A SERMON Preached before the Honourable House of Commons, now assembled in PARLIAMENT, At their public Fast, November 17. 1640. Upon 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you, while ye be with him: and if ye seek him, he will be found of you: but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.  
By STEPHEN Martial, bachelor in Divinity, Minister of Finchingfield in ESSEX.  
Published by Order of the said House.  
LONDON: Printed by J. Okes, for SAMUEL MAN, dwelling in St. Paul's churchyard, at the sign of the Swan. 1641.   
A Sermon Preached before the Honourable house of Commons, at their public Fast.  2 CHRON. 15. 2. The Lord is with you while ye be with him, and if ye seek him he will be found of you: but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. 


Introduction, setting forth 1 The fitness of the Text.  THis portion of Scripture, is a part of a Sermon preached to the whole body of the kingdom of Judah; and a fitter I do not know in all the Bible to be preached upon to the Representative body of a Christian State; especially on a day when they are drawing nigh to God. The more inexcusable should I be in adventuring to show my weakness at this time, in this place, were I not able to call the most High to witness, that nothing but conscience of my duty kept me (with Jonah) from running away from the Lord's work. But Amos the herdsman 
Amos 7. 14, 15.  must prophesy at the King's chapel when God commands him.  
The special end of your meeting this day, is to afflict your souls before God, that so with Ezra, you might seek a right way for yourselves, and the weighty affairs of his Majesty, and the whole State: and the special errand I have to deliver from the Lord, 
Ezr. 8. 21.  is to assure you of the same truth, although in other words, which Ezra told the Persian Emperor, that the hand of God is upon them for good that seek him; but his power and wrath against all them that forsake him, 
Verse 22.  viz. That God will be with you, while you be with him.  

2 The state of the Jewish Church, which occasioned the Text.  Which Text that you may the better understand, give me leave to carry you a little back, and give you a plain view of the state of the Church of Judah at that time.  
In the days of Rehoboam there had been an horrible apostasy from the purity of God's worship: Religion was very much corrupted, and the forces of the kingdom were exceedingly weakened. And in Abijah's time things grew worse and worse. But now when Asa (being a godly man) came to the crown, he begins at the right end, and makes it his first work to set upon reformation of Religion, taking away the Altars of the strange Gods and the high places, broke down the Images, cut down the Groves, commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their Fathers, and to do the Law and the commandments, 
Chap. 14, 2, 3, 4.  casting out whatsoever was a stench in the Lord's nostrils, and he prospered in whatsoever he put his hand unto.  
This done, he than calls all his Nobles and Princes, and Elders together, and tells them that they had sought the Lord in matters of Religion, and God had been found of them, and that now they should go and fortify the kingdom; and so they did in all the Cities and prospered. 
Verse 7.  But in the midst of this work comes out Zerah the Cushite, the Ethiopian (or rather the Arabian, Ethiopia lying beyond Egypt) with an Army of a thousand thousand, and three hundred Chariots, (it may be the greatest Army that ever you read of in any story) with these he breaks in suddenly upon Asa. But he humbles himself before God, betakes himself to prayer, tells the Lord that it was all one with him to help by many or few. And in the Lord's name he went out to encounter with that huge Army; over which the Lord gave him a glorious victory, and the spoil of the enemy's Country to boot.  

3 The coherence and Analysis.  Now as they were coming back to Jerusalem, the Lord calls out Azariah the son of Oded, to make the gratulatory Oration for their safe return and conquest, in these words that I have read, and so forward to verse the eighth; and so I am come to my Text.  
In which (that I may make as brief a way as I can possibly to the matter that I shall insist upon) two things are to be unfolded.  
First, the scope and intent of the Prophet, and that is laid down in the latter end of his speech, be strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: 
Verse 7.  that is, go on with the good work of Reformation of Religion, wherewith you were in hand before the enemy interrupted you.  
Secondly, the arguments whereby this is pressed, and they are two.  
The first is taken from their own present happiness who were in God's ways: The Lord is with you while ye are with him, and if ye seek him he will be found of you: but if ye forsake him he will forsake you.  
The second is taken from the misery of the ten Tribes, who were out of God's way, concerning whom he speaks to this effect, That for a long time Israel (that is the ten Tribes) had been without God, & without a teaching Priest, and without law: and as they had cast off God, so God had cast off them: howbeit, if they would have sought to God, and turned to him, God would have been found of them: but they going on in the way of desperate apostasy, the Lord vexed them everywhere, in the City, in the Country, in the Family; everywhere God was too strong for them, (as certainly God will make every one to know that he hath a hard match to encounter with, that dares to bear arms against the Lord.) And so from their misery he presseth Asa and his people to go on in the right course, to prevent the like for coming upon themselves.  
This second Argument of the misery of the ten Tribes belongs not to my work.  

4 The division.  I betake myself therefore to the other, wherein I shall spend the allotted time for this exercise, namely, The present happiness of the Church of the Jews, that were in God's way: in which observe these two things.  
First, what the happiness was that they enjoyed, in these words, The Lord is with you.  
Secondly, the Condition upon which they enjoyed this happiness, or the terms upon which they held it; and that is  
First, more generally propounded, The Lord is with you, while you are with him.  
Secondly, more particularly and exegetically expounded in the next words, If ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him he will forsake you.   


The first part, viz. The happiness of the Church  I begin with the first of them, The present happiness of the Church of the Jews, Jehovah is with you. Where there is but one question to be answered for the clearing of the Doctrine, that I shall a while insist upon, and that is, what presence of God is here intended by the Prophet? Jehovah is everywhere; Whither shall I go from thy presence? 
Psal. 139, 7, &c.  Nay, he is not only present everywhere, but he manifests his presence everywhere, every herb shows it, all the Creatures speak God in them. Nor only so, but ofttimes the manifestation of God's presence is the torture and misery of the people to whom he is present. In Isai. 33. 14. when God sends them word that he would come among them, presently it follows, The sinners in Zion are afraid, fearfulness hath surprised the Hypocrite, who among us shall dwell with devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? And in Jer. 4. 23. the Prophet beheld the earth, and lo it was without form, and void; the mountains, and lo they trembled; the nations, and they were wasted to nothing: what was the reason? because of the presence of the Lord. What presence then is here intended?  
For that, through God's providence, the morning's work hath saved me part of my labour. For in effect the presence intended in this Text is God's presence in the Covenant of Grace, in which he is so joined with a people, that they also are joined unto him. God to be joined with a people, and to be in Covenant with them in the Scripture phrase is all one. 
Jer 50. 5. Isai. 56. 3, 6.  So that the lesson which it affords is this.  

Doct. 1.  The presence of God in his Covenant of Grace with any people, is the greatest glory, and happiness that they can enjoy.  
The Prophet here encouraging them to go on and to fear nothing, useth only this sentence, that God will be with them: As if he had said, you shall have all the happiness that you can wish, God will be with you.  
In prosecuting this point I shall endeavour two things.  
First, to demonstrate the truth of it out of the Scripture.  
Secondly, to make a brief application of it.  

The happiness of the Church proved, 1 By Scriptures.  For the first, see how clear it is in the Scriptures, in Deut. 4. 7, 8. Moses speaks of the Israelites after this manner: What Nation (in all the world) is so great as thou art? All their neighbours should say, surely this is a great people, a wise, a happy people: I pray you what was their condition when Moses thus magnified them? there were 600000 men of them in a desolate, barren, howling wilderness: There was not one house for a man to hide his head; but only floating Tents, some covered with clothes, some with boughs: No land that they could either sow, or plough, or reap: No trading; 
Deut. 29. 5.  hardly a man that had two suits to his back, (but as some think) as their bodies grew, their clothes grew; as their feet grew, their shoes grew: wherein then was their happiness? Mark what Moses saith verse 7. What Nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things, & c? There was their happiness, that Jehovah was nigh them, and marched up and down before them. So you shall see in Exod. 33. the Lord was offended with the people for making of the golden calf, In the beginning of that Chap. he speaks after this manner to Moses. Take this people and carry them to the Land that I have promised to give them: It is a Land flowing with milk and honey. I will send my angel before you, He shall drive out all the Nations, and plant you in that goodly Country: only i myself will not go with them, for I shall be so far provoked by their sins, that I shall fall upon them suddenly, and consume them. But my angel shall not leave them till they be settled in that good Land. One would have thought that this had been an excellent offer, thousands would have esteemed it a glorious thing to have an angel of God to go and plant them in the goodliest Country that was under the cope of Heaven. But mark how Moses takes it. O Lord rather kill us all in the wilderness, let us never stir a foot if Thy presence go not with us. I pray thee, if I have found favour with Thee, go with us thyself: well, saith God, my presence shall go. Moses presseth again, let it be that or nothing: for wherein else shall it be known to the World, that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people from all the people that are upon the face of the Earth. This is the sum of that Chapter. Again you shall find in psalm 46. and psalm 48. David strangely magnifies Jerusalem above all the Cities in the World: Excellent are the strains of rhetoric flowing from the Spirit of God in setting forth the glory of that City, which in a word was such as All the Kings of the Earth should come and look on, and stand amazed at it. Without question Babylon, or Niniveh excelled Jerusalem in David's time for outward glory, as far as the City of London doth one of our mean Country towns. What was the glory of Jerusalem then? You shall read in those psalms God was with them. God is in the midst of her: God is known in her Palaces. And everywhere this is the thing he cries up: it was a glorious place, because Jehovah was there.  
And in psalm 144. The penman of it so far extols even the common mercies that God oft times bestows upon a people, that they then become Blessed, When their sons grow up as plants, and their Daughters as the corners of the Temple, polished after the manner of a Palace; their Garners affording all store, their Oxen strong to labour; that there is no breaking in, and carrying into Captivity. Blessed, saith he, are the people that are in such case. But mark how he gives a dash to all he had said, in comparison of that he had to say of the blessedness of God's people, Yea rather happy are the people whose God is the Lord. You shall see also in the latter end of Ezechiel, Chapter 40. and in Revelation 21. such an hyperbolical description of a most glorious City the new Jerusalem, as never had parallel. And what is the Glory of that City? Read but the last words in the prophecy of Ezechiel, The name of that City from that Day shall be THE LORD IS THERE. As if he had said, would you have an abridgement of all the excellencies of this City and Temple? This it is, Jehovah is there. And in Revelation 21. The Lord God Almighty and the lamb are there.  
On the other side you shall see it as plain, when the Lord threatneth the greatest plague and curse that can betide a Nation, he never mentions other, above this, that He will depart from them: As if he had meant to strike them dead at a blow, by saying, He will leave them. That place in Hosea Chapter 9 11. is very remarkable: As for Ephraim (that is, the Children of Israel, the ten Tribes) his glory shall flee away as a Bird; that is, suddenly, swiftly, irrecoverably, he shall be utterly undone. What is the matter? The next Verse tells you, Woe unto them when i depart from them. If God go, woe comes; all goes, if God go. It is a known story in the 1. Samuel 4. that when the ark (that was called the glory of God) the visible token of God's presence in the Covenant of Grace, was taken Captive by the Philistines; Phineas his wife bowed herself and travailed, and though they after told her that a manchild was borne, she regarded it not, but called his name Ichabod, saying, The glory is gone; because than God's presence departed from them.  
What need I say any more? The work of the Incarnation of the son of God, and the Redemption of the world by him, was such, that one main end of making this goodly frame of Heaven and Earth was, that it might be the stage upon which that work should be acted. A work wherein not only all man's happiness lies, and whence it flows; but wherein all God's Attributes are glorified to the highest; and for which the Church Triumphant shall think Eternity short enough to praise God. Of this work (I say) the sum is given in one word, Immanuel, God is with us.  

2 By Reason.  And plain Reason may demonstrate that it must needs be so. What is glory, but the shining out of excellency? what is happiness but the fruition of the greatest good? Now there is no Excellency that shines out in any thing, like to that which beams out from God in the Covenant of grace to his people. There is no good that any people can enjoy like the fruition of God in that Covenant. It is true, God manifests himself to all the Nations in the World (in him they live, and move, and have their being:) yet it is as in a dark Cloud, they grope after him, and cannot feel him, but in the covenant of grace men behold him with open face, 
2 Cor. 3. 18.  like the sun shining in his strength, as through a mirror: Such a mirror as the Prince of Orange had, that would show the sun in his full bigness and beauty. Thus God shines in the Covenant of grace.  
The Prince is virtually present in all places of his kingdom, but his Court is his Glory: So where God is in his Covenant, there Heaven is; therefore this is usually in the Scripture phrase called the kingdom of Heaven.  
But if yet more particularly you inquire, what God's presence in his Covenant implies: As he, who being asked what God was, required first a day, then two, then three, alleging, that the more he studied it, the less able he found himself to answer it. So the more I think of this, the more unable I see myself to make a satisfactory answer: what I can, take thus; To the Nation of the Jews it employed something which concerns not us, but mystically or analogically: As to have the ark, urim and Thummim: to have God to reveal himself in Visions and dreams: To answer by Thunder, &c. which my haste allows me not leisure to explain. But to them, and to all other people God's presence in the Covenant of Grace implies these three things.  

The church's happiness further explained, to consist, 1 Of God's owning them.  First, the owning and acknowledging of them to be his own separated people, knit to him in a league of love: he is their God, they are his people; they have a propriety in God, and God hath a propriety in them, so that they may say of Him, This God is our God; and God of them, This people is my people. Now this is the greatest happiness, nothing can exceed it: It hath been often questioned, what was the greatest favour that ever Almighty God did for man? Some prefer Creation wherein man received his being, and excellent endowments: some Redemption, wherein man is recovered to a better and surer estate than he enjoyed in Creation: but out of question to be a Jedediah, beloved of God, to be near to God as his Children, as his Spouse, is the comprehension of all that can be said or thought of the happiness of a people. And if you look into the Scriptures, you shall see that God's love to his peculiar people, is such a love as carries with it all relations: It is the love of a Father to his Children; I will be your Father and you shall be my sons and Daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 
2 Cor. 6.  It is the love that a man bears to the wife of his bosom: I will marry thee to me in righteousness, and truth, and mercy. 
Hos. 2.  It is the love of a friend: I have called you my friends: 
John 14  And Abraham the Father of all that are in Covenant, he was styled, The friend of God.  
And from this interest in God flow innumerable privileges, for being thus beloved of God, and precious to him, it follows that they are accepted in their services, that all their sins are pardoned, and that they have liberty to ask any thing that is good for them. When Solomon was beloved of God, 2 Kings 3. 5. God bids him, ask what I shall do for thee: It is but ask and have. 
1 Joh. 5. 14.  And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us. They have friendship with all his friends: In Zach. 8. 23. Ten men shall lay hold upon the skirt of one that is a Jew, of whom they be able to say, we have heard that God is with you. Indeed, to have God thus making himself over to a people, to be their portion, to love them, and to own them, is not only an heaven upon earth, but the very heaven of heaven.  

2 Of God's assisting and prospering of them  Secondly, God's presence with a people in his Covenant, implies God's assisting them, and prospering all the works they put their hands unto. This is the ordinary expression of the Scripture: Every thing prospers, where God is. It is said of David, whithersoever (Saul) sent him, he prospered: for God was with him. 
1 Chr. 11. 9  Every house where Joseph came prospered, for God was with him. 
Gen 39  In all undertakings, in all Counsels for wars, for peace, for trade, &c. God's aid and assistance comes in. If they decree a thing, God will establish it. If they commit their work to him, the very thoughts of their hearts shall be established; Whatsoever they do, God will make it to prosper. Thou O Lord, workest all our works for us. 
Job 22. 28 Pro. 16 3. Psal. ●● Isa. 26. 12   
Whereas now if God be absent, all men's endeavours are to no purpose in any kind. Except the Lord build the house, they labour but in vain that build it. 
Psal. 127  It is to no purpose to plough that field that God will have lie fallow. Ye earn much saith God, but it comes to nothing, ye sow much and bring in little, ye eat and have not enough, ye drink and are not filled; he that earneth wages, puts it into a bottomless purse. 
Hag. 1. 6. 9  What was the reason? the Lord blasted all. And it must needs be so, all the second causes work only by virtue of the first, the great wheel carries on all the other.  
A notable example of this, that God's presence is man's prosperity, we have in Hag. 2. where when God had told them that the reason of all their ill success in their erterprises came from God's withdrawing from them, for their unfaithful walking with him in the matter of rebuilding his house, and that thereupon the people were stirred up to consider their ways, and to build God's Temple, the Lord tells them, vers. 18. that though their seed was not yet in their barns, nor any of their trees had brought forth their burden; and so for aught they could see, they were like to have as hard a year as before: yet now, saith the Lord, from this day I will bless you. Now you shall have a crop, that there shall not be room enough to receive it: for if they would build his Temple, he would come and dwell with them.  

3 Of God's protecting and defending of them.  Thirdly, God's presence in his Covenant implies his protection, and defence of that people against all enemies. It is said of Joseph, he went into Egypt, he was sold for a slave: but saith the Text, God was with him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions: 
Acts 7. 9  None could hurt him, while God was with him. Abundance of excellent Scriptures speak this truth. Observe two or three comparisons which the Holy Ghost frequently useth, in Isai. 4. the later end, the Lord speaks thus of the Churches of the Gentiles, that he would create upon all the assemblies (upon all the places where the people should assemble to serve him) a pillar of a Cloud, and a fire to keep them safe day and night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. mark, God's presence in his Ordinances, is their Glory, and upon all the Glory GOD would create a Defence. 
Gen 7.  he compareth himself to a Shield, I am thy Shield. Now the nature of a Shield is to take all the blo us, that the body cannot be hurt, till the shield be pierced through. In Zach. 2. 5. God saith he will be a wall of fire round about them: alluding to the custom of Travellers in waste wildernesses, who used to make fires round about them in the night, and then none of the wild beasts durst come near them; such a defence is God to his people: And he often saith, he bears them upon eagle's wings. Some observe, that other birds carry their young ones in their claws, (and then the young one may be killed, and the old one not hurt) but the Eagle carries her young upon her back, upon her wings, and so they cannot be hurt till she be shot through. Excellent is that expression in Isaiah the 46. where God comparing himself with the Idols of the Heathens, speaks to this purpose, Their idols must be borne: but God bears his people: They must be set in their place, and be kept lest they be stolen or broken; they must defend their gods: but Jehovah defends his people: In many places God calls himself the watchman of his people, the Leader of them, the Defender of them: all signifying thus much, that the safety and defence of his people rests upon his presence with them.  
Somewhere I have read a Dialogue betwixt a Jew and a Heathen: After the Jews return from the Captivity, all the Nations round about them (being enemies to them) a Pagan asked a Jew how they could have any hope of safety: because (faith he) every one of them is as one silly sheep compassed about with fifty wolves? Ay, but saith the Jew, we are kept by a shepherd that can kill these fifty Wolves when he pleaceth. This God, where ever he comes is the protector of his people; who, if he but speak the word, all the enemies of his people are consumed and brought to nothing. And this is the sum of all Balaam's answer to Balaak, Numb. 23. and 24. that neither force nor fraud could hurt the people of Israel while God was with them.  
On the other side, if God leave a people, all their strength is gone, as Samson's was when his Locks were cut of. A notable instance of this you shall find in Ier. 37. God was then withdrawing from his people, took away the signs of his presence, and told them they should be delivered up into the hands of the Chaldeans: they thought yet to hold it out. But saith the Prophet, If ye had smitten all the army of the Chaldeans, and none of them had been left but a few wounded men, they should come and burn your City. 
Vers. 10.  Amaziah's case 
2 Chr. 25.  also is most famous; he had war with a great company of malicious neighbour Princes that hated him, and he hires 100000 valiant men of Israel, and joins them with his own forces: But there comes a Prophet, and bids him send these 100000 people back; why? for God is not with the Armies of Israel; As if he had said, Amaziah, it were all one for thee to carry 100000 wisps of straw, or a hundred thousand dead carcases into the Field to fight, as a hundred thousand valiant men, if God be not with them.  
While God was with Samson, he could carry the gates of a City upon his shoulders; when God left him, when his Locks were cut (which were a pledge of God's presence) than they took him and made a fool of him at their pleasure.  
If you be not yet satisfied, that all these three things are employed in God's presence: observe further that not only of Jehovah, but even of all the idol gods of the Nations, the like things are spoken.  
As first, they are said to be fathers and friends of the people that worshipped them. Thus the people of Moab who worshipped Chemosh, are styled the people of Chemosh. 
Jer 48. 46  When Judah joined himself in marriage with Idolaters, God saith of him, He hath taken the daughter of a strange god: 
Mal. 2. 11.  And elsewhere when God chargeth his people with Idolatry, the Indictment runs thus: They say to a stock, thou art my Father; 
Ier 2. 27.  that is, thou art my God, as near unto me as a Father to his Children.  
Secondly, all their prosperity was said to come from their gods supposedly present among them, and propitious to them. Wilt thou not possess that which Chemosh thy god gives thee to possess? said Jepthah 
Iudg. 11. 24.  to the King of Ammon, who took Chemosh for his God.  
Thirdly, their safety, their victories are ever attributed to their gods whom they took to be among them; Our God hath delivered into our hands (Samson) our enemy. 
Iudg. 16. 24.  And the attempts against the Heathen, are said to be made against their gods: as in Isaiah 46. 2. where there is a prophecy of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, it is thus expressed, Bell boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, &c. Their gods are gone into captivity. So in 2. King. 18. 34. Rabshakeh vaunts that, in his Master's name, Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad, &c. And it is observed as an ordinary practice of the Romans, that when they came to besiege any City, they would first entreat the gods of that City to leave the protection of it, and come over to them: as who should say, leave you off their protection, and then let us alone with them: So then, the sum of all this put together, amounts to thus much, that God's presence in his Covenant with any people implies that they are dearly beloved of him, that he works all their works for them, and shields and defends them against all their enemies.  
I come now to the Application of it, wherein (because I chiefly intend the next point, the Condition of God's presence) I will briefly make two or three Collections only, which I conceive may be most seasonable and suitable to your office, and to the occasion of your meeting here this day.  

Use 1. for discovery of the greatest Traitors.  First, is it so, that the glory and happiness of a nation stands in the presence of God in his Covenant: Then, I humbly pray you all to take notice, what are the greatest evils, and who are the most desperate traitors, against the King, Church, and State of England at this day. I doubt not but you have a multitude of complaints of Grievances presented to the Parliament house: all (at least pretended to be) contrary to the welfare of the State: give me leave to put up one Great One; and to inform you who be the Authors of the greatest Grievances, and evils that can possibly betide the kingdom of England, even they that would rob us of our God. Solomon saith, A man that wastes his Father, and chaseth away his mother, is a miserable wretch. And I know, if evidence should he brought into this Honourable assembly against any one that had deprived the King of a Subject, you would think him worthy of severe punishment. But higher, if you should light upon one, that should endeavour to deprive the King and kingdom of a wise counsellor, and state's man, in the multitude whereof is the safety of the kingdom. But higher yet, if any should be found that had lift up his hand against his Majesty, the Lord's anointed, who is the breath of our nostrils; if any such should be discovered, would you not say of them as she said to David, Let the soul of my Lord be bound up in the bundle of life, and let the Lord sting the souls of his enemies as out of the middle of a sting? 
1 Sam. 25. 29  yea would not every true hearted subject in the kingdom say thus also? O but (Honourable and beloved) they that would rob us of the glory of our King, and kingdom, that would take away all our happiness, and protection, and prosperity, that would leave us naked to our shame, that we should become a scorn and spoil, are not they worse than any of the former? You will say, Who is he? and where is he that dares presume in his heart to do so? 
Hest. 7. 5.  (I pray stay for a full answer till the next point touching the Condition of enjoying God be unfolded: in the mean time) take this in part: I pray God there be none such met this day to fast and pray before the Lord. Every son of Belial, every one that is a rebel against God, every one that works wickedness, is that wicked Haman, that sells Hester, and all her people to destruction. If there be any such here, you will give me leave (being God's Minister, and your Servant) to discharge my Office faithfully. Should there be but one such, I say, among you that are called together to be the Repairers of the breaches, to such a one let me thus speak; If thou be found to be the Achan, that keeps God from going out with our armies; the Ionas, that art ready to cast away the ship, so that there is no hope of our safety till thou be cast out; if thy conscience accuse thee that thou art a child of Belial, an Idolater, a superstitious person, a profane Esau: lay this close to thy heart, how miserable and wretched a man thou art, that not only adventurest thine own soul to most certain ruin in opposing the Lord; but, as another Sylla, thou pluckest out thy father's purple hair, and deprivest the kingdom of the glory of it: so that it may be written upon thy Grave-stone, This man was the ruin of his King and country. 
Iudg. 18. 24.   
And for the Lord's sake (Honourable and beloved) take it to heart, and lay it up with you, that if God's presence be our glory, than those that would robus of it are our greatest enemies. Think of them all, as he (upon less ground) said of the Children of Dan. You have taken away my God, and what have I more?  

2 Use of the church's happiness, direction how to lengthen out our happiness.  And secondly, let me beseech you all in this your great national council, and Assembly, to take seriously into your thoughts what may be the best way of lengthening out our tranquillity. Beloved, all the Nations in Christendom have been in grievous perplexities many years round about us: we have been hitherto kept as another Land of Goshen, where light hath still shined, when all others have been in darkness. And I know the hearts of some of you have sadly expected when God should come and erect his justice seat among us, or give the sword a Commission against us: now you are met for this very thing, to provide for our welfare: for the Lord's sake take care to keep him with us: if he go, all goes: we can never light our Candle, if this sun be set: we shall never fill our Buckets, if this fountain be shut up. All your counsels and advising will be nothing, if God say, I will stay no longer in England: 
Ier. 37. ●●  we shall then be a spoil to any enemy; a few unarmed men will be too hard for us all.  
It is recorded of the Palladium in Troy, that while that Image remained there, the City was impregnable, and that till the Greeks lighted on that stratagem to steal that idol away, they could never win the City. What ever fancy there was in that, you know how much it concerns us to keep our GOD with us; let your main care be to fix and settle him therefore among us, and then we are safe: if you let him go, we are an undone people.  

3 Use of the church's happiness. A ground of protection in any undertaking for God.  Thirdly, if God's presence in his Covenant be the glory and safety of a people; then may all of you, undertaking any service for GOD, and his Glory, most comfortably and securely rest on God to defend and protect you against all dangers. It is no question but your enemies are mighty, malicious, and cunning; and it may be they are digging as deep as Hell for counsel to do you mischief in this great way and work that you are in. But while you are with God, God will be with you. Are not five sparrows sold for a Farthing, saith our Saviour? Are not you more worth than all the sparrows in the World? are you not in God's work? As Caleb said, The Lord is with us, fear not them, They shall all be bread for us. 
Num. 14. 9  go on boldly, use what providence you can to prevent dangers, but comfortably remember, that the Name of the Lord is a strong Tower, the righteous run to it, and are safe. 
Prov. 18. 10.   

Expos. in Esai 30. v. 15.  I will conclude this with a story of Luther, which he tells of a Bishop of Magdenburg. A Duke of Saxony prepared war against him: the Bishop hearing of it, falls to praying, reforming of his Church, and amending what was amiss. One of the Duke's spies then in that City, when he saw him make no preparation for defence, came and asked him, if he did not hear what the Duke was preparing against him? Yes, saith he, I do; but Ego curabo Ecclesiam meam, & Deus pro me pugnabit. I must look to my work, and the defence of me belongs to God; which when the Duke heard, he disbanded his forces, and acknowledged that he should prove too weak to deal with that man that engaged God in the quarrel against him. So follow you on the work, be ye for the Lord, and comfortably rest yourselves under God's wing, to prosper and protect you. So much for their present happiness. The Lord is with you.   


The second part viz. The Condition of enjoying that happiness.  I proceed now to the second part, the condition upon which this happiness is to be enjoyed: For God is with you, while you are with him. This Adverb while implies:  
First, the duration of time, how long God will be with you, so long as you are with God; so long, and no longer: for so it is used in the very next words of the Text, If ye seek him, he will be found of you: but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. So David saith to Solomon, 
1 Chron. 28 9  Know thou the God of thy Fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.  
Secondly, While signifieth likewise the Degree and measure of God's presence. This is, the beam by which GOD weighs out his presence, the Standard whereby he measures it; that is in what degree people are with God, in that degree he is with them. If they be with God in outward formalities only, God will be with them in outward blessings only: If they be with God in all things as Amaziah was, but not with a perfect heart, God will be so with them: if they be with God absolutely & entirely as Josiah, and David, and Hezekiah, &c. were with God, God will be so with them, 
2 Chron. 28. 2.  fulfilling that in Isai. 26. 
Vers. 7.  that the most upright God balanceth out the ways of the just: he weighs out their way, and gives them a just proportion; according to that in the eighteenth psalm, 
Vers. 26.  With the pure God will show himself pure, and with the froward he will show himself froward: that is, he will deal with men as they deal with him.  
This is fully laid down in Levit. 26. where God saith, if they walk humbly with him, he will walk graciously to them: if they walk frowardly and stubbornly, and contrary to him, he will walk contrary to them: If they vex him seven times, he will vex them seven times. So in the seven Churches, when some of them had a few things for God, God would be with them in a few things. If they will have something contrary to God, he will ever have something against them: and as their ways are to him, so the most High God will measure out himself to them; and that is the Doctrine that I am to handle, viz.  

2 Doct.  God will be with his people to be their glory, their portion, prosperity, and protection, just as they are with him.  
Before I proceed further with this point, give me leave by way of Caution to remove two or three stumbling blocks, which lie in the way of many men.  

1 cleared of Cavils, by a three fold Caution.  First, when you hear, that God will be with his people as they are with God, take heed you understand it not as some, who (that they may set up the rotten Dagon of man's free will, above the ark of God's free grace) do use out of such conditional Scriptures, to argue, that God hath an antecedent, undetermined, uncertain, suspended purpose of doing good to a people, which is moved, changed, or determined, according to the ebbings and flowings of their carriage towards him.  
A few words may serve in this assembly: these conditions show not the moving cause of God's presence, but describe the Subject or People with whom he is present: the hand of the dial makes not the clock to go, but shows how it doth go. These Conditions quicken us to our duty, and tell us upon what terms we must look for God to be with us, but he himself is not thereby limited, but still at liberty to work in us the Condition which himself requireth of us: God's love of Friendship (which is his manifesting himself in his Covenant) we cannot expect, except we be with him; but no Law is hereby laid upon his beneplacitum, his free favour, whereby he works both the will and the deed, and causeth his people to walk in his ways. God gives conditions to us, but takes none from us.  
Secondly, much less need we stick at the gloss of the Papists, who out of such conditional Scriptures use to argue our performance of the condition, formally to merit God's gracious presence, and so they will have it to be rendered by him, not as a merciful giver, but as a just judge. The Scripture is plain to the contrary; our merit is nothing but God's mercy: we grant indeed God's presence to his people is a reward of their obedience; but it is a reward not of justice, but of mercy. So saith the Prophet David, Thou O Lord art merciful, for thou rewardest men according to their works. 
* Psal. 62. 12.   
Thirdly, nor yet must we think, that when this Condition is required of a Nation, that it is so limited, that unless the universality of the people shall perform it, the rest cannot expect God's presence with them: for that was never done, no not in David's, nor in Solomon's time. But it is chiefly meant of the Princes, Rulers, Ministers, and the face of the people; whose ways (whether good or bad in regard of God's national proceeding with them) are ever interpreted to be the ways of the whole body. These blocks removed, I return to the Lessou, viz. That God is with his people while they are with him, in the sense before given. For the making this more profitable, I shall endeavour,  

2 Further explicat●d by the resolving of a question.  First, to show you what in the Scripture language the being of a people with God doth imply.  
Secondly, to make application of it to ourselves.  

Quest. What it is to be with God.  First, what is it for a people to be with God.  

Answ. 1. Negatively  I must show first Negatively, what it is not. Secondly Positively, what it is. First, Negatively, it is not barely to bear God's Name, and to be called his people; It is not merely to draw near to him in the external performance of certain duties: It is not to hang down the head like a Bulrush for a day, 
Isai. 58.  though in fasting and prayer: It is not to bring thousands of rams, and ten thousand rivers of oil 
Micah 6.  before God. You know many, and many people have done all these things, yet God hath protested, they were not with him, nor he with them.  

2 Affirmatively it imports 3 things.  Secondly, positively and affirmatively what it is.  
It implies these three things.  

1 To be an holy people.  First, to be a holy people a Jeshurun, a righteous Nation, to be those that undertake the counterpart of the Covenant, that as God makes himself over to be their God, and their portion, 
Deu. 32 9  so they deliver themselves up to him as a people renewed and sanctified, to become his portion. That is a chief thing which the Scripture always meaneth, when it speaks a people to be with God, that they must be a holy people, separated from all iniquity unto God, as was clearly and largely opened in the morning. Read over all the book of God, and you shall never find that a people are said to come home to God, but when they put away all their abominations, threw away all their lusts and idols to the Moles and to the Bats, 
Isai. 2.  loathing and detesting themselves for them, 
Hos. 14.  being as the Doves in the valley, 
Eze. 7. 16  every one mourning for their own iniquities, fully determining and resolving never to return to them any more. And indeed if this be not done, it is impossible for a people to be with God, or to endure God to be with them: For God is a devouring fire to wicked men; and all wicked men to him are as Straw, Hay, Stubble, and wax, which the nearer they are brought to the fire, the sooner they are devoured. Therefore you shall read that the nearer wicked men have at any time been brought to God, the greater their misery. And for my own part, I question not but if an ungodly man should be lifted up into Heaven, where God most manifesteth himself in glory, he would there be most miserable. Clemens Alexandrinus speaks of a Temple, upon which was written, No unholy thing must come near this place. This is God's very inscription. Hab. 1. 13. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.  
Look over all the Epistles in the new Testament, and you shall find, that however the external profession of Christianity admits men to the external privileges of God's presence, yet unless they be inwardly renewed and sanctified, there is no being nigh to GOD, James 4. 8. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you: Cleanse your hands ye sinners, and purge your hearts, &c.  
This is most clear in that great work of man's Redemption by Jesus Christ: when God had created man holy and righteous, God delighted to be nigh unto him: but so soon as iniquity was found in him, there was a wall of separation built, and a gulf made, that never could be filled up, till the Lord Jesus Christ by his infinite sufferings did it: And when that work is done by Christ, the Lord will not communicate his Christ to any soul in the world, but upon these absolute terms, (and God hath sworn that it shall be so) that so soon as he hath delivered them, and brought them near to himself, in calling them to participate that Redemption, they should serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life. 
Luke 1.  This is the first thing, they must be a holy people.  

2 To be true worshippers of God, in purity.  Secondly, to be with God, is to be true worshippers of him, maintaining the purity of his Ordinances from Idolatry and superstition. This is abundantly proved Hos. 11. 12. Ephraim (saith the Lord) compasseth me. One would have thought that Ephraim was near to God, when he compassed him: but saith God, he compasseth me with lies. What is that? with Idolatry, for it is usually expressed in the Old Testament, that Idols are lies, and lies are put for Idols: as in Isa. 49. 20. Is there not a lie in my right hand? Thus Ephraim (that is the ten Tribes) compasseth me, saith the Lord, but Judah remains faithful with God, therefore he ruleth with the Saints. What was judah's faithfulness? it was her keeping of the marriage Covenant with more care; when in Hezekiah's time (to which the Prophet referreth) Religion was reformed and advanced, than Judah was faithful with God. For the more full understanding of this second branch, let me commend one observation to you concerning all the Kings of Israel and Judah after Solomon's time; the Scripture sets down a character of every one of them, that all the world might know what judgement God had of them. You shall find that of all the Kings of Israel (though there were some very brave men, yet) there is not one of them that God acknowledged to have walked with him, because they were all Jeroboamites, worshippers of the golden Calves. And when he speaks of any King of Judah, he ever singles out one thing as the chief matter of his commendation; and that is, how he stood affected in point of Religion: Such a man was upright with God: the meaning is, all his days he maintained God's worship. And yet let me tell you some of their moralities were no better than they should be. Asa in the Text was a choleric passionate man, and covetous in his old age, and many other weaknesses were found in him; yet because he went throughstitch in the reformation of Religion, Asa's heart was said to be upright with God all his days. With this God useth to cover all their infirmities as with a veil.  
But if any of the good Kings did but halt in this point, God hath left it upon record, as a blot upon their honours, therefore are they blamed, if (through their default) the high places were not taken away, though the idols set up in those places were removed. And in the new Testament, throughout all the time of Antichrists apostasy, the true Church of Christ, that walked with him aright, are described by this Character, that they are a virgin company, not defiled with women; 
Rev. 14. 4  that is, they were never guilry of the spiritual pollutions of that apostatical Church of Rome. This was to be with the Lamb, and to follow him wheresoever he goeth. That is the second, to keep close to God in his worship.  

3 To be on God's side in all Causes.  Thirdly, to be with God, is to be on God's side; to be engaged in God's cause, to appear in those things wherein God looks that all his friends should stand for him. When the Levites would know neither Father nor mother, but slay every man his brother, or companion, or neighbour, 
Exod 32. 26.  that they might avenge God's quarrel; this was to be on God's side. 
2 King. 19  When Elias was zealous for God, at a time wherein all the kingdom (as he thought) played the Apostates: when Phinehas goes with his Javelin, 
Num. 25.  and executes vengeance on Zimri and Cosbi, when men stand in the gap; 
Ezek. 22. 30.  when (in a word) a people are for God and his cause, as Jehoshaphat said he was for Ahab, I am as thou art, and my people as thy people: 
2 Chron. 18. 2.  My horses as thy horses, and my Chariots as thy Chariots, this is to be with God.  
And indeed, if this be wanting, people cannot be interpreted to be with God, because God is not acknowledged in his due place, unless they be for him with all their hearts, and with all their soul, and all their strength, when he hath most need of them. If a woman will do many things for her husband, yet if her heart go more after her Puppets, her clothes, her servants, than after him, especially in times of his necessity, her heart cannot beeinterpreted to be with her husband, because he is not acknowledged in the due place of an husband. So if there be any thing, any cause, any person, that we rather engage ourselves for, than for God and his cause, we cannot be said to be with God.  
So now you have the meaning of the Condition of enjoying God, while ye are with him: It is, 

1 To be reconciled to God, and to walk with him as an holy people.  
2 To continue with him in the purity of his worship.  
3 To stand by him in every cause, which doth concern his glory.    
The deductions which might flow from this Doctrine for our use are many; I shall confine myself to these two, as being most suitable and seasonable to the time, and your work.  
First, matter of Humiliation, and mourning before God for time past.  
Secondly, matter of Duty, for time to come.  

Use 1. Of the second point, which is, a use of deephumiliation.  For the first, Honourable and beloved, you stand this day before the Lord to afflict your souls, and (though you be the chosen men of your Tribes, lifted up above your brethren) yet you are now called, not only to bemoan your own iniquities, but to bear the iniquity of the whole kingdom. And (me thinks) I look upon you, as upon the Prophet Ezekiel, 
Ezek 4.  when he was to bear the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah, he was to lie upon his side, and to eat his bread made of wheat, and Barley, and beans, Lentiles, and Fitches, miserable coarse bread, and baked with the dung of man, and to drink a little water for many days together. How sad and heavy the prophet's spirit must needs be when he was thus to bear such a burden, is easy to judge. Such a temper of spirit would this day well become you. And now could I but speak to you from the Lord how sad things there are against England, in this point of not being with God, could you with patience and grace hear me; and would the Lord affect my heart and yours in handling and hearing of them, we should make this place a Bochim, a place of weepers, the stoutest heart would be as Queen Huzzab, and her Ladies, 
Nahum. 2  when they went into Captivity, tabering on their breasts, and mourning as Doves, yea howling after the manner of Dragons. Could I, as in a mirror, set before your eyes, how infinitely far off the body of this kingdom is from being with the Lord, we should wonder that the Lord hath not wholly forsaken us long agone; and that instead of enjoying this liberty of pleading with God for our lives, for our Prince and country, and for whatsoever is precious to us, we are not left like unto Sodom, and made like unto Gomorrah. Take a view of all the three particulars mentioned in the point.  

Because we are 1 Not an holy people.  First, are we an holy people? (I am now pleading God's cause, and though a poor unworthy man, I stand betwixt God and a kingdom) I ask again, are we an holy people? Are our Princes, our Rulers, our Magistrates, our Ministers, and the body of the people holy? do we walk according to the rules of Christianity, the sum whereof for the practical part is laid down in the ten commandments, and those expositions that our Lord gives of them? Do we walk thus? I know there is no man here so ignorant as to imagine that we do. Alas! the prophet's speech too well befits us: Ah! sinful Nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, Children that are corrupters: The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint: from the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifiedsores. 
Isai 1.  Egypt was never more bespread with Locusts and frogs, than our kingdom is with horrible profaneness, uncleanness, oppression, deceit, and whatsoever is a stench in the Lord's nostrils. The generality of people wearing indeed the Lord's Livery, (being christened) and doing the devils work all the year long. Nay, is there any thing this day so hated, as holiness? have we not gotten terms to scoff down all goodness? is not almost every man who will not swear and be drunk, and be deboyst as a Turk, or worse, cried down with the odious name of a Puritan? That as Ambrose said of Paulinus, a young noble man of Rome, at whom when he was converted to Christ, and left the world's glory, to carry Christ's cross, there was more wondering than if a Mule had cast a foal. And as Bede said of the ancient Britain's, immediately before their destruction by the Saxons, that they were come to that height of wickedness, as to cast Odium in Religion is professores tanquam in adversarios. God knows many thousands are guilty of the same in this Land, this day: the measure of our iniquity seems to be more than full. O that our hearts could this day bleed for it!  

2 Not with God in the matter of hisworship  Secondly, see what wonderful cause we have to be abased for all the injury the Land stands guilty of, in abusing God in the point of his Worship, which is the defiling of the marriage bed betwixt God and his people. God hath visited all the Reformed Churches, brought most of them almost to nothing: yet, pass over and see, whether ever any of them have provoked the Lord in this kind so much as we have done. Let me name four or five things, too much practised, and too little lamented: God in mercy affect our hearts with them this day.  
First, the Articles of our faith, the depositum, the good thing committed to us, which we received from our fore Fathers; and should transmit entire to our posterity: oh the miserable defection that we have made from God, adulterating thereof! Tell me, beloved, what one point, what one Article of Faith controverted betwixt us and the Church of Rome is there, that our Pulpits, and Presses, and University Acts have not been bold withal? as if we were weary of the Truth which God hath committed to us: as if indeed, for our not receiving the truth in love, God were giving the Nation up to believe lies.  
Secondly, let me instance in the Lord's Day; a day which is a sign betwixt God and his people, that He is their God that sanctifieth them. That as Idoll-worshippers are known by keeping holidays to their Gods: So God's people are known to be his people, by observing of his Holy day.  
It is most true, that our ancient Doctrine established is purer in this point than can be found in most of the Churches, and excellent laws we have for the backing of it: but I believe there hath not been in all the Christian World such high affronts offered to the Lord's day, as of late hath been in England, and (I am confident) they all lie in the Deck charged, as the sin of the Nation, till by some public Act, the fourth commandment be restored to its due place and honour.  
Thirdly, go to another branch, the point of preaching the Word. The preaching of the Word is the sceptre of Christ's kingdom, the glory of a Nation, the Chariot upon which life and salvation comes riding: such a treasure as that any wise Merchant would sell all to buy the field wherein this Treasure lies. O that God would humble England for the great abuse of this invaluable mercy! What little care hath the State in general taken to provide that Christ might ride in Triumph upon his white horse? that the Word of God might spread into every corner of the Land? But, oh the cruelty that hath been offered to many poor Congregations, in taking away the bread of Life from their mouths, without any pity! as if the starving and murdering of souls, for which Jesus Christ shed his blood, were a matter of no moment. And oh, the spoil, and havoc that hath been made among many faithful and painful Ministers, for such trifles as will not endure trial in the day of the Lords appearing? Could we as in a mirror, behold the great guilt we lie under for these things, and apprehend what great wrath is kindled against the kingdom for them, how would our hearts tremble before God this day?  
Fourthly, but above all, the extreme daring, bold audaciousness of a generation of men, that have adventured as much as in them lies, to corrupt God's worship, that not only rejoice to see the idolatry, and superstition of Rome practised by others, but have dared to set their thresholds by God's threshold, and to dress out all God's worship, according to their own fancies, things too apparent to need any further proof.  
It may be some may think, this is no great matter, and much complaint need not be made against it: a few distinctions will salve all that is done to quit it from Idolatry, and superstition. But as Lodovicus Vives saith of the Papists in his days, that for aught he saw, they (in effect) gave the same reverence to their Saints, which the Pagans did to their gods: So I may truly say of these men, (that notwithstanding all their distinctions) little difference is to be found betwixt their practice, and the superstitions and Idolatries of the Church of Rome.  
Will some say, let it be granted that men have been too blame, (as doubtless multitudes have been too bold) in this kind, yet God forbid, that we should judge so far, as to make them as odious to God, as if they were the bringers of God's wrath upon the Nation, as if they were as bad as whoremongers, or blasphemers; or that we should offer to compare them with the gross Idolaters of the Church of Rome: God forbid such a stain should be cast upon them. Thus some men draw a fine veil over these foul enormities.  
Good Lord, that the glorious light of the gospel in eighty two years, should not take away this film from the eyes of men! Judge you the case, you that are husbands, you that have a spirit of jealousy, be ye Arbitrators between the Lord and this Generation; and say, if a wanton look in your own wife, if a whorish dress, if the giving, or receiving of love tokens, if the least degrees of dalliance would not render your own wife more abominable to you, than the known fornication, or adultery of any other woman whatsoever? Do you not know that the Church of Christ is his Spouse? 
Exo. 33. 5  Do you not know that God is more easily provoked by a people among whom he walks, than by any other people whatsoever? I beseech you lay these things to heart.  
And let the remembrance of this day, help you in it. This day eighty two years agone, the Lord set up the gospel among us, and took us to be a nation in Covenant with him. Oh the progress that some nations would have made! The thankfulness and fruitfulness that some people would have attained to in so long a time! but that we should grow worse and worse in point of God's worship, that we should hanker after Idolatry, and Superstition, and fall away worse than any of our neighbours, that God hath visited so severely: what shall we say, when God comes to reckon with us for these things?  
Fiftly, add the horrible profanation of the holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the promiscuous multitude everywhere, not only allowed, but even compelled to the receiving of it: Multitudes of whom, know not whether Christ were a man or a woman, nor how many Gods there be, multitudes wallowing in all profaneness and licentiousness; yet if they profess that they be no Papists, almost everywhere they are admitted to the polluting of these reverend Mysteries, as if we would compel the Lord to depart away from us. 
Ezek 8.   

3 Not with God as in gauged in His Cause.  And then, if we should take in the third branch of engaging ourselves in God's cause, how little zeal is there for God? The wrongs and cruelties that are done to many, the tears of the afflicted, and oppressed; and so few that will open their mouths, or appear to plead any cause which GOD will own, abundantly proclaimeth this. Verily, beloved, were you all as innocent as Ezra 
Ezra 9  was of the fact among the Jews, of the wretchedness of the people of Israel: If you did know what God looks for at your hands this day, you would rent the very Caule of your hearts before the Lord, and sit down with him astonished, and refuse to be comforted, and wonder that GOD hath not wholly left us, and delivered up our glory as a spoil, and severely revenged the quarrel of his Covenant.  
But to come nearer yet, and bring it home into your own bosoms; what if you yourselves be guilty of these things? You that are the flower of your Tribes, the chief of the Thousands of England; You that are lifted up above your Brethren, whom GOD hath made the Head, and not the tail of the places where you live, when GOD might have left you to be hewers of Wood, and drawers of Water. And he hath made some of you Noblemen, some Knights, and Gentlemen, and now called you to be the Repairers of our breach, to heal and prevent our ruin. What if you yourselves have a chief hand in these transgressions? What if among you be found swearers, cursers, adulterers, drunkards, haters of God's ways, scorners of his Children, and his Ordinances, men who go on in your sinful ways, and resolve to do so: and because you are great, will therefore be children of Belial, refusing to carry God's yoke: what if any such should be here? The Lord of heaven forbid. But if there should be any such, I beseech you think what a Magor-mizzabib, what a terror round about you there will be, when God comes to find you, and to reckon with you!  
Are you come to Fast, and Pray before the Lord? Do you come to stand betwixt God, and the Nation, when you wallow in such ways as God's soul abhors? Do you such things as are rebellion against God, and pull down his vengeance on us? Do you call this an acceptable Day? do you think the LORD will accept of any service at your hands? Be ashamed, and confounded, and never rise up till GOD have broken your hearts, and spoken peace to you in the blood of CHRIST. Let deep humbling thoughts for these things, be now to your souls as those bitter herbs wherewith the Israelites of old did eat the Passeover. But if you make nothing of all this, but will go on carelessly, and walk contrary to God, God will walk contrary to you, the Lord will not be with you. This is the first use for Humiliation.  

2 use. Of the escond point. Exhortation consisting of 3 branches.  Secondly, I add but another of Exhortation, and I have done: (I beseech you pardon the Liberty, which your call gives me, I were unworthy ever to speak more, if I should not now speak freely) You stand all this day before the LORD, and have been exercised in the Duties of Fasting, and Prayer: I beseech you tell me in God's presence (or rather answer GOD in your own hearts) what was the thing you propounded to yourselves? was it to keep a day for Formality? because it is now a received thing in England, in the beginning of a Parliament to keep a Fast? Or was it, that by hanging the head as a Bulrush for a day, you might expiate your sins with God, and take a new Ticket to sin again? As it was said of Lewis the eleventh, that he would kiss his Crucifix when he had done evil, and then God and he were friends, and he might go on in his old way again. If it be so, expect a sad reckoning for this day's work: you deal with a God that will not be mocked by the greatest of you.  
You shall read in Ezek. 14. divers of the Elders came to the Prophet to inquire of God. These men, saith God, have set up their idols in their hearts, and they come to inquire of me: Tell them I will answer them with a witness, I will set my face against them, and make them a sign, and a Proverb. So I say, from God to the greatest of you, who brought your sins in the morning, and purpose to return to them in the evening, and keep such a solemn day only for a formality, and there an end, God will reckon with you for it.  
But if you desire indeed to meet God, and to be with God, that God may be with you, then weigh what I shall say from the Lord; and if it appear to be his will, than (as you were taught in the morning) draw it up into a Covenant; Covenant betwixt God and your souls, come, and receive the Sacrament upon it, and lie at God's feet to obtain grace for performance. My exhortation shall be answerable to the three branches of the Doctrine.  

1 To turn unto God as an holy people.  First, resolve every one of you for his own part to turn to God, to cast out all your abominations, never to turn to any of your wicked ways from this day forward. It may be this motion seems harsh, and will not easily down: (because in our wretched days, as the Turks use to account all fools to be Saints; so men with us account all Saints to be fools.) But this must be done; necessary things fall not under deliberation. To live in hell you would not; to live with God you cannot: hard it will be to be damned; impossible it will be to be saved, unless with full purpose of heart you turn to God, and become new creatures. I must say to you as the Prince of Orange said to his soldiers at the battle of Newport, when they had the Sea on the one side, and the Spaniards on the other: If (saith he) you will live, you must either eat up these Spaniards, or drink up this Sea; So must you, either conquer your lusts, eat up the Spaniards, or drink up the Sea, the devouring gulf of God's wrath: and none of you know how soon this time may come, that will ye, nill ye, ye must be be brought near to God, who is a devouring fire, utterly to consume you, if you be Straw and Stubble, or to glorify you if you be Gold.  
The Pagan King of Niniveh saw this, that without turning every man from the wickedness that was in his own hands, there could be no hope of escaping the wrath of God. And therefore you who are Christians cannot expect that God should be with you in any thing that you take in hand: till this be done, God will not only loathe you, but the works of your hands also.  

2 Be with God in matters of Religion  Secondly, this done, be with God in matter of 
* Hag. 2. 11, 12, etc  Religion: my meaning plainly is this, be  
First, such as cleave to the purity of his worship in your own practice.  
And then in your great counsel, be ye purgers and preservers of our Religion. Look throughly what is amiss, and pluck up every plant that God hath not planted; throw to the moles, and to the Bats, every rag that hath not God's stamp and name upon it. That it may be said of this Parliament in matter of Religion, as it is said of Josiah, There was never any like him before him, nor any after him. So there was never any Parliament before this, nor never any after it, that followed the Lord with all their heart, and all their soul, and all their might, according to all the will of God.  

Motives thereunto from the second commandment.  And to provoke you, give me leave to give you a brief view of the hedge that God hath made about the second commandment. The intent of that commandment is, that God's people should worship him with his own worship, and his own ordinances, and never dare to tender to him the devices, and traditions of men for a homage. Now the Lord knowing the itch, and proneness in men to be tampering in the worship of God, to set their thresholds by his threshold, hath set such a hedge about it, that if a man did consider it seriously, he could not but admire that ever mortal man should dare in the matter of God's worship, to meddle any jot further than the Lord himself hath commanded: it standing like the Cherubims, and the flaming Sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. 
Gen. 3. 24   

1.  First, he is a jealous God, as if he should say, the matter of my worship is to me as the marriage bed; and I am a Husband easily provoked to jealousy, which is 
* Prov. 6. 34  the rage of a man, and will accept no ransom.  

2.  Secondly, all such are said to hate God, I will visit the sins of them that hate me. They all pretend that they are lovers of him. They that made men kiss the Calves, yet would have them swear Jehovah liveth. Jeroboam pretended nothing but respect to God, and to God's people, when he set up his Calves: so these men pretend reverence and veneration to God's Ordinances: but God protests that they all hate him, which may appear by the odious names he gives to their sin, calling it sometimes Rebellion, as being a denying his sovereignty, Iosh. 22. 16. 22. Sometimes apostasy, Ier. 2. 13. Sometimes Adultery, the most unpardonable sin betwixt man and wife, Ezek. 16. And sometimes Blasphemy. Isai. 65. 7.  

3.  Thirdly, it is a sin that hath vengeance, and punishment entailed upon it to the Third and fourth generation. The Jews say to this day, that there was never any calamity betided their Nation, since their coming out of Egypt, but there was an ounce of the Golden calf in it. It is a sin that GOD fails not to visit upon Children, to the third and fourth Generation.  

4.  But now on the other side, God will show mercy to thousands of them that love him, and keep his commandments. How is that? The Lord interprets them to love him that purely worship him. As a man who finds his wife faithful in the marriage bed, judgeth that she loves him, and that her heart is one with his, what ever other infirmities she may have. Yea, they are interpreted to keep all his commandments. God will trust them for all his commandments, whom he finds faithful in his worship: Yea, to a thousand Generations, he will remember them, which is longer than this wicked world shall stand. The kindness and faithfulness of them that maintain and preserve the pure Religion and worship of God, shall ever be in the sight of God for them and their posterity.  
Oh! let me help your reckoning in the day of the LORD, entreating you for the children's sake of your own body, 
Job. 19 17.  to lay what I have said to heart, that you may provide that the Ordinances of God be neither taken away, nor defiled, that GOD may be purely worshipped in his own way for time to come. And that by a Generation of men, who seek only to glory in our flesh, 
Gal. 6. 13  we be not juggled our of our Religion, nor misled in such a way of service, as that God's soul should take no pleasure in us.  

3 Be with God, in every cause of God.  Thirdly, and lastly, (which is the comprehension of all the rest) be on God's side, engage yourselves in every cause which is God's: own what God owns. As Christ said, You shall not have me always; that is, in my person, but the poor you shall have always, and when you will you may do good to them. So I say, you have not Christ with you in his person: but you always have his Cause, his Truth, his Ordinances, his Day, his Ministers, his Children, the tears of the afflicted; all causes of justice and righteousness, these are God's causes. God would have all his friends zealous for him, and appear for him, his Church, and his Cause. And to inflame your hearts to this, be pleased to consider these few encouragements. 
Motives hereunto.   

1 GOD hath deserved it at your hands.  First, God hath deserved it at your hands, that you should appear for Him, he hath appeared for you when none could: His son Jesus Christ gave his own soul a ransom for your sins, or else you had perished in Hell for ever. He hath made you the Head, rather than the tail: he hath heaped upon you Honour, Wealth, and Friends; and you can give no other reason why you are not more miserable than the poorest Vagrant, that wants both house and home, but only this, that GOD hath been on your side. Doth not he then deserve to be owned? They say, Love is love's Loadstone, and loves Whetstone.  

2 God's cause hath many enemies, and few friends.  Secondly, God's Cause, his Church, and Children, have few friends, and many enemies, and those enemies no Babies, but Principalities and Powers, cruel, Cunning, Malicious, and unweariable: And more now than ever. Satan knows his time is short, he stirs up all his instruments, as if one spirit possessed them all. And is it not a shame, that the Lord's friends should be more backward in his cause than the vassals of Satan are in their Masters?  

3 GOD hath, for punishment to his Church permitted the enemy to prevail very far.  I add thirdly, the Lord to punish the Pride, sloth, hypocrisy, and Formality of his people, hath of late suffered the enemies of the Church to prevail exceeding far. The face of Christendom this day so miserably rent with wars, Sedition, Heresies, and schisms is a most ruthful spectacle. Who can look upon poor Germany, and not even be compelled to weep over the book of the Lamentations again? And GOD knows whose Lot is next: Little quiet I fear is to be expected in Christendom, till the Beast his kingdom be ruined.  
Now we know that the Lord accounts that the most seasonable time for his friends to own his cause, when the enemies are most violent against it: then God saith, Who is on my side, who? When the pressures of the Church are greatest; the opportunities of appearing for the LORD are most seasonable, and great are their Rewards who then stick to him. Every one would gladly embrace a glorified CHRIST: but when the whole council shall reject him; then, with Nicodemus to plead for him, this is honourable. When hanging upon the cross, his Disciples run away from him, then with Joseph of Arimathea boldly before Pilate to show love to him, this is acceptable.  
When the Jews had an exalted Mordecay, than the people of the Land would turn Jews. The Samaritans would help to build the Temple, when the Persian Emperor is a friend to the Church: But our Lord saith, let me have the man that will not be ashamed of me before a froward and adulterous Generation. mark, he doth not say in a gracious Generation (Than no man will be ashamed of him) but in an adulterous, and froward Generation.  

4 God's Cause is the best, and his side will prove at last the prevailing party.  Fourthly, when you strike in on the LORDS side, on his church's side, on his Causes side; you shall not only strike in with the best side, with the best Cause, but with the most prevailing; with that side which must and shall have the victory at the long run. It would make a man never to be afraid to be engaged in a quarrel where he is sure of the Victory. The bark wherein Christ, his Church, and Cause are, may be tossed, but can never be drowned. Populus Romanus saepe praelio victus, nunquam bello. 
Florus.  The Romans lost many battles, but they were never overcome in a set war; at the long run they crushed all their enemies. So all the enemies that seem too hard for Christ's cause, and his Church, must perish. He must rule, till all his enemies be made his footstool. 
Psal. 110.   
In Zacharie the 12. there are four or five admirable expressions. The Church is compared to a Hearth of Fire in the midst of a Wood. Like a Torch of Fire in the midst of a Sheafe. Whether the Wood, or the Fire, the Torch, or the Sheafe will have the victory judge ye. In verse the second she is compared to a cup of poison, that will end them who think to devour it. To an heavy Stone, that will return upon those to their ruin, who endeavour to carry it away. So shall it be with all Nations that fight against the Church and cause of Christ. And if any man should happen to lose his life in the Lord's quarrel; as the angel said to Daniel, he shall stand up in his lot: 
Dan 12 13  he shall rise up, and follow CHRIST, clothed with glory. Revelations the nineteenth, the Armies in Heaven, that followed Christ's triumphant Chariot, were such as were holy, and faithful, and loved not their lives to the death. Would not this move any man to be on God's side?  

5 The consideration of the office and calling of this house of Parliament should provoke them hereunto above others.  Lastly, (Honoured, and beloved in the Lord) let the consideration of your great place, and office that God Almighty hath called you to raise up your spirits to endeavour great things for the LORD. For my part, I am too weak to fathom in my thoughts, what the great work is to which you are called together by God. You are met to seek the good of the Land, the good of the Church, a greater charge than the salvation of your own souls, is put into your hands. It may be not only our welfare, and peace, and Religion: but even the welfare of all Christendom, under God depends upon your meeting. That God that might have left you (as I said) to be hewers of Wood, and drawers of Water, hath called you to be Repairers of all our breaches, and the Prayers, and blessings of all God's people are upon you. The eyes of all the Nation next under GOD, and our gracious sovereign, are fixed upon you.  
Oh what a mighty tye doth this put upon the soul of every one of you, to lay aside all business, and pleasures, and lusts, and ends of his own, and solely to study how to advance Christ's cause, and appear where Christ would have him appear. Your work is great, our evils are many: but be not discouraged; only rememember, that God is with you, while you are with him. As it is in Zech. 4. Who art thou, O great mountain? before my servant Zorobabel thou shalt become a plain. If God be with Zorobabel, mountains shall become plains before him. God can make those things, that you apprehending as Hydra's, and Monsters would tremble to think of, to fall before you as the leaves of a tree.  
There is a notable story of Luther, when he first came out against the Pope, Albertus Cranzius (a Bishop that liked well his project, but thought it impossible to bring it to pass) wrote to Luther, Frater, Frater abi in cellam, & dic, miserere mei Deus, friar, friar, go to thy cloister, and say, Lord have mercy upon me, this work is too hard for thee; yet Luther wrought wonders. One Luther will do great things, if GOD be with him. One Parliament may do great things, if God be with them.  
Resolve upon it this day to be for God, make this another blessed seventeenth of November. But if through fear, treachery, cowardice, pride, or sloth, you withdraw yourselves from God's work; Deliverance shall come to God's people another way; and you for your part shall not only lose your share in the comfort: but you shall bring all the guilt, and sins that the Nation groans under, to stand upon your own score before God. Yea, (you will think it is a great word; but I speak it not rashly) it may be more guilty, than the very Authors of our mischiefs, who have been firm to their own principles, in the bringing of them in: and you contrary to your light, and office do further them, if you not withstand them. As he who solicited an Emperor for a pardon for one that had killed two men, and received a denial upon that very reason, that the delinquent had twice imbrued his hands in blood; replied to the Emperor: Nay, you killed the second; for if he had been cut off for the first, he had never killed the other. So, abundance of evils committed by private men, are not the sins of the Rulers and Princes at the first, but may afterwards through their connivance or want of zeal, be truly reckoned and accounted theirs. God forbid that you should bring so great a burden upon your own souls and consciences. up and be doing, and the Lord be with you in his cause.  
Now although your wisdoms best know what is to be done; and it may seem unfit to prescribe such a college of physicians a way of a Cure: Yet give me leave only to propound one thing (even the same which was pressed in the forenoon) which I suppose would prove a Catholic remedy for all our evils, and the greatest means for the lengthening out of our tranquillity, and the healing of all our distempers: that is, the promoting, establishing, and maintaining a faithful, learned, painful, preaching ministry: that every candlestick may have a Candle, that every flock may have a faithful shepherd to guide them. This is the thing I would propound to you. This was the course Jehoshaphat took, who sent Princes and Levites, who taught in Judah, and went about through all the Cities, and taught the people. 
2 Chron. 17. 7.   
Blessed be God for the light that shines among us. Yet I must tell you that of nine or ten thousand parishes, which they say are in England, I believe there are many thousands, which these eighty years have not had the blessing to enjoy (at the least any long time) a settled, faithful, preaching ministry. So that I believe, (and I speak somewhat from experience) that many thousands, if not thousands of thousands, know not the right hand from the left, in the very principles of the Doctrine of Christ. What ever be the cause, whether it be that our laws and Constitutions are defective: whether the negligence or corruption of our governors; whether the want of a preaching maintenance, or whether all these be the fault: certain it is, there hath been hitherto a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, somewhat which hath hindered the spreading of it.  
And it is worth your most diligent inquiry, whether the neglect of this hath not been one main cause of the ill success of so many former Parliaments. Could you provide mercifully for people in this, you would make all safe, and England would thank you as long as it is England.  
To incite you, be pleased to consider but these two things.  
First, we deserve no further the name of a Christian Nation than this is done, nor any further than this is advanced. This is the sceptre whereby Christ rules: The dwelling of his Word with a people, is the greatest proof of their owning him for their Prince, and his acknowledging them for his own Subjects. Is any Country esteemed a part of a Prince's Dominion, that is not ruled by his laws? Neither can any Land be accounted Chists kingdom, where the preaching of the word, which is the Rod of his power is not established. And the Lord hath ever esteemed the hinderers of his Word, to be the men that would not have Christ rule over them.  
Secondly, if all the good laws in the world were made, without this, they would come to nothing; order what you can, leave this undone, you will never do the thing you aim at. Magistrates and Ministers of Justice will not execute them, and people will not obey them. The dark places of the Land are ever full of the habitations of wickedness. 
Psalm. 74. 20.  But if Christ 
Isaiah 11. 4, &c.  smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid, the calf, and the young Lion, and the fatling together, and a little Child shall lead them. There shall nothing hurt nor destroy, where Christ's sceptre rules: Your laws cannot give men new hearts, nor new strength; that is the privilege of the laws of Christ.  
The Poets speak of excellent musicians, who by the power of their music made stones leap into Walls, beasts to be tame, &c. This will do more, this will take the stone out of men's hearts, this will give them a new heart; this will make all the commandments easy; there is a kind of omnipotency in it. Ibeseech you amongst all your excellent purposes for our good, let this be the first, and chiefest: If this will not do, nothing will: If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, they will not believe though one rise from the dead.   
FINIS.  

LONDON: Printed by J. O. for SAMUEL MAN, dwelling in St. Paul's churchyard, at the sign of the Swan. 1641.