into the holy place for us, and there presents all his saints
   and their worship before the Lord, being "not ashamed to call them
   brethren," and saying of them, "Behold I and the children which the
   Lord hath given me."

   And this is the fourth thing in the words, manifesting the excellency
   and glory of gospel worship, taken from the principal procuring
   cause:-- It is an access to God, through Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sermon IV.

   5. This also adds greatly to the glory and excellency of evangelical
   worship, that we have in it an access unto God, "in one Spirit," or "by
   one Spirit."

   I shall show in brief, -- (1.) How we have it "by the Spirit;" (2.) How
   "in one," or "by one Spirit."

   (1.) That by the Spirit the Holy Ghost is here intended, is not
   questioned by any. He is that "one Spirit" who works in these things,
   and "divideth to every one as he pleaseth," 1 Cor. xii. 11. I shall not
   here handle the whole work of the Holy Ghost in and upon the souls of
   the saints, in and for the performance of all the duties of worship
   wherein they draw nigh unto God by Christ and obtain communion with
   him, as absolutely considered; but only so far as his work renders the
   worship we speak of beautiful and comely; which is the matter we have
   in hand. And that I shall do in some few considerations:--

   [1.] The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised to send his Spirit to
   believers, to enable them, both for matter and manner, in the
   performance of every duty required in the word, Isa. lix. 21. He will
   give his word and Spirit. The promise of the one and the other is of
   equal extent and latitude. Whatever God proposeth in his word to be
   believed, or requireth to be done, -- that he gives his Spirit to
   enable to believe and do accordingly. There is neither promise nor
   precept, but the Spirit is given to enable believers to answer the mind
   of God in them; nor is the Spirit given to enable unto any duty, but
   what is in the word required. The Spirit and the word, in their several
   places, have an equal latitude; the one as a moral rule, the other as a
   real principle of efficiency. Hence they who require duties which the
   word enjoins not, have need of other assistances than what the Spirit
   of grace will afford them; and those who pretend to be led by the
   Spirit beyond the bounds of the word, had need provide themselves of
   another gospel. Now, with promises hereof doth the gospel abound. He
   shall "lead us into all truth;" -- he shall "teach us all things;" --
   he shall "abide with us for ever." Having given his disciples precepts
   for their whole duty to God and himself, he promiseth them his Spirit
   to abide with them, to enable them for the accomplishment of them.

   [2.] There are three things that are needful for the right performance
   of gospel worship:-- 1st. Light and knowledge, that we may be
   acquainted with the mind and will of God in it, -- what it is that he
   accepteth and approveth, and is appointed by him; that we may know "how
   to choose the good and refuse the evil," -- like the sheep of Christ,
   hearing his voice and following him, not hearkening to the voice of a
   stranger. 2dly. Grace in the heart, so that there may be, in this
   access unto God, a true, real, spiritual, saving communion, obtained
   with him in those acts of faith, love, delight, and obedience, which he
   requireth; without which it is in any thing "impossible to please God."
   3dly. Ability for the performance of the duties that God requireth in
   his worship, in such a manner as he may be glorified, and those who are
   called to his worship edified in their most holy faith. Where these
   three concur, there the worship of God is performed in a due manner,
   according to his own mind and will; and so, consequently, is excellent,
   beautiful, and glorious, -- God himself being judge. Now, all these do
   believers receive by and from the Spirit of Christ; and, consequently,
   have by him their access to the Father; that is, are enabled unto, and
   carried on in, the worship which God requireth at their hands.

   1st. It is he who enables them to discover the mind of God, and his
   will concerning his worship, that they may embrace what he hath
   appointed, and refuse the thing whereof he will say at the last day,
   "Who hath required this at your hand?" He is promised to "lead them
   into all truth," as the Spirit of truth, John xvi. 13; and is the
   blessed "unction" that teacheth them all things, 1 John ii. 27, -- all
   things for the glory of God, and their own consolation. It is he that
   speaks the word, which sounds in the ears, "This is the way; walk in
   it." And when Paul prays for the guidance of the saints, he doth it by
   praying that God would give them the "Spirit of wisdom and revelation"
   in Christ, Eph. i. 17. Now, this he doth two ways:--

   (1st.) By causing them diligently to attend unto the word, the voice of
   Christ, for their direction, and to that only. This is the great work
   of the Spirit. So John xvi. 13, it is said, "He shall not speak of
   himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak;" -- that
   is, he shall reveal and declare nothing but what is the mind of Christ
   manifested in the word; and that he shall call men to attend unto. "To
   the law and to the testimony" (to the word), -- that is his constant
   voice. If men turn to any other teaching, they go out of the compass of
   his commission, -- that direction which the Father began from heaven,
   "This is my beloved Son; hear him." He is the only master and teacher
   that the Spirit carries all believers unto. He still cries, "Hear him;
   attend unto him speaking in the word." It is true, in point of
   practice, according to the rule for the remedying of scandals and
   disorders, we are commanded to "hear the church," or obey the wholesome
   directions of it, and to walk according to the gospel; but as to the
   worship of God, both as to the matter and rules in the appointment of
   it, we are called continually by the Spirit to hear Christ always; --
   and that spirit is not of Christ which sends us to any else.

   (2dly.) By revealing the mind of Christ unto us in the word. This is
   his work, which he undertakes and performs. I confess that,
   notwithstanding the assistance that he is ready to give unto them,
   there are many mistakes, even amongst the saints themselves, in their
   apprehensions in and about the worship of God. They are many times
   careless in attending to his directions; negligent in praying for his
   assistance; slight and overly in the use of the means by him appointed
   for the discovery of truths; regardless of dispossessing their minds of
   prejudices and temptations, hindering them in the discovery of the mind
   of God. It is, therefore, no wonder they are left to be corrected under
   their own mistakes and miscarriages. But this hinders not but that the
   Spirit may be said to give the knowledge of the worship of God in the
   word unto believers; and that because it is not, nor can be, profitably
   and savingly attained any other way. As "no man can say that Jesus is
   the Lord, but by the Spirit," -- so no man can know the way of God's
   house and worship but by the Spirit; -- and we see by experience, that
   those that despise his assistance, rather trust to themselves and other
   men for the worship of God than to the word. This he does, ordinarily,
   in the use of means, -- at least so far, that though in some
   particulars there may be amongst them mistakes, yet not usually such
   but that their performances are accepted of God in Christ. And in those
   things wherein they are at any time "otherwise minded" than according
   to truth, if they continue waiting, that also shall be revealed unto
   them from the word by the Spirit. The worship of God is not of man's
   finding out, but of his designation who is "the wisdom of God." It is
   not taught by human wisdom, nor is it attainable by human industry; but
   by the wisdom and revelation of the Spirit of God. It is every way
   divine and heavenly in its rise, in its discovery; and so becoming the
   greatness and holiness of God. For what doth please God, God himself is
   the sole judge. If any thing else set up itself in competition with it,
   for beauty and glory, it will be found, to be engaged in a very unequal
   contest at the last day.

   2dly. Believers have this access by the Spirit, inasmuch as he enables
   them to approach unto God in a spiritual manner, with grace in their
   hearts, as he is the Spirit of grace and supplication. This is one
   special end for which the Spirit is promised unto believers, -- namely,
   that he may be in them "a Spirit of grace and supplication," enabling
   them to draw nigh unto God in a gracious and acceptable manner, Zech.
   xii. 10, 11. And this is one part of the work that he doth perform,
   when he is bestowed on them according to the promise. Rom. viii. 26,
   27: Let men do their best and utmost, they know not so much as what
   they ought to pray for; but the Spirit of Christ alone enables them to
   the whole work. If all the men in the world should lay their heads
   together to compose one prayer for the use of any one saint but for one
   day, they were not able to do it so as that it should answer his wants
   and conditions; nor can any man do it for himself, without the help and
   assistance of the Spirit, whose proper work this is.

   It were a long work, to show what the Holy Ghost, as a Spirit of grace
   in the hearts of believers, doth to this end, that they may have, in
   their access unto God, a saving, spiritual communion with him in
   Christ; wherein, indeed, consists the chiefest head of all the glory
   and beauty that is in the worship of God. Should I handle it, I must
   insist upon all these particulars:--

   (1st.) That the Holy Spirit discovers their wants unto them, their
   state and condition, with all the spiritual concernments of their
   souls; with which, without his effectual working, no man can come to a
   saving acquaintance spiritually. Men may think it an easy thing to know
   what they want; but he that knows the difficulty of obedience, the
   deceitfulness of the heart, the wiles of Satan, the crafts and sleights
   of indwelling sin, will not think so, but will grant that it is alone
   to be discovered by the Spirit of grace.

   (2dly.) It is he alone which really affecteth the heart and soul with
   their wants, when they are discovered unto us. We are of ourselves dull
   and stupid in spiritual things; and when matters of the most
   inexpressible concernment are proposed, we can pass them by without
   being affected in any proportion to their weight and importance. The
   Holy Ghost deeply affects the heart with its spiritual concernments,
   works sorrow, fear, desire, answerable to the wants that are discerned,
   making "intercession with sighs and groans that cannot be uttered."

   (3dly.) It is he alone that can reveal the saving relief and supplies
   that God hath provided in the promises of the gospel for all the wants
   of the saints; so enabling them to make their supplications according
   to the mind of God. It is not the consideration of the letter of the
   promises that will discover savingly unto us the glorious relief that
   is provided in them for our wants; but it is revealed unto the saints
   effectually by the Spirit, as provided by the love of the Father, and
   purchased by the blood of the Son, and stored up for us in the covenant
   of grace, that we may make our requests for our portions according to
   the will of God.

   (4thly.) It is the Holy Ghost that works in believers faith, love,
   delight, fervency, watchfulness, perseverance, -- all, those graces
   that give the soul communion with God in his worship, -- and in Christ
   renders their prayers effectual. He doth this radically, by begetting,
   creating, ingenerating them in the hearts of believers, in the first
   infusion of the new, spiritual, vital principle with which they are
   endued when they are born of him; as also by acting, exciting, and
   stirring them up in every duty of the worship of God that they are
   called unto; so enabling them to act according to the mind of God.

   By these hath the soul spiritual communion with God in the duties of
   his worship; and these, with sundry other things, should be handled, if
   we aimed to set out the work of the Spirit in the worship of the gospel
   as he is a Spirit of grace and supplication. But the mentioning of them
   in general is sufficient for the end proposed, -- namely, to discover
   the beauty and the glory of the worship that is thus carried on. Herein
   lies that which all the beauty of the world fades before, and becomes
   as a thing of nought, -- which brings all the outward pomp of
   ceremonious worship into contempt; -- I mean the glory and excellency
   that lies in the spiritual communion of the soul with God, by the grace
   of the Holy Ghost, in that heavenly intercourse which is between God
   and his saints in their worship, by this means. The Holy Ghost is
   essentially God himself, blessed for ever in his own person. He comes
   upon the hearts of the elect, and communicates of his own grace unto
   them. These graces he enables them to act, exert, and put forth in
   their worship of God. These God delights in, as coming from himself, as
   of his own workmanship in us; -- he seeth a return of himself to
   himself, of his grace to his glory: and by these do the saints approach
   into his presence, speak to him, treat with him, and hear from him. It
   is the language of faith and love alone, and the like graces of his
   Spirit, that God hears in his worship. Other voices, cries, and noises
   he regards not; yea, at least, if not some of them in themselves, yet
   all of them when these are wanting, are an abomination unto him.
   However, this is the beauty and the glory of the worship of the gospel,
   -- the beauty and glory that God sees in it. Where this work of the
   Spirit of God is in his worship, there faith, love, delight, and
   fervency are in a saving and spiritual manner exercised. He is an
   atheist, who will deny that they are acceptable to God, -- that this
   worship is glorious, beautiful, and comely: and he is no better, who
   thinks that any outward solemnity can render worship so, when these are
   wanting. So that they are the things on which the whole doth turn.

   3dly. As always from the foundation of the world, so in the New
   Testament, the solemn worship of God is to be performed in the
   assemblies of his saints and people. Now, where the same worship is to
   be performed by many, the very law of nature and reason requireth that
   some one or more, according as there is necessity, should go before the
   rest of the assembly in the worship which they have to perform, and be
   as the hand, or mouth, or eyes to the whole body or assembly. And so,
   also, hath our Lord ordained, -- namely, that in all the public and
   solemn worship of gospel assemblies, there should be some appointed to
   go before them in the performance of the duties of the worship that he
   requireth of them, be they what they will. Now, as the things
   themselves, wherein these persons are to minister before the Lord in
   their in their assemblies, are all of them prescribed by God himself;
   so, as to the manner of their performance, there are these two marks or
   guides to direct the whole:-- first, it must be so performed as to tend
   to the glory of God; and, secondly, to the edification of the assembly
   itself. It would be too long for me to show you what is required to
   this one thing, that the worship of God be carried on in the assembly
   to the edification of the saints; which is, that all the ordinances of
   God may have their proper work in them, and effects towards them, for
   the increase of their faith and graces, and carrying them on in their
   course of obedience and communion with God. The consideration of this
   work made the apostle say, Pros tauta tis hikanos; In a word, so far as
   possible it may be done, their state and condition is to be spread
   before the Lord in prayer, according as they experience it in their own
   souls, -- their desires to be drawn forth and expressed, -- their pleas
   for mercy and grace to be managed, with the like ends of prayer; their
   condition to be suited, in instruction, consolation, and exhortation,
   and the like, in preaching the word. So of all other ordinances; they
   are to be managed and administered so as may best tend to the
   edification of the assembly. Now, this is supposed by the third benefit
   that the saints receive by the Spirit, as to their approach unto God:
   he gives gifts and abilities, spiritual gifts unto them whom he calleth
   unto this work of going before the assemblies in the worship of God,
   that they may perform all things to the glory of God and the
   edification of the body. I shall not so much as once mention the
   supplies that are invented and found out by men for this end and
   purpose. There is not a soul that hath the least communion with God,
   but knows their emptiness and utter insufficiency for that which they
   pretend unto.

   Now, that the Holy Ghost furnisheth men with gifts for this end and
   purpose, we have abundant testimonies in the Scripture; and, blessed be
   God, we have evidence of it abundantly in and from those who are endued
   with them, 1 Cor. xii. 4, 7, 8, 11. The design of the apostle in that
   chapter is to treat of the worship of God, as it is to be carried on
   and performed in the gospel assemblies of saints; of which he gives an
   instance in the Church of Corinth. For the right performance hereof, he
   lays down, in the first verse, that spiritual gifts are bestowed. Being
   to treat of the public worship of God, he begins with spiritual gifts,
   whereby men are enabled thereunto. The author of all those gifts, he
   informs us in the fourth verse, is the Holy Ghost; he is sent by Christ
   to this very end and purpose, to, bestow them on his churches. The end
   of the collation, he informs, us, is the profit and edification of the
   whole body, verse 7. Every one that receives them, doth it to this
   purpose, -- that he may use them to the good and benefit of the whole.
   To this end are they bestowed in great variety, as verse 8, -- that by
   them the use of the body may be supplied, and church edification may be
   carried on. And having thus showed their nature, end, and distribution,
   he again asserts their author to be the Holy Ghost, verse 11. And we
   have direction, upon this foundation, given for the exercise and use of
   those gifts, in sundry places; as 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11.

   This then, also, as to the more solemn and public worship of God, is
   performed by that Spirit in whom we have an access unto the Father:--
   he gives spiritual gifts unto men, enabling them to perform it in a
   holy, evangelical manner, so as God may be glorified, and the
   assemblies of the saints edified, in the administration of all
   ordinances, according to what they are appointed unto. He enables men
   to pray, so as that the souls of the saints may be drawn forth thereby
   unto communion with God, according unto all their wants and desires; --
   he enables them to preach or speak as the "oracles of God," so as that
   the saints may receive instruction suitable to their condition, as to
   all the ends of the good word of God, whose dispensation is committed
   unto them; -- he enables men to administer the seals of the covenant
   so, that the faith of the saints may be excited and stirred up to act
   and exert itself in a way suitable to the nature of each ordinance. And
   all those gifts are bestowed on men on purpose for the good and
   edification of others; they are never exercised in a due manner, but
   they have a farther reach and efficacy in and upon the souls of the
   saints, than he that is intrusted with them was able to take a prospect
   of. He little knows how many of his words and expressions are, in the
   infinite wisdom of the Holy Ghost, suited in an unspeakable variety to
   the conditions of his saints; -- here one, there another, is wrought
   upon, affected, humbled, melted, lifted up, rejoiced by them; the Holy
   Ghost making them effectual to the ends for which he hath given out the
   gifts from whence they do proceed. I might mention sundry other
   advantages which we have that belong to our access unto God by one
   Spirit; but because it were endless to enumerate all particulars, and
   they may be reduced to some one of these general heads, I shall mention
   no more of them. This, then, is the first, evidence that we have in the
   words, given unto the glory, beauty, and excellency of gospel worship:
   In it we have an access unto the Father in the Spirit; which relates
   unto the things before mentioned, or rather touched on. Here is order:
   The Spirit reveals the mind of God as to the worship that is acceptable
   unto him; -- he furnishes the souls of the saints with all those graces
   whereby and wherein they have communion with God in his worship; -- he
   gives gifts unto some, enabling them to go before the assemblies in the
   worship of God, according to his mind, and unto their edification.
   Blessed order, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against! Order,
   proceeding from the God of order; -- his own project and appointment!
   Here is beauty, decency, loveliness. It is all the work of the glorious
   and holy Spirit, which is like himself, -- holy, glorious, and
   beautiful; and to set up any thing of any man's finding out in
   competition with it, is that which the Lord's soul abhors.

   (2.) As the saints in the gospel have access unto God in the Spirit, so
   they have all their access in one Spirit; and this is the spring of all
   the uniformity which God requires. So the apostle tells us, that, as to
   the gifts themselves, there are diversities of them, and difference in
   them, 1 Cor. xii. 4-6. But where, then, is uniformity? If one man have
   better and greater gifts than another; -- one man be more eminent in
   one kind, another in another; -- one excelling in prayer, another in
   prophesying and preaching, -- what confusion must this needs breed!
   Where is, then, any uniformity in all this? The apostle answereth,
   verse 11. Here lies the uniformity of gospel worship, -- that though
   the gifts bestowed on men for the public performance of it be various,
   and there is great diversity among them, yet it is one Spirit that
   bestows them all among them, and that in the order before mentioned.
   One and the same Spirit discovers the will and worship of God to them
   all; -- one and the same Spirit works the same graces for their kind in
   the hearts of them all; -- one and the same Spirit bestows the gifts
   that are necessary for the carrying on of gospel worship in the public
   assemblies to them who are called to that work. And what if he be
   pleased to give out his gifts in some variously, as to particulars,
   "dividing to every one severally, as he will?" yet this hindereth not
   but that, as to the saints mentioned, they all approach unto God by one
   Spirit; and so have uniformity in their worship throughout the world.
   This is a catholic uniformity; when whatever is invented by men under
   that name reaches but to the next hedge, and, as might be easily proved
   and evinced, is the greatest principle of deformity and disorder in the
   world. This, then, is the uniformity of gospel worship:-- all the
   saints, everywhere, have their access in it unto God in one Spirit, who
   worketh alike in the general in them all, though he gives out
   diversities of gifts, serving to the edification of the whole.

   And these are the evidences that are directly and "in terminis" given
   to the proposition of the beauty, excellency, order, and uniformity, of
   gospel worship in the text, as we consider it absolutely in itself.
   Before I come to consider its glory comparatively, in reference to the
   outward solemn worship of the temple of old, I shall add but one
   consideration more, which is necessary for the preventing of some
   objections, as well as for the farther clearing of the truth insisted
   on; and that is taken from the place where spiritual worship is
   performed. Much of the beauty and glory of the old worship, according
   to carnal ordinances, consisted in the excellency of the place wherein
   it was performed; -- first, the tabernacle of Moses; then the temple of
   Solomon, of whose glory and beauty we shall speak afterward. Answerable
   hereunto, do some imagine there must be a beauty in the place where men
   assemble for gospel worship; which they labour to paint and adorn
   accordingly. But they "err, not knowing the Scriptures." There is
   nothing spoken of the place and seat of gospel worship, but it is
   referred to one of these three heads, -- all which render it
   glorious:--

   1. It is performed in heaven. Though they who perform it are on earth,
   yet they do it, by faith, in heaven. The apostle saith that believers,
   in their worship, do "enter into the holiest;" which he exhorts them to
   draw nigh unto, Heb. x. 19, 22. What is the "holiest," whereinto they
   enter with their worship? It is that whereinto Jesus Christ is entered
   as their forerunner, Heb. vi. 20. It is into heaven itself, chap. ix.
   24. You will say, "How can these things be, that men should enter into
   heaven while they are here below?" I say, Are men "masters in Israel,"
   and ask this question? They who have an access unto the immediate
   presence of God, and to the throne of grace, enter into heaven itself.
   And this adds to the glory we treat of. What poor low thoughts have men
   of God and his ways, who think there lies an acceptable glory and
   beauty in a little paint and varnish! Heaven itself, the place of God's
   glorious residence, where he is attended with all his holy angels, is
   the state [place?] of this worship. Hence is that glorious description
   given of it, Rev. iv. throughout; where it is expressly said to be "in
   heaven," though it is only the worship of the church that is described.
   It were easy from hence to manifest the glory we have spoken of, in the
   several parts of it. But I do but point out the heads of things.

   2. The second thing mentioned, in reference to the place of this
   worship, is the persons of the saints; these are said to be the "temple
   of the Lord," 1 Cor. vi. 19, "Your body is the temple of the Holy
   Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God." Chap. iii. 16, "Know ye
   not" (verse 17) "the temple of God is holy?" God hath now no material
   temple; but he hath chosen this spiritual one, -- the hearts and souls
   of his saints: and beautiful temples they are, being washed with the
   blood of Christ, beautified with the graces of the Spirit, adorned for
   communion with him; hence "the King's daughter" is said to be "all
   glorious within," Ps. xlv.

   Whatever men may think, God, that knoweth his own graces in the hearts
   of his, and in whose eyes nothing is beautiful or of price but grace,
   knows and judges that this place of his worship, this temple that he
   hath chosen, is full of beauty and glory. Let who will be judge, that
   pretends to be a Christian, whether is more beautiful in the sight of
   God, -- "a living stone," adorned with all the graces of the Spirit, a
   heart full of the grace of Christ, -- or a dead stone cut out of the
   quarries, though graven into the similitude of a man?

   3. The assemblies of the saints are spoken of as God's temple, and the
   seat and place of public, solemn, gospel worship, Eph. ii. 21, 22. Here
   are many living stones framed into an holy house in the Lord, an
   habitation for God by his Spirit. God dwells here. As he dwelt in the
   temple of old, by some outward, carnal pledges of his presence; so, in
   the assemblies of his saints, which are his habitation, he dwells
   unspeakably in a more glorious manner by his Spirit. Here, according to
   his promise, is his habitation. Now, the saints' assemblies, according
   to the order of the gospel, are "a building fitly framed together:" as
   the tabernacle and temple were of old in their outward structure,
   whereby they were raised; so they in their spiritual union in and under
   Christ their head. And they are a temple, a holy temple, -- holy with
   the "holiness of truth," as the apostle speaks, chap. iv. 24; -- not a
   typical, relative, but a real holiness, and such as the Lord's soul
   delighteth in. I know some can see no beauty in the assemblies of the
   saints, unless there be an outward beauty and splendour in the fabric
   and building wherein they convene. But that is not at all the thing in
   question, what some men can see, or cannot see. Christ himself had unto
   some "no form nor comeliness that he should be desired;" -- no more
   have his saints, his ways, his worship. That is not it which we inquire
   after; but what is beautiful, comely, and of price in the eyes and
   judgment of God. Neither is that the matter in question, whether these
   or those are saints of God, or no? But only, whether an assembly of
   saints, as such, which are the temple of God, and being called together
   according to the order of the gospel, be not a glorious seat of
   worship? God saith it is so; and if men say otherwise, those that are
   not enchanted with what I shall not name, will easily know what to give
   credit to.

   Secondly. [365] Proceed we now, in the next place, to set forth the
   glory and beauty of this worship of the gospel comparatively, with
   reference to the solemn outward worship which, by God's own
   appointment, was used under the Old Testament; which, as we shall show,
   was far more excellent on many accounts than any thing of the like
   kind, -- that is, as to outward splendour and beauty, -- that was ever
   found out by men. And I shall do this the more willingly, because the
   Holy Ghost doth so much and so frequently -- and that not without many
   great and weighty causes -- insist upon it in the New Testament, having
   intimated it beforehand in many places of the Old. To the right
   understanding of what is gospel, and delivered in Scripture on this
   account, some things are previously to be considered:--

   1. As the whole worship of the old church, so the whole manner of it,
   with all its rites, ceremonies, and ornaments, both in the tabernacle
   and temple, were of God's own appointment. There was not the least part
   of the fabric wherein his worship was celebrated, nor any ornament of
   it, -- not one rite or ceremony that did attend it, -- but it was all
   of it wholly of God's own designation and command. This is known and
   confessed. Moses made all things "according to the pattern showed him
   in the mount;" and at the finishing of the whole work, it is in one
   chapter ten [eight?] times repeated, that he did as the Lord commanded
   him, Exod. xl. Now, surely this gave it a beauty, order, and glory
   incomparably above whatever the wisest of the sons of men are able to
   invent. "Let the potsherd contend with the potsherds of the earth; but
   woe unto him that contends with his Maker!" The worship of the pope and
   his invention may possibly outdo the beauty and order of the worship of
   the Turk and his invention; but I hope they will not compare with God,
   nor make themselves equal with him. But why should I say I hope it,
   when the contrary is evident? For doth he not undertake to assign new
   rules of his own in the worship of God? and doth he not therein make
   himself equal with God, whose prerogative it is to be the only lawgiver
   to his people's consciences, and the only prescriber of his own
   worship? But this I may yet hope, that men will not nakedly aver, that
   what is of their appointment is equal unto, and comparable with, what
   God appoints. Take their institutions and God's together, and the
   former, surely, will have great disadvantage in respect of the authors.
   This, in general, I suppose, will be granted, though men be very apt
   practically to make void the commands of God by their traditions and
   institutions, laying more weight upon some one of them than on all the
   commands of Jesus Christ.

   "But, it may be, though God appointed that worship of old, and all the
   concernments of it, he intended not to make that beautiful and
   glorious, but plain and homely; so that it doth not follow that it is
   beautiful and excellent because it was by him appointed." Answer,
   Though we may well and safely abide by this general proposition, that
   what God hath appointed in his own worship is therefore beautiful and
   glorious, excellent, orderly, and comely, because he hath appointed it;
   yet I add, --

   2. That it was God's intendment to make, appoint, and dispose of all
   things so, that the solemnity of his worship might be very beautiful
   and glorious. He appoints the high priest's garments to be made
   expressly "for glory and for beauty," Exod. xxviii. 2, -- such as might
   be specious and goodly to look upon; and speaking of the church-state,
   when he had formed and fashioned it by his institution, he saith, her
   renown went forth among the heathen for beauty, for it was perfect
   through the comeliness he had put upon her, Ezek. xvi. 14. There was in
   her ways of worship a renowned beauty, a perfect comeliness; whence,
   saith the prophet, "A glorious high throne from the beginning is the
   place of our sanctuary," Jer. xvii. 12. But I shall not need to
   multiply testimonies to this purpose. Who knows not what things are
   spoken of the tabernacle, the temple, and all the worship belonging to
   them, everywhere in the Scripture? As God appointed, so it came to
   pass; -- it was the most beautiful solemnity that ever the sun shone
   upon. Mosaical worship, I say, as celebrated in Solomon's temple,
   outdid all the glory and splendour that ever the world, in any place,
   in any age from the foundation of it, ever enjoyed. Should all the
   princes of Europe lay their treasures together, they were not able to
   build a fabric of that charge, magnificence, and glory, as was
   Solomon's temple. It were endless to go over particulars. The garments
   of the high priest were such as rendered him so awful and glorious,
   that Alexander the Great, that famous conqueror of the east, fell down
   before him with a prostrate reverence. The order of the house, and all
   the worship in it, -- who can fix his mind upon it without admiration!
   How glorious was it when the house of Solomon stood in its greatest
   order and beauty, all overlaid with gold, -- thousands of priests and
   Levites ministering in their orders, with all the most solemn musical
   instruments that David found out, and the great congregation assembled
   of hundreds of thousands, all singing praises to God! Let any man in
   his thoughts a little compare the greatest, most solemn, pompous, and
   costly worship that any of the sons of men have in these latter days
   invented and brought into the Christian Church, with this of the
   Judaical, and he shall quickly find that it holds no proportion with
   it, -- that it is all a toy, a thing of nought in comparison of it.
   Take the Cathedral of Peter in Rome: bring in the pope and all his
   cardinals in all their vestments, habiliments, and ornaments; fill
   their choir with the best singers they can get; set out and adorn their
   images and pictures to the utmost that their treasures and superstition
   will reach to; -- then compare it to Solomon's Temple and the worship
   thereof; and, -- without the help of the consideration that the one was
   from heaven, the other is of men, -- the very nature of the things
   themselves will manifest how vain the present pretences are to glory
   and beauty. How much more may this be spoken of such underling
   pretenders as some are!

   These things being premised, we say now, that, notwithstanding this
   whole worship, and all the concernments of it, was appointed by God
   himself; notwithstanding it was designed by him to be beautiful and
   glorious, and that indeed it was the very top of what external beauty
   and splendour could reach unto; -- yet that it was no way comparable to
   the beauty and glory of this spiritual worship of the New Testament;
   yea, had no glory in comparison of it. This, then, I shall briefly
   demonstrate:-- (1.) In general; and then, (2.) By an induction of some
   particular instances.

   For the former, I need go no farther than that place where the apostle
   doth expressly handle this comparison, viz., 2 Cor. iii. 7-10. He doth
   here on set purpose compare the ministration of the law in the letter,
   with all its outward legal worship, rites, and ceremonies, with the
   administration of the gospel in the Spirit, and the worship of God
   attending thereon. And first, he acknowledgeth that the old
   ministration was very glorious; which he either gives an instance of,
   or proves it by that of Moses' face shining when he came down from the
   mount, when he had received the law, and the pattern of all that
   worship which he was to appoint unto that church. It seems that God
   left that shining on the face of Moses -- which was such that the
   people could not bear the brightness of it -- to testify how glorious
   that was about which he had received revelation; so that, indeed, saith
   the apostle, "That ministration was glorious, very glorious, -- yea,
   glory in the abstract," verse 9. Nothing was there ever in the world to
   be compared with it. We will, then, compare it now with the
   ministration of the Spirit, and the worship of God under the gospel. It
   may be he will say, "It is not all out so glorious, indeed." Nay, but
   he goes farther, and tells us that this doth so excel in glory,
   comeliness, and excellency, that, in respect unto it, the other had no
   glory at all. What, then, may be said of any thing invented by men in
   the worship of God for glory and beauty? I dare not say what the
   apostle saith of that which God himself appointed, -- that it hath any
   glory and beauty in itself. But yet, suppose it hath so; let men esteem
   it as glorious and beautiful as they can possibly fancy it to be, --
   yet, unless the same vail be on their minds in reading the Gospel which
   is on the Jews' in reading Moses, they cannot but see and acknowledge
   that it hath no glory in comparison of that spiritual worship which we
   have described.

   Some particular instances will make the general comparison more
   evident. I shall only name these three, which -- being the principal
   spring of all the beauty, glory, and order of the worship of old -- are
   peculiarly considered by the apostle to this very purpose, in the
   Epistle to the Hebrews, where he sets out the excellency of the
   evangelical administrations of the covenant and worship of God above
   and beyond the legal:--

   1. The first of these was the temple, the seat of all the solemn
   outward worship of the old church. The beauty and glory of it were in
   part spoken to before; nor shall I insist on any particular description
   of it. It may suffice, that it was the principal state [place] of the
   beauty and order of the Judaical worship, and which rendered all
   exceeding glorious; -- so far, that the people idolized it, and put
   their trust in it; -- that upon the account of it they should be
   assuredly preserved, notwithstanding their presumptuous sins: and,
   indeed, it had such blessings and promises annexed unto it, that if
   there were at this day any place or house in the world that had the
   like, I should desire to be among the first that should enter into a
   pilgrimage of going to it, though it were as far beyond Jerusalem as it
   is thither. But yet, notwithstanding all this, Solomon himself, in his
   prayer at the dedication of that house, 1 Kings viii. 27, seems to
   intimate that there was some check upon his spirit, considering the
   unanswerableness of the house to the great majesty of God. It was a
   house on the earth, -- a house that he did build with his hands;
   intimating that he looked farther to a more glorious house than that.
   And what is it, if it be compared with the temple of gospel worship?
   Whatever is called the temple now of the people of God, is as much
   beyond that of old as spiritual things are beyond carnal, as heavenly
   beyond earthly, as eternal beyond temporal. First, In some sense the
   body of Christ is our temple, as himself called it, speaking of the
   temple of his body as being prefigured by it, -- as having the fulness
   of the Godhead dwelling in him, typified by the presence of God in the
   old temple, and being the centre wherein all his people meet with their
   worship of God, as those of old did in the temple.

   And surely there is no comparison, for beauty and excellency, between
   the house that Solomon built and the Son of God, "who is the brightness
   of his glory, and the express image of his person." Again, The persons
   and the assemblies of the saints, as I showed before, are a temple to
   God under the gospel. They are his body, Eph. i. 23; and his house,
   Heb. iii. 6. Nor is the old temple, made of wood and stones, gold and
   silver, to be compared with this living house, washed with the blood of
   Christ, adorned with the real graces of the Spirit, and garnished with
   all the choice jewels of God's eternal love. They are God's delight,
   "the first-fruits of the creature" to him, the spouse of Christ, --
   through his graces altogether lovely. The Lord Jesus sees more beauty
   and glory in the weakest assemblies of his saints, coming together in
   his name, and acted and guided in his worship and ways by his Spirit,
   than ever was in all the worship of Solomon's temple when it was in its
   glory. Thirdly, Heaven itself, the holy place not made with hands, is
   also the saints' temple under the gospel. Believers have in their
   worship an open way into the holiest made for them by Christ, who
   entered into it as the forerunner, Heb. vi. 20; opening it to them,
   also giving admission into it, Heb. x. 19-21. And how exceedingly doth
   this exalt the excellency of the spiritual worship of the gospel! What
   was the glory of Solomon's temple to the glory of the meanest star in
   heaven! How much less was it, then, in comparison of the glorious
   presence of God in the highest heavens, whither believers enter with
   all their worship, even where Christ sits at the right hand of God!

   2. The second spring of the beauty of the old worship -- which was,
   indeed, the hinge upon which the whole turned -- was the priesthood of
   Aaron, with all the administrations committed to his charge. The pomp,
   state, and ceremonies, that the Papists have invented in their outward
   worship, or that heap which they have, in several parcels, borrowed of
   the Heathen and Jews, is a toy in comparison of the magnificence of the
   Aaronical administrations. The high priest under the gospel is Christ
   alone. Now, I shall spare the pains of comparing these together; --
   partly, because it will be by all confessed that Christ is incomparably
   more excellent and glorious; and partly, because the apostle, on set
   purpose, handles this comparison in sundry instances in the Epistle to
   the Hebrews; where any one may run and read it, it being the main
   subject-matter of that most excellent epistle.

   3. The order, glory, number, significancy, of their sacrifices, was
   another part of their glory. And, indeed, he that shall seriously
   consider that one solemn anniversary sacrifice of expiation and
   atonement, which is instituted, Lev. xvi., will quickly see that there
   was very much glory and solemnity in the outward ceremony of it. "But
   now," saith the apostle, "we have a better sacrifice," Heb. ix. 23. We
   have him who is the high priest, and altar, and sacrifice, -- all
   himself; of worth, value, glory, beauty, -- upon the account of his own
   person, the efficacy of his oblation, the real effect of it, -- more
   than a whole creation, if it might have been all offered up at one
   sacrifice. This is the standing sacrifice of the saints, offered "once
   for all;" -- as effectual now any day as if offered every day: and
   other sacrifices, properly so called, they have none. I might mention
   other particulars; but I suppose, through the grace of our Lord Jesus
   Christ, we have in some measure manifested the excellency, beauty,
   order, and uniformity, of the spiritual worship of the gospel; and that
   both absolutely in itself, and in comparison with any other way of
   worship whatever. From all which it will be easily made to appear, that
   this may well be reckoned among the unspeakable privileges that are
   purchased for us by the death of Christ; -- which was the thing first
   proposed to consideration.
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   [365] See the division as announced, p. 56.
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Sermon V. Of walking humbly with God.

   "And to walk humbly with thy God." -- Mic. vi. 8.

   The beginning of this chapter contains a most pathetical expostulation
   of God, by the prophet, with his people, about their sins and unworthy
   walking before him. Having, with an apostrophe to the mountains and
   hills, verses 1, 2, stirred up their attention, and raised them to the
   consideration of his plea with them in verses 3-5, he emphatically
   presses them with the mercies he had of old bestowed upon them, with
   the patience and love toward them which he showed and exercised in his
   dealings with them.

   The conviction being effectual to awaken them, and fill them with a
   sense of their horrible ingratitude and rebellions, verses 6, 7, they
   begin to make inquiry, according as is the custom of persons under the
   power of conviction, what course they shall take to avoid the wrath of
   God, which they could not but acknowledge was due to them. And here, as
   God speaks, Hos. vii. 1, when he would heal them, their iniquity and
   wickedness is discovered more and more; they discover the wretched
   principles whereon they were acted, in all that they had to do with
   God.

   Indeed convictions, on what account soever, made effectual upon the
   soul, draw out its inward principles; which are not otherwise to be
   discovered. Many there are who have, in notion, received the doctrine
   of free justification by the blood of Christ, whom, while they are
   secure in their ways, without trouble or distress, it is impossible to
   persuade that they do not live and act upon that principle, and walk
   before God in the strength of it. Let any great conviction, from the
   word or by any imminent or pressing danger, befall these men, -- then
   their hearts are laid open, -- then all their hopes are in their
   repentance, amendment of life, performance of duties in a better
   manner; and the iniquity of their self-righteousness is discovered.

   Thus was it with these Jews. Their sins being charged home upon them by
   the prophet, so that they are not able to stand under their weight and
   burden, he now discovers the bottom of all their principles in dealing
   with God; and that is this, that having provoked him, something they
   must do whereby to appease him and atone his anger.

   In their contrivance to this purpose, they fix on two general