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wicked thing amongst us, to drive God out of our camp; no accurfed thing, that may provoke him to deliver us into the hands of our enemies. It was a particular law given by God to the Jews, Deut. xxiii. 9. When the hoft goeth forth against thine enemy, then keep thy felf from every wicked thing; then, that is, more efpecially at fuch a

time.

And this is a neceffary caution, not only to those who are perfonally engaged in the war, that, by the favour of God, they may have their heads covered in the day of battle, or, if God fhall fuffer them to fall by the hand of the enemy, that, having made their peace beforehand with him, they may not only have the comfort of a good caufe, but of a good confcience, void of offence towards God and men.

But this caution likewise concerns those who are interested in the fuccefs and the event of the war; as we all are, not only in regard of our lives and estates, but of that which ought to be much dearer to us, our religion, and the freedom of our confciences; which are now every whit as much at ftake as our civil interefts and liberties. And therefore, as we tender any, or all of thefe, we should be very careful to keep ourfelves from every wicked thing; that they who fight for us, may not, for our fins, and for our fakes, turn their backs in the day of battle, and fall by the fword of the enemy.

2. From hence we may likewife learn, fo to use the means, as ftill to depend upon God; who can, as he pleafes, blefs the counfels and endeavours of men, or blaft them, and make them of none effect. For as God hath promised nothing, but to a wife and diligent ufe of means; fo all our prudence, and industry, and most careful preparations, may mifcarry, if he do not favour our defign: for without him, nothing is wife, nothing is ftrong, nothing is able to reach and attain its end.

We should indeed ufe the means as vigorously, as if God did nothing; and when we have done fo, we should depend upon God for the fuccefs of thofe means, as if we ourselves had done nothing, but did expect all from his favour and bleffing: for, when all is done, we are only fafe under his protection, and fure of fuccefs from his bleffing.

For

1

For whatever vain and foolish men may fay in their hearts, there is, there is a God, that made the world, and administers the affairs of it with great wisdom and goodnefs; else how came any of us into being, or what do we here? Did we not most affuredly believe, that there is a God, that governs the world, and fuperintends human affairs; the first wifh of a wife man would be, to, fteal out of being if he could; and that the fame chance of neceffity that brought him into the world, would take the first opportunity to carry him out. For to be every moment liable to present, and great, and certain evils; and to have no fecurity against the continuance of them, or the return of the fame or worfe evils; nor to have any affurance of a better and more durable state of reft and happiness hereafter, is in truth fo very melancholy a meditation, that I do not know any confideration in the world that is of force and power enough to fupport the mind of man under it: and were there not in the world a being that is wifer, and better, and more powerful than ourselves, and that keeps things from running into endless confufion and diforder; a being that loves us, and takes care of us, and that will certainly confi der and reward all the good that we do, and all the evil that we fuffer upon his account, I do not fee what reafon any man could have to take any comfort and joy in being, or to wifh the continuance of it for one moment.

3. and lastly, The confideration of what hath been faid upon this argument, fhould keep us from being too fanguine and confident of the most likely designs and undertakings; because thefe do not always anfwer the probability of fecond caufes or means; and never lefs, than when we do with the greatest confidence rely upon them when we promife moft to ourselves from them, then are they moft likely to deceive us. They are, as the Prophet compares them, like a broken reed, which a man may walk with in his hand, whilft he lays no great ftrefs upon it; but if he truft to it, and lean his whole weight on it, it will not only fail him, but even pierce him through.

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And we cannot do a greater prejudice to our affairs, when they are in the most hopeful and likely condition to fucceed and do well, than to fhut God and his provi

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dence out of our counfels and confideration. When we pass God by, and take no notice of him, but will rely upon our own wisdom and strength, we provoke him to leave us in the hands of our own counfel, and to let us fee what weak and foolish creatures we are: and a man is never in greater danger of drowning, than when he clafps his arms closest about himself: befides that God loves to refift the felf-confident and prefumptuous, and to fcatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

And as in all our concernments, we ought to have a great regard to God, the fupreme difpofer of all things, and earnestly to feek his favour and blessing upon all our undertakings; fo more especially in the affairs of war; in which the providence of God is pleafed many times in a very peculiar manner to interpofe and interest itself. And there is great reason to think he does fo; because all war is, as it were, an appeal to God, and a reference of those causes to the decifion of his providence, which, through the pride, and injustice, and perverse passions of men, can receive no other determination.

And here God loves to fhew himself, and in an eminent manner to take part with right and justice against those mighty oppreffors of the earth, who, like an overflowing flood, would bear down all before them. In this cafe, the providence of God is fometimes pleased to give a remarkable check to great power and violence, and to one that vainly gives out himself not unequal to the whole world, by very weak and contemptible means; and, as the Apostle elegantly expreffeth it, by the things which are not, to bring to nought the things that are and to fay to him, as God once did to the proud King of Affyria, Whom haft thou reproached and blafphemed? and against whom haft thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the holy One of Ifrael. Haft thou not heard long ago, that I have done it, and of antient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldst be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of fmall power, they were difmayed and confounded, &c. But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult is come up into mine ears s therefore

therefore will I put my hook in thy nofe, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou cameft. The zeal of the Lord of hofts fhall do this, If. xxxvii. 23. 26. 27. 28. 29. 32.

But more efpecially, in vindication of his oppreffed truth and religion, and in the great and fignal deliverances of his church and people, God is wont to take the conduct of affairs into his own hands, and not to proceed by human rules and meafurcs. He then bids fecond caufes to ftand by, that his own arm may be feen, and his falvation may appear. He raiseth the fpirits of men above their natural pitch, and giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might, he increafeth ftrength, as the Prophet expreffeth it.

Thus hath the providence of God very vifibly appeared in our late deliverance; in fuch a manner, as I know not whether he ever did for any other nation, except the people of Ifrael, when he delivered them from the houfe of bondage, by fo mighty a hand and fo outstretched an arm. And yet too many among us, I fpeak it this day to our fhame, do not feem to have the least sense of this great deliverance, or of the hand of God which was fo vifible in it; but, like the children of Ifrael, when they were brought out of Egypt, we are all full of murmurings and difcontent against God the author, and his fervant the happy instrument under God of this our deliverance. What the Prophet fays of that people, may I fear be too juftly applied to us, If. xxvi. 10. 11. Let favour be fhewn to the wicked, yet will he not learn righ teoufnefs in the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. Lord, when thine hand is lifted up, they will not fee: but they fhall fee, and be ashamed. And I hope I may add that which follows in the next verfe, Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also haft wrought all our works for us.

What God hath already done for our deliverance is, I hope, an earnest that he will carry it on to a perfect peace and fettlement; and this notwithstanding our high provocations, and horrible ingratitude to the God of our life, and of our falvation.

And

And whenever the providence of God thinks fit thus to interpofe in human affairs, the race is not to the fwift, nor the battle to the frong. For which reafon, their Majefties, in their great piety and wisdom, and from a juft fenfe of the providence of almighty God, which rules in the kingdoms of men, have thought fit to fet apart this day for folemn repentance and humiliation; that the many and heinous fins, which we in this nation have been, and still are guilty of, and which are, of all other, our greatest and most dangerous enemies, may not feparate between God and us, and hinder good things from us, and cover us with confufion in the day of our danger and diftrefs: and likewife earneftly to implore the favour and bleffing of almighty God upon their Majefties forces and preparations by fea and land; and more particularly, for the prefervation of his Majefty's facred perfon, upon whom fo much depends, and who is contented again to hazard himself to fave us.

To conclude: There is no fuch way to engage the providence of God for us, as by real repentance and reformation; and by doing all we can, in our feveral places, from the higheft to the loweft, by the provifion of wife and effectual laws for the difcountenancing and fuppreffing of profanenefs and vice, and by the careful and due execution of them, and by the more kindly and powerful influence of a good example, to retrieve the ancient piety and virtue of the nation. For, without this, whatever we may think of the firmness of our prefent fettlement, we cannot long be upon good terms with almighty God, upon whofe favour depends the profperity and stability of the prefent and future times.

I have but one thing more to mind you of; and that is, to ftir up your charity towards the poor; which is likewise a great part of the duty of this day, and which ought always to accompany our prayers and faftings. Thy prayers and thine alms (faith the angel to Cornelius) are come up before God: and therefore, if we defire that our prayers fhould reach heaven, and receive a gracious anfwer from God, we must send up our alms along with them.

And instead of all other arguments to this purpose, Į shall only recite to you the plain and perfuafive words

of

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