Now this shall not be to the opposition which you do, and shall yet farther meet withal ; but as to the causes, real or pretended, which are held forth as the bottom of that contradiction, wherewith on every side you are encompassed.
The things in reference whereunto your procedence is laden with such criminations, as these sad days of recompense have found to be comets portending no less than blood, are first civil, then religious.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. clxi
For the first, as their being beyond the bounds of my calling- gives them sanctuary from being called forth to my consideration ; so neither have I the least thoughts with Absalom of a more orderly carrying on of affairs, might my desires have any influence into their disposal. Waiting at the throne of grace, that those whom God hath intrusted with, and enabled for, the transaction of these things, may be directed and supported in their employment, is the utmost of my undertaking herein.
For the other, or religious things, the general in- terest I have in them as a Christian being improved by the superadded title of a minister of the gospel (though unworthy the one name, and the other), gives me not only such boldness as accrueth from enjoyed favour, but also such a right as will support me to plead con- cerning them, before the most impartial judicature.
And this 1 shall do (as I said before), merely in re- ference to those criminations, which are laid by con- jectural presumptions on your honourable assembly, and made a cause of much of that opposition and con- tradiction you meet withal. Now in particular, it is the toleration of all religions, or invented ways of wor- ship, wherein your constitutions are confidently ante- dated in many places of the nation, the thing itself withal being held out as the most enormous apprehen- sion and desperate endeavour, for the destruction of truth and godliness, that ever entered the thoughts of men professing the one and the other. The contest hereabout being ' adhuc sub judice,' and there being no doubt but that the whole matter, commonly phrased as above, hath (like other things) sinful and dangerous extremes : I deemed it not amiss to endeavour the pouring a little cold water upon the common flames, which are kindled in the breasts of men about this thing. And who knows whether the words of a weak nothing may not, by the power of the fountain of beings, give
VOL. XV, M
elxil THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
some light into the determination and establishment of a thing of so great concernment and consequence, as this is generally conceived to be ? What is in this my weak undertaking of the Lord, I shall beg of him that it may be received ; what is of myself, I beg of you that it may be pardoned. That God Almighty would give you to prove all things that come unto you in his way, and to hold fast that which is good, granting you un- conquerable assistance, in constant perseverance, is the prayer of,
Your devoted Servant
In our dearest Lord,
John Owen.
Cogge shall, Feb. 28.
RIGHTEOUS ZEAL ENCOURAGED, Scc. 163
SERMON III.
Let them return to thee, but return not thou unto them. And I tvill make thee itnto this people a fenced brazen u-all, and they shall Jight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee : for I am with thee to save thee, and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. — Jer. xv. 19, 20.
The words of my text having a full dependance upon, and flowing out from, the main subject matter of the whole chap- ter, I must of necessity take a view thereof, and hold out unto you the mind of God contained therein, before I enter upon the part thereof cliiefly intended. And this I shall do with very brief observations, that I may not anticipate my- self from a full opening and application of the words of my text.
And this the rather are my thoughts led unto, because the whole transaction of things between the Lord and a stubbornly sinful nation, exceedingly accommodated to the carrying on of the controversy he is now pleading with that wherein we live, is set out (as we say) to the life therein^
Of the whole chapter, there be these five parts :
First, The denunciation of fearful wasting, destroying judgments against Judah and Jerusalem, ver. 3. and so on to ver. 10.
Secondly, The procuring deserving cause of these over- whelming calamities, ver. 4. and 6.
Thirdly, The inevitableness of those judgments, and the inexorableness of the Lord, as to the accomplishment of all the evils denounced, ver. 1.
Fourthly, The state and condition of the prophet, with the frame and deportment of his spirit, under those bitter dispensations of providence, ver. 10. and 15 — 18.
Fifthly, The answer and appearance of God unto him upon the making out of his complaint, ver. 11 — 14. and 19—21.
My text lieth in the last part, but yet with such depend- ance on the former, as enforceth to a consideration of them.
First, There is the denunciation of fearful wasting, de- stroying judgments to sinful Jerusalem, ver. 2. and so on- wards, with some interposed ejaculations, concerning; her in- evitable ruin, as ver. 5, 6.