Thanksgiving SERMON for ENGLAND's Delivery from POPERY, Feb. 1688-9.

Candid Reader,

AN EPISTLE TO THE READER.

HE following difcourfe comes to thy hand in that native

TH plainness wherein it was preached. I was confcientiously

unwilling to alter it, because I found by experience, the Lord had bleffed and profpered it in that dress, far beyond any other compofures on which I had bestowed more pains. Let it not be cenfured as vanity or oftentation, that I here acknowledge the goodnefs of God in leading me to, and bleffing my poor labours upon this fubject. Who, and what am I that I should be continued, and again employed in the Lord's harvest, and that with fuccefs and encouragement, when fo many of my brethren, with their much richer furnitures of gifts and graces, have in my time been called out of the vineyard, and are now filent in the grave! It is true, they enjoy what I do not; and it is as true, I am capable of doing fome fervice for God which they are not. In preaching these fermons, I had many occafions to reflect upon the mystical fense of that fcripture, Amos. ix. 13. "The plowman fhall overtake the "reaper, and the treader of grapes him that foweth feed." Sowing and reaping times trode fo close upon one another, that (in all humility I fpeak it to the praife of God) it was the bufiest and bleffedeft time I ever faw fince I first preached the gospel.

England hath now a day of fpecial mercy: there is a wide door of opportunity opened to it; O that it might prove an effectual

door! It is transporting and astonishing, that after all the high and horrid provocations, the atheism, profaneness, and bitter enmity against light and reformation: this fweet voice is ftill heard in England, Behold, I ftand at the door and knock. The mercies and liberties of this day are a new trial obtained for us by our potentate Advocate in the heavens: if we bring forth fruit, well; if not, the ax lieth at the root of the tree. Let us not be secure. Jerufalem was the city of the great King; the feat of his worship, and the symbols of his presence were fixed there; it was the joy of the whole earth, the house of prayer for all nations; thither the tribes went up to worship, the tribes of the Lord unto the teftimony of Ifrael. For there were fet thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David, Pfal. cxxii. 4, 5. These privileges fhe enjoyed through the fucceffions of many ages, and she had remained the glory of all nations to this day, had the known and improved in that day, the things that belonged to her peace; but they neglected their season, rejected their mercies, and miferably perifhed in their fins for there ever was, and will be found an infeparable connex'ion betwixt the final rejection of Chrift, and the deftruction of the rejecters, Matth. xxii. 5, 6, 7. The contemplation whereof drew those compaffionate tears from the Redeemer's eyes, when he beheld it in his defcent from the mount of Olives, Luke xix. 41, 42.

Let all that are wife in heart henceforth depofe their animofities, fadly reflect on their follies, encourage and affift the labours of their brethren in the Lord's harvest; and rejoice that God hath set them at liberty by law, whofe affiftance in fo great an opportunity is neceffary and defirable. It is against the laws of wisdom and charity to envy the liberty, and much more the fuccefs of our brethren, 1 Cor. xiii. 4. If the workmen contend and scuffle in a catching harvest, who but the owner fuffers damage by it? If, after fo miraculous, recent, and common a falvation as this, we still retain our old prejudices and bitter envyings; if we fmite with the tongue and pen, when we cannot with the hand; and study to blast the reputation and labours of our brethren; and still hate those we cannot hurt: In a word, if we still bite and devour one another, we shall be devoured one of another. Let us not lay the fault upon others, we ourselves have been the authors and inftruments of our own ruin; and this must be the infcription upon our tombstone, O England, thou haft deftroyed thyself. I am more afraid of the rooted enmity and fixed prejudices that are to be found in many against holiness and the ferious profeffors of it, and the inflexible obftinacy and dead formality in many others, (the tokens of a tremendous infatuation) than I am of all the whispered fears from other hands, or common enemies upon our borders.

To prevent thefe mifchiefs, and promote zeal and unanimity among the minifters of the gofpel, I have prefumed to addrefs them in the following epiftles. I am confcious of my own unworthiness to be their monitor, and of the defects their judicious eyes will eafily difcern in the ftile it is written; and yet can promife myfelf a becoming reception of what is fo faithfully, feafonably, and honeftly defigned for their good. I am fatisfied that no candid and ingenuous perfon will put words upon the rack, quarrel at a fimilitude, or expofe a trifle, when he finds the design honest, and the matter good and neceffary.

As to the treatise itself, thou wilt find it a perfuafive to open thy heart to Chrift. Thy foul, reader, is a magnificent structure built by Chrift; fuch ftately rooms as thy underftanding, will, conscience and affections, are too good for any other to inhabit. If thou be in thy unregenerate state, then he folemnly demands in this text admiffion into the foul he made, by the confent of the will; which, if thou refuse to give him, then witness is taken, that Chrift once more demanded entrance into thy foul which he made, and was denied it. If thou haft opened thy heart to him, thou wilt, I hope, meet somewhat in this treatife that will clear thy evidences, and cheer thy heart: Pray read, ponder, and ap ply. I am

Thine and the

Church's Servant,

JOHN FLAVEL.

VOL. IV.

B

(6)

A

LETTER'

To the dearly beloved Minifters of the Gofpel, (much to be reverenced in Chrift) now at length, by the wonderful Providence of GOD, restored to Liberty: Addreffed as a humble Supplication to the more aged, and as an Exhortation to younger Minifters and Candidates.

Reverend Fathers, and Brethren in Chrift,

HOUGH it is not fit for us to coin metaphors according to our fancy, yet we ought to have a great liking to those which the Spirit himfelf hath authorifed in fcripture. There he hath reprefented and painted to the life the deliverance of his fuffering church, by the fweet delights of the advancing Spring, Cant.. ii. 12.

In the fpring, the earth, like a moft bountiful parent, opens her bofom, produces variety of herbs, adorns the meadows with abundance of flowers; the trees which had been ftript of their former green leaves are clothed with new ones; the cold being now ́driven away, the air becomes warm, and the cattle bring home udders full of milk;

Then joyous birds frequent the lonely groves.

DRYDEN'S Virgil.

All nature is renewed and fmiles; the feafon is kindly favourable, and admirably well adapted to the benefit of all things, chiefly of thofe endued with life. All which things have been, in a very elaborate and ingenious manner, applied by our learned countryman, Brightman, to that remarkable period, when Cyrus published that edict of his, (which can never be fufficiently commended) for fetting God's people at liberty. The enlivening

This letter was originally wrote in Latin, the author judging it neceffary to be fo, as what allowed him a greater freedom of expreffion, than might feem convenient at that time in the common language; yet, that every reader might be profited by it, the publisher of this edition hath thought fit to translate it into English. It has a reference to the troubles before, and the blessings after the Revolution.