do ftill; if they defire to have peace. If we would have our Earth ftand ftill we muft not stand still, but muft feasonably with all fpeedy Vigilancy, difperfe thofe unquiet, and turbulent fumes which rife up in it; But forafmuch as the fe mifchiefs are firft hatcht within, and notice cannot be taken of them till they have got a dangerous head, fince no man keeps the Key of a mans own heart but himself, the true way of a perfect prevention is for men to work upon their own fouls in fecret, to fupprefs the firft rifing of male-contented, and mutinous thoughts in their own brefts, to fettle in themfelves a true valuation of peace, and a juft fenfe of the mischiefs of contentions. How have we feen Churches, and States like a dry unliquor'd Coach fet themselves on fire with their own motion? How have we feen good timber rotted with but the droppings of a small chink? Yea how have we feen goodly fhips finking with but a leak ; It was a wife observation of Erafmus ; funt quæ neglecta non lædunt ; exagitata graves fufcitant tragedias; There are things which do no hurt to be let alone, but when they are urg'd breed no fmall ftirs. It was an ablur'd and ridiculous mistake of the vulgar Translation of that Luc. 15. as Salmeron himself observes in his prolegomena; Mulier perdidit drachmum, accendit lucernam & evertit domum, instead of everrit, The Woman loft her groat, lighted a candle, and overthrew the houfe, inftead of fweeping: See how one letter may marre a fenfe but truly fo it is; Many a one in but the fecking of a forry groat, lights the candle, and fets the houfe on fire; would to God we had not too much experience of this mifchief; No leffe mistaken, but to better purpose, is that Pfal. 107. 4. where they read Effufa eft contentio fuper principes, whereas the true word is ef fufa eft contemptio; He powreth contempt upon Princes, alle as Apollinaris, or as the Septuagent. The morall may be too good. Where there are quarrells and contentions, there will foon be contempt, fhame, Annihilation: It was our Saviours word,. An houfe divided cannot Stand: If this then be a fearfull judgment which is here fpecified, that there is a divifion of the Land, Let. our hearts abhorr to be guilty of bringing it upon our felves; wo be to thofe by whom the offence cometh; England had wont to be Anglia, quafi, as Capgrave derives it, intus gloriefa; So we found it in the b'effed times of our long peace, and fo let us leave it to the fuccceding generations. Far be from us that which Bernard fpeaks

7

of his time, Omnes fuum stomachum fequntur; that every man should follow his own ftomack, and his own brain. Away with all peevish humours of contention if we love our felves, our Land, our Church, Let us as the Apoftles charges, ftudy to be quiet. Thus much for the active breaches; The paffive breaches which follow upon thofe Earth-quakes of judgment are those grievous Vaftations which have followed upon the publick calamities of any Nation; for these are called Breaches too, as Perez Vzzah; and the hand upon the wall wrote Baltazars Upharfin. If the Earth could quiver only for a time, and cease again without any fenfible breach, it were no great matter; but as there is no thunder in the cloud without an eruption of lightning, fo there is no Earth-quake lightly without fome fearfull rupture. The judgments of God never return empty handed; they ftill bring what they were fent for. Those three great executioners of God, fword, famine, peftilence, what wofull havock have they made in the World? I could fhow you very wide breaches that these have made wherefoever they have come;I could tell you out of Fofephus of fo many fewes flaughtered at Hierufalem & the bordering parts, as you would wonder the World should yield fo many men, I could tell you of Eighteen hundred thousand in one Year fwept away (as it is faid) in one City, Cairo, with the peftilence; what need I travell fo far off when we have fo many and miserable inftances nearer home; Here in England, as our Florilegus or Matthew of Westminster tells us, in the Year 665. there was fo great a mortality that men run up by troups to the rocks, and caft themselves into the Sea. Do but look back, and recollect those bills of death which in our two laft heavy vifitations aftonifhed the preffe ; Do but look about at both Germanies and their bordering neighbourhood, and fee what gaps the fword hath made in thofe yet bleeding territories: Oh the wofull breaches that have followed thefe late Earth-quakes of Chriftendome; the very examples whereof one would think should be enough to teach us both fear and thankfulnesse; when the Ifraelites round about faw Corah and his company devoured of the Earth, they run away at the cry of them, and said left the Earth Swallow us up alfo.

I cannot blame them, they had reafon; the fame jawes of the Earth might have yawned wider, and taken them in too. So let us do (Honourable and beloved) yea why fhould not the care of

our own fafety prevail fo far with us, as to force us, fince we see the lamentable breaches that are made in our neighbour Nations, to run away trembling from this gulf of Gods deferved judgments; and fhall I tell you how we may run away to purpofe? Run away beforehand from those fins which have drawn down thefe judgments on them, and will otherwise do the like upon us; fo fhall we be fure to escape the avenging hand of God, who alone it is that moves the earth, and makes thefe breaches; which is the third head of our difcourfe; Thou haft made the earth to tremble,thou hast divided or broaken it. Who or what ever be the means, he is the author of these movings, of these breaches; as in nature, the immediate causes of an Earth quake are thofe Subterraneous heats which we mentioned, yet it is God the prime cause that fets them on work, in causing both them and their agency; fo ir is in these analogical motions; Men may be the immediate actors in them, but he that actuates the orders, over-rules thefe means, is God, to him must be afcribed these stirrings, thefe breakings: whether by a juft but efficacious permiffion, as fins, or by a juft immiffion as punishments. This is Gods claime, the prerogative of the King of Heaven, Is there any evill in the City and I have not done it? Surely none, except we will detract from his omnipotence, none against him, none without him, none but by him, his infinite power, juftice, wif dome, mercy, knowes when and how to fcourge one, to chastise a fecond, to warne a third, to humble a fourth, to obdure a fifth, to deftroy a fixt; fhortly, to break fome, and move all; Oh the infinite varieties, and inevitable certainties of Gods vengeance upon finfull Nations. Doth Ifraell walk with God, they are the miraculous pr cedent of favours to all ages and people: Do they fly off in Mutinics and Idolatrics, God hath plagues, fiery ferpents, mighty enemies to execute his wrath upon them. Doth Solomon hold right with his God? Never Kingdome fo flourished, in plenty and peace; Is his heart turned from the Lord God of Ifrael? ftraightwayes the Lord stirred up an adverfary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; and afK. 11. ter him, the wicked Son of Net at the Ephrathite,verf. 26. and which 9. v. 14. is worthy of fingular obfervation, when that rebell Jeroboam had

drawn away the ten Tribes of Ifrael from their allegiance to the Son of Solomon, and Rehoboam had gathered together an hundred and fourfcore then fand men of Judah and Benjamin to fight against the revolted

Ifraelites; the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God, Speak to: Rehoboam and fay; re fhall not go up nor fight against your brethren; for this thing is from me. Lo who it is that moves the Earth and divides it; we may look (as humane wisdome teacheth us to do) at the fecondary caufes; and finde them guilty of the publick evils; this mans illimitable ambition, that mans infatiable covetoufneffe; the cruel oppreffions of thefe great ones, the mutinous difpofitions of tho e inferiours; violence in one, in another Faction, but if we look nor at the first mover of all these lower wheels, we are but not feeing things afarr off; we do but as the Dog fnarle at the ftones, neglect the hand, we are like fome fond fpectators, that when they fee the puppets acting upon the ledge, think they move alone not knowing that there is an hand behind the curtain that stirs all their wires. Upon the fight we do well and wifely by all politick provifions to meet with or prevent all thofe peccant humours, which may occafion a publick diftemper; to curb the lawleffe infolence of fome, the feditious machinations of others, the extortious cruelties offome, the corrupt wrefting of justice in others: the giddineffe of fome, others quarrelfomeneffe; but when all is done if we do not make our peace with God, we do nothing; it is but a reckoning without our hoft, a remedy without ease: Oh then, in all either our fenfe or fear of evils, let us have our recourfe to that Almighty hand which ordereth all the events of Heaven and Earth, and work him by our true repentance to a gratious ceflation of vengeance; elfe what do we with all our endeavours, but as that fond man who wea ries himself lading out the channel with a fhallow dish, whiles the Spring runs full, and unchecked. Vain man, can he poffibly hope to fcoppet it out fo faft as it fills: let him take order with the well head from whence it iffues, if that be filled up, the channell dries alone: When the Paralytick was with much labour let down through the roof to our Saviours cure, what faid he Son thy fins be forgiven thee; Alas, the poor man came not for pardon, hec me for cure; but that great unfailing Phyfitian knew that he must begin. here; If the fins were gone, he knew the paify could not ftay behind them: If ever we think to be rid of judgments we mult begin whence they begin; He it is that can both ftrike and cafe, wound and heal again; which is the next and mult be for fear of your overtiring the laft fubject of our discourse; heal thou the fores or breaches thereof.

That

That great and ineffable name of God.confitting of four letters, which we now call Jehovah, no man knowes what it was or how pronounced; but being abridged to Jah, the Grecians have been wont to expreffe it by which fignifies to heal, the fenfe whereof is anfwered by that name which the Heathens gave him, Jupiter, as juvans pater. This healing then is a proper, kindly, and naturall act of God, whereas the other, as dividing, ftriking, wounding, commoving, are a it were forced upon him by men: Surely elfe, he that is eflentiall unity would not divide; he that is ftability it self, would not move, he that is falus ipfe, would not wound, he that is all mercy would not ftrike: we do as it were put this upon him, and therefore he cries out; why will ye die O houfe of Ifrael? but when we shall returne to our felves and him, and be once capable of mercy and cure, how doth he haften to our redreffe. The Son of righteoufnefs fhall arife with healing in his wings, Mal. 4. 2. Lo, here is healing for his act, and wings for his hafte. Thofe breaches which are made in the earth by the thaking of it are as fo many wounds, gafhes or fores in a vaft body, and both of thefe refemble thofe either divifions or calamities, which fall out in the bodies of Churches or States; the hand that made them muft, can, will only heal them. Heal thou the breaches; And how doth he heal them in matter of calamity? First, by removing the grounds of its Surely, the great and true fores of the Land, are the fins of the Land, which till it please him to heal by working us to a ferious repentance, in vain shall we complain of our breaches which follow them. These are is a

gu

women, a noysome fore and grievous, Rev. 16. 2. Not only in the Text. 28. Knees & Leggs,but in the very bowels & vitalleft parts,as Jeroboams was, 2 Chro.2 1. Wois me how full we are of thefe fores (Longæ pacis mala) we are; what an ulcerous body are we grown, like to that great pattern of mifery that was totus ulcus, all but one botch, I would not be querulous, but I muft fay fo; What fhall I fay of our blafphemies,prophaneffes, uncleaneffes, drunkenneffes, oppreffions, facriledges, lawleffe difobediences, contempt of Gods meffengeis, and all that rabble of hellish enormities, enough to fhame Heaven, and confound Earth. These are fores with a witneffe; Alas, thefe like to Davids, run, and ceafe not; they are befides their noyfomneffe fure and old fores. But yet stay my brethren we are not come to that paffe that Jehoram, was that

the