THIS Psalm carries in it the Character of all the men in the world; for there are but two sorts of persons that the world has in it, the Godly and the Ungodly, or the Righ­teous and the wicked; and here you have the Character of both. And they are all along put by way of Antithesis, and very often in the same verse. As verse 21, The wicked borroweth and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy and giveth And so in the 17th verse, The arm of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholdeth the righteous.

My Text is part of the Character of the wicked; and because Plots are now grown to be all the fashion, I have chosen as fashi­onable a Text as I could. In which we have these three General Parts:

• 1. The Persons Plotting.
• 2. The Persons against whom they Plot.
• 3. The Carriage or comportment of the Plotters.

• 1. The Persons plotting, The wicked plotteth.
• 2. The Persons against whom they plot, and that is against the just.
• 3. The carriage or comportment of the Plotters, They gnash upon them with their teeth.

Of these through Gods assistance, and your Christian patience, I shall speak in their order, as the time will permit. And urst of the first.

[Page 2]I. The Persons plotting, the wicked; The wicked plotteth.

How many ways evil men are called wicked in the Sacred Scrip­tures, would be an inquiry too long, as also too fine and curious for our present Discourse; for you find them call'd so upon many accounts.

Idolaters are stiled so, Deut. 17.5.

Oppressors, Exod. 9.27. The Lord is righteous (says Pharoah) but I and my people are wicked.

Persecutors are also call'd wicked, Psal. 10.2. The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.

Rebels; and so you find Corah and his fellows [though of the Clergy] are call'd wicked with a witness, Numb. 16.26. Depart I pray ye (says Moses to the Congregation) from the tents of these wicked men, lest you be consumed in all their sins.

The unmerciful and cruel are also termed so by Solomon, Prov. 12.10. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

Nay a greater than Solomon, our Saviour himself calls the un­compassionate wicked, Mat. 18.32. O thou wicked servant, I for­gave thee all thy debt, because thou desirest me; shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?

Unjust Magistrates are also called wicked, Prov. 29.2. When the rightoous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. And in a particular and more eminent manner unjust Judges, Prov. 17.15.

But not to enumerate any more Particulars, let us understand the wicked here in this place according to the common and most received notion of the word, for persons utterly void and empty of every thing that is good and virtuous, and that are repleat with vice and evil of every kind; and the words thus taken, will give us this plain and profitable Instruction.

Plotters in Sacred Scripture are called by divers names; some­times they are tituled Conspirators, as in 2 Sam. 15.31. And one told David, saying, Achitophel is among the Conspirators with Ab­solom. [Page 3]And so they plotted against the Church of God of old; for 'tis said in Nehem. 4.8. That when the enemies of the Church heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made, and that the breaches began to be stopped, that then they were very wroth, and conspired all of them together to come and fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.

Sometimes they are termed Forgers, and so they plotted against the Royal Prophet, Psal. 119.69. The proud have forged a lye a­gainst me; but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart. And so exquisite are they in their forgeries, that in another place he tells you they laid to his charge things that he knew not.

Sometimes their Plots are called devices, and so they plotted a­gainst that great Prophet Jeremiah, Come, (say they) let us devise devices against Jeremiah, Jer. 18.18. And under this term you see that hellish Massacre is put, which was designed by Haman against the Church of God in Esth. 9.29. But when Esther came before the King, he commanded by Letters that Hamans wicked device which he devised against the Jews should return upon his own head. And there­fore the Kingly Prophet imprecates Divine vengeance on them un­der this notion, Psal. 35.20. Because they devise deceitful matters against them that are at quiet in the land.

Sometimes their Plots are called counsels; and under this term you find those capital Plotters are put, Psal. 2.2. The Kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed. And under this notion you find them managing their Plots against the life of our blessed Lord and Saviour, Mat. 27. When the morning was come all the chief Priests and Elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And in Mat. 22.15. 'tis said, That the Pharisees took counsel how they might intangle him in his talk.

Again, their Plots are called Traps, and Snares, and Nets, in Scripture, alluding to the practice of Fowlers in their insnaring their game. Among my people are found wicked men, saith the Pro­phet Jeremiah. But how does their wickedness appear? why read Chap. 5.26. and he resolves you, They lay wait (saith he) as he that setteth snares, they set a trap, they catch men. See what a barba­rous description of these wicked Plotters, and yet extreamly true, is given you in Psal. 10.7, 8, 9. His mouth is full of cursing, and deceit, and fraud; under his tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages, in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lyeth in wait [Page 4]secretly as a Lion in his den; he lyeth in wait to catch the poor; he doth catch the poor when he draweth him into his net. Ab uno, disce omnes, by one the Prophet tells you the nature of them all; and one would think that this description should rather suit to a Devil than a man; and yet such devillish men you find laid in wait for our most blessed Lord himself, seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse him, Luk. 11.54.

From what hath been said, the one part of the point under con­sideration is clear, That the wicked are Plotters: and if the Scrip­tures of truth do no where tell us, that the righteous and inno­cent are Plotters also, as it no where doth, then the other part doth manifest it self also, that they are the only Plotters that the world has in it.

A manifold improvement may be made of this truth; but I shall insist on a fourfold only.

• 1. Reproof.
• 2. Caution.
• 3. Exhortation.
• 4. Comfort.

1. For Reproof. Is it so that this Lesson is true, that wicked persons are Plotters, and the only Plotters that the world has in it? then how are they to be reproved that would perswade the people otherwise, and that would make men believe that there are none in the world but only sober people are Plotters? and this Re­proof falls on some of all Sects.

• 1. On some of us Clergy.
• 2. On some of you Laity.

1. On some of us Clergy, who preach such Doctrines so utter­ly contrary to the tenor of the whole Scripture. What, my Bre­thren! is it nothing with you to be numbered among false teachers? lying Prophets? and to fall under that wo that they are doomed with That call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness? Isa. 5.20. Or that wo due to them that take away the righteousness of the righteous from him. vers. 23. What would you be devoured as the fire devoureth the stubble? or would you be consumed as the flame consumeth the chaff? would [Page 5]you be destroyed root and branch? for the Prophet tells you that your very root shall be rottenness, and your blossom shall go up as the dust. vers. 24. What are you earning again that dreadful Curse, Prov. 24 24. He that saith to the wicked, thou art righteous, him shall the people curse: Nations shall abhor him. For truly I doubt this very sin did make us the Curse of the people, and the abhorrence of the Nations once already; when we run upon our sellow Pro­testant Brethren for wicked, and cried up the wicked for righteous; and what are we mad to repeat this guilt, and to bring our selves under the Curse of the people, and the abhorrence of the Nations a second time? Doth the true and holy Word of God teach us every where, and in every part of the Bible that the wicked plot­teth against the just, and dare we invert this Doctrine? and incul­cate in all our Sermons, That the just plotteth against the wicked? And by our sly sarcasms insinuate that we had rather be Papists than Presbyterians, and that there is more danger from dissenting Pro­testants, than there is from Papists opinions? that may be become well enough the roaring Atheistical Roystors, and pass among them for good plotting Divinity: But that Ministers that either do or ought to know better, should be heard to speak such language, is strangely scandalous. What, a Papist! that differs from us in the greatest and most important Doctrines of the Gospel! In Justifi­cation by Faith, in Mediation only by Jesus Christ, and many others; is he to be judged better than a Presbyterian that agrees with us in all our Doctrines, and that differs only from us in a few indifferent Ceremonies? Pray consider, and let not a peevish preju­dice impose upon you such strange absurdities; nor suffer not your hearts to transport you in your Pulpits to deliver such extravagant Doctrines as these. But remember who it is that tells you, That he that teaches men so, shall be least in the Kingdom of God.

The second part of this Reproof salls on you Laity, that hear such Doctrines, for believing them; for that which is not our duty to preach, it cannot be your duty to believe; for though you do well to give your attendance on hearing, yet you are ever to re­member that you are to believe nothing that you hear, but that which hath the Word of God for its warrant. 'Tis true, faith comes by hearing; yet that hearing by which faith comes, is by the Word of God, Rom. 10.17. What do you think that you are to come hither, and because you hear a young pragmatical stripling, that's fitter to be at School than in the Pulpit, make his little decla­mation [Page 6]against the Spirit of God, against the People of God, a­gainst the Word of God, and every thing that's holy, that you are to believe what he says, and go away prejudiced against Holiness, Treasuring up wrath in your mind against all that practice it? Or because you hear a more starcht and formal discourse, from some Reverend or Dignified person, That whoredoms, drunkenness, and all manner of debauchery, are rather to be tollerated by the Govern­ment than dissenting Protestants, Will you believe this to be Gospel? Pray see what the great Apostle of the Gentiles says in his Epistle to the Galatians, Chap. 1. v 8. for he tells them, That though him­self or an Angel from heaven should come and preach to them any other Gospel; what then? should he be credited? credited! no, no; let him be accursed, says he: and so should you also say. And though I am as much for the Church of England as those that crack so high­ly of their veneration for her, yet I must speak one plain truth, that ever since these cursed Doctrines have come into our Pulpits, our Church has dwindled, and all Religion has run out of doors. And I confess I know no other service these Preachers do our Church, than to prejudice all the hearers, and make the best of them sheer off to the Dissenters, and the worst of them to the Papists, till at last we be left quite alone.

You are therefore to be reproved for giving heed to such Fables, and believing Doctrines so utterly contrary to the very essence of a true and saving Faith; do not think that the command of our Lord is to go for nought, in Mark 4.24. Take heed what you hear. Nor that in Luk. 8.18. Take heed how you hear; for as well the matter as the manner of our hearing are both limited and restrained by Christ. For he knew well enough, what manner of youths would invade and obtrude themselves into the Sacred Fun­ction. And what damnable Doctrines his Church would then be pestered with. He knew well enough what a vain worship these would introduce, when once they came to that Pharisaical pitch as to teach for Doctrines the Commandments of men, Mat. 15.9. and therefore cautions us before-hand so strictly concerning them, that we should be careful both of what we heard, and how we heard; that when they did come, Christians might not be surpriz'd; for praemonitus, praemunitus; and pray God give us his grace to guard our selves against them.

I am not ignorant that these persons here reprov'd, vogue them­selves, and would fain have the reputation to be esteemed by others [Page 7]also for Queen Elizabeth's Protestants, but I doubt if we bring them to the touch, they will come nigher Queen Maries Papists, and that both in their Religion, and in their Civil notions. As to their Religion, if you will see a Queen Elizabeth Protestant, if you please to look but in the Statute-Book, in Anno decimo tertio Eliza­bethae, and the 12th Chapter, you will find a whole Parliament of them, and upon Church work too; and which is yet more, upon the Ministers of the Church; and there you read that to the end that the Churches in the Queens Majesties Dominions may be ser­ved with Pastors of sound Religions, they enact that every person under the degree of a Bishop that shall pretend to be a Minister by reason of any other form of Institution Consecration or Ordina­tion, than what was injoined by Parliament in the days of King Edward the 6th. or was then in use, should declare his assent, and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion, which only concern the Confession of the true Christian Faith, and the Doctrine of the Sacraments.

Here's your tenderness of a true Queen Elizabeth Protestant, that let their Ordination be what it would, and their esteem for Cere­monies what it would, so they would but subscribe and assent to those Articles of Religion, that only concern'd the confession of Faith, and the Doctrine of the Sacraments, they judg'd them of a sound Religion, and fit to be Pastors of our Church. Which I doubt these our hot-spurs would judg fitter for a Goal, if not the Gallows. By which you see that Queen Elizabeths Protestants judg'd it their duty to open the Church doors as wide as might be, to let honest and sound Ministers in, and not according to the mode of our times, and these Protestants here of ours, bar the doors up by their Laws, to keep them out: if they declar'd their assent to the faith and doctrines of the Church only, you see her Protestants admitted them; and would not keep them out, because they could not consent and conform to the Ceremonies thereof. No, they would not rob and deprive the Church of God of the gifts and graces, nor of the help, use, and service of so many sound and able Pastors that were Orthodox in their faith, because they could not comply with a few (I will not call them idle and useless) but I am sure very unhappy Ceremonies. So that by this you may see how much our rigid Church-men are out in their Religious measures in boasting themselves for Queen Elizabeth's Protestants.

Nor will you find them less different from Q. Elizabeth's Prote­stants [Page 8]in their Civil concerns, than you have seen them in their Re­ligious notions. For the Protestants in her time were circumstanced extreamly like to what we are now. For the Papists saw that they could not carry back the Church of England to Rome, unless they could cut Her off, and therefore all their plots and designs were calculated against Her life then, as they are against his Majesties now. Only she was blessed with a thorough belief of their villany; so that she was saved by faith, even as to her natural life. Now her Protestants perceiving there was no end of their Plots, and that first or last they would have her life, and there withal destroy the Pro­testant Religion also, if by some extraordinary act they did not prevent it; they did by an universal agreement enter into an Associ­ation, by which they mutually engage themselves to repair to their Arms, and stand by and assist each other in these three cases: In case of the Queens death; in case of a foreign Invasion, and in case of any Popish Insurrection. And in particular, they obliged themselves to one another, that when ever the Queen fell, they would all sall on the Papists, and revenge her death upon them. And this put a present end to all their Plots and designs against her for ever. For when they saw the people were come to a point, and that conspiring against the Queens life was but conspiring against their own lives, they had done with their Plottings, and could live quiet like other people all the remaining part of her life. This ex­traordinary Act Queen Elizabeth's Protestants did of themselves, and in an Interval of Parliament; and that age was so far from con­demning it, as any way factious, seditious or rebellious, that she her self in the very next Parliament, which was held in vicessimo septimo of her Reign, ratified, confirmed, and made it a Law, and to last as long as she lived.

Now if you compare these our Protestants (that we are here re­proving) with hers in this point of Civil right, I doubt you will find them as unlike her Protestants, as but now you did in their Re­ligion. For how barbarously did they clamor every where against their fellow Protestants the other day, but for carrying on a mo­dest and harmless Petition for the Parliaments sitting? And how did they be rogue and be rebell all those worthy Gentlemen that either promoted or countenanced it? How then would they have bellowed and roared, if they had enter'd into such an honest Association as you see Queen Elizabeth's Protestants did? Where­fore take the reproof home to your selves, and do not boast your [Page 9]selves any more for Queen Elizabeth's Protestants, if you be of that stamp; for you see you are so far from being of their nature, that bate but the bare name, you have nothing of her Protestants in you. And I am perswaded it were good for our Church if you had not so much as the name neither.

Thus much for Reproof. Come we now to caution.

2ly. Is it so that wicked men are plotters, and the only plotters the world has in it? then,

First, Be cautious of their company, lay hold on all occasions to shun and avoid it; and say with the holy Patriarch, Gen. 49.6. O my soul, come not thou into their secrets, unto their assembly my honour be not thou united. And think with him that the safety of your ho­nour, nay your very souls lyes in declining their company; for what would you be in their company for? you put your selves but under a constraint, and too often into a snare also. For if you speak, they deal by you as they did by the Royal Prophet, Psal. 56.5. Every day, says he, they wrest my words. And indeed it is very hard for you to comport your selves in wicked company; for ei­ther you will speak too much to please them, or too little to please your selves. And if you be silent and sit with your tongue in your mouth, then you seem to assent to all they say; so that neither si­lent nor speaking are you safe. Wherefore resolve with the Psal­mist to keep agreeable company; for he professes to God Almigh­ty, That he was a companion to all them that feared him, and of them that kept his precepts, Psal. 119.63. And Kings used to keep such good company as it is no disparagement to be reckon'd their com­panion. And think not that this caution extends it self no farther than that you should eschue the company of Papists; for we may truly say in our day, as St. Paul said in his, They are not all Israel which are of Israel. Not all Protestants that comes to Church. Would to God they were. But since they are not, my next wish is, would to God they would appear what they really are, and not lye sheltering themselves within the pale of our Church, and under the umbrage of Protestants, promote the Popish designs. They are easily known; for what our Lord said of these wolves in sheeps clo­thing is eternally true, by their fruits you may know them, Mat. 7.16. For they are of a ravenous bloody nature, and tarry among us but to teize one Protestant on another; and make one Protestant a Wolf and a Devil to another. I speak not at random, I know what I say. For look all the Country round, and you will find none [Page 10]neither Magistrates nor Ministers so savage to dissenting Protestants, as those which I am now a cautioning you against; and which with­out any breach of Christian charity give you too sufficient reason to believe, that they can make as good Papists to morrow as they are Protestants to day; so that the Popes sickle is in our harvest al­ready, and he makes these instruments of his wound the Protestants interest with their own weapons. For those very laws made against Papists they impudently wrest them against Protestants; and these very Justices that this day persecute them for their Nonconformity to our Church, shall if Popery were but turned Trump, burn all that do not conform to it to morrow, as in the Marian days they did; for the professed Papists were no more able then, than they are now to destroy the Protestants. No, it was this wicked crew of masked Papists, that falling in and tacking about, suckt the preci­ous blood of all our Brethren then, as they thirst to do ours now. These, these, are the worst of wretches, and such as truly no man of an honest mind can hardly speak of them with patience; these worry some of our flock for you must pardon me if I reckon dis­senters of the Protestant flock) that they may keep their hand in ure, till their beloved time comes to butcher us all. If Martin Lu­ther were alive, he would call these the Devils Magistrates, and the Devils Ministers, not Gods. And I am sure it were happy for the Church of England if it had no such Magistrates nor Ministers in it. For were these but gone to their own party, true Protestants would better agree, and cement against the common enemy, than these wretches will now suffer them to do. For they know that Rule, Divide & impera; and therefore make one of us run upon another to keep up our rancor and hatred one against another, and the better to, prepare their way, and make it easier for them to slide in their beloved interest, through our divisions, to ruin us all. Of these therefore beware as of the Devil, whose first begotten chil­dren they are. And let every true Protestant fly their company, and scorn their society with a juster indignation than a publick and profest Papist. For these you can guard your selves against, but there is no guard against them; for they walk with you to the House of God as friends, like those bloody and deceitful men in Psal. 55. and lye in the bosom of the Church till they sting her to death. Of these mens company therefore principally beware.

Secondly, If by any unavoidable necessity you happen to fall in­to these wicked persons company, be careful that you quit your [Page 11]selves well in it. God cautioned his Church of old, that they should not walk in the ways of the wicked; and in particular, that they should not say a confederacy to all them to whom they shall say a confe­deracy, Isa. 8.12. Have a care therefore of your selves, and do not chime in with their guilt, either in accusing the innocent, or acquitting the wicked; for they will tell you that there is no Po­pish Plot, but that there is a Presbyterian one. Have a care now, do not let their wicked company make you give the lye to your con­science. But as far as true prudence, and the circumstances are on you will permit, be bold and valiant for the truth, and give not up the tender loving kindness of God in so miraculous and glorious a discovery of their Plots, to gratifie the lusts of a few treacher­ous and sottish bruits; what did Divine mercy give you this salva­tion and deliverance, with such an out-stretched arm, that the Hi­stories and Annals of no Country nor Age can ever parallel, to the intent that you should throw it away again to please that very spi­rit and party that you are delivered from? were you saved not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battel, nor by horse, nor by horsemen, but by the Spirit of the Lord working on the minds and conscien­ces of the very Instruments themselves; and giving them no rest nor peace till they had made their discoveries; and will you let wicked men perswade you to throw this stupendious mercy back into the very face of God Almighty again? Have a care! for how justly may our destruction come as a whirlwind, if ungrateful to Heaven and our own selves, we shall be guilty of this sin? But I must make haste to Exhortation, or the time will prevent me.

3. Well, is it so that wicked persons are Plotters, and the only Plotters? then be exhorted to come out of that estate that exposes you to so much hazard. Conceive you heard the Lord Jesus speaking you almost dead with that dreadful doom, Go ye cursed, Mat. 25.41. For the wicked here, and the cursed there, are synonimous, ac­cording to that in Prov. 3.33. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked. For the wicked here will be the cursed there; and the cursed there, are the wicked here. Nay, if there were a sentence beyond, Depart ye cursed, it were due to these wicked Plotters here in the Text. For if you read the latter end of the 25th. of St. Matth. where the eternal and indelible doom of the cursed is writ­ten, you will find nothing but negatives charged on them, I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no [Page 12]drink; I was a stranger and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick and in prison, and ye visited me not. These are the crimes of those cursed ones. But the wicked, whom we are discoursing of, not only did not mimster to them in their distresses, but plotted, con­trived, and laid out all their power, parts, and cunning, to bring them into those distresses. And if they be damn'd that did not vi­sit the members of Christ when they were cast into prison, what damnation are these worthy of that casts them into prison? And if they that would not give them harbour, nor bread to eat, nor water to drink, nor raiment to put on, when they were strangers, and a hungry, thirsty and naked, are in such a damnable estate, in what a damned condition must these wicked be in here in the Text, that by their cursed plots and hellish conspiracies, took their har­bour from them, and that took away their bread from their bellies, and their clothes from their backs? With what face can these be­hold the incensed brow of the Lord Jesus, the great Judg of quick and dead, when he shall come to plead the cause, and vindi­cate the sufferings of those just persons that they have plotted a­gainst? As ever therefore you would escape their damned doom, be exhorted to come out of that estate that does expose you to it.

And that this Exhortation may be the more effectual, I shall far­ther enforce it with a few Considerations.

First, Consider, that till you do obey this Exhortation, and de­part from the estate and condition of the wicked, you are in open rebellion, and engaged in publick acts of hostility against God: And what do you think it is nothing, or but a light thing to be an enemy and rebel against God? We of the Clergy keep a huge deal of ado against rebels and enemies to the King and Government, and we do well if we level our discourses right, and point our weapons against such that are so indeed. But we must be sure that in those warm discourses, we do not like those in Psal. 11.2. bend our bows, and make ready our arrows upon the string, that we may privily shoot at the upright in heart. For else instead of wounding our ene­mies, we do but destroy our friends. For do not think because a conscientious man dissents from us in a few Ceremonious observati­ons, and the external modes and fashions of our publick Worship, that therefore he is presently to be dagger'd to death as a rebel and [Page 13]enemy to the King and Government; a practice to which too ma­ny of us of the Clergy have too great a propensity. For if we make Nonconformity to publick injoined Worship the Shibboleth or Cha­racteristical note of Rebellion, farewell to all our Martyrs; we must begin a new computation, and reckon with the Romanists all those glorified souls for arrant Rebels; and so we must the blessed Apostles themselves also, and doom at one breath all the generation of the just, which would be a plot to purpose, but how becoming Protestants, I leave to their more cool and sedate consideration that are most apt to be immoderately hot and furious in this matter. On­ly this I'le add, that if our Lord may be believed, they are more to blame that impose those offensive things upon the Church of Christ, than those that cannot conform to them. For he hath planted his wo against him by whom the offence cometh, not against him that taketh the offence when it comes, Mat. 18 7. Those therefore that lay out more zeal than knowledg about those wens of Worship, that rather deform and mishape our Christian unity than beautifie or a­dorn it, would do better, and give a better account of the faithful discharge of their Ministry to Jesus Christ whose Embassadors they pretend to be, if they would imploy their Talents about this Exhortation, in calling out men and women from the number and estate of the wicked that plotteth against the just, and shew them plainly from the word of truth, that while they continue in that condition, they are but enemies and rebels to the God of Heaven, and stand engaged in open acts of hostility against him, and must fall under that condemnation, Mat. 19.27. But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me. And shew them from the holy Scriptures that while they continue such, both they and all that ever they do are an abomination to the Lord. If any thing that they do were accepta­ble, one would think it should be their prayers, and Religious ser­vices; but even these are an abomination also, Prov. 28.9. and in Prov 15.8. the wise man tells us, That the sacrifices of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayers of the upright is his de­light. It is a very gross mistake therefore to think that our coming to Church, and our mumbling or saying over a few prayers here with the Congregation, is the total of all Religion; and to imagine that we are in a good estate because of this. For alas, this may be, and I fear but too much is Vox & praeterea nihil; and if you remain wicked, this doth but add to your abominations. For this is but like [Page 14]the Scribes, Pharisees and Hypocrites, paying tythe of mint, cum­min and annis, whiles they omitted the greater and more weighty mat­ters of the Law, mercy, judgment and faith, Mat. 23.23. Where­fore let others sow what pillows they please under your elbows, to make your wickedness easie to you; and let them cry, peace, peace to you as long as they will, I must preach to you the word of Truth, which says expresly, That there is no peace (saith the Lord) unto the wicked, Isa. 58.22. And now whether you will believe the Lord and his word, or believe them that sooth and flatter you up in your wickedness, at your own peril be it. For I am resolved by the help of God to discharge both the parts of my Ministry with faithfulness, that as I am commanded to say to the righteous it shall be well with hm, so I will also say as I am commanded, Wo unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, Isa. 3.10, 11. This is the first Con­sideration; come we now to the second.

Secondly, Consider, that till you come out of your wicked estate, as you are Gods enemy, so God is your enemy; and how dreadful is the condition of those that have God for their enemy? what to have that God for your enemy in whom you live, move, and have your being? that God that gives you your daily bread, and is the very breath of your nostrils, to have him for your enemy? 'Twas a mighty concern that Job that righteous and upright man was in from his apprehension that God held him for his enemy, Job 13 24. but how much more his concern would have been, if he had appre­hended God to have been his enemy, you may see in that of Saul; for when Saul had so sin'd against God that he would answer him no more, neither by Prophets, nor by dreams, he applied himself to the Witch of Endor, and makes his complaint thereof to the spirit that she had raised. But see what a cooling answer he re­ceiv'd from the Spectrum in 1 Sam. 28.16. Wherefore then hast thou asked me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and become thine ene­my? And 'tis said in ver. 20. That when Saul heard this, he straight­way fell all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, so that there was no strength in him. And no marvel, for it's enough to strike you stark dead, unless you are senseless seared sinners, to hear that God is become your enemy; when he that should be your best and grea­test friend, he that alone can rescue and deliver you out of your enemies hands, for him to become your enemy himself? Lord, what killing news must this be to any soul that will but seriously [Page 15]consider it? You read in the 5th of Daniel, that King Belshazzar made a great debauch for no less than a thousand of his Lords; and as they were busie in taking up of their cups, and praising the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of wood, and of stone, at the same instant came forth fingers of a mans hand, and wrote over against the candlesticks upon the plaister of the wall of the Kings palace; and the King saw the part of the hand that wrote; then the Kings counte­nance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another, v. 4, 5, 6. O! so will yours do, you will be in a dreadful twitter, when God declares himself your enemy, as here he did to him. Your heart will fail, and the very powers of nature will dissolve within you. And therefore among all the Lamentations of Jeremiah, though they are every one exceeding sad, yet methinks there's none so dismal as that in Lam. 2.5. where the Prophet complains, The Lord was as an enemy; and yet this was but as an enemy neither, but even that was sufficient, the Prophet tells you, to increase the mourning and lamentation in the Daughter of Judah: As well it might, for it totally alters all the methods of Gods Providence to­wards a people, and puts as it were another nature into the Al­mighty. For he that is love it self, is turned all into anger. God is angry (says the Psalmist) with the wicked every day, Psal. 7.11.

The greatest consternation, and among the greatest persons that ever was heard of in any History in the world, I believe, by per­sons, especially of their quality, is that which you read in Rev. 6.15, 16. for the Text tells you, That the Kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains: What! the King of the earth, and the rich men, nay the chief Captains, and the mighty men take to their heels and run away, and hide themselves at this fearful rate! and not only to do thus, but to in­vocate the very mountains and rocks in which they hid, to fall on them, and hide them yet more securely? why! what's the mat­ter? what's the cause of this mighty prodigious consternation? Why nothing else, but that the Lord was their enemy, and the great day of his wrath and anger was come, and they were not able to stand it. And do you think to be able to stand when such mighty men as these must fly to corners? Do not therefore alter the me­thods of his Providence, nor change the procedure of the Al­mighty towards you. For though he professes that fury is not in [Page 16]him, Isa. 27.4. yet he also tells you that he will make his fury smoke against the wicked. Now consider this all you that forget God, lest be tare you away, and there be none to deliver, Psal. 50.22.

Thirdly, Consider, that till you come out of your wicked estate, you are under the curse of God, and all the prayers of the Church are against you. You come hither and think to have a share in the Churches absolution; but you are mistaken, it belongs not to you; read the Absolution, and you will see that we are to declare and pronounce to the Lord, people being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins; but what's that to you? we are to declare, That God pardoneth and absolveth all them which truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his Gospel. But what's this to you, whiles you remain wicked, will not repent, unfeignedly believe, nor perform the conditions of Absolution? In Numb. 22, and 23. chap. you may see a wicked King bribing a wicked Prophet to curse the people of God; the History is of Balack and Balaam; but as Balaam said to Balack, How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? Chap. 23.8. so must I say to you, how can we bless whom God hath not blessed? What do you think that Commination, Prov. 24.24. of which we have spoken already, is to go for nothing? Would you have us to undergo the curse of God, and the curse of men, to bless those that are accursed of God? I'le not flatter ye; they are cursed Ministers that undertake so cursed a work. What, would you have us to de­bauch the blessings and curses of God? and betray and pervert the uses of our highest trust? For we are to pronounce none blessed, no, nor cursed neither on earth, but such as we have a sure ground to believe from the word of God, will receive the same sentence from our great Master the God of Heaven, whose Ministers we are in this dreadful administration; and what shall we bless the wicked which the whole Book of God tells us the Lord abhors? Or curse the righteous, in whom the Scriptures assure us is all his delight? How shall we answer and justifie these Censures at the Bar of Christs Tribunal? And would to God the Guides and Go­vernours of our Church would lay this thing more seriously to heart than I doubt they do. And consider Christ gave them not the power of the Keys, to accommodate their lusts of pride, envy, co­vetousness; nor that they should cast or shut good men out of the Church, and let or keep the wicked in, as I also doubt is some­times done. For this is utterly to subvert and over-turn the whole [Page 17]design of the Gospel. For the design of the Gospel in all the Insti­tutions thereof is, that Christs Church might be a pure Spouse un­to him, not a beastly and impudent Harlot. Pray you read Revel. 22.15. and you will see what manner of persons they are that Christ shuts out or excommunicates: Without (says that great Text) are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murtherers, and Ido­laters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye. And if we should shut out all these from our Church, I mean all those that are publickly and notoriously such (as certainly it is our duty to do) I fear we should have but pitiful thin Congregations. How therefore we shall answer to Christ, the letting in these dogs into his fold of the Church, and our so industriously keeping his sheep out, is, if I mi­stake not, our highest concernment to consider.

But I proceed: As those you see that are in a wicked estate, are our enemies to God, and as such are under the curse of God; so the Prayers of the Church are against them. Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, was the ancient standing Prayer of the Church of God. But how dismal is that Petition of the Royal Prophet, Psal. 59.5. where he prays the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, that he would not be merciful to any wicked transgressors? So that you see the Church which by their prayers helps to open the door of mercy to sinners, shuts it upon the wicked by their prayers, and prays against them in terminis (for what David prays for here, is the prayers of the Church) Be not merciful, O God, to any wicked trans­gressors. Nay, you find Deborah and Barack not content to pray that God would not be merciful to such; but expresly pray for their perishing. For in their Song of Thanksgiving in the 5th. of Judges, upon the occasion of Jaels slaying Sisera, they conclude it thus, So let all thine enemies perish, O God. And if you remain some of them, all this prayer must needs reach you. And the holy Psalmist makes the like prayer in Psal. 68.2. for there he prays thus, As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. What then, are you mad to perish? and will you abide in that estate that must end in perishing, and where the prayers of the Church of God binds you over to perishing? Be exhorted there­fore from this consideration to come out of that perishing and de­structive estate wherein you are, that the prayers of the Church of God may be engaged for, and not against you. For this prayer of theirs will be heard, Psal. 110.1. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. And [Page 18]this saying of the Lord is quoted no less than six times in the New Testament; so that you may lay your souls upon the certainty of it; and what, would you be made the footstool of Christ? to be trampled upon and trodden down to the lowest Hell? for, be as proud, and be as opinion'd of your selves as you will, here's your portion if you remain Gods enemies. What, did you not hear but just now in what a tremble the Kings of the earth, the great, the rich, the mighty men were in that were enemies to God? and are you mad to be in that fearsul distraction too? Did you not hear how they run from Mountain to Rock to hide themselves? Pride your selves therefore as you will, and trample on your Brethren as long as you will, your Plumes must come down with a vengeance; for 'tis said by him that will never alter the word that is gone out of his mouth, you must be made an everlasting footstool, and must be trodden under foot eternally, if you live and die in that condition. Wherefore, as you love your selves, and as you love your souls, come out of that condition that exposeth you to so much ha­zard, and wherein you must perish, it may be, here, but to be sure for ever hereafter.

And thus much for the Considerations: come we now to a second Branch of the Exhortation.

Secondly, Is it so that wicked persons are Plotters, and the only Plotters that the world has in it? then be exhorted to judg rightly of things; do not follow a giddy, heady humour that would make you pass a precipitate judgment; but weigh things well in your mind, and be not rash and hasty to pass your sentence before you have considered it. It may be you may be under the mistake that Ahab King of Israel was; for in 1 King. 18. you read of one of the greatest mistakes, and between two of the greatest men that you find in all the Scriptures, for it was between the Prophet Elijah and King Ahab, and about this very point that we are upon. For in the 17th verse it is said, That when Ahab saw Elijah, that he said unto him, Art thou the troubler of Israel? A pretty rough comple­ment at the very first meeting! and I do verily believe that it was Ahabs judgment, and that his lend ungodly Courtiers, and the worser part of his Clergy had persuaded him fully into an opinion, that this great and holy Prophet was he, and only he, that trou­bled Israel. But let us see what Elijah answers to this charge; [Page 19]and that you have in the very next verse thus, And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy fathers house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Balaam. A very home and smart answer. Wherefore here must needs be a great mistake somewhere; for the King charges the Pro­phet, and the Prophet the King; the King makes the Prophet to be the troubler of Israel, but the Prophet denies the charge, and makes the King to be so; and so he was indeed; for Elijah, proves him so. From which we may learn, that it is not impossible but that even in our days the troublers of Israel may be filed to a wrong ac­count. But you will say, Was not Elijah the troubler of Israel, when St. James tells you, That he earnestly prayed that it might not rain, and it rained not in Israel for the space of three years and six months? Jam. 5.17. I answer, no, you calculate amiss; as all men do, that go not to the beginning of accounts; for they were the troublers of Israel that counselled those guilts and sins that brought these judgments upon their heads, not the holy Prophet that pray­ed; this is a false and deceitful computation; like theirs that cry out on Forty one, and the miseries that Forty one brought upon the Nation; but not a word of the wickedness of the preceding years that brought those miseries of Forty-one upon us, not a word of those Persecutions for Conscience sake, that made so many thou­sands of good Protestants chuse rather to leave their native Coun­try, to leave their Friends, their Relations, their Livelihoods, Trades and Occupations, and go with their Wives and little ones, to dwell in the vast and howling Wildernesses of America, than to live here any longer; and that the poor Pagans were more kind and tender to them than we their fellow Protestants. Not a word of those barbarous and inhumane stigmatizings, brandings, gaggings, Pillorings, shameless whippings, and cutting off ears, inflicted with other oppressive judgments and proceedings by the High Commission and Star-Chamber Courts, Judicatories fitter for Spain than for England, Turks than Christians; by which the Liberties Fortunes and Properties of the People of England were invaded at pleasure.

I am loth to proceed on this unpleasing Subject, or else I could speak of the discontinuance of Parliaments; not a word of the Massacre in Ireland, which was plotted before, but perpe­trated in Forty one; where not Two or three hundred, nor Two or three thousand only, but Three hundred thousand, Men, wo­men, [Page 20]and Children were murthered in cold blood, or otherwise de­stroyed and ruined in less than two years time, as saith Sir John Temple in his History of that Massacre. Not a word of all these and a thousand mischiefs besides, that brought the Calamities of 41; but 41, 41, is croaked out every where; Ay, would to God I could not say in too many Pulpits too; as if it were the first year that ever our English world had in it; when to speak plainly, it was the intolerable wickedness of some Courtiers, joined with the pride, insolence, and covetousness of too many of the Clergy for many years together, (from whence occasion was taken by some aspiring and covetous men on the contrary side for their private interests) that brougth that deluge of Judgment on us. For when they saw the iniquity of their heels begun to compass them about, and threa­ten their heads, they fomented a War in Scotland first, and after­wards in England, to save themselves and their fellow Conspirators from the strokes of Justice. It were well if these things were buri­ed in oblivion, and not daily called to remembrance by crying out, 41, 41, upon all occasions; and that the present Court and Clergy may not tread in their steps, and bring both King and Kingdom in­to the same or like miseries again, is, I am perswaded, as seasonable, as it is an honest and orthodox prayer.

And now what I have said on this occasion, I call God to witness, I have not spoken out of prejudice, but what I do verily believe in my soul are the words of soberness and truth, and the modestest account that the matter will bear. Be not then apt to build on mi­stakes, which are but false foundations, though they have never so great authorities to back them, but receive this word of Exhorta­tion to judg rightly of things; which if you do, it will enable you to discharge two duties, which are necessary and important at all seasons, but in a more and especial manner seasonable at this juncture.

First, It will enable us to have more tender thoughts for dissen­ting Protestants.

Secondly, It will enable us to see more clearly through all the Arts of our Professed Enemies.

First, It will enable us to have more tender thoughts of dissen­ting Protestants; because when we come to judg rightly of things, [Page 21]we shall come to see the Humanum est orrare, and that we our selves are subject to mistakes; that we should bear with, and for­give that in others which we would have born and forgiven in our selves; we shall see that the government and dominion of the Con­science belongs only to the Lord, and not to us, and that in that respect they are anothers servant, and not ours, and that to their own Master they must stand or fall. We shall then see that if we exercise any other course on the Conscience than prayer, persuasi­on, found reason and Evangelical means and arguments, we leave the Gospels amicable artillery, and go to the Devils Armory for force, and the Church of Christ stands in need of Satans strength to support it. We shall then clearly see, that we do but justifie the Papists practise upon us, by our practise on our fellow-Protestants. For by the same rule, and on the same reason that we force these to conform to us, may they force us to conform to them. For if we will be judg of our dissenting Friends Consciences in their little se­parations from us, why should not the Papists be judg of our Con­sciences in our greater separation from them? Wherefore our judg­ing rightly of things, will teach us this tenderness, and that conde­scending temper and comportment that was in Abraham to Lot, Gen. 13.8. Let there be no strife, I pray thee, says Abraham, be­tween thee and me, for we are brethren. We should then see that the Papists rage is equal, if not exceeding, to them as to our selves; and therefore the right judging of things will help us to argue thus. What, does it become us to weaken our selves, and cut off our own strength? We, the whilest we have our dissenting Friends with us, have work enough to stemm the tide, and keep out Po­pery: does it become us to deprive our selves of the one half at least of our Friends, by falling foul with our dissenting Brethren? God forbid. In the 9th of St. Mark and the 88th verse, you will find St. John giving an account to Christ of a somewhat singu­lar and pecullar passage, and our Lords reply concerning it, very worthy of our observation. Master, says St. John, we saw one casting out Devils in thy name, and he followed not us. Now see the Lords answer in the two following verses: But Jesus says, forbid him not; for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me, for he that is not against us, is on our part. Learn now from this answer of our Lord your own duty; what, do you see men busie in casting out Devils, and cast­ing out Devils too in Christs name, engaged in the self-same work [Page 22]that you are engaged in, and will you forbid them? God for­bid. And remember this command of Christ, forbid them not: Ay, but they do not follow us: What of that? they are on our part, they are of our side still for all that, therefore forbid them not. As if our Lord had said, What, will you lessen your own party? will you fall upon your own side, because they do not follow you in every thing, when they are doing the great work of the Gospel, that you your selves are doing, your dispossessing men, and casting out of Devils? God forbid!

Well then, shall we suffer the Papists to perswade us against this command of Christ, to destroy our own party, our fellow Prote­stants, because in every punctilio they follow not us, that there­by we may weaken our own side, and strengthen theirs? God forbid. A right judgment of things will enable us to reason thus: Why would the Papists have us persecute the Presbyterians, but because they are Protestants? Why would they sharpen and keen our rage against Dissenters, but because they are Protestants? Would they ever desire their destruction with that eagerness that they do, but because they are Protestants? Well then, if the Pa­pists desire their destruction as Protestants, ought not we desire and endeavour their preservation as Protestants? If the Papists would ruin them as a part of the Protestant interest; nay, and if I may speak it without offence, as the tightest and briskest part of the Protestant interest, ought we not as such to endeavour the preser­vation, and to give them all the demonstration that can be that we have laid aside those little foolish prejudices that the crafts of our enemy, and our own heats and inadvertency had put upon us? and that we are now returned to some sobriety, and do clearly see that there is no one argument that either the Papists or our selves can bring for our persecuting our fellow-Protestants, but is a co­gent argument for us to love them, and as much as in us lyes to en­deavour their welfare and preservation? Thus you see that our judging rightly of things, works in our minds more tender thoughts for our dissenting Proestants.

Secondly, As our judging rightly of things does enable us to have more tender thoughts for Dissenters, so it enables us also to see more clearly through all the arts of our professed enemies. We shall then see every step they make more distinctly, than when our judg­ment is mudded and blinded, we are able to do. Hence is it that you [Page 23]find the Apostle Paul, praying so earnestly for the Ephesians, that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightned, Ephes. 1.18. for he knew that they had a wily Devil to deal with, and that he and his wicked instruments would find out such a world of tricks, and arts and shifts, that unless the eye of their understanding were en­lightned that they might judg rightly of things, and see through all their deceitful veils and pretences, it was impossible but they should be deceived; but this detects their deceit, and discovers all their juglings, so that you are not taken in their snares. How many little tricks and arts have the Popish party played upon us within this year and half last past? Into how many various forms and shapes have they cast their designs, on purpose to deceive you? First a Popish plot, then a Presbyterian plot, and now the Prenti­ces plot; and yet all three Plots theirs, and all tending to one and the self-same end, the destruction of the Protestant Religion. For like lines in a Circumference, though by their art they seem to make them come from never such opposite parts, yet they all meet in the Center. Their first Plots primarily aimed at cutting off the King, which the wisdom of God and the courage of the Parlia­ment hath yet preserved; and because the Gentlemen of the Na­tion, and true lovers and honourers of their King, their Country, and the Protestant Religion, put out themselves in Parliament, in the Country, and every where, at so bold and daring a rate, they suspended the perpetrating of their Villany on the Person of his Majesty, and new shaped and painted their second Plot principally against them; knowing that if they were but out of the way that always interposed and flung themselves between danger and his Ma­jesty, they should soon recover the point again, and compass their first design of killing the King, as they would themselves; and therefore under the notion of Presbyters and Presbyters plot­ting against the Royal life, which above all things they studied to preserve, they would have destroyed those Gentlemen; though if you look their Meal-tub List, you will not find one of forty of them Presbyterians. But such is their Villany, and such the Debau­chery of the age for that Villany to work upon, that they and their Partizans reckon every one a Presbyterian and Fanatick that hath not one cloven foot at least. Now the Methods of this Plot were all to be managed by Subornations, that those Worthies might have fallen as transgressors by the weight of the Law, as by the arts of wicked Jezabel, righteous Naboth did; and when their [Page 24]cursed hand had been in, every man should have been made a Pres­byterian that had ought to lose. For to be rich, to be wise, to be faithful, qualifications that in our Ancestors days were wont to create esteem, are with this wicked crew become the highest crimes. Men of honour, conscience, and true worth, that will rather pe­rish than betray their God, their King, and their Country, are in this Plot the very Butt of all their fury. In 2 Sam. 3.33. you find King David lamenting over dead Abner thus, Died Abner as a fool dieth? But had this Prodigious wickedness took, we must have la­mented all the excellent men of the Kingdom at another rate, and not only said, Died these as fools die, but died these as Knaves, as Rogues, as Villains die? We must have lamented thus, Died all these as transgressors, as Rebels, as Traytors die? what, by the hand of Justice? and by the stroke of the Law? It was one aggra­vation of our Saviours sufferings, That he made his grave with the wicked; and that he was numbered with the transgressors; as every soul must needs be that falls by the hands of false Witnesses. For the Judg will tell you, that he must pronounce sentence according to the Verdict; and the Jury will tell you, that they must give their Verdict according to the Evidence: So that if God had not most miraculously prevented, many worthy Souls in the whole Nation had been cut off by a few suborned Villains. Nor was this Plot cal­culated only against their Lives, but against their Fortunes, against their Honours, and against their Posterity. For they would have affected the child unborn with it. A Villany of such a reaching magnitude, as if it were layed in the very depths of Hell, as un­doubtedly it was. The Wife could not here have lamented the loss of her Husband alone, nor the Children the loss of their Fa­ther alone, as in other deaths they use to do, but must have la­mented their own losses also. That's in my opinion a very sore threatning that the Lord speaks concerning Jehojakim the son of Josiah King of Judah, in Jer. 22.18. They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my Brother, or Ah my Sister; they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah Lord, or Ah his glory. For so mourners used to compassionate one another. So in like manner here one child could not condole with another for the loss of their worthy Father; but all condole their own losses; the Brother that might have said to the Sister, and the Sister to the Brother, Ah Brother, and Ah Si­ster, what a dear and matchless Father have we lost! how gracious was he in his Speech! how courteous in his carriage! how sound [Page 25]in his Counsels! how prudent in his Reprooss! and so have run over all the charms of his whole conversation; and that would have gone on in their Lamentations, Ah what a glory was he to our Family! what a glory to his Friends! what a glory to his Coun­try! must now have cried out, O Brother, and O Sister, how hath our Father undone us! how hath he destroyed our Fortunes! ru­ined our Family, and laid our very blood under a Legal attaint? And certainly in this regaad as well as others, are these kind of men stiled in Scripture the sons of Belial; and therefore you find among the instructions, that Jezabel gave in her Letters to the El­ders of the City, for the cutting off of Naboth, that this was one, That they should set two men, sons of Belial before him, to bear wit­ness against him, saying, thou didst blaspheme God and the King. But for ever blessed be God that they digged this pit as low as Hell, yet his gracious hand followed and found them out, and hath enabled us to sing that they are fallen into it themselves; and to him alone be the glory thereof. For this Plot was detected by the immediate hand of Heaven, and not by man. For it lay too deep for humane wisdom to fathom it, it was only the Almighty that could, and did find it out. And therefore this second Plot failing, on comes their third, and if England be wise their last Plot that ever they shall make upon us; and this, if we may judg of Hercules by his foot, and the whole by the part already detected, was, That since they could not cut off the King by their privy Conspiracies, nor the Wor­thies of the Kingdom by their false Witnesses, they would now go directly to work, and cut off both and all, by a bloody Massa­cre; though we hope the same loving-kindness that blasted both their former attempts will also this; but beware the third time, is a rule that we Learned in the beginning of our days, and pray God the arts of our enemies may not make us forget it now. And to draw in the more company to abet this bloody work, the burning Oliver and the Rump were to umbrage and initiate it on the Stage. For a few loose Prentices, and a number of unaccountable persons, were to begin the tumult under that pretence, and when the rout was up, the actors themselves were to have appeared and played their part. And though great discoveries have been made thereof, yet many wise men doubt that we are not yet beyond the danger of it. Wherefore if now after all this, Justice be not done on this wicked bloody generation, both King and People have reason to fear that they are under that dismal sentence denounced by the [Page 26]Lord on Ahab for sparing Benhadad, 1 King. 20.41. Thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people. I am as little for perse­cuting the Papists upon the account of Conscience as another. But yet I must say, that a man that makes it his conscience to plot my destruction, and the destruction of all that's dear and precious to me, and is so restless at it, that as soon as one Villany is discover'd, he forms another; and by repeating his Plots again and again upon me, gives me such infallible assurance that he will never be quiet till he hath cut my throat. I confess I think I should be a great debtor to my own safety, should I not desire he might be sent to live a lit­tle further of; and this is no more than what the common justice due to humane society does require, and our very Laws themselves do warrant. For if one private person may demand as his right, the security of binding to the Peace any one that he avers on his corporal Oath he goes in danger of his life from, certainly that Justice is not to be denied to a whole Nation. And since no tye of Law is sufficient to bind them to the Peace here, sure it is but justice to send them elsewhere, that the Nation may be secured; and that they may have the less cause to complain of ill usage, let them in Gods name carry their estates with them.

And as our judging rightly of things will enable us to see more clearly through the arts of our enemies in general; so will it ena­ble you to see quite thorough their grand cheat in particu­lar. For that which they most labour to frighten us with, is, that unless we have their sentiments and talk, and think of things as wickedly and impudently as they do, that we are friends to the Fa­naticks, and enemies to his Majesty; the first is said only to divide us from each other; the last to prejudice the Government against us both. As to the first, I'le only say that I do not think that it is so crying a sin as the clamor of their kind of cattle would insinuate, to be friendly to Fanaticks; and therefore I am not at all ashamed to confess for one, that as I look upon them as the best dissenting Pro­testants, that are most friendly to the Church of England; so I look upon them as the best Church of England men that are the most friendly to dissenting Protestants; and if all others would ac­count so too, I should think our selves in a truer union, than any act of Conformity can make, and that's all I shall say to that charge, and all that I think is worth the saying to it. But as to the last, I do confess that I do judg that a very great sin, and therefore shall be a little longer and more particular in the examining of this charge. [Page 27]For I do hope that every one that makes a conscience of fearing God, does make a conscience also of honouring the King. But I doubt there is some mistake betwixt us concerning this duty, and that this wicked generation call that an honouring the King, which indeed is not. For I do verily believe that those Presidents of the Kingdom, those Governours, Princes, Counsellors, and Captains, that consulted together to make that Royal Statute and wicked Decree, That whosoever should ask any petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of the King, should be cast into the den of Lions, Dan. 6.7. and that went to the King to ratifie and establish that Decree, v. 8. did carry themselves very toppingly for the Kings friends, and the only principal Royalists and loyal persons that ho­noured the King in that Region; and so I believe did those in the 3d of Dan. that accused those honest and worthy Nonconformists that would not fall down and perform that worship that the King had commanded, ver. 12. And I do believe as they accounted them­selves the only honourers of the King, so they reckoned Daniel and the three Children for factious and disloyal Fanaticks. But now I do also believe, that if you will but look how God Almighty, who is the true and righteous Judg, accounted them, you will see that those wicked Court-Parasites were under a great mistake, and that Daniel and the three Children that refused to obey those unrighte­ous Laws and Decrees, were truer friends to, and honourers of the King, than those that had made and pressed the execution of them. If you will therefore but entertain this Exhortation to judg right­ly of things, you will see through all these thin and pitiful veils that these wicked Plotters spread both over their own Villany, and over your integrity, and will see that this is but one of their old arts, and a cheat so oft repeated, that nothing less than impudence would bestow the pains to lick it over afresh, and impose it on the world again. For did not this same spirit ever do thus? Did they not make innocent Naboth an enemy to the King, nay, and took away his precious blood upon that account, because he would not part with his Vineyard, which was his Inheritance? Did they not ac­count the Prophet Jeremiah an enemy to the King, because he pres­sed him to obey the word of the Lord in yielding to the Caldeans? Did they not account those we last mentioned, Daniel, and the three Children, enemies to the King, because they would not obey those wicked and unrighteous Laws that the King had commanded? Did not Haman accuse Mordecai, one of the best friends the King had, [Page 28]and all the Jews for the Kings enemies, and such as did not keep the Kings Laws? and upon that accusation obtained that bloody Decree, which was written, and the Letters sent by Posts into all the Kings Provinces to destroy, to kill, and cause to perish all Jews, both young and old, little children and women in one day, Esth. 3.13. And all this barbarous Massacre that was to spare no age nor sex, for no other reason but because Mordecai would not bow the knee to Haman. Did they not accuse the very Apostles themselves with this crime? Pray see the 17th of the Acts, in that tumult and up­roar that this wicked generation made at Thessalonica, when they haled Jason and divers others before the Rulers of the City? For did they not among the rest of their venom cry out thus? These all do contrary to the decree of Caesar, vers. 7th. Nay, our blessed Lord himself, that most innocent and immaculate Lamb of God, even he could not escape this their false and cursed imputation. For you find these wicked Plotters accusing him before Pilate thus, Luk. 23.2. We found this fellow perverting the Nation, and forbidding to give tri­bute to Caesar. And when Pilate had examined the matter and found nothing in their accusation true, and on hearing all they could say, could find no fault in him; and therefore sought again, and again, and again to release him; did not these damned Plotters for fear that holy Jesus should escape their bloody and wicked hands, frigh­ten Pilate to the condemnation of him? by saying to him, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesars friend, Joh. 19.12. and that did their work; and crucified Christ effectually. But those that judg rightly of things, they are never frightned with such scare­crows, but know how to shew themselves friends to the King, and yet friends to their Conscience too. They will not purchase the re­putation of loyal by any Villainous acts; for they have learned to be loyal on a more noble and better account; they know that dis­obedience to wicked Laws and commands, is a greater honour to the King, and merits more his favour, than those wicked Plotters that made and procured those wicked Laws and commands from him. You see therefore the excellent service that this brach of the Exhortation will do ye, to judg rightly of things.

I am not ignorant that the Papists and all those wicked Plotters cry up their Loyalty at a mighty rate; and truly if they them­selves did not do it, I know not who would? I know also they speak great things, and huge swelling words of their utter abhor­rence of Oliver and the Rump. But how comes it about that these [Page 29]so hugely loyal Papists never plotted thus against Oliver and the Rump? How comes it about that they did not burn London down about their ears as well as about ours? Why did they not as barbarously butcher their Ministers of Justice, as they have done ours? Why, I will not assign any cause, or load them with any thing that is not true, for they have guilt enough of their own, without our feigning any for them, and therefore I do verily believe that they were as real enemies to Oliver and the Rump, and their Mi­nisters, as they are to his Majesty and his; and that the only rea­son why they did not play those pranks then, that they do now, was because they dared not do it. For they knew that they would have handled them without mittens, and have trussed them up to rights, if they should have gone about to trick them as they do us. For this right I will do them, that though they love wickedness as their lives, nor hardly are ever in their own Element but when they are acting it; yet when they see it must, and certainly will return up­on their own pates, they have an excellent gift of continence, and can tell as well how to speak and fawn upon a Government they hate, as well as stab it. Wherefore why they did not practice up­on Oliver and the Rump then, as they do upon his Majesty and his people now, was only because they dared not do it. For do not let us mistake the mettle and courage of these men, for they do Patri­zare and are of the same temper with their father; and the Apostle St. James gives you the true measure of his courage, Jam. 4.7. Resist the Devil and he will fly from you. They are like Witches, if you give them nothing, they can do you no hurt; or like Snakes, they can sting no bosom but that which harbors them. We saw but the other day when the Parliament sat, and when the Law was suffered to deal a little roundly with them, they began to run to corners, to truss up their fardles, and look out for a fair wind. Wherefore if you but receive this Exhortation to judg rightly of things, you will see through all their arts, pull off their vizards, [...]b off their paints, and expose their cheats to publick view; and not suffer their false and pitiful pretences of Loyalty to impose on your understandings any longer.

Nay, you will not only discern their arts and deceits in laying their Plots, but in their hiding them also, when God hath detected them; for all their coverings have that fault that the Prophet Isaiah foretold they should have, Isa. 28.20. where the Prophet speaking of the coverings of the wicked, saith, That they are nar­rower [Page 30]than that they can wrap themselves in it. For let them pull their coverings never so close and cunningly about them, yet some part or other always appears to evince the truth of their guilt. They played the fool a great while to bubble all mankind that there was no Plot; but when his Majesty with two Parliaments, and at least twenty Proclamations, had declared it not only a Plot, but a Damnable and Hellish Plot too, and that every week or two brought in fresh Witnesses, and further discoveries, and the people pinched them upon their unanswerable point, If it be no Plot, then we hope Sir Edmundbury Godfrey is alive; for his Murder, and no Plot are such contrarieties in nature, that he which believes the one, must (do what he can) believe the other also. And when they saw this shamm would do no good, they dropt it, and had re­course to other cheats, and were content to let it be a Plot, so it might be a Presbyterian one. And if now at last they shall endea­vour to obstruct the proceedings of Justice, it is but like applying Pidgeons to the feet, a remedy next door to the neck-verse, it will be a comfort to see that their wickedness cannot stand any longer alone in judgment without this art to support it; but it would be a horrible shame that such Popish Villany should get any Protestant supporters. But Naturalists say, Corruptio optimorum pessima est; and if so, certainly the wicked'st thing that the whole world hath in it, is Corruption; and you will be somewhat of my mind if you but read and consider the dreadfullest judgment that you find re­corded in all the Word of God, Mic. 3 ult. Therefore, says the Prophet, for your sakes shall Zion be plowed as a field, and Jerusa­lem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high pla­ces of the forrest. Good Father! what monstrous wretches are these! that for their sakes Zion should be plowed, Jerusalem laid waste, and the mountain of the Lords house made as a forrest! What! all the beauty, safety, and glory of the Church, and House of God, totally destroyed, and turned into a desolate Wilderness, and all this for the sake and sins of some kind of men! Good Lord! wh [...] prodigious wretches must these be, that provoke the most merci­ful God for their sakes to deal thus strangely severe with his Church! Why, read the foregoing verse, and you'l find in the ve­ry front and first rank of these men (if it be lawful to call them men) they are such as judg for reward; and truly I did well to put in that If: for the Prophet Zephaniah in his 3d Chap. and 3d vers. is so far from calling them men, that he calls them, Evening wolves, [Page 31]which are the most hungry, curst, and ravenous after their prey of any Creature whatsoever; so that take a man that judgeth for re­ward, and nothing can stop him: Not Religion, not Reputation, not King, not Country, nor Church, nor State, no considerati­ons of Publick, nor of private weal, can stop his career. 'Tis a Beast of such a greedy canine insatiate appetite, that he runs over all, runs upon all, runs down all. And if you should come from this Word of God, and say this sin will lay our Jerusalem in heaps, they will but laugh at you, and clap you up in Gaol. Let our Je­rusalem lye in heaps as long as it will, and our Church be made a Wilderness if it will, what care they, so they can but get gain? But we trust the Lord that hath had that mercy for the King, and that mercy for his Protesant people to deliver them thus miracu­lously from the Papists hands, will perfect and compleat his own Salvation, and deliver us from such Evening-wolves also; and ac­cording to his gracious Promise will bless us with Magistrates as at the first, and counsellors as at the beginning, Isa. 1.26.

The fourth and last Improvement of this truth, That the wicked are Plotters, the only Plotters that the world hath in it, is of comfort to the just.

For if it be so that the word of truth doth determine that the wicked are the only Plotters that the world hath in it, then do you be comforted in the midst of all the calumnies that are cast upon you. You have great reason to take this comfort to your selves, for you see the Lord himself hath determined the point on your side, the wicked clamor and make a mighty noise in the world, as if you were the only Plotters and disturbers thereof, but you see the righteous holy Lord hath by his Heavenly Word de­termined the matter past all controversie for ever for you, and says positively that 'tis the wicked, the wicked persons, and they only, that are the Plotters and disturbers of the World; bear then their reproach with comfort; for they do no more by you in this, than they have done by the righteous in all ages; what if you hear so eminent and righteous a soul as King David complaining, that they laid to his charge things that he knew not, as you see he doth, Psal. 35.11. Can you count it much that they will lay such things to your charge? If you read the story of just and upright Job, you will see that sober men and his intimate friends drew up [Page 32]an unjust charge against him, and will you wonder the wicked ene­mies do the same against you? You have a marvellous remarkable instance of this kind in Jer. 37. the series of it lyeth thus: The Caldeans besieged Jerusalem, but hearing that Pharoah King of Egypt was come forth with an Army, they raised the siege. The Pro­phet Jeremiah assured them from the Lord, That for all they had rai­sed their siege, yet the Caldeans would return and take the city; though he would make use of the present opportunity to leave Je­rusalem, and go dwell in the Country. Now as he was executing this honest and innocent intent, in the very Gate as he was going out, he met with one of the huffing hectoring Captains of the City, who took him and brought him back, and charged him that he was running away to the enemy; and though Jeremiah told him 'twas false, and that he was not going out with any such intent; yet this roaring wretch would not let him go, but brought him back to the Princes, who the Text tells you were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison, vers. 15. and in the next Chap­ter they are eager to put him to death, For the Princes came unto the King and said, We beseech thee let this man be put to death, for he weakens the hands of the men of war in the city, and the hands of all the people in speaking such words unto them: For this man seeks not the welfare of this people, but their hurt, vers. 4. This was a horrible charge, and yet this holy Prophet spake not one word to them, nor the people neither, but what he had from the mouth of the Lord; so in they thrust him into a lothsome and dirty dungeon, that he might die there; as undoubtedly he had done, had it not been for a poor Ethiopian that mediated for him, and took him out from thence. For the King was such a slave to those wicked Courtiers, (that carried all before them) that he durst not interpose on the behalf of this innocent and eminent Prophet, as you may read in the fifth verse. Nay, to such an abject nature, and beneath a Prince, was the spirit of this King sunk, by the conduct of this cursed crew, that adventuring to speak privately with Jeremiah, he was so afraid lest these damned youths should hear of their Conference, that he chargeth the Prophet in the 24th verse, That no man should know of the words that had passed between them. Well then, if so great a Prophet as Jeremiah could not escape the reproach of wicked men, from being charged as an enemy to, nay a sugitive from the King, and as one that sought not the welfare, but the hurt of the people; be comforted and know that you have nothing but what hath [Page 33]been the common lot and portion of all the people of God, in the reproaches and imputations that they cast upon you.

Nor is the Old Testament only full of examples and instances of this kind, but the New Testament likewise: For the holy Apostle had the same measure of rage and reproach from these wicked Plotters (as well of this kind as all others) as the Prophets had. In Acts 16. you find St. Paul and Silas going to prayer, met a Damsel possessed with a Spirit of divination, which brought her Masters much gain by southsaying, this wench followed Paul and Silas, crying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation; and this she did many days: at last St. Paul dispossessed her of the Spirit, and in vers. 19. When her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the market-place unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men do exceedingly trouble our City. And in vers. 22. The multitude rose up against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the Gaoler to keep them safely: So as the Prophets were accounted the troublers of the pla­ces where they came, in the Old Testament; so you see the Apostles loaded with the same charge in the new: Nay, exceeding trouble­some. These men, say these wretches here, exceedingly trouble our city. And you find them reckoned so troublesom at Ephesus, that they raised an uproar upon them, Acts 19. where you may see the same Spirit acting them for their gain, which was, their god was going, and that put them beyond all patience: For Demetrius layed his charge thus; This Paul, saith he, hath perswaded and turned away much people, saying, that they be no gods which are made with hands (a mighty crime, is it not?) so that our craft is in danger. For this Demetrius was a Silversmith, and one of the makers of those manufactured gods that St. Paul decried; and seeing his gain upon the wing, and ready to take its flight, he was mad, and made that uproar. Nor among the Gentiles only that worshipped gods of Gold and Silver, of Wood and of Stone, was this wrong apprehension of the Apostles, but amongst the Jews also, who had the true notion of the one and only true God: For you read in Acts 17. that St. Paul and Silas coming to Thessalo­nica, and finding there a Synagogue of the Jews, went in amongst them, and reasoned from the Scriptures, that Christ must needs [Page 34]have suffered and risen again from the dead; and that Jesus whom they preached, was Christ: And 'tis said, that some of the Jews believed; but the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows, and the baser sort (where by the way, you may note, that lewd fellows and the baser sort of people are, and ever were the enemies of Christ and true Christians) of these they gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar; and when they found not Paul and Silas, they drew certain of the Brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also. And in Acts 24.5. you will find the same Apostle called by Terullus the Orator, a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition, a ringleader of a sect, and an outcry made upon him, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live, Acts 22.22. Comfort your selves then, for you see you have no harder measure than the holy Apostles had; you can't be called worse than they were called, nor have more, nor greater calumnies cast upon you, than you see were cast on them; and yet I am perswaded you do believe, that notwithstand­ing all this wicked rage from these false and wicked Plotters, that the holy Apostles were no enemies to Caesar, were no troublers nor disturbers of Governments nor People, nor no seditious pesti­lent fellows, and unworthy to live upon the face of Gods earth, as their tumults, uproars, and cursed outcrys did accuse them for: Nay, what if our blessed Lord and Saviour himself received no bet­ter nor fairer quarter from this wicked generation? Then I hope you will be comforted and contented with your lot, remembring that holy word, The Disciple is not above his Master, nor the Ser­vant above his Lord: It is enough for the Disciple to be as his Master, and the Servant as his Lord: If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub; how much more shall they call them of his houshold so? Matt. 10.24, 25. And see how opprobriously and contem­ptuously they called our Lord so, Matt. 12.24. They said, This fellow doth not cast out Devils, but by the help of Beelzebub the prince of Devils. And in St. Luke 23.2. they accuse him, saying, we found this fellow perverting the nation. And Joh. 9.29. We know, say they, that God spake by Moses; but as for this fellow (speaking, of our Lord) we know not whence he is. And can you be treated at a courser or more insulting rate than this? Be comforted there­fore, as those that have but the same salvage and brutish usage, as the holy Prophets, Apostles, and our most holy and blessed Lord himself had from them.

[Page 35]And comfort your selves, not only because God hath determined for you in his word, but because God will determine for you also by his providences here, or by his judgments hereafter; and this comfort is annexed here to the Text: For after the Psalmist had told us, That the wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth; he adds for our comfort in the very next words, The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming. I have seen, says the Prophet in this Psalm, the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. All his wickedness had a Lawrel on it; well, and what then? One would think that now he and his wickedness were secure enough; but no such mat­ter, for in the very next verse they are both vanished, I sought him, says the Psalmist, but he could not be found, vers. 35, 36. You see his Lawrels were soon withered, and all his green and flourishing estate blasted into nothing. In the beginning of this Psalm the Psalmist exhorts us not to fret our selves because of evil-doers; a pretty hard duty, and such as even just Lot could hardly bring his mind to a thorough compliance with; for the Apostle Peter tells you, That his righteous soul was vexed from day to day with the filthy conversation of the wicked Sodomites, 2 Pet. 2, 7, 8. Well, but what argument doth the Prophet urge this duty upon us with, that we should not fret at the wicked? why the very same that we are upon here, For they shall soon be cut down as grass, saith he, and wither as the green herb, vers. 2. And in the 10th verse, Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. Neither their persons nor their places, nor nothing shall be left; but one and t'other, and all cut down and dried up and withered; nay, their very name and memory shall rot; they stank when they were a­bove ground, and they rot when they are under it; and there­fore you find the Royal Prophet praising God that he had destroyed the wicked, and put out their name for ever and ever. Psal. 9.5. Men value their names next their lives (and in some cases before them too) and therefore they venture upon mighty things, that their names may live, and that there may be a fame upon their memory; why even this shall be put out, and not put out to re­vive again, but the Lord shall put it out for ever and ever. A man would think if any could be secure from this, it should be those wicked ones spoken of in Psal. 73.7. concerning whom 'tis said, That they had more than heart could wish. To have as much [Page 36]as heart can wish, is pretty well; but to have more than heart can wish, certainly must mightily secure its owners; and yet by and by you see those over-grown wicked wretches that had more than heart could wish, cast down by God into de­struction, verse the 18th. And the Psalmist bursting out into admiration of Gods Providence thus in the 19th verse, How are they brought into desolation as in a moment! As well he might; What! men that had more than their very heart could wish but just now, and thus all of the sudden in a very moment brought into desolation! Certainly, we may well cry out with the Apostle, Oh how unsearchable are the judgments of God! and his ways past find­ing out, Rom. 11.33. Why, here's a strange winding up of their wickedness, a marvellous Catastrophe. Those that insulted but now at such a wonderful rate, over the holy Prophets, Apostles, and even Christ himself, that fellowed up our Lord, and fellowed up his followers, and that reckoned him and them but as the filth and dreges of the world, and that esteemed them but Mechanicks, and the very off-scouring of all things; and what is all this huff and rant come to this already? O what reason have you then to re­ceive this comfort? and to say, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints? For there are many Promises that the righteous shall see these stu­pendious operations of the Load, as Psal. 52.6. The righteous shall see and shall laugh at them. And Psal. 107.42. The righteous shall see it and rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. It will be their turn then to clap their hands and to shout for joy. For then all the upright in heart shall glory. It may be the blessed God by his gracious Providence may order it so, that even here your mouths may be filled with laughter, and your tongues with singing. But however, we are sure it will be hereafter, when God shall burn up all these wicked dross of the earth with unquenchable fire, that have plotted against the just. Wherefore I conclude my Discourse with the Exhortation of the Apostle to the Thessalonians, in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, the 4th Chapter, and the last verse, Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Now to God only wise be Glory through Jesus Christ for ever, Amen.