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the threatening hath taken hold upon me. As of all mercies, it is most comfortable to receive a blessing in the way of a promise; so among miseries, it is the most lamentable to meet with an affliction in the way of a threatening: therefore matter of lamentation hereby.

Again, A man loseth many, if not most of his opportunities of doing good and receiving. "Make yourselves friends of your unrighteous mammon (saith our Saviour), that they may receive you into everlasting habitations," Luke xvi. 9. But if this unrighteous mammon fail, how shall a man make him such friends? So long as a man is at home, and hath a habitation to resort unto, he hath many opportunities of doing good, and receiving good into his family. He may pray, read, meditate, sing, and have a little church and heaven on earth.* If God give a man any notion or knowledge out of the Scripture in his chamber, when he hath a family he may come down and communicate it unto them. He may there receive strangers, for which many have been blest. There he may give a hiding, a resting place unto the saints, for which many have been hid themselves. There he may exercise good duties, the only way unto heaven and happiness. When he is thrust out, and strangers brought in, he doth therefore lose many of these opportunities; and therefore how justly may he take up this lamentation and say, Have pity, have pity upon me, oh all my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me. This condition is very sad, I am not able to express it in words, and praised be the Lord that your experience cannot preach it.

Secondly, Yet God suffers his own people and dear children many times to fall into this condition. Our Saviour Christ himself, who bare our sins, had not whereon to lay his head. The apostle tells us, Heb. xi., that many saints wandered up and down the world in woods and caves, of whom the world was not worthy. They did not only wander, and were removed from their own houses; but, as Chrysostom observes,† they were not quiet even in the woods: they * Unum quod equantumvis exiguum tuguriolum fieret cœlum quoddam et superaret omnia omnium regum palatta.-Luther.

Ipse Deus hospitiore cipitur. Cette enim scimus ipsum Deum domi nostræ esse, apud nos pasci, cubare, re puescere quoties bonus aliquis frater ob evangelium exulans ad nos verit, et a nobis hospitio ex ipitur.-Luther.

† Non solum non habebant propriam domum intra civitatem, sed neque in

did not only want their own house in the city, but they wanted a quiet seat in the wilderness.

Four especial causes there are, or occasions, as Musculus observes whereby men have been driven from their houses and habitations. First war. Secondly famine. Thirdly inhumanity, cruelty, exaction of evil men and magistrates. Fourthly, want of liberty in the matter of religion: and in all these respects God's people have been driven from their houses. First by famine and outward scarcity: so Abraham, so Naomi, so Jacob and his family, when they went down. into Egypt. Secondly by war: so the Israelites when they were carried into Assyria, and the Jews into Babylon. Thirdly: by the inhumanity, cruelty, and exaction of evil men and magistrates: so Joseph and Mary went down into Egypt. Fourthly, by want of liberty in the matters of religion: so it is said many of the saints in Jeroboam's time left their houses, and went down to dwell in Jerusalem under Rehoboam, 2 Chron. xi. 14, 16." The Levites left their suburbs, and their possessions and came to Judah and Jerusalem. And after them, out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came unto Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers." So that we see this condition, though sad, is no other than what may, and doth, and shall befal the servants of the Most High God. In the churches since Christ what men of note have there been, but have fallen under this condition? Cyprian, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, all by violence, one time or another driven out of their habitations and forced to leave their houses. In times nearer to ourselves, Calvin driven from Geneva, because especially he would not administer the sacrament of the Lord's supper to some that were very scandalous: you know the story of Galeacius Caracciolus, you may read it in Mr. Jewell's life; to this purpose described in English and set down before his Works. Doctor Humfrey† also, relating his life, tells us how he was

solitudine propriam et quietam sedem habebant; quippe non dicit apostolus sedebant in solitudine, sed cum illic essent fugiebant. et illine expellebantur non solum exteria que inhabitari poterat, sed etiam ex inhabitabili.-Tena in Heb. xi. Chrysostom in Heb. xi. αλλα και εκ το λες εφευγον. &c.

* Musculus in Ps. xciv. page 714.

+ Certe qui me hic nolunt esse si esset integrum nus quam vellent vivere. Ego vero cedo temporibus, et si quam ille amea calamitate voluptatem capiant eam nihil impedio; quodque suis precatus est. Aristides cum ire in exilium

expelled the college, and at once suffered a threefold banishment, who taking his leave of the college in a solemn oration, breaketh forth into these expressions: Well surely those that would not have me live here, if it were in their power, would not have me live in the world. But I give place to the times, only wishing, as Aristides when he went into banishment, and praying that none of you all hereafter may think on me: and so farewell all studies, farewell these schools and seat of learning, fare ye well, O young men, fellows, friends, brethren, yea mine own eyes. Ye know how it fell out with many of our brethren in England, Tyndale, Rogers, Palmer, and divers others. Our Saviour saith expressly," when they persecute you in one city, flee unto another." "And when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, then let them that are in Judea flee unto the mountains." Matt. xxiv. Let me allude and say also, when you see the desolating army, the army that maketh desolations in places where it comes, that abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, the highest court of justice, then let those that are in England also flee unto the mountains.*

But God hath promised the contrary, that he will plant his people surely with his whole heart, and they shall be no more removed.

You must distinguish of times: some promises are made to all times, some promises are made only to some times, and are to be fulfilled especially in the later times, the end of the world, when the Jews are converted: when the Jews are called, the enemies of the churches shall be all destroyed, and then God's people shall be planted in their houses, and no more removed, as Isa. lxv. Who would not pray

for this time?

But besides you know God's promises are of two sorts, such as are made absolutely, and such as do run conditionally according unto the nature of that good thing which he promiseth; some good things promised are absolutely good

id ego nunc Deum opt max. preco ne mei posthac cuiquam in mentem veniat valete, omnes valete, Humfred. in vita Juelli, page 75.

* Sed id tempus in hac Angliorum Ecclesia Francforti exulante multi nobiles et alioqui variis Dei muneribus illustrati convenerunt. Doctor Humfred. de vita Juelli, page 87.

for us, as pardon of sin, grace, and the like, and thus God's promise is made absolute to the elect in Christ: some good things are but conveniently good for us, and conditionally, as degrees of grace, comfort, and outward blessings; and concerning these God's promise is made conditionally, which condition if we break, he is at liberty as in this case.

Thirdly, But why doth God suffer this to befal his own people; that his own servants and dearest children should be driven out of their houses and habitations?

In general it is for their good: we read of a vision which Jeremiah hath in chap. xxiv., of two baskets, the one of good figs, and the other of bad; the good figs were the good people of the kingdom, the bad figs were the wicked, both these sorts of figs are said to be in baskets, which is a vessel whereby we carry fruit from one place unto another, setting forth unto us the moving condition of God's people, and how they were to be carried to Babylon, so it is explained, verse 5, “Thus saith the God of Israel, like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good." That is for the good of the good people, that they should be thus removed for their good, that they should be driven from their houses and habitations, for their good they should be driven from all.

But can it be for men's good to be carried and driven by violence from house and habitation, by those that are profane wretches, and very wicked?

Yes. Hereby first a man may be, and is, if godly, emptied of that slime and filth that did lie within him. It is written of Moab, Jer. xlvi., that because she was settled upon her lees, and not removed from vessel to vessel, their scent remained, so that to be removed from vessel to vessel, from one place to another, from one country to another, one house to another, is a means to take away the filth and scent of sin that is in the soul. The sea water though it be exceeding salt, and very brackish, yet if it run through several earths, the brackishness is lost thereby, as we find in all sweetest springs which, as philosophers say, come from the sea, and lose the saltness of the sea water by running through the earths and in experience if you take water, though it be salt in your hand, yet if you cause it to pass through divers

earths it will lose that saltness: so that though there may be much saltness and brackishness in the spirits of men, yet if the Lord by his providence cause them to pass through divers earths, it is a special means to lose that brackish, brinish disposition, and to grow more quiet, sweet, and

savoury.

Again, thereby sometimes the saints, though unwillingly, are carried from greater judgments that are coming upon the places where they dwell and live. As it is written of Lavater, that being in an house, was violently occasioned from it, and when he was gone, the house fell down to the ground. Lot though violenced, and pulled, and driven from his habitation in Sodom, yet thereby he was drawn out of the fire, so it is many times with other godly.

Thereby also truth and knowledge is carried and scattered into other places, many shall run to and fro, "and knowledge shall be increased," Dan. xii., and that is a cause-all, and, Acts viii. 4, therefore they that were scattered, &c.

Thereby a man is fitted and prepared for God's own house, and those revelations and manifestations that God hath to communicate to him concerning the house of God. A man is never more fit to see the beauty of God's house, than when he is driven from his own. When Jacob was driven by his rough brother Esau from his home and habitation, the first night he was fain to lie in the field upon the cold ground, but then and there the Lord appeared to him, and he called the name of that place Bethel, that is, the house of God, Gen. xxviii. When did God communicate so much of his mind concerning the churches to Daniel, but when he, with other Jews, was carried from Judah into Babylon? When did God reveal so much of his mind concerning the churches under the New Testament, unto John the Evangelist, as when he was in Patmos, a banished condition? Rev. i. This is God's way, he will first unhouse a man before he will shew him the beauty and glory of his own house: and is not this for our good; who would not be quiet when he is driven from all?

Hereby also a man is received from the world, and taught to live upon God himself, when Abraham and the patriarchs were called from their own houses, then they looked for a habitation, a city that had a foundation. "The widow that

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