because God's own heart is towards them, and his love upon them; as the woman of Tekoa's petition for Absalom was easily granted by David, because his heart was towards him before. (2 Sam. xiii. 39, and xiv. 1, 2)

Lastly, The Lord hath promised his holy Spirit of fear, love, grace, adoption unto his people; by the help of which they are preserved from the dangers, whereunto of themselves they are exposed. (Ezek. xxxvi. 27. Isa. lix. 21) Upon these and such like grounds it appeareth, that because God is righteous and faithful in his covenant, therefore we remain escaped.

And if it be here objected, that the promises are usually set forth as conditional, "the Lord is with you while ye be with him;" and "if you seek him, he will be found of you: but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you;" (2 Chron. xv. 2) "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land" (Isa. i. 19) "He that believeth, shall be saved;" (Mark xvi. 16. Joh. iii. 16) "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish;" (Luke xiii. 3) We answer, 1. Promises are, in some places, made absolutely, which, in others, are conditionally expressed as Heb. xiii. "I will not leave thee nor forsake thee:" Jer. xxxii. 39. "I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever; I will give them a heart to know me, they shall be my people, I will be their God, they shall return unto me with their whole heart;" (Jer. xxiv. 7) "If ye will obey my voice and keep my covenant," is a condition in one place, Exod. xix. 5: a free promise in another, "ye shall keep my judgements, and do them," Ezek. xxxvi. 27. "The mercy of the Lord is towards them that fear him," Psal. ciii. 11. There the fear of God is a condition." I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me," Jer. xxxii. 39; there it is a free promise.

2. The Lord doth not only give us good things under a condition, but doth give the condition itself to his people. (Compare Isa. i. 19. with Phil. ii. 12. Acts x. 43. with Phil. i. 29. Ephes. ii. 8)

3. Precepts and conditions are used as the Vehicula' of the grace promised. Of ourselves, we can do nothing of those duties unto which promises are annexed; for all our suffi

ciency is of God, who worketh all our works for us. (2 Cor. iii. 5) But the precepts of the word are the usual instruments, by which he worketh those things in us, which he requireth of us. (Rom. x. 17)

4. Conditional propositions do not imply, that our performances work upon God to do what he had said; as if the performance of duty were only ours, and then the performance of promise alone his; but they imitate the order and connexion, which the Lord hath set amongst his own gifts; some whereof he hath appointed to be antecedent dispositions and preparations towards others consequent upon them. "He that believeth, shall be saved:" this is a conditional promise: faith the condition, salvation the promise. But we may not so understand it, as if faith were only ours, and salvation alone his but faith is one gift of God, antecedent to salvation, which is another gift of God.

Ver. 1. Now then, since the Lord is righteous in all the ways of his judgements and secret providences, we must for ever lay our hands on our mouths, and put our mouths in the dust, and beware of murmuring and repining against him, as if his ways were not equal towards us. "Behold he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, what dost thou?" (Job ix. 12) We may, in our prayers, plead with God about his judgements as holy men have; (Jer. xii. 1. Habak. i. 2-4-13) but we may not quarrel at them, nor murmur against them.

2. When the Lord doth strangely vary his providences towards a people, and worketh unusual changes and alterations among them; stirreth up some helps, and then layeth them by; calleth forth others, and quickly revoketh them; fitteth men for great actions, and in the midst of those actions cutteth them off;-our work here is not to censure either the agent, or the instruments, to charge the dealings of God either as unrighteous or as unreasonable: but to reflect upon ourselves, and learn our unstedfastness in God's covenant, by his diversifying of providences towards us. 1. Sometimes. we over-dote upon instruments, and deify them, as if God had no way to help us but one. And then God breaks that staff, when we lean too hard upon it, to force us to lean upon his name again. 2. Sometimes we undervalue them, and will not understand that God is doing us good by them, (as it is

said of Moses, Acts vii. 25) and then God suspendeth his work, which he was about to do. 3. Sometimes the hearts of the people are unprepared for mercies; and then God doth not honour his instruments with settling them. Jehoshaphat was a good king; yet he did not work a perfect reformation; the high places were not taken away; and this the reason, "the people had not as yet prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers." (2 Chron. xx. 32, 33) 4. Sometimes the guilt of old sins does remain uncleansed away, as it is said of the iniquity of Baal-Peor; (Josh. xxii. 17) and in this case instruments are too weak to divert wrath. (2 Kings xxiii. 25, 26) Never such a reformation as Josiah made about the eighteenth year of his reign; and yet because the people returned but feignedly, (Jer. iii. 10) within a few years after, they were carried into captivity. Our Saviour was very near his sufferings, when they cried Hosannah' before him. The sun often shews biggest, and shines brightest, when it is ready to set. The candle blazeth most, when it is in the socket. Many times dying men, and it may be so with dying churches, have a lightning before death.

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I speak not this to bode ill unto the land of my nativity. If any say, It shall not be so, but we shall still have peace, and truth, and holiness flourish,-I will cheerfully say as the prophet did, (Jer. xxviii. 6) "Amen:" The Lord do so for this land but withal, "happy is the man that feareth always." (Prov. xxviii. 14) The sins of the people may weaken the hands of the best instruments, and make them unable to help us. It is noted as a cause of wickedness that men have no changes; (Psalm lv. 19. Jer. xlviii. 11) but to be tossed and emptied, and exercised with frequent alterations, and our scent to abide in us still,-wanton under mercies,— sullen under judgements,-after all our physic, to relapse,― after all that is come upon us, again to break the commandments; this is a sad symptom, a great aggravation of our sin, and justification of God's righteousness in all his dealings with us.

Again, since the Lord is the God of his people, and righteous to them in a way of mercy and fidelity, we learn to acknowledge it a great mercy, and to glorify God for it, that we" remain yet escaped:" that we may set up an Eben-Ezer, and say,Thus far hath the Lord helped us."

Many considerations may set on the sense of this mercy upon our hearts. 1. The many sins which remain amongst us, even in the Israel of God: sad divisions, sharp animosities, perverse opinions, vanity, luxury; severe censurings, loose walking, worldly-mindedness, &c. 2. The many shakings, and universal sufferings, whereby the Lord hath made it appear, that his quarrel was against all orders of men; that the disease was all over; (Isa. i. 6. Jer. v. 1-5) so that none can blame others, but every one acknowledge the plague of his own heart; and say, as David did, "I confess my sin, and the sin of my people." (Dan. ix. 20) Now various shakings and concussions in a nation use to be sore presages of greater judgements; as we may see in God's dealing with the ten tribes before their dissolution. What shakings have been amongst us, we need not recount; by changes at home, by differences abroad; shakings on the land, and shakings on the sea; shakings at hand, and shakings afar off; shakings by war, and shakings by sicknesses; shakings in our minds by divided opinions, shakings in our hearts by divided affections, shakings in our estates by divided interests. And whether these shakings have a tendency to dissolution, we know not; we are not ignorant of the rage, which hath been upon many of our protestant brethren in other parts of christendom;-but surely this consideration may lead us both to glorify God, that we "remain yet escaped," and to humble ourselves under the fear of his further wrath.

3. The powerful preaching which hath been in the land, which where it doth not kindly work, where it is not honourably entertained, doth exceedingly ripen judgements, and make white for the sickle: it is compared to the shining of the sun, (2 Cor. iv. 6. 2 Pet. i. 19) and to showers of rain, (Deut. xxxii.) which are intended for the bringing forth of salvation, and springing up to righteousness; (Isai. xlv. 8) but if they fall upon sins, do hasten their maturity, and make them nigh unto cursing. (Heb. vi. 7, 8) The sins of the church are summer-fruits: they ripen faster than the sins of the world. The sins of the Amorites were four hundred years a ripening; (Gen. xv. 16) the sins of Israel in the wilderness, forty years. (Psalm xcv. 10) God's patience towards the ten tribes, after their revolt, was but two hundred and sixty years. From the sins of Manasseh to the

captivity, brought upon Judah for those sins, little more than one hundred years. As, at Jericho, the sounding of the trumpet seven times did lead in the falling of the wall; so the long sounding of the word in the ears of disobedient people, is a shrewd presage of ensuing ruin.

These considerations laid together, as they justly awaken us to humiliation, so are they evidences of God's goodness towards us, in that such a people "remain yet escaped; escaped from the bondage of popery, from the flames of persecution; from the Spanish Armada, from the vault of powder; from troubles in the State, from the terror of a bloody war, from renewed attempts of trouble and danger; escaped from a vote, extinguishing and abolishing the whole maintenance of the ministry, the consequences whereof could not but have beeu unutterably miserable. Any one of these evils, God might have sharpened into a destruction: and yet after all this, "righteous art thou, O Lord; for we remain yet escaped."

2. It reproveth our unbelief, if consulting with flesh and blood, betaking ourselves to carnal shifts in time of danger, having a faithful covenant, and a righteous God to lay hold upon, whose alone fidelity is the ground of his people's safety, who knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation. (2 Pet. ij. 9) This was the sin of Ahaz, in sending to the Assyrian to help him, when God offered him a sign to confirm his trust in him. (Isai. vii. 11, 12. 2 Chron. xxviii. 19) The Christians, in the church of Corinth, being afraid to displease their heathen friends, and endanger themselves, would sit with them at the idol's table, and eat at their tables meat offered to idols: the apostle dissuadeth them from using this carnal shift to decline danger; bids them "flee from idolatry," lest that which they, in carnal wisdom, might judge the means of their standing, should prove the occasion of their fall; and directeth them to trust for safety in a faithful God, who would not suffer them to be tempted above what they were able, but would with the temptation make a way to escape, that they might be able to bear it. (1 Cor. x. 13, 14)

3. In fears therefore and dangers, we should be encouraged by these two arguments. 1. The righteousness of God. 2. Our own present remaining escaped; faith in, and expe