THE wound is mortall, when the patient dieth under his Chirurgeons hand: and such a dead­ly wounded Body of his people had our Pro­phet here under his cure; which when he could not heale, he weeps over; they swoune, and he faints, verse 18. they are confounded, and he is astonished, verse 21, and as a man in passion and amazement expresseth a greater [...], by asking questions, then by speak­ing sentences: As Ahashuerus, Esth. 7. 5. Who? where? so the Prophet doth the like here in his, Is there not? And again, Is there [Page 2] not? and then, Why is not? Is there no balme in Gilead? is there no Physician there? why then is not the health of the daugh­ter of my people recovered?

The first question, Is there no balme in Gilead? &c. had it been made by any of the poore unbeleiving people affirmatively, Thus, Is there any balme in Gilead? especially relating to the bad successe which might seeme to intimate the contrary, (as theirs, Exod. 17. 7. Is the Lord amongst us?) would have ex­pressed a doubt, whether indeed there had been any balme, see­ing there was no healing by it: but when made by the Lord him­selfe, or by the Prophet in his name, with the negative [...], as aggravating that ill successe; so it is a stronger, even a double affirmation, that indeed there was both balme in Gilead, and also a Physician there, which not only he affirmes, but also ap­peales to them, whether they could deny, and taking it for granted that they could not, Hee proceeds to his

Second question, Why then is not, &c. Which is a question, partly of inquiry, Why? And partly of a bemoaning and As 2 Sam. 13. 4. Ezek. 18. 31. expostulating complaint: That such admirable helps should be no more helpfull, meanes so proper and precious, so unsuc­cessefull, that Gileads balme, (the best medicine) and Gileads Physician, (who best knew how to apply it) could work no better a cure on a poore dying people. Is there no balme in Gilead? is there no Physician there? and then why, O why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? A little for the explication of the words.

By Gilead, understand either the City so called, Hos. 6. 8. Gilead Schindler [...] ad vocem Leut. 34. 1. 1 Kings 4. 19. Mercer. in Gen. 31. 47. which is conceived to bee a chiefe Emporium, where such commodities were sold: or the Land and Countrey of Gilead, as it is elsewhere called in Scripture, containing the whole lot of the two Tribes and halfe on other side Iordan, as appeares from 1 Kings 10. 33. where the plant that afforded it, especially a­bounded: so wee read of the Ishmaelites that bought Ioseph, carrying balme from Gilead to Egypt, Gen. 37. 25. and the daughter of Egypt is bidden to fetch balme from Gilead, Ier. 46. 11. and accordingly, Ezek. 27. 17. we finde it to be one of the speciall commodities that Iudah and the land of Israel traffiqued with Tyrus in, according to that of Pliny, Balsam [...] [...]. 12. cap. 25. [Page 3] uni terrarum Iudeae concessum, as though balme were a pecu­liar largesse vouchsafed by God to Iudea only, there only to bee had, or at least (as Sylvius observeth) the best there only, God willing that all other Nations should be beholden to Israel for balme, it may be thereby hinting to us that he would have the whole world beholden to his Church for healing.

Balme] for nature and kind the juice or oyle, which a lower Balme shrub growing especially about Ab [...] sui suavitate no­men tobi de­disse creditur, Mol [...]er. in Psal. 133. 2. Iericho (the bark of it being cut with glasse, or bone, or Ivory knives) weeps or bleeds out. For price and worth such, as Dioscorides saith, that in his dayes it was sold for double its weight in silver: Pliny af­firmes that in his time a thousand of their pence (one of which was the sixth part of an ounce) was given for a quart of it, so that (as Rhenodeus conceiveth) onely Kings and great men had it, and used it: For vertue and efficacy, [...], saith the fore-mentioned Author, most strong and soveraigne, Medicina difficillimorum morborum, welnigh a Catholicon for diseases, and a cure for the worst: I list not here Shindler. to reckon up to you all that they say its good for, whether ap­plyed inwardly or outwardly, how it helps the eye-sight and breathing, easeth the head-ach, qualifieth fevers, &c. but especially to my purpose, ulcera purgat, &c. it cleanseth foulest sores, healeth deepest wounds, and cureth the most venomous stinging of Serpents, and the like. This was in the letter Gileads balme.

To which the Prophet in the Text joyneth its Physician: Ar­tists Physician. using to abound where they have such great plenty of ma­terials: many good Physicians whereso much good physick.

Both which put together, in the true meaning of our Prophet, hold out compleat meanes, fully able (in genere mediorum) to work a perfect cure, even when the wound or disease is other­wise most deadly and desperate.

And yet here they failed, for notwithstanding them the latter part of the Text sayth, that the health of the daughter of that people was not recovered; for the clearing of which expression, I should abuse your attention and time (both better now to bee improved) should I be large in Grammaticall criticismes upon this Hebraisme of [The daughter of my people;] lesser Townes [Page 4] and Villages, in the simplicity of that holy Tongue, are called the daughters of the Metropolis or mother City; and the Ci­tizens Iosh. 17. 16. or Inhabitatants of any City or Countrey the Sonnes of it, [...] fil [...] populi mei, for populares mei: but leave we those Gen. 2 [...]. 1 [...]. observations, and take it here plainly, the daughter of my peo­ple, for the body of that people; that Virgin daughter of Zion, [...]. who though as tenderly beloved of God, as tenderest daughter by dearest parent is or can be yet by her wilfull casting of her selfe into a desperate sicknesse of sinne, shee had made the wound of her misery incurable, incorrigiblenesse in sin against all best meanes ended in [...]rrecoverablenesse of misery, notwith­ding all best medicines; this latter I conceive is here especially intended, though the former is presupposed, because in point of sinne, therefore also in point of misery; although there was balme in Gilead and a Physician there, yet the [...]rophet com­plaines that the health of the daughter of his people was not recovered.

From which words thus explained, we may observe these three particulars.

1. That there is balme in Gilead, and a Physician there.

2. That for all that, the health of Gods people for the pre­sent may not bee recovered.

3. That in such a case the cause hereof is diligently to bee [...]nquired after, and most sadly to bee bemoaned and complai­ned of.

Is there no balme in Gilead? as much as if he had said, Yes there is; there is the first: The health of the daughter of my people is not recovered, there is the second: [...] quare [...]gitur; Why then, O why then! So the Prophet expostulates with his people, and mournes over their misery: there's the third.

Doct 1 The first was, There is balme in Gilead, and a Physician there, i. e. meanes in the Church and amongst the people of God, sufficiently, abundantly, able to cure their deadliest wounds, and to recover them from desperatest miseries: The meaning of the question, Is there not, being (as we have heard) yes for certaine there is; as in every Countrey there is usually a medicine for its owne proper diseases, so in Gods inheritance there is balme to cure all: and as some conceited Physicians [Page 5] say there is a naturall balsom in mans body, so for certaine there is a most soveraigne balme (dropt down from the head) in the body of Christ, which can heale all its sicknesses and wounds: it being

Our Fathers house, in which there is bread enough to relieve the poorest pined prodigall, Luke 15. 17.

Gods inheritance, in which all his springs lie to refresh the mo [...] thirsty fainting creature, Psal. 87. 7.

The very myrothecium or repository, in which God hath laid up all his most soveraigne oyles and balsomes, fully able to maintaine and recover his peoples health in all their deadliest extremities: so that in them all, in the worst of all, we may say, Yet God is good to Israel, Psal. 73. 1. and as desperate as the case seemes to be, Yet there is hope in Israel concerning this, Ezra 10. 2. or that, or what ever it is, there is hope in Israel concerning de­speratest evills, because balme in Gilead for deadliest dangers and miseries.

But because the goodnesse of the Physick will be evidenced by the greatnesse of the cures wrought by it; one of the best wayes to prove that there is balme in Gilead, and a Physician there, will bee to shew under some generall heads, what great cures have been wrought there.

1. Of deepest wounds, and most violent and malignant diseases; I meane of most grievous and deadly dangers and mi­series; for such in all ages have the Churches miseries used to be: as in purest ayres sometimes accutest fevers, so purest Chur­ches, and holiest men, have been wont to conflict with extreamest miseries: mans rage will doe what it can to make and enflame the wound, and the old Serpents poyson would make it incu­rable. No afflictions like to the Churches persecutions: No sorrow like mine, said the lamenting Church; yea and adde too, and say, Lam. 1. [...]. No salvation like thine also: it hath beene [...], from so great a death, that Gods people have beene delivered; 2 Cor. [...]. 10. none have beene more deeply wounded, nor any so admirably cured as the Spouse of Christ; in the midst of all these deaths (blessed be God!) shee lives still, and will for ever: there is balme then in Gilead that hath healed such deadly wounds and diseases, which the body of Christ above all hath laboured un­der, [Page 6] taking out of them the venome of the Serpents sting, yea the inflamation of Gods wrath, that in the first place hath beene the cure of deadliest wounds, such as (the Lord knowes) ours now are.

2. When there are many of them, even a complication, and as it were a whole systerne of diseases on the body of Christ at once: not in one part only, but totum pro corpore vulnus, when sick and sore all over, as Isa. 1. 5, 6.

Nor in one kinde only, but of all sorts, as Pineda labours in Iobs maladies to finde out all kindes of diseases. Pineda in Iob 2.

In which case the cure is wont to be harder; because as all diseases are contrary to health, so one of them often to another; so as that which helps the one, may wrong the other, as it some­times fals out when the Liver and Spleen are distempered toge­ther. And yet so the body of the Church (alas! of our State and Church at this present) conflicts at one time with many, and them contrary miseries, in time of warre, (and such times our sinnes have now brought upon us) in truth with all; [...], most true in this sense, then a troop comes, warre and changes together, Iob 10. 17. in this universall scare-fire the flame is kindled in every corner of the house: this generall [...] leaveth no part of us free, we are ill all over, every where, [...] P [...]v. 5. 11. and almost every way; yea and in contrary wayes very mi­serable, as in sad convulsion fits, one nearest member pluckt from another, and which is most miserable, so, as heale the one and you wound the other. We goe through fire and water, as the Psalmist said, in which case that which quencheth the one encreaseth the other, such an ague and purgatory of hot and Psal. [...]. 12. cold fits, of various and contrary miseries the whole land now labours of, and sinks under. But is there such a medicine as can help both, and heale all? Yes, if you will beleeve David, who could set his probatum est to it, who met with as many and crosse sad passages as the most; and yet after all, out of his owne ex­perience, could say, I sought, and this poore man cryed, and then God delivered him from all his feares, and saved him out of all his troubles, Psal. 34. 4, 6. and ver. 19. [...] great and many (for the word signifieth both) are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all: where there is a [Page 7] [many] in the disease, you see there is an [all] in the cure, in our God, that which can cure an all of sicknesses, Psal. 103. 3. in our Lord Iesus that can heale, [...], all manner, as of lighter diseases, so of more grievous sicknesses. The Matth. 4. 23. people of God have been rescued from multitudes of Bulls, Psal. 68. 30. from swarmes of angriest Bees, Psal. 118. 12. from innumerable evils compassing them round about, Psal. 40. 12, 13. have not sunk, when deep hath called upon deep, and at the Psal. 41. 7, 8. noise of Gods water-spouts, all his waves and billowes have gone over them: when like a wrackt man tossed with billows from below, and almost drowned at the same time with showres and spouts of raine from above, when earth shakes and heaven thun­ders, even out of greatest crowdes of evills and enemies that have been plucking the body of Christ apieces, quite contrary wayes hath it yet been delivered; such a Panacea, such an All-heale hath God provided for his Church: Sure there is balme in Gilead, and a Physitian there, that hath cured such varieties and contrarities of diseases.

3. And this further in the third place, when grown Chro­nicall; now old soares are hardlier healed, and hectick fevers usually incurable. Ours now begin to grow in yeares, and the maladies of the Church of God in former ages have not only (according to former particulars) been sore and many, but also of long continuance; not only dead, but even dry bones: if meant of the Iewes in Babylon, they lay seventy years unburied; Deut, 28. 59, 60. if of the other ten Tribes, it is three thousand yeares since their Ezek. 37, 1, 2, &c. first death, now so buried in obscurity and oblivion, that wee cannot tell where they are to be found (which is much longer then our miseries shall continue, though they should prove yet more deadly) and yet these, after all this, shall live; and there­fore though for the present we be very sick, yet let not our hearts die; for this is more then Gileads balme or Physitian, for our blessed Saviour as easily to raise up a dead Lazarus when hee stinketh, as the Centurions servant that is but ready to die; Iohn 11. 39. Luke 7. 1. and make his people glad, not only after dayes of affliction, but even after yeares wherein they have seene evill: the Sun of Psal. 90. 15. Mal. 4. 2. righteousnesse arising with healing in his wings, as certainly, and it may bee more comfortably, after the longest Winters [Page 8] night, as on the earliest Summers morning: there is balme then in Gilead, and a blessed Physitian there, that can cure so grie­vous, so many, so contrary, so invererate diseases.

4. And then when all, upon all the former particulars, for any humane help or skill, is proved desperate and incurable: and so judged,

First, especially by Enemies, who use to think as they would have it, and so ante-date as their own deliverance, Ier. 28. 1, 2, 3, 4. so the Churches destruction, before God intends either. So you may over-heare Davids enemies whispering, that an evill disease so clave to him, that now that he was down, for certaine he would never rise more; but even then God was both Psal. 41. [...]. Physitian and Nurse to him, making his bed for him when they accounted him bed-rid: thus they set the clock too much for­ward, but it hastened never the more holy Davids sun-set; as in another place, when they conceive that God hath forsaken him, and what then but persecute and take him, for there is none to deliver him; even then Faith can look at him, as not farre Psal. 71. 11, 12. from him, and making more haste toward him to help him, then they could to destroy him. It is mercy that Gods hand is not tied up, when Pharaoh thinks Israel is shut up, and when he had already swallowed them up in his thoughts; then the Exod. 14. 2. Exod. 15 9. good Shepherd plucked the lambe out of his mouth. How farre those black mouthes that have been so wide open to blaspheme God, have already in their thoughts, Leviathan like, quite swal­lowed up his people, I say not, but this I may. That it would Iob 40. 23. be very sad with us, if our God should not be better to us, then the thoughts and expectations of our enemies are now of us; but let it help to stanch the bleeding wound, to remember that God can easily heale when the cure is accounted desperate, espe­cially by enemies.

Secondly, commonly by all (which our present case is making haste to) I will restore health (saith God) when the common vote was, This is Zion which no man seeketh after; as a dying man with curtains drawne, whom friends have no hope of, and Ier. 30. 17. therefore look off from; or rather like a dead man laid aside Psal. 31, 12. out of sight, and out of minde together, and buried more in ob­levion then in his grave; when the newes is, She is dead, why [Page 9] trouble yee the master? Then it was that Christ answered, Feare not, only believe and shee shall bee made whole, and she was so: Luk. 8. 49. 50. When all is given for lost by all, then its a fit time for Christ to shew himselfe all in all; when he can finde no faith Co. 3. 11. Luk. 12. 38. in the earth, he then comes, Luke 18. 8. in the second or third watch of the night; good husbands that rise early and goe to bed late, may not bee gone to bed in the first watch, and they may bee up againe betimes in the morning by the fourth, so that in both those, the Master may come, and happily finde them waking, but by the second they use to be gone to bed, and not to bee risen by the third, and therefore if hee come in either of them, hee is likely to finde most (if not all) sleeping; and yet then our Lord commeth, when none looked for him; then heales, when the cure is accounted desperate by all,

3 Yea, even by the godly themselves, (which is worst of all) whose faith should not faile them, and yet when it doth, Gods faithfulnesse doth not: the sick mans heart is ready to die before hee doth; we are cut off for our parts, said they, Ezek. 37. 11. But the skilfull Chirurgion often heales that legge or arme which the despairing patient thinks must of necessity bee cut off: Thus God upholds David with his hand, when hee himselfe thinks, hee shall one of those dayes fall by the 1 Sam. [...]7. 1 [...] hand of Saul: When Asaphs heart failes as well as his flesh; God is then The rock of his heart and his portion for ever: Psal. 73. 26. When the Disciples as well as the people are at a stand for the cure of him that had been so long possessed with so many Devils, then bring him to me, saith our Saviour: The case is in a manner Matth. 17. 17. ours, many evill Spirits have too long possessed us, the Disciples and Servants of Iesus Christ have fasted and prayed, and done what they could towards an ejection, but it will not yet be; so that wee begin to grow faint and weary, and to lay the busi­nesse out of our hands; but before wee doe, it would bee well if we would remember that its now fittest to bring it to Christ, to see whether hee can doe any thing, when our ve­ry faith can believe but a little, and our selves doe just no­thing: Sometimes indeed our Saviour would say to them that besought him for their cure, According to your faith bee it unto Mat. [...]. 29. you: but if our faith should alwayes be the measure of mercy [Page 10] to be bestowed on us, the Lord knowes it would be too often very ill with us; a weak faith would leave but a faint heart, if God were not able to doe oft-times, nay at this time, ex­ceedingly above all we can ask or think, little should we be Ephes. 3. 20. able to know or think what to doe: But (blessed be God) a short hand can receive more then it can grasp, and the weak palsie hand of our faith, may in some measure apprehend that salvati­on and mercy which it cannot fully comprehend; its our hap­pinesse, not that our vessell is so little, but that the fountaine is so full that wee cannot comprehend the fulnesse of it, that our thoughts and hopes are too short sighted and handed to reach to all that salvation, which the out-stretched arme of Iesus Christ can reach to us, who is, and ever well be, The wonderfull, Coun­seller, Isa. 9. 6. the mighty, (the Almighty) God, as he is the Prince of his peoples peace, and therefore it is, that he useth to work these wonderfull cures for his sick Spouse, when according to former particulars, her diseases and wounds, have been, first great, se­condly many, thirdly of such long continuance, that fourthly in the judgment of all they seeme to become desperate; So that enemies hope, and the faithfull feare, and all think they are now proved incurable; but although some diseases are said to be other Physicians shames, yet none ever shall be Christs; for all, for the worst of all, there is balme in Gilead, and a Physician there: And thus much for the [...], that it is so.

But for the [...], if you ask, what this balme is, and who is this Physician?

1 I answer, First, God and his presence, so the parallel question, verse 19. hath it, is it not the Lord in Zion? answerable to this here, is there no balme in Gilead, &c. God and his presence, Christ and his blood, the holy Ghost with his Grace and peace, these are in Gilead, i. e. in the Church of God, and these are most soveraigne balmes, and most blessed Physicians there.

God amongst many other his glorious appellations in Scrip­ture is pleased to make, [...], the Lord that healeth thee, Exod. 15. 26. one of those sweet names which he both is, and will be known to his people by.

The Lord Iesus is our Sunne of righteousnesse, and as the Heathens Ph [...]bus was their Physician, so hee is Ma [...]. 4. 23. [Page 11] ours, for hee ariseth with healing in his wings.

The giving of the holy Ghost also is expressed by anointing Isa. 61. 1. 2. with such soveraigne oyle as can heale broken hearts; and that's a greater cure then to cure the outward wounds of broken States and Kingdomes.

So that the saving presence of God in Christ cannot but bring with it great salvation: Lord if thou hadst been here (said Mar­tha to our Saviour) my brother had not died: O were he but here Iohn. 11. 21. amongst us as hee might be, and as his servants desire he would be, we should not be so much as sick, though we now lie a dying; a time is hastning when the new [...]erusalems name shall bee [...], the Lord is there and then (I reade) there will be no Ezek. 48. 35. Revel. 21. 4. paine nor sicknesse there, but a tree of life in the midst of the street of it, whose very leaves all heale the Nations: for if the pre­sence Revel. 22. 1, 2. of a deare friend oft-times doth very much refresh the very sick man, How much more will the powerfull and gracious pre­sence of a more deare God in Iesus Christ put a new life into a dying either soule or people? What arme so strong as to make such a wound, as that the Almighty arme of God cannot binde it up? or what malice so venomous so to poyson it, as the mercy of our God, and the precious blood of our Saviour (sprinkled upon whole Nations as well as upon particular persons, Isa. 52. 15.) can­not cure it? be his blood ever our balme, were I as sick and as dead­ly wounded as that poore man in the Gospel, yet some drops of Luke 10. 33. 34. this good Samaritanes oyle would make me well againe: so so­veraignly healing is Gods presence, and his Sonnes blood.

And for his Spirits grace, and peace, some Interpreters upon Hieronym. & Deodat. in lo­cum. this Text understand by balme here Repentance, which though it may seeme as vineger in the wound to make it smart and anger it, yet could we rightly apply it, and let it have its kindly and per­fect work before it had done, it would most kindly and fully heale it; for if our sinnes be our deadliest wounds then this grace of the Spirit is the proper Recipe for our cure, 2 Chron. 7. 14. and if our unquiet heart-burnings and contentions make the inflamation in these angry soares, (as the Lord know's they doe) how would the peace of God coole all this heat, and take up the controversie? Col. 3. 15. Gods peace would help us better to keep the Kings; had [...]. we more of the one in our hearts, we should have more of the other [Page 12] in the Kingdome; in these smoothered glowings, nay out-breaking flames, there is too much of the fire of hell, which would bee put out (as the fire is by the Sun) if this alma lux this blessed light of heaven shone more upon it.

2 But next under God, good Magistrates and their wholsome administrations are another part of Gileads balme and Chirurgery, and so it followes in that forementioned nineteenth verse, Is not the Lord in Zion, is not her King in her? Her King under her God was her chiefe Physician, and of five of them in Ieremiahs time, one was Iosiah, and it may be when he spake these very words; who, had not the body of that sinne-sick people been past cure, by that blessed Reformation which he wrought he might have said faire for a perfect recovery. And so for all other lawfull Magistrates in their lawfull administrations, as they are fathers, so they are also the Physicians of their people; Galen accounted it the great hap­pinesse of his times, that their Emperours gave the people their [...] Commentario [...] Theriac [...]. Theriaca with their own hands, so as that their Palaces were resor­ted to as to the sick mens Hospitals; and although all Monarches now cure not the Kings evil; yet all both Kings and Magistrates should, as occasion and need shal be have both skill and will to cure greater and more dangerous diseases in the Body Politick; and therefore you may observe, that whereas Isa. 3. v. 6. you read of some laying hold of their brother, and desiring him that hee would be their Ruler; in the seventh verse, he refuseth and saith, he will not be an Healer: It seemes therefore that in those times although Rulers and Healers were two words, yet they made ac­count that they should bee and doe one and the same thing: and so indeed if God be with them, they both are and doe oc­cordingly.

Their wholsome Lawes are their fit Prescripts and Re­cipes.

Their incouraging of the good with favours and re­wards, their [...], their Malagmata and Lenitives; [...]. Gileads gentle balmes.

Their discouraging and punishing the evill their sharp, but ne­cessary, Corrasives; even their cutting off the incorrigible, is but the carefull Chirurgeons cutting off a rotten member that is in­curable; so that even whilest they wound, they cure, and so are [Page 13] not (as Chrysostom said of Herod, that he was [...], Tom. 4. Serm. 115. in Act. [...]) executioners but Physicians still.

3. Thirdly, Gods Ministers and Ordinances come under the notion of Gileads balme and Physicians: the Prophet in this ex­pression (as Interpreters observe) having reference to Elijah the Prophet (and some adde other Prophets also) who had their abode, C. a Lapide yea and a Schoole or Colledge of their young Prophets there; and therefore it might seeme as strange that there should bee no healing from Gilead where such Prophets dwelt, as to have no balme from Gilead, where it most of all abounded: Indeed Elijahs ministry (like his garment) was a little more rough, and in that respect the lesse resembling Gileads gentler balme; but yet hee 2 Kings 1. 8. then (as some Ministers accounted more rough now) was sent to be the great Reformer, and so the great Physician and recoverer of that sinfull sick people. And so

In the Old Testament throughout, what were all the Prophets of God, but as Physicians or Chirurgeons sent from God in their ministry to cleanse sowlest sores? to eat proud flesh out of them with corrasives, and then to poure gentle healing oyle into bleed­ing wounds?

And in the New Testament, what were the Apostles, and those other first Preachers of the Gospel, but Physicians too, sent into Mark 6. 13. Iames 5. 14. the sick world with oyle to anoint their bodies; but especially with the Sun of righteousnesse arising in their ministry with hea­ling to their soules, yea and their outward estates also; for valles florent cum Evangelio; there was an abundance of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ, Rom. 15. 29. as manifestly appeared in the out­ward flourish and prosperity of those Eastern Churches and Coun­treys, when that morning Sun-arose upon them in the East, which is now set in a cloud of slavery and misery, since it hath left them, and is come, and is yet further going west-ward. In those for­mer times under the Law, you shall observe, that when the Ark went before, it led them safe through an over-flowing Iordan; that Iosh. 3. 11, 13, 14 &c. Psal. 128. 5. 134. 3. God was wont to blesse them out of Zion; that as long as the anoin­ting oyle was kept holy in the Sanctuary, it proved an healing oile to the whole body of that people, the State ever continuing safe, whilst Gods Ordinances were kept pure; as on the contrary, it was not till Gods Temple was wholly defiled, and his servants and [Page 14] Prophets horribly abused, that their City and Kingdom were to­tally and finally ruined, and their cure came to be desperate, to an [...], so that there was no remedy, 2 Chron. 36. 16.

And for all after ages under the Gospel (and that in all places and Countreys) the Temple hath ever helped to shoare up the Town-house, the Church the State, which have been like Hypo­crates his twins, smiling and weeping, living and dying together: most of the deadliest wounds that the Church, nay, that the world hath gotten, have been from God in the quarrell of his Temple; and as poysonous Doctrines in the Church have ever proved in­venomed wounds to the Common-wealth, and bad Ministers in the one, worst plagues to the other; so on the other side, the holy Ordinances of God have been found to be soveraigne balmes and blessings to each wholsome Ordinance of man, even sharpest Church-censures most wholsome State-medicines, and ablest godly Ministers amongst best Physicians in their right applying and dispensing of them accordingly.

4. Nay, in the last place, leave we not out the least and meanest of Gods Servants; for balme (wee heard) dropped from a lower shrub, and the health of the whole body of Christ may have much contributed to it by the lowest and weakest member of it; the little finger in some posture of the hand, may reach that which the great finger cannot, and the lowest member of Christ may be fittest to doe some good office in this kinde, which the highest cannot so well stoop to; at least (I am sure) the little childe may reach its sick mother her physick, nay the poorest childe of God (in the sense wee now speak of) may help to make it too; The poore wise man saved the City, and the poore Christian, if hee Eccles. 9. 15. be wise, may help to heale a whole Nation: here (pardon my homelinesse, nor take it as a light expression in a sad day) we are all either fooles or Physicians, for certainly he is a foole or worse that knoweth not how to say or doe something towards the hea­ling o [...] the body of Christ; The just deliver the Island, the Lord grant they may deliver ours. Iob 23. 30.

Their severall graces, according to severall occasions, are in this kinde very instrumentall and effectuall; they are saving graces every way, accompanying their owne eternall salvation, and much advancing the temporall salvation both of themselves and others: Heb. 6. 9, 10. [Page 15] Whilst Faith in the tempest gets to the rock, and Hope casts an­chor, Love pities, and Christian courage ventures, Meeknesse angreth not the sore, but Patience quietly endures the searching, and as quietly waites on God for healing.

Their very presence is both antidote to prevent a disease, and an healing medicine to keep it, when it is come from proving mortall; God could not destroy Sodom, as long as Lot was in it; Gen. 19. 22. and Paul being in the ship, though he did not prevent the storme or save the ship, yet he saved the lives of all them that failed with Acts 27. 24. him in it.

Their prayers especially use in this case to be most soveraignly healing, 2 Chron. 7. 14. The prayer of faith saveth the sick, both man and Kingdom, such strong breathings, like strong windes, Iames 5. 15. whilst they are up, keep great showres from falling, can blow away the most black and bloody cloud, yea even blow the most smar­ting wound whole; such sweet lips are ever dropping balme into the wounds of the Church, and such of all other may truliest come under that [...], that healing tongue, which Solomon Prov. 15. 4. saith is a t [...]ee of life; and it would seeme not more sad then strange to see that Eden where many such trees grow to become a wil­dernesse: As long as I shall see God maintaining and encreasing the number of his gracious praying servants in any place or people, whatsoever or how deadly soever their wounds otherwise may be, I dare yet say, that so long there is hope in Israel, there is some balme left in that Gilead, and so many good Physicians there.

Ʋse 1 Which (in the application of the point thus proved and clea­red) may in the first place serve for a cordiall to the people of God, now in these our sad faintings, and distill some drops at least of this balme of Gilead into our now bleeding wounds, which with our Prophet cap. 15. 18. we may perhaps begin to feare are grown halfe incurable. The sad face of things, like the Physicians facies Hypocratica of a dying man, I confesse looks very ghastly, and the symptoms tantum non deadly; but pine not away ye sons of Iacob, there is corne in Egypt, die not quite away deare-bleed­ing A [...] Gen. 42 1, 2. hearts, you Israel of God, there is balme in Gilead wee have heard, there is yet a Physician there.

For according to former particulars.

Is not the Lord in Zion? is not God where he was, in heaven [Page 14] [...] [Page 15] [...] [Page 16] and in his Church as well now as ever? Yet thou O Lord art in the midst of us, could our Prophet say in that sick houre of theirs then; Ier. 14. 9. and Lord thou art not quite gone from us, may we thankfully say now in ours. Indeed (as you there have it) it is as a wayfaring Ver. 8. man comming and going, now in this discovery and deliverance comming to us in mercy, and ere long being driven away by our unkindnesse, turning the back on us, and seeming to leave us in displeasure; and as a mighty man, (in the mighty works that our eyes have seene) yet standing so amazed and astonished at our sinnes, as that he cannot save; and yet as a most loving Physician, when he cannot as yet cure us, yet he cannot leave us.

His discovering and preventing many direfull plots, speaks out the wisdome of our discerning Physician in his prognosticks.

His dealing with us in a more thorow way, chusing rather to pirch us, then not to presse corruption out of us; declares his faith­fulnesse, that he meaneth rather to heale then only to skin the sore, and rather to profit then to please his distempered patients.

But the many intermixt passages of sweetest mercy proclaime the tenderest bowels of his compassion and pity; he hath weighed the path of the just, every dose to the least scruple, and hath put in Isa. 26. 7. no more bitternesse then needs must to make it medicinable; it hath not been all Aloes and Wormwood, at worst a [...], that we as yet have tasted of.

Lay fast hold then, seeing that our God, our best Physician hath not quite left us: sigh we and cry aloud, Iesus thou Son of David have mercy on us, seeing he our good Samaritan is not as yet quite Matth. 9. 27. past by us; Hath the eye of none your faith seen him come neare to us, as once to Ierusalem, and weeping over us with an O Ierusalem, Ierusalem, O England, England, if thou hadst known, even thou at Luke 19. 41, 42. least in this thy day, &c. Have none of you in his answer to your prayers, overheard him saying to your hearts, as once to him Mat. 8. 7. I will come and heale him? For certaine, more of his blood hath been sprinkled, and more of his spirit poured out upon this Nation of late then formerly, and doth not all this make out some of Gileads balme, and say plainly that there is yet a Physician here? is not the Lord in Zion? and is not her King in her? the Lord re­store ou [...]s to us in an healing way: but doth not the Colledge of our State-Physicians consult, and our Ministers preach, and our [Page 17] people pray, that Ordinances of both Religion and Iustice may be applied for the cure of a sick Church and State? and is all this balme only to enbalme a spent body of a poore people that must needs die? and are all these Physicians met only as Mourners to follow the hearse, and to accompany our deare Mother that cannot live, to the grave? Did our mercifull Saviour pity the poore widow when he saw her following of her dead sonne to the buriall? and Luke 7. 12, 13. hath he no bowels (think you) left to commiserate so many sorrow­full sonnes, that are ready with their sighes and teares to attend up­on a deare mothers funerall? nay though our sleepy Eutychus should fall yet lower from the third loft, and be taken up for dead; yet Acts 20. 9, 10. trouble we not our selves too much, seeing there is yet some life in him, & dum anima est, spes est, as long as there is any the least life in the businesse, so long at least let there be some hope kept alive in our hearts, and let us never wholly despaire of the cure, as long as God declares himselfe willing to be the Physician. O have faith Mark 11. 22. in God, doe him now the honour to trust him, when the case seemeth to be desperate; nay, let the desperatenesse of the cure prove an handhold for our faith in prayer to fasten on, the more earnestly and confidently to sollicite God for his owne greater and only praise, now to undertake such a cure, as all else in a manner give over as desperate: And as dying Iacob at the newes of his sonne Ioseph comming to him, strengthened himselfe, and sate up on his bed, so now when wee are fainting away upon this bed of our lan­guishing, Gen. 48. 2. let us by faith lift up our hearts at the good newes, that as deadly as our disease in it selfe is, yet there is balme in Gilead, and a Physician there.

Ʋse 2 But as this is ground of comfort, so let it be of duty in these two following particulars; and let it be our care,

First, that all such as (according to former particulars) in their 1 Duty place and office are Gileads Physicians, do now, if ever, shew them­selves such.

Deare Christians, I speak to the meanest of you, for even you hath God honoured (if you will) to have your share in this blessed work: meane and obscure men and women have oftentimes done great cures, which great Artists have given over; and therefore do you now set in, and put forth your selves to the utmost, and so yet something may be done towards this our present cure, which some [Page 18] of greater power and skill have laid aside as desperate. If there­fore you have any oyle in your vessels, any least measure of that Spirit of anoynting, let it now appeare, it could never have been 1 Ioh. 2. 27: in a more needfull and fit time, if now, it will bee like a Jo­sephs opening of his store-houses in a famine, when all faint, Gen. 41. 56. Luk. 10. 34. a good Samaritans pouring of oyle into the wounds of the half dead man; and therefore break, O let every one of us break his Alabaster box before the Lord this day, our hearts (I mean) that the precious oyntments of his graces may flow forth; wee cannot think how fragrant and pleasing they would be in Gods nostrils, and how soveraignly healing to a poore bleeding, dying Kingdom. I therefore earnestly beg your healing prayers. I solli­cite all your saving graces, your love, wisdome, Christian cou­rage, and wash your repentance this day with your teares to wash your wounds, and your faith in the blood of Christ to heat them: And the rather, because although you may (with Lot) in a generall confusion fare the worse for ill neighbours, [...]. yet I fear me, (seeing the danger lyeth heaviest on you) that you are wounded, especially for your own sinnes; For the transgres­sion Micab. 1. 5. of Iacob is all this, God not using to visit the sinnes of the wicked upon his own children, if they have had no hand in them; and therefore, Physician heale thy selfe, take a course by selfe­humiliation and reformation first to cure your selves, if ever in a right method of Physick you would heale others.

Next you faithfull Ministers of Iesus Christ, whom God hath appointed to set in joynt distressed consciences, lend, O doe you Gal. 6. 1. especially lend, medicam manum, and that a tender gentle one in your way, to binde up the breaches of these distracted Churches and Kingdomes: it was the Priests office in the Law both to view the plague and heale it; let not therefore both Levite and Priest when the wounded man lyeth bleeding and dying, passe by. Elijah, Leuit 13 & 14. Luk. 10. 31. 32. Iehoiada, Ezra, did much in this kinde in their times, let us (with the help of God) doe something now in ours; that Elijah may yet dwell in Gilead, and yet and yet, and ever; (for our parts) there may be, not poyson (as the common complaint is) but [...] in Gilead, and we healing Physicians there.

But especially to you Noble Worthies, (who next under our God and our King, are our [...] our chiefe Physicians, under [Page 19] whose hand this desperate cure long hath been, and yet is) as hee said to Ezra, doth this appertaine, and therefore give leave to Ezra 10.4. one of the unworthiest Servants of Christ, who can doe little more towards the cure, then to call upon you, who through God may doe much, to beseech you to bee yet, and ever your selves, i. e. healing Physicians to a very sick Church and State; now your selves more then ever, because never so much need as now.

Be not therefore wearied out with your long attendance on so hard a cure; the more indeed hath been your paines and patience, but the more withall your patients need: Some good drugs full of Spirit (I confesse) in a lesse time will evaporate, but I pray you remember, Gileads balme useth to continue soveraigne for a long time; Be not weary, therefore, of well doing, so, so in due time, what ever becomes of us you will reape if you faint not. Gal. 6. 9.

No nor (I beseech you) be beat out with the unrulinesse and frowardnesse; yea, or raving rage of a distempered patient and peo­ple; they (it may be) will be ready to say, you are Physicians of no value, and so despise you, nay that the remedy is worse then Iob 13. 4. the disease, and so hate and oppose you; but notwithstanding this, be you yet like,

1 Your God, who is kinde to the unkinde, knowes how to heale an angry [...], looks upon Ephraim and heales him, when he went Luk. 6. 35. Isa. [...]7. 17. 1 [...]. on frowardly in an evill way: Can not you remember that he hath sometimes done more for you, when you have been more froward towards him, then others are now against you, though never so engaged to you, then you are to his people? in this therefore, be like your God, Luke 6. 36.

2 Nay, like your selves: now you are State-Physicians, and what then, though the distempered distracted Patient rage and rave, spit and strike at his Physician that would cure him? if hee be wise, think whether it will move more anger or pity in him, for all that medicinam parat, non vindictam: be pleased therefore still, Bernard Serm. 25. in Cantic. like such a Physician, to goe on with your work, and labour ra­ther to heale then to humour a distempered Patient: So how­ever, your reward will be with God. But if he please further to blesse your endeavours, when your sick Patient shall once recover of his disease, he will be recovered of that phrensie also, and will then thank you, and posterity will blesse you: Meane while let [Page 20] this satisfie you, that to doe well, and heare ill, is no lesse then a Benè agere & malè audire re­gium est. Royalty; and withall remember, that the great Physician of your soules could not effect that cure without being ill thought and spoken of, and dealt with; hee met with that quip [Physician heale thy selfe] in his life and yet he went on to heale them, and Luke 4. 23. when in his death he made a playster for them that wounded him to the heart with his own blood (enough to have moved pity and love) they revile him, with that bitter taunt, more sowre then the vinegar they gave him to drink, He saved others, himselfe he cannot save; and yet when they thus poured vinegar into his wounds, he Matth. 27. 42. dropped balm into theirs: Did it not drop from his lips, when he di­ed with those gracious words in his mouth, Father forgive them for they know not what they do? This did our good Samaritane, and let Luk. 23. 34. me say, what he did upon that occasion, Goe you, and doe likewise; Luk. 10. 37. Your forwardnesse herein (I hope) needs not a spurre, and there­fore I give but a light touch or two, for the quickining of your hearts, and strengthening your hands in God; please to consider but these three particulars:

1 The case is very sad, and the cure, without Gods great bles­sing upon your cure, in all outward probability is likely to prove desperate: for (I beseech you) what doe you see now before you? a Lazarus lying at your doore full of sores? I believe were all the petitions and complaints considered, that since your first meeting, have from all parts come crowding to your Parliament doore, as so many sad letters from sick patients to their Physician; the whole Kingdom would seeme to be no better then a common Lazary; But what see you? a man going down from Ierusalem to Iericho, fallen amongst theeves, stript, and wounded, and left halfe dead, with so much life only as might help him to see, and so to encrease his misery: I say unto you, more and worse then so, Semineces artus, the trembling halfe-dead sinewes, and arteries Brugensis. of three poor dying Kingdoms miserably torne asunder, at home a rent Church, a divided Kingdom, a most sad face of things looks out every where, & plurima mortis imago; but yet looking up with a long look to you, as he in the Gospel to Christ, with teares in its eyes, and his words in its mouth, If you can doe any thing, have compassion on us and help us: So many bleeding gaping wounds be­ing [...]. 9. 2 [...] as so many wide opened mouthes, crying aloud for your com­passion [Page 21] and mercy; we heard in the beginning that the plant when cut and wounded, wept and bled forth balme; we can shew you our wounds, but wee look up to God and you for balme to heale them.

2 The patient should be (and I know is) deare unto you, expressed here by the Prophet to bee the daughter of his people, which holds her forth under two of the nearest and dearest relations of his native Countrey, and of the Church of God, both which now lie gasping before you.

1 The daughter of your people, (that is) your native Coun­trey, indeed your deare mother, that now lyeth sick to death, and as it were breaking her heart-strings with her dying groanes, and closing now her eyes, and bidding good-night to you, and to all her comfort in you together obtestes you by the womb that bare you, and by the paps that gave you sick, to expresse your piety in your pity, if it were possible, that you would be a meanes that she which hath suckled you with her milk, may not be slocken in her own blood, that you would doe your utmost to prevent her death, which hath been a meanes of your life, and the comfort of it.

2 The daughter of your people (as here of the Prophets) is the people of God, as your deare mother, so the dearer Spouse of your dearest Saviour, the Virgin daughter of Zion, the dear­ly Ier. 12. 7. beloved of his soule: its the Church as well as the State that now lyeth bleeding, and of all others in the whole Kingdom, they are the people of God, whose comforts, liberties, lives, are in most danger, of dying quite away. Now what an oath did Hypocrates that great Physician lay upon his Scholars to look well Vide Hypocra­tis opera. to his children? And should not a stronger obligation from your heavenly Physician lie upon you to look better to his? if they thought it a strong argument to hasten Christ to come and heale Lazarus, by sending him word, that he whom he loved was Ioh [...] 11. 3. sick; how much more prevalent will it be to quicken your both endeavour and speed towards our cure, when you are now told, that its the dearly beloved Spouse of Christ, that is so deadly sick, never since recovered from the poyson of that venefica of Rome, never so sick as now: And therefore it is by all the bowels of Iesus Christ that I move for the yearning of yours; [Page 22] as you love him, pity his Church. Think, O think you see your Saviour for your sakes conflicting with the paines of death and his Fathers wrath, the goare of his bloody sweat in the garden, the wannesse of his dead look upon the Crosse; and then if you can, do not pity his dying Spouse now conflicting with the like deadly extremities; as ever you would have your bodily Physi­cian, nay Christ your heavenly Physician, faithfull and kind to you, when you lie on your death-bed (which how soon it may be, you know not) be you faithfull and pitifull to your own Fathers deare children, and your dearest Saviours beloved Spouse, now at this dead lift, if ever.

3. And this yet the rather, because your present employment, and call to it, hath many things in it which may justly challenge your greatest care and diligence; that you may to God and man, both now and at the last day, give up your account of it with comfort.

It being,

1. Such as Gods peoples prayers are much interested in: it be­ing indeed at first the happy birth of the earnest prayers and en­deavours of all the people of God all the land over, and which have humbly and constantly attended you at the Throne of grace ever since, more it may be then ever Parliament was in this kinde at­tended and assisted formerly: now these prayers in their return look for much from God, and not for a little from you. He indeed spake truth, who said, that he that promiseth himselfe but little from the creature, shall not be much deceived; but it will be your faithfulnesse, that Gods peoples prayers and expectations thereupon may not bee disappointed; where they are engaged, they lay on strong engagements. Unlesse men would turn the Ca­nons mouth upon themselves, so as that the same suppliants prayers that have strongly pleaded for them should as strongly plead against them: How sad would it be to us (that I may not say to you) Si filius tot lac hrymarum periret?

2. Such as the blood of many of the Saints is engaged in, and hath been shed for: now it is precious in Gods sight, and there­fore Psal. 72. 14. I know will be in yours; and then indeed it will be, when by your further care and endeavour something of an answerable value shall be purchased with so great a price; and that will be, if hereby Gods Worship and Truth amongst us come to be pur­ged, [Page 23] Church and State reformed, Religion and a righteous Peace setled, if these great blessings bought indeed of God only by Christs blood, may in some sense be purchased of man by their blood: those happy soules now in blisse will never grudge it, but say much good do you with it; but let not our sinfull negligence and faithfulnesse incurre the guilt of it, it will at last fall heavy where ever it lights. O let it bee Babylons, but never Zions Ier. 51. 35. burden.

3. Such, as in which Gods admirable Providence hath been very much engaged and manifested, in particularly eyeing and chusing you, as so many Davids, out of the midst of your bre­thren: sure it was with hopes and expectations that you would be all like him, men after Gods owne heart, to fulfill all his will. Be you Acts 13. 22. therefore pleased to walk with God fully. In as carefully eyeing and watching over you ever since, he it is likely hath preserved and delivered many of you in former times of your lives, and some of you since your sitting here, from particular and personall sick­nesses and other dangers, all I am sure of you from deadliest plots and mischiefs: and then as Mordecai said to Esther, Who knoweth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this? so let me say to you, Who knowes (it would be good for you seriously to think) whether God hath not preserved and kept you alive on purpose to see what now you will do for him, whether now you will be faithfull unto him, or faile him?

4. Such and so great, as this latter age (I believe) hath not brought forth the like, and the greatest, that in all probability ei­ther God or man is likely ever to employ you in, and which your Lord and Master will call you to the most strict account of; by which he will most fully try you, and according to which (it may be) above all other services, he will at the last day finally iudge you.

5. Such also, in the last place, as by your faithfulnesse herein (as you are our State-Physicians) you may keep the disease from proving Epidemicall: for as for the generall body of this people, it hath welnigh overspread all; and therefore the representative bodies integrity (if any thing do) must stand for all, one body for another; you representing us all, as well to God as to man, and so being for the present the only meanes that is left of keeping off [Page 24] a Nationall guilt, and so the wrath of God from this whole Nation.

Thus in the first place, labour we, that such as are by their place and office Gileads Physicians, may themselves indeed prove such.

Secondly, take we heed also for others, that we doe not hinder, 2 Duty. but what in us lyeth to further them to be so.

1 For the people, I beseech you, that neither our jealousies nor our malignacies may hinder our Rulers from being our Hea­lers, which would be but to poyson the playster that should heal us; but let the Patient concur with the Physician, even your ear­nestest prayers and assistances with their endeavours to help on the cure; as its said of the returned Iewes, they clave to their brethren the Nobles: as before that, Shekaniah said to Ezra, Arise, Nehem. 10. 29. this matter belongeth unto thee, but wee also will bee with thee; As also before that, we read that Hezekiah humbled himselfe for Ezra. 10. 4. the pride of his heart, and not hee alone, but its added (he and the Inhabitants of Ierusalem;) inclosed in a confortable paren­thesis, as employed in the same blessed work, and so wrapt 2 Chron. 32. 26. up in the same common blessing; for it followeth, So the wrath of God c [...]me not upon them in those dayes: and so (namely) in the same blessed way of an happy union of hearts and hands, of Prince and people, it might not come upon us in our dayes neither, which for want hereof hastens fast; these mutuall jealousies poysoning the wound, and so hastning our death, and at least delaying, if not preventing our cure; The peoples infidelity hindred Christ from working miracles; the Lord grant that our peoples diffidence and Matth. 13. 58. frowardnesse doe not as much hinder our Physiciars working the present cure, which (if wrought) will be little lesse then mira­culous.)

2 But for you (our much honoured Worthies) to whom I a­gaine make bold to addresse my speech, in whose power in part it is, and whose further happinesse it may be, not only your selves to be, but also to make others our Physitians, bee pleased to im­prove your ability and skill herein to the utmost.

Are Saints Surgeons? let them then (I intreat you) have not only your licence, but also your countenance and furtherance, that they may hold forth their profession more boldly.

Are good Magistrates good Physicians? you may now in making good Lawes, make up (as it were) a more perfect Dis­pensatory for them, by which they may give every one his right dose more duly and safely.

Are good Ministers, as well State as Soule-Healers; I then humbly beseech you, that they may yet more and more enjoy the benefit of your Patronage; I speak not in point of fat Benefices, but that they may bee admitted into that sacred Colledge (as I may call it) more regularly; and then dispence the things of God more freely, that they may have that liberty which the Word al­lows them, to cut off rotten members by Church censures, and not bee enforced (as by Law now in some cases they are) to poure cordials into foule stomacks, whilest they must administer to most unworthy ones the holy Sacrament. And to this purpose, let me not forget to beseech you, to have an especiall eye to our Gileads, where Elijahs doe or should dwell, the Schooles of the Prophets, as they are called, I meane out Ʋniversities; where I wish there were not too many distempers that have need of a more perfect cure, and that in stead of balm, poison were not too often dropt into green wounds; our diseased Youth there, have great need of much better Nurserie and Chirurgerie; How seasonable would it be to have some more salt cast into our Iericho's springs? And 2 Kings 2. [...]1. therefore I again beseech you, let it be one speciall part of your most serious care, in this generall cure, that we may (with Gods blessing) finde more soveraign balm there, and have better Phy­sicians thence.

3. But above all, the greatest care of us all in this kind should be, that we may keep God and Christ with us, and that his blessed Spirit may not by our sinnes be driven away from us, this would be the spilling of the balm that should heale us, and (with the di­stracted sick man) the driving away the only chiefe Physician, that should cure us; we cannot be injurious to him but we must be cru­ell to our selves; the driving of him away, is more then the for­saking of our own mercy: if we be of Davids temper, the health of his countenance, Psal. 42. 5. is the health of ours, verse 11. our Ionah 2. 8. [...] unprofitablenesse will discourage him, and occasion our Physici­an to leave us when he can doe us no good. But O let the daughter of Babylon, and not the Virgin of Zion ever heare that word said, [Page 26] We would have healed her, but she is not healed, forsake her.

But our frowardnesse and base unwillingnesse to bee at any Ier. 51. 9. paines or cost for the cure, will quite drive him away from us, and leave us just in the swinish Gadarens stie; who, because the heal­ing of their bodies, and casting out of devils, cost them their hogs, They desired him to depart out of their Coasts, which he did, and we read not, that he returned thither ever after. [...]. 8. 28. 29, &c.

But thus much for the first point, which holdeth forth the suf­ficiency of the meanes; I come to the second which expresseth the unanswerablenesse of the successe:

Doct. 2 That although there be both balm in Gilead, and a Physician there, yet the health of the people of God (at least for the present) may not be recovered: Its lesse wonder if you read of the daughter of Ni [...] ­veh, Nahum 3. 19. of Egypt, Ier. 46. 11. of Babylon, Ier. 51. 9. that their wound was incurable, as its no wonder at all, if the wounds and sores of corrupt sores be hardfier cured; but its more pity that good flesh should heale so ill, that the daughter of Zion [...] E [...]s. [...]. 1. health, who is made partaker of Gods saving health, should be so hardly recovered; that Ephraim should grow more desperately sick under the cure; nay, that this should reach unto Iudah also, that Micah 9. her wound should bee past cure, that best Churches should sink deeper & deeper into the worst of miseries. Sad is that other expres­sion Ier. 14. 1 [...]. of our Prophet to this purpose, in a parallel place to this Text, in which the poore afflicted Church washeth her wounds with her teares, whilst she we [...]ps over them as incurable, Hast thou utterly rejected Iudah? hath thy soule loathed Zion? Why hast thou smitten, and there is no healing? we looked for peace, and there is no good, and for the time of healing and behold trouble. But the Text and the foregoing verses of this Chapter are so full, that they need no for­raigne supply; in the Text we have Gileads both balm and Phy­sician meanes most likely, and in themselves sufficient; Gileads balm; the best Receipt and Gileads Physician, that best know how to apply it, and yet he knoweth not how to work a cure by it: but that you may take a fuller view, please but to look to the 18. 19. 20 verses foregoing, and you shall finde all hopes and ex­pectations dasht, as v. 15. All ankers comming home, and all playsters falling off without healing, the patient fainting with the cordiall in his mouth, and sinking quire down, whilst beset round with supporters to hold him up.

[Page 27]1 A good heart; that should be vinum in pactore, doe good, like Prov. 17. 22. a medicine; but alas, its wounded, v. 18. and heart-wounds are deadly: if the eye, the light that is [...]thes, be darknesse, how great Math. 6. 23. is that darknesse? and so, if the heart, the life that is in thee, bee dead, how great is that deadnesse? which yet may betide the people of God in sad houres, their hearts failing as well as their flesh, as we have heard; the Spouse of Christ inwardly fainting Psal. 73. 26. and sinking down in such a swoone; and if the weak mans staffe that should especially support him be broken, how unavoidably and heavily doth he fall?

2 A good God, in his holy ordinances; Is not the Lord in Zion? verse 19. which was the place of Gods Ark, and it of his residence and presence, enough (one would have thought) to have prevented all wounds (Zion so high as not to be reached by the hand of vio­lence) or at least presently to have healed them, as long as sanctuary oyle poured in them, and yet the cure is not wrought for all this; the Lord and his Ark are in Zion, and yet the daughter of Zion continueth wounded, and her wound not healed: Which holds out, that a people may live under good ordinances, and yet sadly groane under heavie pressures and miseries.

3 A good King, and righteous administrations; Is not her King in her? verse 19. Zion being not only the place of the Arke, but also the Kings Palace, and therfore called the City of David; in which therefore besides the Ark of God, was David the servant 2 Sam. 5. 7. of God, or some of his posterity, there sitting on the Throne, as Iosiah for no lesse then eighteene years of Ieremiahs time; And what Kings evill so dangerours as that he might not cure? but for all that, the cure could not be, the inflamation of the wound continued; notwithstanding all that he was and did, the Lord [...]ur­ned not from the fiercenesse of his wrath, that was kindled, and could not be quenched: Which further sheweth, that the case some­times 2 Kings 23. 26. may be so farre gone, as that neither Church Ordinance, nor Civill Government, can (for the present at least) recover a poore fainting, dying Church and People.

4 All likeliest outward supplies, either at home or from abroad, verse, 20. The Harvest is past and Summer is ended, and we are not saved; Harvest useth to be the income of our Store, but its past, and no provision laid in of our selves, nor help come from our [Page 28] friends or Allies, now that after harvest they might be most likely to be at best leasure; but is there any thing yet behinde, which may supply us, or for the time detaine them, that with any com­fort and hope we may wait yet any longer? Yes Vintage is after Harvest, stay therefore till that be past, and it may afford something to cheare us, and then they may have nothing to doe, but to come and help us. The next clause answers that, and saith that's past too, not only Harvest is past, but also summer (and so vintage also) is en­ded, after which no crop is to be expected, and we are not saved; Which last expression saith expressely thus much, that hopefullest outward helps in likeliest times and seasons may faile the Church of God, and she droop still, even pine in Harvest and faint in Vintage. All but further explaining the metaphor of the Text, that the daughter of Zion may be so deadly sick and wounded, that not­withstanding best meanes used, even Gileads balm applied; Yet,

1 Her health (at least for the present) not at all recovered, shee no whit mended.

2 That's not all, not recovered, is but a [...], the Prophet mea­neth more then he expresseth, he would say or at least have you understand, that its much more indangered, as sores if they doe not heale they rankle, and the sick mans sicknesse, if his physick work not, proves more deadly.

1 Old diseases whether inward or outward, are more discove­red, it may be confirmed, or at least for present, much more ex­asperated; its usually so with diseased bodies, and we now full sadly see it so in the bodies of these wofully distempered Kingdoms. When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity (the perverse crooked iniquity) of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness, [...] nay, the wickednesses, as the word is in the originall, the manifold and monstrous wickednesse of Samaria, we may say as truly of Eng­land, never so desperately sick of both sin and misery, as since of late we have been under cure, our old lurking distempers are now ful­ly manfested.

2 New ones multiplyed, as in bodily diseases one begets ano­ther, and the sick man that lay downe with one disease, before he get up againe hath gotten many, too sadly made good in the sinnes and miseries of a distempered (of our distempered) peo­ple. There is a new rising in the old bile, which of old was dan­gerous [Page 29] and omnious; new sinnes and sinners discovered by an af­fliction, which before were never suspected; and new judgements Levit. 13. 18, 19, 20. multiplied, even to foure times seven times more, which before (it may be) were never feared: and the worst of it is, that the Levit. 26. 18, 2 [...], 24, 28. Devill appeares to be much in it, when the latter end doth prove so much worse then the beginning of it, Matth. 12. 45.

3 So as that to present sense she may seem to bee incurable, and her health wholly irrecoverable, when after all helps, she not only negatively is nothing better, no mends, as though shee had had no meanes; (which is the meaning of the question, Is there no Balm? whilst there is no healing by it) but also positively growes much worse, that her physick proves her poyson, and her very Balm envenoms her wound; it is a poysoned one indeed, and in mans eye absolutely incurable. Of this point, if Iudah of old, and England now for the present were not too sad instances, I should adde further proofes, but they spare me that labour; and therefore I come to a third point, which will serve partly for the reason, and partly for the use of this second.

Doct. 3 It was, That the reason of this heavy case is diligently to bee enquired after, and sadly to be bemoaned and complained of.

And this wee had from the second question, Why then, &c. which was (as we heard) a question partly of enquiry, and partly of an expostulating and bemoaning complaint, and so let it be to us this day of our selfe-searching humiliation.

First, matter of enquiry, of what should be the reason of this ill successe, when in the beginning of the Parliament we were as a ship under saile before the wind, bound amain for the faire havens of the peace and happinesse of Church and State, that now retro omnia? but what unhappy remora or Anchor under water not yet seen, hath stopt us in this happy course? from what quar­ter hath this crosse blast blown, that hath driven us againe into the depths, and dasht us so against the rocks, that all threaten ship­wrack? or rather in the expression of the Text, when all promi­sed so happy a cure, Physicians so able, balme so precious, the daughter of our people so sick of her sicknesse, and so desirous of a recovery, all in such a fast healing way; what is the matter, that we are fallen into so desperate a relapse, that all lies a bleeding, gasping, and in the view of most, dying quite away?

For answer whereto, we must needs say, that the cause of all this must be in one of these three: either first, in the Physician and his physick; or secondly, in the Patient and his distemper; or thirdly, in some other negligent or ill-minded Attendant, or stander-by.

1. I begin with the last first: and for it; when the question was, How came such choaking tares to spring up in a so well-sown field? the answer was, that surely an enemy had done it: So for cer­taine, Matth. 13. 23. some enemy or other hath done this also. If you ask, who? you need not doubt, but that the old Serpent hath poyson enough to invenom both the wound and the plaister; nor wants he his in­struments and under-workmen, by the same meanes (viz. poy­sonous slanders, and malicious oppositions) that he retarded the returned Iewes in their so hopefully a begun work, to hinder us also that are now returning from Babylon in a greater cure. I be­seech you therefore, as Paul did the Romans in a like case, to Rom. 16. 17. have a more watchfull eye, whilst you are applying balme to the wound for the cure of it, to mark who they are that sliely cast in venome to poyson it. Italians (they say have great skill in poysoning of bodies, and they of the Italian Religion (I am sure) have as great in poysoning of Churches and States; not caring to burst the body, to make their great swell. If some poison were not so subtle, and so subtly conveyed, as not, but by the deadliest effects of it, to be discovered; I should lesse feare these Romish Artists having any influence in best counsels and actions; and so have lesse cause in this matter of enquiry to desire your greater care: but if they be so crafty, you cannot be too circumspect.

2. For our Physicians, they are principally our God, and our Governours.

1. Now for our God, He you see in the Text complaines of the slownesse of the cure; and therefore he can be no faulty cause of it: and yet in this enquiry, it may be of great use to consider for what holy and wise ends he permits and orders it: namely,

1. The wound may not be so soon healed, that it may be the more deeply searched, and the corruption of it more fully disco­vered: so we read that God was leading Israel through a wilder­nesse no lesse then forty yeares, but it was thereby to prove them, and to know what was in their hearts: a short spurt doth not try me, Deut. 8. 2. [Page 31] but the length and hardnesse of the way will at last tell me what leg I halt on. Many a particular Christian (I doubt not) can say, that he should never have thought there had been so much infide­lity, pride, frowardnesse, impatience, worldlinesse, and such like corruption in his heart, if such an affliction which God laid on his estate, name, body, soule, &c. had been sooner removed, which by the longer on-lying of it, hath been (at least to himselfe) more fully manifested. And may not the like be as truly said of a whole State and People? that the falsenesse and rottennesse of many had never been so discovered, if the cure now in hand had been more speedily effected? great hath been our gaine in our losse of them; for some of them otherwise might have been made as chief pillars in the building (think you with what scandall and mischief) who now by an heavier weight lying on for some longer time of their probation and seasoning, have manifested themselves to be rotten posts. They are certainly now [...] times of triall, Luke 8. 13. that sooner or later will discover us all. God (we hope) is about to set up his Tabernacle, nay his Temple; and therefore will have the gold that is to be emploied in it, more purely refined, and therefore more fully tried; so long being in the fire, hath already manifested some to be drosse look we to it, for the fire may be yet kept in, and we in it, to try whether the rest of us be any better metall. Our wound in the first place may therefore be the longer continued, that it may be the more throughly searched:

2. And we the more deeply humbled: Which is the duty of this day, and the main work which (I believe) God is doing in England at this day, viz. to bring down our loftinesse and pride to prick the swoln bladder, and to take down the Typhus of a Britannia trium­phans, as some few yeares since we vainly boasted; because then in our owne thoughts we were triumphant, we are therefore now sadly militant, and may so yet continue longer, till our hearts be brought lower. For so, if one yeares wandring in the wildernesse will not humble Israel, fourty shall; and what submission a fewer Deut. 8. 2. months of war and trouble could not bring our English Israel un­to it may be God will see if some yeares continuance can effect; that if the lusty strong man will [...] out one or two fits of the fe­ver, try whether the third or fourth will not make him stoop, and whether many more and long continued will not lay him down [Page 32] on his bed, if not in his grave. Truly, for our parts, wee are now at the very brink of it, in many respects we are brought very low, and yet in our cloathes, diet, jollity, and bravery, especially in our high liftings up of our hearts against God and his wayes, wee are as high as ever; but shall a proud heart and a proud people be able to carry it out thus against a great God? O England, be instructed lest thou be yet, and yet, and yet seven times more plagued, and Ier. 6. 8. that till thine uncircumcised heart be at last humbled: God cer­tainly is eating the proud flesh out of it, and therefore it is that Levit. 26. 41. he yet continues the corrasive.

3 And (as a fruit hereof) to take the creature quite off from its own legs and other crutches, and so in prayer and faith to cast it upon God only: for as long as wee can make any shift of our selves, or can think of any help from the creature, so long God shall not bee sought after; for to him naturally wee will not bee beholden till we needs must; and so when not only Ephraim feels his sicknesse, but even when Iudah seeth his wound, the Assyrian and King Iareb, are their next Physicians that are first sent to, Hos. 5. 13. (as Baal-zebub before God by sick Ahaziah,) and thereup­on 2 Kings 1. 2, 3. the Moth is turned into a Lyon, verse 12. 14. (Iudgements as its most just, not only continued, but also encreased when the creature is preferred, and God neglected) which doth so rend and teare and carry away, that they cannot heale, verse 13. nor any else rescue, verse 14. that so at last, cap. 6. 1. God may heare of them, and that word from them, Come and let us returne unto the Lord; for he hath torne, and he will heale us, &c. Jehoshaphat must be brought to that passe, that he knowes not what to doe, that his 2 Chron. 20. 12. eyes may bee up to God, when hee can look for help no where else: and it is out of measure and above strength, that even Paul must be pressed, so as to despaire of life, and to receive in himselfe the sentence of death; that so he might be brought, not to trust 2 C [...]r. 1. 8, 9. in himselfe, but in God that quickneth the dead. This I conceive is another piece of that great work, which God in this King­dome hath beene long about, and is yet doing to this day, viz. to take us off from relying on Counsellors and Souldiers, our owne strength at home, and friends abroad; with Asa, trusting more 2 Chron. 16. 12. to our Physicians then our God: in which case it is his faithful­nesse to let the present issue yet run, to prevent a more dangerous and deadly mischief.

[Page 33]4 And hereupon, that in case health and healing doe come, we may know to whom to give all the praise: [...] Aesculapio, praise to our God: it being the great praise of a Physician to cure that at last which many others had been long about, and given over as desperate; as it was in Christs curing of her that Mark 5. 26. had suffered much, and spent all on other Physicians, and yet proved rather worse then better: How wonderfully would the glory of God appeare, if now that all help on earth seemes to faile us, he from heaven would save us? none could then share with him in his prayse, when none joyned with him in the work: we should then thrust away all the prayse from our selves, as it were with one hand, and say, Not unto us O Lord; and as though Psal. 115. 1 [...] it were not yet far enough from us, thrust it yet further off with the other, and againe say the second time, Not unto us, but unto thy name be all the prayse: When lanched thus into the deep, out of sight of land, and in the midst of the storme, when nothing appeares but Sea and Heaven, should we then by the tempest be driven into Harbour; we must needs lift up hands on high, and thankfully say, This Sea did not drown us, because that heaven saved us: For which end it is, that God oftentimes, either early prevents us with salvation before we ever dreamt of it, is up be­fore us, before we went out to work, that we might not say we wrought it; or some other time stayeth long till we be quite wearied out and gone to bed having done nothing; comes not to his Disciples till the fourth watch of the night, and when Matth. 14. 25. they are quite beat out with the storm, that so when he comes, he may say, It is I, and we may not have to say otherwise, but Ʋerse 27. that it is thou Lord only.

5 Lastly, that as he then may have all the prayse, so that we may learn thereby to have more care how we expose our selves to such dangers and wounds ever after: This use they made of it in their return from Babylons captivity, After all this is come Ezra 9. 13. 14. upon us, and thou hast given us such deliverance as this, should we againe break thy Commandements? wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us? &c. As if they had said, upon our slow recovery, we had need be the more fearefull of a relapse; for if the last wound were so long in healing, [...]ware [Page 34] lest the next prove not altogether incurable.

Beloved, should wee yet be more sick; if yet thereby we might be made the more carefull to goe away and sin no more, Iohn 5. 14. it would be but the healing of a lethargy by a feaver, a greater disease by a lesse, and so we should have no cause to blame our heavenly Physician, our God.

2 But what say you to our Governours, under God our Phy­sicians? enough and oft too much, as its usuall; if the unruly Patient be not cured, the Physician (doe he what hee can) is wont to be blamed. Noble Senators, what you have been, or are to God and us, we blesse him and you for; and the Lord adde to it an hundred-fold; but the present day and duty (were there nothing else) forbid the giving of flattering Titles to lift you up, who came hither as well as the meanest of us to bee humbled, and lie low at Gods feet for mercy: and for this pur­pose, the lesse others may, the more I beseech you, that you your selves would make an inquiry, whether there be any thing amisse either in balme or Physician, in your persons or actions, as men, or as Parliament men, that may be the cause, why, af­ter all your care and paines, the health of the daughter of our people is not yet recovered, but rather more endangered; Now the Lord help you in a further search, as into other mens sinnes; so into your own hearts and wayes, that there may be both wayes a more perfect discovery and recovery together.

3 But let the Physician be never so skilfull and faithfull, and his physick never so soveraign and usefull, the Patient yet may grow worse rather then better, and the whole faulty cause be in himselfe onely; and that first, either in the nature of his disease, or secondly, in his own miscarriage of himselfe, whilst he is un­der the cure.

1 And first, for diseases and wounds, though the balme in it selfe should bee able to heale all, as wee saw in the first Do­ctrine; yet some may be at least longer under the cure, and some in the event at last prove indeed incurable; As in par­ticular,

First, wounds, when great and deep, and diseases, if more vio­lent and malignant: answerable whereunto are great sinnes which [Page 35] cause great and deeper wounds, especially when sinners grow vi­rulent and malicious, they thereby poyson the wound, and make the feaver malignant, and so hardly, if at all, recoverable: So Iudah, when their sinne (viz. Idolatry) was great, and withall they malicious, in wounding and killing Gods Prophets that were sent to cure them; their case then proved incurable, there was then (we heard) no remedy. 2 Chron. 36. [...]. 15. 16.

Its now our present case, and as likely to be incurable, if God be not more mercifull: for our sinnes, for kinde, are very great, and if circumstances can bigger them, of the largest size; if their Idolatry made them without remedy, ours may well keep us under a longer cure: and the Lord grant it at last. For if imbitterednesse of spirit against God, his grace, truth, wayes, and servants, can make it, I feare me, Englands present disease, as much as, if not more then any other Nations, is grown pesti­lentially malignant.

Secondly, sometimes the wound is secret, like the Philistims 1 Sam. 5. [...] blinde Emerods, not so easily discerned; or its some lurking dis­ease, that is not of a long time discovered, and therefore the longer before it be healed: Answerable hereunto, are secret sins, not suspected, or at least not discovered, and therefore very hard­ly cured; as Achans accused thing hid in his Tent, made such a wound in the body of that people, as even Ioshua's prayer could not heale, till it was laid open and discovered. Iosh. 7.

A faire Item for us, in this day of our searching into our wound, which will not heale, to take the Probe and search yet deeper, whether some envenomed Arrows head lie not yet hid in it, that hinders the healing of it, I meane some sinne or other of this Nation, which hath not yet been discovered, or if seen, yet over-looked, or at least nor openly and solemnly confessed and bewailed, either in the Parliaments Ordinance, or our Church Assemblies: it may be there is; it would be well there­fore when we see the finger swell and rankle, to look a little more narrowly, if there bee not some thorne or thistle in it, which before we minded not, that thus causeth and continueth the paine; some Ionah hid under the Deck, which makes the Sea work, and the storme encrease, and row the Mariners as Ionah 1. [Page 36] hard as they can, keeps them yet from the haven.

3. We heard that Chronicall diseases were hardly cured, and old sores heale very slowly, especially in old age, and to­wards winter: Answerable whereunto are old sinnes long con­tinued in, upon which usually follow long continued judge­ments, hardly delivered from. There are but two places in Scripture that speak of sinners setled on their lees, and in both Ier. 48. 11. Zeph. 1. 12. wee read of their deep sinking in judgements.

Doe I not here againe touch our sore? and withall point at one cause of the slow healing of it? we have beene (as wee think) long in suffering, but is it not because we have beene longer in sinning? We that are already almost out of breath, should be quite out of all patience, if God and our Governours should be as long in healing of our wounds, as we have been in making them; though in other cases we know it is ordinary, that the wound is sooner made then cured, and the sicknesse easilier fallen into, then risen up out of. We that are sick of new fashions, are stark dead, and growne stiffe in retaining old sinnes. I feare me, God is now upon an old reckoning with us, he speed us to a good end of it; for the daughter of Jere­miahs people, growne old in adulteries, when thereupon grown Ezek. 23. 43. fick of her filthy diseases, died out right before she recovered.

4. As any old diseases are long in curing, so especially those that are hereditary, and so become naturall to our temper and constitution: the sonne inherits more often his fathers gout or stone, then his lands, and is sooner rid of the one then of the other. Answerable hereunto is the sinne of our nature, either in the generall depravation of it, in our first parents; or in some more particular veines of it, derived to us from our next Proge­nitors. David in sense of that irrecoverable sicknesse of his child, Psal. 51. 5. ascendeth to the first distemper of his nature which occasioned it; and the Iewes so fast sticking to their forefathers sinnes, Ier. 44. 17. brought judgements that clave as fast to them, and their poste­rity after them. Ver. 21, 22, 23.

O that in washing this day with our teares our still-bleeding wounds, we could (as wee should every day) weep over our first old sore, acknowledging it to be bad flesh that is so ill to [Page 37] heale, and that sure our blood is tainted, that continues the quartane thus long, and turnes it into a continued fever.

And in particular, that we would have some recourse to our next or more remote forefathers sinnes, which we indeed in­herit more then their estates, and in these plundering times are hardlier pluckt from them, then from their inheritances; accounting it piety towards them to be impious against God, whilest we chuse rather to tread in their steps, then to wal [...] in his wayes; their vaine, profane, superstitious, and some­times ridiculous customes and wayes we have beene borne to, and brought up in, and therefore can by no meanes endure to be pluckt from; which I feare God now visits for, and it may be our posterity may smart for, that the tent may be as deep as the wound. O that these Devills that have possessed us Matth. 17. 21. from our youth, may this day goe forth with prayer and fasting! These and such like particulars in the disease may protract the cure; but were there none such, yet,

2. In the second place, the distempered mis-carriage of the Patient, whilst under cure, may not only protract it, but even wholly intercept it. And for this, I desire that in our present search, wee would carefully enquire after this one particular; namely, Whether our not being willing wholly to give up our selves to our heavenly Physicians ordering and disposall, for our cure, together with the time, way, and meanes of it, be not one chiefe cause of the longer delay of it. When it came to a [Father, not my will, but thine be done] though (it is true) Matth. 26. 39. death ensued; yet it is as true, that a glorious resurrection shortly after followed upon it.

Could we now bee but fully meekned under our heavenly Fathers hand, be freely willing to be and to doe, to suffer and to want whatever our God will; so that our heavenly Physi­cian may diet us, and our Chirurgeon at his pleasure binde us, if we were made willing to abstaine from what he forbids, and to doe and take whatever he prescribes, and quietly suffer and undergoe what in this his lanching and searing of us he in­flicts, without making a sowre face at a bitter potion: I durst assure you in Gods Name, that either no death would follow upon it, or if the witnesses, with us, should not yet be slaine, [Page 38] yet that after the third day there would follow upon it a like happy resurrection.

I doubt me, that here I have unguem in ulcere, my finger once againe upon our present malady, and on one maine cause of the continuance of our misery. God findes us (I feare me) as yet an unsubdued people, like the Prophets wil [...] Bull in Isa. 51. 20. a net, as impatient to be bound to our better abbearance by these cords of affliction, as we were before by the sacred tyes of his holy commands. Wee will doe, and suffer, and part with as much of our estates and comforts, for God and his cause, as we think fit, (and that with many of us is but little, with some nothing) but not so much as hee and it call for: our conclusion with our selves is, that wee meane not to be so bad husbands as Paul was, to lose all for the gaining of Christ, to be so poore or pure, as we fore-see he and his Phil. 3. 8. cause will make us, and that makes us leave both him and it together: And from hence, I verely think, in a great measure comes the continuance of that misery which we would shorten, if not prevent.

We are not willing to lie still whilst we are cut and lanched, and therefore our blessed Chirurgeon is enforced to binde us yet faster: we cannot endure to be brought so low, as God would have us; and therefore (it may bee) he will have us yet lower: nor to stay so long under his cure, and it may even therefore prove the longer: we love our ease more then ou [...] health; and therefore may come to be more sick: nay the cor­ruption of our wound more then the cleansing of it, (for old corruptions we love, and an holy Reformation we loathe) and therefore may expect yet more sharp abstersives: we are sick of our physick, and were not so much before exasperated against them that made our wounds, as now against them that would heale them. It was Livies sad complaint of his times, that they could endure neither their malady, nor medicine: the same is the unhappinesse of ours; before the Parliament took us in hand, we were so sick, that without cure we could not live; and since, we are growne so froward, that wee will not bee cured. Now the good Lord pity us; but must we thus die?

Thus much for this first use of examination, as this [Why is not, &c.] was a question of enquiry.

Ʋse 2 Let the next be a word of humiliation, as it was a question of expostulation and a bemoaning complaint: and indeed let it be a complaint which we make, not of God, but of our selves, that when there is no fault in him, there should lie so much guilt on us; his balme provided and afforded, and we not hea­led. O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitned? (say, have we beene straitned in his Micah 2. 7. bowels, or not rather in our owne hearts? are these his doings? Look on all that is done, on all the deep bleeding wounds of this poore dying Kingdome; are they deep? and doe they in­deed smart and bleed, and fester? O look upon them yet againe with a sad heart and wet eye, (they bleed, and should not we weep?) and see whose doings they are, Gods or ours, as whe­ther the malefactors branding and executing be his or his Iudges; the unhappy child, whipping, his or his fathers; the malefactors in sinfully deserving, or the Iudges in righteously punishing; the childes in offending, or the Parents incorrecting; the despe­rate mans in making his wound, or the faithfull Chirurgeons in searching it: and let not the just Iudge beare the blame of the Malefactors crime, or the tender Father of the untoward Childes wantonnesse, or the carefull Chirurgeon of the distem­pered Patients unrulinesse. No, thy wayes and thy doings have procured these things to thy selfe, saith God, Ier. 4. 18. and chap. 2. 17. he dare appeale to them whether they could say other­wise; Hast thou not procured this unto thy selfe, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, when he led thee in the way? The Lord hath not been unwilling to be our God, to be Englands God, but we have forsaken him, and that even when he led us in the way, ever since he led us in the way out of Egypt towards Canaan, as farre as wee got in the first Reformation; but especi­ally since of late after our recoiles backwards towards Egypt, he hath been about to leade us the second time in a more direct and full way Canaan-ward; have we not since this forsaken him? and many of us more then ever turned our backs on him? and whom then shall we complaine of, for these our longer wandrings? of [Page 40] God? no; of our selves only, and that in regard both of God, and our selves.

1 First, of our selves, that we should be so cruell to our selves, that either for the Popes, or our owne sinfull lusts sake, wee should at first make such deadly wounds, and now more cruelly hinder the cure of them: for as Esther said of Haman, that the enemy could not countervaile the Kings dammage: so can our Esther 7. 4. lusts, or the Whore of Babylon (think you) make the Vir­gin of Zion amends, for thus making her a selfe-murderer? Now where is the heart of the true English man? of old so zealous of its Nations honour and happinesse? Where the bowels of a true Christian, that should doe good to enemies? and shall we wound friends? even kill our selves? Is it the daugh­ter Matth. 5. 44. of my people in the Text, that God is so tender of? and what is become of her Virgin tender heartednesse? it was of old a part of Jeremiahs Lamentation, That the daughter of his people was become cruell like the Ostriches in the Wildernesse, in that they Lam. 4. 3, 4. suckled not their children, when in truth the cause was, that they had no milke for them: but may it not then be a sadder note in ours, when the daughter of our people makes her selfe drunk with her owne, and her childrens blood? and (which is worst) cannot be satisfied with it; and therefore takes a course that it should bleed still? Oh how unlike to her selfe is the tender daughter of our people, that is become so cruell and unnaturall! It is not the tender Virgin of Zion, but the cruell man (saith Solomon) that troubles his owne flesh; nay the A­postle Prov 11. 17. Ephes. 5. 29. un-manneth him that hates it; yea, the Gospel tells us, it was a man possessed with no lesse then a legion of devills that cut and wounded himselfe, and (which was more devillish) that cried out of Christ when hee came to heale him: whereby Mark 5. 5. 7, 9. it appeares, that there is more then the rage of a man, no lesse then Satanicall malice and cruelty in this our present malady, when we can endure to teare out our owne bowels; and what legion of devills hath possessed us, that wee can see our deare mother lie gasping in her gore, and yet more cruelly widen and deepen the wound? and most poysonously hinder (at least protract) the cure? O that this day wee could abhorre our [Page 41] selvs that in these respects we should be 1. thus cruell to our selvs 2. And alike injurious to God.

1 In making him thus deadly to wound us, which he would not, hath no heart to, Lam. 3. 33. hath no instrument of his own for, but must hire it, Isa. 7. 20. accounts it his strange worke, Isa. 28. 21. and therefore would be a stranger to it: Now then if an earthly father would not willingly make use of the rod, why should we enforce our heavenly Father to take the sword? though we be cruell, yet our God is not; and why then should we make him? 1. in constraining him to wound us, when he would not; 2. in Crudelem Me­d [...]um, &c. bindring him to heale us, when he would; We cannot but say, that this our wofull wound hath divers times been in a faire way and forwardnesse to be healed, and yet suddenly (we know not how) cast back again, and inflamed more then ever; and what comes this to, but to our Saviours I would, and ye would not? it plainly shewes, that God hath desired and furthered, but we have Mat. 23. 37. hindered our owne healing, and thereby him of the praise.

1 Of his tender bowels of mercy, which he most delights in, as though they were shut up from pitying us, which wee know have been strongly yearning towards us.

2 Of his faithfulnesse, as though in this our greatest strait hee were wanting to us, who (our consciences can witnesse) hath never failed us: nay, as though he intended to betray us, by en­gaging us in his cause and then leaving us, as the Egyptians were ready to make a like exposition of the like case, that God for mischief should lead out his people to destroy them in the wildernes: Exod. 3. 12. Whereas those of us that are most disappointed cannot (I am sure) stand out and say, that our faithfull God in any thing, where­in he ever engaged us, hath deserted us.

3 Of his Power, as though he were not able to save us, the Egyptians like glosse upon the like Text, Numb. 14. 16. where­as the mighty acts that our eyes of late have seen, cannot but convince the most either dull or obstinate, that although by rea­son of our sinnes, it should never be done, yet it never was, nor will be for want in our Almighty God to do it.

4 Of his Wisdome, as appointing meanes either weak, or im­proper, or importune, not able, not fit, at least not at this time, [Page 42] to effect it; which was the allegation of the returned Iewes for their delay, but cannot be for God here in the Text, for it was balme, a medicine most soveraign, Gileads balme, an homebred Hag. 1. 2. Medicine of their own, and therfore most proper; applyed when they were deadly sick and wounded, and could it be in a fitter time? all which agreed in the course which God took, and the meanes which he hath used for our cure, instruments most preci­ous, admirably fitted for the worke, and them of our own bre­thren and then, when we stood in most need; and yet if now by reason of our sinnes all should miscarry, in the eye of the per­verse world, God and his servants shall be accounted to have mistaken, either in the time, they were too hasty, the bile was not ripe as yet to be lanched, popery should have been suffered to have festered a little longer, till it had poysoned all: or in the meanes, this was not the way; but a Quid pro quo; nay of the very cause and person, disease and patient, for piety and not Po­pery shall then be avouched to have been the disease, and nor the Atheist and Papist, but the zealous Protestant the true ma­lignant, and so Gods cause shall be none of his, and so God not himselfe; but shall we so requite the Lord, O foolish people and un­wise? because we will be our selves, shall not God be himselfe? Deut. 32. 6. because wee will stand to our cause, shall God desert his? be­cause we will be desperate and unthankfull, shall not hee there­fore be holy, wise, just, faithfull and mercifull? and yet all this in case after all that is done, by reason of our sinnes, wee should yet quaile, will be called in question, as the unruly patient in hindering his own cure, wrongs indeed himselfe; but withall wounds his Physician in his repute for skill or will, faithfulnesse or love, or something or other that will be thought was wanting: as in case Israel lose themselves in the wildernesse, the fault will be laid on their guide; and yet our case will be worse then that, De [...]. 9. 28. for there Moses feared that Egyptians, i. e. strangers and ene­mies onely would make such perverse constructions, but it is to bee feared that in case of our miscarriages some of the Is­rael of God themselves may bee ready to prove such weake Interpreters, that when wee have by our sinnes poysoned the wound, even we our selves through frowardnesse or unbeleef [Page 43] may be ready to call Gods love, faithfulnesse, power, and wis­dome in question about the cure; and out of unjust distrust be ready to say, what God here in the Text saith by way of just complaint. But is there was there, no balme in Gilead? what, no Physician there? is there any help in God, when we finde none? any faithfulnesse in him, when no faith in us? is not his mercy cleane gone for ever, seeing our hopes are? Doth not his Psal. 75. 8, 9. promise faile, when our expectations doe? For so indeed sick children are oft very froward; and thus when we get no good, God gets much dishonour, from us, as well as others; not only Gileads balme is spilt, too precious (as wee heard in the be­ginning) so to be lost; ad quid perditio haec? but also Gileads Matth. 26. 8. chiefe Physician wronged, too good to be so ill requited: let us think that Christ speaks thus to every one of us. Amice, ut Iohn 18. 13. quid me percutis? friends, but why through your owne sides, do you wound your best friend and Physician to the heart, who heartily hath both desired and endeavoured your healing? Let this above all be our present shame and griefe, and let it be our greatest care for ever hereafter so to comply with God, and that cure he is yet about, that at last, to his praise and our own com­fort, it may manifestly appeare to us, and to all, that there hath beene balme in Gilead, and a faithfull Physician there, when the health of the daughter of our people shall be recovered.