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1. WE must weepe also for the desolation of the Church,
2. As David and Iere∣miah did.
3. Great desolation of the Churches by the last troubles.
4. Their present state most pitifull and lamentable.
5. Examples to moove us to weepe for them.
I WHen yee have thus wept for your selves, remember that ye are not for your selves onely: consider
that yee belong to the mysticall body of our Lord Iesus Christ, the mēbers wherof are dis∣perst through the whole world: and print in your minds the most reaso∣nable commandement of the holy Apostle,o Weepe with them that weepe. Weepe for the Church, as the holy men of God have wept for it. They mourned for the evills past, for the evills that were present, and for the evills that were to come.
II. When David heard the tydings of the
overthrow of Gods people by the Philistins,p He and all the men that were with him, mourned, and wept, and fasted un∣till even. Made not Ie∣remiah lamentations for the desolation of Ieru∣salem? and when his eyes were dryed up, when his eye-lids were so withered, that heavi∣nesse and sorrow could find no water to squeese out of them, did he not then wish, did hee not thē cry,q O that my head were waters, & mine eyes a fountaine of teares, that I might weepe day and
night for the slaine of the daughter of my people.
III. Deare brethren, there is no man beyond seas, in those places where the warre was, but he may say as truely as Ieremiah saide in his Lamentations,r I am the man that hath seene affliction by the rod of the Lords wrath: who ass he had appointed over his Churches their foure kinds, the sword to slay, the dogges to teare, the fowles of the heaven to devoure, and the beasts of the earth to destroy; so hath hee brought those
fierce and pitilesse exe∣cutioners of his justice upon his people.t Hee hath slaine in the day of his anger, he hath killed, he hath not pitied. Chast women and honest ma∣trons were defiled and murthered; shamefac't and pure virgins were most vilely deflowred; the young men were put to death by the sword; sucklings were pulled a∣way from their mothers breasts, and cast into the rivers, or dasht against the stones; the princi∣pall men of towns were hanged; the faces of El∣ders
were not honored; their bodies, which had beene Temples of the Holy Ghost, were given to bee meate unto the fowles of the heaven, and unto the beasts of the earth, as if they had beene dead dogs. Po∣pulous townes are now heapes of stones: where defenced and strong ci∣ties were, nothing is to be seen but ruines. That which was thought im∣possible to be atchieved in fifty yeares by all the sleight and might of the enemies, was begun and finished in fiftie dayes.
uThe Lord hissed unto them, and they came upō the Churches with speed swiftly. None was weary, none stumbled a∣mongst them: their hor∣ses hoofes were like flint, the wheeles of their charriots were like a whirle-wind. Their roaring was like a Ly∣on; they laid hold of the prey, and carried it away safe, and there was none to deliver: So on them was accompli∣shed that which Isaiah prophecyed once a∣gainst the Iewes, and which was fulfilled.
The head of those ar∣mies might have writ∣ten about the Embleme of his unlooked-for vi∣ctories, the posie which Iulius Caesar carryed graven in the table of his triumph of the Par∣thians, VENI, VIDI, VICI: I came to them, I saw them, I overcame them. Is there any head so frozen and hardned with unsensiblenesse, but it will NOW melt and flowe over with teares, at the naming only of the great breach which hath beene made in the Church of our
Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ?
IV. There was ne∣ver wound so weil hea∣led, but the cicature re∣mained: O how great is the scarre of this wound! Alas! alas! when shall it bee closed up? Behold and consi∣der the present state of the Churches of the Pa∣latinate, of Bohemia, and of many moe: Is it not NOVV most miserable, and a sorrowfull subject of a tragicall lamenta∣tion? and shall wee not weepe NOVV?
V.x Did I not weepe,
saith Iob, for him that had evill dayes? was not my soule grieved for the poore? O how evill are Novv the daies of our distressed brethren! and shall not wee weepe for them NOVV? O how many rich men have beene turned into their shirts! how many are now poore, that were wont to relieve the poore! and shall not our soules bee grieved for them NOVV?
yPhineas wife was not so gladded, because she had borne a sonne, as she was deadly woū∣ded
with displeasure, be∣cause, the Arke of God was taken: At that ty∣dings, shee called her sonne Ichabod, that is to say, Where is the glory? and nothing at all regarding him, shee saide in her mour∣ning and lamentation, The glory is departed from Israel: for the Ark of God is taken. So wee∣ping, so mourning, so bemoning, not so much the death of her belo∣ved husband, as the taking of the Arke, shee gave up the ghost. The true Ark of God is
the Gospell of our Lord Iesus Christ; Gospell whicha is the power to e∣very one that beleeveth. The Philistins have ta∣ken the Arke: Antichrist hath againe smothered the Gospell: the glory is departed from the Churches: the abomi∣nation of desolation is alas! alas! set up again in the houses of the Lord: swarms of drones humming and buzzing make an unknowne and most unpleasant noyse; where the word of the Lord was wont to bee
preached, his Name to be ta••••ed upon, his prai∣ses to be sung. If men, hearing NOW these wofull tidings, will not weepe NOW; shall not women, who are more sensible of inju∣ries, and sooner pricked with sorrow, mourne and weep NOW, even NOW?
Nehemiah was more sorrowfull for the de∣solation of the City of Ierusalem, than he was joyfull for all his credit and favour with the great King. When hee heard, that the people
of God, which was re∣turned from the ••••pti∣vity of Babylon,b was in great affliction and re∣proach, that the wall of Ierusalem was broken down, & the gates there∣of burnt with fire; he sate down, & wept, & mour∣ned certain daies, and fa∣sted, and praied before the God of heaven. The king wondred to see his countenance; thinking his royall favour more than sufficient to cheer him up, and to make his heart glad. But hee answered,c Why should not my countenance bee
sad, when the Citie, the place of my fathers sepul∣chres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consu∣med with fire? This is the present state of ma∣ny bretheren: where they are suffred to live, they live in so great af∣fliction and reproach, that death would bee welcomer unto them than life. Their towns are dismantled: their houses are turned into cotages: they that had something, are, by the oppression of garrisons, brought to little or no∣thing. If there bee not
at Artaxerxes Court a Nehemiah to weep a few daies; let us, who are no Courtiers, weep this one day for them: let us weep NOW.
David said of his e∣nemies, thatd they re∣warded him evill for good, seeking to deprive him of his soule. But as for me, saith hee, when they were sicke, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soule with fasting, and my praier returned into mine owne bosome: I be∣haved my selfe as though hee had beene my friend and brother: I bowed
down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother. Was that holy mans charity so fervent, that hee wept for his foes? and shall ours bee so cold, that wee cannot finde one teare to shead NOVV for our friends?
eIesus wept for his friend Lazarus, vvho was dead and stinking. Then said the Iewes, Be∣hold how hee loved him. Our deare friends are like unto Lazarus: they are in a worse plight, than if they were dead: when they walk abroad they look like a ghost.
Their goods are becom a booty: their houses are desolation: their e∣nemies are roaring Li∣ons & ravening wolves, who have left nothing on them but skinne and bone. If we had chari∣ty in our hearts to love them, would wee not have tears in our eies, to weep for them NOVV; words in our mouthes, to pray for them Now; our hands in our purses, to succour them Now? would wee not remem∣ber the exhortation of the Apostle, and prac∣tise it?f Remember, saith
he, them that are in bōds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adver∣sity, as being your selves also in the body.
Rom. 12.15.
2. Sam. 1.11, 12.
Ier. 9.1.
Lam. 3.1
Ier. 15.3.
Lam. 2.21.
Esa. 4.26.
Iob 30.25.
1. Sam. 4.20, 21, 22.
Rom. 1.16.
Neh. 1 3, 4.
Neh. 2.3.
Psal. 35 12, 13, 14.
Iohn 11 35, 36
Heb. 13 3.