And thus, without leading you about by chronologies and compu- tations (which yet have their use, well to count a number being wis- dom indeed), I have a little discovered unto you some rules whereby you may come to be acquainted with the work of God in the days wherein we live, and also what that work is; which is our first use. The next shall be for direction to guide you what you ought to do, when you know what is the work of your generation.
Use 2. Be exhorted to prepare to meet the Lord, to make his way straight : and this I would press distinctly, — (1.) As to your loersous ; (2.) As to your employments.
(].) As to your persons. Give the Lord Jesus a throne in your hearts, or it will not at all be to your advantage that he hath a throne and kingdom in the world. Perhaps you wiU see the plenty of it, but not taste one morsel. Take fii-st that which comes not by obser- vation,— that which is within you, which is " righteousness, and peivce, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Take it in its power, and you will be
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the better enabled to observe it coming in its glor}^ " Seek first this kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof, and all these things shall be added unto you/' Oh, that it were the will of God to put an end to all that pretended holiness, hypocritical humiliation, self- interested religion, that have been among us, whereby we have flat- tered God with our lips, whilst our hearts have been far from him ! Oh, that it might be the glory of this assembly, above all the assem- blies of the Avorld, that every ruler in it might be a sincere subject in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus ! Oh, that it might suffice that we have had in our parliament, and among our ministers, so much of the form and so httle of the power of godliness ; that we have called the world Christ, and lusts Christ, and self Christ, working indeed for them, when we pretended all for Christ ! Oh, that I could nourish this one contention in your honourable' assembly, that you might strive who should excel in setting up the Lord Jesus in your hearts !
You may be apt to think, that if you can cany on and compass your purposes, then all your enemies will be assuredly disappointed. Do but embrace the Lord Jesus in his kingly power in your bosoms, and " ipso facto " all your enemies are everlastingly disappointed. You are the grains which, in the sifting of the nation, have been kept from falling to the ground. Are you not the residue of all the chariots of England? Oh, that in you might appear the reality of the king- dom of the Lord Jesus, which hath been so long pretended by others ! — that sound righteousness, not a pharisaical, rigid, supercilious affec- tation, not a careless belief and comportment, the issue of novel fancies, might be found upon your spirits ! — that you may be thought meet to rejoice mth the Lord in his kingdom! Otherwise this day of the Lord which we have described, however desired and longed after, will be " darkness to you, and not light."
(2.) In reference to your great employments, whereunto the Lord hath called yon. And here I shall briefly hold out unto you one or two things.
[1.] That you would seriously consider why it is that the Lord shakes the heavens and the earth of the nations, — to what end this tendeth, and what is the cause thereof Is it not from hence, that he may revenge their opposition to the kingdom of his dear Son ? — that he may shake out of the midst of them all that antichristian mortar wherewith, from their first chaos, they have been cemented, that so the kingdoms of the earth may become the kingdoms of the Lord Jesus ? Is not the controversy of Zion pleaded with them ? Are not they called to an account for the transgression of that charge given to all potentates, " Touch not mine anointed?" And what is the aim of the Lord Jesus herein, whose mighty voice shakes them ? Is it not to frame and form them for the interest of his oato kingf-
278 THE SHAKING AND TRANSLATINQ
dom ? — that he may fulfil the word he hath spoken to Zion, " I will make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness?"
Consider, then, I pray, what you have in hand. Wait upon your King, the Lord Christ, to know his mind. If you lay any stone in the whole building that advanceth itself against his sceptre, he A\dll shake all again. Dig you never so deep, build you never so high, it shall be shaken. Nay, that there be no opposition will not suffice : — he hath given light enough to have all things framed for his own advantage. The time is come, yea, the full time is come, that it should be so ; and he expects it from you. Say not, in the first place, this or that suits the interest of England; but look what suits the interest of Christ, and assure yourselves that the true interest of any nation is wrapped up therein. More of this in the treatise annexed to my sermon of January 81.'