cast away defensive arms, as unlawful, in any case
whatsoever, against the supreme magistrate (that is, by interpretation,
they would have us do no more than _pray_, to the end themselves may do no
less than _prey)_; wherein they are contradicted not only by Pareus, and
by others that are "eager for a presbytery" (as a prelate(1362) of chief
note hath lately taken, I should say _mistaken_, his mark), but even by
those that are "eager royalists"(1363) (pardon me that I give them not
their right name: I am sure, when all is well reckoned, we are better
friends to royal authority than themselves). Yet herein I do agree with
them, that "prayers and tears" will prove our strongest weapons, and the
only _tela divina_, the weapons that fight for us from above: O then "fear
the Lord, ye his saints" (Psal. xxxiv. 9); O stir up yourselves to lay
hold on him (Isa. lxiv. 7); "Keep not silence; and give him no rest, till
he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth" (Isa.
lxii. 6, 7). O that we could all make wells in our dry and desert-like
hearts (Psal. lxxxiv. 6), that we may draw out water (1 Sam. vii. 6), even
buckets-full, to quench the wrath of a sin-revenging God, the fire which
still burneth against the Lord's inheritance. God grant that this sermon
be not "as water spilt on the ground" but may "drop as the rain" and
"distil as the dew" (Deut. xxxii. 2) of heaven upon thy soul.

SERMON.

EZEK. xliii. 11.

"And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the
form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings-out
thereof, and the comings-in thereof, and all the forms thereof,
and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all
the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep
the whole form thereof, and all the ordinance thereof, and do
them."

It is not long since I did, upon another day of humiliation, lay open
England's disease from that text, 2 Chron. xx. 33, "Howbeit the high
places were not taken away; for as yet the people had not prepared their
hearts unto the God of their fathers." Though the Sun of Righteousness be
risen, Mal. iv. 2, "with healing in his wings," yet the land is not
healed, no, not of its worst disease, which is corruption in religion, and
the iniquity of your holy things. I did then show the symptoms, and the
cause of this evil disease. The symptoms are your high places not yet
taken aw