Die Veneris 26. Novembris 1646. IT is this day ordered by the LORDS in Parliament assembled, That this House gives thanks to Mr. Price, one of the Assembly of Divines, for his great pains taken in his Sermon preached on the last Fast day before the Lords of Parliament, in the Abbey Church Westminster: And he is hereby desired to print and publish the same; which is to be printed only by authority under his own hand. John Brown Cleric. Parliament. I appoint Richard Whitaker to print this Sermon. William Price. Man's Delinquency Attended by DIVINE JUSTICE Intermixed with MERCY. Displayed in a Sermon to the Right Honourable the House of LORDS Assembled in Parliament, in the Abbey Church at Westminster, Novemb. 25. 1646. being the solemn day of their monthly Fast. By William Price, B.D. Pastor of Waltam-Abby; and one of the Assembly of Divines. Non erubescat poenitentiam agere, qui non erubuit poenitenda committere. Aug. Let not him blush to repent, who hath not blushed to commit that that is to be repent of. LONDON, Printed by R. R. for Richard Whitaker, at the sign of the King's Arms in S. Paul's Churchyard. 1646. To the Right Honourable the House of PEERS assembled in PARLIAMENT. Right Honourable, IT was enough to impose that piece of penance on yourselves, to give this unpolished Sermon the hearing; but it is much you should put your eyes to further expense of patience. But since you are pleased to desire (which to me is a command) my hand against myself, by testifying my weaknesses in the exposing this mean discourse to public view, I obey. But then give him, whom you have so far emboldened, leave to mind you, that the Sermons your Lordships have heard, or should have heard, are to be reckoned in the inventory of your receipts from your God. Au●istis, laudastis, verba recepistis verba reddidistis; Deo gratias, at haec folia sunt, modo fi●ctus quae●i●ur. Aug. To hear, and to read, is but to carry in; you are also to bring forth; not only the leaves, or the blossoms of good words, or resolutions; 〈◊〉 fruit: Those of your sphere enter the lists of comparison with vines and olives, Jud. 9 8, 9, 10. the choicest of trees in Jothams' parable: and if a vine be fruitless, Ezek. 15.23. it is worthless, and will not yield a pin to hang an hat on. You are fixed in an higher orb, and attract all eyes unto you: You, as a snail, or the 〈…〉 in the sea, leave a shining tract 〈…〉: Your example hath a potent 〈…〉 that stand on the lower grou●●; 〈…〉 multiply imitaters, as one 〈…〉 a stone in the water, Non qua 〈◊〉, sed qua itur. Sen. begets an hundred. Inferiors love to go the way Superiors use to go, rather than the way they should go; and care not much though they perish, so it be on such credit. Besides, the greatness of the personage greater's the guilt; Omne animi vitium tanto conspectins. Juv. the height of the exalted heightens their sin. As we say in Arithmetic, 〈◊〉, in the first and lowest place is but one, in the second place 10, in the third 100; and so higher, and higher. And as the whitest ivory makes the blackest coal; the most generous wine the sharpest vinegar; as the shrewdest tempests come often out of the warmest corners, so the greatest injustice, and most unworthy demeanour we fear from Nobility and potency degenerated. Governors' actions are like jeremy's figs, or Origen's Works; if bad, very bad. Greatness disjoined from Goodness is rather a swelling excrescence, than a true, real magnitude: You are to give account at the great Audit-day, not only as Christians; but as Nobles, as Judges, as Senators, as Magistrates. 'Twere good you contemplated with an holy emulation the precedents of untainted Religion, unswayed integrity, incorrupt justice, inconquerable patience, facile moderation, surpassing temperance, that the sacred Scripture and other Stories are sertile in. When you read that Manlius Torquatus took off his own son's head for irregular running afore a command, though his intents were fair, and his design successful; think with yourselves, that it is not fit to suffer your Deputies to be occentrick, arbitrary, unlimited in their proceed, where no Order or Ordinance of yours enables them. When you read that Quintus Cincenius was taken from the plough, and made Dictator of Rome; and when he had done his Country the utmost service he conceived he could arrive to, he returned to his former meanness; it will quench soaring ambition in you. When you find in Story, that Lucius Valerius, a Roman Consul, and so dying, having long the custody of the Treasury of Rome, was yet so poor at his death, that the Commonwealth was fain to defray the charges of his Funeral; you will, Exod. 18.21. like Jethroes Justicers, hate that ignoble dry drunkenness, covetousness. When you meet it storied of Fabritius, and testified by his enemy, that the Sun could sooner be justled out of his Orb, than he out of the Orb of Justice; you cannot but be dispassionate, unprepostest, unprejudiced Judges. Justice is painted with scales in her hand, not to weigh gold, but right. When a woman kneeled to Francis I of France for Justice; Stand up (said he) woman, Justice I own thee; if thou beg any thing, ask mercy. When you read that Alphonsus' King of Arragon read over the Bible with Commentaries fourteen times, you will study the Scripture more. Oh let not purblind Heathens, that had no better conduct than the glow-worms twilight of divine Nature, and unrenewed Reason; Let not blindfolded Papists cast you behind them, and rise in judgement against you. God expects you should outvie and outdo the most advanced Moralists: Your helps Heavenward are more and mightier than theirs, your light clearer, your obligations to God more, and greater: God hath honoured you above others, who are but of the same mould with others, as the ground of the Rainbow is but a common exhalation, only the Sun it is that gilds and enamels it with such various colours. ●●dete quod in 〈◊〉 est hanc ●oriam ad illum far, a quo est, 〈◊〉 vul●is e●●●rdere, aut certe ●rdi ab ea. Ber. ●. p. 207 aluminium non ●cipere, sed da●e dignitati. ●ustin. l. 6. Study as much as in you lies, to return honour to him from whom you had your honour, if you would not lose your honour, or at least be lost by it. Epaminondas so carried his honour, that he seemed rather to contribute lustre to, then to borrow it from his honour. It will be worthy you to be a dignity to your dignity: An undeserving Person honoured, is but as a dwarf, set him on Ossa or Olympuc, he is but a dwarf still; A worthy person honoured is a Colossus, great, though in the bottom of a pit. Your honour it a Talon with which God betrusts you, which if you embase, he that gave it can recall it. Dignity, like oil is airy, and slippery. Henry the 4. the Emperor, who fought two and fifty pitched battles, was compelled by poverrie to Petition for a prebend's place at Spire to maintain him in his old age. And Comminez saith, that he saw the Duke of Excester, who married King Edward the fourth's sister, begging barefoot in the Low-Countries: But I forget myself; and should crave pardon, and Apologise for the length both of my Sermon and Dedication, but that would but make me the longer. May you live and die full of Honour: May you be Instruments of God's Glory here, and Vessels of eternal glory hereafter, is, and shall be the Prayer of Your Lordship's most humbly levoted servant in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, WILLIAM PRICE. A SERMON before the House of LORDS on the last Monthly Fastday. EZRA 9.6, 7, 8. VER. 6. And I said, O my God, I am ashamed, Divers Translation. and blush (or, I am confounded and ashamed) to lift up my face (or, my eyes) unto thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. V 7. Since (or, from) the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass even unto this day: And for our iniquities have we, our Kings, and our Priests been delivered into the hands of the Kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to the spottle, and to confusion of face, as it is (or, appeareth) this day. V 8. And now for a little space (or, a moment) grace hath been showed from the Lord our God, to leave us (or, in causing) a remnant to escape; and to give (or, in giving us) a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage (or, servitude.) THis is a gloomy day of public humiliation; Context. and the argument of this Chapter (on a branch whereof my lot is now fallen) is drooping, and heaviness. Ver. 5. The people indeed, we find trembling (in the next Chapter) for the immoderate rain; Chap. 10.9. for it seems the clouds then dispensed their treasures too fast, as now they do: But a dunghilly worldling can howl on his bed under a loss or cross: But our Ezra mourns more for the blackness, than the burning of the coal of sin. A formalist may sometime feel a legal fit, a pang of sorrow for his own sins: but Ezra laments the mis-carriages of others; the people of Israel, the Priests, the Levits, the Princes and Rulers, ●●er. 1.2. who were all embarked in that delinquency that he deplores. Ezra's humiliation began within, but ended not there: His sorrow-prest heart finds a vent in all the solemn dress, & equipage that grief uses to assume, and put on; laceration of garments, ●er. 3.4, 5. plucking the hair from his head, and beard, pensively sitting down with silence, stupefaction, astonishment until the evening. And lest his passion should be interpreted an immasculating, sullen stupidity, & amazed dulness, rather than an active repentance, (which ought to be a fruit-bearing-tree, & not a dead log) he raises and rouses himself, and betakes himself to his knees, and spreads out his hands heaven-ward (the usual visible demonstrations of the height of devotion) and offers the fruit of his lips, pouring out his soul, clothing his sad apprehensions withaery, but solid and melting expressions, breathing forth his complaints to him who only could relieve him, in a prayer that here is memorised and conveyed to posterity, distilling from his own pen. It is recorded of him, Chap. 7.6. that he was a prompt Scribe: His tongue was as the pen of a ready writer when he commenced, and presented this suit at the throne of grace; and his pen is as a tongue to report it to succeeding generations as an exemplary model, or platform to steer us in putting up our petitions on semblable emergent occasions. And I said, O my God, etc. And thus is the Text allied to the Context. If you now please (Right Honourable, Text. and the rest beloved in our Saviour) to see how the words that lie afore us shine with their own native, without borrowed lustre, Summe, Epitome. They are considerable under the notion of a prayer; an ordinance, that if duly managed, can open and shut heaven, bind and loosen the hands of the Omnipotent, blast designs, countermine mines, command, countermand men, tie up devils, throw Rome into Tiber: a duty that sanctifies fasting, as fasting quickens and imps the wings of it. In which prayer the Petitioner draws himself and his people with a black coal, ver. 6.7. Anatomis. Parts. but limns his God with orient colours, ver. 8. vilifying, nullifying man; or if any diminutive can be added below abasement itself: but magnifying God. 1. He decries himself and Israel, discovering his sorrow by the impression of his shame, and the expression of their Nationall misery. 1. The impression of his shame, ver. 6. O my God, I am confounded, etc. 2. The expression of his and Israel's misery, in a self-arraignment, and a self-condemnation. 1. His self-arraignment appears in drawing up a large indictment made up of an ingenuous confession, and an heightening aggravation. 1. A confession of their sin under the varied and reiterated language of iniquities, and trespasses; emphatical and comprehensive titles. 2. The aggravation of those transgressions, By 1. The dimensions of them; height and depth. The continued quantity, the magnitude, great, greatned. The discrete quantity, or multitude; increased, multiplied. 2. The customary inveterateness; From the days of our fathers to this day. 3. The Epidemicalnesse, and spreading universality; the guilt of Kings and Priests is mentioned here, ver. 7. And if we cast our eyes back to the first, and second verses, we shall find Levits, People and Rulers all put into this bill of attainder. Yet he contents not himself with this self-arraignment; but erects a Tribunal within his own breast, and thence he passes an impartial judgement on himself, and the rest involved and engulft in this blame: For our iniquities have we been delivered up. Delivered; To whom? To what? 1. To whom? Homo homini lupus. To men; and one man is naturally a wolf to another; and those men potent, Kings; and those many; and they ethnics, heathenish, the Kings of the nations. 2. To what delivered? To sword, to captivity, to spoil, to confusion of face; and that not imminent, but incumbent; not feared, but felt; all too apparent; As it is (or appears) this day. So different translations have it. 2. Having thus depressed man, Root. he exalts God in his most magnetic, attractive, amiable attribute, Grace; amplified by the fruit growing on that root; Fruit. rescue, preservation; causing a remnant to escape: And settlement; giving us a nail in his holy place. And these favours receiving their grace and gloss from those comfortable ends that God levelled at; End. the lightning their eyes, and reviving their hearts in their servitude. This is the Anatomy, these the lineaments of the Text. Which by this time you may perceive, corresponds and may aptly entitle itself to the times, and the time; to this day, and audience, being composed of Rulers, and people; the parties mentioned in this Chapter. May the Text prove as profitable, as it is seasonable. Here is a large Vintage; I cannot stand to pluck every grape; I must present them to you by clusters: and (like our Geographers) set down a line for a River, and a spot for a whole Country; here being such an ocean, a continent of matter under my hands. 1. I take my rise from Ezra's decrying, and vilifying himself, and Israel: and therein from the impression of his shame; And I said, O my God, I am ashamed, Shame. and blush (or as other Translations render it, I am confounded, and ashamed) to lift up mine eyes to thee, my God. Both are agreeable to the Original, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that uses two words, importing shame, blushing, confusion of face, or eyes, the seat of shame. Shame is sometimes a vice, sometimes a punishment, sometimes a virtue: A vice, Rubor quo se contra pudorem muniebat. In Agric. Epist. 11. as Tacitus writes of Domitian's blushing, it was a shame, whereby he fortified himself against shame. As Seneca saith of Sylla, He was never more to be dreaded, then when he blushed. Sometimes shame is a punishment; as at the end of the seventh verse. But here in Ezra it is a virtue; a shame whereof he needed not be ashamed. Shame hath its source within, caused either by self-consciousnesse, ●cita sudant ●ecordia culpa. ●ven. when a guilty soul sweats with reflecting on itself: Or, from a piercing apprehension of others unworthiness, which was Ezra's motive in the Text; he was ashamed, because Israel was not ashamed of their mongrel matches. ●er. 1. This shame was not his accuser, but compurgatour: He enters a caveat against them by the colouring of his cheek. The badge of shame or modesty is blushing, ●●ushing. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ●iog. Laert. the trans-fusion of a vermilion thorough the face: which sally of the blood into the cheeks we call the colour of virtue. Though it be oft an infirmity; yet oftener an index of ingenuity, as thistles speak the ground fertile that bears them. Confusion (which in some Translations is inserted here) is the meridian, confusion of ●ce. zenith, vertical point of shame, it can mount no higher; As shame tied up the people's tongues when they were argued of halting between two opinions, 〈◊〉 King. 18.21. they answered not a word; and Joshuah's tongue when Israel was foiled at Ai, What shall I say? ●os. 7.8. this is that confusion here spoken of; and this possesses Ezra too: O my God, (saith he) I am confounded, at a stand, filled with astonishment, that Israel should so degenerate and degrade themselves. So planet-strook he was, that he could not, durst not lift up his eyes. His looks were demisse, his eyes staked to the ground, Luk. 18.13. as the Publicans, that would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven. And yet this shame of Ezra delivers him not over to despondency, or despair; for twice for failing in a breath he bespeaks God his; O my God, O my God. Gen. 3.8, 10. Adam's shame drove him from God; Ezra's drives him to God: it fastens his hold, so that he applies God the closer to him, O my God. Which precedent commends this note to us; the pearl, the point lies above ground, That They that are at odds with sin because it is sin, 1. Observation. will blush even at other men's sins. Ezra shared not in this particular crime, that thus fills his heart with grief, and his face with shame. As in the Prophecy, Isa. 24 23. the silver Moon is said to be confounded, and the spotless Sun to be ashamed. And stars of the clearest beam, and first magnitude in the Church of God have been, and aught to be thus modest. Jer. 50.12. Your mother (saith God) shall be sorely confounded, she that bore you shall be ashamed. Christian's apostasy is said to put Christ to open shame. Were he on earth, Heb. 6.6. or now receptive of this passion, the sins of men would put him to it. But mere men have more reason to blush for men: Reasons. Whether because sin is so shameful in its own nature, so that the Scripture makes it enter the lists of comparison with the most sordid things that earth can show. Or, whether to acquit themselves from the guilt of other men's sins, which we make our own by not being affected with them. Or, whether from others aberrations we are prompted to review our own natural leprous deformity, which we derived from our parents loins, and unhappily improved and expressed, till God recalled us to himself. Or, we are minded, that the seeds of the most prodigious sins are in us; though grace restrain or mortify them: Else a Simon Peter might prove a Simon Magus; a Saint a Devil; every one of us a Saul, a Balaam, a Judas, a witch, a traitor to our Saviour. These recoiling thoughts draw the colour into our cheeks. Or, whether by command, counsel, connivance, or any other way, we have been accessary to others falls; since in religion all accessaries are principals. Or, whether it be that we consider, that the sacred name of God is blasphemed, and the reputation of religion blasted by black mouths, as if it were but an empty, barren, ineffectual speculation, for the deviations of the professors thereof: which probably stirred Ezra in my Text: (such a scandal is not to be expiated with tears of blood.) As the Duke of Urbin's Painter being blamed for limning S. Peter and S. Paul high coloured, since fasting, mortification, labours, and watch had discoloured and paled their cheeks, wittily and tartly replied, That those Apostles were wan indeed while they lived, but they now blush to see those that pretend themselves to be their successors, to succeed them not otherwise then as a disease doth health, or night day. All these Reasons justify this blushing we speak of. But oh, Application. 1. Conviction. How many degrees distant from this temper of Ezra's are those, who are so far from a modest resentment of others sins, that they never ch●nge colour when they are convicted of their own! That can tear Gods sacred Name, dismember his Son between their teeth, outface the Sun, Magistrate, Minister in swinish drunkenness, goatish lust, savage oppressions, and what not, that would infect the air but to name? And yet are frontless: Like the contriver of the golden Legend; on whom a Papist could pass this verdict, Isa. 8.4. Jer. 3.3 Jer. 5.3. That he had a leaden heart, and a brazen face. We read of a brew of brass; of a whore's forehead; of faces harder than rock; we have whole quarries of them; those impudent wretches died not without issue. Among all stations and ranks of persons that expostulation is not impertinent, Were they ashamed, when they had committed abominations? Jer. 8.12. Nay, they were not ashamed, neither could they blush. Nay, we are fallen on an age, into which those monsters have transmitted by a kind of transmigration, their spirits, contemporaries to S. Austin, of whom he thus complains, Quid dignum'● vituperie nifi vitium? Ego n● vituperarer, vitiosior fiebarn. Conf. Though nothing be blamable but sin, I, lest I should be blamed, was fain to be more sinful; & I belied myself, that I was guilty of what I never committed, lest the more innocent I was, the more despicable I might appear. We are ashamed not to be shameless: At least, ashamed of what we should count our crown, religion, profession. We are ashamed of our glory, Phil. 3.18.19. and glory in our shame, as heirs to those prostitutes that extorted tears from S. Paul's eyes but to name. We have swarms of those that will with triumph, trumpet forth how many they have plundered, oppressed, ground to powder, ruined by their power; having no better plea then that of the wolf to the lamb, Thou hast a better cause, but I have better teeth: boasting how many unwary onus they have overreached by flight of brain; with that hellbred Proverb in their mouths, Plain dealing is a jewel, but he that useth it shall die a beggar (and yet it is a wonder, there should be so many beggars, and so few plain dealing men): Bragging how many pliant souls, laden with sin, led a way captive by lust, they have ensnared, and subdued by their blandishments. Which impudence is to let out sin to use, to wind it up to the highest peg; and it is a link of the chain of sin fastened next to the gates of hell. And it is as irrational, as if a fellow should boast of his fetters, a dog of his vomit, an infected person of his plague-sore, or a possessed demoniac of his devil. Dear Christians, if there be any shadow of ingenuity in us, munsell. I trust we shall rather take part with Ezra in the Text, blushing for others sins, than thus insolently proclaim our own (like Sodom). 1. ●bortation. ●m. 1.16. Let us not be ashamed of owning God: I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ (saith Paul). Nay, he points to his chain, Tim. 1.16. that he bore for Christ's cause, as children point where they are fine. ●edecorosum ●aro ruenti se ●bducere. The Celtes in Damascene thought it a disgrace to withdraw themselves from a falling wall: Let us be ashamed to flinch from God, though all the world should disclaim him. Our Lord and Master will at the last day be ashamed of them that are now ashamed of him, Mar. 8.38. Let us not blush in a good cause, where justice, or mercy challenges our relief, though justice, or mercy should pass for a crime among men. Let us blush rather for dishonourable, Exhortation. dishonest, scurrilous, subdolous, unworthy words, and actions: Then shals remember thy ways, Ezek. 16.61. and be ashamed, saith God to Israel. Motives. What is passed cannot be recalled; we cannot be innocent, we may be penitent: though we cannot offer the spotless lamb of blamelessness; we may the turtles of penitency, our two eyes filled with shame and sorrow. We are ashamed of bodily defects, of a symmetry, disproportion of parts, whereof we are not guilty; we are guilty of our spiritual deformity. Num. 12.14. As God argues to Moses about his sister Miriam; If her father had spit in her face, should she not have been ashamed seven days? and now she is a leper, let her be shut out seven days. So it holds by rules of equivalence; if we be ashamed of what we are merely passive in from our heavenly Father; why not much more for our sin, wherein we have been culpably active? Even Nature (saith Tertullian) hath cast a shamefastness on all sinful evil. Omne malum p● door perfudit: 〈◊〉 malefici gestiun latere, devitan● apparere, trepidant deprehensinegant accusatine torti quide● facile aut sempe confitentur certe damnati maeren● vel fato vel a stris imputant; nolunt suum esse quid malum ag● noscunt. In Apolog. Malefactor's delight to sculk, refuse to appear. They that are drunk, are drunk in the night: it was so in S. Paul's time, 1 Thess. 5.7. They tremble, and blush when apprehended; deny, when accused; when tortured, they seldom, or hardly confess; condemned, they bemoan themselves; and impute all, either to the malevolent aspect of conjunction of Stars; or to the unresistablenesse of fate; they will not have guilt lie at their door, because it is guilt, and opprobrious. Let but nature work, it will prompt us to this modesty. But grace, I hope, will be more expressive on us. I have seen Ephraim (saith God) smiting on his thigh; I have heard his moaning: and acknowledging himself ashamed. It was melody in God's ears, that confession; and that smiting a lovely prospect in his eye, as appears by Gods melting, passionate language about him in the next verse. Ephraim is my dear son, my pleasant child, I remember him still; my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy on him. And when the soule-wounded Publican durst not look up to heaven, ●clinavit ocu●, inclinavit ●lum. heaven looked down to him; he declined his own eyes, and inclined Gods. In a word: It were a strange thing (saith Austin) if in our faces there should be such a distance between our forehead and tongue, ●rum, si in fa● tamum inter●llum inter ●ntem, & lin●am ut frons ●n comprimat ●guam. Cont. ●l. Pel l. ●. ● 1. that shame should not suppress and stifle a bold tongue. If Diodorus the Logician fell down dead for shame, that he could not resolve an Argument propounded to him: methinks if we were truly apprehensive of the multitude and horridness of our sins; and the venom naturally inter woven with our souls, and our unkind abuse of so gracious a God; we should blush even to death; and be ready to creep into the grave, or hell itself: we having too much cause to take Ezra's words out of his mouth, and to appropriate them to ourselves. For our iniquities are increased over our head, etc. I am fallen from the impression of his shame, to the expression of his and Israel's misery (set down also as the ground of his shame) And that first in his self arraignment and indictment filled against himself and Israel. Indictment. In which bill, his ingenuous confession comes first to hand; Confession. displaying their sins under the varied terms of iniquities and trespasses. Iniquity in our English Idiom sounds injustice, Iniquity. inequality. Indeed what is more unjust than sin? especially the sin of those within the bosom of the Church: who are favoured and ennobled with so many mercies and privileges? Are not my ways equal? and are not your ways unequal? Ezek. 18.25. As God expostulates with his people. Trespasses is the other title Ezra gives their sins: Trespass. which imports breaking bounds, and due limits, and invading another's right. Another piece of the character of sin: It leaps all hedges and ditches, breaks through all fences of relations or duties; and spares nor God, nor man. But the Hebrew words run higher. The roots whence they are borrowed, imply crookedness, perverseness, ignominious baseness to be exploded and hist at; as the meanly versed in that tongue know. The Jews were a crooked and perverse generation; as Steven stigmatizes them with it; Act. 7.51. offending against the clearest Revelation, and most remarkable dispensations of Divine providence. Truth is, all sin is crookedness, it being a deflection from a straight Rule: But there is more crookedness and perverseness in some sins and sinners, then in others. For perverseness, we are generally like Children, that because they cannot have what they will, throw away what they have, slight what they may have: And will endure a world of hardship and redoubled blows, rather than bend a knee, or give a word. There is a steely obstinacy, a twisted contrariety in our Nature. Abraham's children turned to stones, Matth. 3.9. to thwart John Baptist that speaks of stones turned to children. And for crookedness, we so affect winding Meanders, and turning Labyrinths in our ways, Esay 59.8. that it may be said to us, as it was in the apologue to the Serpent; that having his death's wound, stretched out himself straight. You should have lived so; you have lead a crooked life, 〈◊〉 oportuit sic ●xisse. ●um. 23.10. and now you would die right and straight, and go straight to Heaven, like Baliam in his wish. But as the Tree falls, so it lies; if Death leave it crooked, such will Judgement find it. But I spend but a word on words; and the variation of them; Aggravation. here Ezra goes on to aggravate Israel's sins. From the dimensions of them first characterised in four or five expressions. 1. Great; There is their continued quantity, their magnitude. 2. Increased, ● Multiplied; There is their discrete quantity, their multitude. 3. Over our heads. 4. Up to Heaven: There is their extension, as afore their intention. And all these are of distinct consideration: for that may be great that multiplies not; and that may grow, which yet amounts not above our heads; and that may get above our heads, that yet ascends not to Heaven. Their sins were all this. 1. Great; Whether we eye that individual, particular sin, Great. whence Ezra took the hint of his Lamentation; the people of God matching with Idolatrous wives, which stole and ravished Solomon's heart from his God: ● King. 11. so stupifying and infatuating him, that, like a Bowl, he began to slug toward the end of the Alley, near his death, wracking even in the sight of the Haven. 2 Cor. 6.15.16 A sin which Paul calls unequal yoking, importing as great an asustatous inconsistency, as between light and darkness, righteousness and unrighteousness, Christ and Belial. Or whether we contemplate their sin in general, it was great. All sin is great, being an offence of a great, an infinite God. But yet sins are of different magnitudes. It is a Stoical fancy that they are equal. Nay, the same fins are greater or smaller in several persons. If S. Peter had had S. Paul's malice, and S. Paul had had S. Peter's knowledge they had both committed the sin against the holy Ghost. I shall but touch upon the ingredients that make up a great sin: because I have far to go, and not much time to spend. Sins are accounted great in God's Geometry, that are committed against clear light: Joh. 15.22. so heinous they are, that in comparison Christ accounts other sins none. A servant may unwarily rush on his master in the dark; but to tread on his foot, and to look him i'th' face, is insufferable. Great knowledge greatens sins: for knowledge is like the Unicorns horn, that doth well in a wise and good man's hand, but ill on a beasts head. Sins also against eminent mercies are great: God had rather his mercy should be unknown then slighted (saith Augustine) Do you requite God thus ye foolish people? faith Moses, Deut. 32.6. Gratiam nesciri maluit Deus, quam negligi. Aug. To requite good for good is but humane; in requite evil for evil is carnal; to requite good for evil is Godlike; but to requite evil for good is diabolical. And sins masked with a coverture of holiness; as Israel's were. Ezck. 33. 3●. And they are thence denominated an hypocritical Nation in one place. Such sins are of a scarlet dye. There is no sin to that of under a pretext of Religion; 1 Sam. as David said of Goliah's sword wrapped up in the linen Ephod, there is none to that. Hypocrisy we call double iniquity; and therefore the punishment of the Hypocrite in hell is made the exemplar of the torment of the greatest sinners: they shall have their portion with hypocrites. Mat. We had need to solicit God then, Use. that though this Jebusite sin will continue in our coasts, our breasts; that yet he would guard us from sins, that lay waste the Conscience: Vastare conscientiam. Psal. 19.13. Keep thy servant (prays David) from presumptuous sins, so shall I be innocent from the great transgression. It is now a great commendation to a man, if it may be said of him (as Tacitus speaks) that he is without crying vices, Magis extra vitia, quam intra virtutes. though not within virtue; and he that doth the least mischief, is a Saint. But I cannot insist. The second expression is, that sins were not only great, but did still greaten; they were increased and multiplied, both in magnitude and multitude: as it is charged on them, Isa. 1.4. that they revolted more and more. First for the continued quantity; Point. Sin will greaten, and wax, and grow; like drops to a torrent, a slip to a wood, a spark to a flame: The measure fills a pace. We read of the fullness of the Amorites sins. In good we are as conscionable as children; we care not how little we have for our money; we give God gold hard weight; a little religion on a knives point serves our turns; but we never set a period to the bulk of sin. Jam. 1.14.15. Lust (saith S. James) having conceived, brings forth sin, and so proceeds to finishing. Sin hath its conception, that's delight; and the formation, that's design; and the birth, that's the acting; and custom is the education of this brat; then follows a reprobate sense; and the next step is Hell. None declines to the worst at first, but gradually step by step; Nemo fit rep●● turpissim●●. Juven. As Mariners setting sail, first lose sight of the shore, then of the houses, then of the steeples; then of mountains, and land. And as those that are waylaid by a consumption, first lose vigour, and then stomach, and then colour. Then the discrete quantity must not be omitted: Our iniquities are increased and multiplied, So the Hebrew gives it: multiplied even above Arithmetic; as sparks out of the Ovens mouth. Sins you see never go alone, Observation. but like the waves of the Sea, the end of the one is the beginning of another. David is a sad in tance, Isa. 5.28. he drew iniquity with cart-ropes, as Esay phrases it. First he is idle; then he lusts after another's wife, than he sends for her, then violates her chaftity; when Uriah had but one Lamb in his bosom, and he had too many already: then he makes her Husband drunk, then plots his death, making the man contributuary to his own death by bearing the letters to Joab, and draws Joab also within the compass of the guilt. What need have we to attend that caution, Application. Heb. 3. 1●. Take heed ye be not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin? We know where we begin and set out in a sin; but we know not where we shall end and take up. As no man can say he will let in so many pale●ulls of the Sea and no more. Many set up the trade of sweeting with common interlocutory oaths, as 〈◊〉, and troth; many began thieving with pins and pence; many drunkenness with one 〈◊〉 more then enough, many last with a glance of the eye, and never dream● they should ever be prostituted to those prodigious extremities they after find themselves almost irrecoverably ingulfed in. As when Pompey could not prevail with a City to billet his Army with them, he yet persuaded them to admit of a few weak maimed Soldiers, but those recovered their strength, and opened the gates to the whole Army. The devil courts us only to lodge a sin of infirmity, or two, and they gathering strength, and sinews, subdue us. It will be our wisdom to nip sin in the bloom, the bud, the first overture and suggestion; to kill this Cockatrice i' th' egg. For if we go with sin one mile, it will compel us to go with it twain: It will swell like the cloud Eliab saw, from the bigness of a man's hand to such an expansion, that it will cover the sky: like the waters of the Sanctuary, that may at first ●each, to the ankles, but in tract of time increase over our heads. 3. Which is the third expression, I'll but name it. Sin will mount above our heads, Psal. 38.4. if it be suffered to take its course: Above our heads so as to usurp, and tyrannize over us, to depress us, to render us contemptible, and to lay our honour in the dust●●. So over our heads, as to keep us down, so that we cannot look after our God. So above our heads, as to dull our brains, benight our understandings, and insatuates us. God calls Israel a sottish people. So above our heads as to drown us in perdition; as the Apostle speaks, 1. Tim. 6.9. If God step not in. Is it not better to keep it down, ●. Use. than that sin should keep us under hatches, or our heads under water? Oh let us by faithful approaches to our Christ, drown our sins in the red sea of his blood; and in the waters of repentance, break the heads of these Dragons. Implore God for assistance, that sin may not get heart-high in our affection, or head-high in our thoughts and fancy, and much less gain such a supremacy as to climb over our heads. 4. A fourth expression remains, Our trespass is grown up to the Heaven: Unto, not into the heavens. Sin was bred there in the Angels, but cast down thence, and shall never find the way back thither. Rev. 21.2. No unclean thing shall enter there. If it could, it would darken the Sun, put out the Moon, sole up the Constellations: But unto the heaven's sin is so daring bold to fly, whether to intercept the passage of our Prayers thither, or to stop the influence and the light of heaven from descending hither: or to knock at heaven gate to solicit for vengeance upon us. The sin of Sodom we read had a cry; Gen. 18.20. Gen. 4.10. John 1.2. Use. and Abel's blood a cry: And Ninevehs sin came up afore God. And our sins oft outvoice our prayers. We have no remedy but to send our faith and prayers afore them to heaven to prepossess our Saviour, that he may be our Master of requests, our Advocate, Mediator, Intercessor, a s●reene between God's scorching wrath, and us. That he may plead for us both with words and wounds, Quot vulners, tot 〈◊〉. Heb 12.24. for his blood speaks better things than the blood of Abel; The one calls for vindictive Justice; the other for pardoning mercy, and obtains it; yea even for overgrown sins. 2. Which inveteratenes of sin is a second aggravation of Israel's iniquity; From the days of our fathers have we been in a greet trespass unto this day. Sin is of a cleaving adhering nature. Point. It seizes us betimes. O Lord, when was I ever innocent (asketh Austin) And it will not leave us; if we welcome, and bed and board it. ●eb. 12.1. ●er. 13.23. It hangs fast on (saith Paul) It clings as swarthy blackness to the Aethiope, or spots to the Leopard. As the leprosy to the house, that sometimes could not be scraped off; ●ev. 14 41.45. but the stones must be changed: nay sometimes the house demolished. Sin, like the Ivy on the wall, will not wholly be extirpated, ●er. 2.22. till these earthen walls of ours be plucked down by death. Not soap, nitre; no nor fire and brim frone can wash off sin. It will not sound a retreat: Nay, when the body declines, sin gathers strength like the weary Ox, Bo● lassus fortiut sigit pedem. that takes the firmer footing. Messalina was wearied, but never satisfied with her baseness. And that's the reason that the pain of hell are eternal, Lassata, non sati●ta. Peccator peccat in suo aeterno. Greg. Use. Dilecta delicta. because we would sin eternally, would God lengthen out our lives here to eternity. Oh let us importune our God to cut the thread of our wickedness, that we may not spin it out to such a length. Let us bet●●●● break off this match, and sue out a divorce between us, and our darling sins: That God may never have occasion to say of us, as of Israel▪ Jer. 22.21. This hath been thy 〈◊〉 from thy Youth. Dan. 4.27. Break off thy sins, saith Daniel ●o Nabuchadnezzar, cut this Gordian knot. It is not yet too late the door of grace is still open, Motive. There is hope in Israel concerning this; Ezra 10.2. as it follows. Nay David hath no better 〈◊〉 for obtaining mercy then the greatness of his 〈◊〉 Lord be merciful to my iniquity, Psal. 25.11. for it is great. The greater our sins are, the greater need we have of mercy. No man flies his Counsel because 〈◊〉 cause is great and intricate, but plies him the more: The more dangerous diseases are, the more Physicians are sought to. Some offenders are like Jairus his daughter, newly dead, by consent to some unjustifiable act; Others, like he Widows son of Naim, carrying out to burial, by acting unworthy things. Others, like Lazarus four days dead in the grave, stinking, and putrifying by living in sin, with the stone of custom rolled upon them. Let none of these despair; Christ can raise all these, as he did those. Defer not Reformation on this ground: mane is God's Adverbe, but the devil's Verb; God saith early, he faith tarry: But though thou hast drawn out the line of sin to an undue length, 〈◊〉 not away thy confidence. Christ is good at an old sore, all cures are alike to him. Go to him by the paces of faith in the words of Ambrose; O utinam ad monimentum meum digneris accedere, S● illachrynaverit pro me vi●am, 〈◊〉. Oh that thou wouldst be pleased to approach my monument, where my soul is enclosed; wouldst thou but weep over me, as thou didst over La●●rus, I should live. That voice that commands thee to come forth, must enable thee, as him, to arise and walk his ways. 3. But Ezra calls us away to consider another aggravation of Israel's sin: It was epidemical, spreading universal, tainting all of all sorts; he includes himself, We; mentions here Kings, and Priestrs; but in the beginning of the Chapter, Prophets, People, and Rulers. He doth not frigi●lly assert, they are s●●ers; particulatizing they would all uninforced have yielded that: but he takes the boldness to lay the particularity of their offence, the height, greatness, multiplicity of sins at every one of their doors. He that speak promiscuously, Observation. and indistinctly to all, speak to none. Reproofs and threats are oft in Scripture styled burdens, and yet truly a burden is easily born away with a common shoulder. But when we lay the axe to the root of the tree, and make our addresses from the Pulpit, or otherwise, to special ranks of persons, and particularise their sins; when Nathan comes up close to David, with Thou art the man; this touches to the quick: And though a David may take it acceptably at our hands, yet most will kick and fling. Praedicare est ●●hil aliud quam derivare in se furorem populi; Irritare crabrones. Plaut. Luther said knowingly, To preach is nothing else but to derive people's fury on our heads; to stir a wasps nest; to pull an old house upon us. How impatient were Stevens hearers, Act. 7.34? And Paul's Act 22.22.? And in those glasses we may see our own temper. But what though? We must not betray our own souls, nor yours by our silence. If you could take order that the biting texts of Scripture had an expurgatory. Index passed on them from heaven; we poor spirited men are too prone to desire to sleep in a whole akin. Si de●emus, timemus deleri. Aug. De turpi silenti● demnabitur. But if we blot out these passages, we shall be blotted out of the book of life. And while they are standing here, a Minister may be dam●d for his base silence. You will pardon us. Man may threaten prison; but God threatens hell. And truly a cock may have leave to wake a lion: It is pity great men should be let go quietly to hell more than the meaner. Ezra, here leads the way: He swallow not his words, as if he had gone too far already in his indictment, but undauntedly goes on from an accusation to a condemnation of all Israel, Rulers, and ruled; high, and low; supreme, and subordinate; Rulers, Priests, and People as accessary to their own misery. For our iniquities have we, our Kings, and our Priests been delivered. 2. Observe, That self-accusation, Self-condemnation. Observation. and self-condemnation are two symptoms of a repentance that need not be vepented of. They are marks ever to be found on cordial self-abasers; Gen. 18.27. as we may collect from their language in Scripture, and elsewhere: Abram cries, I am but dust and asbes that speak to thee. Dust minds us of mortality, ashes of fire; as if he had deserved one and tother. Jacob; Gen. 32.10. Psal. 73. I am less than the least of all thy mercies. David; So brutish was I, even as a beast before thee. John Baptist; I am not worthy to unloose his she. The Centurion; I am unworthy thou shouldst come under my roof. S. Peter; Depart from me, O Lord, I am a sinful man. St. Paul; The least of Saints, the greatest of sinners. B● Hooper in our Martyrology; Lord, I am hell, then art heaven: I a sink of sin, thou a fount of grace. Bradford; I am 〈◊〉 deaf as a stone as dumb as a nail; an hardhearted, a painted hypocrite, as he subscribes some of his Epistles: and Ezra here; for he still involves himself. Let us write after these Copies. Applicat. Every man hath a County Palatinate within his bosom; and may arraign and judge himself: and it is our security so to do: If we judged ourselves, 1 Cor. 11.30. we should not be judged. He shall hereby sa●e God a labour: Parcamus 〈◊〉, quia sibi 〈◊〉 pepercit. Let 〈◊〉 spare this man, for he spares 〈◊〉 himself; as Aug. personating God, says. He that justifies himself fights with God hand to hand, and is like to be 〈…〉 He that lies down at God's feet, reaches him his hand to lift him up again. Luk. 18.14. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. But we must look a little nearer to these words; For our iniquities have we been delivered. There is a deliverance from evil, and to evil; the later is before us now: It is a delivery, a tradition, and resignation of us over to misery. And the whole nation were passive in it: In this pronoun (we) are concluded all beside the Kings and Priests here specified. Each sort had peculiar sins for which they smarted; and all for all: From the crown of the head to the seal of the foot there is us sound part, Isa. 1.5, 6. as Esay complains. Sometimes a Nations sickness gins at the head, Observat. the Rulers: as the Shunamites child complained of his head. Sometimes at the feet, the inferiors; as Asa's disease was in his feet. Sometimes the upper and lower parts of the body politic mutually contribute to each others ruin; as we read, that the sins of the people moved God to suffer Satan to tempt David to number the people; 2 Sam. 24.1, 2. and than David's sin determined in a plague on his people by passion; on himself by compassion and sympathy: as the ice begets the water, and the water the ice: As in the natural body the stomach sends up vapours to the head, and the head sends down 〈◊〉 and di●●●lations on the stomach and kings: As the Sun exhales vapours from the earth, and returns them in thunder and tempests. Note 〈◊〉 ●●. 9. However it 〈…〉 Note we 〈…〉 of ourselves▪ 〈…〉 Eagle peirct thorough with a dart sea●hored from her own wing; and the mot the word too, Propriis trans● gimur alis. We are transfixed by our own feathers. As Noah was drunk with his own wine; Goliath beheaded by his own sword; the risen destroyed by the canker bred in itself; the breast by a self-bred wolf; the apple by the worm; the dams belly eaten thorough by the young vipers; Agrippina killed by Nero, to whom she gave breath: So are we undone by ourselves. Sin like a Friar, whips itself: Punishment is connate, innate to sin: Connatum, i●●● tum sceleri supplicium. Lips. Fools because of their iniquities art afflicted, saith David, Psal. 107.17, 18. We may thank our own folly for our bane. This Point calls more for improving, than proof; thitherward therefore shall I apply myself. I foresaw the time would prevent me; therefore I shall endeavour to continue the residue of my Text in Application, General and Particular. Applicat. 1. General. General first: This Observation, like a well limned picture, looks on all that look on it: It prompts us all, Rulers, and ruled. 1. To justify our God in all his judiciary proceed towards us: So did David; Psal. 51.4. Dan. 9.7. That thou mayst be justified, and clear when thou judgest. So Daniel; Righteousness belongs to thee: but to us confusion of face. The cup of the bitter waters of Marah, and Meribah, that we have drunk so deep of, is of our own mingling and embittering. The r●ds that have scourged us are of our own making: We have extorted thunderbolt out of God's hand; for he, like the Bee, stings not till provoked: Or like the flint, upon a colidion with the steel (our steely souls) he● sends forth some hasty sparks. And therefore, 2. Patience well becomes us: It is unequal for the offender to murmur or repine at the offended, and justly incensed party: I will bear (saith the Church) the indignation of the Lord, ●ic. 7.9. because I have sinned against him. ●●leramus, & to●●ramur. Tert. We have been long born with, and why should we not bear? Impatience, like the bulls struggling in the net, or the birds fluttring in the lime-twigs, troubles, and fastens us, and engages us the more in affliction: Luk. 21.19. whereas in patience we possess our souls (saith Christ.) By faith I possess God; by love, my brother; and by patience, myself. 3. Let Gods vindictive justice be a restrictive to us from adventuring on any unwarrantable course; like a Cherubin with a flaming sword, to guard the way to any forbidden fruit, since it is like to cost us so dear. Deut. 29.19. Let us not be secure in our sins, nor bless ourselves in any way that God curses; God is merciful, but withal just; bountiful, but not lavish; he will spare till there be no remedy, 2 Chr. 36.16. as he did Israel; but though he hath a leaden foot, he hath an iron hand, as it is storied that Heruccius King of Algiers had. Patience abused converts to fury: Laesa patientia fit furor. When the snow of Mercies melts we are like to have a great flood: And as near as we are within prospect of Peace and Political happiness, we may miss of it; since I find not that our sharp Physic hath kindly wrought with us; Lust, Pride, Excess, Swearing, Lying, Deceit, Gaming, Voluptuousness, and others sins National (it were easy to be endless in naming but their kinds) ebb not at all, but flow, and are at a Springtide. We are the more unsafe for being secure: When Adam was asleep he lost a Rib; it is sad when irrecoverable ruin is the first sign of danger: Nor let us bo● star up ourselves with our Spiritual Church-priviledges, as the Ordinances or any other; they cannot exempt or shield us if we still provoke; There i● no Sanctuary, no Protection for Presumption: As the Ark could not save Israel from the Philistines▪ nor the Temple the Jews from the Romans; nor the Palladium Troy from the Grecians; nor the Tombs of Martyrs Rome from the Goths, think not that God's Quiver is spent; Rom. 2.5. we read of an inexhaust treasury of wrath. My Text instances in divers Arrows feathered with Wrath, and headed with Ruin: Be pleased to cast your eyes on the Text as I proceed. What think: you of being delivered to men, whose very mercies David calls cruelty? And therefore Nabuchadnezzar, I conceive, sealed the D●n of lions wherein Daniel was, because he thought it safer to trust him with the Lions, then with his implacable Enemies. To be delivered to the Sword, sad experience, the Mistress of Fools, hath shown what that is better than I can deeypher it. Joel calls the day of War, Joel 2.1, 2. 2 King. 8.12. a day of gloomy and thick pitchy darkness: Aconitum hos● litatis. De Pa●● Eliah wept to think of it; the poisoned kemlock of Hostility, Tertullian calls it; Complicatissim plaga. It is a stroke or plague like Pandora's Box; a compound of Plagues; a Bar to Religion: The Temple went slowly on, when they were fain to fight with one hand and build with the other. It is said, 1 Kin. 5.3. David could not build God's house for the Wars about him; It silences Laws, cuts the sinews of Traffic and Trading, stifles Arts and Learning; thovgh some Birds of prey can fatten in hard weather, when all other Fowl are pined. When you hear that in the Trojan Wars were slain 870000 Greeks and 670000 Troyans'; ●●ster Cos. That Ostend, though a little Fort, was so great a Grave as to devour 120000 persons; That S●lyman afore Vienna laid dead bodies in ditches level with the top of the Walls of Vienna; That 1000000 were slain in the Civil Wars of France; ●lignius. and 20000 Churches equalled with the ground; That in our P●arsalicke fields in the quarrels between the Houses of York and Lancaster, uterus. an 100000 fell, so that the red Rose began to be white with the blood that it had lost, and the white Rose red with the blood it had shed, and 10000 Families were thereby rooted out: ●mmin●us. And that red Horse hath been some years trampling of late this Kingdom under foot: Can we find in our hearts still to hug and harbour our old Iniquities, and to do what in us lies to move God to spin out this War to an eternity? To be delivered to captivity and bondage, to be flaves (it may be) to slaves, however to persons suckled by Tigers, of Adamantine hearts: well might the Prophet forbidden to weep for the dead, and bid Weep ●●r●●y for them that were going away. ●●r. 22.10. God can reduce us to this. To be delivered to spoil, your Houses, Cabinets ri●●ed, ●arbarus has se●●es, & culta ●●valia miles, ●●c. your granaries emptied for others uses; to plant, and not to taste of the frai●●; to see the pitchfork in an hour scattering what in many years your providence hath raked together, which will make your eye-strings crack; yet to this can God bring us. To be delivered to sharne and confusion of face; to be a pity to our friends, a scorn to our foes; to be a byword, an hissing to foreign nations; to be abject objects for others to whet their wits, and to spend their dark sarcasmes upon; that our names should rot; or, if remembered by posterity, with reproach, as Pilat's in the Creed. Nothing pierces ingenuous spirits more than shame and scorn: Heb. 11.36. mockings the Apostle thought cruel: No sword so sharp as the tongue, it flies lightly; but wounds deeply: Leviter volat, graviter violate. to all these disasters can God expose us. Oh let us not continue to be cruel to ourselves; but for your own sakes, (if you value not God's honour) for the wives fake of your bosom, for your children's sake which you pretend to tender as the apple● of your eyes, the ●ignet on your right hand, your heartstrings, lay what I have said to heart; if not, we can but weep in secret for you. To confess sin this day, and to persist in it, is to profess, This I have done, this I will do. To beat our breasts, and not to reform, is to harden them. But I must not forget my main errand hither. You (Right Honourable) have summoned me to attend you in this service; 2. Particular. and I know you would not have me prevaricate, or forfeit my trust. Give me leave to make my humble addresses to you in serious exhortation. My Text specifies the guilt of Kings, and Priests, and people; and the third verse affirms, that the Princes and Rulers were chief in the trespass. I come not hither to upbraid, but with all humility to advise you to what you are nearly concerned in, both in reference to yourselves and us, for the aversion of that wrath, that is gone out against us, and is to be read in legible characters on us; and for the prevention (as much as in you lies) of that inundation of miseries, that it may be the heavens are big with, ready to be delivered, if your failings prove the midwives. Kings and Priests are in the Text, and Rulers in the Chapter; but Kings here are none, and I hope no Priests, therefore I shall meddle neither with Crowns nor Mitres; I love not to speak to the absent, but the present Rulers; here are a ring of Auditors, and you the Diamond. Let me mind you what Jewels are a gloss to your Corcnets. 1. Prudence, You are our heads, and the head is the Throne of Prudence. It is prudence to be able to discern, between persons and things that differ; between tenderness of Conscience, and obstinacy; between zeal and spleen: Doeg is called a liar, though he spoke truth of David, Psal. 120.3. because he spoke not truth in love of truth, but spleen to David; to discern between selfseeking Privadoes, and public Spirits; between true Church and State converts, and complyers with times, shifting of sails with every wind, calculating for every Meridian; that when time was, would bow to the Altar, now would pull down Churches; that would in Pulpit shrivel up all Prayer, and confine it to the Lords prayer, and now will censure the saying of that Prayer. Your strength lies in your head, as Sams●ns in his hair. When Severus was ill of his feet, and some for that thought him unfit to govern, he replied that he governed with his head, and not with his feet. And you had need of your eyes in your head, that sit at helm, and steer between so many rocks and sands. 1 Kin. 3.9, 10, 11. God was in love with Solomon's request, who wished nothing more, and nothing else but wisdom to manage his affairs. Secondly, another sparkling Gem is Justice, Justice. without which prudence is but Achitophelian, machiavellian, Jesuitical craft. Job. 29.14. Plutarch. Moral. l. 3. Job counted Justice his Robe and Diadem. Philip of Macedon displaced a Magistrate because he coloured his beard, he was jealous he might colour a cause too. You must be as able, so men of truth, and unswayed integrity; Exod. 18.21. such as Jethroes Justicers were to be. 1. It is Justice to be accessible, that Petitioners may come at you, and not your doors guarded with living, as Solomon's Throne was with liveless Lions. As it was said to Augustus, he that dares approach thee, seems not to know thy greatness; he that dares not, seems not to know thy goodness. God's presence-chamber is always open. 2. It is Justice to have two ears, Si sat accusasse, quis erit innocens? one for the Defendant, as well as one for the Plaintiff. For though it be true, if it be enough to deny, who will be guilty? it is as true, if it be enough to accuse, who shall be innocent? Ca●● was accused ninety times, and his integrity still brought him off. 3. It is Justice to awar● the accusers the same punishment they intended the accused, in case they make not their accusation good. The geese in the Capitol at Rome were to be beaten if they gaggled without cause, though they once saved the Capitol by gaggling; and the dogs legs were to be broken that barked when no danger appreached: such punishment (saith Cicero) do aspersers in Courts of Judicature deserve: Pro Rosc. A●erin. ●unes venatici. and then those setting-dogs durst not causelessly hurry innocence before your tribunals; detractors are more bound to restitution than thiefs, by how much the name preponderates the estate, if at least there can be any recompense for defamation. There are three things that may not be dallied with, Non patitur ludum fama, fides, ●culus. Tertul. de Pall. c. 5. our faith, our eye, and our reputation. It is Justice to proportion the punishment to the offence. He is a strange Justicer that knocks out a Man's brains to kill a Wasp on his forehead. As Pollio cast his servant to the Lampreys, for breaking a glass. As the grand Signior of the Turks ripped nine Eunuches for one Melon that was eaten without leave. 5. It is the life-blood of Justice to expedite Justice, and not to turn it into Wormwood by unjust sentences, or into Vinegar by delays: to suffer poor souls to lie longer languishing at hopes hospital, than needs. 6. Exod. 23.2, 3. Prov. 24.23. It is Justice to be impartial, and not respect Persons, but Causes. Commineus complains, that many men's Offices and Lands were taken from them for running away in the battle between Lewis the eleventh, and the Burgundians, and given to those that ran nine miles farther than they. 3. Mercy. Psal. 100LS. 1. But this Justice must be intermixed with mercy and moderation: My Song shall be of Mercy and Judgement (saith David.) The robes of Judgement are usually red bestrea●● with white, the one the colour of severity, the other of mercy. You are the fathers of your Country (styled Patricians among the Romans) we would look on you with veneration, not slavish terror. You must bear with us, and bear us in your arms by love, in your hearts by care, Male terrore● neratio acqui●tur; timor abi● secedas m●netmor in odium, mor; timor in ●veren●iam ver● tat Max. on your shoulders by patience. Reverence as ill purchased by terrifying, when you are gone, fear goes too, but love will remrine; fear converts to hatred, but love to veneration, saith Plinius 2. Some seem so to be angry with others vices, as if they envied them (idem) A debonair gentleness is a grace to you; Sic irascuntur quasi invideant Geminio. Id. Art●●in●. when you temper and allay your severe gravity with so much mildness as may weigh against it. It will be rare in you so to abstain from sin, as if you pardoned no man, and yet so to pardon, as if yourselves were daily offenders: you should be our Noah's putting forth your hand to pluck oppressed one's into the Ark of your protection, when floods are abroad. Jerome wished Pammachius a noble man, Coecorum ocul●● manus d●bilium claudorum pes. Justis suppliciis illachrym●vit. to be an cie to the blind, an hand to the weak, and a foot to the lame. Vespasian would mourn over just punishments, and when he was to sign the death of any, would say, I would I could not a letter of the book. Vtinamnesciren● literd●. What difference between a man, and a brazen statue of man, but that one hath bowels, and the other hath none? Sylla was a devil to command Marcus Pletorius to be slain on the place, Nov●● 〈◊〉 miseri●●dia. Val. Max. l. 9 c. 2. because he fell into a swoon at the sight of the execution of Marius, a new punisher of mercy. The first that ever was revenged on virtue. It was a sad thing that the Jews were fain to purchase leave to weep. You resemble God whom you represent, no way nearer than by mercy; the loveliest of his Attributes, and should he take his advantage, 〈◊〉 & nolle ●bile. ●is est pro●sse Leoni. we were all lost men. You are never more like yourselves, than when merciful: it is noble not to do all you are able. To lie prostrate to a Lion saves the life. To be on the higher ground, should be no advantage to a generous spirit: only cowards, and the ignoble are cruel. The ancient Nobility of Rome, ●●t. Qu. Rom. ●●27. ●●v. 12.1. and Arcadia, wore moons on their shoes, to mind them of the world's mutability. The highest may come to stand in need of mercy; with what hearts can they expect it, what face ask it, ●●m. 2.13. ●●iv. Decad. 1. that denied it? Judgement merciless to them that show no mercy. Appius took away all appeals in case of life and death, and when he came to need an appeal, he was justly denied it. Eutropius endeavoured to take away the relief of Sanctuaries, and himself was afterward hailed out of Sanctuary, from the very horns of the Altar. ●d Pop. 36.51. To show mercy (saith chrysostom) is a greater work than to build magnificent Temples, nay, to raise the dead. Fourthly, Shall I add love and inclineablenesse too, and studiousness of peace adorns you. War (I trust) shall ever be your refuge, never your choice. To war as to marriage, not lust of gain, or dissension, but procreation of peace should be the motive. Esto bellando pacificus. Aug. Carry peace in your hearts, when the sword is in your hands. Hercules' club was made of the Olive, the emblem of peace: it is a fit speech for a Spanish mouth, that the smell of Gunpowder in the Field, is as sweet as of incense at the Altar. Love of bloodshed becomes the Scarlet whore of Rome, whose Religion was planted in, and watered with blood. Let the kill of twelve millions in two and forty years in the West-Indies, attested by Bartholomeus A Casa a Bishop there; Let French-massacres, Sicilian even-songs, Spanish Inquisitions (which Heinsius aptly calls the fourth Fury) let these stuff Popish Chronicles, and not furnish out ours. Fifthly, Nemo regere potest, nisi qui & regi Senator de Ir● Patience and temper-render you honourable in men's eyes, passion exposeth to contempt. None can rule well that cannot rule themselves, but are overruled by passion. He that cannot guide a boat in a River, is unfit to steer a ship in a storm. It would make the most furious spirit dispassionate to hear of the great cruelty of the Emperor Theodosius, when he gave life to his Passion, though otherwise he be by Ambrose and others, famed for a most Temperate, Merciful, Religious Prince; because a servant of his was slain in an uproar in Thessalonica, he in a rage caused a Massacre to pass on the City, so that in three hours seven thousand innocents' were butchered. Ye had need set a strong guard on your passions. Sixthly, Humility, lowliness becomes the high as well as the low, Non magnifico sed tumour. Sen. Nobilis facta humilitate nobilier. Hier. Epita. Marcel Inopum cellas dignanter intr●cas. your Saviour condescended to wash Judas feet, those feet that trudged up and down to betray him, and that soil off, which he contracted with those walks. Pride is no true greatness, but a swelling excrescence. Noblesse is by humility made more noble. It was Jeromes advice to Pammachius, Vouchsafe to enter sometimes the lowest cells of the meanest. The proud in ascending, descend; the humble in descending, ascend in the esteem of God, and all good men. Seventhly, Religion deeks ye. Jethroes Magistrates were to be men fearing God; exod. 18.21. ●emmata quid ●ciunt? ●iremur te non ●a.— miserum 〈◊〉 aliorum in●mbere famae. ●uvenal. ●abiles quadam ●cessitate con●ringuntur, ne 〈◊〉 antiquorum ●robitate dege●rent. though you are Gods before men, You are but men before God. Plead not your descent, unless you answer the worth of your Predecessors: Let not that be escheat and buried with the owners. We had rather admire you, than your stem: it is wretched to glister with borrowed lustre. Nobles (saith Hierome) are constrained by a kind of necessity not to degenerate from the probity of their Ancestors: Else as the people did worship Isis, and not the creature that bore the image: think when we show you reverence, we mean it to your Ancestors. As Mariners, have your eye upon heaven, when your hand is on the helm. Why should not great and good stand together? God is Optimus Maximus, Best and Greatest: and they have met and been concentred in men. As Joseph, Hester, Mordecai, Obediah, Nehemiah, Daniel, the Lord Deputy of Cyprus in the Acts, Acts 8.27. Phil. 4.22. the E●●●●ch of Queen Candace, Flavianus in Vespasianus Court, Derotheus in Dioclesian's, Terentius in Valentinians durst be good. Indeed, there is no true greatness disjoined from goodness. Exod. 30.15. Gratius einomen 〈◊〉 quem p●●●statis. Apol. adv. Gen. c. 34. Every man is as he is in God's books. Tertullian said of Augustas, the name of Piety was more gracious to him, than of Power. The holiest man is the noblest on earth, saith Clement, alluding to that of Solomon, Proverbs ●●. 26. The Righteous is better than his Reighbour. Hierome would say of Paula, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Strom. 7. Genere nobilis, sanctitate nobilior. Nescio quo pacto veritas in Nobili plus placet; forte quia plus cares. a virgin descending on the father side from Aenaeas, on the mothers from Agamemnon, She was noble in Stock, but nobler in sanctity. And Bernard wittily to Sophia the virgin, God is no respecter of persons; yet I know not how goodness in the Noble takes us most; perhaps because it is usually more wanting in them. 8. As you must be good; so do good, be devoted to the public good; the one profits only yourselves, the other us all. Be not felfish, tread not inwards. Pompey being upon an expedition to Sicily of purveyance for corn, when it grew scarce in Rome, and dissuaded by his friends, Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam. objecting the danger of the voyage, answered them, It is more necessary that I should go, then live. An heavy piece of iron, like a good Patriot, will leave its particular relation to the load-stane; and falling, express its homage to the earth, the common centre of heavy bodies. If your Lordships be invested with these qualifications, and express them; it will never be said, that the unjust are set over the Law, the impious over Religion, ignorance over Learning, or monsters over men: And it may be written over your House door, as over the Court of Justice in Zant, Hic locus odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat, Nequitiam, pacem, crimin●, jura, probos. This place hates wickedness, loves peace, punishes guilt, preserves law, and right, and honours, and incourages the good. We have all of all sorts heard our duties set out; and had I time to set them on by persuasive, putheticall convictive incentives, I cannot select better than the last verse of my Text offers to my hand, coming as uninforced, as honey dropping from the comb. Consider what we have, and what we would have; what we enjoy, and what wee-expect and desire; we may echo forth Ezra's word here. We have reason to celebrate (as well as Ezra or Israel) the Grace shown to us from the Lord our God. For a little space ●ath grace been ●hewed. Grace. He hath loved this Kingdom, because he would love it; the ground of his love is in his immutable self, and not in us: as it is said of his love to Israel, Deut. 7.7, 8. The Lord did set his love upon you, because he loved you. And what is such a love but freegrace? For we were fit to set his foot, than his heart upon. And this grace could no more conceal itself then the Sun; showed. it hath shown itself in so many rivulets and streams; in so many mercies, full, choice, seasonable, melting mercies; that we (if any Nation under heaven) may say we have comprehended (or rather been comprehended by) the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of God's love. The Philosophers tell us but of three dimensions; the Apostle hath found out four in God's mercy, Eph. 3.18. And we have had a large share in this grace that Ezra memorizeth in the Text: I'll walk on his grounds. In grace, mercy remembered amidst judgement: in alleys, remitting and relaxation of God's heavy hand. He hath not let out all his wrath; but corrected us in judgement, weight, and measure: Vltra, citra condigmem. His punishents fall on this side, his mercies go beyond our merits, as David sings, Psal. 103.10. He takes away a part, that might have stripped us of all, as Anitus said of Alcibiades in Plutarch. He sends a fever, that might cast into everlasting burning; He scourges with rods, that might with Scorpions; He gins, that might make an end of us: He hath afflicted us three or four years with a Civil sword, that might have delivered us to a seventy years Babylonish Captivity. A share we have had in his reserving-mercy; Leaving us a remnant to escape. Isa. 6. ult. leaving us a remnant to escape: but decimating, tything us; when he might have left us but a tenth, as he did to Israel. Nay, we were all forfeited to his justice: he hath laid no more on us than he hath enabled us to bear, and given us a door, a passage out, as S. Paul speaks, 1 Cor. 10.13. A share in his settling grace: A nail in, etc. Jer. 22.23. giving us a nail in his holy place, his Church: Establishing us, as Eliakim; Making us a nail in a sure place. The Gospel hath irradiated, and shed his clear beams without setting or eclipse for above four score years upon us: We have been a Goshen; we have dwelled in his Tabernacle, and holy Hill, as it is promised, Psal. 15.1, ult. though we have neglected the conditions there specified in the Psalm. We have deserved to be un-nationed, unchurched by a Bill of divorce from heaven; to be tumbled about as a ball into strange lands, as it is Jer. 22.18. Israel complains, Isa. 63.18. they had possessed the Sanctuary but a little while: We cannot say so. Ezra is grateful in the Text for grace a little space: what own we for so long a possession? To lighten our eyes. God hath also lightened our eyes By outward favours, Sam. 14.29. as Jonathans' were by honey; and we as he, have received our honey at the end of a rod, that we might the more value it. By favours of an higher alloy he hath lightened our eyes, that had the shadow of death upon them: Which was Oecolampadius his support (his name signifies a lamp or light) on his deathbed; who, when his friends asked him, Whether the light of the candle did not trouble him, clapped his hand on his breast, and said, Here I have sufficient light, the light of God's countenance. In a word, To revive our hearts. (to defraud your patience no longer) God hath revived our hearts (as Ezra speaks in the close of the Text) we are even raised from the grave of an intestine War; and comforted with hopes that we shall not, like raised Lazarus, fall back into the same grave again. And this comfort, at the height of affliction, is like mercy at the block; like welcome showers to the chopped ground; or like the Sunbeams after this flood: like a shadow, a bower against scorching heat. Man would never thus have spared man: and therefore David calls his kindness to the house of Saul (that deserved ill at his hands) the kindness of God, 2 Sam. 9.3. and not of man. Comfort is here entitled Reviving, or Re-enlivening in the Hebrew Idiom: It is a kind of resurrection. But I must take leave. Let me borrow Rhetoric from S. Paul: I beseech, Rom. 12.1. or conjure you (men, brethren, and Fathers) by all these mercies and pledges of God's love; and such others as we know not of (for it is with mercy as with the Globe, Terra incognit● it is thought the unknown part of the world is greater then what is discovered) I beseech you that these mercies may be as nails fastened by the master of Assemblies (as Solomon elegantly) to rivet the former propounded duties into your heads, hearts, and lives; let the mercy of God lead us to shame and sorrow for our sins; Let God's Justice tutor us to be just: Let God's moderation and forbearance make an impression of mercy on us toward each other: and let us not by reiterating, repeating the same sins, be guilty of the worst of crimes, ingratitude: nor by our obstinacy, our iron sinew, exasperated God to Judgement, Isa. 28.21. Gen. 3.8. which is called his strange work. Toward which he walked so slowly, when he went to doomb Adam; and deferred it to the cool of the day: whereas he ran to meet the returning Prodigal; and renews his mercies every morning, and is still aforehand with us: Like the Sun bidding us good morrow afore we are up. That we may not move God to put his mercies into suit, and to recover them out of our hands: as God chooses to express himself by the Prophet, Hos. 2.9. I will recover my wool, and my flax that I lent. But if neither judgement, nor mercy; neither glad nor sad tidings; neither the dark nor the bright side of the cloud of Providence be operative with us: you put your Ministers to a stand, and pose us; who with Moses and S. Paul would have our own Names blotted out of the book of life, assoon as yours, Exod. 32.32. Rom. 9.3. if we could help you, but God's counsel shall stand. However we by dealing freely with you, shall free our own souls from being guilty of your blood: And as the Prophet incourages himself, though once he thought to give over preaching, conceiving he laboured and expended his strength in vain: Isa. 49.4. Well, Yet my work is with the Lord, and though, Israel be not gathered, my reward is with my God. I close with that of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 10.15. I speak to men of understanding, judge ye what I say. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FINIS.