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A SERMON

ON THE THANKSGIVING DAY,

DECEMBER 2, 1697.

TO THE

RIGHT HONORABLE THE LORD HAVERSHAM.

I OFFER this discourse my honoured lord to your perusal, in confidence that the subject and design of it will be so far grateful to your lordship, as in some degree to atone for the imperfections of the management. I believe it will not offend against your lordship's very accurate judgment of things, that I have not been so swayed by an authority which hath signified much in our age, as to represent the natural state of man as a state of war; which either must signify man in his original constitution to have been a very ill-natured creature, or must signify his nature to be less ancient than himself. For I cannot doubt, but the author of that maxim would have disdained their way of speaking, who by nature mean vice; or to have been guilty of so pious a thought, that God at first made man any better thing than we find him. I shall the less passionately lament my infelicity, in losing the good opinion of men of that sentiment, if I stand right in your lordship's: not knowing any of your rank and figure in the world, with whom I count it a greater honour to agree in judgment, or do less fear to disagree.

In matters of secular concernment, it becomes me not to profess any judgment at all, besides the public; unto which in things of that nature, every private man's ought to be, and is, professedly resigned. Yet within that compass, notwithstanding the just esteem your lordship hath of the noble endowments, which do then illustriously shine in the military profession when there is a necessity of their being reduced to practice; I apprehend, that otherwise, your lordship hath no more grateful thoughts of war than I, nor more ungrateful of the necessary means of preserving peace. That which is the reproach of human nature, could never originally belong to it; nor can any thing more expose its ignominious depravation, than it should ever be necessary the sword should dispute right, and the longest decide it. In the matters of religion, which is every man's business, and whose sphere as it is higher must be proportionably wider and more comprehensive, I hope it is your lordship's constant care to add unto clearness and rectitude of thought, the pleasantness of taste; and that you apprehend it to consist, not more in a scheme of notions, than of vital principles; and that your love to it proceeds from hence, that you relish it and feel you live by it. You are hereby fortified against the reproach that attends it from their contempt of it, who are every day assaulting heaven, and would have the war not ended, but only transferred thitherward. That which though some vent, and others admire, as wit, even paganism itself has condemned as foolishness. Your lordship is in no more danger to be altered hereby from your chosen course, than a man in his health and senses, by satyrs, against eating and drinking. I reckon your lordship is so taken up with the great things of religion, as to be less taken with the adventitious things men have thought fit to affix to it. I do not more emulate your lordship in any thing than a disdain of bigotry, nor more honour any thing I discern in you than true catholicism. And recounting what things and persons do truly belong to a church, I believe your lordship is not professedly of a larger church, as counting it too large for you, but too narrow; and tha you affect not to be of a self-distinguished party. Nor, besides the opportunity of avowing the just honour and obligations I have to your lordship and your noble consort, with my sincere concern for your hopeful and numerous offspring, did any thing more invite this address to your lordship, than the agreeableness of such your sentiments, to the mind and spirit of,

My most honoured lord,
Your lordship's most justly devoted, and
most faithful, humble servant,
JOHN HOWE.

PSALM XXIX. 1.

THE LORD WILL BLESS HIS PEOPLE WITH PEACE.

You so generally know the occasion of this our solemn | his people with peace; i. e. he will vouchsafe this blessing assembly at this time, that none can be in doubt concerning the suitableness of this portion of Scripture, for our present consideration. Our business is to celebrate the Divine goodness, in preserving our king abroad, and restoring him home in safety, after he had been the happy instrument of bringing about that peace, which puts a period to a long continued, wasting, and dubious war; under which we, and all Europe, have groaned these divers years. And if we find the favourable workings of Providence to concur and fall in with a divine word, pointing them to God's own people; as this for instance, The Lord will bless

to his own people in the fittest season, as it must be under-
stood; this adds so much the more grateful and pleasant
relish to the mercy we are this day to acknowledge. It
cannot but do so with right minds, unto which nothing is
more agreeable than to desire and covet such favour, as
God shows to his own people; and to be made glad with
his inheritance, (Ps. cvi. 4, 5.) from an apprehension that
there must be somewhat very peculiar in such mercy, as
God vouchsafes to his own, to a people peculiar and select.
severed and set apart for himself from the rest of men
'Tis true indeed that peace, abstractly considered, is

neither the appropriate nor the constant privilege of such | of the horror of war; which we may do, by viewing it in a people; they neither alone enjoy it, nor at all times, when its causes, in itself, and in its dismal consequences, whereit is brought about, even for them, they have other parta- with it is wont to be attended. Consider it in its causes, kers but yet, such favours of Providence as are of larger and they are principally these two, the wickedness of men, extent, and reach to many besides God's own people, have and the just vengeance of God thereupon. These two a more peculiar, benign aspect upon them; and are attend- concurring, and falling in together, must be understood to ed, with reference to them; with such consequences, as be the causes of so great a calamity among men in this wherein others, without being made of this people of his, world; and I shall only consider these two in their comare not sharers with them. Some intimation there is of plication, and not speak to them distinctly and separately. this in this psalm, which the title speaks, a Psalm of Da- Very plain it is, that war is a mark of the apostacy, and vid; and which some think to refer unto the wars mana- stigmatizes man as fallen from God, in a degenerate revoltged by him in his time with the Moabites, signified by the ed state; it is the horrid issue of men's having forsaken wilderness of Kadesh; and the Syrians, signified by the God, and of their being abandoned by him to the hurry of cedars of Lebanon, of whom he speaks in the prophetic their own furious lusts and passions; the natural and the style, as if, by the terrible and amazing appearances of penal effect of their having severed themselves and broke God's power against them, they were thunderstruck, like loose from the Divine government. From whence are the trees of a forest, or as the hinds that are wont to inha-wars? Are they not from your lusts? Jam. iv. 1.-God bit amongst them. And so it is concluded, and shut up most justly punishes men's injustice, not by infusing mawith this epiphonema in the end of the psalm; The Lord lignity, which he needs not, into their minds and natures; will give strength to his people, the Lord will bless his and which it is impossible he can be the author of, whose people with peace, i. e. he is in war their strength, and very nature itself is goodness, and purity, and love; but their felicity in peace; in war, he is the author of all that having forsaken him, rebelled against him, disclaimed him power wherewith they are enabled to oppose and overcome as their Ruler, refused any longer to be subject to him, they potent enemies; and in peace, he is their truly felicitating are forsaken of him, and left to take vengeance for it on good, and makes them by his own vouchsafed presence a one another; of which there cannot be a greater instance, truly blessed people. than that when controversies do arise between men and men, between nation and nation, kingdom and kingdom, one people and another, it is presently to be decided by a bloody sword. This speaks a monstrous degeneracy in the intellectual world, and from the original rectitude that belongs to the nature of man, which in his primitive state did stand in a temperament of reason and love. That there should be differences about meum and tuum in a creature of that constitution is itself a horrid thing; but then that such differences are to be determined only by violence, that presently they must hereupon run into war! Good God! what an indication is this, that reason, wisdom, justice, and love, are fled from this earth! And it speaks rebellion against God in the highest kind, 'tis a subversion of the most fundamental law of his kingdom over the intelligent world; Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy might, and thy neighbour as thyself.

It is the latter of these, peace, unto which the present occasion confines us. And concerning that, we might in the 1. Place, note from the text,that wheresoever it is brought about, God is the author of it, "God will bless his people with peace." That title which the Scripture gives him, the God of peace, with the many expressions of like import, wherewith it abounds, can leave them in no doubt, concerning the Divine influence and agency in bringing about the grateful intervals of peace, after desolating bloody wars, who have any reverence for the Sacred Oracles. And indeed, to insist upon such a subject as this, in a case so plain, so acknowledged amongst men that believe the Bible, were to reproach the auditory, as if it were made up of sceptics and atheists, or of them that did not believe this world was made by God, or that it was made by him only by some casual stroke and without design; that he cared not for his reasonable, intelligent creatures, when he had made them, what became of them, nor did at all concern himself in their most considerable concernment. I shall not therefore insist upon this, which seems rather slid in, and supposed in the text, or taken for granted; for among a people in visible relation and subjection to God, it had been as great an incongruity industriously to assert and prove such a thing, as it would be, by an elaborate discourse to prove that there is a sun in the firmament unto men that continually partake and enjoy his light and influences; and to whose sense, the vicissitudes and distinctions of day and night by his presence and absence are brought under constant notice every twenty-four hours. I shall therefore, I say, pass on to what appears more directly to be the design of the text, and that seems to be twofold: first, to represent to us in general the great blessing of peace, wherein, when God sees it fit, he is pleased to make his own people partakers with others; secondly, because it is not without design that it is said, he will bless his people with peace, unto whom 'tis plain, this alone is not an appropriate privilege; it seems further designed to intimate, and couch in the concurrence and concomitancy of such things, as, superadded to peace, will make it a complete blessing. "The Lord will bless his people with peace." He will give them peace so and upon such terms, and with such concomitants and consequences, that to them it shall prove a real and a full blessing. These two things, therefore, I intend to insist upon-1. To show you how valuable a good and (in the large and common sense) a blessing peace is, as it stands in opposition to bloody and desolating wars. And then-2. I shall show you, what additions and concomitants are necessary to make it a complete blessing, such as may be appropriate and peculiar to God's own people, and so make use of the whole.

1. I shall show you briefly, how valuable a good peace is in itself, as it stands opposed unto bloody and destructive wars. And this will best be seen, by stating and viewing it in that opposition, and by representing to you somewhat

"Tis impossible there should be any such thing as war in the world, but by the violation of this most fundamental divine law, the principal and most important thing that this government does as it were consist in over reasonable creatures, their loving him above all, and one another as themselves. This law observed must make this earth another heaven; this law violated and broken, makes it another hell. Men being fallen from God, and having lost their acquaintance with him, and all relish of divine things, think to repair their loss out of this sensible world, whereof no man thinks he hath enough; desire of more blinds their eyes, that they cannot judge of right and wrong. Hence every man's cause is right in his own eyes; appetite is the only measure they judge by, and power (whatsoever of it any one can grasp) the instrument by which they execute their perverse judgment. A dismal spectacle and subject of contemplation to the inhabitants of the purer and more peaceful regions! To behold a divine offspring, the sons of God, now transformed into sons of the earth, and tearing in pieces one another, for what some possess and others covet! Yea, and to a calm uninterested spectator on our own globe, this can be no grateful prospect, to view the history of all times, and nations, and take notice how full it is of such tragedy: countries from age to age made Aceldamas, fields of blood, on this account of extending or confining empire and dominion; of invading another's or defending one's own: but hereupon it is not strange when a world of intelligent, reasonable creatures are thus gone off from God, and in rebellion against him in the most fundamental part of his government, that he suffers them to be the executioners of his just wrath upon one another. And if we thus look upon war, first, in this its complicated causes, it is the opprobrium, the reproach of human nature, of intelligent reasonable creatures. But next look upon it in itself, and what is it but the destruction of human lives, of creatures made after the image of God? of whom he has so high a value, and whose lives, even for that very

reason, he is pleased to fence and secure by a severe law; Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man. But here is a formed design of destroying human lives by multitudes, lives of creatures bearing the image of God. And by how much the more necessary this is in many cases, so much the more grievous and calamitous a thing it is, that when to cut off and destroy by multitudes so precious things as human lives is tragical and horrid, not to do it is so much worse! Yea, that war itself is become an art, and that the valour and skill which belong to it are laudable excellencies, is all aggravation of the sadness of this case.

And if we do consider the consequences and effects which do ensue upon such war, how full of horror and frightfulness are they! and those most of all, that are least of all thought on, and that lie most out of view; for besides that property is gone, and no man knows what to call his own, laws lose their force, magistrates their authority and reverence, civil government is disobeyed and despised, common order is violated and turned into confusion, families torn in pieces, countries laid waste and desolate, towns and cities sacked, ravaged, and made ruinous heaps; besides all this (I say) the sacred rites and mysteries of religion are neglected and profaned, its holy solemnities interrupted, worshipping assemblies are broken up. Men have little opportunity left them to mind their great concerns with God, and for another world; care for immortal souls, when it is most necessary, is thrown out of doors, and reasonable creatures, that should be employed in adoring and worshipping their great Creator, the God of their lives, are employed in designing the mutual destruction of one another's lives; and it may be that is least considered which carries the most of horror in it, that multitudes are hurried down to perdition, neither dreaded by themselves, nor apprehended by the destroyer; souls are passing in shoals into eternity, they not considering it who are sent, nor they that sent them! And what sport does this make for devils, those envious apostate spirits, that first drew men into a like apostacy; that when God had given this earth to the children of men, assigning to themselves a worse abode amidst infernal darkness and flames, they should be tearing one another in pieces about this their portion under the sun, making God's bounty to them the occasion of their doing all manner of violence to one another! That the prince of the apostacy, the usurping God of this world, should have the opportunity of beholding man, sometime by divine grant the lord of it, now its slave and his captive by it! Led by him at his will into whatsoever is most repugnant to the will and the very nature of his Maker. That whereas he was at first made after God's own image, a God-like creature resembling his Maker, especially in spirituality and love; he now more resembles in sensuality beasts, and in malignity devils, and both by an inordinate love of this world; the friendship whereof, and a mind carnalized by it, is enmity against God, Jam. iv. 4.-Rom. viii. 7.) and whereof also, because every man thinks his own share too little, he becomes any one's enemy that hath more of it than himself.

And thus have devils the pleasure of beholding men, by this very gift and expression of God's love and kindness to them transformed into enmity, and hatred of himself, and one another; forsaken of him, and destroying each other, and hastening once more into their horrid society, that as they were accomplices with them in their first rebellion, they may be partakers and associates with them in wo and torment. The most dismal part of the story, is that which lies most out of sight. Now let all this be considered and put together, and surely peace is a valuable thing, it speaks man in some degree returned to himself, and in a right mind, when he can agree and be content to let another live quiet and unmolested by him, one man another man, and one nation another nation. Thus far does peace appear a blessing apart and by itself, a valuable good, and according to the common notion and estimate, it may be called a blessing wherewith God blesses his people in common with others. But we are further to consider, 2. What things are requisite to make this a real and a complete blessing, capable of being appropriated unto God's own peculiar people; which seems also to be intended here. The Lord will bless his people with peace. |

In speaking to this I shall do these two things. 1. Mention the requisites themselves-1. Show their requisiteness, or show what is requisite to make eternal peace a real and peculiar blessing. And then show you upon what account the addition and concomitancy of such things are requisite. 1. I shall show you the things that are requisite. 1. Such peace, as we have hitherto been speaking of, is then truly a blessing, when there is, in conjunction with it, a very copious effusion of the Spirit of God; in such a concomitancy, peace will make a people a blessed people. When, after such a calamitous dispensation was over and at an end, as we read of Ezek. xxxix. wherein, ver. 23. God is said to hide his face, and many of his people were carried into captivity, and many fell by the sword; it comes at length to this, he will no more hide his face, or cover it with so ireful and gloomy aspects and appearances that it cannot be comfortably beheld. 'Tis for this very reason, because he pours forth his Spirit upon the whole house of Israel, as it is in ver. 29. of that chapter. Pouring forth signifies a copious communication; and if the Spirit of God be copiously communicated, the best of blessings are in great abundance contained in it, which will infer, or countervail whatsoever is valuable or needful besides, to make the state of such a people a blessed state. 2. It will be so, when the Gospel of peace has its free course, and a large spread in the world. When, in conjunction with beating of swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, the law goes forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and nations shall say, Come let us go up to the house of the Lord, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his statutes; as in that of Micah, iv. 2, 3. And,

3. When, according to the dictate of Divine wisdom, kings do reign (as Prov. viii. 15.) and princes decree justice; when God's people have judges, as at the first, counsellors as at the beginning, Isa. 1. 26. able men, men of truth, fearing God and hating covetousness, Exod. xviii. 21. When he is pleased to set kings on the throne, that scatter the wicked with their eyes, and so to establish the throne in righteousness; when there is a design, driven by those that bear the civil sword, the sword of justice, to be a terror to evil-doers, but a praise to them that do well; so as it may be said upon this account, they are the ministers of God for good, whom he has been pleased to set in such stations.

4. When God gives pastors after his own heart that are able, and do make it their business, to feed his people with knowledge and understanding. When he inspirits such to cry mightily, to warn men off from sin, when watchmen, set over his people, are faithful in the business of their station, at once both to save their people and themselves, from having their blood required at the hands of either; this will make a peaceful state, a happy state; it will contribute a greal deal towards it. And again when hereupon, in the 5. Place, wickedness languishes, the lusts of men droop and wither. There is some visible restraint, if there be not a universal mortification of such fruits of the flesh, as those that are spoken of Gal. v. 19. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like, that are inconsistent with a share in the inheritance of the kingdom of God, as it after follows. This does much to the making a peaceful state of things a blessed state; it takes away much of the occasion of further controversy between God and such a people. But,

6. When there is a very great diffusion of a holy new nature, which carries the matter higher, and is a great addition, though in certain conjunction with the former; as it is when the lusts and works of the flesh do cease to be reigning and rampant among them who live under the Gospel, through the victorious and more powerful operation of the Spirit of grace breathing in it. For then by the influence of the same Spirit, not only such vicious inclinations are plucked up by the roots, as certainly withstand a people's felicity; but such positive principles are implanted, as tend to promote it. Yet since this conjunction is not constant, but such insolences of wickedness, as more directly tend to make a people miserable, may be repressed by inferior causes. I therefore more expressly add, that then peace may be reckoned a certain and a full blessing, when

with it we behold a divine offspring continually rising up,
of men appearing to be born of God, and to have received
a God-like nature, apt to do good, and become blessings to
the world. When there is a rising generation of such,
not proselyted to this or that party, but to real substantial
godliness and Christianity. When multitudes are thus
turned unto the Lord, when there are numerous conver-
sions, a new creation is springing up in visible and multi-
plied instances, so as that holiness comes to be both an
extensive and illustrious thing. When multitudes come
to give reputation to serious religion, when it is no longer
a reproach to be a visible fearer of God, because generally
men are so. When it is looked upon as no fashionable
thing to be a despiser of God and heaven, and to breathe out
contempt of the Divine power, that gave us breath. And,
7. When, hereupon, the divine government obtains and
takes place in the minds and consciences of men, when his
authority is owned with reverential submission. Then God
does bless a people, when his fear spreads far and near;
God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear
him; as in that Ps. Ixvii. the latter end. And again,
8. When there is a manifest power and prevalency of
divine love amongst men, that bear the same name of
Christians, when that peace of God rules in their hearts,
unto which they are all called in one body. When they
observedly keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace, when they have peace one towards another so as
that it may be seen that they are all the sons of peace, the
children of the same Father who has conveyed it into them,
as part of that divine nature which he communicates to the
regenerate seed; when there is a natural propensity to one
another, that they can no more violate and tear that vital
bond of love and peace that is among them than they can
endure to tear their own flesh, or pluck out their own eyes.
When peace among Christians appears to be a connatural
thing, not the product of conveniency and prudential con-
siderations only, but a nature which none can more endure
to counteract than to offer violence to themselves; a thing
which nature admits not, whose laws never allow it to act
against itself. And,

L

Lastly, When, upon all this, God appears to be reconciled unto such a people; for in his favour is life. When all these things do concur, as so many indications of his being at peace with them, i. e. that he has entirely forgiven them all former offences; that their sins and iniquities he remembers no more; and these concur with such things as partly make, and partly argue them, the objects of his delight, that he has written his law in their hearts, he has put his Spirit into them, he has made them a company of God-like creatures like himself, whose very nature is love; they are his living resemblances in that very respect, expressing herein his virtues, who has called them out of darkness into his own glorious and marvellous light. Hereupon such a people may reckon themselves secure of God's own presence, he is in the midst of them, and his glory ceases to hover, becomes with them a fixed thing, settles its station, as not about to discontinne or remove; their land may now be called, The land of Emmanuel, and bears the inscription, God with us. The tabernacle of God is with them, and he is resolved to dwell with them, and be their God, and avow them before all the world for his peculiar people. After the many things that do concur together, in an inferior kind, as the concomitants of a merely external peace, as that their sons grow up as plants, their daughters as so many polished corner-stones, that join together the walls of a palace, that their garners be full, their sheep numerous, their oxen strong, and that there be no complaining in their streets;. after all these things, it is subjoined, Yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord. All the fore-mentioned things alone, will never make a blessing worthy of a people peculiar to God. But when it can be said that the Lord is their God, they are a happy people indeed, Ps. cxliv. 12, 15. Such as these are the things requisite to make peace a complete blessing. But now we are, 2. To show you the requisiteness of the concurrence and concomitancy of such things, to the mentioned purpose; or how it may appear, that such things as these are necessary to complete this blessing, or to make it a truly valuable or a special blessing. In order hereto note,

a Vell. Patercul.

1. That there is such a thing as a special blessing, very distinguishable from such blessings as are merely common. We read of one Jabez, 1 Chron. iv. 9, 10. said to be more honourable than his brethren; and somewhat very remarkable (as we are to reckon, when to the Divine wisdom it was thought fit to be inserted amidst a genealogical discourse) is further said of him, viz. that he called to the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed, &c. and 'tis added, God granted what he requested. It seems, besides what goes under the common notion of blessing, he reckoned there was somewhat more peculiar. which he calls blessing indeed. There is a known Hebraism in that expression, what we read, bless me indeed, is, bless me in blessing me; q. d. let me have a blessing within a blessing; let me have that blessing whereof the other is but a cortex, the outside; let me have that blessing that is wrapt up and enclosed in the external blessing. And because it is said, And God granted his request, we have reason to understand it was somewhat very peculiar that God vouchsafed unto him; and that account which some give us, has a look that way, that God vouchsafed him somewhat more extraordinary in the kind of mental and intellectual endowments: for we are otherwise informed, that this Jabez became a noted doctor among the Jews, and that the city, called after his name, was thereupon afterwards the residence of such as were most learned in their laws, Vatabl. apud Critic. That is to be blessed indeed, to have these things conferred, that do reach the mind and affect the inner man; to be blessed with spiritual blessings from the heavenly places, as in that Eph. i. 3. There is a spiritual sort of blessing, that may be enclosed in the external blessing; and particularly in this of peace, which while it is common to the people of God with other men, is itself not common.

2. I further note, that the things I have mentioned to you, they are of that special kind, they are either immediate spiritual blessings, or subservient to such; whereupon now we may, from several considerations, evince to you, that without them such an external good, as this of peace, is not a complete blessing,

1. It is no argument of God's special favour. The best and most valuable blessings are from the Evdokía Ocλýparos, the good pleasure of his will, Eph. i. 3, 4, 5. Other men may enjoy external benefits, may both prosper in war and flourish in peace, as well and often more than God's own people. You read of a time, wherein the whole earth is said to be at rest and quiet, Isa. xiv. 7. Therefore mere peace is no mark of special divine favour, and so is not, abstractly considered, a complete blessing, not a self-desirable thing.

2. Men are not made by it the better men. They may enjoy peace, and being carnal-minded men before, may still continue so, as great strangers to God as they were, as vain and sensual, as profligate and licentious, as useless in the world, as mischievous, every way as ill men as ever. And,

3. They may, by mere external peace, become so much the worse men. That may be an occasion to them of their growing worse and worse, the prosperity of fools (i. e. of wicked men) slays and destroys them, Prov. i. 32. "Tis an observation that runs through the course of time, that as wars at length beget an enforced peace, so peace infers free trade and commerce, and that plenty, and that pride and wantonness; so these run us back in an easy but unhappy circle, to be as we were, in war again. And if that prove not the present or the speedy consequent, that ensues which is worse than war; unless God vouchsafe that other sort of blessing, which will influence and better men's minds. Vice springs up in the more fattened soil, men's lusts will soon prove more oppressive tyrants than they can have freed themselves from, by the justest and most prosperous war; and will subdue them to a far viler and more ignoble servitude. An ingenious writer of those affairs observes, that the former Scipio opened the way to the Roman power, the latter to their luxury; their virtue languished, and they were conquered by their own vices, who before could conquer the world. That noted moralist says, Infirmi est animi non posse pati divitias, 'is a weak mind that cannot bear a prosperous condition; but where are there minds strong enough to bear it, if they be

b Sen.

not blest from above with somewhat better than that pros- | pray God he may meet with no ungrateful returns, and perity itself?

that none may be so ill minded as to grudge at power so 4. Men may, notwithstanding mere external peace, be lodged as to save us, who were less concerned at its being as miserable in this and in the other world, as if they had lodged where it could only be designed to destroy us. In never known it; and much more, if by it they have been the mean time, it might excite us to the higher pitches of the more wicked. I beseech you consider, are they a thankfulness to Almighty God, for this blessing of the preblessed people, or is that a blessed man, between whom and sent peace, if we did consider-both what it hath cost, and eternal misery there is but a breath? He may but breathe-whereto it is improvable. But the former consideration another breath, and be in the midst of flames; is he happy I shall not insist upon, lest any should make an undue this moment, that may be as miserable as any devil the use of it; and the latter I leave to the following head, next? Those things can only be complete blessings to which we are next to proceed to, viz. any, that are inseparable ones, and that will make them for ever blessed. For me to have but such a blessing as does not make me blessed; what an unblest blessing is this! A philosopher can tell you, blessedness cannot be a thing separable from myself; not a xwpisov ri, Arist. It can much less be such a thing as may leave me miserable to all eternity, least of all what may make me so, by degenerating into a curse, as Malachi ii. 2. Therefore these are demonstrations, that mere external peace, without such additions as you have heard of, can never be a complete blessing, nor such as can be understood vouchsafed to the people of God as their ultimate and consummative felicity. It must in the mean time be acknowledged, that as a people may belong to God externally, more than another people; and may sometime be externally more reformed than at other times, so peace, with other external good things, may thereupon be afforded them, as less expressive marks of God's favour, and approbation of their more regular course: and by the tenor of God's particular covenant with the people of Israel, might more certainly be expected so to be. Yet this is a state wherein it is not reasonable or safe for any finally to acquiesce.

I therefore now come to the promised use, which will correspond to the two general heads I have been discoursing of: First, to let you see-what cause of thanksgiving we have in reference to the former, the blessing of peace abstractly considered, and-Secondly, what sort of supplication we have in reference to the latter, the additions that are requisite to make it a complete blessing.

Secondly, To show what matter of supplication remains to us, upon the latter account. That is, with reference to such things as are yet wanting to make this blessing of peace a complete blessing, and without which it cannot be understood to be such; but we may be left at last a most miserable people, and so much the more miserable, by how much the higher favours we have to account for, that not being improved must have been thrown away upon us. The mercies included in the peace, will be unimproved and lost, without the mentioned additions. Whereof all the several heads that were recited belong to one, viz. that of spiritual blessing. That therefore, in the general, we have to pray for, that God may be said to bless us indeed, to bless us in blessing us; viz. that he would bless us with spiritual blessings, in the heavenlies (i. e. in heavenly things or from the heavenly places) in Christ Jesus, as Eph. i. 3. Let us, I pray you, learn to distinguish between a self-desirable good, that in its own nature is such, so immutably and invariably, that it can never degenerate, or cease to be such; and what is only such by accident, and in some circumstances may be much otherwise. Spiritual good, that of the mind and spirit, and which makes that better, especially that which accompanies salvation, (Heb. vi. 9.) that runs into eternity, and goes with us into the other world, is of the former sort. External good is but res media, capable of being to us sometimes good and sometimes evil as the case may alter. Blessings of this kind may become curses, Mal. ii. 2. I will curse your blessings, yea I have cursed them already. A man's table may become his snare, and that which was for his welfare, a trap, Ps. lxix. 22. Merely external blessings are curses, when they become the fuel of lusts, when they animate men unto contests against Heaven, rebellions against the Divine government; when, like Jeshurun, men wax fat by them, and kick against heaven, Deut. xxxii. This we are always liable to till spiritual blessings intermingle with our other blessings; and nothing should more convince the world, that the kindest and most benign part of the divine government lies in immediate influences on the minds of men; and that consequently their own felicity depends thereon. Let all things that can be imagined concur in the kind of external good, and they can never make him a happy man, that has an ill mind; he will always be his own hell, and carry that about with him wheresoever he goes; he will be a constant spring and fountain of misery to himself, misery and he cannot be separated from one another: There is no peace to the wicked, saith my God; but he will be always a troubled sea, whose waters cast forth mire and dirt, Isa. lvii. 20, 21. The philosophy of pagans would have made them ashamed to place their felicity in any thing without, or foreign to themselves.

1. As to the former. Since peace is so valuable a thing considered apart, as you have heard it is; this points out to us the matter of thanksgiving, for which this day is appointed, that God has preserved our king, amidst so innumerable dangers abroad; that he has brought him home to us in safety; that he has made him the instrument of that peace that we find is at length brought about, wherein he is returned to us a greater conqueror then if he had routed and destroyed never so potent armies of our enemies in the field. We have reason to understand the matter so. By prevailing in war, he had only conquered by force; by prevailing for peace, he has conquered by wisdom and goodness. By prevailing in war, he had only conquered the bodily power of our enemies, or their baser part; by prevailing for peace, he has conquered their minds. By prevailing in war, he had brought about the good only of one side; by prevailing for peace, he has brought about the real benefit of both sides, a far more diffusive blessing. By prevailing in war, he had conquered enemies; by prevailing for peace, he has conquered enmity itself. By prevailing in war, he had overcome other men; but in prevailing for peace, considering his martial spirit, and his high provocations, he has done a far greater thing, he has conquered himself, whom none ever conquered before. But we are Christians, and shall we not much more be Besides what this great blessing of peace, generally consi- ashamed to take other, or even opposite, measures of blessdered, contains in itself, we ought to amplify it to our-edness, to those which are given us by our Divine Master! selves; being brought about by such means, wherein we To be poor in spirit, upon just accounts mourners, meek, have so particular a concern. This ought to add with us a hungry and thirsty after righteousness, merciful, pure in very grateful relish to it, for it is a glory to our nation that heart, peace-makers, to submit to be persecuted for rightGod has set a prince on the English throne that could sig- eousness sake, these are his characters of a blessed man; nify so much to the world; the beams of that glory God and he places that blessedness itself in congenerous things, hath cast on him, reflect and shine upon his people; to be Matt. v. 3, 4, 5, &c. Let us learn from him, and collect made the head among other nations, and not the tail, God that nothing but wickedness can make us miserable. hath in his word taught us not to count it an inconsider- What an overflowing deluge have we in view! tending to able thing. And it is our more peculiar glory that our subvert our religion and our civil state together! nor have king is renowed, not by throwing death and destruction we another effectual remedy in view, but the Spirit of God, every where round about him, but by spreading the bene- if he will vouchsafe to pour it forth. The great enemy of fits included in peace through the neighbouring nations; mankind is come in upon us like a flood, and only the and is returned to us, leaving the rest of Europe only to Spirit of the Lord can lift up a standard against him, Isa. lament that they all live not under his government. I lix. 19. The Spirit of the Lord would be to us as a puri

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