1702
A CITY HELPED OF THE LORD
by Cotton Mather
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
A City Helped of the Lord
LET us thankfully, and agreeably, and particularly acknowledge
what help we have received from the God of heaven, in the years
that have rolled over us. While the blessed Apostle Paul was, as it
should seem, yet short of being threescore years old, how
affectionately did he set up an Ebenezer, with an acknowledgment in
Acts xxvi. 22: 'Having obtained help of God, I continue to this
day!' Our town is now three-score and eight years old; and
certainly 'tis time for us, with all possible affection, to set up
our Ebenezer, saying, 'Having obtained help from God, the town is
continued until almost the age of man is passed over it! 'The town
hath indeed three elder sisters in this colony, but it hath
wonderfully outgrown them all; and her mother, Old Boston, in
England also; yea, within a few years after the first settlement,
it grew to be the metropolis of the whole English America. Little
was this expected by them that first settled the town, when for a
while Boston was proverbially called Lost-town, for the mean and
sad circumstances of it. But, O Boston! it is because thou hast
obtained help from God, even from the Lord Jesus Christ, who for
the sake of his gospel, preached and once prized here, undertook
thy patronage. When the world and the church of God had seen
twenty-six generations, a psalm was composed, wherein that note
occurs with twenty-six repetitions: 'His mercy endureth for ever.'
Truly there has not one year passed over this town, ab urbe
condita, upon the story whereof we might not make that note our
Ebenezer: 'His mercy endureth for ever.' It has been a town of
great experiences. There have been several years wherein the
terrible famine hath terribly stared the town in the face; we have
been brought sometimes unto the last meal in the barrel; we have
cried out with the disciples, 'We have not loaves enough to feed a
tenth part of us!' but the feared famine has always been kept off;
always we have had seasonable and sufficient supplies after a
surprizing manner sent in unto us: let the three last years in this
thing most eminently proclaim the goodness of our heavenly Shepherd
and Feeder. This has been the help of our God; because 'his mercy
endureth for ever!' The angels of death have often shot the arrows
of death into the midst of the town; the small-pox has especially
four times been a great plague upon us: how often have there been
bills desiring prayers for more than an hundred sick on one day in
one of our assemblies? in one twelve-month, about one thousand of
our neighbours have one way or other been carried unto their long
home; and yet we are, after all, many more than seven thousand
souls of us at this hour living on the spot. Why is not a 'Lord,
have mercy upon us,' written on the doors of our abandoned
habitations? This hath been the help of our God, because 'his mercy
endureth for ever.'
Never was any town under the cope of heaven more liable to be
laid in ashes, either through the carelessness or through the
wickedness of them that sleep in it. That such a combustible heap
of contiguous houses yet stands, it may be called a standing
miracle; it is not because 'the watchman keeps the city;' perhaps
there may be too much cause of reflection in that thing, and of
inspection, too; no, 'it is from thy watchful protection, O thou
keeper of Boston, who neither slumbers nor sleeps.' Ten times has
the fire made notable ruins among us, and our good servant been
almost our master; but the ruins have mostly and quickly been
rebuilt. I suppose that many more than a thousand houses are to be
seen on this little piece of ground, all filled with the undeserved
favours of God. Whence this preservation? This hath been the help
of our God; because 'his mercy endureth for ever!' But if ever this
town saw a year of salvations, transcendently such was the last
year unto us. A formidable French squadron hath not shot one bomb
into the midst of thee, O thou munition of rocks! our streets have
not run with blood and gore, and horrible devouring flames have not
raged upon our substance; those are ignorant, and unthinking, and
unthankful men, who do not own that we have narrowly escaped as
dreadful things as Carthagena, or Newfoundland, have suffered. I am
sure our more considerate friends beyond sea were very suspicious,
and well nigh despairing, that victorious enemies had swallowed up
the town. But 'thy soul is escaped, O Boston, as a bird out of the
snare of the fowlers.' Or, if ye will be insensible of this, ye
vain men, yet be sensible that an English squadron hath not brought
among us the tremendous pestilence, under which a neighbouring
plantation hath undergone prodigious desolations. Boston, 'tis a
marvellous thing a plague has not laid thee desolate!
Master Theophilus Eaton His Great Soul
SO exemplary was he for a Christian, that one who had been a
servant unto him, could many years after say, 'Whatever difficulty
in my daily walk I now meet withal, still something that I either
saw or heard in my blessed master Eaton's conversation, helps me
through it all; I have reason to bless God that ever I knew him!'
It was his custom when he first rose in a morning, to repair unto
his study; a study well perfumed with the meditations and
supplications of an holy soul. After this, calling his family
together, he would then read a portion of the Scripture among them,
and after some devout and useful reflections upon it, he would make
a prayer, not long, but extraordinarily pertinent and reverent; and
in the evening some of the same exercises were again attended. On
the Saturday morning he would still take notice of the approaching
Sabbath in his prayer, and ask the grace to be remembering of it,
and preparing for it; and when the evening arrived, he, besides
this, not only repeated a sermon, but also instructed his people,
with putting of questions referring to the points of religion,
which would oblige them to study for an answer; and if their answer
were at any time insufficient, he would wisely and gently enlighten
their understandings; all which he concluded with singing of a
psalm. When the Lord's day came, he called his family together at
the time for the ringing of the first bell, and repeated a sermon,
whereunto he added a fervent prayer, especially tending unto the
sanctification of the day. At noon he sang a psalm, and at night he
retired an hour into his closet; advising those in his house to
improve the same time for the good of their own souls. He then
called his family together again, and in an obliging manner
conferred with them about the things with which they had been
entertained in the house of God, shutting up all with a prayer for
the blessing of God upon them all. For solemn days of humiliation,
or of thanksgiving, he took the same course, and endeavoured still
to make those that belonged unto him understand the meaning of the
services before them. He seldom used any recreations, but being a
great reader, all the time he could spare from company and
business, he commonly spent in his beloved study; so that he
merited the name which was once given to a learned ruler of the
English nation, the name of Beauclerk. In conversing with his
friends, he was affable, courteous, and generally pleasant, but
grave perpetually; and so cautelous and circumspect in his
discourses, and so modest in his expressions, that it became a
proverb for incontestable truth, 'Governour Eaton said it.'
But after all, his humility appeared in having always but low
expectations, looking for little regard and reward from any men,
after he had merited as highly as possible by his universal
serviceableness.
His eldest son he maintained at the college until he proceeded
master of arts; and he was indeed the son of his vows, and a son of
great hopes. But a severe catarrh diverted this young gentleman
from the work of the ministry whereto his father had once devoted
him; and a malignant fever then raging in those parts of the
country, carried off him with his wife within two or three days of
one another. This was counted the sorest of all the trials that
ever befell his father in the 'days of the years of his
pilgrimage;' but he bore it with a patience and composure of spirit
which was truly admirable. His dying son looked earnestly on him,
and said, 'Sir, what shall we do?' Whereto, with a well-ordered
countenance, he replied, 'Look up to God!' And when he passed by
his daughter drowned in tears on this occasion, to her he said,
'Remember the sixth commandment; hurt not yourself with immoderate
grief; remember Job, who said, 'The Lord hath given, and the Lord
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!' You may mark
what a note the spirit of God put upon it: 'In all this Job sinned
not, nor charged God foolishly:' God accounts it a charging of him
foolishly, when we don't submit unto his will patiently.'
Accordingly he now governed himself as one that had attained unto
the rule of 'weeping as if we wept not;' for it being the Lord's
day, be repaired unto the church in the afternoon, as he had been
there in the forenoon, though 'he was never like to see his dearest
son alive any more in this world. And though before the first
prayer began, a messenger came to prevent Mr. Davenport's praying
for the sick person, who was now dead, yet his affectionate father
altered not his course, but wrote after the preacher as formerly;
and when he came home he held on his former methods of divine
worship in his family, not for the excuse of Aaron omitting any
thing in the service of God. In like sort, when the people had been
at the solemn interment of this his worthy son, he did with a very
unpassionate aspect and carriage then say, 'Friends, I thank you
all for your love and help, and for this testimony of respect unto
me and mine: the Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken; blessed
be the name of the Lord!' Nevertheless, retiring hereupon into the
chamber where his daughter then lay sick, some tears were observed
falling from him while he uttered these words, 'There is a
difference between a sullen silence or a stupid senselessness under
the hand of God, and a child-like submission there-unto.'
Thus continually he, for about a score of years, was the glory
and pillar of New-Haven colony. He would often say, 'Some count it
a great matter to die well, but I am sure 'tis a great matter to
live well. All our care should be while we have our life to use it
well, and so when death puts an end unto that, it will put an end
unto all our cares.' But having excellently managed his care to
live well, God would have him to die well, without any room or time
then given to take any care at all; for he enjoyed a death sudden
to every one but himself! Having worshipped God with his family
after his usual manner, and upon some occasion with much solemnity
charged all the family to carry it well unto their mistress who was
now confined by sickness, he supped, and then took a turn or two
abroad for his meditations. After that he came in to bid his wife
good-night, before he 'left her with her watchers: which when he
did, she said, 'Methinks you look sad!' Whereto he replyed, 'The
differences risen in the church of Hartford make me so;' she then
added, 'Let us even go back to our native country again;' to which
he answered, 'You may (and so she did), but I shall die here.' This
was the last word that ever she heard him speak; for, now retiring
unto his lodging in another chamber, he was overheard about
midnight fetching a groan; and unto one sent in presently to
enquire how he did, he answered the enquiry with only saying, 'Very
ill!' and without saying any more, he fell 'asleep in Jesus,' in
the year 1657, loosing anchor from New-Haven for the better:
- Sedes, ubi Fata, quietas
Ostendunt.
Now let his gravestone wear at least the following
EPITAPH.
New-England's glory, full of warmth and light,
Stole away (and said nothing) in the night.
How Captain Phips Became A Knight of the Golden Fleece
HE was of an inclination cutting rather like a hatchet than
like a razor; he would propose very considerable matters to
himself, and then so cut through them that no difficulties could
put by the edge of his resolutions. Being thus of the true temper
for doing of great things, he betakes himself to the sea, the right
scene for such things; and upon advice of a Spanish wreck about the
Bahamas, he took a voyage thither; but with little more success
than what just served him a little to furnish him for a voyage to
England; whither he went in a vessel, not much unlike that which
the Dutchmen stamped on their first coin, with these words about
it: Incertum quo Fataferant. Having first informed himself that
there was another Spanish wreck, wherein was lost a mighty
treasure, hitherto undiscovered, he had a strong impression upon
his mind that he must be the discoverer; and he made such
representations of his design at White-Hall, that by the year 1683
he became the captain of a king's ship, and arrived at New-England
commander of the Algier-Rose, a frigate of eighteen guns and
ninety-five men.
To relate all the dangers through which he passed, both by sea
and land, and all the tiresome trials of his patience, as well as
of his courage, while year after year the most vexing accidents
imaginable delayed the success of his design, it would even tire
the patience of the reader; for very great was the experiment that
Captain Phips made of the Italian observation, 'He that cannot
suffer both good and evil, will never come to any great
preferment.' Wherefore I shall supersede all journal of his voyages
to and fro, with reciting one incident of his conduct, that showed
him to be a person of no contemptible capacity. While he was
captain of the Algier-Rose, his men growing weary of their
unsuccessful enterprise, made a mutiny, wherein they approached him
on the quarter-deck, with drawn swords in their hands, and required
him to join with them in running away with the ship, to drive a
trade of piracy on the South Seas. Captain Phips, though he had not
so much of a weapon as an oxgoad, or a jaw-bone in his hands, yet,
like another Shamgar or Samson, with a most undaunted fortitude, he
rushed in upon them, and with the blows of his bare hands felled
many of them, and quelled all the rest.
But this is not the instance which I intended; that which I
intend is, that (as it has been related unto me) one day while his
frigate lay careening, at a desolate Spanish island, by the side of
a rock, from whence they had laid a bridge to the shore, the men,
whereof he had about an hundred, went all but about eight or ten to
divert themselves, as they pretended, in the woods where they all
entered into an agreement, which they signed in a ring, that about
seven o'clock that evening they would seize the captain, and those
eight or ten which they knew to be true unto him, and leave them to
perish on this island, and so be gone away unto the South Sea to
seek their fortune. Will the reader now imagine that Captain Phips,
having advice of this plot but about an hour and a half before it
was to be put in execution, yet within two hours brought all these
rogues down upon their knees to beg for their lives? But so it was!
for these knaves considering that they should want a carpenter with
them in their villainous expedition, sent a messenger to fetch unto
them the carpenter, who was then at work upon the vessel; and unto
him they shewed their articles; telling him what he must look for
if he did not subscribe among them. The carpenter, being an honest
fellow, did with much importunity prevail for one half hour's time
to consider of the matter; and returning to work upon the vessel,
with a spy by them set upon him, he feigned himself taken with a
fit of the cholick, for the relief whereof he suddenly run unto the
captain in the great cabin for a dram; where, when he came, his
business was only, in brief, to tell the captain of the horrible
distress which he was fallen into; but the captain bid him as
briefly return to the rogues in the woods, and sign their articles,
and leave him to provide for the rest. The carpenter was no sooner
gone but Captain Phips, calling together the few friends (it may be
seven or eight) that were left him aboard, whereof the gunner was
one, demanded of them, whether they would stand by him in the
extremity which he informed them was now come upon him; whereto
they replied, They would stand by him, if he could save them;'
and he answered, By the help of God he did not fear it.' All their
provisions had been carried ashore to a tent, made for that
purpose there; about which they had placed several great guns to
defend it, in case of any assault from Spaniards, that might happen
to come that way. Wherefore Captain Phips immediately ordered those
guns to be silently drawn and turned; and so pulling up the bridge,
he charged his great guns aboard, and brought them to bear on every
side of the tent. By this time the army of rebels comes out of the
woods; but as they drew near to the tent of provisions, they saw
such a change of circumstances, that they cried out, 'We are
betrayed!' And they were soon confirmed in it, when they heard the
captain with a stern fury call to them, 'Stand off, ye wretches, at
your peril!' He quickly saw them cast into a more than ordinary
confusion, when they saw him ready to fire his great guns upon
them, if they offered one step further than he permitted them; and
when he had signified unto them his resolve to abandon them unto
all the desolation which they had purposed for him, he caused the
bridge to be again laid, and his men began to take the provisions
aboard. When the wretches beheld what was coming upon them, they
fell to very humble entreaties; and at last fell down upon their
knees, protesting, 'That they never had anything against him,
except only his unwillingness to go away, with the king's ship upon
the South-Sea design; but upon all other accounts they would chuse
rather to live and die with him than with any man in the world.
However, since they saw how much he was dissatisfied at it, they
would insist upon it no more, and humbly begged his pardon.' And
when he judged that he had kept them on their knees long enough, he
having first secured their arms, received them aboard; but he
immediately weighed anchor, and arriving at Jamaica, he turned them
off.
Now, with a small company of other men he sailed from thence
to Hispaniola, where, by the policy of his address, he fished out
of a very old Spaniard (or Portuguese) a little advice about the
true spot where lay the wreck which he had been hitherto seeking,
as unprosperously as the chymists have their aurisick stone; that
it was upon a reef of shoals, a few leagues to the northward of
Port de la Plata, upon Hispaniola, a port so called, it seems, from
the landing of some of the shipwrecked company, with a boat full of
plate, saved out of their sinking frigate; nevertheless, when he
had searched very narrowly the spot, whereof the old Spaniard had
advised him, he had not hitherto exactly lit upon it. Such thorns
did vex his affairs while he was in the Rose-frigate; but none of
all these things could refund the edge of his expectations to find
the wreck; with such expectations he returned then into England,
that he might there better furnish himself to prosecute a new
discovery; for though he judged he might, by proceeding a little
further, have come at the right spot; yet he found his present
company too ill a crew to be confided in.
So proper was his behaviour, that the best noblemen in the
kingdom now admitted him into their conversation; but yet he was
opposed by powerful enemies, that clogged his affairs with such
demurrages, and such disappointments, as would have wholly
discouraged his designs, if his patience had not been invincible.
'He who can wait hath what he desireth.' Thus his indefatigable
patience, with a proportionable diligence, at length overcame the
difficulties that had been thrown in his way; and prevailing with
the Duke of Albemarle, and some other persons of quality to fit him
out, he set sail for the fishing-ground, which had been so well
baited half an hundred years before; and as he had already
discovered his capacity for business in many considerable actions,
he now added unto those discoveries, by not only providing all, but
also by inventing many of the instruments necessary to the
prosecution of his intended fishery. Captain Phips arriving with a
ship and a tender at Port de la Plata, made a stout canoo of a
stately cotton-tree, so large as to carry eight or ten oars, for
the making of which periaga (as they call it) he did, with the same
industry that he did everything else, imploy his own hand and adse,
and endure no little hardship, lying abroad in the woods many
nights together. This periaga, with the tender, being anchored at
a place convenient, the periaga kept husking to and again, but
could only discover a reef of rising shoals thereabouts, called
'The Boilers,'-which, rising to be within two or three foot of the
surface of the sea, were yet so steep, that a ship striking on them
would immediately sink down, who could say how many fathom, into
the ocean? Here they could get no other pay for their long peeping
among the boilers, but only such as caused them to think upon
returning to their captain with the bad news of their total
disappointment. Nevertheless, as they were upon the return, one of
the men, looking over the side of the periaga, into the calm water,
he spied a sea feather, growing, as he judged, out of a rock;
whereupon they bade one of their Indians to dive, and fetch this
feather, that they might, however, carry home something with them,
and make, at least, as fair a triumph as Caligula's. The diver
bringing up the feather, brought therewithal a surprising story,
that he perceived a number of great guns in the watery world where
he had found his feather; the report of which great guns
exceedingly astonished the whole company; and at once turned their
despondencies for their ill success into assurances that they had
now lit upon the true spot of ground which they had been looking
for; and they were further confirmed in these assurances, when,
upon further diving, the Indian fetcht up a sow, as they styled it,
or a lump of silver worth perhaps two or three hundred pounds. Upon
this they prudently buoyed the place, that they might readily find
it again; and they went back unto their captain, whom for some
while they distressed with nothing but such bad news as they
formerly thought they must have carried him. Nevertheless, they so
slipt in the sow of silver on one side under the table, where they
were now sitting with the captain, and hearing him express his
resolutions to wait still patiently upon the providence of God
under these disappointments, that when he should look on one side,
he might see that odd thing before him. At last he saw it; seeing
it, he cried out with some agony, 'Why! what is this? whence comes
this?' And then, with changed countenances, they told him how and
where they got it. 'Then,' said he, 'thanks be to God! we are
made;' and so away they went, all hands to work; wherein they had
this one further piece of remarkable prosperity, that whereas if
they had first fallen upon that part of the Spanish wreck where the
pieces of eight had been stowed in bags among the ballast, they had
seen a more laborious, and less enriching time of it; now, most
happily, they first fell upon that room in the wreck where the
bullion had been stored up; and they so prospered in this new
fishery, that in a little while they had, without the loss of any
man's life, brought up thirty-two tuns of silver; for it was now
come to measuring of silver by tuns. Besides which, one Adderly, of
Providence, who had formerly been very helpful to Captain Phips in
the search of this wreck, did, upon former agreement, meet him now
with a little vessel here; and he, with his few hands, took up
about six tuns of silver; whereof, nevertheless, he made so little
use, that in a year or two he died at Bermudas, and, as I have
heard, he ran distracted some while before he died.
Thus did there once again come into the light of the sun a
treasure which had been half an hundred years groaning under the
waters; and in this time there was grown upon the plate a crust
like limestone, to the thickness of several inches; which crust
being broken open by iron contrived for that purpose, they knocked
out whole bushels of rusty pieces of eight which were grown
thereinto. Besides that incredible treasure of plate in various
forms, thus fetched up, from seven or eight fathom under water,
there were vast riches of gold, and pearls and jewels, which they
also lit upon; and, indeed, for a more comprehensive invoice, I
must but summarily say, 'All that a Spanish frigate uses to be
enriched withal.' Thus did they continue fishing till, their
provisions failing them, 'twas time to be gone; but before they
went, Captain Phips caused Adderly and his folk to swear that they
would none of them discover the place of the wreck, or come to the
place any more till the next year, when he expected again to be
there himself. And it was also remarkable that though the sows came
up still so fast, that on the very last day of their being there
they took up twenty, yet it was afterwards found that they had in
a manner wholly cleared that room of the ship where those massy
things were stowed.
But there was one extraordinary distress which Captain Phips
now found himself plunged into; for his men were come out with him
upon seamen's wages, at so much per month; and when they saw such
vast litters of silver sows and pigs, as they called them, come on
board them at the captain's call, they knew not how to bear it,
that they should not share all among themselves, and be gone to
lead 'a short life and a merry,' in a climate where the arrest of
those that had hired them should not reach them. In this terrible
distress he made his vows unto Almighty God, that if the Lord would
carry him safe home to England, with what he had now given him, '
to suck of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in
the sands,' he would forever devote himself unto the interests of
the Lord Jesus Christ and of his people, especially in the country
which he did himself originally belong unto. And he then used all
the obliging arts imaginable to make his men true unto him,
especially by assuring them that, besides their wages, they should
have ample requitals made unto them; which if the rest of his
employers would not agree unto, he would himself distribute his own
share among them. Relying upon the word of one whom they had ever
found worthy of their love, and of their trust, they declared
themselves content; but still keeping a most careful eye upon them,
he hastened back for England with as much money as he thought he
could then safely trust his vessel withal; not counting it safe to
supply himself with necessary provisions at any nearer port, and so
return unto the wreck, by which delays he wisely feared lest all
might be lost, more ways than one. Though he also left so much
behind him, that many from divers parts made very considerable
voyages of gleanings after his harvest; which came to pass by
certain Bermudians compelling of Adderly's boy, whom they spirited
away with them, to tell them the exact place where the wreck was to
be found.
Captain Phips now coming up to London in the year 1687, with
near three hundred thousand pounds sterling aboard him, did acquit
himself with such an exemplary honesty, that partly by his
fulfilling his assurances to the seamen, and partly by his exact
and punctual care to have his employers defrauded of nothing that
might conscientiously belong unto them, he had less than sixteen
thousand pounds left unto himself; as an acknowledgment of which
honesty in him, the Duke of Albemarle made unto his wife, whom he
never saw, a present of a golden cup, near a thousand pound in
value. The character of an honest man he had so merited in the
whole course of his life, and especially in this last act of it,
that this, in conjunction with his other serviceable qualities,
procured him the favours of the greatest persons in the nation; and
'he that had been so diligent in his business, must now stand
before Kings, and not stand before mean men.' There were indeed
certain mean men- if base, little, dirty tricks, will entitle men to
meanness- who urged the king to seize his whole cargo, instead of
the tenths, upon his first arrival; on this pretence, that he had
not been rightly informed of the true state of the case when he
granted the patent, under the protection whereof these particular
men had made themselves masters of all this mighty treasure; but
the king replied, that he had been rightly informed by Captain
Phips of the whole matter, as it now proved; and that it was the
slanders of one then present which had, unto his damage, hindered
him from hearkening to the information; wherefore he would give
them, he said, no disturbance; they might keep what they, had got;
but Captain Phips, he saw, was a person of that honesty, fidelity,
and ability, that he should not want his countenance. Accordingly
the king, in consideration of the service done by him in bringing
such a treasure into the nation, conferred upon him the honour of
knighthood; and if we now reckon him a knight of the golden fleece,
the style might pretend unto some circumstances that would justifie
it. Or, call him if you please, 'the knight of honesty;' for it was
honesty with industry that raised him; and he became a mighty
river, without the running in of muddy water to make him so.
Reader, now make a pause, and behold one raised by God!
The Life and Death of Master Hooker
WHEN Toxaris met with his country-man Anacharsis in Athens, he
gave him this invitation, 'Come along with me, and I will shew thee
at once all the wonders of Greece;' whereupon he shewed him Solon,
as the person in whom there centred all the glories of that city or
country. I shall now invite my reader to behold at once the
'wonders' of New-England, and it is in one Thomas Hooker that he
shall behold them; even in that Hooker, whom a worthy writer would
needs call 'Saint Hooker,' for the same reason (he said), and with
the same freedom that Latimer would speak of Saint Bilney, in his
commemorations. 'Tis that Hooker, of whom I may venture to say',
that the famous Romanist, who wrote a book, De Tribus Thomis, or Of
Three Thomas's- meaning Thomas the Apostle, Thomas 'a Becket, and
Sir Thomas More- did not a thousandth part so well sort his
Thomas's, as a New-Englander might, if he should write a book, De
Duobus Thomis, or Of Two Thomas's; and with Thomas the Apostle,
join our celebrious Thomas Hooker; my one Thomas, even our
apostolical Hooker, would in just balances weigh down two of
Stapleton's rebellious archbishops or bigoted Lord Chancellors.
'Tis he whom I may call, as Theodoret called Iren'us, 'The light of
the western churches.'
This our Hooker was born at Marfield, in Leicestershire, about
the year 1586, of parents that were neither unable nor unwilling to
bestow upon him a liberal education; whereto the early and lively
sparkles of wit observed in him did very much encourage them. His
natural temper was cheerful and courteous; but it was accompanied
with such a sensible grandeur of mind, as caused his friends,
without the help of astrology, to prognosticate that he was born to
be considerable. The influence which he had upon the reformation of
some growing abuses, when he was one of the proctors in the
university, was a thing that more eminently signalized him, when
his more publick appearance in the world was coming on which was
attended with an advancement unto a fellowship in Emanuel College,
in Cambridge; the students whereof were originally designed for the
study of divinity.
With what ability and fidelity he acquitted himself in his
fellowship it was a thing sensible unto the whole university. And
it was while he was in this employment that the more effectual
grace of God gave him the experience of a true regeneration. It
pleased the spirit of God very powerfully to break into the soul of
this person with such a sense of his being exposed unto the just
wrath of heaven, as filled him with most unusual degrees of horror
and anguish, which broke not only his rest, but his heart also, and
caused him to cry out, 'While I suffer thy terrors, O Lord, I am
distracted!' While he long had a soul harassed with such
distresses, he had a singular help in the prudent and piteous
carriage of Mr. Ash, who was the sizer that then waited upon him;
and attended him with such discreet and proper compassions as made
him afterwards to respect him highly all his days. He afterwards
gave this account of himself, 'That in the time of his agonies, he
could reason himself to the rule, and conclude that there was no
way but submission to God, and lying at the foot of his mercy in
Christ Jesus, and waiting humbly there, till he should please to
persuade the soul of his favour; nevertheless, when he came to
apply this rule unto himself in his own condition, his reasoning
would fail him, he was able to do nothing.' Having been a
considerable while thus troubled with such impressions for the
'spirit of bondage,' as were to fit him for the great services and
enjoyments which God intended him, at length he received the
'spirit of adoption,' with well-grounded persuasions of his
interest in the new covenant. It became his manner, at his lying
down for sleep in the evening, to single out some certain promise
of God, which he would repeat and ponder, and keep his heart close
unto it, until he found that satisfaction of soul wherewith he
could say, 'I will lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, O
Lord, makest me dwell in assurance.' And he would afterwards
counsel others to take the same course; telling them, 'That the
promise was the boat which was to carry a perishing sinner over
unto the Lord Jesus Christ.'
The conscientious non-conformity of Mr. Hooker to some rites
of the church of England, then vigorously pressed, especially upon
such able and useful ministers as were most likely to be laid aside
by their scrupling of those rites, made it necessary for him to lay
down his ministry in Chelmsford, when he had been about four years
there employed in it. Hereupon, at the request of several eminent
persons, he kept a school in his own hired house, having one Mr.
John Eliot for his usher, at little Baddow, not far from
Chelmsford; where he managed his charge with such discretion, with
such authority, and such efficacy, that, able to do more with a
word or a look than most other men could have done by a severer
discipline, he did very great service to the church of God, in the
education of such as afterwards proved themselves not a little
serviceable. I have in my hands a manuscript, written by the hands
of our blessed Eliot, wherein he gives a very great account of the
little academy then maintained in the house of Mr. Hooker; and,
among other things, he says: 'To this place I was called, through
the infinite riches of God's mercy in Christ Jesus to my poor soul;
for here the Lord said unto my dead soul, live; and through the
grace of Christ, I do live, and I shall live forever! When I came
to this blessed family I then saw, and never before, the power of
godliness in its lively vigour and efficacy.'...
Mr. Hooker and Mr. Cotton were, for their different genius,
the Luther and Melancthon of New-England; at their arrival unto
which country, Mr. Cotton settled with the church of Boston, but
Mr. Hooker with the church of New-Town, having Mr. Stone for his
assistant. Inexpressible now was the joy of Mr. Hooker, to find
himself surrounded with his friends, who were come over the year
before, to prepare for his reception; with open arms he embraced
them, and uttered these words, 'Now I live, if you stand fast in
the Lord.' But such multitudes flocked over to New-England after
them, that the plantation of New-Town became too straight for them;
and it was Mr. Hooker's advice that they should not incur the
danger of a Sitna, or an Esek, where they might have a Rehoboth.
Accordingly, in the month of June, 1636, they removed an hundred
miles to the westward, with a purpose to settle upon the delightful
banks of Connecticut River; and there were about an hundred persons
in the first company that made this removal, who not being able to
walk above ten miles a day, took up near a fortnight in the
journey; having no pillows to take their nightly rest upon, but
such as their father Jacob found in the way to Padan-Aram. Here Mr.
Hooker was the chief instrument of beginning another colony, as Mr.
Cotton, whom he left behind him was of preserving and perfecting
that colony where he left him; for, indeed, each of them were the
oracle of their several colonies.
Though Mr. Hooker had thus removed from the Massachuset-bay,
yet he sometimes came down to visit the churches in that bay; but
when ever he came, he was received with an affection like that
which Paul found among the Galatians; yea, 'tis thought that once
there seemed some intimation from heaven, as if the good people had
overdone in that affection; for on May 26, 1639, Mr. Hooker being
here to preach that Lord's day in the afternoon, his great fame had
gathered a vast multitude of hearers from several other
congregations, and, among the rest, the governour himself, to be
made partaker of his ministry. But when he came to preach, he found
himself so unaccountably at a loss, that after some shattered and
broken attempts to proceed, he made a full stop; saying to the
assembly, 'That every thing which he would have spoken, was taken
both out of his mouth and out of his mind also;' wherefore he
desired them to sing a psalm, while he withdrew about half an hour
from them; returning then to the congregation, he preached a most
admirable sermon, wherein he held them for two hours together in an
extraordinary strain both of pertinency and vivacity.
After sermon, when some of his friends were speaking of the
Lord's thus withdrawing his assistance from him, he humbly replied,
'We daily confess that we have nothing, and can do nothing, without
Christ; and what if Christ will make this manifest in us, and on
us, before our congregations? What remains, but that we be humbly
contented? and what manner of discouragement is there in all of
this?' Thus content was he to be nullified, that the Lord might be
magnified!
Mr. Hooker, that had been born to serve many, and was of such
a publick spirit that I find him occasionally celebrated in the
life of Mr. Angier, lately published, for one who would be
continually inquisitive how it fared with the church of God, both
at home and abroad, on purpose that he might order his prayers and
cares accordingly; [which, by the way, makes me think on Mr.
Firmin's words: 'I look on it, saith he, as an act of a grown
Christian, whose interest in Christ is well cleared, and his heart
walking close with God, to be really taken up with the publick
interest of Christ.'] He never took his opportunity to serve
himself, but lived a sort of exile all his days, except the last
fourteen years of his life, among his own spiritual children at
Hartford; however, here also he was an exile. Accordingly, wherever
he came, he lived like a stranger in the world! When at the Land's-
end he took his last sight of England, he said, 'Farewell, England!
I expect now no more to see that religious zeal and power of
godliness which I have seen among professors in that land!' And he
had sagacious and prophetical apprehensions of the declensions
which would attend 'reforming churches,' when they came to enjoy a
place of liberty; he said, 'That adversity had slain its thousands,
but prosperity would slay its ten thousands!' He feared, 'That they
who had been lively Christians in the fire of persecution, would
soon become cold in the midst of universal peace, except some few,
whom God by sharp tryals would keep in a faithful, watchful,
humble, and praying frame.' But under these pre-apprehensions, it
was his own endeavour to beware of abating his own first love! and
of so watchful, so prayerful, so fruitful a spirit was Mr. Hooker,
that the spirit of prophecy itself did seem to grant him some
singular afflations. Indeed, every wise man is a prophet; but one
so eminently acquainted with Scripture and reason, and church-
history, as our Hooker, must needs be a seer, from whom singular
prognostications were to be expected. Accordingly, there were many
things prognosticated by him, wherein the future state of New-
England, particularly of Connecticut, has been so much concerned,
that it is pity they should be, forgotten. But I will in this
history record only two of his predictions. One was, 'That God
would punish the wanton spirit of the professors in this country,
with a sad want of able men in all orders.' Another was, 'That in
certain places of great light here sinned against, there would
break forth such horrible sins, as would be the amazement of the
world.'
He was a man of prayer, which was indeed a ready way to become
a man of God. He would say, 'That prayer was the principal part of
a minister's work; 'twas by this, that he was to carry on the
rest.' Accordingly, he still devoted one day in a month to private
prayer, with fasting, before the Lord, besides the publick fasts,
which often occurred unto him. He would say, 'That such
extraordinary favours as the life of religion, and the power of
godliness, must be preserved by the frequent use of such
extraordinary means as prayer with fasting; and that if professors
grow negligent of these means, iniquity will abound and the love of
many wax cold.' Nevertheless, in the duty of prayer, he affected
strength rather than length; and though he had not so much variety
in his publick praying as in his publick preaching, yet he always
had a seasonable respect unto present occasions. And it was
observed that his prayer was usually like Jacob's ladder, wherein
the nearer he came to an end the nearer he drew towards heaven; and
he grew into such rapturous pleadings with God, and praisings of
God, as made some to say, 'That like the master of the feast, he
reserved the best wine until the last.' Nor was the wonderful
success of his prayer, upon special concerns, unobserved by the
whole colony; who reckoned him the Moses which turned away the
wrath of God from them, and obtained a blast from heaven upon their
Indian Amalekites, by his uplifted hands, in those remarkable
deliverances which they sometimes experienced. It was very
particularly observed, when there was a battle to be fought between
the Narraganset and the Monhegin Indians, in the year 1643. The
Narraganset Indians had complotted the ruin of the English, but the
Monhegin were confederate with us; and a war now being between
those two nations, much notice was taken of the prevailing
importunity, wherewith Mr. Hooker urged for the accomplishment of
that great promise unto the people of God, 'I will bless them that
bless thee, but I will curse him that curses thee.' And the effect
of it was, that the Narragansets received a wonderful overthrow
from the Monhegins, though the former did three or four to one for
number exceed the latter. Such an Israel at prayer was our Hooker!
And this praying pastor was blessed, as, indeed, such ministers use
to be, with a praying people; there fell upon his pious people a
double portion of the Spirit which they beheld in him.
That reverend and excellent man, Mr. Whitfield, having spent
many years in studying of books, did at length take two or three
years to study men; and in pursuance of this design, having
acquainted himself with the most considerable divines in England,
at last he fell into the acquaintance of Mr. Hooker; concerning
whom, he afterwards gave this testimony: 'That he had not thought
there had been such a man on earth; a man in whom there shone so
many excellencies, as were in this incomparable Hooker; a man in
whom learning and wisdom were so tempered with zeal, holiness, and
watchfulness.' And the same observer having exactly noted Mr.
Hooker, made this remark, and gave this report more particularly of
him, 'That he had the best command of his own spirit which he ever
saw in any man whatever.' For though he were a man of a cholerick
disposition, and had a mighty vigour and fervour of spirit, which
as occasion served was wondrous useful unto him, yet he had
ordinarily as much government of his choler as a man has of a
mastiff dog in a chain; he 'could let out his dog, and pull in his
dog, as he pleased.' And another that observed the heroical spirit
and courage with which this great man fulfilled his ministry, gave
this account of him, 'He was a person who, while doing his
Master's work, would put a king in his pocket.'
He was indeed of a very condescending spirit, not only towards
his brethren in the ministry, but also towards the meanest of any
Christians whatsoever. He was very willing to sacrifice his own
apprehensions into the convincing reason of another man; and very
ready to acknowledge any mistake, or failing in himself. I'll give
one example: There happened a damage to be done unto a neighbour,
immediately whereupon, Mr. Hooker meeting with an unlucky boy that
often had his name up for the doing of such mischiefs, he fell to
chiding of that boy as the doer of this. The boy denied it, and Mr.
Hooker still went on in an angry manner, charging of him; whereupon
said the boy, 'Sir, I see you are in a passion, I'll say no more to
you;' and so ran away. Mr. Hooker, upon further enquiry, not
finding that the boy could be proved guilty, sent for him; and
having first by a calm question given the boy opportunity to renew
his denial of the fact, be said unto him: 'Since I cannot prove
the contrary, I am bound to believe; and I do believe what you say;'
and then added: "Indeed, I was in a passion when I spake to you
before; it was my sin, and it is my shame, and I am truly sorry for
it; and I hope in God I shall be more watchful hereafter.' So,
giving the boy some good counsel, the poor lad went away extremely,
affected with such a carriage in so good a man; and it proved an
occasion of good unto the soul of the lad all his days.
He would say, 'that he should esteem it a favour from God, if
he might live no longer than he should be able to hold up lively in
the work of his place; and that when the time of his departure
should come, God would shorten the time;' and he had his desire.
Some of his most observant hearers observed an astonishing sort of
a cloud in his congregation, the last Lord's day of his publick
ministry, when he also administered the Lord's supper among them;
and a most unaccountable heaviness and sleepiness, even in the most
watchful Christians of the place, not unlike the drowsiness of the
disciples when our Lord was going to die; for which one of the
elders publickly rebuked them. When those devout people afterwards
perceived that this was the last sermon and sacrament wherein they
were to have the presence of the pastor with them, 'tis
inexpressible how much they bewailed their unattentiveness unto his
farewell dispensations; and some of them could enjoy no peace in
their own souls until they had obtained leave of the elders to
confess before the whole congregation with many tears, that
inadvertency. But as for Mr. Hooker himself, an epidemical
sickness, which had proved mortal to many, though at first small or
no danger appeared in it, arrested him. In the time of his sickness
he did not say much to the standers-by; but being asked that he
would utter his apprehensions about some important things,
especially about the state of New-England, he answered, 'I have not
that work now to do; I have already declared the counsel of the
Lord;' and when one that stood weeping by the bed-side said unto
him, 'Sir, you are going to receive the reward of all your
labours,' he replied, 'Brother, I am going to receive mercy!' At
last he closed his own eyes with his own hands, and gently
streaking his own forehead, with a smile in his countenance, he
gave a little groan, and so expired his blessed soul into the arms
of his fellow-servants, the holy angels, on July 7, 1647. In which
last hours, the glorious peace of soul, which he had enjoyed
without any interruption for nearly thirty years together, so
gloriously accompanied him, that a worthy spectator, then writing
to Mr. Cotton a relation thereof, made this reflection, 'Truly,
sir, the sight of his death will make me have more pleasant
thoughts of death than ever I yet had in my life!'
Thus lived and thus died one of the first three. He, of whom
the great Mr. Cotton gave this character, that he did, Agmen ducere
et dominari in consionibus, gratia Spiritus Sancti et virtute
plenis; and that he was, Vir solertis et acerrimi judicii; and at
length he uttered his lamentations in a funeral elegy, whereof some
lines were these:
'Twas of Geneva's heroes said with wonder,
(Those worthies three) Farel was wont to thunder,
Viret like rain on tender grass to show'r,
But Calvin lively oracles to pour.
All these in Hooker's spirit did remain,
A son of thunder and a show'r of rain;
A pourer forth of lively oracles,
In saving souls, the sum of miracles.
This was he of whom his pupil, Mr. Ash, gives this testimony:
'For his great abilities and glorious services, both in this and in
the other England, he deserves a place in the first rank of them
whose lives are of late recorded.' And this was he of whom his
reverend contemporary, Mr. Ezekiel Rogers, tendered this for an
epitaph; in every line whereof methinks the writer deserves a
reward equal to what Virgil had, when for every line, referring to
Marcellus in the end of his sixth 'neid, he received a sum not much
less than eighty pounds in money, or as ample a requital as
Cardinal Richelieu gave to a poet, when he bestowed upon him two
thousand sequins for a witty conceit in one verse of but seven
words, upon his coat of arms:
America, although she do not boast
Of all the gold and silver from that coast,
Lent to her sister Europe's need or pride;
(For that repaid her, with much gain beside,
In one rich pearl, which heaven did thence afford,
As pious Herbert gave his honest word;)
Yet thinks, she in the catalogue may come
With Europe, Africk, Asia for one tomb.
The Exquisite Charaty of Master John Eliot
HE that will write of Eliot must write of charity, or say
nothing. His charity was a star of the first magnitude in the
bright constellation of his vertues, and the rays of it were
wonderfully various and extensive.
His liberality to pious uses, whether publick or private, went
much beyond the proportions of his little estate in the world. Many
hundreds of pounds did he freely bestow upon the poor; and he
would, with a very forcible importunity, press his neighbours to
join with him in such beneficences. It was a marvellous alacrity
with which he imbraced all opportunities of relieving any that were
miserable; and the good people of Roxbury, doubtless cannot
remember (but the righteous God will!) how often, and with what
ardors, with what arguments, he became a beggar to them for
collections in their assemblies, to support such needy objects as
had fallen under his observation. The poor counted him their
father, and repaired still unto him with a filial confidence in
their necessities; and they were more than seven or eight, or
indeed than so many scores, who received their portions of his
bounty. Like that worthy and famous English general, he could not
perswade himself 'that he had anything but what he gave away,' but
he drove a mighty trade at such exercises as he thought would
furnish him with bills of exchange, which he hoped 'after many
days' to find the comfort of; and yet, after all, he would say,
like one of the most charitable souls that ever lived in the world,
'that looking over his accounts he could nowhere find the God of
heaven charged a debtor there.' He did not put off his charity to
be put in his last will, as many who therein shew that their
charity is against their will; but he was his own administrator; he
made his own hands his executors, and his own eyes his overseers.
It has been remarked that liberal men are often long-lived men; so
do they after many days find the bread with which they have been
willing to keep other men alive. The great age of our Eliot was but
agreeable to this remark; and when his age had unfitted him for
almost all employments, and bereaved him of those gifts and parts
which once he had been accomplished with, being asked, 'How he did?'
he would sometimes answer, 'Alas, I have lost every-thing; my
understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails me;
but, I thank God, my charity holds out still; I find that rather
grows than fails!' And I make no question, that at his death his
happy soul was received and welcomed into the 'everlasting
habitations,' by many scores got thither before him, of such as his
charity had been liberal unto.
But besides these more substantial expressions of his charity,
he made the odours of that grace yet more fragrant unto all that
were about him, by that pitifulness and that peaceableness which
rendered him yet further amiable. If any of his neighbourhood were
in distress, he was like a 'brother born for their adversity,' he
would visit them, and comfort them with a most fraternal sympathy;
yea, 'tis not easy to recount how many whole days of prayer and
fasting he has got his neighbours to keep with him, on the behalf
of those whose calamities he found himself touched withal. It was
an extreme satisfaction to him that his wife had attained unto a
considerable skill in physick and chirurgery, which enabled her to
dispense many safe, good, and useful medicines unto the poor that
had occasion for them; and some hundreds of sick and weak and
maimed people owed praises to God for the benefit which therein
they freely received of her. The good gentleman her husband would
still be casting oil into the flame of that charity, wherein she
was of her own accord abundantly forward thus to be doing of good
unto all; and he would urge her to be serviceable unto the worst
enemies that he had in the world. Never had any man fewer enemies
than he! but once having delivered something in his ministry which
displeased one of his hearers, the man did passionately abuse him
for if, and this both with speeches and with writings that reviled
him. Yet it happening not long after that this man gave himself a
very dangerous wound, Mr. Eliot immediately sends his wife to cure
him; who did accordingly. When the man was well, he came to thank
her, but she took no rewards; and this good man made him stay and
eat with him, taking no notice of all the calumnies with which he
had loaded him; but by this carriage he mollified and conquered the
stomach of his reviler.
He was also a great enemy to all contention, and would ring
aloud courfeu bell wherever he saw the fires of animosity. When he
heard any ministers complain that such and such in their flocks
were too difficult for them, the strain of his answer still was,
'Brother, compass them!' and 'Brother, learn the meaning of those
three little words, bear, forbear, forgive.' Yea, his inclinations
for peace, indeed, sometimes almost made him to sacrifice right
itself. When there was laid before an assembly of ministers a
bundle of papers which contained certain matters of difference and
contention between some people which our Eliot thought should
rather unite, with an amnesty upon all their former quarrels, he
(with some imitation of what Constantine did upon the like
occasion) hastily threw the papers into the fire before them all,
and, with a zeal for peace as hot as that fire, said immediately,
'Brethren, wonder not at what I have done; I did it on my knees
this morning before I came among you.' Such an excess (if it were
one) flowed from his charitable inclinations to be found among
those peace-makers which, by following the example of that Man who
is our peace, come to be called 'the children of God.' Very
worthily might he be called an Iren'us, as being all for peace; and
the commendation which Epiphanius gives unto the ancient of that
name, did belong unto our Eliot; he was 'a most blessed and a most
holy man.' He disliked all sorts of bravery; but yet with an
ingenious note upon the Greek word in Col. iii. 15, he propounded,
'that peace might brave it among us.' In short, wherever he came,
it was like another old John, with solemn and earnest persuasives
to love; and when he could say little else he would give that
charge, 'My children, love one another!'
Finally, 'twas his charity which disposed him to continual
apprecations for, and benedictions on those that he met withal; he
had an heart full of good wishes and a mouth full of kind blessings
for them. And he often made his expressions very wittily agreeable
to the circumstances which he saw the persons in. Sometimes when he
came into a family, he would call for all the young people in it,
that so he might very distinctly lay his holy hands upon every one
of them, and bespeak the mercies of heaven for them all.
The Voice of God in The Thunder
FIRST, it is to be premised, as herein implied and confessed,
that the thunder is the work of the glorious God. It is true, that
the thunder is a natural production, and by the common laws of
matter and motion it is produced; there is in it a concourse of
divers weighty clouds, clashing and breaking one against another,
from whence arises a mighty sound, which grows yet more mighty by
its resonancies. The subtil and sulphureous vapours among these
clouds take fire in this combustion, and lightnings are thence
darted forth; which, when they are somewhat grosser, are fulminated
with an irresistible violence upon our territories.
This is the Cartesian account; tho' that which I rather choose
is, that which the vegetable matter protruded by the subterraneous
fire, and exhaled also by the force of the sun, in the vapour that
makes our shower a mineral matter of nitre and sulphur, does also
ascend into the atmosphere, and there it goes off with fierce
explosions.
But, still, who is the author of those laws, according
whereunto things are thus moved into thunder? yea, who is the first
mover of them? Christians, 'tis our glorious God. There is an
intimation somewhere ('tis in Psal. civ. 7,) that there was a most
early and wondrous use of the thunder in the first creation of the
world: but still the thunder itself, and the tonitruous disposition
and generation with which the air is impregnated, was a part of
that creation. Well, and whose workmanship is it all? 'Ah! Lord,
thou hast created all these things; and for thy pleasure they are
and were created.' It is also true, that angels may be reckoned
among the causes of thunders: and for this cause, in the sentence
of the Psalms, where they are called 'flames of fire,' one would
have been at a loss whether angels or lightnings were intended, if
the apostolical accommodation had not cleared it. But what though
angels may have their peculiar influence upon thunders? Is it but
the influence of an instrument; they are but instruments directed,
ordered, limited by him who is the 'God of thunders' and the 'Lord
of angels.' Hence the thunder is ascribed unto our God all the
Bible over; in the Scripture of truth, 'tis called the 'thunder of
God,' oftener than I can presently quote unto yon. And hence we
find the thunder, even now and then, executing the purpose of God.
Whose can it be but the 'thunder of God,' when the pleasure of God
has been continually thereby accomplished?
One voice of the glorious God in the thunder, is, 'that he is
a glorious God, who makes the thunder.' There is the marvellous
glory of God seen in it, when he 'thunders marvellously.' Thus do
these inferiour and meteorous 'heavens declare the glory of God.'
The power of God is the glory of God. Now, his thunder does
proclaim his power. It is said, 'the thunder of his power, who can
understand?'- that is, his powerful thunder; the thunder gives us
to understand that our God is a most powerful one. There is nothing
able to stand before those lightnings, which are styled, 'the
arrows of God:' Castles fall, metals melt; all flies, when 'hot
thunder-bolts' are scattered upon them. The very mountains are torn
to pieces, when
- Feriunt summos
Fulmina montes.-
Yea, to speak in the language of the prophets, fulfilled in the
thunder storm that routed the Assyrian armies, 'the mountains
quake, the hills melt, the earth is burnt. Who can stand before his
indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His
fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by
him.' Suetonius, I think 'tis, who tells us that the haughty and
profane Emperour Caligula would yet shrink, and shake, and cover
his head at the least thunder, and run to hide himself under a bed.
This truly is the voice of the thunder: 'Let the proudest sinners
tremble to rebel any more against a God who can thus discomfit them
with shooting out his lightnings upon them; sinners, where can you
shew your heads, if the Highest give forth his voice with hail
stones and coals of fire.' Methinks there is that song of Hannah in
the thunder (I. Sam. ii. 3, 10), 'Talk no more so exceeding
proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth. For the
adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven
shall he thunder upon them.' The omnipotent God in the thunder
speaks to those hardy Typhons, that are found fighting against him;
and says, 'Oh, do not harden yourselves against such a God; you are
not stronger than he!' Yea, the great God is proposed as an object
for our faith, as well as for our fear in his thunder.
If nothing be too hard for the thunder, we may think surely
nothing is too hard for the Lord! The arm that can wield thunder-
bolts is a very mighty arm.
From hence pass on, and admire the other 'glorious attributes'
of God, which he doth in his thunder display most gloriously: when
it thunders, let us adore the wisdom of that God, who thereby many
ways does consult the welfare of the universe. Let us adore the
justice of that God, who thereby many times has cut off his
adversaries; and let us adore the goodness of that God, who therein
preserves us from imminent and impending desolations, and is not so
severe as he would be,
Si quoties peccant homines sua fulmina mittat.
A second voice of the glorious God in the thunder, is,
'Remember the law of the glorious God that was given in thunder.'
The people of God were once gathered about a mountain, on which,
from his right hand, issued a fiery law for them; or a law given
with lightning. At the promulgation of the ten commandments, we are
told in Ex. xx. 18, 'All people saw the thunderings, and the
lightnings, and the mountain smoaking.' Yea, they were such, that
the apostle tells us, though Moses himself says nothing of it, they
made Moses himself 'exceedingly to fear and quake.' Well, when it
thunders, let us call to mind the commandments, which were once
thus thundered unto the world; and bear in mind that, with a voice
of thunder, the Lord still says unto us, 'Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy strength;
and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' But when the thunder
causes us to reflect upon the commandments of our God, let there be
a self-examination in that reflection.
Let us now examine ourselves, what is requir'd, and whether we
have not omitted it? what is forbidden, and whether we had not
committed it? and what provocation we have given unto the God of
glory to speak unto us in his wrath and vex us in his displeasure.
Blessed the thunder that shall thunder-strike us into the
acknowledgments of a convinced and a repenting soul.
A third voice of the glorious God in the thunder, is, 'Think
on the future coming of the glorious God in the thunder, and in
great glory.' When the day of judgment shall arrive unto us, then
'our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall
devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about
him.' The second coming of our Lord will be, as we are advised in
II. Thes. i. 7, 8, 'with his mighty angels in flaming fire;' the
clouds will be his chariot, but there will be prodigious thunders
breaking forth from those clouds.
The redemption of the church, for which the Lord hath long
been cried unto, will then be accomplished; but at what rate? The
Lord will come in the thick clouds of the skies; at the brightness
that shall be before him thick clouds will pass, hail-stones and
coals of fire; the Lord also will thunder in the heavens.
I say, then, does it thunder?- Let us now realize unto
ourselves that great and notable day of the Lord, which will be
indeed a great and thundering day! But how far should we now
realize it?- realize it so as to be ready for it? Oh, count
yourselves not safe till you get into such a condition of soul,
that, your hearts would even leap and spring within you, were you
sure that in the very next thunders our precious Lord would make
his descent unto us. What if the hour were now turned, wherein the
judge of the whole world were going to break in upon us with fierce
thunders, and make the mountains to smoke by his coming down upon
them, and reign before his ancient people gloriously? Could you
gladly, say, 'Lo, this is the God of my salvation, and I have
waited for him!' I say, let the thunders drive you on to this
attainment.
A fourth voice of the glorious God in the thunder, is, 'Make
your peace with God immediately, lest by the stroke of his thunder
he take you away in his wrath.' Why is it that persons are usually
in such a consternation at the thunder? Indeed, there is a
complectional and constitutional weakness in many this way; they
have such a disadvantage in a frightful temper, that no
considerations can wholly overcome it. But most usually the frights
of people at the thunder arise from the terms wherein they may
suspect their own souls to stand before an angry God. Their
consciences tell them that their sins are yet unpardoned, that
their hearts are yet unrenewed, that their title to blessedness is
yet unsettled, and that if the next thunder-clap should strike them
dead, it had been good for them that they had never been born.
Hi sunt qui trepidant, et ad omnia fulgura pallent;
Cum tonat, exanimes primo quoque murmure coeli.
Here, then, is the voice of God in the thunder: 'Art thou
ready? Soul, art thou ready? Make ready presently, lest I call for
thee before thou art aware.' There is in thunder a vehement call
unto that regeneration, unto that repenting of sin, that believing
on Christ, and that consenting unto the demands of the new
covenant, without which no man in his wits can comfortably hold up
his face before the thunder. I have now in my house a mariner's
compass, whereupon a thunder-clap had this odd effect, that the
north point was thereby turned clear about unto the south; and so
it will veer and stand ever since unto this day, though the thing
happened above thirteen years ago.
I would to God that the next thunder-claps would give as
effectual a turn unto all the unconverted souls among us! May the
thunder awaken you to turn from every vanity to God in Christ
without any delay, lest by the thunder itself it come quickly to be
too late. It is a vulgar error, that the thunder never kills any
who are asleep: Man, what if the thunder should kill thee in the
dead sleep of thy unregeneracy?....
A seventh voice of the glorious God in the thunder, is, 'Hear
the voice of my word, lest I make you fear the voice of my
thunder.' When the inhabitants of Egypt persisted in their
disobedience to the word of God, it came to that at last, in Ex. ix
23, 'The Lord sent thunder, and the fire ran along upon the
ground.' Thus the eternal God commands men to let go their sins,
and go themselves to serve him; if they are disobedient, they lay
themselves open to fiery thunders. This, you may be sure, is the
voice of God in the thunder, 'Hear my still voice in my ordinances,
lest you put me upon speaking to you with more angry thunderbolts.'
I have known it sometimes remarked that very notorious and resolved
sleepers at sermons often have some remarkable suddenness in the
circumstances of their death. Truly, if you are scandalously given
to sleep under the word of God; and much more, if to sin under it;
and most of all, if to scoff under it; it may be, your deaths will
be rendered sudden by the other thunders of heaven lighting on you.
When it thunders, God saith to all the hearers of his word
ordinarily preached, 'Consider this, and forget not God, lest he
tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you.'
Finally, And is there not this voice of the glorious God in
thunder after all? 'O be thankful to the gracious God, that the
thunder does no more mischief to you all.'
Whatever the witch-advocates may make of it, it is a
scriptural and a rational assertion, that in the thunder there is
oftentimes, by the permission of God, the agency of the devil. The
devil is the prince of the air, and when God gives him leave, he
has a vast power in the air, and armies that can make thunders in
the air. We are certain that Satan had his efficiency in it, when
the fire of God or the lightning fell upon part of Job's estate.
How glad would he have been if the good man himself had been in the
way, to have been torn in pieces! And perhaps it was the hellish
policy of the wicked one, thus to make the good man suspicious that
God was become his enemy. Popes that have been conjurors have made
fire thus come from heaven, by their confederacies with evil
spirits; and we have in our own land known evil spirits, plainly
discovering their concurrence in disasters thus occasioned. A great
man has therefore noted it, that thunders break oftener on churches
than any other houses because the daemons have a peculiar spite at
houses that are set apart for the peculiar service of God.
I say, then, live we thus in the midst of thunders and devils
too; and yet live we? Oh! let us be thankful to God for our lives.
Are we not smitten by the great ordnance of heaven, discharging
every now and then on every side of us? Let us be thankful to the
great Lord of heaven, who makes even the wrath of hell to praise
him, and the remainder of that wrath does he restrain.
THE END
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