at they have done," read--"accept their punishment for
all that they have done," which agreeth to that word in the law:(1382) "If
then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled (the Greek readeth there
_ashamed_) and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity," Lev.
xxvi. 41. This is now England's case, whose sin is written in the present
judgment, and graven in your calamity as "with a pen of iron, and with a
point of a diamond" (Jer. xvii. 1), to make you say, "The Lord our God is
righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice,"
Dan. ix. 14. Did not the land make idol gods of the court, and of the
prelatical clergy, and feared them, and followed them more than God, and
obeyed them rather than God, so that their threshold was set by God's
threshold, and their posts by God's posts? as it is said, ver. 7. I speak
not now of lawful obedience to authority. Is it not a righteous thing with
the Lord to make these, your idols, his rods to correct you? Hath not
England harboured and entertained Papists, priests, and Jesuits in its
bosom? Is it not just that now you feel the sting and poison of these
vipers? Hath there not been a great compliance with the prelates, for
peace's sake, even to the prejudice of truth? Doth not the Lord now justly
punish that Episcopal peace with an Episcopal war? Was not that prelatical
government first devised, and since continued, to preserve peace and to
prevent schisms in the church? And was it not God's just judgment that
such a remedy of man's invention should rather increase than cure the
evil? So that sects have most multiplied under that government, which now
you know by sad experience. Hath not this nation, for a long time, taken
the name of the Lord in vain, by a formal worship and empty profession? Is
it not a just requital upon God's part, that your enemies have all this
while taken God's name in vain, and taken the Almighty to witness of the
integrity of their intentions for religion, law and liberty, thus
persuading the world to believe a lie? What shall I say of the book of
sports, and other profanations of the Lord's day? This licentiousness was
most acceptable to the greatest part, and they "loved to have it so," Jer.
v. 31. Doth not the great famine of the word almost everywhere in the
kingdom, except in this city, make the land mourn on the Sabbath, and say,
"I do remember my faults this day?" Gen. xli. 9. Yea, doth not the land
now enjoy her Sabbaths,