in the very nick of danger. In the mount will the Lord be seen, (Gen. xxii. 14) and hastily laying merciful hold on us while we linger. (Gen. xix. 16) He repenteth concerning his servants, when he sees that their power is gone; (Deut. xxxii. 36) and when they are as very outcasts, whom no man looketh after. (Jer. xxx. 17) In our greatest perplexities and fears, if we could glorify God by believing, and stand still without sinful doubts, disquiet murmurings, and diverting unto sinister and perverse means, carnal sanctuaries, and a refuge of lies, we might comfortably expect to see the salvation of God.

3. This brand God will not only save, but honour, turn it into timber to build his house withal. When the Lord rescueth a great and good man out of great troubles and temptations which were ready to consume him, usually he maketh him an instrument of great and special service. Moses drawn out of the water, Joseph out of prison, Daniel out of the lions' den, David from a world of persecutions and dangers, Mordecai out of the pit of Haman's malice, and here Joshua out of the furnace of Babylon; and all afterwards eminent instruments of great and honourable services for the church of God.

This is a worthy fruit of afflictions, when they season and prepare us to be beams in God's house; as the greatest timber hath the most seasoning. Luther was wont to say, that "prayer, meditation, and temptation, are excellent preparations for the ministry."

4. God can use weak, improbable, despised instruments unto great and excellent works. He that could make one loaf of bread enough to feed thousands, can make one brand timber enough to build temples. He that drew the prophet out of a pit with rotten rags, can erect a glorious temple out of the dust with burnt firebrands. He blew down the walls of Jericho with rams' horns; discomfited a huge host of Midianites, with a few broken pitchers; converted the world with twelve fishermen, and chooseth the weak, and base, and foolish things, things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. (1 Cor. i. 27, 29) He hath more regard to the lowliness of those that are weak, than to the abilities of those that are proud; to teach us not to despise truth, or comfort, or any mercy, by what hand soever brought unto us; no

more than the prophet did his meat, when God sent it unto him by ravens. (1 Kings xvii. 5) God hath purposely put rich treasures in earthen vessels, that the excellency of his power might the more shine forth in the infirmity of his instruments; "that no flesh might glory in his sight."

And now, as on this day, hath this scripture been exactly paralleled in this nation, in the glorious deliverance we now celebrate.

Joshua's work was to build a temple; Satan's, to hinder and oppose it. He is an enemy to all such building, but that which Tertullian calls, Edificatio ad ruinam ;' he is all for pulling down work.

And are not religion and laws the best part of a structure, the foundation? Are not princes, peers, nobles, fathers of their country, choice stones in a building? Demosthenes tells us, ̓́Ανδρες πύργοι et ̓́Ανδρες πόλεις, καὶ οὐ τείχη. That men were towers and cities, and not walls. Doth not the apostle say of the church, "Ye are God's building?" (1 Cor. iii. 9) Of this temple it was that these wicked men said, "Rase it, rase it to the very ground; down with it, down with it into ashes; up with it, up with it into fire." They would have turned things upside down; (Isa. xxix. 16) down with laws, up with confusion: down with Jerusalem, up with Babylon: down with the Ark, up with Dagon: down with religion, up with superstition: make princes, and peers, and gentry, and ministry, the flower of a nation, who were wont to be like polished sapphires, very firebrands, blacker than a coal. (Lam. iv. 7, 8) Tell me, whether any but heads and hearts, filled with the devil, could ever have invented or executed so bloody a design.

King and parliament, peers and people, were standing before the Lord for "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty, he judgeth among the Gods." (Psalm lxxxii. 1) And Satan will be thrusting in to withstand them. No place so sacred, whither he will not intrude. He crawls into paradise; we find him standing before the Lord amongst all the host of heaven, in the midst of an angelical assembly. (1 Kings xxii. 19, 21)

But he can do no good at the hand to hinder that from working; he cannot introduce superstition and ignorance at that door. He tries therefore what he can do under the feet.

He croucheth; he digs through a wall; he springs a mine, and gets a den; finds out a hell from whence to murder the innocent. (Psalm x. 8, 9, 10)

And this not to resist or accuse only, but utterly to destroy; to turn head, and hand, and feet, and the whole body, into very firebrands.

This was
He tried

And he hath been at this work once and again. not the first time he had been resisted or rebuked. by water in that Invincible Armada in 1588. And now by fire more terrible than that of Babylon; which would not have left so much as a brand remaining; which, in the twinkling of an eye, would have done more mischief, than three score and ten years' captivity in Babylon.

But God be blessed, we were not as a brand in this fire, but as Moses's bush, not consumed; as the three children, not so much as singed by it:-that out of this fire, not a few brands, but many goodly cedars, and the vine, the weakest of trees, the poor church of Christ amongst us, was not plucked up, but preserved from it; God's mercy preventing Satan's malice, and making their own tongue to fall upon themselves, and by that little mercy which was in one of these bloody men, to snatch one brand out of this fire, quenching the flame which would have devoured all the rest : so inconsistent was this villany with a dram of mercy.

And all this not for our worthiness, but for his own free grace, because he loved England, and chose it for a place to set his name in. And blessed be his name, that notwithstanding all Romish attempts and machinations, we have had his presence, and the true reformed religion, in the midst of this nation, for now a full hundred years; for so long it is from November 17, 1588, since Queen Mary died, and that glorious princess Elizabeth, succeeded in her throne. In this month, were her fires quenched; and in this month was this fire quenched; the eyes of the Lord running through the earth, to shew himself strong in behalf of this poor nation.

And now what remains, but being thus delivered, and yet through God's mercy in the possession of the reformed religion (the Lord knows how long that yet may last) we should betake ourselves to the duties here mentioned by the prophet.

1. To stand before the Lord,' to have our eye still upon

him, to attend his will, to listen to his commands, to wait on his worship, to aim at his glory, to have our mouths and hearts filled with the praises of his name; who hath made us not as firebrands plucked out of the burning, (Amos iv. 11) but preserved us from it.

2. To put off our filthy garments,' to bewail the woful provocations of all orders of men amongst us; to make haste and be zealous to purge the house of God of those sad corruptions which have defaced it, and of that woful leaven of heresy, which threatens to sour the whole lump.

3. To get change of raiment,' to be clothed with the garments of praise, with the long white robe of Christ's righteousness, that our nakedness be not discovered; to worship the Lord in the beauties of holiness.

4. To walk in 'God's ways, and to keep his charge;' to be zealous and conscionable in all our peculiar duties; to hold fast those wholesome truths, which the Lord hath so long continued unto us. We know how busy foreign emissaries are, who are said to swarm among us, under a disguise, and, in a mysterious way, to infuse their doctrines into the minds of credulous and seduced people. We see what hideous errors are every where broached; what contempt is poured out upon a learned and faithful ministry; what dishonour is cast upon magistrates, as if it belonged not either to their power, or duty, to take care either of the truth, or worship of God in their territories; what immense and boundless license men take to write, print, publish the most horrid opinions without check or controul; what sad effects this infinite liberty hath produced, in some atheism, in others scepticism, in others apostasy, in others sad divisions, jealousies, animosities; scarce any face left of that Christian love and holy communion, which heretofore shined in the assemblies of professors: what woful symptoms we have of God's threatening to remove our candlestick and his glory from us! calling home to himself many eminent ambassadors in the church; laying aside many worthy and religious patriots in the state; exercising his ministers that remain, with the reproaches and defamings of many: our leaving our first love, and former zeal for the truths of God; the doleful confusions and changes in the state; governments changing, as it were, with the moon; up one month, and down another. Certain

ly, it is through the wrath of the Lord of hosts that a land is darkened it is for the transgression of a land, that many are the princes thereof. It was a forerunner of a final wrath amongst the ten tribes, when God left them to pull down one another.

Oh what need have we to be awakened, to lay these things to heart, to prepare to meet the Lord, to do our first works', to revive the ancient communion of saints, to awaken the spirit of prayer; and to cry mightily unto God, to spare his people, and not to give his heritage unto reproach! To receive the truth in love', and to contend earnestly for the faith, once delivered unto the saints; to use all holy endeavours in our places and stations, to keep the glorious presence of the Lord still amongst us; to prove all things ", and hold fast that which is good; to try the spirits, whether they be of God; to provoke one another P, to speak often to one another; not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. It may be, the Lord will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him."

That so we, whom the malice of Satan and wicked men would gladly make brands, may, by God's blessing, be trees of righteousness', the planting of the Lord; that the spirit blowing upon our garden", the spices thereof may flow out, and our beloved may delight in us, and eat his pleasant fruit. So shall the enemies of the church always find, that he whose name is the Branch',' will still be too hard for the furnace of Egypt, for the staff of the oppressor. That he who is a stone' with eyes, will make his church a burdensome stone to all, that set themselves against it. That he will so watch over this land, while it continues Emmanuel's land d, that we shall still, as the prophet Isaiah speaks, (Chap. xxv. 15) Glorify the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel, in the Isles of the sea."