Images de page
PDF
ePub

Death; the issues wherefrom belong to our God; not by way of rescue, as in the former, but of preservation. Ex inferno nulla redemptio, is as true as if it were canonical. Father Abraham tells the damned Glutton in the Parable, there is péya xáopa, a great gulph, that bars al return. Those black gates of hell are barred without, by the irreversible decree of the Almighty. Those bold Fabulists therefore, whose impious legends have devised Trajan fetched thence by the prayers of Gregory, and Falconella by Tecia's, suspending the final sentence upon a secundum præsentem injustiniam, take a course to cast themselves into that pit, whence they have presumptuously feigned the deliverance of others.

The rescue is not more hopeless, then the prevention is com fortable, There is none of us, but is naturally walking down to these chambers of death: every sin is a pace thitherwards; only the gracious hand of our God stays us. In ourselves, in our sins, we are already no better than brands of that hell. Blessed be the God of our Salvation, that hath found happy issues from this death. What issues? Even those bloody issues, that were made in the hands, and feet, and side of our Blessed Saviour. That invaluablyprecious blood of the Son of God is that, whereby we are redeemed, whereby we are justified, whereby we are saved. Oh, that our souls might have had leisure to dwell a while, upon the meditation of those dreadful torments, we are freed from; of that infinite goodness, that hath freed us; of that happy exchange of a glorious condition, to which we are freed!

But the public occasion of this day calls off my speech, and invites me to the celebration of the sensible mercy of God, in our late temporal deliverance.

Wherein, let me first bless the God of our Salvation, that hath put it into the heart of his chosen servant to set up an altar in this sacred threshing-floor, and to offer up this day's sacrifice to his name, for the stay of our late mortal contagion. How well it be comes our Gideon to be personally exemplary, as in the beating of this earthen pitcher in the first public act of Humiliation; so in the lighting of this torch of public joy, and sounding the trumpet of a thankful Jubilation! and how well it become us to follow so pious, so gracious an example! Come, therefore, all ye that fear the Lord, and let us recount what he hath done for our souls, Come, let us bless the Lord, the God of our Salvation, that loadeth us daily with benefits; the God, to whom belong the issues of death. Let us bless him, in his infinite Essence and Power; bless him, in his unbounded and just Sovereignty; bless him, in his marvellous Beneficence, large, continual, undeserved; bless him, in his Pre servations; bless him, in his Deliverances, We may but touch at the two last.

How is our earth ready to sink under the load of his mercies! What nation under heaven hath not envied and wondered at qur blessings? I do not carry back your eyes to the ancient favours of our God, to the memorable frustrations of foreign invasions, to the miraculous discoveries of treasons, to the successful maintenance of

oppressed neighbourhood. That one mercy I may not forget, that in the shutting up of blessed Queen Elizabeth, the Pope and the then King of Spain, were casting lots for the crown, and palpably plotting for their severally-designed successors; as appears in the public posthume Letters of Cardinal D'Ossat, a witness beyond ex, ception. Three several Briefs were addressed hither by that inclement shaveling of Rome, for the defeating of the Title and Suc, cession of our late sovereign of dear and blessed memory, and his royal issue. Yet, in spite of Rome and Hell, God brought him in, and set him peaceably upon this just throne of his forefathers; and may he perpetuate it to the fruit of those loins, till world and time shall be no more! Amen.

If I must follow the times, let me rather balk that hellish sulphur, mine, than not search it; and yet, who can look at that, any other wise than the Jews do at the rainbow, with horror and astonishment? What do I tell you of our long peace, our full plenty, our wholesome laws, our easeful government; with a world of these common favours? It is for poor men to reckon, Those two late blessings, if no more, were worthy of immortal memory; the Prince out of Spain, Religion out of the dust. For the one; what a winter was there in all good hearts, when our sun was gone so far southward! how cheerful a spring in his return! For the other; who saw not how Religion began, during those purposely-protracted treaties, to droop and languish, her friends to sigh, her enemies to insult; dar, ing to brave us with challenges, to threaten our ruin? The Lord looked down from Heaven, and visited this poor vine of his; and hath shaken off these caterpillars from her then-wasting leaves: now we live, and it flourisheth.

These would have been great favours of God, even to the best nations; but more to us, who have answered mercies with rebellions, O God, if proad disguises, if gluttonous pamperings, if drunken healths, if wanton dalliances, if bloody oaths, if merciless oppressions may earn blessings from thee, too many of us have supererogated. Woe is me! these are the measures thou hast had from too many hands. That thou shouldest therefore enlarge thy bounty to an unworthy, unkind, disobedient generation, it is more than we can wonder at; and we could almost be ready to say with Peter, Lord, depart from us, for we are sinful men.

Yet the wise justice of the Almighty meant not to cocker us up with mere dainties, with a loose indulgence; but hath thought fit to temper our sweets with tartness, and to strike our backs while he strokes our heads. Ecce in pace amaritudo amarissima: the comfort of our peace was allayed with the bitterness of death. He saw, that, in this common plethory, it was fit for us to bleed: he saw us eels, that would not be caught, but when the waters were troubled: he therefore sent his destroying angel abroad, who laid about him on all sides.

What slaughter, what lamentation, what horror was there in the streets of our mother city! More then twenty thousand families run from their houses, as if those had been on fire over their

heads; and seek shelter in Zoar, and the mountains. Some of them are overtaken by the pursuer, and drop down in the way, and lie there as woeful spectacles of mortality, till necessity, and not charity, could find them a grave. Others pass on; and, for friends, find strangers. Danger made men wisely and unwillingly unhospital. The cousin, the brother forgets his own blood; and the father looks shily upon his own child, and welcomes him with frowns, if not with repulses. There were, that repaid their grudged harbour with infection. And those, that speed best, what with care for their abandoned houses and estate, what with grief for the misery of their forsaken neighbours, what with the rage of those epidemical diseases which they found abroad, (as it is well observed by one, that in a contagious time all sicknesses have some tincture of pestilence,) wore out their days in the deepest sorrow and heaviness. There, leave we them; and return to the miserable metropolis of this kingdom which they left. Who can express the doleful condition of that time and place? The Arms of London are the Red Cross and the Sword: what house almost wanted these? Here was the Red Cross upon the door, the Sword of God's judgment within doors; and the Motto was, Lord, have mercy upon us.

What could we hear, but alarms of death? what could we see, but trophies of death? Here was nothing but groaning, and crying, and dying, and burying. Carts were the biers; wide pits were the graves; men's clothes were their coffins; and the very exequies of friends were murderous. The carcases of the dead might say, with the sons of the prophets, Behold the place where we lie is too strait for us. New dormitories are bought for the dead, and furnished. Neither might the corpses be allowed to lie single in their earthen beds, but are piled up like faggots in a stack, for the society of their future resurrection. No man survived, but he might say with the Psalmist, that thousands fell at his side, and ten thousands at his right hand. And, if we take all together, the mo ther and the daughter, surely the number was not much short of David's, though his time were shorter.

It is not without reason, that from the Hebrew word 27 which signifies "The Plague," is derived 27 which signifies "A Desert:" certainly, the Plague turns the most populous city into a desert. Oh the woeful desolation of this place! It was almost come to Herba tegit Trojam. And, if some infrequent passenger crossed our streets, it was not without his medicated posy at his nose, and his Zedoary or Angelica in his mouth. Every room seemed a pest-house; every scent mortal. Here should he meet one pale ghost muffled up under the throat; another dragging his legs after him, for the tumor of his groin; another bespotted with the Tokens of instant death. Here, might he hear one shrieking out in a frantic distraction; there, another breathing out his soul in his last groans. What should I say more? This glorious chamber of the kingdom seemed no other, than a dreadful dungeon to her own; a very Golgotha to all beholders: and this proud queen of our British cities sat in the dust of her compassion, howling in the

rags of her sackcloth; not mourning more than mourned for; pitied, no less than forsaken; when the God of our Salvation looked down upon her deep afflictions, and miraculously proved unto us, that unto him belong the issues from death.

It was he, that put it into the heart of his gracious servant to command a Nineveh-like Humiliation. What pithy, what passionate Prayers were enjoined to his disconsolate Church! With what holy eagerness, did we devour those Fasts! How well were we pleased, with the austerity of that pious Penitence! What loud cries did beat on all sides at the gates of heaven! and with what inexspectable, unconceivable mercy were they answered! How suddenly were those many thousands brought down to one poor unity, not a number! Other evils were wont to come on horseback; to go away on foot: this mortality did not post, but fly away. Methought, like unto the great ice, it sunk at once. Only so many are stricken, as may hold us awful; and so few, as may leave us thankful.

Oh, how soon is our fasting and mourning turned into laughter and joy! How boldly do we now throng into this house of God, and fearlessly mix our breaths in a common devotion! This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. O thou, that hearest the prayer, to thee shall all flesh come. And let all flesh come to thee, with the voice of praise and thanksgiving.

It might have been just with thee, O God, to have swept us away in the common destruction: what are we better than our brethren? Thou hast let us live, that we may praise thee. It might have been just with thee, to have enlarged the commission of thy killing angel, and to have rooted out this sinful people from under heaven: but in the midst of judgment thou hast remembered mercy. Our sins have not made thee forget to be gracious, nor have shut up thy loving kindness in displeasure. Thou hast wounded us, and thou hast healed us again; thou hast delivered us, and been merciful to our sins for thy Name's sake.

Oh, that we could duly praise thy Name in the great Congregation! Oh, that our tongues, our hearts, our lives might bless and glorify thee! that so thou mayest take pleasure to perfect this great work of our full deliverance, and to make this nation a dear example of thy mercy, of peace, victory, prosperity, to all the world.

In the mean time, let us call all our fellow-creatures to help us bear a part in the praise of our God. Let the heavens, the stars, the winds, the waters, the dews, the frosts, the nights, the days; let the earth and sea, the mountains, wells, trees, fishes, fowls, beasts; let men, let saints, let angels bless the Lord, praise him, and magnify him for ever. Blessed, blessed for ever be the Lord, who loadeth us daily with benefits; even the God of our Salvation, to whom belong the issues from death. Oh blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only doth wonderous things; and blessed be his glorious Name for ever and ever: and let all the earth be filled with his glory. Amen. Amen.

SERMON XVII.

THE DEFEAT OF CRUELTY:

PRAYED FOR, AND LAID FORTH IN A SERMON PREACHED, AT A
SOLEMN FAST, AT WHITEHALL.

PSALM lxviii. 30.

Rebuke the company of spear-men, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of sil ver: scatter thou the people that delight in war.

HE same Psalm, that lately yielded us a Song of Thanksgiving, now affords us a Prayer for Victory: such variety of spiritual Howers grows in every bed of this divine garden. Our occasions cannot change so oft, as God can fit us with change of notes.

The last verse before my text was a prediction of kings bringing presents to God: this is a prayer for dissipation of enemies. It is not for nothing, that the Psalmist interrupts his prophecy with a petition. Hostility blocks up the way to devotion. Even the laws of God are silent in the clashing of arms. That kings may bring presents to God, God must give a happy cessation of arms to them.

It is not long since we saw the Lord's Anointed approach to this altar of God, with presents of thanksgiving, for our late deliverance from the raging pestilence: now we come to sue, and expect that God would crown his royal head with garlands of victory; and rebuke the company of spear-men, the multitude of bulls, with the calves of the people; and scatter the people that delight in war.

May it please you, first, to see the ENEMIES; then, the DEFEAT. The Enemy is described by a threefold title: 1. Fera arundinis, the company of the spear-men, or, beasts of the reeds: 2. The multitude of bulls, with the calves of the people: 3. The people that delight in war. The Defeat is double: Increpa, and Dissipa; Rebuke, and Scatter: Rebuke, is for the two first; yet not absolutely, but with limitation, Till they submit themselves with pieces of silver: Dissipation is for the last; Scatter the people that delight in war. Those, that will be unjustly warring, are worthy of Rebuke; but those, that delight in war, are fit for nothing but Confusion.

I. To begin with the ENEMIES.

« PrécédentContinuer »