Well, but what hath God done ? God hath infatuate and overthrown their walls, and by weak means. Luther, a poor monk, with a trumpet of rams' horns, with his preaching and with his writing, you see how he shook the walls of Rome, how much they have lost within the last hundred years. The last age, the last century of years, they have lost a great part of this western part of the world, that they had in slavery before ; and how ? By weak means, as you heard, by the preaching of the gospel, by learning, and knowledge. It is no wonder that the devil hates knowledge and learning. As Luther saith well, ' He hates the quills of geese, because they are instruments to write against them' (fo). He hath a kingdom of darkness, and hell, and the pope is a king of darkness. Now when the light of know- ledge, the light of the word of God, the ordinance of God, when preaching came, these poor trumpets did shake the Church of Rome. As we see in England, the walls of Jericho fell down. By what means ? By a child, in a manner. King Edward the Sixth, and after by a woman ; * and if the word of God had gone on in like proportion in other places, popery had been lower than it is.
So we see then, that as high as they built, and as much as they fortified, though they be not wholly cast down, yet they are shaken, and that by weak means. Now the way to efiect this, that these walls may fall down more and more, it must be by the spiritual means that God will use. We must use the means that God hath appointed us, poor contemptible means, trumpets of rams' horns, the preaching of the word, the discovery of the truth ; and by this means we shall more and more gain upon them. And undoubtedly, let them but give free liberty to the preaching of the word in other countries, and we shall see them shortly as heretical, as they term it, even as London and England is. Such a power there is in God's ordi- nance, the Spirit of God accompanying it, that it carries all before it, it lays all flat, it beats all strongholds down before it.
What shall we do then ?
* Elizabetli.— G.
470 • THE EUIN OF MYSTICAL JEEICHO.
By faith use the means that God hath appointed. The weapons ap- pointed and sanctified by God, they are strong through God to beat down all strongholds. And take heed especially that we do not build up the walls of Jericho again, nor suffer them to build them. You know Joshua pronounceth a curse upon all that should build the walls of Jericho. He should lay the first stone in the death of his eldest son, and the last at the death of his younger ; and so, as we have it in the story of Hiel, it was made good. I beseech you, therefore, let every one of us in our place labour to ruinate these walls of Jericho, and take heed how we build them again, or suffer any to build them again.
Quest. What way have we to prevent their building, that the walls of Jericho be not built again ? They go about it what they can. "We see what course they take. They have all the art of hell to help them, lies and equivocations. How many kings and great ones have they at this day to support and help them, to keep them from falling ! They do all that they can to keep life now. How shall we prevent this, that they build not up the walls of this spiritual Jericho again ?
dns. 1. First of all, every one labour to do what they can in their callings, lilayistrates to execute the laws of the kingdom, which, as those say that are well acquainted with them, are very beneficial to the church of God. Therefore the magistrates in their place should do what appertains to them.
2. And so for ministers. The spiritual means whereby such heresies must be confounded, it is by the breath of the mouth of Christ; as it is 2 Thes. ii. 8, ' He shall consume him with the breath of his mouth.' For things are dissolved contrary to that way that they were raised at the first, and contrary to that way they were maintained. Popery, as it was raised, so it is maintained, by darkness, and blindness, and ignorance of the word of God and of divine truth. The way to hinder it, therefore, from being built again, is to lay open divine truths, and to plant the ministry. Every one must labour for this, to be faithful in their place and standing. St Paul saith, 2 Tim. iii. 9, ' They shall prevail no longer, because their madness shall be manifest.' How doth that follow ? The very manifestation of error hinders the prevailing of it. That is the way to hinder popery from prevailing, to manifest it by preaching, and writing, and such good means. For the demonstration of errors to be so is a refut- ing of them ; for who would willingly be deceived ? Therefore the laying open of the madness of popery, and the folly of their devices, it hinders their prevailing. No man willingly would have his soul led into error. Therefore let us lay their errors open in the ministry, and the grounds of them ; the danger of popery, how pernicious it is. When this is discovered in the ministry, men, as they love their own souls, will take heed. That is the way therefore to keep the walls of Jericho from being built, to set an able ministry everywhere, and to countenance them, and those that are God's captains to fight his battles against them.