When we are humbled and astonished with the consideration of God's vengeance upon sinners, then, and not till then, are we meet for the apprehensions of his wonderful mercies. In this regard it is truly verified, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and his judgments are they, that make him feared. It is the thunder, and rain, that prepares the hearts of Israel for Samuel's good counsel; 1 Sam. xii. It is with the hearts of men, as with the earth and the seasons of the fruits thereof. If there be too much ease in the winter, and the sun send forth gleams of heat towards the entrance of the spring, it brings forth the blossoms hastily; which, after, by later frosts, are nipped in the head and miscarry: but, if there be kindly frosts and colds at the first, that hold in the juice of the plants, they are, in due time, drawn forth by seasonable heats, and prosper. First, therefore, let us be wrought upon, by the meditation of judgments; and, then, we shall be fit for the beneficial applicatious of mercy.

We are then here first invited to a tragical sight. We are carried into the Camera di morte, to see the ghastly visage of deaths, and desolations all the world over; than which nothing can be more horrible and dreadful. You are called out to see piles of dead carcase; to see whole basketfuls of heads, as was presented to Jehu: a woeful spectacle, but a necessary one. See, therefore, what desolations the Lord hath wrought in all the earth.

Desolations by wars: how many fields have been drenched with blood, and composted with carcases! how many millions* of men have been cut off in all ages, by the edge of the sword!

Desolations by faminet: wherein men have been forced to make their bodies one another's sepulchres; and mothers to devour their children of a span long.

Desolations by plague and pestilence; which hath swept away, as our story tells us, eight hundred thousand in one city.

Desolations by inundations of waters; which have covered the faces of inany regions, and rinsed the earth of her unclean inha

bitants.

Desolations by earthquakes; which have swallowed up whole cities, and those great and populous.

Desolations wrought by the hand of his angels: as in Egypt; in the tents of the Assyrians, one hundred and eighty-five thousand in one night; in the camp of Israel, in David's pestilence.

Desolations wrought by the hand of men, in battles and massacres. Desolations by wild-beasts; as in the colonies of Ashur planted in Samaria.

Desolations by the swarms of obnoxious and noisome creatures; as in Egypt, and since in Africa: He spake the word, and the grasshoppers came, and caterpillers innumerable; Psalm cv. 34. Insomuch as, in the consulship of M. Fulvius Flaccus, after the bloody

* One would wonder, that so many should have had a being upon earth. † Our Florignes tells us, that, in the year 665, there was so great a mortality in this island, that men run up by troops to the tops of the rocks, and cast themselves into the sea.

wars of Africa, followed infinite numbers of locusts; which, after devouring of all herbs and fruit, were, by a sudden wind, hoised into the African sea: infection followed upon their putrefaction, and thereupon a general mortality: in number, fourscore thousand died: upon the sea coast betwixt Carthage and Utica, above two hundred thousand.

Desolations every way, and by what variety of means soever; yet all wrought by the Divine Hand: What desolations he hath wrought. Whoever be the instrument, He is the Author. This is that, which God challengeth to himself; neither will he lose the glory of these great executions. We men have a rule in the course of public administrations, and we think a politic one, That all matters of favour princes should derive from themselves, but all acts of harshness and severity they should put off from their persons to subordinate agents. God will not stand upon such points: he rather professes to lay claim to all the memorable acts of vengeance upon sinful nations and people. Israel's revolt under Jeroboam is owned by him, in his message to Rehoboam's captains: Ashur is the rod of his wrath: he slew great kings, and overthrew mighty kings: he hisseth for the fly of Egypt, and for the bee of Assyria; Isaiah vii. 18. Thou hast scattered thine enemies abroad with thy mighty arm; Psalm lxxxix. 11.

Good reason, that God should claim the propriety of these acts; for they are the noble effects and proofs of his vindicative justice. Justice renders to all their own. Public desolations are due to public wickednesses. And, if this should not be done, how would it appear, that God took notice of the notorious sins of a people, or were sensible of their provocations? As in outward Government, if there were no Assizes or Sessions to judge and punish malefactors, how could we think other, but that all were turned lawless, and that no respect is given to law or justice? The Wise Man could observe, that, because judgment is not speedily executed upon wicked men, the hearts of men are set in them to do evil. But, surely, if it were not executed at all, men would turn devils. But now, that God calls sinful nations to account for their iniquity by exemplary judgments, men are ready to say, with the Psalmist, Doubtless, there is a God, that judgeth the earth; Psalm lviii. 18. God will be glorified, even for hell itself: Topheth is ordained of old; Isaiah xxx. 33.

2. Even these desolatory judgments are a notable improvement of his mercy.

(1.) There cannot easily be a greater proof of his respects to his own, than in sweeping away their enemies. Which smote Egypt, with their first born; for his mercy endureth for ever: which overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the sea; for his mercy endureth for ever: which smote great kings, and slew mighty kings; for his mercy endureth for ever: Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, the king of Basan; for his mercy endureth for ever; Psalm cxxxix.

Neither is there a greater demonstration of his mercy, in his strokes, than in his warnings: for, surely, God intends, by these

examples of his just vengeance, to deter all others from following the footsteps of those wicked men, whom he thus plagues: as good princes and magistrates do so order their executions, that pana ad paucos, terror ad multos; "some may smart, all may fear." It is excellent and pregnant, which the Apostle hath; 1 Cor. x. 11: Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. See, I beseech you, God hath further drifts in his executions of judgments, than we can imagine. He intends them, not only for acts, but patterns. He means not so much to punish, as to teach: every judgment is a new lesson; and to teach, not the next successions, but all generations of men to the end of the world. And, if we do not make this use of his terrible proceedings, we shall be much wanting, both to him and ourselves: and, no marvel if we be whipped for dull non-proficients in God's school, if we be not taught fear and obedience by his so many judgments.

We need not cast our eyes much back, to the view of former ages: though there, we may meet with worlds of examples. Let us but look at the present estate of our miserable neighbourhood; of the woeful ruins of Germany; once, and in our time, one of the most rich and flourishing countries of the Christian world: famous for goodly cities, for a plentiful soil, for frequence of traffic, for the seat of the empire; now wasted with the miseries of a long and cruel war, wallowing in blood, buried in rubbish and dust. Oh, see the desolations, that God hath wrought in this part of the earth; and pick out of them, as we well may, pity, fear, thankfulness: Pity and just commiseration of the grievous sufferings of that desolate nation: Fear of that just hand of God, which hath thus humbled them, and might no less deservedly have fallen as heavily upon us: Thankfulness for those gracious immunities, which he hath given us hitherto, from their evils; and merciful respites of repentance for those sins, which have called down these judgments upon them.

(2.) And this is the former particular object, which the Psalmist calls our eyes unto: worthy of our view; but yet not the main and intended subject of this day's discourse; rather the other, that now follows, the cessation of arms, and the blessing of peace; He makes the wars to cease in all the world, &c. however the sight and due meditation of the miseries of war, and the vastations that follow upon it, may be a good preparative to us, for setting a true value upon the benefit of peace.

For us, alas! we would rather a threatening, than a sense of war. Our neighbours entered into our borders, not with a public denunciation of an offensive war, but with a profession of defence. And, if some blood were mutually shed in the passage, it was not out of a professedly hostile intention on either part; which had it been, might easily have proceeded to a far greater slaughter: but out of the sudden apprehensions of the intervening crosses of each other's purposes. And, if the long abode in those our quarters have been not a little chargeable to us; yet it hath been without

any violent and bloody prosecution on either part: and now, thanks be to God, they are passed away in peace. But even this little glimpse of a dry war is enough to shew us the woeful misery of a war denounced, prosecuted, executed to the height of cruelty; where there are nothing but intentions of killing, spoiling, desolation. The anguish of this very touch is sufficient, to make us sensible of the torment of the full shock of a destructive war: out of the sense whereof, let us look at this great work of contrary mercy, which is here set forth unto us: He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the earth,

Wherein we have an intimation, no less of the wonder, than the benefit of peace. It is a work of power mixed with mercy, that he so restrains the spirits of men, that they are composed to peace. Desolation is not a work of so much power, as peacemaking is. Naturally, every man hath the seeds of war and quarrel sown in his heart; and they are apt to come up, on every occasion. Through pride men make contention; saith wise Solomon. From whence are wars among you? come they not from hence, even of your lusts, that war in your members? saith St. James; iv. 1. Lo, the outward wars come from the inward. The unquiet thoughts of the heart, arising from ambition, from malice, and envy, and desire of revenge, are those, which are guilty of these general affrays and bloodsheds of the world: and what heart is free from these?

Every man naturally hath a tyrant in his bosom. We are all, by nature, thorns or nettles; and cannot be touched, without some stinging or pricking. When there were but two brothers in the world, one of them rises up against the other, and dashes his brains out. Surely, as we do all partake of Adam our grandfather; so we have too much of our great uncle, his eldest son Cain, naturally affected to violence and slaughter. Hence, in the next age after the deluge, Nimrod was a mighty hunter; Gen. x: pursuing men, doubtless, no less in his tyranny, than beasts in his game. And, ever since, Lord, how hath the world been over-run with battles and murder! Here, one prince finds his territories too strait; and hath a mind to enlarge himself, with the elbow-room of the neighbouring region there, another scorns to be encroached upon, by an injurious usurpation; and repels a less violence, with a greater. Here, one pretends to the title of a crown; wherein he hath no more interest, than he can hew out with the sword: there, another, under colour of aid, thrusts himself into that throne, which he pretended to succour. Here, one picks quarrels with the defect of justice done to his subjects; and makes sudden embargoes, and unwarned inroads into the adjoining country: there, another takes advantage of the violation of leagues; and colours his ambition, with the fair name of a just vindication. Here, one, if he can have no other ground, will make religion a stalking-horse to his covetous and ambitious intrusion; it is bellum Domini," a sacred war," that he manages; for the reducing of heretics to the unity of the Church, or punishing their perfidiousness: there, another will plant

the Gospel with the sword-point amongst Infidels; and massacres millions of Indians, to make room for Christianity.

It is a rare thing, if, where great spirits and great power are met in any prince, he can be content to sit still; and not break forth into some notable breaches of public peace.

And, where once the fire of war is kindled, it is not easily quenched; yea, it runs as in a train, and feeds itself with all the combustible matter it meets withal on every side: and, therefore, it is a marvellous work of the power and mercy of God, that he makes war to cease.

And this he doth, either by an over-powering victory, as in the case of Hezekiah and Sennacherib; which should seem to be the drift of this psalm, whereof every passage imports such a victory and triumph as the conquered adversary should never be able to recover: or, by tempering and composing the hearts of men; restraining them in their most furious career; and taming their wild heats of revenge, and inclining them to terms of peace.

This is a thing, which none but he can do. The heart of man is an unruly and headstrong thing: it is not more close, than violent. As none can know it, so none can over-rule it; but he, that made it. It is a rough sea: he only can say, here shalt thou stay thy proud waves. Shortly, then, public peace is the proper work of an Almighty and Merciful God. His very title is Deus Pucis; the God of Peace; Rom. xv. 33: and xvi. 20: Heb. xiii. 20: so as this is his peculium: yea, it is not only his, for he owns it; but his, for he makes it; I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things; Isaiah xlv. 7.

That Malignant Spirit is in this his profest opposite, that he is the great make-bait of the world; labouring to set all together by the ears; sowing discord betwixt heaven and earth, betwixt one piece of earth against another, man against man, nation against nation: hence he hath the name of Satan, of 'Avridinos; of Diabolus, of 'Aßaddav; as whose whole endeavour is enmity and destruction.

Contrarily, the good God of Heaven, whose work it is to destroy the works of the Devil, is all for peace: he loves peace; he commands it; he effects it; He maketh wars to cease.

This is his work, in the kind: and so much more his work, in the extent: To the ends of the earth. By how much more good any work is, by so much more it is his; and by how much more common any good is, by so much better it is. Even the par pectoris, "the Private and Bosom peace" of every man with himself, is his great and good work: for the heart of every man is naturally as an unquiet sea; ever tossing and restless; troubled with variety of boisterous passions: he only can calm it. The peace of the Family is his: he maketh men to be of one mind in a house; without whose work, there is nothing but jars and discord betwixt husband and wife, parents and children, masters and servants, servants and children with each other; so as the house is made, if not a hell for the time, yet a purgatory at the least. The