those that called and counted him a murderer and a destroyer, though he was their saviour and deliverer. Elisha provided a table for them that had provided a grave for him. Though the Scots had provided graves for you, yet, Honoured Senators, shew bowels of mercy to them, so far as it will stand with the duty of your places, and with the safety of this commonwealth. Though Eome was most unthankful to Camillus for his conquest of the Veii, yet he buried that wrong, and freed it the second time from the Gauls. Thrasybulus, after his retui n to Athens, from whence he was banished by tyrants, he, with the aid of Lysander, having expelled thirty tyrants out of Athens, called those home that they had banished, and made a law that no man should remember any former injuries done unto him.
Fourthly, Oh that you may rule more for God, and govern more for God ! God is all ear to hear, all hand to punish, all power to protect, all wisdom to direct, all goodness to relieve — he is omnia sujjer omnia — and all grace to pardon. Is not God optimum, maximum f — the best, and the greatest. He is the horn of plenty, and the ocean of beauty, without the least spot of injustice. Oh that you may govern so sweetly and so prudently, that you may be termed delicice humani generis — The delight of mankind, Notliing is more difhcult than to rule for God, nor nothing is more excellent than to rule for God. Nil difficilius est quam bene imperare, was Dioclesian's motto. He that rules, but not for God, has his reward here ; but he that rules for God shall have a glorious reward at last. ' Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,' Mat. xxv. 21 : a joy too big to enter into us ; we must enter into it; a joy more meet for the Lord than the servant; and yet the faithful servant shall have the honour and the happiness to enter into it — even into thy Master's joy.
Fifthly, Oh stand constantly upon your watch to avoid evil ! Watch to do good, watch to discover your enemies, watch to prevent your enemies, watch to suppress your enemies, watch to countenance and watch to encourage all those that hold to Christ the head, and that walk according to the law of the new creature ; watch to discoun- tenance and watch to suppress profaneness and wickedness, watch to heal the wounded, and watch to bind up the broken, and watch to relieve the oppressed, and watch to raise the dejected ; watch to do good to all them that are good, and watch to be good among them that are bad, and watch to do good even to them that are bad. Oh watch your eyes that they behold no vanity, and watch your ears that they hearken not to unjust and unrighteous causes, and watch your hands that they touch not the golden wedge, and watch your lives that they cause not God's laws and your own to be slighted and despised ; but, above all, watch your souls, that in the day of Christ they may be saved. The soul is a jewel more worth than heaven. Oh watch it ! If that be lost, you are eternally lost ; if that be lost, all is lost. Of all loss, the loss of the soul is the most incomparable, irreparable, and irrecoverable loss. It is the greatest folly in the world to watch to save a state, and not to watch to save your souls. John the Third, king of Portugal, was advised by one, every day to spend a quarter of an hour's time in meditating upon that scripture. Mat. xvi. 26, ' What shall it profit a man to gain the world, and lose his soul ? or what shall
370 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
a man give in exchange for his soul?' It is and shall be my desire and prayer, that you may watch to save the state, but above all, that you may watch to save your souls, i
Honoured Senators, 1 had other desires to have breathed out before you; but having made too bold, I fear, with your patience, I shall send them up to heaven, ho])ing and waiting for a comfortable answer from thence. I humbly crave your Honours, and all others that shall read this sermon, to cast a covering of love- over all tlie mistakes of the printer ; I having not the least time to wait upon the press to correct what haply may be found amiss. Now, honoured worthies, that you may do gloriously in your generation, that you may ])rize Christ above all, and live in him as in your all, and triumph through him over all enemies within you and without you, and eternally reign with Christ after all, is and shall be the earnest desire and prayer of him who is, honoured and worthy Senators, your most humble and devout servant in all humble service for Christ,
^ Lseti s^mus, non scciiri,'&c. — Bernard. He that feasts his boJy and starves his sou is like him that feasts his slave and starves his wife, saith Epliraem Syrus.
PEEACHED BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND ON THEIR LATE DAY OF THANKSGIVING FOR THEIR VICTORY OVER THE SCOTS.
/ loill send Mm against an hypocritical nation; and against the peojjle of my wrath loill I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire in the street. — Isa. X. 6.
I WILL not spend that short time that is left me about that which will turn least to your souls' account, therefore I will very briefly open the words of my text : ' I will send thee against an hypocritical nation.' The word that is rendered ' hypocritical' signifies to pollute, or defile. Of all sins, the sin of hypocrisy is the most defiling sin. It defiles men's prayers and praises ; it defiles all duties and ordinances. ' I will give him in charge, to take the spoil and to take the prey.' The word that is rendered ' charge ' signifies to give command with autho- rity and power, to bind, and to tread them down ' like the mire of the streets,' or rather, as the Hebrew has it, 'to lay there a-treading.'
The main thing the words hold forth is this, — That of all sorts of sinners God loill he most severe in his judgments against hypocrites. Or thus : Hypocrites are the proper objects of God's ivrath, and such as he will most severely punish.
I shall, in the handling of this point, briefly point out to you those scriptures that speak out this truth, and then open it to you. The scriptures that speak out this truth are these. Job xv. 34 ; Isa. xxxiii. 14, and ix. 17 ; Mat. xxiii., and xxiv. 51.
For the opening of the point, I shall endeavour these two things : First, to give you the reasons of God's severity against hypocrites ; and secondly, discover to you who these hypocrites be that are the objects of God's wrath ; and thirdly, give you the uses of the point, which is the main thing I intend.
1. Now, first, for the reasons of the point, I shall give you only these six : —
Reason 1. First, Because of all sorts of sinners, hypocrites are most dangerous to human society. There are no sorts of sinners upon earth so dangerous to human society as hypocrites are : Job xxxiv.
372 THE HYPOCRITE [ISA. X. 6.