two vine-encircled columns, one on either side of the text 
A SERMON Preached to his MAJESTY, At the Court of Whitehall. Aug. 8.  
BY JOS. B. of EXON.  
LONDON, Printed by M. Flesher, for NAT: BUTTER. M.DC.XLI.   
PSAL. 107.34. 
[He turneth] a fruitful Land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.  
YE have here in my Text as in much of the world, a woeful change, wrought by a powerful author, and upon a just merit: The change of a fruitful Land into barrenness; the author, GOD, the almighty arbiter of the world, He turneth; the merit, the wickedness of the inhabitants. These three then must be the measure of my tongue, and your ears, the change, the Author, the Merit. In the change you shall see the Act and the Subject. For the first: All these earthly things have their turns; the whole World is the proper region of mutability. I know not whether I should exempt heaven itself. Even there I find a change, of Motion, of Face, of Quality; Motion whether by consistence, or retrogradation, Sun stand thou still in Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Aialon, Ios. 12.10. There was a change in not moving. And for Retrogradation, The shadow went back ten degrees in the dial of Ahaz, Es. 38.8. A change of Face, the Sun was darkened, Luc. 23.45. when the Sun of righteousness was eclipsed, and shall be so again ere he break forth in full glory: Then shall the Sun be darkened, the Moon shall lose her light, the Stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken, Mat. 24.29. A change of quality; what need I fear to ascribe that to this glorious frame, when the spirit of God can tell us; They shall wax old as a garment, as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. In the mean time our eyes can tell us, that the second of these greater lights, the Moon, is the very emblem of mutability; never looking upon us twice with the same face; there is no month passeth over us, wherein she is not both new and old, to the making up of a just and common riddle, that not exceeding the age of 28. days, she is yet no less old than the world; ever filling and waning, and like the true image of all mutability, never so blotted as in her greatest brightness.  
Yea, what need we doubt to ascribe some change to thee material heavens; when if we look to the inside of them, we shall find that there hath been the greatest change in the very Angels; and for their present condition, that though the essence of the glorious spirits there, be immutable from within, having nothing in them that may work their dissolution or change, yet that we cannot say they are immutable from without, since if that power which gave them being, should withdraw his hand, they could not be. It is the perfection of God only, to be absolutely inalterable, and as to work freely, so to be necessarily: so as our subtle Bradwardine maintains that ens necessarium is the first attribute of God, that can fall under our notion. And even of this most glorious, infinite, and only perfect and absolute being, we may safely (though in all awful reverence) say, with Gregory, Mutat sententiam, non mutat consilium, He changeth his threatened doom, but never his decree. But, how high are weflowne ere we were ware; me thinks I hear the Angel speak to me as to Esdras; Thy heart hath gone too fare in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the ways of the most High?  
Cast we our eyes rather down to the lower orbs of elementary mixture; here is nothing to be seen but in a perpetual gyre of mutation; the elements that are partners in quality, interchange with each other in substance, the mixed bodies can no more stand still then the heaven whereby they are governed; for as that Sun never holds one minute in one place, never day walks the same round, no more do these inferior bodies continue one moment in the same estate, but ever altering; either growing up to their (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) the vertical point of their being, or declining towards their corruption; insomuch as Physicians observe, that every seven years this body of ours is quite another from itself, and in a continual renewing of supplies, or degrees of decays.  
And if ye look upon the greater bodies, the Sea and the Earth, ye shall see that the sea is ever ebbing and flowing, and will want waves ere it want motion; The earth, which of all visible things hath the style of constancy [terra quae nunquam movebitur] yet sometimes feels the motion of Trepidation in her vast body: The earth shook and trembled, and the foundations of the hills moved, and were shaken, Psal. 18.7. And always in the surface of it feels the motion of sensible mutation; the domestics whereof, as all vegetative and some sensitive creatures, and the Lords thereof, rational creatures, are ever as moving, as the earth is still: ever breeding, borne, growing, declining, dying: And if ye match these two together, ye shall see how the Sea and the Earth win of each other; it is full tide now, where there was a goodly crop: and where the ox grazed, there the whale swims; How have we seen steeples to stand in those liquid cemiteries; in stead of masts, & again the plough to go, where the ship lately sailed!  
And as it is thus in the frame of nature, so of policy too, those great and famous Monarchies of the world what ever precious metal, their head, shoulders, waist, have been of; yet their feet have been of clay, and are gone into dust; Civility, arts, sovereignty have, in an imitation of the Sun's course, gone from East to West, and will no where be fixed, till they be overtaken with the last revolution.  
In vain therefore shall we look for constancy upon earth; look how possible it is for a man that stands, fortune-like, upon a round rolling stone in a smooth floor to be steady in his posture, so possible it is for us to be settled in an unchangeable condition, whiles we are upon this sphere of variableness. Can we think that the world shall move, and we stand still? Were the Sun the centre of motion, and the earth whirled about in this vast circumference, could we make account of rest? And if in our own particular, we could either stay our foot, or shift it at pleasure, notwithstanding that insensible rapture (as the Ant may creep the contrary way to the violent circumvolution of the wheel) yet we must necessarily be swayed with that universal swinge of mutability, wherewith all creatures are carried forcibly about. The most lasting Kingdoms therefore have had their periods; and of the most settled government, God's hand-writing upon the wall goes so fare as to say, Mene, mene, thy days are numbered. Oh the fickleness of this earthly glory and prosperity! Oh the glassy splendour of all humane greatness; cracked with a touch, with a fall broken! who would set his heart upon these unstable felicities? Do ye not smile at the child, which when he hath raised a large bubble out of his wallnut-shell, joys in that airy globe, and wonders at the goodly colours he sees in it; which whiles he is showing his own face and his playfellows in that sleight reflection, vanishes away, & leaves nothing but a little frothy spittle behind it? so ridiculous are we, whiles we dote upon these fugitive contentments. The captive Prince in the story, noted well when he looked back upon the chariot of his proud victor, that still one spoke of the wheel went down as another rose; Think of the world as it is, O ye great ones, it turns round, and so do all things in it. Great Saladine caused it to be proclaimed, that he had nothing left him but his winding-sheet. The famous General that thrice rescued Rome, came to Date obolum Belisario, one single halfpenny to Bellisarius. Take your turns then for these earthly preeminences, but look at them still as perishing; and if you aim at rest, look for it above all these whirling orbs of the visible heavens; say of that Empyreal heaven, as God said of the holy of holies which was the figure of it, Hic requies mea in aeternum, Here shall be my rest for ever: there as Bernard well, is the true day that never sets, yea there is the perpetual high-noon of that day, which admits no shadow. Oh then overlook all these sublunary vanities; set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God; There only shall you find true rest, and constant glory. This for the act of the turning, the terms or subject of it follows; A fruitful land into barrenness.  
Philosophy hath wont to teach us that every change is to the contrary; here it is so, plainly; Fruitful into barren, yea into the abstract Barrenness itself: Small alterations are not noted; the growing of the grass, the daily declining into age, though not without a kind of change, are insensible; but for Aaron's dry rod to be budded, blossomed, almoned in a night; for the vigorous, and curled prisoner to become grey headed by morning; for the flourishing Pentapolis, to be turned suddenly into sulphurous heaps, and salt-pits, these things fill the eye, not without an astonishment of the heart. The best beauty decays by leisure, but for a fleshy Idol at the Court, to become suddenly a leprous Miriam, is a plain judgement; Thus, when the fair face of the earth, shall be turned from a youthly and flourishing greenness, into a parched, and withered deformity; the leaves which are the hairs, fall off, and give way to a loathsome baldness; the towered Cities, which are the chaplets and dresses of that head, are torn down, and turned to rubbish; the fountains and rivers, which are the crystalline humours of those eyes, are dried up; the surface, which is the skin of that great body, is chopped, and chinked with drought, and burnt up with heat; those sweet waters of heaven, and those balmy drops of fatness wherewith it was wont to be besprinkled, are restrained, and have given place to unwholesome serenenesse, and kill vapours: shortly, that pampered plenty, wherewith it was glutted, is turned into a pinching want, this change is not more sensible, then woeful. It is a great judgement this of barrenness, the curse of the disappointing figtree was but this; Never fruit grow more on thee; as contrarily, the creature was blessed in no other terms than Crescite & multiplicamini, Increase and multiply. A barren womb was Michols plague, for her scoffing at devotion. It was held by Abimelec no small judgement that God inflicted on him in closing up all the wombs of the house of Abimelec, 
Gen. 20.18.  and therefore it is said Abraham prayed, 
v. 17.  and God healed Abimelec, and his wife, and his maidservants. And surely as the jews held this the reproach among women (though ours have not the same opinion, nor the same reason) Luc. 1.25. (in so much as Canta sterilis had been a strange word, Ep. 54.1. were it not for that which followeth, The desolate shall have more children than the married;) So this is opprobrium terrae, the reproach of our common mother, an unbearing womb, and dry breasts, Ose. 9.14. What follows hence, but miserable famine, leanness of body, languishing of strength, hollowness of eyes, dryness of bones, blackness of skin, wring of maws, gnawing and clinging of guts, and in the end, the pale horse of death follows the black horse of famine, Revel. 6.8. And Those that are slain by the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger, Lament. 4.9. Yet let me tell you, by the way, the earthly and external barrenness is nothing to the inward and spiritual; where the heart is barren of grace, where the life is barren of good works, the man is not near to cursing, but is under it; Ye know who said Give me children or else I die, Gen. 30.1. It was an over passionate word of a good woman; many a one lives, and that with less grief and care, and more ease, without them; she might have lived happy though unfruitful, but surely a barren soul is both miserable and deadly; God says of it as the Lord of the soil said of the fruitless figtree, Exscindatur, Cut it up, why keepeth it the ground barren? If then we find ourselves in this condition, let us do as Solomon says the fashion is of the barren womb, cry Give, Give, and never leave importunate craving till we find the twins of grace striving in the womb of our souls.  
But yet if a dry Arabian desert yield not a spire of grass; or the whitish sands of Egypt (where Nile toucheth not) yield nothing but their Suhit and Gazul (fit for the furnace, not the mouth;) or if some ill-natured waist, yield nothing but heath and furs, we never wonder at it; these do but their kind; But for a fruitful land to be turned to barrenness, is an uncouth thing; the very excellency of it aggravates the shame. And surely God would not do it if it were not wondrous, he fetches light, not out of glimmering, but out of darkness; he fetches not indifferent, but good out of evil: We weak agents (such all natural, and other voluntary are) descend by degrees from an extreme, by the stairs of a mean, and (that ofttimes) sensible mutation; God, who is most free and infinite, is not tied to our terms, he can in an instant turn fair into foul, fruitful into barren, light into darkness, something, yea all things into nothing; Present fruitfulness therefore is no security against future barrenness. It is the folly of nature to think itself upon too slight grounds sure of what it hath. Non movebor, David confesses, was his note once, but he soon changed it; and so shall we; Thou art rich in good works, as that churl was in provision, and sayest, Soul take thy ease, let thy hand be out of ure a little through a lazy security, thou hast forfeited all, by disuse, and mayst expect to hear, Stulte, hac nocte: Thou art rich in profession of Grace? Was any man more officious than Demas? yet he soon fell to embrace the present world, with a neglect of the future. Think not now that I am falling in with our late Excutifidians, to teach that a true, solid, radicated saving faith may be totally, finally lost; no, I hate the motion: it is presumption that I tax, not well grounded assurance; presumption of outward profession, and privileges, not assurance of the inward truth of grace. Presume not, o vain man, of what thou wert, or what thou hast. Devils were Angels, Jerusalem was the holy City. Rome was for her faith famous through all the world, Rom. 1.8. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the City where David dwelled, Es. 29.1. Our own once good estate may aggravate our misery, can never secure our happiness. Son of man, what shall become of the vine of all plants? (saith the Prophet) The more noble it is, the worse it speeds, if fruitless: Oh let us not be highminded, but fear. England was once, yea lately was, perhaps is still, the most flourishing Church under heaven; that I may take up the Prophet's words, 
Es. 13.19.  the glory of Churches, the beauty of excellency; what it may be, what it will be, if we fall still into distractions, and various Sects, God knows, and it is not hard for men to foresee: Surely, if we grow into that anarchical fashion of Independent congregations, which I see, and lament to see, affected by too many, not without woeful success; we are gone; we are lost in a most miserable confusion; we shall be, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah; 
Es. 13.20.21.  and it shall be with us, as the Prophet speaks of proud, and glorious Babylon, The shepherds shall not make their fold here; wild beasts of the desert shall lie bear, and our houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell, and satyrs shall dance there, and the wild beasts of the Islands shall cry in our desolate palaces: I take no pleasure (God knows) to ominate ill to my dear nation, and dearer mother the Church of England, for whose welfare and happiness I could contemn my own life: but I speak it in a true sorrow of heart to perceive our danger, and in a zealous precaution to prevent it. Oh God, in whose hands the hearts of Princes and all the sons of men are, to turn them, as the rivers of waters, put it into the heart of our King and Parliament, to take speedy order for the suppression of this wild variety of Sects, and lawless independencies ere it be too late. Thus much for the subject and terms of this change; The agent follows, He turneth.  
Never was there any sterility, whereof there may not be a cause given; Either, the season is unkindly, parching with drought or drenching with wet, or nipping with frost, or blasting with pernicious airs, or rotting with mildews; or, some mis-accident of the place, inundations of waters, incursions and spoil of enemies, sudden mortalities of the inhabitants, or some natural fault in the soil, or misdemeanure of the owners; idleness, ill-husbandry, in mis-timing, neglect of meet helps, unculture, ill choice of seed, but what ever be the second cause; we are sure who is the first, He turneth: Is there any evil in the City and he hath not done it? Alas, what are all secondary causes, but as so many liveless puppets? there is a divine hand unseen, that stirs the wires, and puts upon them all their motion: so as our Saviour said of Pilate, we may say of all the activest instruments both of earth, and hell, Thou couldst have no power over me, unless it were given thee from above.  
Is joseph sold to the Merchants by the villainy of his envious brethren? The Lord sent me before you, Gen. 51. Do the Chaldeans and Sabeans feloniously drive away the herds of job, doth the Devil by a tempestuous gust bluster down the house, and rob him of his children? The Lord hath taken, job. 1. Is a man slain by chance-medley, the axe-head slipping from the helve? Dominus tradidit. So whether they be acts of nature, of will, of casualty; whether done, by natural agents, by voluntary, by casual, by supernatural, Digitus Dei est hic; He turneth. What can all other causes either do, or be without him, who is the original of all entity, and causality?  
There is much wisdom and justice in distinguishing causes & giving each their own; whereof, whiles some have failed, they have run into injurious, and frantic extremes: Whiles, on the one side, wild and ignorant heretics have ascribed all to God's agency, without acknowledging secondary causes; on the other, Atheous fools ascribe all to the second, and immediate causes, not looking up to the hand of an overruling, and all-contriving providence; We must walk warily betwixt both, yielding the necessary operation of subordinate means, employed by the divine wisdom; and adoring that infinite wisdom, and power, which both produces, and employs those subordinate means to his own holy purposes. Tell me then; art thou crossed in thy designs and expectation? Blame not distempers of times, disappointment of undertake, intervention of crosse-accidents; this is, as some shifting Alchemist that casts all the fault of his mis-successe, upon his glass, or his furnace; but kiss that invisible hand of power, which disposeth of all these sublunary events, if against thy will, yet according to his own. Even nature itself will teach us to reduce all second causes to the first. Behold (saith the Lord) I will hear the heavens, they shall hear the earth, the earth shall hear the corn, wine, oil, and they shall hear Israel. Lo here is a necessary scale whereof no staff can be missing: How should Israel live without corn, wine, oil? how should the corn, wine, oil, be had without the yeeldance of the earth? how should the earth yield these without the influence of heaven? how can heaven yield these influences without the command of the maker? Ose. 2.21.  
When I meet therefore with a querulous husbandman; he tells me of a churlish soil, of a wet seedtime, of a green winter, of an unkindly spring, of a lukewarm summer, of a blustering autumn; but I tell him of a displeased God, who will be sure to contrive and fetch about all seasons, and elements to his own most wise drifts and purposes.  
Thou art a Merchant, what tellest thou me of cross winds, of Michael-mas flaws, of ill weathers, of the wafting of the Archangels wings when thou passest by the Grecian promontory of tedious becalming, of pyratical hazards, of falsehood in trades, breaking of customers, craft and undermining of interlopers, all these are set on by heaven to impoverish thee.  
Thou art a Courtier and hast laid a plot to rise; if obsequious servility to the great; if those gifts in the bosom, which our blunt Ancestors would have termed Bribes; if plausible suppalpations, if restless importunities will hoist thee, thou wilt mount: But something there is that clogs thy heel, or blocks thy way; either some secret detractor hath forlaid thee by a whispering mis-intimation; or some misconstruction of thy well-meant offices hath drawn thee into unjust suspicion, or the envy of some powerful corrival trumps in thy way, and holds thee off from thine already swallowed honour; There is an hand above that manageth all this; What are we but the Keys of this great instrument of the world, which he touches at pleasure, depressing some, whiles others rise, and others again stand still?  
Yea, let me make higher instances of you men of State, that sway the great affairs of Kingdoms, and by your wise and awful arbitrements decree (under Sovereignty) of either war or peace, & either take up or slacken the reins of Commerce, so framing the many wheels of this vast engine that all may move happily together; you may rack your brains, and enlarge your foreign intelligences, and cast in the symbols of your prudent contributions to the common welfare, but know withal, Frustra nisi Dominus, let your projects be never so fair, your treaties never so wise and cautious, your enterprises never so hopeful, if he do but blow upon them, they are vanished. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, Eccles. 9.11.  
What should we do then, but look up to that Almighty hand that swayeth all these sublunary, yea and celestial affairs? It is the weak fashion of foolish children to ascribe all their kindnesses, or discontents to the next cause; If good befall them, it is the Tailor to whom they are beholden for their coat, the Confectionary for their sweetmeats, not their parents who pay for all these; Again, if the knife be taken away from them, the Servant is blamed and beaten with their feeble but angry hand, not the mother that commanded it; yea it is the brutish fashion of unreasonable creatures to run after, and by't the stone, not regarding the hand that threw it. We Christians should have more wit; and since we know that nature itself is no other than God's ordinance of second causes, and chance is but an ignorance of the true causes; and our freest wills are overruled by the first mover, oh let us improve our reason and Christianity so much, as to acknowledge the secret, but most certain hand of an omnipotent agent, in all the occurrents of the world; for certainly there cannot be a greater injury to the great King of heaven and earth, then to suffer second causes to run away with the honour of the first, whether in good or evil.  
Secondly, what should we do but kiss the rod, and him that smites with it, patiently receiving all chastisements from the hand of a powerful, wise, just God? Had we to do with an agent less than omnipotent, we might perhaps think of him as one said of the Egyptian Magicians, They could hurt, but they could not heal, they could do evil, but not good; or we might fear something might betid us against, beside, without his will; finite agents cannot go beyond their own sphere, were the power of great Princes as large as their wills, none of their designs should be ineffectual: Or, had we to do with a powerful agent that were not also infinitely wise, we might think he might be overreached in his plot: But now that infinite power and wisdom are the very essence of God; let us, what ever we do, or may befall us, take up that holy resolution of good Ely, It is the Lord, let himdoe what seemeth him good, 1. Sam. 3.18.  
But in the mean time let not those wicked wretches, by whose unjust hand the just God thinks good to scourge his own, comfort themselves with the hope of an impunity, because they are unwittingly used in his executions: No, they are no whit the more innocent, because God beats his own with their malice; neither shall they be less avenged because they have heedlessly done Gods will, whiles they despitefully do their own; Ashur is the rod of God's wrath, when God hath sufficiently whipped, & drawn blood of his Israel by him, he casts him into the fire; the fire of that wrath which Ashur feels from God, is a thousand times hotter than the fire of that wrath which Israel feels from Ashur. Shortly, God will have his due honour both in afflicting his own, and in plagueing those that afflicted them; his agency is equal in both; He turneth a fruitful land into barrenness. Hitherto the agent; now follows the meriting cause of this change, The wickedness of them that dwell therein.  
God is an absolute Lord, Domini est terra; he is not accountable for any reason of his change: whether of barrenness or plenty, there needs no other ground to be given but, Quia voluit; and even so it is in this stirring piece of earth, which we carry about us; Why this womb, or those loins are sterile, that fruitful, yea, why this, or that soul is so, he needs not give any reason but his will, yet so far doth he condescend to us, as to impart to us an account of the ground of his proceed; Man suffreth for his sin, saith the Prophet; and the earth suffreth here for the wickedness of the inhabitants: Evermore, God hath some motive for the inflicting of evil; As it is in the main point of a man's eternal estate, Man's Salvation is, ex mero beneplacito; The gift of God is eternal life; but his damnation is never without acause in man; The soul that sinneth shall die: So it is in this case of lesser good or evil; when God speaks of turning wildernesses into ponds of water, in the following words, ye hear no cause assigned but mere mercy, but when he speaks of turning fruitful lands into barrenness, now, it is for the wickedness of indwellers. This is a most sure rule therefore, All judgements are inflicted for sin; Chastisements are out of love, but punishment out of Justice; Yea, so doth God order his judgements commonly, that in the punishment we may read the sin, and in the sin we may foresee the punishment; and can confidently define, where punishment is, there hath been sin; and where sin is, there will be punishment.  
I have heard and seen some ignorant impatients, when they have found themselves to smart with God's scourge, cast a sullen frown back upon him, with Cur me caedis? or with the malcontented mother of the striving twins, Why am I thus? Alas, what mere, what miserable strangers are these men at home? There is nothing in the world that they do more misknow then themselves; had they ever but looked in, if but at the door, yea at the window, yea at the Keyhole of their own hearts or lives, they could not choose but cry out, with holy job, I have sinned, what shall I do to thee, O thou preserver of Men? They would accuse, arraign, & condemn themselves, and would rather bethink which of those many thousand sins which they have multiplied against heaven, they are called to reckoning for, and would have no word in their mouth but mea culpa, mea culpa. Now as where punishment is, there was sin: so where sin is, there will be, there must be punishment. If thou dost ill, saith God to Cain, Sin lies at the door, Gen. 4.7. Sin, that is, punishment for sin, they are so inseparable that one word implies both: for the doing ill, is the sin, that is within doors; but the suffering ill is the punishment: and that lies like a fierce mastive at the door, and is ready to fly in our throat when we look forth: and if it do not then seize upon us, yet it dog's us at the heels, and will be sure to fasten upon us at our greatest disadvantage. Tum gravior cum tarda venit, etc. josephs' brethren had done heinous ill, what becomes of their sin? It makes no noise, but follows them slily and silently in the wilderness, it follows them home to their father's house, it follows them into Egypt: all this while there is no news of it, but when it found them cooped up three days in Pharaohs ward, now it bays at them, and flies in their faces: We are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul, etc. Gen. 42.21. What should I instance in that, whereof not Scripture, not books, but the whole world is full; the inevitable sequences of sin and punishment? Neither can it be otherwise; Shall not the judge of all the earth do right, saith Abraham, Gen. 18.25? Right is to give every one his due: wages is due to work; now the wages of sin is death: So than it stands upon no less ground than the very necessary, and essential justice of God, that where wickedness hath led the way, there punishment must follow: There is more need to apply then to prove so clear a truth; How then I beseech you, honourable and beloved, stands the case with us? where is the man that dare flatter us so much, as to say, there is not store of wickedness found in our hands: Woe is me, we are in the eyes of all the world no less eminent in God's favours, then in our own sinfulness: It is past our power to either conceal, or deny, or excuse our abominable iniquities: Certainly, if we change not, we are sure God will not; What can we then expect, from that just hand of the Almighty, but that he should turn our fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of us that dwell in it? I may not be so saucy, to presage by what course he will do it; That Almighty arbiter of the world hath a thousand ways to his own ends; but it is not an improbable note of the Author of our Fasciculus temporum; that there is trifarius cursus rerum, Abundantiae, indigentiae, temperantiae; a three fold course of things; of Abundance, want, tempreance: From abundance or excess, arises animosity and delicacy: from these arises discord, and quarrels; and from these want; from want we begin to learn wit, and compose ourselves to temperance; that thrifty course raises abundance, In circuitu ambulant impii, as he speaks: Now what shall we say? Of the abundance and delicacy we have surfeited already too long; we are now in the quarrelsome part, that arises from our pampered animosity; and what can follow next, but our miserable indigence and distress? we may please ourselves in the secure condition of our happy union, in the strength of our wooden walls and our natural Bulwarks; But I remember what I have read of a noble and wise Captain, who when he was vehemently moved to take upon him the Defence of a strong City, which was enforced to him by the safe site, strong fortifications, plentiful ammunition, and inexpugnable walls of it; Yea (saith he) but tell me I pray you, have you any covering betwixt it and heaven? have you any defence against the vengeance of that God, whom your sins have provoked? If those sins of yours shall draw down God's curses upon your heads, to what purpose shall it be to endeavour to keep your enemy out of your gates? The story applies itself; In vain shall we think to secure ourselves and our state from earth, if we irritate heaven.  
There is no sin that is dumb, there is none that whispers; every one is vocal, loud, clamorous to solicit heaven for vengeance, but some are more shrill and importunate than others; God hath been pleased to distinguish their noise: Oppression is one that he hears above the rest; That hath two tongues, both loud ones, both prevalent; The cry of the Oppressed, and the cry of the Oppression; The Lord will enter into judgement with the Ancients of his people, and the Princes thereof. Wherefore? The spoil of the poor is in their houses. What mean you that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor, saith the Lord God of hosts? Isay 3.14.  
Contempt of God's Ministers is another, and that's a paying sin wheresoever it is, jer. 25.4. Even Moses himself that was mitissimus super terram, yet when he comes to speak of affronts offered to Levy, can say; Smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again, Deut. 33.11.  
What should I particularise? The Lord hath a controversy with the land, saith the Prophet Hosea, By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood; Therefore shall the Land mourn. Hos. 4.2. Doth he not speak of our times, think you?  
But above all these there is a sin, which wheresoever it is, drowns the noise of all the rest, and that is Sacrilege, which certainly, in what hand, in what nation soever it is found, hurries down an inevitable judgement.  
It was a fearful word that of the Psalmist, Make their Nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, yea, all their Princes like Zeba and Zalmunna, who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession: O my God, make them like a wheel. Psal. 84.11, 12.  
Indeed, how can it be otherwise? Will a man rob God, says the Prophet? Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have rob me, Malachy, 3.9.  
What should I tell you the stories of Baltasar, of Heliodorus, of Crassus, of julian, of the Templars, of Woolsey, and of his Master H. 8. shortly, show me the man, the family, the nation that ever prospered after sacrilege; I am sure I have a great Author to the contrary; no less than one of the nine worthies, Charles the great. Novimus (saith he) multa regna, & reges eorum propterea cecidisse, quia ecclesias spoliarunt, résque earum alienarunt, & militibus loco stipendii dederunt.  
We have known, saith he, great Kingdoms, and the Kings of them therefore to have miscarried, because they spoiled Churches, and alienated their possessions, and gave them to their soldiers for their pay. If any man have a mind to feoff a curse upon himself and his posterity, let him defile his fingers with the holy things of God: Oh let this portion be to the enemies of my Lord the King and our dear country; But upon him and his friends, and his peers and people that abhor this wickedness, let there be blessings from God even upon them and their seed for ever and ever.  
Finally then, since there is no wickedness which doth not mainly contribute to the pulling down of God's vengeance upon us, and our Land; Let us in the fear of God join all our forces together against all the reigning sins of the time: Let us never think we can spend ourselves better, then in striving against the stream of our pressing iniquities: Wherefore hath God put the sword into the hands of you great men, but that you should use it to the effectual cutting down of all wickedness and vice? Wherefore hath God put the twoedged sword of the Spirit into the mouths of us his Ministers, but that we should lay about us zealously, in season, and out of season; to the hewing down of the overgrown abominations of this sinful age? Yea how doth it concern every one of you, who hear me this day, if you would be but wise men, and good patriots, to put your hand to the work, and to bend your utmost endeavours to the beating down of your own sins, and carefully to ransack all the blind corners of your hearts to find out the cursed Achan in your own bosoms? Oh that each man would thus undertake to reform one! How sure should we be that the good God of heaven would divert his fearful judgements, and graciously continue the blessings of peace, plenty, prosperity, and together with them of an happy government, and the freedom of the blessed Gospel to us and our posterity after us: which God vouchsafe unto us for his mercy's sake, and for the sake of the Son of his love, jesus Christ the Just, etc. To whom etc.  
FINIS.