A SERMON PREACHED IN OXFORD: the 5. of November. 1607. By JOHN KING Doctor of Divinity, Deane of Christ Church, and Vicechancellor of the University. At Oxford, Printed by joseph Barnes. 1607. The Text. 46. Psal. vers. 7. 8. 9 10. 11. 7 The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of jaakob is our refuge. 8 Come, and behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. 9 He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the world: he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear, and burneth the Chariots with fire. 10 Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, and I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of jaakob is our refuge. MY travail for the choice of my text parallel to this days work, was as the flying of Noah's dove, or floating of his ark; the one had no footing till it came to the ark again, the other no resting place but on the mountains of Armenia; nor I where to settle my divided thoughts, till I fell upon this Psalm: here I met with many uniformities. The event the same. We may as truly and as happily say, as these might of whom the Psalm treateth, God is our hope, and strength, in angustijs auxilium praesentissimum, or adiutor in tribulationibus, quae invenerunt nos nimis, our readiest help in our sorest dangers. v. 1. We were the children of death, and were even come to the birth, there wanted a very little strength to bring us forth. Tempus faciendi domino, it was then time for the Lord to put to his hand, yea the time was almost past. — digitis à morte remoti quatuor aut septem.— there remained but a few hours to accomplish their mischief. The extent of the danger no less. Theirs was against both their City of God, and the sanctuary of his Tabernacles. vers. 4. Ours against both city & sanctuary, the two sisters, the Martha and Marie, policy & piety, Commonwealth and Church of our Country: The thrones of David & chair of Moses, golden sceptre, & golden candle stick, our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 21. Act. 28. & our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also, people, law, place, temple must have been dissolved. The places seem to accord. With them, their city of God; so with us too. Our city of God▪ the faierest, the excellentest, the absolutest that we had (or contiguous to it) our jerusalem, the Princess of the thousands, the mother of all the daughters of our land, the Chamber of our famous Kings & Queens, joy of our English earth, empress of the Island, and the renowned Emporie and Mart of the whole Kingdom. And the Sanctuary of our Tabernacles no less as theirs. Our Bethel, our Siloh, our Hill of Zion; where were our goodliest Temples and Basilikes, Chapels & oratory's, where our very oracles were wont to be given, the fountain and spring of religion, the ark of the presence of God above all other places of this land. Omit not the season vers. 5. Their deliverance was very early. Manè diluculò ante auroram, ad conspectum aurorae. So was ours. For by four in the morning of that day, which had been the evening and long night, the blackness of darkness to our state, was the treason discovered, the Lords of the privy Counsel acquainted, and the King in his bed chamber awaked and advertised. There wanted but a morning's work, which if it had sped, sufficient unto the day, the year and many ages of the world had the malice of that morning been. Betwixt the midnight of that eve, whereon the Incendiary kept his vigilles, & the midday of their feast, their great jubilee expected, were but 12 hours▪ and on of those twelve, as of the 12. Apostles a devil, so must have been hora & potestas tenebrarum the hour and power of the devil, the hour of fiery trial, hora nefasta, nefanda, the blackest that ever the eye of the sun looked upon, worse than the worst Sodomitical and Gomorrhean, the most accursed and infamous, that ever was accounted in any Calendar of time. Me thinketh the whole phrase of the Psalm hath great congruity. For surely our ground had been shaken verse. ●. yea her joints had been shivered in pieces; and our mountains if not of nature, of art, monuments of age and honour, as stable and stately as mountains, huge masses and piles of magnificent buildings, royal palaces, religious temples, Mausolean sepulchres & shrines, which the holy Ghost calleth domos seculi▪ house's of eternity, 12. Eccl. had been thrown into the midst of the river, if not the sea; and our waters had raged & been troubled vers. 3. yea the foundations of their channels had been discovered: And that River of ours, the streams whereof make glad our City of God vers. 4. had changed her gladness into mourning, died her crystal into rubies, and turned as the rivers of Egypt into a river of blood; running as a Maister-veine with a full tide of blood along the sides of the city: her carriages in stead of wont commodities had been dead corpses; many a thousand discerpted limb both of men and buildings must it have drank down, & buried within her bosom. lastly and in a word the subject of the Psalm throughout is very like. The incursion of the enemy to both strong and furious: the danger imminent, vast, & peremptory; the deliverance strange & glorious; the prevention of the mischief sudden; the commemoration and thanksgiving solemn; and most generous, heroical, invincible as in them, so in us, (I hope) the resolution. The Lord is our refuge etc. Therefore will we not fear though the earth be moved etc. — Si fractus illabatur orbis. Notwithstanding all these resemblances, the reed & metwand of that danger and deliverance of theirs is far to short to be the measure of ours. Ours is casus omissus, a transcendent of transcendents a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; our danger a monster of dangers such as nature never brought forth; our deliverance a mirror, a miracle of deliverances; such as the finger of God never wrought. But taking my text as it is, you shall find in the opening of it 1 A proposition, profession, protestation as it were to the whole world The Lord of hosts is with us v. 7 2 A probation, or demonstration thereof. Come & behold his works. vers. 8. 3 Confirmation, explication, enumeration, he maketh wars to cease etc. he breaketh the bow etc. v. 9 4 Exhortation, advise. Be still and know etc. v. 10. 5 Conclusion, acclamation. The Lord of hosts etc. vers. ult. Which being a repetition of the seventh verse, in the self same words and syllables, carmen amaebaeum, may seem to stand in the first place as a challenged and defiance to all adversary forces. Dominus virtutum nobiscum, we will not fear for thousands, and ten thousands, whole armies of men, legions of devils, the gates of hell: and when they have proved, demonstrated, cleared the truth of their assertion, they sing it once more in the last place as their Paean, their victorious and triumphant song, Dominus virtutum nobi scum▪ etc. Look not for much explication & discourse at my hands, you shall find me a short paraphrast or scholiast application is my end. My text serving me to no other use then as a seal, or stamp, or mould, which when I have set to the late story of our times, you shall find, if not so lively in all points of collation; yet some liklie expression and form of my text sticking upon it. For the order then and connexion of the words in brief, thus it standeth. 1 They propose. The Lord of hosts is with us. How prove they that? 2 Thus. Come and behold his works. That were an endless task. 3 They give Instance in a species. What desolations he hath wrought. Yet this were to lardg a field to range in. 4 They exemplify some one kind of them: he maketh wars to cease. How shall that appear? 5 By a sufficient enumeration. He taketh away all instruments of war, breaketh the bow etc. 6 Then followeth the counsel. lastly the conclusion. Touching the proposition, Dominus virtutum nobiscum etc. The Proposition. They not only presume it, & lay it for their surest ground, as a maxim and principle which they will never be driven from; but assume it unto themselves in the hypothesis, and appropriate it to their people & persons, Nobiscum, noster. Which are not only voces charitatis, words of charity, when by a style of plurality and community they comprehend all the members of their state but voces fidei, words of faith also, when they make jehovam exercituum, the universal Lord of the world, whose power is over all, to be their proper & peculiar God. Like wise builders, that build upon the rock, all the winds and storms in the world may beat upon their house either of Church or Kingdom, but cannot shake them. Wise Merchants that sell all the substance they have to buy one pearl more valuable and precious than all the rest. unus omnia. And omniam omnibus: Compendium mirabile. One Lord of hosts is more unto them, than all the arms of flesh and blood, all armies of men and Angels, all the powers in heaven and earth: One God of jacob more unto them then all the Gods of Ammon, Aram, Moab, and whatsoever is named God throughout the whole world. But that which I observe principally in the proposition is the wisdom and perfection of their speech. For according to the two members of it, so do they style God with two titles, and ascribe unto him two attributes or actions. His titles are Dominus virtutum, & Deus jacob. Dominus virtutum: Deus jacob. That is to say strong & sweet. The one virium the other voluntatis, the on of ability, the other of willingness, the on roboris, the other faederis. One of power, an other of favour, one of majesty, an other of mercy, on of puissance, another of promise: in a word, one universal, the other more special. I remember the counsel of the son of Syrach: Facito verbis tuis stateram. 28. Eccl. 25. Balance thy words even. Was there ever speech in the book of God more equally balanced? In the one scale you have the Lord of Hosts, 15. Exod. virum, or rather Deum bellatorem, with whom it is all one to save with many or with few, the God of Gods with his out. stretched arm of power, and his right hand bringing terrible things to pass; whose throne is the heaven of heavens, the earth his footstool, the sea his washpot, Angels his ministering spirits, men his vessels of clay, Devils the vassals of his wrath, and all the creatures in the world, even the poor insectes & flies, the scorns of nature, executioners of his vengeance, and able by his appointment to lay one sure strokes. O this is a glorious and fearful scale, who can abide it? Who ever saw God in his strength & lived? What pillar of heaven, or what foundation of the world could stand, if there were not another scale to match and mitigate the rigour of his strength? Behold then in the other part there is the God of jacob: in which name is comprised whatsoever belongeth to mercy▪ favour, compassion, whatsoever to election, dilection, purchase, inheritance, promise, covenant, word, sacrament. Nay, the prescription and antiquity of his love is expressed herein, for Deus jacob beareth an ancient date. And these two together (Lord of hosts, & God of jacob) make a just aequilibrium between greatness and grace, and bring all things to a fair medley, a sweet and acceptable harmony, like that in the 34. of Exod. The Lord, the Lord Strong, there is the root of all, afterwards merciful, gracious etc. a number of goodly branches springing from that root. The actions ascribed unto him are likewise two. The one of presence Nobi scum; Nobiscum, susceptor noster. the other of protection, susceptor noster, arx, exaltatio, locus editus, the latter is an auxesis, increase to the former. Dominus nobiscum is not so much (unless you understand that great mystery which was hidden from the beginning of the world, and revealed in fullness of time, that is Emanuel, Dominus nobiscum, God in our nature, God in our flesh) for God is present to all his creatures. iovis omnia plena: caelum & terram impleo I fill heaven and earth. Whether shall I fly from thy spirit? if I climb up into heaven etc. He is present with those that shun his presence, that say unto him (depart from us) and think they are safe from his sight: Tush, none seeth, the God of jacob regardeth not. But when it is added, that God is not only with us, but for us, nobiscum, and pro nobis, then are we safe & secure from all possible dangers. The assertion, 2. Probation I confess, is very audacious, if it be not well warranted. Many have trusted in lying words, as the Prophet jeremy speaketh: Templum Domini, Templum Domini: and why not these aswell brachium, Domini, brachium Domini, the arm of the Lord is with us, and perhaps no such matter. They are not the first that have been deceived. There were that called themselves, the children of Abraham, the disciples of Moses, the sons of the most High, & were nothing less. You say, the Lord of hosts is with you, and the God of jaakob your defence. How prove you it? Or why yours more than the whole world's besides? Assured it is, there were no outward, apparent, transient work from God to persuade us of his presence and defence, if besides his promises (which promises are yea & amen) besides his word & oath (which word and oath are 2. immutable things) we had nothing to stand upon; if he made as if he slept, and had thrust his hand of working into his bosom, & would not draw it out, but might seem to have forgotten to be gracious, and to have buried his mercies in everlasting forgetfulness: more than this, if his works were quite contrary (as we might conceive) to his works of mercy, not diversa, but adversa, which the Prophet calleth opera peregrina, 28. Es. 21. strange and unproper works, alien almost from his nature, I mean of troubling and afflicting his people so far forth, that the very heathen should say of us, where is now their God? Yet should we live by our faith, and possess our souls in patience, and wait for the time when the vision should speak, for it shall certainly speak, and shall not lie unto us. But there are that believe not unless they may see. plus oculo quam oraculo. Non videmus signa. An adulterous and wicked generation, carnal at least, seeketh a sign. Unless we may see with our eyes (say they) and handle with our hands, & thrust our very fingers and nails into the prints of God's works, we will not believe; it must be brachium revelatum, demonstrated to sense, or it cannot move them. For the satisfaction therefore of them and the whole world, they join potentèr & patentèr together, the works and the evidence of them: Venite & videte opera. Come & behold his works; we feed you not with deceivable fables. Sensus assensus sunt. See them, touch them, handle them, they are not spirits, fancies, speculations, they are true bodies and have the flesh & bones of real, acted, accomplished works. It is justly that answer that Philip shaped to Nathanael 1. john. when he asked him, cometh there any good thing out of Nazareth? Come and see. Let thy foot bring thine eye to behold that which thou believest not. Yea our blessed Saviour himself vouchsafed to persuade with this argument ●o john. If you believe not me, believe my works; opera testantur de me, for my works bear witness of me. Now though the noblest demonstration of things be from their causes and principles, yet the nearest to us ward and most apprehensible is from effects and performances. But what are the works they tell us of? The works of God are without number, if we sail in the main Ocean of them, & put not in into some special arm or creak, we shall never find an end. 104. Psal. quam magnificata, o how manifold are thy works o Lord! In wisdom hast thou made them al. The earth is full of thy goodness. So is the great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both great and small beasts. etc. Manifold are they and maruaillous, from the huge Leviathan to the little worm. Omnia in sapientia. But that as St, Austin speaketh, Consuetudinis perseverantia amisit admirationem: we marvel not, because they are common. The like Tertullian, Semper abundantia contumelio sain semetipsam est. Of fullness cometh loathing, at least neglect. We see nothing but this man.. Assiduitate oculorum (saith Tully) assues cunt animi. It is use that beguileth us, and it is not magnitudo but novitas, the greatness but newness of the thing that draweth us after it. Otherwise (to go no farther) how admirable are the works of God, even upon ourselves? It is he that hath made us wonderfully in our mother's wombs, & took us forth of our mother's bellies, and when father and mother forsook us, took us up, that giveth us our daily bread to feed us, and our daily breath to quicken us with many the like blessings. All which show, that he is not far of from every one of us, Act. 15. but watcheth continually over us with his heavenly and fatherly providence. But of the works of God there is no end, if we think to take a view of the whole sum of them. Come therefore to some particular. The holy Ghost teacheth me to distribute the works of God into 2. sorts. One of which sorts is expressed in my Text, Qua● solitudi●es. Solitudines desolations Some read mirabilia wonders, not ordinary works: some prodigia prodiges, not ordinary wonders. The most solitudines. So then by the light of my Text I perceive the works of God are two fold. 1 Sun of position, constitution, creation, [in the beginning God made heaven and earth] Genes. & quicquid me dium cum ipsis finibus exortum est, Basil. all things contained with in them; of supportation, and government. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Heb. He carrieth allthings with the word of his power: of redemption, purchase, reconciliation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; 2. Cor 5. 10. of restitution, reparation, renovation. 3. Act. 20. there shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, times of the restoration of all things. These be his positive works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whatsoever, I mean, either giveth, or maintaineth, or bettereth, and amendeth the being of things; of which we may read plentifully the mean time in the book of nature, more happily in the books of grace, but hereafter most blessedly & contentedly in the large volumes of glory. 2 Other are his works of corruption, dissolution, & as my text calleth them desolation. The Scripture testifieth of both, vivifico, occido▪ I quicken, I kill. Creans lucem, 32. Deut. formans tenebras, Creating the light, and forming darkness. 45. Esay. These works of desolation are not such, the only end whereof (without farther good) is to mar & destroy, & deprive of being, as the drowning of the old world, the burning of Sodom with her sisters, the sacking of jerusalem; where the scope proposed to God was to overturn, overturn, overturn, without sparing they are desolations to our enemies, but consolations to us, ruins to them, to us resurrections, 20. Psalm. (they are fallen down, saith the Psalm, we stand upright) corruptions to them, generations, creations, recreations to us. And without these corruptive, destructive, works of God (to let pass the other member) we could not be, or at least wise not so happy. Take for example. God never made death. invidia diaboli intravit. 2. Wis. through the envy of the devil it entered into the world; through sin the inspiration of the devil 5. Rom. & not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, entered, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, went over all, as a gangraine and infection; & more than that, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Alexander the great, a triumphant conqueror Curt. [pervenimus ad solis ortum & occasum] reigned over all the sons of Adam. Now under this accursed brat thus entering & borne by equivocal and spurious generation, under this epidemical & ecumenical contagion possessing all the corners of the earth, and not a King, but a tyrant usurping & bearing sway over all flesh, what flesh could ever have been saved (for what man had lived and not sinned, or sinned and should have lived, & not died the second death?) but for a work of desolation coming between, to desolate and disappoint the works of death? Of this work you may read I. joh. 3. 8. To this end was the son of God manifested 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might dissolve the works of the devil, that is to say, sin, and death, 2. Heb. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that through his death he might evacuate, abolish him that had power of death to weet, the devil. ●. Col. 14. it is most amply described 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of desolation, he hath razed out the hand writing against us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a phrase of desolation took it away, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fastened it to his cross: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. And hath spoiled, unharnessed principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, and triumphed over them upon his cross. All are terms of desolation; so that now the Prince of this world is cast out, and the children (that were appointed) of death & gehenna sing a song of thanksgiving, O death where is thy sting? O hell where is thy victory? This is the great and wonderful work of desolation above all others, & appertaineth to souls as well as bodies, and to our deliverances both from first and second death, our redemption from spiritual wickednesses rather than corporal, from our immortal foes, and endless calamities. David is content to insist in one of the works of God, but of temporal, and corporal desolation, & that is the ending of war. He causeth wars to cease unto the ends of the earth. 5. Auferens bella. That he proveth by sufficient induction, a recital of instruments and weapons of war. He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear etc. As when the Philistines took the Smiths out of Israel, 1. Sam. 13. they could not fight. No smiths, no armour; no armour, no war. War of itself is opus de solationis, a work of desolation, havoc, waist, ruin, it turneth a land in solitudinem, into a desert, an habitation for foxes, & wild beasts. Let it be sowed with the seed both of man and beast, as a field with wheat, war will consume it & eat it out. Bellum si naturam spectes, mininè bonum. rather, in vicinity to the name, mos bellurum, fitter for beasts than men. Livy. As for men, justum quibus necessarium, never just but when they cannot avoid it; nor ever to be waged by a christian, 205▪ Epist, but observing St. Augustine's rule, Esto bellando pacificus, though thy hand be bloody, thy heart must be peaceable. Pacem habere debet voluntas, bellum necessitas. You see the instruments named in my text, are not mattocks & spades, tools of husbandry, or manuary crafts, but instruments of murder and spoil: the bow to do mischief eminùs, Arcus, hasta, Currus a far of, the spear cominùs, near at hand: the chariots especially ferrati, falcati, shod and prepared with iron, & whinged like birds, with their siths and hooks on both sides, to mow down all that they met with: they rage in the streets, their burning is like lamps, & their shooting like lightning. 2. Nahum. Now in the heat and height of these desolations, when an enemy of a fierce looks, and truculent heart, who neither reverenceth the person of the aged, nor pitieth the sucking babe, dasheth the infants against the stones in the streets, and rippeth up the women with child, (as the book of God describeth him) one whose breath is slaughter and destruction, whose number is as the locusts hiding the face of the earth, able to devour a country, as an ox licketh up grass; all whose purposes and designs are, Down with them, down with them, let us cut them of from being a people, and root out their name; all whose promises to himself, Thy silver and gold is mine, thy women and fair children be mine, 1. Reg. 20. and if any be denied, the Gods do so unto me and more too, if the dust of thy land be enough for my people, every man to take an handful: whose threatenings rest not in men, but their insolencies & blasphemies ascend against God himself Let not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest (you know whose word it was and it is thought by the learned, that that victory gave occasion to the writing of this Psalm:) think with yourselves how strange and prodigious a thing it is, by the unexpected help of this Lord alone, often by unprobable means, sometimes by the hand of the weaker sex, all this intended desolation, to be desolated, disappointed, defeated, all their warlike provision dissolved, their companies, and troops scattered, discomfited, the eater himself to be made meat, the spoiler to be spoiled; for not only bridles to be put into their lips, and hooks into their nostrils to turn them back to their home, but their swords and spears to be turned each man's into his fellows bowels, till they become drunk with their own blood, as with new wine. Many such wonderful works of desolation hath the Lord wrought; upon Pharaoh and his host, when they sunk like stones to the bottom of the sea, upon jabin and Sisera, and all the Kings and people of Canaan, upon Zenacherib & Rab saketh (which is thought to be the story here aimed at) where judah hung down his head, and covered his face for shame, and rend his clothes, and there was nothing left unto them, but Domine inclina aurem, & audi, aperioculos & vide. O Lord bow down thine ear and hear, open thy eye and consider, save us out of the hands of our enemies: O how memorable, & renowned is it to all posterity, that in that exigent of theirs, by an angel of the Lord, an invisible hand, there should be slain in one night an hundred fowrescore and five thousand; 2, Reg. 19 16. when the morning arose, they were all found to be dead corpses? — Octoge simus octaws mirabilis annus; for as strange a delivery, from as proud an enemy, with as unquenchable fury, and a most invincible navy, they bore the ensigns of victory, as others of Castor and Pollux, upon their ships, brought with them instruments of slaughter and torture against our bodies, and swallowed a plentiful hope of overrunning & desolating the whole Kingdom. But they that went down at that time into the sea with ships, ipsi viderunt opera Domini, Psalm. 107. & mirabilia, [prodigia, solitudines] eius in profundo. They saw, we all know. O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare his wonderful works before the sons of men! That our children's children to the last point and period of any generation within this Island, may be able to say, O God we have hard with our ears, & our fathers and grandfathers have declared unto us that noble work of deliverance, which thou wroughtest for them in forepast times. Having sufficiently proved, demonstrated, evicted the matter in question, Counsel: and stopped the mouths of all gainesaiers, ut iustificetur in sermonibus, at length he falleth to advising, or rather by a prosopopaeia, bringeth in God persuading in his own person. Be still and know. Vacate & videte. Before, when they were absent and not come, than was it venite & videte, come & see: Vacate. now they are present vacate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stand still, or sit down, as Mary did, take leisure, make not haste to depart from it. Before it was videte, to those that were ignorant, Videte. see, that is, understand, and learn, & know that which you know not: now it is videte of an higher reach, you that know already, acknowledge consider, apply, make use of that you know. What shall they know? that you yourselves are but men (put them in mind o Lord, that they may know they are but men) worms, vanity, nothing, Ego Deus: it is I that am God: Ego, Ego Deus. ego, I even I, et non est alius praeter me, and there is none besides me. And not a popular, idle, abject God, like the Gods of the gentiles, which are not able to wipe the dust from their eyes: Exaltabor. I will be exalted: Not only amongst my people of Israel▪ but in gentibus, amongst the nations▪ if they receive me, volentibus, with their good contents; if they reject me, invitis, In gentibus maugre their wills. And if there be any ground▪ the lines whereof are extended farther than people and nations inhabit, I will be exalted there also. In terra universa. Exaltabor & exaltabor, I will be exalted, I say again I will in the whole earth. It may be spoken to two sorts of men. 1. to friends, and then it carrieth the same sense that the speech of Moses to the children of Israel 14. Exod. 13. Fear ye not, stand still, & behold the salvation of the Lord, which he will show on you. The Lord shall fight for you, therefore hold you your peace. Trouble not you yourselves with your enemies, neither trust in your own strength, nor say to yourselves Manus nostra excelsa, our own high hand shall deliver us. These were David's conclusions 44. Psalm. etc. I will not trust in my bow, my sword shall not save me. And, an horse is but a vain thing to save a man: And, some trust in horses, other in chariots, but we will remember the name of the Lord of hosts. 3. it may be applied to enemies after this sort: vacate, that is desistite, cessate, give over your wicked purposes and plottinge, it is hard for you to kick against the pricks of God's providence; there is no counsel, no strength against his decrees. Last of all followeth the conclusion, a repetition of the first verse, Conclusion. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like the iterum dic●, I say again 4. Philip. Serving in the first place for the prooeme, in this last for an epiphonene; the Key of my whole speech, it opened me a door of entrance at the beginning, & now at my giving o●er, it closeth & locketh up all again. The Lord of hosts is our refuge. This is the seal or stamp whereof I told you before. Application. Spare me a while to apply it, & to effigiate, & shape forth to the pattern and type of my text that most prodigious desolation intended by the adversary, but intercepted by God, which this fifth of November, so long as the sun and moon last, shallbe both famous and infamous for. 1 First as touching the proposition and conclusion being both the same, the carceres & metam, head and foot of my text, as it were voice and echo, a circular annular, serpentine verse, winding into itself again, like that in the 8. Psalm. O Lord our God how excellent is thy name in all the world? The two tropicks & points between which the whole motion of this scripture goeth, and like the two Cherubins over the mercyseat, which turned their faces each to other, yourselves give sentence, if ever any nation or language under heaven had juster cause to say, and say again, once in their hearts by beeleeving, & once more with their mouths by confessing, to make it both their morning and evening, sacrifice, the proram & puppim, beginning and ending of their daily meditations, to common it in private with their own spirits, and to publish it forth in the greatest congregations and assemblies, Dominus virtutum nobiscum, The Lord of hosts is with us, with the presence of his power when there was opus Deo, a work even of the deity to be wrought, a knot worthy the finger of God: and Deus jacobi, the God of jacob assisted us with his grace; jacobi & seminis, jacobi & populieius, even the God of the seed & people of jacob. Say whither he loved not the tents and habitations of jacob, more than all the taber nacles and conventicles of Mesek, ungodliness, superstition, idolatry: whether he gave not ample testimony to the world that he loved jacob, his house, his issue, and hated Esau, and the whole Esauitical, hairy, rough, barbarous, savage generation of men, which said, The days of mourning are come, venite, occidamus JACOBUM, let us kill jacob & subvert his Kingdom. And whether we may not add in the end of our prayers and thanksgiving, Salah. as the strength and sting of the be that lieth behind, as a goad to awake us, & stir us up, a nail to fasten it in our hearts as in a sure place, a diapsalma & rest to our song, a pause to our meditaons, that we pass not lightly away (for qui credit non festinet) and lastly the amen, the fiat, the closure of all our devotion, Selah, as much as to say, o rempraeclaram & admirabilem, Deum habere defensorem! o magnum & inexpugnabilem defensorem! O happy, thrice happy we that are in such a case! Blessed thrice blessed people that have the Lord of hosts, the God of jacob for our defence! Doth any man doubt of this? Come. or is any ignorant? Venite & videte opera▪ Come from the uttermost ends of the earth, as far as the four winds blow one against the other, if you will see a work, a strange work, whereof you will say when you see it, we never saw it after this sort, and when it shall be told you, you will not believe it, Come. And you that turn your backs to the temple of the Lord, and are ever departing from us and our congregations, you whose motion is not coming. Eamus in domum Domini, but going, our feet shall stand within thy gates o thou synagogue of Room, you that cannot persuade yourselves that God is the God of Protestants. Tush (say you) God hath forsaken them, God and man have concurred to punish the wickedness of this time (you know the text) & you prophesied against us terrible things quandocunque contingeret miseram illam faeminam e vitâ excedere, and saw in the visions of your heads our streets flowing with blood etc. And magnum annum Platonis, a return and revolution of all things, your temples, altars, sacrifices, restored, reformed secundum usum after the form of Romish superstition, Come and be not incredulous but believe, harden not your hearts as in the days of idolatry and blindness, Behold. behold the mighty hand of the Lord, & the works he hath wrought for us: we follow not deceivable fables, we have seen them with our eyes, & handled them with our hands; nor were they done in a corner, but in the light of the sun, that all the world may take notice of them. O that my words were now written, job. 19 O that they were written in a book, and engraven with an iron pen in lead or stone for ever! I know that my Redeemer liveth, said job. We know our Protector lived, and you yourselves know it, and heaven and earth know, King and captive know, yea the stones in the walls, and timber in the beams know that our Protector lived, and that the Lord of hosts was with us, and the God of jacob was our defence, when men were so furiously set against us, and meant to have destroyed flesh and arm, head and members in one day, and at one instant. I could lead you by a long tract of the works of God in the days of that glorious Saint, our late sovereign of happy memory Queen Elizabeth▪ a woman after God's heart, who walked in the ways, and overlived the days of her father David, and led her people as a flock forty & five years through a wilderness of many distressful dangers; a Queen of Queens, a Paragon (whilst she lived) of mortal Princes, the diamond in the ring of the monarchs of the earth, the glory of her sex, the pleasure of mankind, the miracle of the christian, & the mark & scope even of the infidel world, (for they had an eye after her) who notwithstanding all the roar of the bulls of Basan, Centaurs, and Minotaures of Rome, their thunderings, lightnings, excommunications, execrations, incantations, conspiracies, rebellions, drugs, daggers, dags, yet lived to outlive the malice of her enemies, drew up her feet unto her in her bed of peace, had her eyes closed with the fingers of her servants, & friends, and was buried with Regal burial in the sepulchres of the Kings and Queens of England her noble progenitors. When we had exchanged her for our gracious Sovereign that now is,— Luciferum roseo cum sole, how glorious were the works of God in his most peaceable entrance, not so much as a fly moving the whinge or hissing against him? Besides many unexpected escapes of many unsuspected dangers. All these were his works of desolation. But there is one behind above all the rest, which I may call the desolation of abomination, (in the heart and purpose of the enemy) the most abominable, detestable, unmatchable, that ever was thought upon. It was not solitudo in terra with them, but subter terram— itum est in viscera terrae, for the perpetration of it they went down into the bowels of the earth, but for the invention to the very umbilicke, and centre of the earth. I had almost asked — qui gurges, aut quis tartarus hoc scelus — est ausus attrectare? sith in so many thousands of years from the fall of the reprobate and faithless angels it never came into the head of any devil to suggest to the heart of any man before this time so nefarious, flagitius, portentous a wickedness, as this was? Actors it had upon the earth, with whom I must acquaint you. 1. that Lateran jupiter, that Balaam, Caiphas, high-preist of Rome, the great Antichrist, the main Alastor, Abaddon, destroyer of the christian world, whose first prize in the Church of God was that he might be Episcopus episcoporum, chief and universal Bishop, (a proud, profane, sacrilegious, Luciferian name) afterwards Rex regum, King of Kings; and Terror regum, terror of Kings, and the hammer of nations; turning the keys of the Kingdom of heaven into the keys of the kingdoms of the earth: and not meddling with the crimes and sins of the people, but crowns of Princes, not souls but sceptres; nor contenting himself with his first commission (though corrupted with false glosses) pasce oves, 21. joh. unless there were added occide, 10. Act. & manduca, that is excommunicate, depose dispoliate, Eagle & Falcons, Emperor & inferior Kings, not only of their dominions & possessions, but of their lives too. It were infinite to follow histories. They were not so ready to change their names at their first investiture into their sees, and to be called Vrbanes, Bonifaces, and the like, as afterwards the christian world to change them again, and to call their Vrbanes, Turbanes, Bonifaces Malefaces, Eugenies Dusgenies, hildebrand's, titiones infernales, hell brands indeed, Pios Impios, Clementes Inclementes; instead of Caput Ecclesiae to term him Caudam Ecclesiae, and fundamentum detrimentum; they proved so pernicious both to Church and Christian policies. 2 All other ministers of this man of sin, pillars & props of his Chair of pestilence I let pass. There is a generation of men more degenerate than ever Nabuchodonoser was, not men into beasts, but very devils incarnate, of all the sects in that Popish Sodom, which have been multiplied as the monsters of Africa, the most pestilent. You call them Jesuits, Bar-Iesuites, you well may, of that damned Sorcerer Act. 13. or jebusites, Esaüites, Suits, as some have done, the disloyal brood of Ignatius Loiola, the notorious Incendiaries, Bustuaries, of Christian states, In eo nimium sapientes, quod se putant caelo vel ipsi quandoque imperaturos. Pap. Mat. in Paul, 4. they think one day to be rulers even over heaven itself; satanicum genus (one styled them) the offspring of Satan; the fallest Sinon's, impostors, couzeners of the world, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Stelliones, Bispelliones, you know not what to make them; their lives, their tongues, their hearts, their habits all are so false. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he said of the Spartans, & Nulla fides nisi quantum expedit, as the rule of the Parthians was. The new Priscilianistes of our age, of whom St Austin complained, soli inventi sunt dogmatizare mendacium, the only men that are found to dogmatize & defend lying; yea and perjury also, and that in the worship of God, Cum Dei nomen, Deus testis, Dei sacramentum interponitur. Whereof St Austin added, o ubi est is fontes lacrymarum? quo ibimus? ubi occult abimus nos a fancy veritatis? O where are you fountains of tears! whether shall we go, or where shall we hide ourselves from the face of truth? whose mixed, Hermaphroditical, epicoene, half-borne, and half-unborne propositions are like I say not there seruations of the Gentiles— juravi lingua, but the oracles of the devils themselves. In a word, they are the marrow, and spirit of the mystery of iniquity, the trumpets of sedition and rebellion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their cry is, dirumpamus vincula, proijciamus funes let us break their bonds, and cast away their cords: No bond of nature, consanguinity, allegiance, alliance, affiance, wedlock, oath, sacrament standeth good, if they list to dissolve it. Of all the religions in the world I denounce unto you (let me a little invert the words of the Psalm) Nolite fieri sicut equus & mulus (they differ not much in kind) in quibus non est intellectus. Be not like jesuit & Priest (they are not far a sunder) in whom there is no conscience, no religion: whose mouths thou canst not hold in with bit or bridle of any, either civil or sacred restraint, but they will evade thee. — Dij talem terris avertite pestem, Nec lovis imperium, nec Phlegetonta timent. And therefore as they said in Rome, Exeat ex urbe Catilina, Catiline must be spewed out before the City could have quiet; so may we say, if we wish peace to the Kingdoms and Countries of the earth, Exe at ex urbe and ex orb jesuita, from whom there is no peace, but rebus sic stantibus, and dum vires suppetunt▪ till they be able to make their parts good. — Sed tua praecipuè non intret limina qui squam — Frater, vel monachus, vel quâvis lege sacerdos: And above all things take heed that you admit neither Priest, nor jesuit, nor jesuited busy Papist within your houses. Of these there were sundry in this bloody attempt: Some of them fixed as it were in their orbs, staple & Legier Jesuits, like principal bad angels set over provinces, Baldwin over Flanders, Creswel over Spain, Garnet over England; other planetory, cursory, movable from place to place, as Gerard, Tesmond, Hammond, Hal, with the like. Their offices were▪ to animate, authorise, warrant, absolve, sacrifice, pray, yea & prophecy too. You remember their psalmody, The memory of novelties shall perish with a CRACK; and he shall come as a flame that bursteth out beyond the furnace, and, his fury shall fly forth as a thunder, & in a moment shall he crush their bones: that when it had come to pass according to these predictions, they might have said, dixit dominus, os domini locutum est, The Lord hath said it, the mouth of the Lord foretold it. There wanteth yet a third sort for execution. Ulysses' may persuade, but Diomedes must through with it. There must be hands as well as heads. Behold a number of Gentlemen, (with others their followers) some of noble and worthy descent (sed quantae tenebrae a quo fulmine?) all our countrymen and patriotes, all fed with the fat of the land (but a viperous generation, not sparing the bowels of their mother that breed them) some that are the salt of the palace, and beheld the face of the King in place of near attendance, all drunk with the dregs of the cup of Babylon, and full as the spider with jesuitical poison; they overflow with the gall of bitterness, and want but means & matter wherein to disgordg themselves: to the attaining whereof they lay their heads together, and according to the word of the Psalm scrutati sunt iniquitates, & defecerunt scrutantes scrutinio, they beat & weary their brains to devise to some purpose: At length they draw together into a knot as an impostume to an head, & close like the scales of Leviathan that the breath cannot get between, they take oath of secrecy and persistence, (was ever the name of God so foully dishonoured?) they confirm it with the blessed sacrament (o more than jewish impiety; they vowed they would neither eat nor drink (at their common tables) till they had the head of Paul, they would fast it out! These eat & drink at the table of the Lord, the body and blood of our blessed Saviour upon a bargain of blood, to have the heads both of head and members, and to make a pool, a flood, a whole red sea of blood, with the slaughter of many thousands. (Busirides arae clementes.) Are these their sacrifices? these their sacraments? In a word, they undertake, they resolve, they swear, they devouer and execrate themselves with that tragic instigation, Exceed pietas away ye bowels of compassion, natural affection begun, thoughts of humanity, prickles of conscience, sparks of reason, bars of religion, fear of God, reverence of men, difference of persons, high, low, old, young, nocent, innocent, all depart, — Sic sic iuvat ire, our hearts are fixed, our hearts are fixed to undergo a work, opus solitudinis, a work of desolation opus mirabilitèr singular & singularitèr mirabile, a work, which whosoever heareth of, his two ears shall tingle, and his heartstrings shall tremble; one for all, a work that containeth in it▪ — mill actus vetitos & mill piacula: to become parricides, Reginides, Regnicides at once, & with on catholic, that is universal, blow to cut of all the heads of the land as it were upon one & the same shoulders. The kind of desolation that David giveth instance in, is auferens bella, he maketh Wars to cease. Ours is not species but monstrum, cannot be defined within any kind. Their first project was war whilst our Deborah was yet living: to that purpose they had a treaty with Spain for an other invasion. But then we would have buckled our armour unto us, and have girt our swords upon our thighs, we would have brought into the field. pares aquilas, alike forces, and have opposed, bow unto bow, spear unto spear, chariot unto chariot. But maior mihi metus ex leone quam ex vulpe, I ever feared their frauds more than forces, their wars never did, never could annoy us—. Astus polenti or armis. Their trust is in stratagems and treacheries. Insidiantur in abscondito, quasi leones in spelunca sua. They lie in wait in their the evish corners, as a lion lurketh in his den. They say to the ground cover us, and to a subterraneous vault, keep us close. Vt sagittent in occultis immaculatum, that they may shoot at the innocent in secret; 64. Psal. and if their occultum speed, it followeth in the Psalm, subito sagittabunt eum, they will also do it suddenly. They shall receive a terrible blow, and not see who hurt them. They begin their work with a mine under ground (Romish pioneers, Antichistian molewarps, hellish Tenebrios) and with improbity of labour to speed the impiety of their hearts, half dig through a wale of three yards in thickness. Cursed be their rage, for it was cruel, and their malice for it was very painful. They might have ploughed upon the rock as well. Fron the mine to a cellar, as fit for a den of thiefs as the mine was just under the Capitol, the higher house of Parliament, that where the laws had been made (said they) there the lawmakers might receive their punishment. This cellar they store with 36. barrels (great and small) of gunpowder (the invention of a Monk, a devil, the daughter of salt and sulphur, mother of the first borne of death; nothing maketh a quicker end) together with billets, and faggots, and pieces of timber, and bars of iron, and massy stones, all deadly and murdering artillery, and are now even ready with match & touchwood in the hand of FAUX a firebrand indeed, against the 5. of November was two year; at what time these smoky Locusts out of their merciless pit of more than Neronian & Catilinarie dispositions, crying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and incendium ruina extinguam, let heaven and earth burn, and let nothing quench the fire but the ruin and downfall of all, these audacious Phäetons running a desperate & dreadful course, meant to have made a general combustion, communem rogum, a common bonfire not only of mortal men, but of immortal monuments, trophies & pillars, yea charters and records of eternity; and to have offered holocaustum a whole burnt offering of us, to have caused to pass through the fire to their Moloch of Rome, our sons and our daughters, our King, Queen, and Prince, Nobles, Senators, and Priests, with the flower & people of our Land, without distinction of Majesty, dignity, degree, sex, age, merit, yea or religion itself in some part: which what had it else been but a type of the deflagration of Sodom & Gomorre, an image of Tophet. 30. Esay. the burning whereof was much fire & wood, a very representation (the nearest on earth that can be) of that ignitum dilwium that shallbe at the end of the world of that Gehenna ignis, which God hath prepared for the wicked; when both root and branch, flesh & arm, father and son and nephew, dam and young in a nest together, all had been blown away with a blast, a whirlwind of destruction, and the whole state of Kingdom and policy dissolved, as a man turneth a platter upside down; and that in an instant of time, before we could have swallowed down our spittle, or in remembrance or remorse for our sins have said, Miserere Deus, O Lord have mercy upon us. Like to the destruction threatened to the house of jeroboam. 1. Kings 14. The house of jeroboam shall be destroyed in that day. What? Even now, as you would say in a moment, before they had leisure to think of it. This was the work of desolation meant and projected, whereof I have told you so often. Ask now from one end of heaven to the other, and throughout all the generations of the earth if ever the like were. Herein I must confess, my text faileth me, and scripture, and all nature faileth me. There never was example in the world of so facinorous a fact, a sin so exceedingly sinful, the primum genus of all sin, and not a crying, but a roaring, thundering sin (as his excellent Majesty termed) it) nor of blood, but of fire and brimstone, a whole penuarie and storehouse of sin, wherein was prodition, perdition, deperdition, all congested and heaped up in on. But the goodwill of him that sat in the bush (as Moses spoke) (the bush that flamed but consumed not) & the compassion of his son, who waded in the midst of the fiery furnace of Babylon, delivered us as the bush, & the three children from the Stygian lake, & the mouth of hell freed us from their Catholic dooms-daie, and in a parable brought us back from death to life: & as for those Salmoneam artificial fireworks, he confounded many of them by their own skill, and brought their intended mischiefs upon their own heads. Now (according to my text) come and behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath wrought upon the earth: shall I say he causeth wars to cease? Or breaketh the bow? It was far worse. For at that very time when they said of our souls, There is no help for them in their God, there there thus would we have it, their stratagem being as ripe as the mellowest summer▪ fruit, there wanting nothing in the world but the last hand to act it, at that very time (that God may be all in all, and that the honour may be wholly his without any thought of copartnership) were all these machinations of theirs desolated, discomfited, and defeated: And notwithstanding their vowed and dejerated secrecy, their threefold bond of keeping counsel, religion, oath, sacrament, [You shall swear by the blessed Trinity, and the holy sacrament, that neither directly nor indirectly, by word nor circumstance etc.] Yet was their work of darkness discovered, their Trojan horse of the most barbarous villainy that ever ear hard opened, their Labyrint, their dungeon, their hell of secrecy, yea the deep and unsearchable hell of their hearts (who can find them out saith the Prophet?) eviscerated, ransacked, and manifested to the light of the world. Then were we as men that dreamed, when the Lord waked over us, we sat under our vines and suspected nothing, peace, peace, and all is well, the noise of millstones & light of candles, bride & bridegroom was our song: at what time (that the word of the Psalm may ever be verified, dedisti metuentibus te significationem ut fugiant a fancy arcus, that he will ever give warning to his servants to fly from a flash of powder before it cometh) from one of this Pluto's band is a letter sent to a Noble, thrice noble Lord (whose memory be everblest) that letter not kept but imparted where it was fit, examined, scanned over again & again; & afterwards by One wise as the Angel of the Lord to know good & bad, a regius propheta, who spoke not by private motion, but as he was inspired by the holy ghost, interpreted against the rules of art. Whereupon those penetralia mortis, in most chambers of death were narrowly searched, the last designed actor of the bloody tragedy deprehended, & the whole matter detected, with such amazement to the actor himself, that he said it was not God, but the devil that discovered it. I now ask in the language of the 9 Psalm rendered by Tremelius, Oinimice absolutae nesunt vastitates in aeternum? an civitates extirpasti? Have thy desolations sped? (so may they ever speed, & thus be thy handy▪ works always prospered) hast thou spoiled, and gotten possession? Quies cite & videte, if there be any spark of grace left in you, give over your devilish practisings. — Si genus humanum et mortalia temnitis arma, — At sperate Deum memorem fandi atque nefandi If you think that the Laws of Princes be to weak against you, & their punishments too easy, yet fear the judgements of the dreadful Lord of hosts. And you the faithful servants of God and subjects of your Sovereign wheresoever, delivered, as the scapgoat in the law, from the danger of death, & pulled out of the gulf and bottomless pit of imminent destruction; quie scite et videte, put your trust in the Lord, hang up your votivas tabulas, tables of bound thankfulness in the open sight of the world. And let the scription of those tables be, Non nobis domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo. O Lord all wisdom goodness, salvation in disclosing and dispersing the hole of those asps belongeth unto thee, thine is the honour and thanks, we take to ourselves no part of thy glory. I know you have long looked for an end. Much speaking is weariness to the flesh, and long hearing is offence to patience. Will you hear the end of all? Thus began, thus endeth my text. The Lord of hosts is with us that Dominus virtutum, with and for whom the stars in their courses fight. — Et coniurati veniunt in praelia venti, the winds and waves fight, and pugnat orbis terrarum, all the creatures in the world fight to take vengeance of his enemies; himself fighteth for us: & Deus JACOBI (of whom I trust he hath sworn by his holiness, that he will never fail him, and hath made an everlasting covenant with him and his seed, his image our hopeful Prince, and his whole happy race (si custodierint, if they will keep his testimonies, & walk after his laws) this God of jacob is our defence. To this God, the author and finisher of all our welfare, Father, Son, and holy Ghost, be ascribed almight and Majesty, praise and thanksgiving, this day and all the days of our life, in our Chambers at home, and abroad in our Churches, for our time and throughout all the generations of our children's children after us, till Christ's coming in the clouds. Amen, Amen. FINIS.