(2.) As to your employments.
(1.) As to your persons. Give the Lord Jesus a throne in your hearts, or it will not be at all to your advantage, that he hath a throne and kingdom in the world. Perhaps you will see the plenty of it, but not taste one morsel. Take first that which comes not by observation, that which is within you which is ' righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' Take it in its power, and you will be the better enabled to observe it coming in its glory. * 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 flattered 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 assemblies of the world, 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 little 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, thut if you can carry on, and compass your purposes, then all your enemies will be as-
OF HEAVEX AND EARTH. 377
suredly 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 kingdom of the Lord Jesus, which hath been so long pretended by others ! that sound righteousness, not a Pharisaical, rigid, supercilious affectation, 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 with the Lord in his kingdom! otherwise this day of the Lord which we have described, however de- sired and longed after, will be ' darkness to you, and not light.'
(2.) In reference to your great employments, whereunto the Lord hath called you. 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 king- doms 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 own kingdom? that he may fulfil the word he hath spoken to Zion, * I will make thine 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 will 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 advan-
378 THE SHAKING AND TRANSLATING
tage. 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 Clirist ; 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 Jan. 31.
[2.] Be encouraged under all those perplexities and troubles, which you are, or may be wrapped in. Lift up the hands that hang down, and let the feeble knees be strengthened : ' It is but yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry.' The more you are for Christ, the more enemies you shall be sure to have; but the Lamb shall overcome. He is come to revenge the blood of his slain upon this generation, and to free the residue from •the jaws of the terrible. He is our rock, and his work is perfect: what he hath begun, faster or slower, he will surely accomplish. It is a thing of the most imaginable indiffer- -ency, whether any of our particular persons behold these things here below or not. If otherwise, we shall for the present have * rest with him, and stand in our lot at the end of the days :' but for the work itself, 'the decree is gone forth,' and it shall not be recalled : receive strength and re- freshment in the Lord.