THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM: A SERMON PREACHED at a public Fast, before the honourable Assembly of the Commons House of Parliament, At St. MARGARET'S Church in Westminster. By JOHN HARRIS, Preacher there. Feb. 18. 1628. LONDON, Printed by H. L. and R. Y. for G. Lathum, dwelling in Paul's Churchyard, at the sign of the Bishop's head. THE DESTRUCTION Of SODOM. GEN. 19 24. Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. ABout five hundred years after Christ, when the Romans vast Dominion began to decline, there was great affliction and trouble throughout the world; plagues, and famines, and wars, and earthquakes, and other evils, conspired together to vex all places: so that the people of God, every where, both in the Greek and Latin Churches, fearing their turn might be next to come under the scourge, had forms of holy Prayers, composed by their Prelates, which the Greek Church termed a Basil. ep. 63. Niceph. lib. 14. cap. 3. Litanies, the Latin Rogations, to be spoken often into the ears of the Lord of heaven and earth, to prevent imminent judgements; so godlily wise were the Christians of old time, that those calamities, which they knew, being present, all people would bewail with tears, being absent, they laboured by their prayers to keep away. And if I take not my mark amiss, that's the intention of this meeting: job 19 12. Gods troops of afflictions, as holy job calls them, are abroad in the Christian world, making havoc of men and countries; and we, conscious to ourselves, that our sins deserve to have them come, and to encamp about our tabernacles, are met here together, to make prayers to our God, to keep them away from us: and to set a greater edge upon our devotion, and the more to testify our humiliation to the World, and to Angels; a Fast is proclaimed, which is to be observed by us in a strict manner: all the time is to be spent in confession of sins, in bitter lamentations, in dejection and humiliation for transgressions, in abstinence from meats and drinks, and all other corporal delights, that may cheer the heart, and so hinder it from being truly sorrowful and afflicted, in alms deeds and visiting the sick, in mourning and weeping for angering God, and in crying mightily unto the Lord, jonah 3. 8. to divert judgements approaching. And to help to these exercises of repentance, the Word of God must be preached, the sins of a Nation must be ripped up, God's judgements against sin must be denounced, for nothing doth further more to humiliation and compunction, than a serious consideration, how infinitely iniquity doth anger God, and how severely he hath, and doth, and will punish it. It was the course, which God himself directed the Prophet jeremiah to run, when Israel and judah were upon the point of destruction: jer. 36. 1, 2, 3. This word came unto jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against judah, and against all the Nations, from the day I spoke unto thee, from the days of king josiah, even unto this day: it may be, that the house of judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them, that they may return every man from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. And in that roll of the book, the Rabbins say, was written the book of Lamentations: Six. Sen. lib. 2. Bibl. in which book, jeremiah the Prophet, doth in a most mournful Elegy, lament the miserable condition, which jerusalem, because of sin, was to come unto. I have resolved to follow that tract, to speak unto you of a people, whose damnable impiety brought upon them such a misery, the relation whereof, may make all, that work unrighteousness with greediness, to tremble to hear it, and so to abhor and avoid crying sins, lest they should prove likewise their ruin and confusion. Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. You may please to observe in the Text, these particulars: 1. An act: It reigned. 2. The agent: The Lord reigned from the Lord; Dominus Filius pluit à Domino Patre, Carranz. sum. Concil. The Lord the Son reigned from the Lord the Father: that interpretation is given of the words, at a Council held at jerusalem in the time of Constantius the Emperor. 3. The matter it reigned: Brimstone and fire. The Lord reigned from the Lord brimstone and fire. 4. The place from whence it reigned: Out of Heaven. The Lord reigned from the Lord brimstone and fire out of Heaven: Saluian. lib. 1. degub. Dei. Super impium populum Gehennam misit è Coelo; The Lord from the Lord sent upon a wicked people Hell out of Heaven. 5. The patients upon whom it reigned; upon Sodom and Gomorrah in the Text: Upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, in Deut. 29. 23. Upon Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim and Segor, in lib. 1. St. Aug. de mirab. Script. Upon all the plain, upon all the inhabitants of the Cities, upon that which grew upon the ground, in Gen. 19 25. 6. The time when it reigned; Then: Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. The time administereth occasion to discourse of the Agents longanimity, and of the Patient's iniquity. The act and the materials, give way to treat of God's severity, and of Sodom and Gomorrah's misery. Thus than we will proceed, God's grace assisting. First, speak of God's clemency, and of Sodom and Gomorrah's impiety. Secondly, declare God's fury, and Sodom and Gomorrah's calamity. Thirdly, conclude with an application of such uses, as may be made by the story. First of God's clemency, and of Sodom and Gomorrah's impiety. There is not a greater antipathy betwixt any two natures in the world, than there is betwixt the nature of God and sin: You may sooner reconcile fire and water, heat and cold, light and darkness, than God and Mammon, Christ and Belial, the holy Ghost and Dagon. God hates sin wheresoever he finds it, be it in Heaven or Earth, in Men or Angels, in Elect or Reprobates. Indeed his Mercy, his sweet blessed Mercy, to which mankind hath been ever much bound, never ceaseth soliciting him to treat Adam's children with all the favour he may, and like to an importunate suitor, never giveth over craving of him, until he make her a promise, that he will not execute the fierceness of his anger, Hosea 11. 9 otherwise the world should hear oftener from him than it doth. Howsoever though mercy doth much with God, yet mercy doth not all, justice may be heard: if the suspension of judgement work no remorse in sinners hearts, to take pity upon their own souls, and to please God, justice will procure that God shall render indignation and wrath, Rom. 2. 8, 9 tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doth evil, to the jew first, and also to the Gentile. Misericordia Deo attribuitur secundum effectum, Aquin. p. 1. q. 21 3. 0. non secundum passionis affectum; Mercy is attributed unto God according to the effect, not according to the affect of the passion: it doth never transport him beyond himself, neither causeth it him utterly to stop his ears to his justice, when it pleadeth for indignation. 'tis evident in holy Writ, that Mercy is potent with God, hath a great hand with him; he will hear her mediating for the most notorious malefactors in the world, if he can discern in them any hope of amendment. How long did he protract Sodom's ruin, and what courses did he take to reclaim them? sent Lot to preach to them, stirred up four Kings to make war upon them, gave them victory over them, and when they had taken the people, and were carrying of them into captivity, pressed Abraham out to rescue them, Gen. 14. 15, 16. who divided himself against them, he and his servants by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hoba, which is on the left hand of Damascus, and he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. Yea, when their sins cried out for brimstone, flames & wrath was gone out from God, and he had dispatched his ministering spirits to go down, Gen. 18. 21. and see whether they had done altogether according to the cry of it which came up unto him. He protected unto Abraham, if he could find ten righteous men there, he would not destroy them for ten sake. Gen. 18. 32. God's goodness towards them, doth surpass all oratory to express, all cogitation to think; he would have spared them upon any tolerable terms, they might have made their peace upon any indifferent conditions: God, I say, took no delight in their desolation. At last, when he saw that no preaching, no war, no captivity, no redemption from captivity, could beget any piety among them, Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. Their sins were insufferable; not ordinary, but great, very great transgressions: they did provoke the justice of God from the greatest of them, to the littlest of them, they did even against nature and common reason agree to be wicked, they were not only sinners, drawn to iniquity by the strong incitations of nature, but they were wicked, industriously wicked, willingly wicked; like to the house of jacob, Micah 2. 2. they devised iniquity upon their beds, and when the morning was light, they practised it: They were scelerum principes, & inventores, prime offenders, and inventors of new villainies: they took delight in damned transgressions, their greatest glory was in the greatest iniquity, and they were then most merry, when the God of Abraham was most angry. I read of a people in Picenum, that were called Nequi nates; Wicked ones, à soli iniquitate, saith the Geographer, Bertij tab. Geogra. from the naughtiness of their soil: the men of Sodom are called wicked ones from the iniquity of their manners. Gen. 13. 13. The men of Sodom were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. Pride, a sin, that made of Angels Devils, as Prosper saith; Prosp. lib. 3 de vit. cont. cap. 3. a sin that is forerunner to destruction: as Solomon shows, Humility goeth before honour, and a haughty spirit before a fall. A sin, of which they that are guilty, have God always at their backs to take vengeance of them for it, as Seneca hath it, Sequitur superbos ultor à tergo Deus, was in high esteem among them: excessive they were above measure; a mortal iniquity, Dives epulo, est Parochianus Diabolo: A rich Epicure, is a Parishioner to the Devil. The higher men feed, the more outrageous the blood boiles, and the harder task it is to resist concupiscence. Deut. 32. 15. jesurun waxed fat and kicked; thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. Idleness likewise, a sin capital by the laws of Draco; Ecclus. 33. 27. A sin that teacheth much evil: A sin that choketh virtue, nourisheth pride, frameth a life fit only for hell fire, a sin, the whole university of things cries down, abounded among them: whereas all other creatures were perpetually in action; trees growing, waters flowing, birds flying, oxen ploughing, spheres moving, the men of Sodom, like to standing ponds, like to Sodomes' Salt-pits, stunk for lack of motion. The poor they did contemn; a crying sin: Negatur gutta, qui negavit micam, Aug. A drop of water is denied to Dives to cool his tongue, being in hell in torments, who denied a crumb from off his table to Lazarus, to allay his hunger, Luke 16. living on earth in pleasures; These were sins which the earth itself could no longer endure: harken, and I will show you greater abominations than these. Masculine beastiality; A sin, none but a Devil, come out of Hell in the likeness of a man, dares to commit: a sin, enough to defile the tongue that talks of it; a sin, of which, if a man were sure neither God nor man did know of it, yet the turpitude of it should be motive enough to make a reasonable creature disdain it, was as allowable among them by custom, as any other act, in other Commonwealths, is by law: Nay, Peccabant, & publicabant; They did sin, and not for shame hide it, Aug. lib. 16. c. 30. de civet. Dei. but with ostentation they did publish it, 'tis manifest. God's rehearsing judah's sins, saith, They declare their sins as Sodom did: to do evil, and to rejoice at it, 'tis a desperate iniquity; deplorata nequitia: a lamentable wickedness; Calvin. for men to sin, and to take pastime in it, to anger the powers of Heaven, and to joy in it, to set their souls burning in the flames of sin, as Nero set Rome on fire, and to behold them with affectation, like raging waves of the sea, for men to some out their own shame, good Lord, that ever the children of women should be so transcendently wicked: it was impossible for any but incarnate Devils to excel them in wickedness. Furthermore, there was public liberty of sinning; each man gave his consent for the allowance of villainy, no man accusing, or condemning, or correcting, or deploring the iniquities that were among them: Only Lot persuadeth, I pray you, Brethren, do not so wickedly, Gen. 19 7. and they frump him for it. Gen. 19 9 This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge. There was such a habit of filthiness, that unrighteousness was reputed for righteousness, and the gainsayer of uncleanness, was blamed more than the actor. Their Magistrates, that had regal power, never interposed their authority, to bridle them in their beastly desires: And (my beloved) that is a daring sin, when the Magistrates, that should be to the people like gods to imitate, shall be every jot as wicked as the multitudes: Inferiores sunt superiorum simiae, Herodot. Inferiors they are the apes of superiors; whereby it cometh to pass, that those which are called to high places in the world, either carry many to destruction with themselves, or bring many into the way of salvation with themselves, as Fulgentius saith to Theodorus a Senator of Rome: Fulgent. ep. 6. ad Theod. Sen. Ecclus. 10. 2. As the judge of a people is himself, so are his officers, and what manner of man the Ruler of a City is, such are they that dwell therein. Now that the Rulers of Sodom should be such, as did not only connive, wink at wickedness, but even tolerate, nay approve, yea partake with the people in their abominations; it was ominous, it did portend some dreadful judgement coming upon the whole Nation. when the vices of inferiors are dissembled and winked at by governors, they are reserved for the judgement of God. I had as live see a blazing star burning in the Heavens, as a wicked man in a place of power: an earthquake is not so prodigious as a wicked Ruler. Before God broke down the walls of Babylon, and burned the high gates with fire, jer. 51. 57 he threatened to make drunk her Princes, and her Wisemen, and her Captains, and her Rulers, and her mighty men: An inundation of ungodliness must needs overflow a Land, when those that have the oversight, do superintend, and should bond wickedness, are themselves boundlessly wicked. Religion must of necessity go down the wind, as it did in Sodom, when those that should uphold it, do most profane it; one of the first in authority, and one of the last in Christianity. Ethelbertus King of Kent in the Heptarchy was wont to say, 'twas a sign of a very evil man, singulus quisque homo, etc. Every particular man is a part of the City and Kingdom wherein he was borne, Aug. de civet Dei. lib. 4. cap▪ be it never so ample; as a letter is part of a word, saith Augustine. Some be like to capital or text letters, as great men: some to smaller characters, as men of low degree: some be like to vowels, as men in authority: some to mutes and liquids, as the vulgar sort: all men go to the making of a City or Kingdom, as all letters go to the making up of words. And as in a word, if one letter be amiss, though but a mute, it may danger to mar the word, though not so much as if a vowel be defaced; so in a City or Kingdom, if one man be blotted with sin, say but a mean man, it may bring a destruction to that City or Kingdom, yet not so soon as if a man of higher place be blurred with impiety. Here were sins enough to set patience in a rage, and to transform the God of mercy into wrath, and yet God respited their subversion so long, until their sins came bellowing up into Heaven, and were ready to lay an imputation of partiality upon his justice. Three hundred and forty years, Chronologie saith, passed betwixt the drowning of the world with water, and the burning of Sodom with brimstone and fire, all, or a great part of which time, God was grieved with that generation; and if ever they would have bethought themselves to alter their conditions, had there been but a sprinkling, a gleaning of good people in her, one honest soul for a thousand reprobates, God would have repent him of his purpose: at last, when the Lord looked, nay sent down from Heaven, saw there was no hope, they were altogether corrupt, and become abominable in their doings, there were none that did good, no not Ten, Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord, ut of Heaven. 'tis recorded of julius Caesar, that he never entertained hatred against any man so deeply, but he was willing to lay down the same upon occasion offered; Sueton. vita jul. Caes. and the author doth instance in this, when C. Memnius put-in for the Consulship, he befriended him before others of the Competition, notwithstanding that C. Memnius had made bitter invectives against him. Our God, to whom all the Caesars & Kings of the earth are tributaries and homagers, doth never hate (I take hatred as 'tis an intention of God in punishing) so irreconcilably, but true humiliation will work a reconciliation; that maketh him say, Patientia Dei pios turbat; Gods patience doth even distract good men, maketh them to wonder at him, how he can endure such palpable dishonour, and suspend vengeance: When David saw the prosperity of the wicked, he saith, his feet were almost gone, his steps had well nigh stipt. And when God, because the Ninivites had turned from their evil ways, repent of the evil which he said he would do unto them, and did it not, it displeased jonah exceedingly, jonah 4. 1. and he was very angry. He hath suffered likewise among wicked men for his clemency, the damned Atheist draweth an argument from thence against his omnipotency; saith he cannot, because he doth not banish all evil out of the world. Auerroes the Philosopher, draweth an argument from thence against his providence; thinks he meddleth with nothing below the sphere of the Moon, because of his slowness to anger. Ceacilius in Munitius Faelix, infers a conclusion from thence against his justice: saith that he is either invalidus, Munit. impotent, and not able to redress evils, or else iniquus, unjust, and not willing to rectify them. a Psal. 21, 3●▪ He doth prevent a man with the blessing of goodness. b Lam. 3. 23. He reneweth his kindness every morning. He must be called upon once, twice, thrice, to render vengeance: Lord, how long shall the wicked; Psal. 94. 3, 4. how long shall the wicked triumph; how long shall they utter and speak hard things? I dare say by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox; 'tis a grief to our God, so often as men constrain him, to be cruel. c judge 10. 16. His soul is grieved for the misery of Israel; His d jerem. 31. 20 bowels are troubled for Ephraim's sake. The rainbow is an emblem of God's mercy; 'tis planted in the clouds, if you mark it, as if man were shooting at God, and not as if God were shooting at man. The situation of the Propitiatory, or Mercy-seat, was an argument of his mercy: Exod. 25. 21. God commanded it should be planted over the Ark, in which was the testimony, the book of cursings, that so mercy might be near at hand to pronounce sentence of absolution, when justice is in hand to denounce sentence of condemnation. e Ambr. Epist. lib. 1. ep. 3. Of such infinite compassion was our Lord and Saviour Christ jesus, that he would have pardoned judas, it judas had had grace to have asked forgiveness. Augustine f Aug. lib. 13. cap. 7. de civet. Dei. saith, that some of them were forgiven, that murdered Christ. In the 34. of Exodus, where himself proclaimeth his nature by adjectives, he begins with merciful, Exod. 34. 6. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful, etc. as if mercy had a priority in him. In the 116. Psalm, Verse 5. he doubles the epithet merciful, Merciful is the Lord, and righteous; yea, and our God is merciful: as if he had two quantities of mercy in him for one of justice; as if no act of justice could pass from him, but thorough the gate of mercy. Longanimity is as God's natural child; the holy Deity is in travel with it: even as any thing great with young doth desire to be rid of the burden, so doth God desire to pour forth his mercy: never Nurse, when her breasts were full of milk, was in greater pain for children to suck them, than God is in pain to have children to draw his mercy from him. justice cometh from God, as a sting from a Bee, constrainedly; Mercy floweth from him, as honey from a Bee, most willingly: Mercy is as essential to him, as light is to the sun, or as heat is to the fire; he delights in mercy, as any sense or faculty of our souls do in their actions, the eye in seeing, or the ear in hearing, or the memory in remembering: Patience, and clemency, and mercy, and compassion, and peace, are the fruits of his bowels, the offspring which the divine nature doth produce; fury, and rage, and anger, and affliction, and war, and flaming fire, are forced into him by the provoking exorbitances of the world. God doth all along the Scripture even court sinners to turn from their vicious courses; the omnipotent Creator doth even turn beggar, to beseech his creatures to walk in his ways; not that 'tis any advantage to him, if all the world should worship him with a holy worship: Can a man be profitable to God, as he that is wise is profitable to himself? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous, or is it gain to him, job 22. 2. 3. that thou makest thy ways perfect? saith Eliphaz the Temanite to holy job. Our goodness extendeth not to him; Non eget ipsâ iustitiâ hominis: He hath no need, Aug. lib. 10. cap. 5. de civet. Dei. no not of man's righteousness. Neque fonti se quisquam dixerit profuisse si biberit, neque luci si viderit; A man cannot say he doth the fountain good by drinking of it, or the light by seeing by it, nor that he doth God good by serving of him; all the worship man performs to God, is for man's profit, not Gods: wherefore a man duly pondering of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that long suffering which is in God, that beareth with many millions of misdemeanours mortal men commit, whereby he is infinitely dishonoured, and of that free love that doth provoke him to desire man's love, whereby he is in no respect benefited; if he be not reprobate silver, if he have any relics of Religion left in him, how can it choose but inflame his soul to love the Almighty? Many a great dishonour did God put up before he drowned the old world; 1500. years and odd he patiently waited they should amend their manners, before he began to affright them with any mention of a flood, yea and after he had threatened a deluge, he gave them 120. years' respite to change their courses, afforded them all that time Noah to preach righteousness unto them: After all this, when the 1500. years were ended, and the 120. were exspired, when the Ark was builded, and Noah and his family were aboard in her, yet he prolonged the time seven days before he broke open the fountains of the great deep, Gen. 7. 4. and opened the floodgates of Heaven. And so for the Sodomites, Ipsi extorserunt ut perirent; They themselves wrested from God their own destruction: Saluian. their iniquities, like rebels, make a head, as if they would bid Heaven a battle, and dare God and his Angels to do their worst; and God for many years carried himself patiently: at last when no forbearance could beget repentance, no procrastination of their affliction in him, could procure an alteration of manners in them, Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. Or you may, if you please, let this (Then) in my Text, answer to the (When) in the Verse next before it, When Lot was entered into Zoar, Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. And from thence you may make an observation, how dear in the sight of the Lord a righteous man is: Sodom could not be burnt before Lot was departed; Haste thee, escape to Zoar: for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither, Gen. 19 22. saith the Angel to Lot; the Angel had given him in commission to be as provident in Lot's preservation, as to be diligent in the Sodomites destruction: Haste thee, escape thither: for I cannot do any thing till thou come thither. A speech, the more I meditate upon it, the more I am amazed at it. St. Augustine saith, a certain Platonist, as Simplitianus told him, said those words of St. john's Gospel: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, john 1. 1. and the word was God, the same was in the beginning with God, were fit to be written in letters of gold, Aug. lib. 10. 〈◊〉 civet. Dei. c. and to be set up to be read in the highest places of all Churches; and the reason of this his high commendation of that saying, is, because 'tis such a strong text to confirm Christ's divinity: For, as Ambrose well noteth, Ambr. de fide cont. Arrian. erat, erat, erat, erat: ecce quater erat; & ubi invenit Arrianus quod non erat? the word was, it was, it was, it was: behold, St. john saith four times it was in the beginning, and where doth Arrius find that it was not in the beginning? Verily, this Scripture, Haste thee, escape thither: for I can do nothing till thou be come thither, deserveth to be inscribed upon every man's heart, that God should so tender the welfare of his servant, as to profess plainly, he could not vindicate himself upon his foes, until he had taken order for his safety: I am rapt to read it, & pray you all to take special notice of it; When Lot was entered into Zoar, Then, and not before then, the Lord reigned upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. And to say continually as the Psalmist doth, Blessed is the Lord, Psal. 35. 27. which hath always pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. Wicked men may likewise make to themselves advantage by this observation, and learn to respect the righteous, because they fare the better for it. Varro. Mundus est magna homilli domus; The world is the great house of little man, and faithful men are the buttresses and pillars, to uphold it from ruin and confusion: they stand in the gap betwixt the world and God's wrath, as Moses his chosen did in the breach betwixt the Israelites and God's anger, when they had vexed him at the waters of strife, to turn away his indignation from them, Psal. 106. 23. lest he should destroy them. The Nurse fareth the better oftentimes for the Child's sake, and so do the wicked for the children of God's sake: Abraham could have compounded with God for ten righteous men for Sodomes' sins, and so have saved the place and the inhabitants from destruction. Yea jerusalem, iam iamque peritura, Hieron. even now upon the push of being destroyed, is offered to jeremiah to be spared, if there could but a man be found in it that executed righteousness. jerem. 5. 1. At such a high rate doth God value one righteous man, that his holiness shall balance many a thousands wickedness. Good men are sanguis mundi, the blood of the world: when they die, a man may fear the very world lieth adying. When Eliah the Prophet was taken from the head of his servant Elisha, and carried up into Heaven, Elisha cried out, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, 2. Reg. 2. 12 and the horsemen thereof: As if he should have said, Eliah that good man, that was the only chariot and horsemen to defend Israel, he had such power with God, because of his holy life to hinder him from plaguing of it, is taken from it. If God go out against a place to overthrow it, one just man is a better fort to defend it, than a rock of marble, or a rampire of flint: A good man hath a great deal of interest in God; God will come to a parley with him, and yield to him in any tolerable request: that speech which God used to Moses on the Mount, is proof sufficient to inform wicked men, how gracious a good man is with the great God. Israel had trespassed greatly, turned the glory of the invisible God, into the similitude of an Ox that eateth grass, and by that Idolatry angered jehovah so far, that he hath a thought to confound them; and yet before he will proceed to execution, knowing Moses love to them was such, he would be making intercession, and knowing his own nature to be such, that if Moses mediated, he could not choose but remit, the omnipotent God doth petition frail man not to interpose; Now therefore let me alone, Exod. 32. 10. that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them. And when Moses would not be persuaded from making supplication, but falls upon God for Abraham's sake to take compassion, God offereth Moses composition to let him alone: Let me alone, Exod. 32. 10. that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them, and I will make of thee a great people: When nothing would beat Moses off from being instant and earnest with God for their pardon, the Text saith, Exod. 32. The Lord repent of the evil which he thought to do unto the people: An example that may move a heart composed of hatred against Gods chosen, and turn it into love. Nay, an after generation fareth the better oftentimes for a good man of a former generation; it was above too. years by computation, betwixt the reign of King David and King joram, and yet though the impieties of joram deserved to have his Kingdom rend away from him, The Lord would not destroy judah for David his servant's sake. 2. Reg. 8. 19 Two hundred seventy and six men had their lives▪ Acts 27. saved for St. Paul's sake from shipwreck: God gave him all that sailed with him, Verse 24. as the Angel said. Small reason therefore have dissolute wretches to contemn good people, if they consider it: It was a base unworthy speech of Haman, when he told King Ahashuerosh, Hest. 3. 8. It was not for his profit to suffer the jews; Himself and his kingdom fared the better for such inhabitants. Make much of honest men, my Beloved; make much of honest men: they are medulla mundi, to the world as marrow is to the bones, the strength and stay of it. Thetares would quickly be weeded up, were it not for plucking up the good corn also. So long as there are good men, possibly the world may endure: when once there is a general dearth of good men, adieu this present world for evermore. No marvel Laban was so loath to part with jacob, and would come to a new composition with him, rather than he should quit his service; he had learned by experience, Gen. 30. 27. that the Lord had blessed him for Jacob's sake. David cries out in the 12. Psalm, Help Lord: Psal. 12. 1. And why? what is the matter with David? O the godly man ceaseth, the faithful fail from among the children of men: And is that such a matter to be transported at? Yes, it is a fatal sign, Esay 1. 9 when there is a decrease of good men; Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a seed, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. The Dragon that is wroth with the woman, Apoc. 12. 17 maketh war with the remnant of her seed; that is, the Devil who is wroth with the Church, in all ages hath plotted the ruins of those which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of jesus Christ, and infused a strong conceit in the hearts of all his subjects, that they were the causes of all calamities. If Tiber overflowed her banks, if Nilus did not water the fields, if the heavens were brass, or the earth quaked, if there were a plague or famine in the Commonwealth of Rome, Tert. Apol. the people cried, To the Lion with a Christian; as if their being had been the cause of all miseries. St. Augustine saith it grew to a Proverb in Rome, Aug. de civet. Dei. lib. 2. cap. 3. Plwia defecit, Christiani nominis gratiâ, Raine hath failed, because the name Christian is tolerated. Alas, blind Heathen, were it not for Christianity, there would soon be an end of Infidelity: God blesseth the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake, not joseph for the Egyptians sake. God blessed Sodom for Lot's sake, not Lot for Sodomes' sake, 'tis evident here in this Text: for while Lot remained within her walls, it went well with her; when Lot was gone out of her, Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. The same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it reigned fire and brimstone from Heaven, and destroyed them all: he that reigned it bears record of it, Luke 17. 29. And we know that his record is true. Secondly, of God's fury, and of Sodom and Gomorrahs' misery. God is no way so long suffering in bearing, that he is not as just in punishing; If a man will not turn, he will whet his sword. God spun out the thread of his love to an immeasurable length, to try whether the men of Sodom would lay hold of it; he did angle for them, sat in heaven, let down the line of his love, and baited it with his mercy, to prove whether the men of Sodom would swallow it, that he might catch their souls. 'twas long before he was provoked, he did smother indignation many years, before it kindled and came to be devouring flame; and when all would not prevail, Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. Here, my Beloved, I will give you another observation: As God is infinite in suffering, urged, thoroughly urged, before he will break out into fury, so he is violent and fierce in the execution of his judgement, when he is resolved upon it: The longer the archer draws before he loses, the sorer shot he maketh; the longer God is before he poureth forth his vengeance, the more 'twill scorch. I need not search other Chronicles for examples to verify this collection, Sodom and Gomorrah ratify the truth of it. Strabo saith, nature wrought this act, Strabo. Geog. lib. 16. and that the fire issued out of the earth which consumed these cities; but Strabo understood not the Scriptures, nor the power of God; he is but a profane author, and we are not to credit his report: We have Moses and the Prophets, and we must hear them; and they say The Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of Heaven. Fearful rain. a Tert. de Pallio. Tertullian saith, that the City called b Vid. Plin. lib. 2. cap. 52. Vulsinium in Italy, was destroyed with fire from heaven. Histories say, that in the year of our Lord 717. when the Arabians and Saracens lay at the siege of Constantinople, Basil. Menol. Bedae. fiery hail fell from heaven and burnt their Navy. In Exodus 9 24. It reigned hail, Exod. 9 24. and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt, since it became a Nation. Here it reigned brimstone, and fire mingled with the brimstone, very grievous, such as there was none in all the world, since it was a world. From whence came it? from the Lord out of heaven. Indeed the Philosophers say there is an element of fire above; Arist. lib. 4. de coel. c. 5. and though the elementary fire be of its own nature uncapable to move downward, unless it be forced, as also uncapable of voracity, unless a consuming faculty be supernaturally added to it, yet we know God can, and it may be at this time did endue that simple fire with those qualities, to make the miracle the greater. jobs cattle and his servants were burnt with fire from Heaven, job 1. 16. the fire of God. So likewise fire came down from heaven at Eliah's call, and burned the two Captains and their fifties. 2. Reg. 1. But there are no veins of brimstone aloft; what though? it may be, God borrowed brimstone of the earth; it may be he did command the Sun to exhale up some to intermingle with his potion, which he administered to diseased Sodom; it may be he turned air into brimstone, john 2. as he did water into wine. Whatsoever fire it was, simple or compound, and wheresoever he had the brimstone, it matters not much to dispute, sure I am it was the Lords doing, rain it he did, and though it be marvelous in our eyes, because supernatural, the Heavens not using to pour down brimstone drops, yet to him it was no more difficult to say to the brimstone, Burn thou Sodom, job 37. 6. than to say to the snow, Be thou upon the earth. Alas, what became of the inhabitants? What became of them? naught became of them; they were all every mother's child fried in brimstone flames: a terrible judgement; take it into your consideration, and wonder at it. The same morning the sun did arise in his wont manner, decked all the plain of jordan with his glorious rays, and before it was climbed up to the meridian, tota rogus, regio est; Sodom is all in a flame, Tert. Sodom●. her citizens be all in a fire, her soil is poisoned with sulphur, her vines and olive trees be blasted with filthy fume, the earth yawned and denounced the ruins of the buildings, that were not of combustible matter, together with the ashes of the inhabitants: those that whilere did boil in lust, do now boil with fire, God meeteth their strange lust with strange fire, quencheth the heat of their concupiscence with the heat of brimstone, fills their swallows, that were accustomed to be filled with savoury meats, with stifling smoke, consumeth all, their bodies, their goods, their cattle, yea their whole territory with a shower of fire from heaven. Infamem vitam famosa poena consumit, Aug. lib. 1. de mirab. Script. A famous punishment finisheth an infamous life. Some were smitten with blindness, and rather run into, than from the scorching flames: Others no sooner cry Fire, fire, but their tongues burn with fire to stop their clamour: A third scuds out of the City, and a sheet of fire, like to a swift Herald, maketh after him, arrests him, and executeth the will of God upon him: Some leap into the water, hoping thereby to be rescued from the fire, because of the natural contrariety that is betwixt those two elements; and, as in the Egyptian plagues, I shall now tell you a wonder, fire and water were made friends together for that day: the fire had power in the water, Wisd. 19 20. forgetting his own virtue, and the water forgot her own quenching nature. In one street the hot tiles spring from off the flaming roofs, braining those that passed under; in another lane the scalding lead drops down out of the gutters, and lights upon the hairy scalph of such as had gone on in their wickedness: Here is a hideous noise heard with the donwfalls of houses, there is a piteous cry to be heard, made by people sorely tormented in that flame. The heaven's thunder fearfully, the lightning flasheth dismally, the brimstone burns inquenchably, the people shriek universally, the cattle bellow miserably, God is angry terribly, because they had sinned abominably. The flakes of fire, judges 15. like Sampsons' foxes with firebrands at their tails in the fields of Philistia, scour through the fields of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the adjacent Cities, and burn up the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. For all this God's anger is not turned away, Esay 5. 25. but his hand is stretched out still. As Christ cursed the figtree, and said, Matth. 21. 19 Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever, so God cursed the land of Sodom, and said, Let never inhabitant dwell in thee more henceforward for ever; the children were burnt with their parents, that not a remnant of the blood of Sodomites might remain. josephus writes, that all that huge Army which Pharaoh led forth against the Israelites, consisting of 50000. horsemen, and 200000. footmen, was so utterly defeated, that there was not one left alive to carry home news of the overthrow: and the Psalmist justifieth it, The waters covered their enemies, there was not one of them left. A fearful destruction, Psal. 106. 11. that not one should be able to come off, of such a multitude, yet 'twas not like this of Sodomes'; though they lost many of their people, yet there were more Egyptians left behind, Proletarij, to increase and multiply; here was an utter extirpation, an everlasting extinction of the whole race of Sodomites: The nurse burnt with the child at her breast, the mother melted with her babe in her belly, the father fried with his posterity in his loins, young men were dissolved to ashes, young maidens were consumed to cinders; and not one only of a sort, but all of every sort, all that gave suck, all that were great with child, all that had been, that were, or might be fit for procreation, of both sexes, male and female, of all ages, young and old, Amb. lib. 2 de vocat. gen●. c. 4. died in that dreadful fire; Quos una impietas prophanavit, una sententia delevit. So saith St. Ambrose of those that perished by the flood, and so say I of those that perished by this fire: For all this God's anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. God hath cursed the very climate, made it inhabitable, hath so altered the condition of the ground, that foreigners if they would adventure to plant colonies there, cannot by any industry manure it so that it shall bear fruit. It hath Babylon's curse; It shall be no more inhabited for ever, jer. 50. 39 40. neither shall it be dwelled in from generation to generation; no man shall abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein: Once it was the choicest seat under the sun, the very Paradise of the world, holding resemblance with the garden of the Lord; corn, Gen. 13. 10. and wine, and oil, did increase there so abundantly; it was so fertile a soil, that people believed it to be Gods peculiar habitation. Martin Luther saith, that cruel rain hath made it so barren, that the ground hath lost her foison, it cannot be tilled, the plowers cannot tear it up into furrows, to harrow-in any kind of grain. God cursed the earth because Adam transgressed, Gen. 3. 18. yet not so, but that it should bring forth thorns and thistles: I cannot read that either thorn or thistle will grow on Sodomes' soil; 'tis only a breeding place of nettles and salt-pits. God said, Zeph. 2▪ 9 he would lay Babylon in that desolate taking; that none but doleful creatures should possess it; as Owls, Dragons, Satyrs: I cannot hear that either Owl, or Dragon, or satire will dwell where Sodom was; though the wilderness of Arabia border upon it, and could spare plenty of such creatures to people it, if they did not disdain to make their nests in it. jerusalem for crucifying the Lord of glory, was razed in that fashion by Titus the Emperor, that those which came afterward to see, could hardly be persuaded to believe that there ever had been such a City as jerusalem, Yet Zion is become a ploughed field. Troy, jer. 26. 18. for the perjury of Laomedon, and for the adultery of Paris, was burnt to dust and ashes; one Fimbria the day after, to be sure Troy should not want desolation, went over all the ruins, prying and searching where any thing was standing, to raze that down also, yet iam▪ seges est ubi Troiae fuit, Ouid. epist. now grass doth grow▪ where the City of Troy was. The Land of Sodom is like salt that hath lost his savour, good for nothing; neither will a fowl fly in her air, nor a fruit ripen in her valleys, nor a fish spawn in her river: A pool of water there is, rightly called mare mortuum, the dead sea; because Nequit proferre aliquam de gurgite gentem squamigeram. Tert. Sodoma. It cannot bring forth out of the deep gulf any of the scaly people. divers Authors give this sea diverse names; some call it mare maledictum, the cursed sea: some mare solitudinis, the desert sea: some mare Diaboli, the Devil's sea. Philo the jew saith it smokes still; and therefore some say 'tis caminus gehennae, the very chimney of hell. Yet here is not all: For all this God's anger is not turned away form them, but his hand is stretched out still. All this is but the beginning of their sorrows, there is a worse doom behind for these sensual men: What's that? fire and brimstone again. What brimstone? that stream of brimstone the Prophet speaketh of, Esay 30. 33. that everlasting fire, Matth. 25. 41. such as is prepared for the devil and his angels. What, fire and brimstone here, and fire and brimstone hereafter, fire and brimstone in infinitum, doth it stand with divine justice? I confess, calamities poured down upon good people, are the earnest of an everlasting inheritance; good people, Psal. 126. 5. if they sow in tears, shall reap in joy; but the judgements which the wrath of God raines down in this life upon the wicked, such as the Sodomites were, are but the preambles to future woes; but entrances into, not exemptions from ensuing miseries: Great plagues remain for the ungodly. 'tis said, Psal. 32. 10. that the heavy night which was spread over the Egyptians, was but an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: And I may say, Wisd. 17. 21. the fire and brimstone which fell upon the Sodomites in this life, was but a figure of that fire and brimstone which shall feed upon them in the life to come. God, by the holy Prophet Nahum, Nahum 1. 9 threatens his enemies to bring upon them so much tribulation, that affliction should not rise up the second time: There should be no need of a new plague, he would pay them home at once. From whence Pelagius concludes, God will not punish sinners twice. Ah Pelagius, if they be such sinners as the Apostle St. Paul speaketh of, that do not like to retain God in their knowledge, Rom. 1. 28. as the Sodomites were, 'tis not the utter ruinating of their dwelling places, and the rooting out of them and their posterity from the earth, will acquit them and satisfy God's justice; a worse doom is behind, infinite extremity, devouring fire, everlasting burnings; the Sodomites suffer the vengeance of eternal fire: and the reason is, Epist. jud. ver. 7 wicked men, if it were in their power, would live without end, that they might sin without end; and therefore 'tis agreeable to God's justice, that their souls should never want woe in the next world, that by their good will would never want wickedness in this. Let no man flatter himself in his own heart, because 'tis said, Psal. 103. 9 God will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever. Let no man reason, Man sinned but a time, and God will punish him but for a time; rather let him know, he that sins against an infinite Majesty, must expect to endure infinite misery, if it be not prevented by infinite mercy: He that neglects ineffable goodness, must look to be exposed to ineffable fadnesse. Man by sin destroyed that good, which if he had kept, would have made him eternally blessed; and loved that evil, which not repent of, will make him eternally cursed, if it be imputed to him, and not satisfied for by the blood of Christ. God doth not measure sin temporis longitudine, by the quantity of time in which it is committed, nor proportion the punishment after that rate; then a beastly Sodomite should have but a few minute's torment: he doth judge of sin as Augustine saith, Aug. lib. 21. c. 11 de civet. Dei. iniquitatis magnitudine, by the greatness of the iniquity, and correspondent to that allots the plague. Then are the Sodomites utterly unhappy; first, to be turned to destruction; and then to be turned into hell: Who can help it? the Holy One of Israel is not to be slighted, is not to be neglected. My heart danceth for joy to muse upon the depth of his mercy, yet had we best to be advised that we abuse it not by presumption; he is not a God of wood, nor of stone, insensible of dishonour, or careless of par●ipension; if he be long provoked, he will at last awake like a giant out of sleep, and tear those in his wrath, that fear not the Lord and his strength: A wretched people they were, the Sodomites were, to live so as to deserve to have their country and their kindred ruined so irreparably; yet more wretched, to live so as to deserve to have their bodies and souls damned eternally. 'tis lamentable to think of their judgement past, 'tis more lamentable to think of their judgement to come: though their bodies are consumed unto dust, as small as that which the whirlwind scatters, yet God will collect together all parts of every one of them (for 'tis as easy to him to raise a dead man out of his grave, as 'tis for one of us to raise a living man out of his bed) and when he hath so done, he will touch their flesh with such a touch of immortality, that they shall fry in flames, be sensible of the pain, and yet not be consumed with the fire, as they were when they were Citizens of Sodom, before that their mortal had put on immortality; and as the moth is to the garment, and the worm is to the wood, so sorrow shall eat their hearts: poena sensus, & poena d●mni, the consideration of that which they shall suffer, intermixed with the consideration of what they are bereft of, will crucify their souls with unspeakable woe. But, saith one to me, omit the eternal judgement, and press the temporal: for carnal men will quake more to hear of the loss of their bodies and estates, than of their souls. I can make no farther illustration of it than this: There were sundry goodly Cities, of which Sodom was the Metropolis, fairly situated in a champain in the plain of jordan, plentifully peopled with men, women, and children, delicately provided for, of corn, and wine, and oil, and all other necessaries that might any way conduce to earthly content, as it might be this morning, and on the same day before noon, the soil was cursed with barrenness, the beasts suffered for their master's transgressions, the people perished every one, that there might be an end of the race of Sodomites; The Lord from the Lord, God the Son from God the Father being the agent of this astonishing act, fire and brimstone being his instruments, crying sins the incitements, and the reason Saint Peter giveth, God turned the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, 2. Pet. 2. 6. condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those which after should live ungodly: and that Scripture brings me to my Application. I need not search into the manners of other Nations, nor lay my seen abroad to make application of my discourse, it holds at home in many things, and in some things better than I would it did; we can vie blessings with Sodom, heavenly and earthly blessings with Gomorrah, the blessing of peace, the blessing of plenty, the blessing of God's Word that inestimable blessing, and we may tell sins with them too, and I fear overtell them: If I had a Catalogue of the number of Sodomes' sins, and a relation of their will and greediness to commit them, and were tasked to compare ours with theirs, I believe for quantity and manner, we are near even with them: Indeed, Peccatum nefandum, that sin not fit to be named, the high hand of God hath kept out of our Country, and ever may it remain a stranger, otherwise I cannot set my thoughts to work, to muse of any sin that I do not find acted in abominable manner: Adultery is in the height, hardly more ordinary in any land; do not men lay wait at their neighbour's doors? job 31. 9 and do not women sit blowzing in their windows, looking for their paramours, judge 5. 28. as the mother of Sisera did for her son? Pride never road in that state in the streets of Sodom when it went abroad, nor was bedecked in that gorgeous fashion when it stayed at home. Idleness like to a pernicious tetter hath overrun the land; there are among us and abundance of such people as those Thessalonians were which the Apostle increpates, that walk inordinately, working not at all: Of men many, 2. Thes. 3. 11. of women not a few, besides those sunburnt vagabonds that lie basking under hedges, and yawling in high ways, trusting charity with their lives, rather than labour; which oftentimes failing them, of beggars they become felons, and so end their days oftentimes cursedly upon a tree; the just judgement of God upon them for their inordinate walking. How many men borne of gentle blood, and bred up at the feet of Gamaliel in the schools of the Prophets and Seminaries of learning, of pregnant capacities, and able bodies, live out of all honest vocations, sacrifice all their time either to Morpheus the minister of sleep, or to Bacchus the god of wine, or to Venus the goddess of beauty, as if neither the true God, nor the Commonwealth deserved any time to be spent in their service, all were due to the bed, the tavern, and the brothel-house? Edebant & bibebant, Luke 17. 28. The men of Sodom did eat and drink, saith our Saviour; Ecce peccatum voluptatis, Behold the sin of voluptuousness: Take notice of the garbs of men of present times, and trust me not if you do not see Sodom equalled, if not outstripped in gluttony: Could the Manes of any man appear, that ever dwelled within the confines of that Country, at one of our feasts, the ghost would say our feasts do far exceed. If ever Nation was to be condemned for superfluity in fare, I do bewail this Land, in which I was borne, and this City in which now I breathe; good Lord, that thou shouldest give us plenty, and we should spend it so profusely. Emebant & vendebant, Luke 17. 28. The men of Sodom did buy and sell, Ecce peccatum cupiditatis, Behold the sin of covetousness: And had covetousness a habitation in Sodom? and was filthy avarice a cause of her desolation? then Lord be merciful unto our Land, that hath many a member in it, who out of a covetous desire, have made a marriage with silver, and given a bill of divorce to jesus Christ! The Clergy in the Church, as in Prospers generation, Prosp. lib. 1. c. 21 de vita con. Non ut meliores, sed ut ditiores, neo ut sanctiores, sed ut honor atiores sint caeteris festinant, Make haste not to be better, but to be richer, not to be more holy, but to be more honourable than other men; forgetting that of St. Paul to Timothy, 2. Tim. 2. 4. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. The Gentry in the country, as in Augustine's days, Aug. de ciu. Dei lib. 3. cap. 1. magis stama●hantur si villam malam habeant, quam si vitam, are far more offended at the badness of their Lordships, than at the badness of their lives; never remembering that of Solomon, Riches profit not in the day of wrath, Prou. 11. 4. but righteousness delivereth from death. The Gallants in the Court, as in jugurtha King of Numidia's days, are so prodigal, that they will not keep goods themselves, and so covetous, that they will not suffer others to keep theirs; making no use of the Apostles precept, Rom. 13. 8. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another. The Advocates and Pleaders at the bar, as in Pope Eugenius his days, greedy of filthy lucre, Bern. lib. 1. de consid. look their Honorarium should be of such a value, that a man had better take our Saviour Christ's counsel literally understood, Matth. 5. 40. If any sue him at the law and take away his coat, let him have his cloak also, than contend for his coat again; never remembering that speech of our Saviour to the Publicans, Luke 3. 13. Exact no more than that which is appointed you. Aedificabant, & plantabant, They planted, Luke 17. 28. they builded; Ecce peccatum securitatis, Behold the sin of security: And did security make her nest within that for ever cursed country? Examine all that ever breathed out of English air, and let them speak the truth from their hearts, and verily they must certify, none that ever were sprinkled with the water of Baptism, nuzzle themselves more in security than we. Stratonicus told the Rhodes, they builded as if they would live ever, and eat as if they would dye presently: For Gluttons; those Epicures that desired of the gods necks so long as Cranes, that the delicious relish of meats and drinks might remain long, were not more to be blamed than some among us: And for builders, Gen. 10. 10. Nimrod that was a prime agent in Babel's building, was not more ambitious of eternising his name than we; non Absalon, 2. Sam. 18. 18. that built a tower in the valley of Sauch to keep his name in remembrance, calling it Absalon's plane. Nay, we are not clear of that sin of Sodom, which cried to Heaven for brimstone, with that which cried loudest, of rejoicing in doing evil. A sin not greater than can be forgiven; for what sin can be so deadly, that the death of Christ will not salve? but I dare say 'tis a sin that must have an infinite measure of mercy, and an abundant measure of tears to wash it away; and yet 'tis among us an usual sin, and very usual sin: Mark it when you please, when two humours meet that love sin alike, you shall hear the one vaunting to the other of his wickedness, and then laugh himself at his own beastliness, cheer up his heart at the repetition of his own ungodliness. O Lord, look down from heaven, behold and visit the world, and restrain the sons of men from this most grievous iniquity. Ephraim and Manasses are in our land, fullness of bread and forgetfulness of God. Gog and Magog are in our mother City, pride and plenty. Blood maketh a clamour at the gates of heaven for vengeance, oppression presseth him to pour down the vials of his wrath, blasphemy and swearing challenge him for his long suffering; Usury, a sin that maketh a man worse than a thief, worse than death, worse than hell, worse than judas: worse than a thief, because the thief robbeth only in the night, the Usurer robs both day and night: worse than death, because death kills only the body, the Usurer kills both body and soul: worse than hell, because in hell only the bad shall be punished, the Usurer punisheth both good and bad: lastly, worse than judas; for judas restored the money again which he had unjustly taken, but the Usurer seldom makes restitution, is had in more execration among Turks than Christians: for Viri boni Deum timete, & foenerari praetermittite; qui enim Vsurarij vivunt, Daemoniaci resurgunt: Ye that be good men, fear God, and put no money to usury; for they that live Usurers, do rise Devils, are the words in their Alcoran. The times are grown monstrous; there is discord in societies, fraud in merchants, corruption in officers, connivency in magistrates, simony in ministers; every night brings forth a thief, every day a deceiver, every minute a drunkard, and every week a murderer: we are fallen into such times the Prophet speaks of, Our hands are defiled with blood, Esay 59 3. and our fingers with iniquity, our lips do speak lies, and our tongues matter perverseness. There was never that vice reigned, but now 'tis rife, yea I think I may say it, and not belie the world; there be many new vices reign now, which Sodom and Gomorrah never heard of: there be new devices to cousin with, new fashions to be proud with, new oaths to blaspheme with, new merits to justify by, new Articles of Faith to believe, new Sacraments to receive, new gods found out to worship, and new Mediators to intercede: Fall to your prayers, and beg fervently of God to send that new heaven and new earth, of which St. Peter speaketh, wherein dwelleth righteousness: 2. Pet. 3. 13. for this whole world lieth in wickedness, 1. john. 5. 19 as St. john saith: And for my part, I despair of it, doubt 'twill never be better before it be purged with fire. Nulla aetas erat culpae immunis, Ambr. de Abra. patr. cap. 6. No age was free from wickedness in Sodom: the infants, whom nature yet denied strength to perpetrate actual iniquity, had desire; and the old men that were decayed in strength, had eyes full of adultery, Omnes omni malo replerentur, They were all filled with every evil. Gen. 19 ●. The men of Sodom compassed Lot's house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, not ten righteous persons could be found among many thousand souls. I cannot say so of this Nation: for I do resolve myself, I may confidently speak as the Lord did to Saint Paul in a vision by night concerning Corinth: Acts 18. 10. God hath much people in this City, more in this Land, and daily may he add to the number of them: And as he did to Ezechiel the Prophet in a vision concerning jerusalem, There are some that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst of us, and daily may he add to the number of those likewise: But withal, when I make an estimate of the multitude of people that are contained within our borders, and observe so many marching furiously after their own lusts, for so few following of jesus Christ, I am afraid of some vengeance approaching, because I do not know what the will of the Lord is, whether he will spare the place for their sakes. I do lay as much upon God's mercy as I may without wronging his justice, he will not be moved to pour forth his vengeance, unless sinners superabound in vices, nevertheless when and where you find all iniquity planted, all rebellion against God reigning, all the crying sins rousting, you may take liberty to proclaim what you fear, salvation stepped aside, and destruction winged ready to seize upon that people for a prey. Eduardus the Confessor, one of the last of the Saxon Kings, said upon his death bed, that the wickedness of the English was complete and grown to the height, holinsh. Chro. and the revenge and punishment thereof would shortly follow. Loath I am to presage unluckily of any grievous calamity likely to betide my native Country, I had rather promise the lengthening of tranquillity, were it not that yourselves and your sins would cry out upon me for flattery, if I should. I wish with all my soul, that peace a Psal. 122. 7. may be within your walls, and plenteousness within your palaces. Long may you b job 29. 6. wash your steps with butter, and may the rocks pour you outrivers of oil. Long may your c Psal. 126. 2. mouths be filled with laughter, and your tongues with joy. God bless your d Psal. 132. 15. victuals with increase, and satisfy your poor with bread. Send that e Psal. 144. 12, 13, 14. your sons may grow up as the young plants, and that your daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple: That your garners may be full, and abounding in all manner of store, and that your sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in your streets; that your oxen may be strong to labour, that there may be no invasion, no leading into captivity, no complaining in your streets: That you may dwell without fear, g Reg. 4. 25. every man under his vine, and every man under his figtree, having peace round about you, as judah and Israel had. God h Psal. 132. 17, 18. make the horn of our David to bud, cloth his enemies with shame, but on him let his Crown flourish; make his seed to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of Heaven: All the good that ever was conferred of all Nations, I wish heaped upon you. They were wont to say of Pericles, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suadela, the goddess of eloquence sat upon his lips, he did by his Rhetoric so win the hearts of the Athenians to him. From the bottom of my heart I wish our words were made so powerful, as to woo all that hear us to convert from their sins, and to turn unto the Lord, that so we might never need to foretell of anger and wrath ready to descend from heaven: but the intolerable head sin hath got, kindleth in me a strong jealousy, that either the end of all things is at hand, to make a clean riddance of the wicked and their wickedness, or else that some bitter judgement is near; it is near, and hasteth greatly to scourge us for our iniquities. I have no skill in divination, yet let not my words seem to you, as the report the women made of Christ's resurrection seemed to the Apostles, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as an idle tale, Luke 24. 11. do not slight them altogether, as Lot's sons in-law did Lot's counsel: when he told them God would destroy that City, he seemed to his son's in-law as though he had mocked. Gen. 19 14. I do not speak them out of any sudden flash of undigested zeal, I have made collection upon collection, and observation upon observation, and been at war within myself in my meditations, how to deliver my mind discreetly and christianly, to avoid the imputation of an Enthusiasticke, and I find the times so out of measure sinful, vices of all sorts, bloody, beastly vices, so foully committed, and so little punished, virtue so sincerely preached and so little practised, that I do look either for a sudden amendment of all hands, (which I will be plain with you I misdoubt: For can the Morian change his skin, jer. 13. 23. or the Leopard his spots? no more can they do well, that are accustomed to do evil.) or else for some punishment suddenly; and if it come not, 'tis God's extraordinary mercy, because his compassions fail not. We may say in our prosperity we shall never be removed, God of his goodness hath made our hill so strong; our poor shall be satisfied with bread, and our children within us, our mowers shall continue filling of their hands, and they that gather up the sheaves their bosoms: Yet hear me, Ecclus. 33. 18. hear me, ye great men of the people, and hearken with your ear, ye that be rulers of the congregation: Husband your provisions never so frugally, replenish your storehouses never so aboundanly, barter with foreign Nations for wine to store your cellars, send into your own valleys for wheat to fill your granaries, and be not careful of the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, to prune off her rotten branches, if you do not labour that the Lord of heaven and earth may have a plentiful harvest, if you do not set justice as a weeding hook to the roots of vices, to crop them maturely, so sure as a Ier▪ 46. 18. Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel is by the sea, Thistles shall b job 31. 40. grow in stead of wheat, and cockles in stead of barley: Your c Psal. 107. 34. fruitful land shall be made barren, because of the wickedness of those that dwell therein. Again, Hear me, hear me, ye great men of the people, and hearken with your ears ye that be rulers of the congregation: Give order to cleanse your open streets from all annoyances that may breed an infection, and to purge your private houses from all scum and filth that may prove contagious; yet if you do not exercise your authority, to sweep away sin out of your countries, and cities, and villages, and private families, take heed a pestilence, morbus incognitus medicis, a disease the physicians know not what to make of, such a one as killed in Israel 70000. people in three days, 2. Sam. 24. 15. do not creep into your particular houses, to kill your wives out of your bosoms, and your children in your cradles, and make your merchant men to drop down dead in your streets, as they are trotting to the Exchanges: dung in your streets will not breed a plague so soon, as drunkenness in your houses, nor will the ill-favoured serpent poison a place so soon, as the well-favoured harlot. Finally, Hear me, hear me, ye great men of the people, and hearken with your ears ye that be rulers of the congregation: Give in charge to your Captains of hundreds, and Captains of fifties, to muster your fight men year after year, and to exercise them in the feats of arms; provide such horses as job speaks of, that will mock at fear, job 39 23. not turn back at the rattling of spears, or glittering of swords: Rig up your shipping, and set out a Navy to sea, advice one with another to make fortifications and impregnable bulwarks impossible to be scaled, for the safeguard of your Country, use all the art, and cost, and counsel your Nation can yield to entrench yourselves from foreign foes, and do not take a course to quell the power of sin, and take heed God do not bring upon you an Army of men bitter and hasty, as those Chaldeans the Prophet Habacuc talks of, Habac. 1. 6. fallen, as those Arabians whom Esdras calls the Nation of Dragons, fierce, as those Carnanians the same man saith rage in wrath like the wild Boar of the wood, 2. Esdr. 15. 2●. 30. having garments rolld in blood, that shall waste your Cities with misery, Overturn, overturn, overturn them, ravish your wives, Ezech. 21. 27. deflower your daughters, take no pity of the fruit of your loins, but even blood their swords in the bellies of women great with child, that shall burn down your Churches, and when the Ministers of the Gospel beg for their lives, shall answer them as Titus the Emperor did the Priests of the jews, when they petitioned him for their lives, Decet Sacerdotes cum templis int●rire, It is meet the Priests perish together with the Temples; that shall drive you of the Laity in whole droves away captive, forbidding you upon pain of death to look back upon the places where you dwelled, as the Romans forbade the conquered jews to look back upon jerusalem; Euseb. Eccl. hist. lib. 4. cap. 6. and if they spare any at home, make them to pay an annual tribute for their heads, as the Italians do the jews at this day; and employ their children to murder them that begat them, and to the rooting out of that faith wherein they were borne and baptised, as the Turk doth his janissaries, the children of the Grecians. An unrighteous man will not consider this, neither will a fool understand it; Psal. 92. 6. like as the Lord upon whose hand the King of Israel leaned, answered the man of God when he foretell him of plenty: Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, 2. Reg. 7. 2. might this thing be? so some one incredulous spirit or other may object, If the Lord should cast us altogether out of his protection, might this thing be? Are we not walled about with seas? Have we not ammunition and weapons of war? Have we not men of magnanimous resolutions? and may we fear foreign invasion? My beloved, Lament. 4. 2. the Kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed, that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of jerusalem: and yet jerusalem is a heap of stones. Micah 3. 12. Let me say unto thee, O thou Merchant City, that art a mart for Nations, as the voice did to Phocas the Emperor, Though thou build the walls of thy palaces as high as heaven, yet if sin dwell in them, they may easily be entered by an enemy. And give me leave to say unto thee, O thou careless Nation, as Nahum the Prophet doth to Niniveh, to that great City Niniveh, Nahum 3. 8, 9, 10. Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her walls were from the sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite: Put and Lubin were her helpers, yet was she carried away, she went into captivity, her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets, and they cast lots for their honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. Tremble therefore, thou secure Nation, and amend thy manners, lest God to raze thee, and to lay thine honour in the dust, do call for Lucifer the son of the morning, do hiss for the Bee of Ashur, do call for a ravenous bird out of the East, do plant the Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; give them that charge he gave those whom he pressed to destroy Babylon, Put yourselves in array against (Brittany) round about, all ye that bend the bow shoot at her, jer. 50. 14, 15. spare no arrows; for she hath sinned against the Lord: Take vengeance upon her, as she hath done, do unto her: And upon that set all your inhabitants in such a hurry and an uproar, as the Citizens of Rome were in, when Martius Coriolanus approached near it with an Army; Livius. make the murmuring multitude to flock about the streets, and you that are Magistrates, to be at your wit's end, to send post after post, and messenger after messenger, to show the King that his country is taken at one end, jer. 51. 31. as the Babylonians did to their King, when the King of the Medes had entered the City: and when men shall say, O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest and be still; as 'tis jer. 47. 9 when the Priests, the Ministers of the Lord, shall weep between the porch and the altar, and say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach, that strangers should rule over them, as 'tis joel 2 1 7. he sit in heaven, laugh Priest and People all to scorn, cover himself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through, as 'tis Lament. 3. 44. To conclude all, the way to keep us from these fearful punishments, are fasting, prayer, godly sorrow for sins past, and the amendment of our sinful lives in the time to come: Not a day for a man to afflict his soul, Esay 58. 5. to bow down his head as a bulrush, to spread sackcloth and ashes under him, it is not such a fast that the Lord hath chosen: August. Opus est perpetuâ poenitentiâ, quia perpetuò peccamus; We sin perpetually, wherefore we had need to repent perpetually: though we do drain our hearts dry of water to day, we shall have need again to morrow to water our couches with our tears. Our grief for our sins must be equivalent, it must hold proportion with the delight we have taken in our sins: our sins have been wondrous great, and our mourning must be marvelous deep: we have been out of measure sinful, and we must be out of measure sorrowful; we have sinned with greediness, and we must repent with bitterness; we have been transported with delight in the commission of our sins, and we must be swallowed up with heaviness in our submission for our sins: Qui culpam exaggeravit, Amb. lib. 1. de poenit, exaggeret etiam poenitentiam; maiora enim crimina maioribus abluuntur fletibm; He that hath augmented his sin, must augment his repentance; greater crimes are to be washed away with greater lamentations. Some run abominable races, act such iniquities the Angels of God wonder at; and when they have done, will say each man for his own particular, Miserere mei Deus, Lord have mercy on me, and that too ex more magis quam ex animo, rather out of custom than heartily, as Saul said to David, when he was going to combat with Goliath, 1. Sam. 17. 37. Go, and the Lord be with thee; and think then they have repent completely. O Lord God, that a man should dare to sin so damnably, and dream to quit himself of the guilt of it so eastly! 'tis not bare Lord have mercy upon us will do it, there belongs more to repentance than so; the faculties of our souls must be gripped with grief, and wearied with groaning, and tired with supplications: we must double our words as Daniel doth, and say, O Lord hear, Dan. 9 19 O Lord forgive, O Lord hearken, and defer not for thine own sake, O our God. We must renew our complaints with David, Psal. 55. 17. evening, and morning, and at noon day, we must pray, and make a noise, and God will hear our voice. We must weep and wipe our eyes, and weep again and wipe our eyes again, if we have loved many sins, before many sins can be forgiven us. We must draw a conclusion in our own bosoms, that no Nation hath been more bound to God than we, no Nation hath sinned against God with a higher hand than we; and therefore no Nation hath greater cause to fast and weep, mourn and lament for their sins, than we. We must give way to the thoughts of our hearts, to reflect upon the distressed condition of the Church of Christ abroad, and note how that the bed doth not privilege the sick man, nor the cradle the suckling babe, nor the great belly the woman, nor the altar the Priest, nor the seat of justice the Magistrate, from the fury of the merciless soldier: They fight and are killed, they yield and are murdered, they fly and are pursued, they remain and are beleaguered, they hide themselves and are hunger-starved, their corn fields are devoured by troops of horses, their streams of water are coloured red with the blood of men and beasts, and in some places their earth is void, as if it were returning into the Chaos again; as 'tis, Zech. 8. 10. Zech. 8. 10. there is no hire for man nor beast, neither is there any peace to him that goeth out, nor to him that cometh in, because of affliction; for all men are set, every man against his neighbour. And yet we, a sinful Nation, a people laden with as much iniquity as any Nation in the Christian world, are at rest; no trumpet is heard in our streets, no solitude ante ostia, no desolation is before our gates, our ploughshares are not beaten into swords, nor our mattocks into spears: the seat of justice is not interrupted, the Word of God hath a free passage, we lay us down to sleep, and take our rest, God making us to dwell in safety; and upon the comparison of these things, we must bethink ourselves, what ungrateful wretches we have been to dishonour our God with our sins, that hath and doth follow us with so much loving kindness above other people that are more righteous than we; we must earnestly repent, and be heartily sorry for our misdoings past, and we must swear unto the Lord, and vow a vow unto the Almighty God of jacob, to renounce our evil ways, and to serve him in spirit and truth, in sincerity and with good conscience in the time to come; and then our God will not forsake us, nor give us up for a reproach, that strangers should rule over us, but bless us all our lines long in bodies and souls, and entail the blessings more firmly, than by any law you can devose, to descend upon our posterity successively, so long as the Sun and Moon shall endure: And to that purpose, let us pray unto him, and say, O most gracious God, let not our manifold sins make a separation betwixt thee and us, let them not provoke thee to remove thy spiritual and corporal blessings from us; Give us, O Lord give us, broken hearts, contrite spirits, and bleeding souls, to offer up in sacrifice unto thee, that thou mayest be reconciled, and at an atonement with us: Our sins are great, Lord, we confess it, but thy mercy is greater, Lord, we believe it; mercy therefore, dear Father, have mercy upon our King, upon our Queen, upon our Nobility, upon our Clergy, upon our Magistracy, upon our Commonalty, upon our whole Land, for thy Zion's sake, for thy Gospel's sake, for thy beloved son jesus Christ's sake. Give, O Lord, give thy Angels charge over us, let them pitch their tents about us, that no pestilence come among us to devour us, no famine befall us to starve us, no sword of an enemy invade us to destroy us, and then, O Lord our God, if thou wilt give us grace, we will bless thee, we will praise thee, we will magnify thee, we will sing songs of thanksgiving unto thee, we will ascribe all honour and glory unto thee, and to thy Son, our blessed Saviour and Mediator jesus Christ, and to thy holy Spirit, to which blessed and glorious Trinity of persons, and but one God, be given all might, majesty, dominion, and praise, now and ever. Amen. FINIS.