Mans Delinquency Attended

Die Veneris 26. Novembris 1646.

IT is this day ordered by the LORD'S in Parliament assembled, That this House gives thanks to Mr. Price, one of the Assembly of Divines, for his great pains taken in his Sermon preached on the last Fast day before the Lord's of Parliament, in the Abby Church Westminster: And he is hereby desired to print and publish the same; which is to be printed only by authority under his own hand.

I appoint Richard Whitaker to print this Sermon.

A SERMON before the House of LORD'S on the last Monethly Fast-day.

T His is a gloomy day of public humiliation; and the argument of this Chapter (on a branch whereof my lot is now fallen) is drooping, and heaviness. The people indeed, we find trembling (in the next Chapter) for the immoderate rain; for it seems the clouds then dispensed their treasures too fast, as now they do: But a dunghilly worldling can howl on his bed under a loss or cross: But our Ezra mourns more for the blackness, then the burning of the coal of sin. A formalist may sometime feel a legal fit, a pang of sorrow for his own sins: but Ezra laments the mis-carriages of others; the people of Israel, the Priests, the Levites, the Princes and Rulers, who were all embarked in that delinquency that he deplores. Ezra's humiliation began within, but ended not there: His sorrow-pressed heart finds a vent in all the solemn dress, & equipage that grief uses to assume, and put on; laceration of garments, plucking the hair from his head, and beard, pensively sitting down with silence, stupefaction, astonishment until the evening. And lest his passion should be interpreted an immasculating, sullen stupidity, & amazed dullness, rather then an active repentance, (which ought to be a fruit-bearing-tree, & not a dead log) he raises and rowses himself, and betakes himself to his knees, and spreads out his hands heavenward (the usual visible demonstrations of the height of devotion) and offers the fruit of his lips, pouring out his soul, clothing his sad apprehensions withaery, but solid and melting expressions, breathing forth his complaints to him who only could relieve him, in a prayer that here is memorized and conveyd to posterity, distilling from his own pen. It is recorded of him, that he was a prompt Scribe: His tongue was as the pen of a ready writer when he commenc'd, and presented this suit at the throne of grace; and his pen is as a tongue to report it to succeeding generations as an exemplary model, or platform to steer us in putting up our petitions on semblable emergent occasions. And I said, O my God, &c. And thus is the Text allied to the Context.

If you now please (Right Honorable, and the rest beloved in our Savior) to see how the words that lie afore us shine with their own native, without borrowed luster, They are considerable under the notion of a prayer; an ordinance, that if duly managed, can open and shut heaven, bind and loosen the hands of the Omnipotent, blast designs, countermine mines, command, countermand men, tie up devils, throw Rome into Tiber: a duty that sanctifies fasting, as fasting quickens and imps the wings of it.

In which prayer the Petitioner draws himself and his people with a black coal, ver. 6.7. but limns his God with orient colors, ver. 8. vilifying, nullifying man; or if any diminutive can be added below abasement itself: but magnifying God.

1. He decries himself and Israel, discovering his sorrow by the impression of his shame, and the expression of their National misery.

1. The impression of his shame, ver. 6. O my God, I am confounded, &c.

2. The expression of his and Israel's misery, in a self-arraignment, and a self-condemnation.

1. His self-arraignment appears in drawing up a large indictment made up of an ingenuous confession, and an heightening aggravation.

1. A confession of their sin under the varied and reiterated language of iniquities, and trespasses; emphatical and comprehensive titles.

2. The aggravation of those transgressions, By

1. The dimensions of them; height and depth.

The continued quantity, the magnitude, great, greatened.

The discrete quantity, or multitude; increased, multiplied.

2. The customary inveteratenesse; From the days of our fathers to this day.

3. The Epidemicalnesse, and spreading universality; the guilt of Kings and Priests is mentioned here, ver. 7. And if we cast our eyes back to the first, and second verses, we shall find Levites, People and Rulers all put into this bill of attainder.

Yet he contents not himself with this self-arraignment; but erects a Tribunal within his own breast, and thence he passes an impartial judgment on himself, and the rest involved and engulft in this blame: For our iniquities have we been delivered up.

Delivered; To whom? To what?

1. To whom? To men; and one man is naturally a wolf to another; and those men potent, Kings; and those many; and they ethnicks, heathenish, the Kings of the nations.

2. To what delivered? To sword, to captivity, to spoil, to confusion of face; and that not imminent, but incumbent; not feared, but felt; all too apparent; As it is (or appears ) this day. So different translations have it.

2. Having thus deprest man, he exalts God in his most magnetick, [ 1] attractive, amiable attribute, Grace; amplified by the fruit growing on that root; rescue, preservation; causing a remnant to escape: And settlement; [ 2] giving us a nail in his holy place. And these favors receiving their grace and gloss from those comfortable ends that God leveled at; the lightning their eyes, and reviving their hearts in their servitude.

This is the Anatomy, these the lineaments of the Text. Which by this time you may perceive, corresponds and may aptly entitle itself to the times, and the time; to this day, and audience, being composed of Rulers, and people; the parties mentioned in this Chapter. May the Text prove as profitable, as it is seasonable.

Here is a large Vintage; I cannot stand to pluck every grape; I must present them to you by clusters: and (like our Geographers) set down a line for a River, and a spot for a whole Country; here being such an ocean, a continent of matter under my hands.

1. I take my rise from Ezra 's decrying, and vilifying himself, and Israel: and therein from the impression of his shame; And I said, O my God, I am ashamed, and blush (or as other Translations render it, I am confounded, and ashamed ) to lift up mine eyes to thee, my God.

Both are agreeable to the Original, that uses two words, importing shame, blushing, confusion of face, or eyes, the seat of shame.

Shame is sometimes a vice, sometimes a punishment, sometimes a virtue: A vice, as Tacitus writes of Domitians blushing, it was a shame, whereby he fortified himself against shame. As Seneca saith of Sylla, He was never more to be dreaded, then when he blusht. Sometimes shame is a punishment; as at the end of the seventh verse. But here in Ezra it is a virtue; a shame whereof he needed not be ashamed.

Shame hath its source within, caused either by self-consciousness, when a guilty soul sweats with reflecting on itself: Or, from a piercing apprehension of others unworthiness, which was Ezra 's motive in the Text; he was ashamed, because Israel was not ashamed of their mungrill matches. This shame was not his accuser, but compurgatour: He enters a caveat against them by the colouring of his cheek.

The badge of shame or modesty is blushing, the trans-fusion of a vermilion thorough the face: which sally of the blood into the cheeks we call the color of virtue. Though it be oft an infirmity; yet oftener an index of ingenuity, as thistles speak the ground fertil that bears them.

Confusion (which in some Translations is inserted here) is the meridian, zenith, vertical point of shame, it can mount no higher; As shame tied up the people's tongues when they were argued of halting between two opinions, they answered not a word; and Joshua 's tongue when Israel was foiled at Ai, What shall I say? this is that confusion here spoken of; and this possesses Ezra too: O my God, (saith he) I am confounded, at a stand, filled with astonishment, that Israel should so degenerate and degrade themselves. So planet-struck he was, that he could not, durst not lift up his eyes. His looks were demisse, his eyes staked to the ground, as the Publicans, that would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.

And yet this shame of Ezra delivers him not over to despondency, or despair; for twice for failing in a breath he bespeaks God his; O my God, O my God. Adams shame drove him from God; Ezra 's drives him to God: it fastens his hold, so that he applies God the closer to him, O my God.

Which president commends this note to us; the pearl, the point lies above ground, That

They that are at ods with sin because it is sin, will blush even at other men's sins. Ezra shared not in this particular crime, that thus fills his heart with grief, and his face with shame. As in the Prophesy, the silver Moon is said to be confounded, and the spotless Sun to be ashamed. And stars of the clearest beam, and first magnitude in the Church of God have been, and ought to be thus modest. Your mother (saith God) shall be sorely confounded, she that bare you shall be ashamed. Christians apostasy is said to put Christ to open shame. Were he on earth, or now receptive of this passion, the sins of men would put him to it. But mere men have more reason to blush for men: Whether because sin is so shameful in its own nature, [ 1] so that the Scripture makes it enter the lists of comparison with the most sordid things that earth can show. Or, [ 2] whether to acquit themselves from the guilt of other men's sins, which we make our own by not being affected with them. Or, [ 3] whether from others aberrations we are prompted to review our own natural leprous deformity, which we derived from our parents loins, and unhappily improved and expressed, till God recalled us to himself. Or, we are minded, [ 4] that the seeds of the most prodigious sins are in us; though grace restrain or mortify them: Else a Simon Peter might prove a Simon Magus; a Saint a Devil; everyone of us a Saul, a Balaam, a Judas, a witch, a traitor to our Savior. These recoiling thoughts draw the color into our cheeks. [ 5] Or, whether by command, counsel, connivence, or any other way, we have been accessory to others falls; since in religion all accessories are principals. [ 6] Or, whether it be that we consider, that the sacred name of God is blasphemed, and the reputation of religion blasted by black mouths, as if it were but an empty, barren, ineffectual speculation, for the deviations of the professors thereof: which probably stir'd Ezra in my Text: (such a scandal is not to be expiated with tears of blood.) As the Duke of Urbins Painter being blamed for limning S. Peter and S. Paul high coloured, since fasting, mortification, labors, and watchings had discoloured and paled their cheeks, wittily and tartly replied, That those Apostles were wan indeed while they lived, but they now blush to see those that pretend themselves to be their successors, to succeed them no otherwise then as a disease doth health, or night day. All these Reasons justify this blushing we speak of.

But oh, How many degrees distant from this temper of Ezra 's are those, who are so far from a modest resentment of others sins, that they never ch • nge color when they are convicted of their own! That can tear God's sacred Name, dismember his Son between their teethes, out-face the Sun, Magistrate, Minister in swinish drunkenness, goatish lust, savage oppressions, and what not, that would infect the air but to name? And yet are frontlesse: Like the contriver of the golden Legend; on whom a Papist could pass this verdict, That he had a leaden heart, and a brazen face. We read of a brew of brass; of a whores forehead; of faces harder then rock; we have whole quarries of them; those impudent wretches died not without issue. Among all stations and ranks of persons that expostulation is not impertinent, Were they ashamed, when they had committed abominations? Nay, they were not ashamed, neither could they blush.

Nay, we are fallen on an age, into which those monsters have transmitted by a kind of transmigration, their spirits, contemporaries to S. Augustine, of whom he thus complains, Though nothing be blamable but sin, I, lest I should be blamed, was fain to be more sinful; & I belied myself, that I was guilty of what I never committed, lest the more innocent I was, the more despicable I might appear. We are ashamed not to be shameless: At least, ashamed of what we should count our crown, religion, profession. We are ashamed of our glory, and glory in our shame, as heirs to those prostitutes that extorted tears from S. Paul's eyes but to name. We have swarms of those that will with triumph, trumpet forth how many they have plundered, oppressed, ground to powder, ruined by their power; having no better plea then that of the wolf to the lamb, Thou hast a better cause, but I have better teeth: boasting how many unwary onus they have over-reached by flight of brain; with that hell-bred Proverb in their mouths, Plain dealing is a jewel, but he that useth it shall die a beggar (and yet it is a wonder, there should be so many beggars, and so few plain dealing men): Bragging how many pliant souls, laden with sin, led a way captive by lust, they have ensnared, and subdued by their blandishments. Which impudence is to let out sin to use, to wind it up to the highest peg; and it is a link of the chain of sin fastened next to the gates of hell. And it is as irrational, as if a felon should boast of his fetters, a dog of his vomit, an infected person of his plague-sore, or a possessed demoniac of his devil.

Deer Christians, [ 2] if there be any shadow of ingenuity in us, I trust we shall rather take part with Ezra in the Text, blushing for others sins, then thus insolently proclaim our own (like Sodom).

1. Let us not be ashamed of owning God: I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ (saith Paul). Nay, he points to his chain, that he bore for Christ's cause, as children point where they are fine. The Celtes in Damascene thought it a disgrace to withdraw themselves from a falling wall: Let us be ashamed to flinch from God, though all the world should disclaim him. Our Lord and Master will at the last day be ashamed of them that are now ashamed of him, Mar. 8.38. Let us not blush in a good cause, where justice, or mercy challenges our relief, though justice, [ 2] or mercy should pass for a crime among men. Let us blush rather for dishonorable, dishonest, scurrilous, subdolous, unworthy words, and actions: Then shals remember thy ways, and be ashamed, saith God to Israel.

What is past cannot be recalled; [ 1] we cannot be innocent, we may be penitent: though we cannot offer the spotless lamb of blamelesnesse; we may the turtles of penitency, our two eyes filled with shame and sorrow.

We are ashamed of bodily defects, of a summetry, [ 2] disproportion of parts, whereof we are not guilty; we are guilty of our spiritual deformity. As God argues to Moses about his sister Miriam; If her father had spit in her face, should she not have been ashamed seven days? and now she is a leper, let her be shut out seven days. So it holds by rules of equivalence; if we be ashamed of what we are merely passive in from our heavenly Father; why not much more for our sin, wherein we have been culpably active?

Even Nature (saith Tertullian ) hath cast a shamefastness on all sinful evil. [ 3] Malefactors delight to sculk, refuse to appear. They that are drunk, are drunk in the night: it was so in S. Paul's time, 1 Thess. 5.7. They tremble, and blush when apprehended; deny, when accused; when tortured, they seldom, or hardly confess; condemned, they bemoan themselves; and impute all, either to the malevolent aspect of conjunction of Stars; or to the unresistablenesse of fate; they will not have guilt lie at their door, because it is guilt, and opprobrious. Let but nature work, it will prompt us to this modesty.

But grace, I hope, will be more expressive on us. I have seen Ephraim (saith God) smiting on his thigh; I have heard his moaning: and acknowledging himself ashamed. It was melody in God's ears, that confession; and that smiting a lovely prospect in his eye, as appears by God's melting, passionate language about him in the next verse. Ephraim is my deer son, my pleasant child, I remember him still; my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy on him. 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 And when the soul-wounded Publican durst not look up to heaven, heaven looked down to him; he declined his own eyes, and inclined God's.

In a word: [ 5] It were a strange thing (saith Austin ) if in our faces there should be such a distance between our forehead and tongue, that shame should not suppress and stifle a bold tongue. If Diodorus the Logician fell down dead for shame, that he could not resolve an Argument propounded to him: methinks if we were truly apprehensive of the multitude and horridnesse of our sins; and the venom naturally inter woven with our souls, and our unkind abuse of so gracious a God; we should blush even to death; and be ready to creep into the grave, or hell itself: we having too much cause to take Ezra 's words out of his mouth, and to appropriate them to ourselves. For our iniquities are increased over our head, &c.

I am fallen from the impression of his shame, [ 2] to the expression of his and Israel's misery (set down also as the ground of his shame) And that first in his self arraignment and inditement filed against himself and Israel. In which bill, his ingenuous confession comes first to hand; displaying their sins under the varied terms of iniquities and trespasses.

Iniquity in our English Idiome sounds injustice, inequality. Indeed what is more unjust then sin? especially the sin of those within the bosom of the Church: who are favored and ennobled with so many mercies and privileges? Are not my ways equal? and are not your ways unequal? As God expostulates with his people.

Trespasses is the other title Ezra gives their sins: which imports breaking bounds, and due limits, and invading another's right.

Another piece of the character of sin: It leaps all hedges and ditches, breaks through all fences of relations or duties; and spares nor God, nor man.

But the Hebrew words run higher. The roots whence they are borrowed, imply crookedness, perverseness, ignominious baseness to be exploded and hist at; as the meanly versed in that tongue know.

The Jews were a crooked and perverse generation; as Steven stigmatizes them with it; offending against the clearest Revelation, and most remarkable dispensations of Divine providence.

Truth is, all sin is crookedness, it being a deflection from a straight Rule: But there is more crookedness and perverseness in some sins and sinners, then in others.

For perverseness, we are generally like Children, that because they cannot have what they will, throw away what they have, slight what they may have: And will endure a world of hardship and redoubled blows, rather then bend a knee, or give a word. There is a steely obstinacy, a twisted contrariety in our Nature. Abraham's children turned to stones, to thwart John the Baptist that speaks of stones turned to children.

And for crookedness, we so affect winding Meanders, and turning Labyrinths in our ways, that it may be said to us, as it was in the apologue to the Serpent; that having his deaths wound, stretched out himself straight. You should have lived so; you have lead a crooked life, and now you would die right and straight, and go strait to Heaven, like Baliam in his wish. But as the Tree falls, so it lies; if Death leave it crooked, such will Judgment find it.

But I spend but a word on words; [ 2] and the variation of them; here Ezra goes on to aggravate Israel's sins.

From the dimensions of them first characteriz'd in four or five expressions. [ 1] 1. Great; There is their continued quantity, their magnitude. 2. Increast, • Multiplyed; There is their discrete quantity, their multitude. 3. Over our heads. 4. Up to Heaven: There is their extension, as afore their intension. And all these are of distinct consideration: for that may be great that multiplies not; and that may grow, which yet amounts not above our heads; and that may get above our heads, that yet ascends not to Heaven. Their sins were all this.

1. [ 1] Great; Whether we eye that individual, particular sin, whence Ezra took the hint of his Lamentation; the people of God matching with Idolatrous wives, which stole and ravished Solomon's heart from his God: so stupefying and infatuating him, that, like a Bowle, he began to slug toward the end of the Alley, near his death, wracking even in the sight of the Haven. A sin which Paul calls unequal yoaking, importing as great an asustatous inconsistency, as between light and darkness, righteousness and unrighteousness, Christ and Belial.

Or whether we contemplate their sin in general, it was great.

All sin is great, being an offense of a great, an infinite God. But yet sins are of different magnitudes. It is a Stoicall fancy that they are equal. Nay, the same fins are greater or smaller in several persons. If S. Peter had had S. Paul 's malice, and S. Paul had had S. Peter 's knowledge they had both committed the sin against the holy Ghost. I shall but touch upon the ingredients that make up a great sin: because I have far to go, and not much time to spend.

Sins are accounted great in God's Geometry, [ 1] that are committed against clear light: so heinous they are, that in comparison Christ accounts other sins none. A servant may unwarily rush on his master in the dark; but to tread on his foot, and to look him in the' face, is insufferable. Great knowledge greatens sins: for knowledge is like the Unicornes horn, that doth well in a wise and good man's hand, but ill on a beasts head.

Sins also against eminent mercies are great: [ 2] God had rather his mercy should be unknown then slighted (saith Augustine ) Do you requite God thus ye foolish people? faith Moses, Deut. 32.6. To requite good for good is but human; in requite evil for evil is carnal; to requite good for evil is God-like; but to requite evil for good is diabolical.

And sins masked with a coverture of holiness; [ 3] as Israel's were. And they are thence denominated an hypocritical Nation in one place. Such sins are of a scarlet die. There is no sin to that of under a pretext of Religion; as David said of Goliath 's sword wrapped up in the linen Ephod, there is none to that. Hypocrisy we call double iniquity; and therefore the punishment of the Hypocrite in hell is made the exemplar of the torment of the greatest sinners: they shall have their portion with hypocrites.

We had need to solicit God then, that though this Jebusite sin will continue in our coasts, our breasts; that yet he would guard us from sins, that lay waste the Conscience: Keep thy servant (prays David ) from presumptuous sins, so shall I be innocent from the great transgression. It is now a great commendation to a man, if it may be said of him (as Tacitus speaks) that he is without crying vices, though not within virtue; and he that doth the least mischief, is a Saint. But I cannot insist.

The second expression is, [ 2] that sins were not only great, but did still greaten; they were increased and multiplied, both in magnitude and multitude: as it is charged on them, that they revolted more and more.

First for the continued quantity; Sin will greaten, and wax, and grow; like drops to a torrent, a slip to a wood, a spark to a flame: The measure fills a pace. We read of the fullness of the Amorites sins. In good we are as conscionable as children; we care not how little we have for our money; we give God gold hard weight; a little religion on a knives point serves our turns; but we never set a period to the bulk of sin. Lust (saith S. James ) having conceived, brings forth sin, and so proceeds to finishing. Sin hath its conception, that's delight; and the formation, that's design; and the birth, that's the acting; and custom is the education of this brat; then follows a reprobate sense; and the next step is Hell. None declines to the worst at first, but gradually step by step; As Mariners setting sail, first lose sight of the shore, then of the houses, then of the steeples; then of mountains, and land. And as those that are waylaid by a consumption, first lose vigor, and then stomach, and then color.

Then the discrete quantity must not be omitted: Our iniquities are increased and multiplied, So the Hebrew gives it: multiplied even above Arithmetic; as sparks out of the Ovens mouth.

Sins you see never go alone, but like the waves of the Sea, the end of the one is the beginning of another. David is a sad in tance, he drew iniquity with cart-ropes, as Isaiah phrases it. First he is idle; then he lusts after another's wife, then he sends for her, then violates her chaftity; when Uriah had but one Lamb in his bosom, and he had too many already: then he makes her Husband drunk, then plots his death, making the man contributuary to his own death by bearing the letters to Joab, and draws Joab also within the compass of the guilt.

What need have we to attend that caution, Take heed ye be not hardened by the deceitfullnesse of sin? We know where we begin and set out in a sin; but we know not where we shall end and take up. As no man can say he will let in so many pale • ulls of the Sea and no more. Many set up the trade of sweating with common interlocutory oaths, as 〈◊〉 , and troth; many began theeving with pins and pence; many drunkenness with one 〈◊〉 more then enough, many last with a glance of the eye, and never dream • they should ever be prostituted to those prodigious extremities they after find themselves almost irrecoverably ingulfed in. As when Pompey could not prevail with a City to billet his Army with them, he yet persuaded them to admit of a few weak maimed Soldiers, but those recovered their strength, and opened the gates to the whole Army. The devil courts us only to lodge a sin of infirmity, or two, and they gathering strength, and sinews, subdue us. It will be our wisdom to nip sin in the bloom, the bud, the first overture and suggestion; to kill this Cockatrice i' th' egg. For if we go with sin one mile, it will compel us to go with it twain: It will swell like the cloud Eliab saw, from the bigness of a man's hand to such an expansion, that it will cover the sky: like the waters of the Sanctuary, that may at first • each, to the ankles, but in tract of time increase over our heads.

3. Which is the third expression, I will but name it. Sin will mount above our heads, if it be suffered to take its course: Above our heads so as to usurp, and tyrannize over us, to depress us, to render us contemptible, and to lay our honor in the dust •• . So over our heads, as to keep us down, so that we cannot look after our God. So above our heads, as to dull our brains, benight our understandings, and insatuates us. God calls Israel a sottish people. So above our heads as to drown us in perdition; as the Apostle speaks, If God step not in.

Is it not better to keep it down, then that sin should keep us under hatches, or our heads under water? Oh let us by faithful approaches to our Christ, drown our sins in the red sea of his blood; and in the waters of repentance, break the heads of these Dragons. Implore God for assistance, that sin may not get heart-high in our affection, or head-high in our thoughts and fancy, and much less gain such a supremacy as to climb over our heads.

4. A fourth expression remains, Our trespass is grown up to the Heaven: Unto, not into the heavens. Sin was bred there in the Angels, but cast down thence, and shall never find the way back thither. No unclean thing shall enter there. If it could, it would darken the Sun, put out the Moon, soale up the Constellations: But unto the heavens sin is so daring bold to fly, whether to intercept the passage of our Prayers thither, or to stop the influence and the light of heaven from descending hither: or to knock at heaven gate to solicit for vengeance upon us. The sin of Sodom we read had a cry; and Abel 's blood a cry: And Ninevehs sin came up afore God. And our sins oft out-voice our prayers.

We have no remedy but to send our faith and prayers afore them to heaven to prepossesse our Savior, that he may be our Master of requests, our Advocate, Mediator, Intercessor, a s • reene between God's scorching wrath, and us. That he may plead for us both with words and wounds, for his blood speaks better things then the blood of Abel; The one calls for vindictive Justice; the other for pardoning mercy, and obtains it; yea even for overgrown sins.

2. Which inveteratenes of sin is a second aggravation of Israel's iniquity; From the days of our fathers have we been in a greet trespass unto this day.

Sin is of a cleaving adhering nature. It seises us betimes. O Lord, when was I ever innocent (asketh Austin ) And it will not leave us; if we welcome, and bed and board it. It hangs fast on (saith Paul ) It clings as swarthy blackness to the Aethiope, or spots to the Leopard. As the leprosy to the house, that sometimes could not be scraped off; but the stones must be changed: nay sometimes the house demolished. Sin, like the Ivy on the wall, will not wholly be extirpated, till these earthen walls of ours be plucked down by death. Not sope, nitre; no nor fire and brim frone can wash off sin. It will not sound a retreat: Nay, when the body declines, sin gathers strength like the weary Ox, that takes the firmer footing. Messaline was wearied, but never satisfied with her baseness.

And thats the reason that the pain of hell are eternal, because we would sin eternally, would God lengthen out our lives here to eternity.

Oh let us importune our God to cut the thread of our wickedness, that we may not spin it out to such a length. Let us bet •••• break off this match, and sue out a divorce between us, and our darling sins: That God may never have occasion to say of us, as of Israel▪ Jer. 22.21. This hath been thy 〈◊〉 from thy Youth. Break off thy sins, saith Daniel • o Nebuchadnezzar, cut this Gordian knot.

It is not yet too late the door of grace is still open, There is hope in Israel concerning this; as it follows. Nay David hath no better 〈◊〉 for obtaining mercy then the greatness of his 〈◊〉 Lord be merciful to my iniquity, for it is great.

The greater our sins are, the greater need we have of mercy. No man flies his Counsel because 〈◊〉 cause is great and intricate, but plies him the more: The more dangerous diseases are, the more Physicians are sought to. Some offenders are like Jairus his daughter, newly dead, by consent to some unjustifiable act; Others, like he Widows son of Naim, carrying out to burial, by acting unworthy things. Others, like Lazarus four days dead in the grave, stinking, and putrifying by living in sin, with the stone of custom rolled upon them. Let none of these despair; Christ can raise all these, as he did those. Deferre not Reformation on this ground: mane is God's Adverb, but the devils Verbe; God saith early, he faith tarry: But though thou hast drawn out the line of sin to an undue length, 〈◊〉 not away thy confidence. Christ is good at an old sore, all cures are alike to him. Go to him by the paces of faith in the words of Ambrose; Oh that thou wouldst be pleased to approach my monument, where my soul is enclosed; wouldst thou but weep over me, as thou didst over La •• rus, I should live. That voice that commands thee to come forth, must enable thee, as him, to arise and walk his ways.

3. But Ezra calls us away to consider another aggravation of Israel's sin: It was epidemical, spreading universal, tainting all of all sorts; he includes himself, We; mentions here Kings, and Priestrs; but in the beginning of the Chapter, Prophets, People, and Rulers. He doth not frigi • lly assert, they are s •• ers; they would all uninforced have yielded that: but he takes the boldness to lay the particularity of their offense, the height, greatness, multiplicity of sins at everyone of their doors.

He that speak promiscuously, and indistinctly to all, speak to none. Reproofs and threats are oft in Scripture styled burdens, and yet truly a burden is easily born away with a common shoulder. But when we lay the axe to the root of the tree, and make our addresses from the Pulpit, or otherwise, to special ranks of persons, and particularize their sins; when Nathan comes up close to David, with Thou art the man; this touches to the quick: And though a David may take it acceptably at our hands, yet most will kick and fling. Luther said knowingly, To preach is nothing else but to derive people's fury on our heads; to stir a wasps nest; to pull an old house upon us. How impatient were Stevens hearers, Act. 7.34? And Paul's Act 22.22.? And in those glasses we may see our own temper. But what though? We must not betray our own souls, nor yours by our silence. If you could take order that the biting texts of Scripture had an expurgatory. Index passed on them from heaven; we poor spirited men are too prone to desire to sleep in a whole akin. But if we blot out these passages, we shall be blotted out of the book of life. And while they are standing here, a Minister may be dam • d for his base silence. You will pardon us. Man may threaten prison; but God threatens hell. And truly a cock may have leave to wake a lion: It is pity great men should be let go quietly to hell more then the meaner. Ezra, here leads the way: He swallow not his words, as if he had gone too far already in his inditement, but undauntedly goes on from an accusation to a condemnation of all Israel, Rulers, and ruled; high, and low; supreme, and subordinate; Rulers, Priests, and People as accessory to their own misery. For our iniquities have we, our Kings, and our Priests been delivered.

2. Observe, That self-accusation, and self-condemnation are two symptoms of a repentance that need not be vepented of. They are marks ever to be found on cordial self-abasers; as we may collect from their language in Scripture, and elsewhere: Abram cries, I am but dust and asbes that speak to thee. Dust minds us of mortality, ashes of fire; as if he had deserved one and toother. Jacob; I am less then the least of all thy mercies. David; So brutish was I, even as a beast before thee. John Baptist; I am not worthy to unloose his she. The Centurion; I am unworthy thou shouldst come under my roof. S. Peter; Depart from me, O Lord, I am a sinful man. St. Paul; The least of Saints, the greatest of sinners. B • Hooper in our Martyrology; Lord, I am hell, then art heaven: I a sink of sin, thou a fount of grace. Bradford; I am 〈◊〉 deaf as a stone as dumb as a nail; an hardhearted, a painted hypocrite, as he subscribes some of his Epistles: and Ezra here; for he still involves himself.

Let us write after these Copies. Every man hath a County Palatinate within his bosom; and may arraign and judge himself: and it is our security so to do: If we judged ourselves, we should not be judged. He shall hereby sa • e God a labor: Let 〈◊〉 spare this man, for he spares 〈◊〉 himself; as Aug. personating God, says. He that justifies himself fights with God hand to hand, and is like to be 〈…〉 He that lies down at God's feet, reaches him his hand to lift him up again. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

But we must look a little nearer to these words; For our iniquities have we been delivered.

There is a deliverance from evil, and to evil; the later is before us now: It is a delivery, a tradition, and resignation of us over to misery.

And the whole nation were passive in it: In this pronoun (we) are concluded all beside the Kings and Priests here specified. Each sort had peculiar sins for which they smarted; and all for all: From the crown of the head to the seal of the foot there is us sound part, as Isaiah complains.

Sometimes a Nations sickness begins at the head, the Rulers: as the Shunamites child complained of his head. Sometimes at the feet, the inferiors; as Asa 's disease was in his feet. Sometimes the upper and lower parts of the body politique mutually contribute to each others ruin; as we read, that the sins of the people moved God to suffer Satan to tempt David to number the people; and then David's sin determined in a plague on his people by passion; on himself by compassion and sympathy: as the ice begets the water, and the water the ice: As in the natural body the stomach sends up vapors to the head, and the head sends down 〈◊〉 and di ••• lations on the stomach and kings: As the Sun exhales vapors from the earth, and returns them in thunder and tempests. However it 〈…〉 Note we 〈…〉 of ourselves▪ 〈…〉 Eagle peirct thorough with a dart sea • hored from her own wing; and the mot the word too, We are transfixt by our own feathers. As Noah was drunk with his own wine; Goliath beheaded by his own sword; the rose destroid by the canker bred in itself; the breast by a self-bred wolf; the apple by the worm; the dams belly eaten thorough by the young vipers; Agrippina killed by Nero, to whom she gave breath: So are we undone by ourselves. Sin like a Frier, whips it self: Punishment is connate, innate to sin: Fools because of their iniquities art afflicted, saith David, Psal. 107.17, 18. We may thank our own folly for our bane.

This Point calls more for improving, then proof; thitherward therefore shall I apply myself.

I foresaw the time would prevent me; therefore I shall endeavor to continue the residue of my Text in Application, General and Particular.

General first: This Observation, like a well limnd picture, looks on all that look on it: It prompts us all, Rulers, and ruled.

1. To justify our God in all his judiciary proceedings towards us: So did David; That thou mayest be justified, and clear when thou judgest. So Daniel; Righteousness belongs to thee: but to us confusion of face. The cup of the bitter waters of Marah, and Meribah, that we have drunk so deep of, is of our own mingling and embittering. The r • ds that have scourged us are of our own making: We have extorted thunderbolte out of God's hand; for he, like the Be, stings not till provoked: Or like the flint, upon a colidion with the steel (our steely souls) he • sends forth some hasty sparks. And therefore,

2. Patience well becomes us: It is unequal for the offender to murmur or repine at the offended, and justly incensed party: I will bear (saith the Church) the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him. We have been long born with, and why should we not bear? Impatience, like the bulls struggling in the net, or the birds fluttring in the lime-twigs, troubles, and fastens us, and engages us the more in affliction: whereas in patience we possess our souls (saith Christ.) By faith I possess God; by love, my brother; and by patience, myself.

3. Let God's vindictive justice be a restrictive to us from adventuring on any unwarrantable course; like a Cherubim with a flaming sword, to guard the way to any forbidden fruit, since it is like to cost us so deer. Let us not be secure in our sins, nor bless ourselves in any way that God curses; God is merciful, but withal just; bountiful, but not lavish; he will spare till there be no remedy, as he did Israel; but though he hath a leaden foot, he hath an iron hand, as it is storied that Heruccius King of Algiers had. Patience abused converts to fury: When the snow of Mercies melts we are like to have a great flood: And as near as we are within prospect of Peace and Political happiness, we may miss of it; since I find not that our sharp Physic hath kindly wrought with us; Lust, Pride, Excess, Swearing, Lying, Deceit, Gaming, Voluptuousness, and others sins National (it were easy to be endless in naming but their kinds) ebb not at all, but flow, and are at a Spring-tide. We are the more unsafe for being secure: When Adam was asleep he lost a Rib; it is sad when irrecoverable ruin is the first sign of danger: Nor let us bo • ster up ourselves with our Spiritual Church-privileges, as the Ordinances or any other; they cannot exempt or shield us if we still provoke; There i • no Sanctuary, no Protection for Presumption: As the Ark could not save Israel from the Philistines▪ nor the Temple the Jews from the Romans; nor the Palladium Troy from the Grecians; nor the Tombs of Martyrs Rome from the Goths, think not that God's Quiver is spent; we read of an inexhaust treasury of wrath.

My Text instances in divers Arrows feather'd with Wrath, and headed with Ruin: Be pleased to cast your eyes on the Text as I proceed.

What think: you of being delivered to men, [ 1] whose very mercies David calls cruelty? And therefore Nebuchadnezzar, I conceive, sealed the D • n of lions wherein Daniel was, because he thought it safer to trust him with the Lions, then with his implacable Enemies.

To be delivered to the Sword, sad experience, [ 2] the Mistress of Fools, hath shewn what that is better then I can deeypher it. Joel calls the day of War, a day of gloomy and thick pitchy darkness: Elijah wept to think of it; the poisoned kemlock of Hostility, Tertullian calls it; It is a stroke or plague like Pandora's Box; a compound of Plagues; a Bar to Religion: The Temple went slowly on, when they were fain to fight with one hand and build with the other. It is said, 1 Kin. 5.3. David could not build God's house for the Wars about him; It silences Laws, cuts the sinews of Traffique and Trading, stifles Arts and Learning; thovgh some Birds of prey can fatten in hard weather, when all other Fowl are pined. When you hear that in the Troian Wars were slain 870000 Greeks and 670000 Troians; That Ostend, though a little Fort, was so great a Grave as to devour 120000 persons; That S • lyman afore Vienna laid dead bodies in ditches level with the top of the Walls of Vienna; That 1000000 were slain in the Civil Wars of France; and 20000 Churches equalled with the ground; That in our P • arsalicke fields in the quarrels between the Houses of York and Lancaster, an 100000 fell, so that the red Rose began to be white with the blood that it had lost, and the white Rose red with the blood it had shed, and 10000 Families were thereby rooted out: And that red Horse hath been some years trampling of late this Kingdom underfoot: Can we find in our hearts still to hug and harbor our old Iniquities, and to do what in us lies to move God to spin out this War to an eternity?

To be delivered to captivity and bondage, to be flaves (it may be) to slaves, however to persons suckled by Tigers, of Adamantine hearts: well might the Prophet forbid to weep for the dead, and bid Weep •• r •• y for them that were going away. God can reduce us to this.

To be delivered to spoil, your Houses, Cabinets ri •• ed, your • ranaries emptied for others uses; to plant, and not to taste of the frai •• ; to see the pitchfork in an hour scattering what in many years your providence hath rak'd together, which will make your ey-strings crack; yet to this can God bring us.

To be delivered to sharne and confusion of face; to be a pity to our friends, a scorn to our foes; to be a by-word, an hissing to foreign nations; to be abject objects for others to whet their wits, and to spend their dark sarcasmes upon; that our names should rot; or, if remembered by posterity, with reproach, as Pilate's in the Creed. Nothing pierces ingenuous spirits more then shame and scorn: mockings the Apostle thought cruel: No sword so sharp as the tongue, it flies lightly; but wounds deeply: to all these disasters can God e • pose us.

Oh let us not continue to be cruel to ourselves; but for your own sakes, (if you value not God's honor) for the wives fake of your bosom, for your children's sake which you pretend to tender as the apple • of your eyes, the • ignet on your right hand, your heart-strings, lay what I have said to heart; if not, we can but weep in secret for you.

To confess sin this day, and to persist in it, is to profess, This I have done, this I will do. To beat our breasts, and not to reform, is to harden them. But I must not forget my main errand hither.

You (Right Honorable) have summoned me to attend you in this service; and I know you would not have me prevaricate, or forfeit my trust. Give me leave to make my humble addresses to you in serious exhortation. My Text specifies the guilt of Kings, and Priests, and people; and the third verse affirms, that the Princes and Rulers were chief in the trespass. I come not hither to upbraid, but with all humility to advise you to what you are nearly concerned in, both in reference to yourselves and us, for the aversion of that wrath, that is gone out against us, and is to be read in legible characters on us; and for the prevention (as much as in you lies) of that inundation of miseries, that it may be the heavens are big with, ready to be delivered, if your failings prove the mid-wives. Kings and Priests are in the Text, and Rulers in the Chapter; but Kings here are none, and I hope no Priests, therefore I shall meddle neither with Crowns nor Miters; I love not to speak to the absent, but the present Rulers; here are a ring of Auditors, and you the Diamond. Let me mind you what Jewels are a gloss to your Corcnets.

1. Prudence, You are our heads, and the head is the Throne of Prudence. It is prudence to be able to discern, between persons and things that differ; between tenderness of Conscience, and obstinacy; between zeal and spleen: Doeg is called a liar, though he spake truth of David, because he spake not truth in love of truth, but spleen to David; to discern between self-seeking Privadoes, and public Spirits; between true Church and State converts, and complyers with times, shifting of sails with every wind, calculating for every Meridian; that when time was, would bow to the Altar, now would pull down Churches; that would in Pulpit shrivell up all Prayer, and confine it to the Lord's prayer, and now will censure the saying of that Prayer. Your strength lies in your head, as Sams • ns in his hair. When Severus was ill of his feet, and some for that thought him unfit to govern, he replied that he governed with his head, and not with his feet. And you had need of your eyes in your head, that sit at helm, and steer between so many rocks and sands. God was in love with Solomon's request, who wished nothing more, and nothing else but wisdom to manage his affairs.

Secondly, another sparkling Jem is Justice, without which prudence is but Achitophelian, Machiavelian, Jesuitical craft. Job counted Justice his Robe and Diadem. Philip of Macedon displaced a Magistrate because he coloured his beard, he was jealous he might color a cause too. You must be as able, so men of truth, and unswayed integrity; such as Jethro 's Justicers were to be.

1. It is Justice to be accessible, that Petitioners may come at you, and not your doors guarded with living, as Solomon's Throne was with lifeless Lions. As it was said to Augustus, he that dares approach thee, seems not to know thy greatness; he that dares not, seems not to know thy goodness. God's presence-chamber is always open.

2. It is Justice to have two ears, one for the Defendant, as well as one for the Plaintiffe. For though it be true, if it be enough to deny, who will be guilty? it is as true, if it be enough to accuse, who shall be innocent? Ca •• was accused ninety times, and his integrity still brought him off.

3. It is Justice to awar • the accusers the same punishment they intended the accused, in case they make not their accusation good. The geese in the Capitol at Rome were to be beaten if they gaggled without cause, though they once saved the Capitol by gaggling; and the dogs legs were to be broken that barked when no danger appreach'd: such punishment (saith Cicero ) do aspersers in Courts of Judicature deserve: and then those setting-dogs durst not causelessly hurry innocence before your tribunals; detractors are more bound to restitution than theevs, by how much the name preponderates the estate, if at least there can be any recompense for defamation. There are three things that may not be dallied with, our faith, our eye, and our reputation.

It is Justice to proportion the punishment to the offense. He is a strange Justicer that knocks out a Mans brains to kill a Waspe on his forehead. As Pollio cast his servant to the Lampries, for breaking a glass. As the grand Seignior of the Turks ripped nine Eunuchs for one Melon that was eaten without leave.

5. It is the life-blood of Justice to expedite Justice, and not to turn it into Wormwood by unjust sentences, or into Vinegar by delays: to suffer poor souls to lie longer languishing at hopes hospital, than needs.

6. It is Justice to be impartial, and not respect Persons, but Causes. Commineus complains, that many men's Offices and Lands were taken from them for running away in the battle between Lewis the eleventh, and the Burgundians, and given to those that ran nine miles farther than they.

3. But this Justice must be intermix'd with mercy and moderation: My Song shall be of Mercy and Judgment (saith David. ) The robes of Judgment are usually red bestrea •• with white, the one the color of severity, the other of mercy. You are the fathers of your Country (stilled Patricians among the Romans) we would look on you with veneration, not slavish terror. You must bear with us, and bear us in your arms by love, in your hearts by care, on your shoulders by patience. Reverence as ill purchased by terrifying, when you are gone, fear goes too, but love will remrine; fear converts to hatred, but love to veneration, saith Plinius 2. Some seem so to be angry with others vices, as if they envied them (idem) A debonaire gentleness is a grace to you; when you temper and allay your severe gravity with so much mildness as may weigh against it. It will be rare in you so to abstain from sin, as if you pardoned no man, and yet so to pardon, as if yourselves were daily offenders: you should be our Noah's putting forth your hand to pluck oppressed ones into the Ark of your protection, when floods are abroad.

Jerome wished Pammachius a noble man, to be an cie to the blind, an hand to the weak, and a foot to the lame. Vespasian would mourn over just punishments, and when he was to sign the death of any, would say, I would I could not a letter of the book. What difference between a man, and a brazen statue of man, but that one hath bowels, and the other hath none? Sylla was a devil to command Marcus Pletorius to be slain on the place, because he fell into a swoun at the sight of the execution of Marius, a new punisher of mercy. The first that ever was revenged on virtue. It was a sad thing that the Jews were fain to purchase leave to weep. You resemble God whom you represent, no way nearer than by mercy; the lovelyest of his Attributes, and should he take his advantage, we were all lost men. You are never more like yourselves, than when merciful: it is noble not to do all you are able. To lie prostrate to a Lyon saves the life. To be on the higher ground, should be no advantage to a generous spirit: only cowards, and the ignoble are cruel. The ancient Nobility of Rome, and Arcadia, wore moons on their shoes, to mind them of the worlds mutability. The highest may come to stand in need of mercy; with what hearts can they expect it, what face ask it, that denied it? Judgment merciless to them that show no mercy. Appius took away all appeals in case of life and death, and when he came to need an appeal, he was justly denied it. Eutropius endeavored to take away the relief of Sanctuaries, and himself was afterward hail'd out of Sanctuary, from the very horns of the Altar. To show mercy (saith Chrysostom ) is a greater work than to build magnificent Temples, nay, to raise the dead.

Fourthly, Shall I add love and inclineablenesse too, and studiousnesse of peace adorns you. War (I trust) shall ever be your refuge, never your choice. To war as to marriage, not lust of gain, or dissention, but procreation of peace should be the motive. Carry peace in your hearts, when the sword is in your hands. Hercules club was made of the Olive, the emblem of peace: it is a fit speech for a Spanish mouth, that the smell of Gun-powder in the Field, is as sweet as of incense at the Altar. Love of blood-shed becomes the Scarlet whore of Rome, whose Religion was planted in, and watered with blood. Let the killing of twelve millions in two and forty years in the West-Indies, attested by Bartholomeus A Casa a Bishop there; Let French-massacres, Sicilian even-songs, Spanish Inquisitions (which Heinsius aptly calls the fourth Fury) let these stuff Popish Chronicles, and not furnish out ours.

Fifthly, Patience and temper-render you honorable in men's eyes, passion exposeth to contempt. None can rule well that cannot rule themselves, but are overruled by passion. He that cannot guide a boat in a River, is unfit to steer a ship in a storm. It would make the most furious spirit dispassionate to hear of the great cruelty of the Emperor Theodosius, when he gave life to his Passion, though otherwise he be by Ambrose and others, famed for a most Temperate, Merciful, Religious Prince; because a servant of his was slain in an uproar in Thessalonica, he in a rage caused a Massacre to pass on the City, so that in three hours seven thousand innocents were butchered. Ye had need set a strong guard on your passions.

Sixthly, Humility, lowliness becomes the high as well as the low, your Savior condescended to wash Judas feet, those feet that trudged up and down to betray him, and that soil off, which he contracted with those walks. Pride is no true greatness, but a swelling excrescence. Noblesse is by humility made more noble. It was Jeromes advice to Pammachius, Vouchsafe to enter sometimes the lowest cells of the meanest. The proud in ascending, descend; the humble in descending, ascend in the esteem of God, and all good men.

Seventhly, Religion deeks ye. Jethro 's Magistrates were to be men fearing God; though you are God's before men, You are but men before God. Plead not your descent, unless you answer the worth of your Predecessors: Let not that be escheat and buried with the owners. We had rather admire you, than your stem: it is wretched to glister with borrowed luster. Nobles (saith Jerome ) are constrained by a kind of necessity not to degenerate from the probitie of their Ancestors: Else as the people did worship Isis, and not the creature that bore the image: think when we show you reverence, we mean it to your Ancestors. As Mariners, have your eye upon heaven, when your hand is on the helm. Why should not great and good stand together? God is Optimus Maximus, Best and Greatest: and they have met and been concentred in men. As Joseph, Hester, Mordecai, Obadiah, Nehemiah, Daniel, the Lord Deputy of Cyprus in the Acts, the E •••• ch of Queen Candace, Flavianus in Vespasianus Court, Derotheus in Dioclesians, Terentius in Valentinians durst be good. Indeed, there is no true greatness disjoined from goodness. Every man is as he is in God's books. Tertullian said of Augustas, the name of Piety was more gracious to him, than of Power. The holiest man is the noblest on earth, saith Clement, alluding to that of Solomon, Proverbs •• .26. The Righteous is better than his Reighbour. Jerome would say of Paula, a virgin descending on the father side from Aenaeas, on the mothers from Agamemnon, She was noble in Stock, but nobler in sanctity. And Bernard wittily to Sophia the virgin, God is no respecter of persons; yet I know not how goodness in the Noble takes us most; perhaps because it is usually more wanting in them.

8. As you must be good; so do good, be devoted to the public good; the one profits only yourselves, the other us all. Be not felfish, tread not inwards. Pompey being upon an expedition to Sicily of purveyance for corn, when it grew scarce in Rome, and dissuaded by his friends, objecting the danger of the voyage, answered them, It is more necessary that I should go, then live. An heavy piece of iron, like a good Patriot, will leave its particular relation to the load-stane; and falling, express its homage to the earth, the common center of heavy bodies.

If your Lordships be invested with these qualifications, and express them; it will never be said, that the unjust are set over the Law, the impious over Religion, ignorance over Learning, or monsters over men: And it may be written over your House door, as over the Court of Justice in Zant,

This place hates wickedness, loves peace, punishes guilt, preserves law, and right, and honors, and encourages the good.

We have all of all sorts heard our duties set out; and had I time to set them on by persuasive, putheticall convictive incentives, I cannot select better then the last verse of my Text offers to my hand, coming as uninforced, as honey dropping from the comb.

Consider what we have, and what we would have; what we enjoy, and what we-expect and desire; we may echo forth Ezra 's word here.

We have reason to celebrate (as well as Ezra or Israel ) the Grace shewn to us from the Lord our God. He hath loved this Kingdom, because he would love it; the ground of his love is in his immutable self, and not in us: as it is said of his love to Israel, The Lord did set his love upon you, because he loved you. And what is such a love but free grace? For we were fitter to set his foot, then his heart upon.

And this grace could no more conceal itself then the Sun; it hath shewn itself in so many rivulets and streams; in so many mercies, full, choice, seasonable, melting mercies; that we (if any Nation under heaven) may say we have comprehended (or rather been comprehended by) the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of God's love. The Philosophers tell us but of three dimensions; the Apostle hath found out four in God's mercy, Eph. 3.18.

And we have had a large share in this grace that Ezra memorizeth in the Text: I will walk on his grounds. In grace, mercy remembered amidst judgment: in allays, remitting and relaxation of God's heavy hand. He hath not let out all his wrath; but corrected us in judgment, weight, and measure: His punishents fall on this side, his mercies go beyond our merits, as David sings, Psal. 103.10. He takes away a part, that might have stripped us of all, as Anitus said of Alcibiades in Plutarch. He sends a fever, that might cast into everlasting burning; He scourges with rods, that might with Scorpions; He begins, that might make an end of us: He hath afflicted us three or four years with a Civil sword, that might have delivered us to a seventy years Babylonish Captivity.

A share we have had in his reserving-mercy; leaving us a remnant to escape: but decimating, tything us; when he might have left us but a tenth, as he did to Israel. Nay, we were all forfeited to his justice: he hath laid no more on us then he hath enabled us to bear, and given us a door, a passage out, as S. Paul speaks, 1 Cor. 10.13.

A share in his settling grace: giving us a nail in his holy place, his Church: Establishing us, as Eliakim; Making us a nail in a sure place. The Gospel hath irradiated, and shed his clear beams without setting or eclipse for above four score years upon us: We have been a Goshen; we have dwelt in his Tabernacle, and holy Hill, as it is promised, though we have neglected the conditions there specified in the Psalm. We have deserved to be un-nation'd, un-Church'd by a Bill of divorce from heaven; to be tumbled about as a ball into strange lands, as it is Jer. 22.18. Israel complains, they had possessed the Sanctuary but a little while: We cannot say so.

Ezra is grateful in the Text for grace a little space: what owe we for so long a possession?

God hath also lightened our eyes

By outward favors, as Jonathan's were by honey; and we as he, have received our honey at the end of a rod, that we might the more value it.

By favors of an higher alloy he hath lightened our eyes, that had the shadow of death upon them: Which was Oecolampadius his support (his name signifies a lamp or light ) on his death-bed; who, when his friends asked him, Whether the light of the candle did not trouble him, clapt his hand on his breast, and said, Here I have sufficient light, the light of God's countenance.

In a word, (to defraud your patience no longer)

God hath revived our hearts (as Ezra speaks in the close of the Text) we are even raised from the grave of an intestine War; and comforted with hopes that we shall not, like raised Lazarus, fall back into the same grave again. And this comfort, at the height of affliction, is like mercy at the block; like welcome showers to the chopped ground; or like the Sun-beams after this flood: like a shadow, a bower against scorching heat.

Man would never thus have spared man: and therefore David calls his kindness to the house of Saul (that deserved ill at his hands) the kindness of God, and not of man. Comfort is here entitled Reviving, or Re-enlivening in the Hebrew Idiome: It is a kind of resurrection. But I must take leave.

Let me borrow Rhetoric from S. Paul: I beseech, or conjure you (men, brethren, and Fathers) by all these mercies and pledges of God's love; and such others as we know not of (for it is with mercy as with the Globe, it is thought the unknown part of the world is greater then what is discovered) I beseech you that these mercies may be as nails fastened by the master of Assemblies (as Solomon elegantly) to rivet the former propounded duties into your heads, hearts, and lives; let the mercy of God lead us to shame and sorrow for our sins; Let God's Justice tutor us to be just: Let God's moderation and forbearance make an impression of mercy on us toward each other: and let us not by reiterating, repeating the same sins, be guilty of the worst of crimes, ingratitude: nor by our obstinacy, our iron sinew, exasperate God to Judgment, which is called his strange work. Toward which he walked so slowly, when he went to doomb Adam; and deferred it to the cool of the day: whereas he ran to meet the returning Prodigal; and renews his mercies every morning, and is still afore-hand with us: Like the Sun bidding us good morrow afore we are up. That we may not move God to put his mercies into suit, and to recover them out of our hands: as God chooses to express himself by the Prophet, I will recover my wool, and my flax that I lent.

But if neither judgment, nor mercy; neither glad nor sad tidings; neither the dark nor the bright side of the cloud of Providence be operative with us: you put your Ministers to a stand, and pose us; who with Moses and S. Paul would have our own Names blotted out of the book of life, as soon as yours, if we could help you, but God's counsel shall stand. However we by dealing freely with you, shall free our own souls from being guilty of your blood: And as the Prophet encourages himself, though once he thought to give over preaching, conceiving he labored and expended his strength in vain: Well, Yet my work is with the Lord, and though, Israel be not gathered, my reward is with my God. I close with that of S. Paul to the Corinthians, I speak to men of understanding, judge ye what I say.