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We have tafted of this rod, for how did God crown the former year with plenty, and how unthankfully was it entertained of many? what complaint did we hear of the cheap iefs of Corn, not able to yield the rackt rents of their ground to the labouring husbandmen, to fatisfie the greedy Landlord.

And God heard from heaven, how heavy his plentifull hand was to many, and he hath fince shut it up,and turned our plenty into dearth, and now he heareth another cry of the poor: their labours wil fcarce give them bread to eat.

Yet another woe: the cattell fail both in the fields and in the ftals, fat and lean beafts; the enemy destroyeth them, and the barrenness of the land affordeth them no food: when God gave man Lordship over all fheep, and Oxen, and over all the beafts of the field; he did not devolve his prerogative dominion upon man, but referved his royall fupremacy over them, and a power of refumption, that if man neglected his fervice, these creatures in their kinds fhould fail him.

You behold in this whole paffage a miferable face of a land with which God is fallen out, the very foil is accurfed for the peoples fakes, the people either perifh by the fword, or go into captivity, or tarrie to ferve the enemy in the land.

The full Cities, the glorious buildings therein, either demolifht and laid even with the ground, or inhabited by ftran

gers

You have heard before, what fins have brought thefe evils upon this pleasant land.

Corruption in common converfation, between man and

man.

Corruption in religion and the fervice of God."

Corruption adminiftration of Juftice.

And fo free as our land is from thefe fins, fo far are these judgments off from us.

But if either the prefent times or times to come, are or fhalf be guilty of these heinous fins, I think we may boldly fay, that God is holy now as ever he was, to hate them, and the committers of them, and as wife as ever he was to difcern them,

and

and as just as ever he was to punish them.

We know that these fins carried Gods people into a ftrange land, where they had not the heart to fing the fongs of the Lord.

God best knows why, but we see a great part of the Protestant reformed Church, at this time bleeding under the fword, or flying from the hand, or standing upon their guard against the power of ftrong oppofition, and by the mercy of God, we are lookers on, and their fmart is not yet fhared amongst us; but if Canaan were thus fmitten both in the foil, and fruit, and beasts thereof, and most,in the inhabitants of it.

If our brethren, profeffours, with us of the famé Religion, do in our dayes fuffer fo many vexations, we had need study holineffe of life, and put more fire into our zeal of Religion, and make the ballance of Juftice even, left we drink of the fame cup of bitternesse.

The jews returned again to their land from their captivity, they had the face of it renewed, they had their Temple rebuilt, Religion re-planted, and then they relapfed to their former fins, and in Chrifts time: Chrift was bound, and Barrabas was fet loose.

And not long after, the Jews went into a difperfion, wherein they have continued almoft, one thousand fix hundred years.

God be mercifull to us, to preferve us from their fins and from their punishments, that our trees may bring forth their bloffoms, and their fruits, in their feafons, that our land may bring forth encreafe, that our Oxen may be ftrong to labour, that there be no invafion, no leading into captivity, and no complaining in our streets. Amen, Amen.

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Hab.3.18. Verfe 18 Yet will I rejoyce in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my faluation.

Phil.4.4.

Pfal. 13.5.

Pfal.18.1,

19. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like Hinds feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places. To the chief finger upon my ftringed Instruments.

His is the laft part of this Pfalme, it endeth in confolati

Ton, notwithstanding all these afflictions of the Church

threatned, though they fhall fall upon it, and it must needs fuffer this fharp Vifitation. Yet will I rejoyce in the Lord. It is the Apoftles counfell, Rejoyce in the Lord alwayes: and here the Church doth fo: the Apoftle refumeth it again, I say rejoyce: and the Church here resumeth it. I will joy in the God of my falvation fhewing the reafon and ground of her joy, which is Gods falvation. My heart shall rejoyce in thy falvation. The Lord God is my strength.]they are the words of David, and he is more full and Rhetoricall in the expreffure thereof. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.

2. The Lord is my rock, and my fortreffe, my deliverer, my God, my Strength, in whom I will trust,my buckler, and the horn of my falva tion, my high tower.

Pfal. 18.33.

David fpeaks like one in love with God, for he doth adorn him with confeffion of praife, and his mouth is filled with the praife of the Lord, which he expreffeth in this exuberancy and redundance of holy Oratory: the Church addeth.

He will make my feet like hinds feet.] this alfo is borrowed of David, in the fame Pfalme.

He maketh my feet like hinds feet, and fetteth me upon my high places: that is, he doth give fwiftneffe and speed to his Church; as St. Auguftine interpreteth it, tranfcendendo fpinofa, & ambrofa implicamenta hujus faculi: paffing lightly through the thornie and fhadie incumberances of this world. He will make me walk, upon my high places.

David faith: he fetteth me upon my high places."

For, confider David, as he then was, when he compofed

this Pfalm, it was at the time when God had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. For then God fet his feet on high places, fetting his Kingdome, and establishing him in the place of Saul.

The Church here hoping to obtein of God the like deliverance by faith, apprehendeth the fame mercy and favour of God, that God will again reftore them to their high places, and establish them in the fame: that is, in the free and undifturbed poffeffion of their own land, and the liberties thereof. Ifaiah 58.14. Thofe are called high places, because God was Deut.32. exalted in them, in the profeffion of Religion, and God exal- 13. ted them above all other places of the world by his fpeciall favour, as it is faid, Non fecit taliter.

St. Augustine goeth higher in the myfticall furveigh of these words, and looketh up to the future glory of the Church, faying,

Super Coeleftem habitationem figet intentionem meam, ut impleat in omnem plenitudinem Dei.

The laft words of the Pfalm are a dedication thereof, to the ufe of the Church, dedicating it to the chief finger, to be fitted to the Church mufique, that it may be fung in the congregation.

The words are taken from Davids Pfalmes, and applyed to Doct.1. this perticular occafion of the Church. From whence we are taught, what use we may make of Davids Pfalms in our frequent reading and meditation of them.

Our Church hath divided the Pfalms into fo many equall portions for our reading, that in every thirty days, fuch as can read, may read over the whole book of Davids Pfalmes, and it is no great task for every one of us, fo to read them over privately in our houses: the benefit is great that will redound to them, that fhall do this, for this will our experience finde, that St. Auguftine long ago hath teftified of the book of Pfalms, that it is, Communis quidam bona doctrine thefaurus, a common ftore-houfe of good learning: it will inftruct the ignorant, it will draw on forward thofe that are incipients, it will perfect Ᏼ Ꮟ Ꮟ Ꮟ

thofe

those that are proficients,it will comfort all forts of afflictions, veteribus animarum vulneribus novit mederi, & recentibus remedium applicare, it knows how, &c.

He that would pray to God, may make choice here of fit forms dictated by the Spirit of God, to petition God upon all occafions, whatsoever he would defire of God, either to give him, or to forgive him.

He that would make confefsion of his fins to God, is here furnished & accommodated with the manner of fearching and ripping up of the confcience, and laying the hid man of the heart open before God.

He that would make confeffion of praise, hath his mouth filled with forms of praise,to fet forth the goodness of God,either in perticular to himself, or in general, to thewhole Church.

He that is merry, and rejoyceth in the Lord, may finde here the musique of true joy, and may from hence gather both matter and manner of Jubilation: you fee that the Church in my text reforteth to this store house of comfort.

He that findeth himself dul and heavy in the duties of Gods fervice, may here finde cheerfull ftrains of mufique to quicken his dead affections, and to put life into them.

Many are too well conceited of their own fufficiency for thofe holy fervices of God, fo that in confeffion of fins, in prayer or in prayfing God,they over-ween their own measure of the fpirit of God, and are too much wedded to their own forms of addreffe to God.

But let no man despise these helps, the best of us all need them,& the most able amongst us fhal abate nothing from his own fufficiency, to borrow of them, we are fure that the Holy Ghoft hath indited them: and if a wife judgment do make choice and fit application of them to our feverall purposes, and occafions, we cannot more holily or more effectually expreffe our felves then in them,the sweet finger of Ifrael hath furnished us plentifully by them

2 Before I come to handle the text in the parts thereof, let me return your thoughts to the former verfe, where the

Church

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