LEX IGNEA OR The School of Righteousness A SERMON Preached before the KING Octob. 10. 1666. At the SOLEMN FAST appointed For the late FIRE in LONDON By WILLIAM SANDCROFT D. D. Dean of S. Paul's Published by his majesty 's Special Command London Printed for R. Pawlett at the Bible in Chancery-lane near Fleetstreet ISAIAH xxvi 9 When thy Judgements are in the Earth the Inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness THis Chapter with the two next before and that which follows are all four parts of the same prophetic Sermon as appears by those words so often repeated in them In that Day fixing and determining All to the same Epoch and period of Time belong All to the same subject Matter sc. the Destruction of Judah and Jerusalem whether by the Babylonians or the Romans or both So that the Earth or as we may rather translate the Land or the Country wasted and utterly spoiled and V. 1. & 3. turned upside down Cap. xxiv is doubtless the Land of Jewry And the World that languisheth and fadeth away V. 4 of that Cap. not much wider that and the neighbouring Regions with whom the Jews had commerce and intercourse of Peace and War Moab and Egypt and Babylon & & in a word the Jewish World for so both the Hebrew and Greek words usually translated the Earth and the World are often in Scripture-language contracted and limited by the Matter in hand And consequently the City of Confusion which is broken down a City turned Chaos again as the Hebrew imports cap. xxiv 10. the City turned into a Heap or a Ruin nay in tumulum as the Vulgar Latin or as the LXX translate it into one great Sepulchre to itself buried in its own Rubbish Cap. xxv 2. The lofty City laid low even to the Ground and abased in the very Dust. Cap. xxvi 5. The City desolate and forsaken and lest Wilderness and desert all over Cap. xxvii 10. are but so many variations of the phrase and signify all the same thing the burning of Jerusalem by Nabuchadnezzar or Titus or as some will have it by both This sad Devastation the Prophet first beholds in speculo prophetico sees it from far in his prophetic Telescope as clearly and distinctly as if it were before his eyes and describes it here and there the whole Sermon throughout but chiefly Cap. xxiv in so lofty a Language that many have mistaken it for the End of the World and the Consummation of all things But then to sweeten so sad a Theme he assures them it shall not be a God will not make a final End now No a Remnant shall be left as the shaking of an Olive-tree and as the gleaning Grapes when the Vintage is done Cap. xxiv 13. Nor shall they be only preserved but restored too The Lord God will in time wipe away every Tear from off all Faces and at last swallow up this Death too in Victory Lacrymam Vulg. Cap. xxv 8. he 'll turn their Captivities and rebuild their City and their Temple too and all this shall be as it were Life from the Dead as the Apostle calls it so miraculous a Re-establishment at a Juncture so improbable Rom. xi 15. when they are destroyed out of all Ken of Recovery that it shall be a kind of Resurrection and so like the great One that 't is described in the very proper Ezek. xxxvii Dan. xii phrases of that both by the other Prophets and by Ours too a little below the Text Thy Dead shall live again My dead Bodies shall arise Awake and sing ye that V. 19 dwell in the Dust etc. And then which is of nearest Concern to us and to our present Business the Prophet directs the Remnant that should escape how to behave themselves under so great a Desolation and he contrives his directions into a threefold Song that they may be the better remarked and remembered tuned and fitted to the three great Moment's of the Event The first to the time of the Ruin itself Cap. xxiv where having set before their Eyes the sad prospect of the holy City and House of God in Flames When thus it shall be in the midst of the Land saith he there shall be a Remnant and they shall lift up their voice and sing for the Majesty of the Lord saying Glorify ye the Lord in the Fires V. 15. And this is a Song of Praise The second is a Song of Degrees or Ascensions fitted to the time of their Return when All should be restored and rebuilt again and that we have Cap. xx seven 2. In that Day sing ye unto her A Vineyard of Red Wine I the Lord do keep it I will water it every moment lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day The third of which my Text is a principal strain belongs to the whole middle interval between the Ruin and the Restauration in this xuj Cap. In that day shall this Song be sung in the land of Judah We have a strong City Salvation will God appoint for Walls and Bulwarks etc. As if he had said Though our City be ruined yet God is still our dwelling place our Fortresses dismantled and thrown down but Salvation will he appoint us for Walls and Bulwarks Our Temples in the Dust but God will be to us himself as a little Sanctuary Ezek. xi 16. And this is a Song to give Instruction teaching them and in them us how to demean ourselves while the Calamity lies upon us sc. to make God our Refuge ver 4. to wait for him in the Way of his Judgements ver 8. and in this 9 ver earnestly to desire him from the very soul in the Night in the Darkest and Blackest of the Affliction to seek him early when it begins to dawn towards a better Condition and in the mean time as 't is in the Text to improve all this severe Discipline as he intends it for the advancing us in the knowledge of Him and of ourselves and of our whole Duty For when thy Judgements are in the Earth the Inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness A Text you see that supposeth Judgements in the Earth or upon a Land as its Occasions and so suitable to our sad Condition a Text too that proposeth our Learning as its End and Design and so suitable one would think to our Inclination too The Character and Genius of the Age we live in is Learned the pretence at this day so high and so universal that He is Nobody now who hath not a new Systeme of the World a new Hypothesis in Nature a new Model of Government a new Scheme of God's Decrees and the greatest Depths in Theology We are many of us acute Philosophers that must not be disputed us most of us grand Politics and Statesmen too All of us without exception deep Divines will needs be wiser than our Neighbours but however wiser than our Teachers and Governors if not wiser than God himself A kind of Moral Rickets that swells and puffs up the Head while the whole inner Man of the Heart wastes and dwindles For like the silly Women 2 Tim. 3. 6 7. Disciples to the old Gnostics while we are thus ever learning pretending to great Heights and Proficiencies we come never to the Knowledge of the Truth the Truth which is according unto Godliness In fine amongst so many Learners they are but few that learn Righteousness And therefore God himself here opens us a School erects a severe Discipline in the Text brings forth his Ferulas when nothing else will serve the Turn For he hath indeed four Schools or rather four distinct Forms & Classes in the same great School of Righteousness the last only that of his Judgements express in the Text but the Rest too supposed at least or covertly implied For whether we look upon the latter Clause of the proposition The Inhabitants of the World will learn We find ourselves there under a double Formality As Learners and as Inhabiters As Learners first and so endued 1. with Faculties of Reason Powers of a Soul capable of Learning what is to be learned stamped and possessed with first Principles & common Notions which deeply searched and duly improved and cultivated might teach us Much of Righteousness And this is Schola Cordis in Domo interiori the School of the Heart God's first School in the little World within us Secondly as Inhabitants of the 2. great World which is God's School too as well as his Temple full of Doctrines and Instructions Schola Orbis in which He takes us forth continual Lessons of Righteousness Seque ipsum inculcat & offered Ut bene cognosci possit and that both from the Natural World and from the political whether Schola Regni or Schola Ecclesiae Or if we return to the former Branch of the Text When thy Judgements are in the Earth This when they are supposeth another time when they Are Not in the Earth and that time is the time of Love as the Prophet speaks Ezek. xuj 8. the Season of Mercy So that Thirdly here 's Schola Misericordiarum the School of God's tender Mercies inviting 3 us gently leading and drawing us with the Cords of a Man Host xi 4. with the Bands of Love And lastly when nothing else 4. will serve here 's Schola Judiciorum the School of God's severe Judgements driving us to Repentance and compelling us to come in and learn Righteousness A provision you see every way sufficient and abundant for our Learning were not we wanting to ourselves But alas we may run by the Text and easily read in it these three things as so many very Natural Deductions and Emanations from it First our own ignorance 1. and Stupidity Born like a wild Asse's Colt as Zophar Jo b. xi 12. speaks and then to our Natural we add affected Ignorance too So that we are much to seek and to learn Righteousness it must be taught us Secondly God's infinite 2. and inexpressible Grace and Mercy to us that when we had blurred the Original defaced the first Traces of Righteousness upon our Souls he was pleased to provide Expedients to teach it us again the second time that we might be renewed unto Knowledge after the Image Col. iii 10. Ephes. iv 24. of him that created us in Righteousness as the Apostle speaks And Thirdly Our indocible and unteachable Humour our foul and shameful Nonproficiency under 3. so plentiful a Grace For though the Text indeed speaks of our learning Righteousness when God's Judgements are upon us yet if the Appearances of the World abroad suggested nothing to the contrary 't is introduced here in the Text too as the Effect of the last Form in God's School in exclusion of all the former as ineffectual his utmost Method not to be used but at a pinch when all the rest are basfled and prove improsperous upon us And then 't is expressed in the Original and learned Versions with so many Limitations and Abatements as we shall see by and by that we may well give it up as the sum and upshot of all that our All-merciful God omits no Means or Methods of our Improvement but we supinely negligent and prodigiously stubborn as we are render them all ineffectual That we may do so no longer but rather make good the profession with which we have dared to appear this Day before God of humbling ourselves under his Almighty Hand Let us before we pass on any further lift up our Hands and our Hearts to Him in the Heavens beseeching him by the Power of his Mighty Grace so to sanctify to us All both the Sense of his present Judgement and all our Meditations and Discourses thereupon that by all we may be promoted in learning Righteousness THe Inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness or Justice What 's that Is there such a thing in the World Or is it a Name only and a glorious pretence Is it not only another word for Interest or Utility and so nothing just but what is profitable Carneades his infamous Assertion retrieved and owned with open face V. Lactant. lib. v. by Christians Is it not the taking of a party or the espousing of a Faction and appearing for it with heat and animosity and a savage condemning and destroying All that are not of it Is it not the Profession to believe such a a System of Opinions what life soever is consequent thereupon an airy invisible Righteousness that never embodies or appears in our Actions but hovers in the Clouds in speculations and fancies where no Man can find it The Truth is there is no piece of Unrighteousness more common in the World than thus to weigh Justice itself in an unjust Balance while every one contrives his Hypothesis so as to salve the Phaenomena so declares his Notion as may best suit and comport with his own unrighteous practices But the Righteousness we are to learn in God's School must not be a self-chosen Righteousness We must not pay God our Sovereign the Tribute of our Obedience in Coin of our own stamping it must be such as will abide the Touchstone of his Word and the Balance of his Sanctuary To make short Righteousness or Justice though elsewhere a single Virtue yet here 't is vittually All said the Poet and the Philosopher after him not a part but all Virtue and so often both in Scripture and Fathers comprehensively all Religion the whole Duty of Man Theogn Ethic. v. 1. saith S. Chrisostome Omnes Virtutum species uno Justitiae nomine saith S. Jerome Not a particular Star nor a single Constellation but a whole Heaven of Virtues an entire Globe of Moral and Christian Perfections an Universal Rectitude of the Will conforming us in all Points to Hom. 12. in S. Matth. God's Righteous Law the Rule of our Righteousness Or if you will in two words 't is Suum cuique to give every one his Due Suum Deo first and then Suum proximo give God his Due and your Neighbour too These are the integral parts of it So that Righteousness as the great Rule of it hath two Tables or if you will two Hemispheres the upper and the nether Both so vast that we cannot measure them in a Span the Span of time allotted me I shall therefore contract them to the occasion and give you only some of those particular Lessons of Righteousness which this present Judgement of God upon our Land seems most clearly to take us forth both in relation to God himself and to our Neighbours and then call you and myself to a serious Scrutiny how well we have learned them and so an end And first we begin as we ought in giving God his due in rendering to God the things that are Gods To limit this wide Universality too and render it more proper and peculiar we may reduce all to that first of Esai's three Songs mentioned at the beginning Glorify ye the Lord in the Fires giving him upon this sad Occasion the C. xxiv 15. Glory of that great Trinity of his Attributes the Glory of his Power and Majesty the Glory of his Justice and Equity the Glory of his Goodness and Mercy Give him the Glory of his Power and Greatness which 1. the Prophet calls singing for the Majesty of the Lord Cap. xxiv 15. or beholding the Majesty of the Lord when his Hand is lifted up in the verse after my Text. How great and glorious our God is who is in himself incomprehensible appears best by the glorious greatness of his Works If he builds it is a World Heaven and Earth and the Fullness of both If he gives it is his only Son out of his Bosom the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person If he rewards 't is a Crown 't is a whole Heaven of Glories If he be angry he sends a deluge opens the Cataracts of Heaven above and breaks up the Fountains of the great Deep below and pours forth whole Floods of Vengeance Or else he reins down Hell out of Heaven and in a moment turns a Land like Salvian the Garden of God into a dead Sea and a lake of Brimstone If he discover himself by any overt expression of his Power though the Intention be mere Mercy and loving Kindness Mortality shrinks from it and cannot bear it When his Glory descends on Mount Sinai the people remove and stand afar off and Let not God speak with us say they lest we die and Depart from me O Lord Ex. xx 18 19 saith S. Peter amazed at that miraculous draught of Fishes Luc. v. 8. How much more should the Inhabitants of the World tremble before him when his great and sore Judgements are in the Earth Tremble thou Earth the presence of God saith the Psalmist even when he improves the hard Rock Ps. cxiv 7 8. into a Springing Well much more when a fruitful Land Ps. evii 34. he turns into barrenness or a stately City into Ashes for the wickedness of them that dwell therein I am horribly asraid saith David for the ungodly that sorsake thy Law and I exceedingly sear and quake said Moses at the giving Ps. cxix 53. Hebr. xii 21. of it But when our Lord shall come again to require it The Powers of Heaven shall be shaken too the Matth. xxiv 29. Angels themselves as S. Chrysestom interprets though pure and innocent Creatures shall tremble to see the severity of that Judgement How much rather Hom. 77. in Matth. ought we wretched Creatures that we are conscious to ourselves of Dust and Sin to tremble and quake at the Wrath of this dread Lord of the Universe at whose Voice alone the great Emporous Caligula runs under Sueton. l. V. n. 51. Dan. v. 6. the Bed and the mighty Belshazzar's Loins are loosed and his knees knock one against another when God but writes bitter things against him on the Wall It were a vain Affectation to attempt a Description of the greatness of our late horrible Devastation This were to be Ambitiosus in Malis to chew over all our Wormwood and our Gall again This were Rogum ascia polire which the xii TABLES forbade to carve and paint the wood of our Funeral pile I shall only call back your thoughts to stand with me upon the prospect of that horrid Theatre of the divine Judgements and say Come hither and behold the Works of the Lord what Desolation he Ps. xlvi ● hath made in the Earth and than who will not join with me to say upon so convincing an occasion We humble ourselves under the Almighty Hand of God the Lord of all the World We adore his Power and Majesty in lowly prostrations before whom all the Nations of the World are as a Drop of the Bucket the Globe of the Earth Isai. xi 15. as the small Dust of the Balance and who taketh up the Isles even our Great Britain's too as we call them as a very little thing Great and marvellous are thy Works O Lord God Almighty who would not fear thee and glorify Apoc. xv 3 4. thy Name when thy Judgements are thus manifest Thou hast brought them down that dwell on high and laid the lofty City low even to the Ground the Joyous City of our Solemnities the Royal Chamber the Emporium of the World the Mart of Nations the very Top Gallant of all our Glory in the Dust. Even so Holy Father Mattli xi 26. for so it seemed good in thy sight We say not to our God What dost thou Wherefore hath the Lord done thus to this great City we reply not we answer not again The Lord hath spoken let all the Earth keep silence before him We acknowledge thy Hand in it O our God we submit to thy good pleasure in it we wait for thy Comfort and thy Salvation in it We meekly kiss the Rod that strikes us With dying Jacob we desire to worship with perfect Resignation as we are able leaning Hebr. xi 21. and reposing upon the top of this thy severe Rod. For shall we rcceive Good at the hand of our God and shall we not receive Evil 'T is the same Blessed Hand that distributes Job two 10. and strikes and with equal Reverence and Affection we adore it whether he opens it wide in Bounty or contracts it close in severity The one the Divine Rhetoric to persuade us to learn Righteousness the other his more irrefragable Logic to convince and constrain us And therefore we charge not our Maker foolishly but meekly accept the punishment of our Iniquity And having thus adored his Power which was the First we go on in the next place to acknowledge his Justice too saying with holy DAVID Righteous art thou O Lord and Ps. cxix 137. just are thy Judgements The second part of God's Due Give him the Glory of his Justice also and if you learn no other Righteousness in his School at least learn His and frankly confess it too For though God's Judgements may be secret yet they cannot be unjust Like the Ps. xxxvi 6. great Deep indeed an Abyss unfathomable But though we have no Plumb-line of Reason that can reach it our Faith assures us there 's Justice at the Bottom Clouds and Darkness are round about him saith the Ps. xcvii 2. Psalmist but as it follows Righteousness and Judgement are the Habitation of his Throne So much we may easily discern through all the Veils and Curtains that invelop him that Justice stands always fast by his Judgment-seat And therefore though it be a nice and a delicate point to assign the particular sins for which God hath thus sorely afflicted us yet must we declare as we are warranted by sacred Authority That God hath laid his heavy Judgement upon us All as an Evidence of his Displeasure for The King's Declaration our Sins in general Not to engage in that Common Theme we may clear it a little by the Light of our own Fires the particular Instrument of our Calamity in two or three Reflections upon that God spoke his Righteous Law at first out of the midst of the Fire Exod. nineteen 18. And he shall appear from Heaven again in flaming Fire taking vengeance on them that obey it not saith the Apostle Now 2 Thes. i 8. as the Prophet Amos argues from another circumstance of Terror wherewith the Law was given the sound of the Trumpet the first Trumpét certainly we ever read of in any Record in the World as the last Trumpet the Apostle tells us shall be that of the Archangel to 1 Cor. 15. 52. summon us to account for it Shall a Trumpet be blown Amos iii 6. and so say I shall a Fire be kindled in the City nay a whole City become but one great Fire and the people not be afraid We not reflect upon our own Guiltiness before God who came at first with a Fiery Law in his Right Hand to teach us our Duty and shall come again Deut. xxxiii 2. at last with Fiery Indignation at his left to devour all those that perform it not Again Fire and Water are the two Hebr. x. 27. great Instruments of God's double Vengeance upon the World of the Ungodly The One long since past recorded for our Instruction the Other yet to come the Matter it ought to be I am sure of our continual Terror The World that then was perished by Water saith S. Peter and the World that is now is reserved unto Fire In the 2 Pet. three 6 7. mean time Fire and Water things of commonest Use with us are also the standing Metaphors almost in every verse of Scripture to express God's Judgements of all sorts Is it not on purpose to remind us when ever we hear the sound or make use of the things or feel the smart of either to reslect upon the heavy wrath of God against Sin in his so solemn expressions of it Once more Fire is the Tyrant in Nature the King of the Elements the mighty Nimrod in the Material World God hath given us this Active Creature for our Servant and we degrade him to the meanest Offices to the Drudgery of the Kitchen and the labour of the Furnace But God can enfranchize him when he pleases and let him lose upon us and for our sins of an useful Servant make him to us a a rigorous and a Tyrannical Master You saw him the other Day when he escaped from all your Restraints mocked all your Resistance scorned the Limits you would have set him Winged with our Gild he flew triumphant over our proudest Heights waving his curled Head seeming to repeat us that Lesson which holy S. Austin taught us long since That the inferior Creatures serve us Men only that we may serve him who made both us and them too If we rebel against Heaven saith the Wiseman The World shall rise in Wisd. v. 20. Arms upon us and fight with him against the Unwise Even the Holy Fires of the Altar too though kindled from Heaven on purpose to propitiate an angry Deity proved often through Man's provocations the Instruments of his Fury the Mercy-seat became the Arsenal of Vengeance and from the presence of God himself went forth those Flames that devoured his Adversaries And all to teach us this Lesson That 't is Sin puts the Thunder into God's Hand and turns Flames of Love into a consuming Fire And therefore dream no longer of Granado's or Fire-Balls or the rest of those witty Mischiefs search no more for Boutefieus or Incendiaries Dutch or French The Dutch Intemperance and the French Pride and Vanity and the rest of their Sins we are so fond off are infinitely more dangerous to us than the Enmity of either Nation for these make God our Enemy too Or if you 'll needs find out the Incendiary look not abroad Intus host is intus periculum saith St. Jerome Turn your Eyes inward into your own Bosoms there lurks the great  the grand Boutefieu between Heaven and us Trouble not yourselves with Planetary Aspects or great Conjunctions but for your own Oppositions direct and Diametral to God and his Holy Law Fear not the Signs of Heaven but the Sins on Earth which hath made a separation between you and your God 'T is injurious to the sweet Influences of the Stars to charge them with such dire Effects as Wars and Pestilences and Conflagrations Divinae Justitiae opera haec sunt saith the Father & humanae injustitiae These are the Products of God's Righteousness upon our Unrighteousness Wherefore glorify we God in these our Fires saying with the Prophet Righteousness belongs to thee O Lord but unto us confusion of Faces as it is this day because of our manifold Trespasses Dan. ix 7. that we have trespassed against thee If yet it be expected I should be more particular in assigning the very Sins that have occasianed this heavy Judgement 't is a slippery place and hard to keep firm footing in it The mysterious Text of God's Holy Providence as I said before is dark and obscure and so much the more because there are so many Interpreters for though there be no infallible Judge of the Sense of it yet all Finger's itch to be doing their Conjectures so various and full of contradiction so tincted and debauched with private prejudice that they do but wrest it unskilfully as they do the other holy Text Convertunt in mentem suam as the  turns that place in St. Peter torture and torment it till it confess their 2 Pet. three 16. own Sense As for the many spiteful and unrighteous Glosses upon the sad Text of our present Calamity on which every Faction amongst us hath a Revelation hath an Interpretation I will not mention much less imitate them Justus Accusator sui saith the Wiseman 'T is a righteous thing for every Man to suspect himself to look Prov. xviii 17. first into the plague of his own Heart and to be ready to say with the Disciples Master Is it not I We are all over apt to charge one another foolishly enough to take St. Peter's counsel to be kind and favourable to ourselves in our Interpretations and Censures but God methinks at present seems to accuse us All. When a Judgement is particular and reacheth but a few we have a savage promptness in condemning the Sufferers with This is God's just Judgement for such a thing which we it seems like not though perhaps God himself doth So long as the Thunderbolt flies over our own Heads we hug ourselves and All is well 't is our dear pastime and a high voluptuousness to sit and censure others and flatter ourselves that we are more righteous than they To meet with this ill Humour God hath reached us now an universal stroke that comes home to every Man So that 't is as our Prophet states it in the beginning of this Sermon As with the Prince and the Priest for is both so with the people as with the Master Cap. xxiv 2. and the Mistress so with the Servant as with the Buyer and the Borrower so with the Seller and the Lender In fine He is no Englishman that feels not this Blow And therefore as the Judgement is Universal let us give Glory to God and confess that the Sin is so too saying with the good Nehemiah Thou art just O God in All that is brought Cap. ix 32 33. upon us on our King and on our Princes on our Priests and on our Prophets on our Fathers and on all thy People For thou hast done Right but we have All done Wickedly God give us Grace to take every one the shame that belongs properly to himself and to join heartily together in a full Chorus at the last repeating that excellent Exomologesis of holy David with which I began this point and shall now conclude it Righteous art thou O Lord and just are thy Judgements But there is another yet behind Lastly give God the Glory of his Mercy too that 3. must in no wise be forgotten 'T is the privilege and S. Ambrose Suo jure omnibus Dei operibus superingreditur & supernatat Ps. cxxxv 7. prerogative of Mercy that it mixeth itself in all God's Works even in Justice itself too He sendeth forth Lightnings with the Rain saith the Psalmist he bringeth the Winds out of his Treasuries Strange Furniture one would think for a Treasury Storms and Tempests But there is so very much of Mercy even in God's Judgements too that they also deserve a place amongst his Treasures ay and amongst ours too For he licenseth not a Wind or a Storm le 's not fly a flash of Lightning or a Ball of Fire but a Mercy goes along with it comes flying to us if we miss it not by our Negligence or Inadvertency upon the Wings of that Wind and discovers itself to us even by the Light of those Fires And therefore turn not away your Eyes in Horror but study the late Conflagration And even in the Dust and Ashes of our City if we sift and examine them well we may find rich Treasures of Mercy hidden Mercy first that God spared us and preserved us so long For without his Divine Manutenency our strongest 1. Fabrics had fallen immediately upon their very Builders He that made all things at first by preserving makes them still new makes them every Moment and for his Will 's sake alone they were and are created He carries Nature always in his Bosom fostering and cherishing her and that not only as she came out of his own hand and bears the Impresses of his Infinite Wisdom and Power but as we have transformed and disguised her by our petty skill as she is fettered and shackled by our silly Artifices Even the World of Fancy too the poor Attempts and Bunglings of Art our Houses of Dirt and Clay which we call Pálaces and so please ourselves in would quickly fall asunder and moulder all into the Dust they consist of did not an Almighty Hand uphold them If he keep not the House and the City in vain the Builder builds and the Watchman wakes and the Centinel stands perdu And therefore give we him the Glory of this Mercy saying Thanks be to the Lord who so long showed us marvellous great Kindness I say not with Ps. xxxi 23. the Psalm in a strong City though the strongest without him is weakness but in a very weak One A City in the Meanness of the Materials the Oldness of the Buildings the straightness of some Streets the ill Situation of others and many like Inconveniencies so exposed to this dismal Accident that it must needs have been long since in Ashes had not his miraculous Mercy preserved it who so long as he pleaseth and that is just so long as we please Him continues the Fire to us useful and safe serviceable and yet innocent with as much ease as he lays it asleep and quiet in the Bosom of a Flint Mercy again That he afflicts us at all that we are yet 2. in his School that he hath not quite given us over and turned us out as unteachable and incorrigible Felix cui Ps. xciv 12. Deus dignatur irasci saith Tertullian in David's Language Blessed is the Man whom thou chastnest O Lord and teachest him in thy Law send'st him thy Judgements and learnest him thy Righteousness But to sin and not be punished is the sorest punishment of all saith S. chrysostom Dimisit eos secundum desideria Cordis He suffered them to walk Ps. lxxxi 13. after their own Heart's Lusts that 's a dreadful portion Let them alone Why should they be stricken any more Isai. i 5. Prov. i. 32. Ps. xi 6. that 's the prosperity of Fools that destroys them as Solomon or as David phraseth it This is for God to rain Snares upon the ungodly A horrible Tempest indeed as he there calls it and worse than the Fire and Brimstone in the same Verse Mercy too That he afflicts us himself keeps us still under his own Discipline and hath not yet given us over 3. unto the Will of our Adversaries The hand of an Enemy Ps. xxvii 14. poisons the Wound His Malice or his Insolence doubles and trebles the Vexation The Malignity of the Instrument may invenom a Scratch into a Gangrene But the Blessed Hand of God even when it strikes drops Balsam His very Rods are bound up in Silk and Softness and dipped before hand in Balm He wounds that he may heal and in wounding heals Una eademque Manus Vulnus opemque And therefore may we never be beaten by the hand of a cruel and insulting Slave But let our Righteous Lord himself smite us and it shall be a Ps. cxli 5. Kindness let him correct us and it shall be an excellent Oil O let us us still fall into the Hands of God for great are 2 Sam. xxiv 14. his Mercies but let us not fall into the hands of Men. Mercy lastly in the Degree of the Affliction That he 4. hath punished us less than our Iniquities deserve afflicted us in measure corrected us in Judgement not in his Fury for than we had been utterly brought to nothing That we have had our Lives for a Prey and are as so many Firebrands plucked out of the Burning And therefore why should a living Man complain Say we rather as Abraham did in the Case of Sodom when he had that horrible Scene of Vengeance now in his Eye We are but Gen. xviii 27. Dust and Ashes Not only Dust in the course of ordinary Frailty but Ashes too in the merit of a far sharper Doom deserve that God should bring us to Dust nay even turn us to Ashes too as our Houses It is of the Lam. iii 22. Lord's Mercies that We ourselves also are not consumed because his compassions fail not that any part of our City is still remaining that God hath left us yet a holy place to assemble in solemnly to acknowledge as we do this Day his most miraculous Mercy That when all our Wit was puzzled and all our Industry tired out when the Wind was at the highest and the Fire at the hottest and all our hopes were now giving up the Ghost Then He whose season is our greatest extremity He who stayeth his rough Wind in the Day of the East-wind as 't is Cap. xxvii 8. in the next Chapter He who alone sets Bounds to the Rage of the Waters restrained also on the sudden the Fury of this other merciless and unruly Element by the Interposition of his Almighty Hucusque hitherto shalt thou go and no further Ay this deserves indeed to be the Matter of a Song Joy in the Lord upon so great an Occasion upon so noble an Experience sits not unhandsome on the Brow of so sad a Day as this is It shall be said in that Day saith our Prophet and let us all say it say it with Triumph and Jubilee too Lo this is our Cap. xxv 9 God we have waited for him and He hath saved us This is the Lord we will be glad and rejoice in his Salvation The third and last part we shall mention of God's Due the Glory of his Mercy And now having thus cleared and secured the Fountain of Righteousness in the Discharge of some part of our 2. Duty to God where regularly it must begin it remains Ut ducatur Rivus Justitiae de fonte Pietatis as St. Gregory speaks It must not be a Fountain sealed or shut up within itself Religion is not as some would have it a Supersedeas to Common Honesty the performing our Duty towards God no Discharge of our Duty to Man In the next place it should run down like a River Amos. v. 24. in mighty Streams of Righteousness to all our Neighbours round about us the other great Branch the second Table or if you will the other Hemisphere in this great Globe of Righteousness And here Ecce novas Hyadas aliumque Oriona So many new Asterisms and Constellations of Virtues appear that the time will not give leave to number them or call them all by their Names I can only touch lightly the greater Circles some of the more comprehensive Lines and Measures of them in these few Generals and so pass on 'T is Righteousness Indefinitely First and so Universally So that 't will not be sufficient to take forth some 1. part of it in God's School a line or two it may be of our great Lesson and neglect the Rest to study some one Page or Paragraph and tear all the Book besides to break the Tables to far worse Effect than Moses did and content ourselves with some sorry Fragment No What ever goes under the common style of Universal Justice whatever falls within the large Bosom of that comprehensive Epitome into which our Lord himself abridged the Law and the Prophets All things whatsoever ye would Matth. seven 12. that men should do to you do even so to them Whatever comes within compass of that as S. James Jam. two 8. calls it the Royal Law the latter part of the holy Institutes the other tome of the Christian Pandects the second great Commandment like the first as our Saviour styles it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself Even all the Offices Matth. xxil 38 39 and Instances of duty between man & man Reverence and Obedience to our Superiors Courtesy and Humanity to our Equals Kindness and Condescension to our Inferiors Gratitude and Thankfulness to our Benefactors Justice and Upright-dealing towards All Truth in our Words and Faithfulness in our Trusts and Constancy to our Promises and Candour and Sincerity and Honesty in all our Actions And yet further and higher for 't is a Righteousness improved & heightened or at least interpreted by our Lord into Love and so obligeth us beyond the strict Measures of Common Justice and not only renders what is legally due but gives and forgives beyond it Equity and Moderation to those that are any way obnoxious to us Mildness and Gentleness to those that have any way offended us Sympathy and Compassion towards them that suffer Mercy and Bounty to them that need Goodness and Peaceableness and Charity to all the World These are all parts of this great Lesson and whatever else may help to denominate us The Righteous Nation that keepeth the Truth as 't is in the second verse of this Chapter or the City in which dwells Rightcousness But then as 't is Righteousness indefinitely the Commandment 2. exceeding broad as David speaks wide in the Ps. cxix 96. Extension so is it also as deep in the Intention 't is Righteousness Internally and Spiritually too as being a Righteousness taught us by God's and not by Man's Judgements only and consequently must have an Effect proportionable 'T is when Thy Judgements are in the Earth Men will learn As the Jews while their fear towards God was taught them by the Precepts of Men drew near to him and honoured him with their Mouth only but removed their Hearts far away from him Isai. xxix 13. Upon the same Ground our Righteousness will never exceed the Righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites must needs prove Noise and appearance only a mere and vain Semblance if we learn it in no higher School than Man's take it forth from the XII Tables only not from the Two and have no other Tutor in it than Solon or Lycurgus or Justinian For the Derivation can return no higher than the Fountainhead and what is taught us only by the Statutes of Omri or at Caesar's Judgment-seat will never come up to what the perfect Law of God requires While we are under this lower and external Discipline only if we can but skulk and shift and play least in sight and seem to be Righteous though we are not so Recti●in Curia though not upright in Heart Or if we be discovered and impleaded too if we can whether by Power or Artifice break through the venerable Cobweb and run under the miserable shelter of a Temporal Indemnity at these lower Bars Why All is well with Solomon's Wanton we wipe Prov. xxx 20 our Mouths and are suddenly very Virgins again not only safe but innocent too But though Humane Laws exact only outward Compliances assume not to themselves to judge the Heart because they cannot discern it nor take Cognizance of secret Thoughts and Purposes further than they are declared by overt Acts Yet God is a Spirit and a Discerner of the inmost Thoughts and Intentions and his Law Spiritual too and given to the Spirit and the Righteousness taught in his School is not a Carcase or an Outside only but a living Soul and a Spirit of Righteousness and by con'equence it stays not in the outward Act the proper Object of Humane Laws and Provisions restrains not only open violences such as the Judgment-seat of Man condemns and the Scaffold or the Gibbet take notice of not only smooths and polisheth the outward Garb to render that plausible in the eyes of the World But goes yet further and deeper even to the Heart composeth the whole Inner-Man too and labours to approve that to the Righteous Judge who sees not as Man sees and in fine calls us up to that glorious height of the Primitive Christians in Justin Martyr who obeyed indeed the Municipal Laws of their Country but outlived them too and surmounted them far as he speaks they contented not themselves with so seant Measures but flew a higher and a nobler pitch aiming at a more re●in'd and perfect Righteousness the worthy Effect of God's Judgements and not of Man's only taught in his School alone and not at our Tribunals And then Lastly 'T is Righteousness Positively and Affirmatively too For though the Decalogue is almost all over Negative 3● in the Style and Form of it yet our Lord by reducing all the Precepts of it to one Affirmative Love and also by his Affirmative Glosses or Additions to it in his Sermon on the Mount seems to have authorised the Rule of their Exposition received generally by Christian Divines That the Negative still infers the Affirmative and that there are many Yea concealed in the Bosom of every such No. So that however 't is indeed a part of our Duty not to Murder and not so Slander and not to Covet and the like an Obligation consequent upon God's prohibition and he takes it well when for his sake we abstain from the Evil we are inclined or strongly solicited to and so accepts graciously our very Nothing as I may call it our not doing amiss thus giving us leave to enclose as it were a part of our Waste and to ●aise some Revenue upon it Yet this is so much short of the Height of the Lesson we are to learn in God's School that 't is only the unlearning something that might obstruct it so far from making us truly Righteous that it can only style us Innocent and set us Extra vitia rather than Intra virtutem We must not then content ourselves with a Negative Righteousness nor confine and limit it within the sorry Bounds of the Pharisaical Boast That we are not as other Men are Luc. xxiii 11. Extortioners or Unjust In some Cases he is unjust too that gives not his own as well as he that takes away what is another's In the Sacred Dialect Alms-deeds are Justice too even Acts of Mercy and Bounty to those Ps. cxii 9 Isai. lviii 7 8. that need them stricti Juris a part of our Righteousness sometimes so indispensable as not to be omitted without Sin And therefore glorify thyself no longer that thou dost harm to no Man Cum dicis stultum qui donat Amico Qui paupertatem levat attollitque propinqui Juvenal Sat. xiv Et spoliare doces could the Heathen Poet say He robs his neighbour that relieves him not He spoils his Friend that in some Cases doth not supply him And though 't is well a good Degree if we can say with S. Paul 2 Cor. seven 2. I have wronged no Man yet he only is perfectly blameless in this kind Qui ne in eo quidem ulli noceat quo prodesse desistat as S. Jerome excellently who doth not this Evil Lib i. Epist. 14. ad celantiam to his Neighbour that he omits to do him all the good he can Thou didst not burn thy Neighbour's house a strange piece of uncouth Righteousness But dost thou receive him into thy own now he is harborless Thou hast not oppressed or impoverished thy Brother 'T is well But is thy Abundance the Supply of his Want in this present exigent thy Superfluity the Ransom and Redemption of his extreme Necessities If not remember that Dives is in torments not for robbing Lazarus but for not relieving Sin And the dreadful Decretory Sentence Matth. xxxv proceeds at the last Day not for oppressing the Poor but for not feeding not clothing not visiting them A Reflection very common indeed yet never more proper or seasonable than at this time when God presents us an Object of Charity the greatest I think and the most considerable that was ever offered to this Nation and when Heaven and Earth expect that something extraordinary should be done I have now opened the Book and laid it before you and given you a short Draught of this very important Lesson a Lesson so considerable that our Wise and Good God thinks it worth the while to rout Armies and sink Navies to burn up Cities and turn Kingdoms upside down to send Wars and Plagues and Conflagrations amongst us to set open all his Schools and ply all his severest Methods to teach it us the more effectually Think now that he looks down this Day from Heaven to take Notice of our Proficiency to see how far we are advanced by these his Judgements in learning Righteousness And is it possible we should stand out any longer Can we still resist so powerful a Grace Are not the parts of the Text by this time happily met together and the Truth of it accomplished and exemplified in us to the full Gods Judgements on us and his Righteousness in us Who would not think and hope so But as S. Jerome complains of his Age which was indeed very calamitous Orbis Romanus ruit & tamen Cervix nostra non flectitur The World sinks and cracks about our Ears and yet our Neck as stiff and the Crest of our Pride as lofty and as erect as ever How few are they that repent in Dust and Ashes even Now that God hath laid our City in Dust and our Houses in Ashes Look we first upon the Text and then upon ourselves and we must ingenuously acknowledge that whatever Abatements or Diminutions to the Height of the designed event of God's Judgements upon us the Text or any Version of it note or imply our wretched evil Lives do but too plainly express and justify For 1. Who are they that are said here to learn Righteousness in the Text Not always the Afflicted themselves it seems but some others that stand by and look on For 't is not to be omitted that the phrase manifestly varies in the parts of the Proposition Judgements in the Earth or upon the Land some particular Country and the World at large or some few in it learn Righteousness Thus Tyrus shall be devoured with Fire saith the Prophet Ashkelon shall see it and fear Gaza and Ekron shall be very sorrowful Zach. ix 4 5. But not a word how Tyrus herself is affected God forbid it should be so with us May it never be said that any of our neighbours make better use of our calamities than we ourselves Have we any so hardhearted amongst us that can look upon so sad a Spectacle as if they sat all the while in the Theatre or walked in a Gallery of Pictures little more concerned than at the Siege of Rhodes or the Ruins of Troy Shall any Neighbour-City say wisely Mea res agitur jam proximus ardet Vcalegon Shall our enemies themselves the sober and the Wise amongst them at the least tremble at the Relation and we continue stupid and senseless Shall Constantinople and Alexandria resent it and we not regard it as we ought Nay shall China and Peru it may be Surat and Mexico both the Indies hear and be affected with it and we ourselves insensible Shall the Inhabitants of the World abroad warm themselves at our Fires with kindly and holy Heats while in the mean time our Repenting are not kindled nor our Charity inflamed and our Devotion as cold and frozen as ever Shall our Mountain which we said in our jolly pride should never be removed be fulminated and thunderstruckk but the Blessed shower that follows the Instruction that descends after like the Rain slide off to the Valleys to Others that are round about us Our Lord wept over Jerusalem because she knew not then at forty Luc nineteen 41. years' distance the time of her Visitation for the Days will come saith He when there shall not be lest one stone upon another But Woe is me Our Day is come already and our Visitation now actually upon us and yet I fear we will not know it as we ought For 2. Reflect a little upon the Tense of the Verb how that varies too in the parts of the Proposition The Judgements Are in the Earth and the Inhabitants Will learn So the Vulgar Latin & the English 'T is still per verba de suturo For we list not to handfast ourselves to God Almighty to make ourselves over to him by present Deed of Gift but would fain forsooth bequeath ourselves to him a Legacy in our last Will and Testament Ay but In necessitatibus nemo Liberalis 'T is not a free or a noble Donation which we bestow when we can keep it no longer ourselves For such a Bequest we may thank Death rather than the Testator saith S. chrysostom But we are all Clinics in this point would fain have a Baptism in Reserve a Wash for all our Hom. xviii in Ephes. Sins when we cannot possibly commit them any more Like Felix the unjust Governor when S. Paul reasons of Righteousness our Heads begin to ache and presently we adjourn Acts xxiv 25. with Go thy way for this time as he pretended when we have time and Opportunity and convenient Leisure which we read not that he ever found in plain English when we have nothing else to do or can do nothing else then we 'll take forth this Lesson Learn Righteousness as Cato did Greek Jam Septuagenarius just when we are a dying Begin then to con our part when we are ready to be hist off the Stage and Death is now pulling off our properties But take we heed in time He may prove a false Prophet that promiseth himself to die the Death of the Righteous when he hath loved and pursued the Ways and Wages of Unrighteousness all his life long Who thinks if he can but shape the last faint Breath he draws into a formal pretence of forgiving all the World and a sly desire of being forgiven Upon these two hangs the whole stress of his Righteousness he goes out of God's School upon fair terms and thinks to render a plausible Account of himself No no the great Lesson of the Text is harder and deeper than so 'T is that we must sweat for 't is that we may bleed for 'T is all that Adam lost and All that Christ came to recover 'T is the Business of our whole life and 't is desperate Folly and Madness to defer to learn it till Death when God now calls us to account for it Though the Verb in some Versions be future as I said yet still 't is Descent Habitatores we must learn it while we dwell here in the World and who can secure us that beyond the next moment When once we remove hence there 's no School beyond The Platonic Eruditorum in ORIGEN a place under Ground I know not where in which separated Souls are supposed to learn what they missed of or neglected here as very a Fable as the Platonic Purgatory As there is no Work nor Labour so no Device nor Knowledge nor Wisdom Eccles. ix 10. in the Grave The Schools are all in this World All beyond is Prison and Dungeon and place of Torment for such as learn not their Duty here Fire without Light and utter Darkness 3. Again They did learn so the Syriac and the Interlineary Latin when thy Judgements were in the Earth For there is an Ellipsis in the Original of the former clause and the Verb Substantive may be supplied either way when thy Judgements Are or Were in the Earth And the Conjunction may seem to stand fair for the later in quantum or juxta quod as R. David glosseth it qua mensura aut modo and so the Syriac Qualia Judicia talem Justitiam dedicerunt So much Judgement so much Justice Righteousness they did learn just while God's Rod was over them and no longer Thus while God's Plagues lay heavy upon Pharaoh even that stiff neck bowed and that hard heart was softened As Iron in a quick Fire relents and melts but take it out of the Furnace and it grows hard again nay worse Churlish and Unmalleable And so he When he saw that there was Respite saith the Text or a breathing time He hardened his Heart Ex. viij 15. And do not we all the same Like teeming Women while the pangs are upon us we have sorrow when some great Affliction gives us a smart Visit strikes home and deep we seem to be a little Joh. xuj 21. sensible Ay but the Throws once over saith our Lord the Woman remembers them no more and so we If but for a little space Grace be showed us if God gives us but a little Respite in our Bondage like Israel newly returned from Babel we straight forget his Commandments which made the good Ezra ashamed and blush to lift up his Face to Heaven Ezra Cap. ix Vers. 8 10. Happy We if as Pliny adviseth his friend Maximus Tales Lib. 7. Ep. 27. esse sani perseveremus quales futuros profitemur infirmi if we continue such in Health as we promise to be upon our sick-beds But alas Convaluit Mansit ut ante How few with David pay the Vows which they spoke with their Mouths Ps. lxvi 14. when they were in trouble Do not the engagements on the sickbed vanish like the Dreams of the sick forgotten as if they had never been I appeal to your own Bosoms though affected at first with this late dismal Accident doth it not prove to you a nine-days Wonder and your Thoughts though much startled at first by degrees reconcile to it Do not your Devotions begin to grow cold with the Fires raked up like those dying sparks in dead Ashes and buried in the Dust Ignes suppositi Cineri doloso Just as our Prophet states it here While thy Judgements were upon them they learned But as it follows immediately Fiat Gratia Impio Let Favour be showed to the Wicked the least Intermission Vers. 10. or kind Interval and he will not learn Righteousness saith the Text expressly he soon lays by his Book and gives over But 4. Lastly What is it that we learn or to what good end or purpose The Chaldee Paraphrast interposeth here a very Material and Operative word Descent operari they will learn to do or to work Righteousness And this Addition shows us another of our Defects cuts off I fear above half the Roll of our Learners at once We live as I said in a learned Age But in all this Crowd and Throng of Learners how few put themselves in good earnest into God's School And of them that do how much fewer yet take forth their Lesson aright Learn any thing else they will but not Righteousness and if that any thing but to do it But this is not rightly to divide this is to mangle the Text and to saw Isaiah asunder again Would learning or talking or pretending serve the turn We might find Righteousness enough in the World We can define it and distinguish it Criticise upon the Word & dispute of the Thing without end we stuff our Heads with the Notion and tip our Tongues with the Language and fill the World with our pretences to it But Little Children saith S. John Oye World of Learners Be not deceived Let no Man seduce 1 Joh. three 7. you into this piece of Gnosticism as if to learn or to know were sufficient No no O He that Doth Righteousness he is Righteous Non fortia loquimur sed vivimus saith S. Cyprian The life of Religion is Doing What we know we must practise too Whereto we have already attained we must walk in it saith the Apostle They that followed Christ were Phil. iii 16. first indeed called Disciples that is Learners for there Actsxi 26. we must begin But they soon after commenced Christians at Antioch Anointed to Action as the word implies and this Name sticks by them still as the more essential Their Oil must not be spent all in the Lamp In Schola Sapientiae that they may shine by Knowledge they must do their Exercises too In Gymnasio Justitiae be anointed to the Agon and to the Combat as the Champions of old and if they expect the Crown of Righteousness must not only learn Righteousness but learn to do it ANd therefore to shut up All and to enforce it a little upon such Topics as the Text and the sad Face of things amongst us suggest Let us no longer trifle with God Almighty now we find to our cost that He is in good earnest with us Be not deceived God I 'm sure is not mocked 'T is not our fasting and looking demure a little and hanging down the Head like a Bulrush for a Day 'T is not a few Grimaces of sorrow a sad word or two or a weeping Eye will serve the turn Our Hearts must bleed too our Souls must be afflicted and mourn for our old Unrighteousnesses and forsake them too and renounce them all for ever and yet further take forth new Lessons of Righteousness in all holy Conversations and Godlinesses as S. Peter 2 Pet. three 11. speaks even in all the instances of Piety and Justice and Charity ye heard of even now or all this holy Discipline of God is lost and spent in vain upon us For this is all the Cap. xxvii 9 Fruit saith our Prophet to take away sin If that remain still in us Adversity is a bitter Cup indeed To keep our sins and hold them fast even when God's Judgements are upon us for them this is with Copronymus to pollute the Fountain that should wash us to defile the salutary Waters of Affliction to profane the holy Fires of God's Furnace and to pass through the Fire to Moloch to some reigning and domineering Sin some Tyrant-lust or Mistress-passion Correction without Instruction this is the Scourge of Asses not the Discipline of Men nor the Rod of the Sons of Men. To suffer much and not to be at all the better for it 't is certainly one of the saddest portions that can befall us in this World if not the fore-boding and prognostic of a far sadder yet to come the very beginnings of Hell here the Fore-tasts of that Cup of Bitterness of which the Damned suck out the dregs And wilt thou after all this hide the sweet Morsel under thy Tongue when thou sensibly perceivest it already turning into the Gall of Asps Still long for the delicious portion consecrated and snatch it greedily from God's Altars though thou seest thy Fingers burn and thy Nest on fire with it Still retain the old Complacence in thy sparkling Cup though thou feelest it already biting like a Serpent and stinging like an Adder say still Stolen Waters are sweet Prov. ix 17. though like those bitter Ones of Jealousy thou perceivest them carry a Curse along with them into thy very Bowels Dare we thus provoke the Lord to Jealousy Are we stronger 1 Cor. x. 22. Job xxviii 3. Job xli 9 Isai. xxxiii 14. than He Gird up now thy loins like a Man thou stoutest and gallantest of the Sons of Earth Hast thou an Arm like God or canst thou thunder with a Voice like him Wilt thou set the Briars and Thorns of the Wilderness Battle-array or canst thou dwell with everlasting Burnings Or despisest thou the Riches of his Goodness and Forbearance not knowing Rom. two 4. refusing to know that the Long-suffering of our Lord 2 Pet. three 15 is Salvation and that his Goodness leadeth thee to Repentance If not know assuredly that thy Hardness and Impenitent Heart do but treasure up for thee yet a fiercer and a more insupportable Wrath. And therefore let us not flatter ourselves nor think that God hath now emptied his Quiver and spent all his Artillery upon us Let us not come forth delicately with the foolish Agag saying Surely the Bitterness of Death is past No the 1 Sam. xv 32. Dregs of the Cup of Fury are still behind God grant we be not forced at last to drink them and suck them up Great Plagues remain for the ungodly saith the Psalmist Vae unum abiit Ecce duo veniunt One Woe is past but behold there come two Woes more for the rest of Men that were not killed by the Ps. xxxii 11. former Plagues repented not Apoc. ix 12. 20. When God's Rods and his Ferulaes' the Discipline of Children are contemned he hath a lash of Scorpions to scourge the obstinate When the ten dreadful Plagues are spent all upon a stubborn Egypt without effect there 's a Red Sea yet in Reserve that at last swallows all And if our present Afflictions reform us not that we sin no more take we heed lest yet a worse thing befall us Remember that when the Touch of God's little Finger did not terrify us he soon made us feel the stroke of his heavy hand If the more benign and benedict Medicines will not work nor stir us at all he can prepare us a rougher Receipt or a stronger Doses retrieve and bring back his former Judgements in a sharper Degree or else send upon us new ones which we never dream of The Devil of Rebellion and Disobedience which not long since possessed the Nation rend and tore it till it foamed again and pined away in lingering Cousumptions that cast it oft times into the Fire and oft times into the Water calamities of all sorts to destroy it is now through God's Mercies cast out and we seem to sit quiet and sober at the Feet of our Deliverer clothed and in our right Minds again But yet this ill Spirit this restless Fury this unquiet and dreadful Alastor the eldest Son of Nemesis and heir apparent to all the Teriours and Mischiefs of his Mother walks about day and night seeking Rest and finds none and he saith in his heart I will return some time or other to my House from whence I came out Oh let us take heed of provoking that God who alone chains up his Fury lest for our Sins he permit him to return once more with seven other Spirits more wicked than himself and so our last Estate prove worse than the former The Sword of the Angel of Death which the last year cut down almost a hundred thousand of us may seem to have been glutted with our Blood and to have put up itself into the Scabbard Quiesce & sile as the Prophet speaks God grant it may rest here and be still But as it follows Jer. xlvii 6. there How can it be quiet if the Lord give it a new Commission against us Methinks I see the Hand still upon the Guard and unless we prevent it by our speedy Repentance it may quickly be drawn again more terrible than ever new furbisht and whetted with the keener edge and point our wretched Ingratitude must needs have given it The Sun of Righteousness was ready to rise upon us with healing in his Wings to clear our Heaven again and to scatter the Cloud of the last years unhealthiness But yet methinks this slow-moving Cloud hangs still o'er our Heads hovers yet in view with God knows how many Plagues and Deaths in the Bosom of it and without our serious Amendment we have no Rainbow to assure us that we shall not again be drenched in that horrible Tempest Though the best Naturalists say That great public Fires are a proper Remedy for Diamerbr depeste Noviomag the Plague Yet God if he be angry can send a ruffling Wind into the very Ashes of our City blow them into the Air and turn them as those of the Egyptian Furnace into a Blain and a Botch and a Plaguesore upon us Ex. ix 8 9 Nay even out of those dead Ashes can He raise yet a fiercer Flame to consume what still remains As the Lightning comes out of the East saith our Lord and shineth even unto the West so shall my coming be sc. to destroy Jerusalem and wherever the Carcase is will the Eagles be gathered together Matth. xxiv Fire is the Eagle in Nature nothing in the Elementary World mounts so high to its place and stoops so low to its prey the two properties God himself ascribes to that Bird Job xxxix 27 30. And if we still refuse obstinately to be gathered like Chickens under our Lord's Wing he can again let lose this Bird of Prey this Eagle of Heaven upon us and from the East where it began before fly it home like Lightning even to the utmost West to seize and to devour where ever there is the least Quarry remaining Or if this move us not let us remember that we have another City upon the Waters a floating Town of movable Forts and Castles the Walls and Bulwarks of the Nation stronger than those of Brass the Fable speaks of As we desire that God would ever fill their Sails with prosperous Gales & still bring them home with Honour and Victory and good Success Let us take heed that we fight not against them too Our Sin like a Talon of Lead may sink them to the Bottom our Lusts and Passions and Animosities may fire them our Drunkenness and deep Excesses may drown them our Volleys of Oaths and Blasphemies may pierce them nay our Seditious Murmurings and Privy Whisper may blow them'over For God is Piorum Rupes Reorum Scopulus a Rock to found the Just upon but a Shelf to shipwreck and confound the Unrighteous And yet all these are but the common Roads and ordinary Instances of God's Displeasures But he hath also besides and beyond all these unknown Treasures of Wrath vast stores of hidden Judgements for who knows the Power or the extent of his Anger laid up in those secret Magazines Ps. xc il where his Judgements are when they are not in the Earth reserved as his dreadful Artillery against the time of trouble against the day of Battle and War as he speaks himself Job xxxviii 23. Oh let us take heed of treasuring up to ourselves Wrath against that day of Wrath and the Revelatian of his Righteous Judgements Rom. 1. 5. And now what shall I say more if all that hath been said hitherto prove ineffectual The Text affords yet one etc. Expedient as the Chaldee Paraphrast may seem to have understood it Because thy Judgement saith he not as in the Hebrew but or as the Jews call it and S. Judas from them The Judgement of the great Day because Judas 6. that Judgement though not as yet in the Earth is yet fixed and appointed and prepared for all the Earth in the Hebrew itself too for rather than in the Earth therefore most certainly if at all or for any thing the Inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness But if they put far from them this evil day too as if they had made a Covenant with Death and with Hell if they finally refuse to come under God's Discipline and to take forth to themselves Lessons of Righteousness here they shall then be made themselves great Lessons and dreadful examples of God's Righteousness to all the World If they will not glorify God in these Fires as they ought nor walk in the light of them let them remember that there are Fires without Light where none glorify him but by suffering the Eternal Vengeance of their Sins There must they learn by saddest experience who obstinately refuse the more gainful Method That 't is a searful thing to fall into the Hands of a living God For our enemies here must die and our storms at last blow over and our Fires you see though never so great in time go out and vanish But God lives hath a Worm too that dies not for those that live not as they ought and a fire that is not quenched The Babylonian Furnace seven times hotter than usual a cool walk to that all our Vulcan's and Aetna's our Heclas and Andes faint types and shadows of it the great Conflagration we so lately trembled at and still bewail but a spark to that infernal Tophet but a painted Fire to that dreadful Mongibel even Everlasting Burnings From which God of his tender Mercy deliver us All and give us Grace in this our Day the Day of his Judgements so to learn Righteousness and so to do it that at the last and great Day of Judgement when he shall come again to Account with us for all our Learning and for all our Doings we may through his Mercy receive the Crown of Righteousness for his sake alone who so dearly bought it for us even Jesus Christ the Righteous To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed by us and all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth Blessing Honour Glory and Power henceforth and for evermore Amen FINIS