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humility teacheth us, in our operation, to draw strength from God, not from ourselves: in our graces, to ascribe their goodness to God, and their weakness to ourselves.

Thirdly, Unto dependence and continual recourse to God, as the fountain of all good, to keep an open and unobstructed passage between him and our soul. Say not, "I have light enough in my house; I may now shut up my windows;" for light within hath dependence upon immediate supplies from the sun without, and so hath grace upon continual supplies from the Sun of righteousness. God teacheth even the husbandman to plough and thresh. In these things his direction is to be implored. Meddle not then with great and high affairs without recourse unto him. His name is 'counsellord,' and his testimonies are counsellors; let them be the rule and square of all your debates. It is recorded for the honour of Scipio, that he went first to the Capitol, and then to the senate: but you have more noble examples: David is put to flight, he flees and prays: Ezekiah is at a stand in all his counsels ", he sends to the prophet and prays: Jehoshaphat is in great distress, and knows not what in the world to do, but he prays: Nehemiah is sore afraid, and hath a petition to make to the king, but first he makes one to God, and prays. Whenever the children are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth, all the world cannot furnish you with such another midwife as prayer, and recourse to God; it hath delivered even graves of their dead. Therefore let ine beseech you, whenever you meet with such difficulties as put you to a stand, that you know not what to advise or resolve upon,-go to your closets, prostrate yourselves at his throne, whose honour it is to be seen in the mount; beg counsel of him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Let it appear, that you seek his face to direct you, and his glory as the supreme end and design of all your consultations; and then try whether he be not a present help in trouble; and whether he will not magnify the wisdom of his counsel in the perplexity of yours.

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Fourthly, Unto fidelity, in the use of any good which God bestows upon us; for God gives not talents to men, barely to enrich men, but to employ them. Therefore, as the vessel hath one passage to let the wine into itself, and another to pour it out into the flaggon, so we should not only fill ourselves by dependence upon God, but should supply others by love and service unto our brethren.

Right Honourable, This nation hath put into your hands all that is outwardly dear unto them, their persons, posterities, liberties, estates. In these sad and woful distractions, they look upon you as binders, and healers, and standers in the gap, and repairers of waste places. God hath called you unto a high and a great trust; and the sad distempers of the Church and state, the distresses and desolations of Ireland, the doubts and fears, the shiverings and convulsions of England, and in these two the interest of all the protestant churches call upon you, like the man of Macedonia, in St. Paul's vision', "Come and help us." Now in this great strait, when the children are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth,-stir up the graces of God in you; call together all that is within you, to call upon his name; improve the uttermost of your interests in him for the state of his church; manage every one of his gifts to the closing of those miserable breaches which threaten an inundation of calamity upon us: wisdom, and learning, and piety, and prudence, are healing things. Remember (and O that God would put it into the hearts of this whole kingdom, from the throne to the plough, to remember) the fate of a divided kingdom from the mouth of truth itself: O that we would all remember, that misunderstandings, and jealousies, and divisions of heart, are a high evidence of God's displeasure, and that "through the wrath of the Lord of Hosts. a land is darkened, and (as it were) infatuated, when Manasseh is against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, and every man eateth the flesh of his own arm "." O let us all remember what it cost Shechem and Abimelech, what it cost Benjamin and the other tribes, even the loss of threescore and five thousand men. Remember Priamus and his children will laugh; Babylon will clap their hands, and wag

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their head; no such time for Shishak the Egyptian to trouble Jerusalem, as when Israel is divided". Let it never be said of God's own people, that they are fallen into the curse of Midianites, and Amorites, and Edomites, and Philistines, to help forward the destruction of one another. O! that God would give this whole nation hearts to consider these things, that he would put a spirit of peace and resolved unity into the minds of this whole people, to be true to their own happiness; and by how much the greater are the subtilties of men to divide them, to be so much the more firmly united in prayers to God, and in concord between themselves, that they may not expose their persons, estates, posterities, and (which is dearest of all) their religion, to the crafty and bloody advantages of the enemies of the protestant churches, who, in human view, could have no way to overthrow them, but by their own dissensions.

I have done with this point, and shall conclude all with a very few words of the next, which is drawn from the scope and connexion of the prayer, suggested to the judgement threatened. It is this:

SECT. 19. When temporal judgements are felt or feared, God's people should pray for spiritual mercies. Human sorrows cannot overcome, where the joy of the Lord is our strength. Thus the Lord seems to have taught his apostle : he was under some pressing discomfort; the messenger of Satan sent to buffet him; he prays for particular deliverance, and God answers him non ad voluntatem sed ad utilitatem, implying a direction unto all such prayers, "My grace is sufficient for thee P." When thou feelest a thorn in thy flesh, pray for grace in thy heart; the buffets of Satan cannot hurt, where the grace of God doth suffice: so he directeth in time of plague and famine, to pray, and to seek his face ; to look more after his favour than our own ease; to be more solicitous for the recovering of his love, than for the removing of his rod. This is a true character of a filial disposition. "In the way of thy judgements," even in that way, wherein wicked men fling thee off, and give thee over,

2 Chron. xii. 2. • Bonus, qui non tribuit quod volumus, ut attribuat quod mallemus. Aug. ep. 34. tom. 2. p. 42. Exaudiens cardinem desiderii ejus, non curasti quod tunc petebat, ut in me faceres quod semper petebat. Conf. 1. 5. c. 8. tom. 8. p. 82. p 2 Cor. xii. 9. 42 Chron. vii. 14.

and quarrell with thee, and repine against thee, even in the way of thy judgements "do we wait for thee, and the desire of our soul" is more to thy name, than to our own deliverance'. True disciples follow Christ more for his doctrine than his loaves, and are willing to choose rather affliction than iniquity.

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The grace and favour of God is life",' better than life *:" and therefore must needs be the most sovereign antidote to preserve, and to bear up the soul above all other discomforts; whereas if he be angry, no other helps are able to relieve us. Brass and iron can fence me against a bullet, or against a sword but if I were to be cast into a furnace of fire, it would help to torment me; if into a pit of water, it would help to sink me. Now our God is a 'consuming fire, and his breath a stream of brimstone". Human plaisters can never cure the wounds which God makes: where he is the smiter, he must be the healer too ". All the candles in a country are not able to make day there, till the sun come; and all the contents of the world are not able to make comfort to the soul, till the Sun of righteousness arise, with healing in his wings." In a mine, if a damp come, it is in vain to trust to your lights; they will burn blue, and dim, and at last vanish you must make haste to be drawn upward, if you will be safe. When God sharpeneth an affliction with his displeasure, it is vain to trust to worldly succours; your desires and affections must be on things above,' if you will be relieved. There is no remedy, no refuge from God's anger, but to God's grace. Blood-letting is a cure of bleeding, and a burn a cure against a burn; and running unto God is the way to escape him; as to close and get in with him that would strike you, doth avoid the blow. In a tempest at sea, it is very dangerous to strike to the shore; the safest way is to have sea-room, and to keep in the main still :-there is no landing against any tempest of God's judgements at any shore of worldly or carnal policies, but the way is to keep with him still if he be with us in the ship, the winds and the sea will at last be rebuked.

Isai. xxvi. 8. xxx. 5.

:

John vi. 29. * Psalm lxiii. 3.

John xvi. 21. xxxv. 9, 10.
y Heb. xii. 29.

• Psalm Isai. xxx. 33.

• Hos. vi. 1.

b Calores caloribus onerando, sanguinis fluxum defusa insuper

deprimimus et venula revocamus. Tert.

SECT. 20. This then should serve to humble us for our carnal prayers in times of judgements, such as the hungry raven, or the dry or gaping earth makes, when we assemble ourselves for corn and wine, for peace and safety, and be, in the mean time, careless whether God receive us graciously or no. God much complains of it, when he slew Israel, the rack made him roar, the rod made him flatter, but all was to be rid of affliction: it was the prayer of nature for ease, not of the Spirit for grace, for their "heart was not right." The like he complains of after the captivity: they fasted and prayed in the fifth month, wherein the city and temple had been burned; and in the seventh month, wherein Gedaliah had been slain, and the remnant carried captive; but they did it not out of sincerity toward God, but out of policy for themselves and this he proves by their behaviour after their return. If you had indeed sought me, you would have remembered the words of the prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited before, and being returned, would now have put them to practice. But Jerusalem, inhabited after the captivity, is just like Jerusalem inhabited before the captivity: so that from hence it appears, that all their weeping and separating was not for pious, but politic reasons. And there is nothing under Heaven more hateful, or more reproachful unto God, than to make religion serve turns, to have piety lackey and dance attendance, and be a drudge and groom to private ends, to make it a cloak to policy, a varnish to rotten wood, silver, dross to a broken potsherd.

O then, when we weep, and separate ourselves, let us not then think to mock God with empty ceremonies of repentance; let us not assemble ourselves only to flatter away the rod from our back, and to get peace and security to our own persons; and then let the favour of God, the power of his grace, the comforts of his Spirit, be unregarded as before; as if we fasted and prayed only for our backs and bellies, not for our consciences or conversations: for be we well assured, he who doth not ask the things which he ought, shall not obtain the things which he asks: such a prayer begs nothing but a denial.

We have, now many fasts together, prayed for making up • Psalm 1xxviii. 34, 37.

d Jer. xlii. 12. xli. 1.

⚫ Zach. vii. 5, 6.

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