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divers songs; in the blessed Virgin's Magnificat; My soul doth magnify the Lord: in Zachary's Benedictus; Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; and in Simeon's Nunc Dimittis, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. This world began so, and the other; and when both shall join, and make up one world without end, it shall continue so in heaven, in that song of the Lamb, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. And, to tune us, to compose and give us a harmony and concord of affections, in all perturbations and passions, and discords in the passages of this life, if we had no more of the same music in the Scriptures (as we have the song of Moses at the Red Sea, and many Psalms of David to the same purpose), this song of Deborah were enough, abundantly enough, to slumber any storm, to becalm any tempest, to rectify any scruple of God's slackness in the defence of his cause, when in the history and occasion of this song, expressed in the chapter before this, we see, that Israel had done evil in the sight of the Lord again, and yet again God came to them: that God himself had sold Israel into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, and yet he repented the bargain, and came to them: that in twenty years' oppression he came not, and yet he came. That when Sisera came against them, with nine hundred chariots of iron, and all preparations, proportionable to that, and God called up a woman, a prophetess, a Deborah against him, because Deborah had a zeal to the cause, and consequently an enmity to the enemy, God would effect his purpose by so weak an instrument, by a woman, but by a woman, which had no such interest,. nor zeal to the cause; by Jael: and in Jael's hand, by such an instrument, as with that scarce any man could do it, if it were to be done again, with a hammer she drives a nail through his temples, and nails him to the ground, as he lay sleeping in her tent and then the end of all, was the end of all, not one man of his army left alive. O my soul, why art thou so sad, why art thou so disquieted within me? Sing unto the Lord an old song, the song of Deborah and Barak, that God by weak means doth mighty works, that all God's creatures fight in his behalf, They fought from heaven, the stars in their order, fought against Sisera.

2 Rev. xv. 3.

You shall have but two parts out of these words; and to make these two parts, I consider the text, as the two hemispheres of the world, laid open in a flat, in a plain map. All those parts of the world, which the ancients have used to consider, are in one of those hemispheres; all Europe is in that, and in that is all Asia, and Africk too: so that when we have seen that hemisphere, done with that, we might seem to have seen all, done with all the world; but yet the other hemisphere, that of America, is as big as it; though, but by occasion of new and late discoveries we had had nothing to say of America. So the first part of our text, will be as that first hemisphere; all which the ancient expositors found occasion to note out of these words, will be in that but by the new discoveries of some humours of men, and rumours of men, we shall have occasion to say somewhat of a second part too. The parts are, first, the literal, the historical sense of the words; and then an emergent, a collateral, an occasional sense of them. The explication of the words, and the application, quid tunc, quid nunc, how the words were spoken then, how they may be applied now, will be our two parts. And, in passing through our first we shall make these steps. First, God can, and sometimes doth effect his purposes by himself; entirely, immediately, extraordinarily, miraculously by himself: but yet, in a second place, we shall see, by this story, that he looks for assistance, for concurrence of second causes, and subordinate means: and that therefore, God in this song of Deborah, hath provided an honourable commemoration of them, who did assist his cause; for the princes have their place, The princes of Issachar were with her3: and then, the governors, the great persons, the great officers of the state, have their place in this honour, that they offered themselves willingly to that service1; and after them, the merchants, for those who are said there, to ride upon white asses, to be well mounted, according to the manner of those nations, are, by Peter Martyr, amongst our expositors, and by Serarius the Jesuit, amongst the others, fitly understood, to be intended of merchants; and in the same verse, the judges are honourably remembered, Those that sit in judgment; and a far unlikelier sort of people, than any of these, in * Judges v. 15. Judges v. 9, 10.

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the same verse too, Those that walked by the way; idle, and discoursing men, that were not much affected, how business went, so they might talk of them: and lastly, the whole people in general, how poor soever, they have evidence from this record, that they offered themselves (and what will they deny, that offer themselves) and willingly, to this employment. And then, God having here afforded this honourable mention of them, who did assist him, he lays also a heavy note upon such, who for collateral respects prevaricated, or withdrew themselves from his service: particularly upon Reuben, who was divided by greatness of heart, and upon Dan, who remained in his ships. And therefore to the encouragement of those who did assist him, in any proportion, though their assistance were no ways competent against so potent an enemy, God fought for himself too, They fought from heaven, the stars in their order fought against Sisera. And these will be the branches, or circumstances of our first part: for the particulars of the second, we shall open them more commodiously for your memory and use, then, when we come to handle them, than Now we proceed to those of the first part.

now.

And into those I pass with this protestation, that in all which I shall say this day, being to speak often of God, in that notion, as he is Lord of hosts, and fights his own battles, I am far from giving fire to them that desire war. Peace in this world, is a precious earnest, and a fair and lovely type of the everlasting peace of the world to come: and war in this world, is a shrewd and fearful emblem of the everlasting discord and tumult, and torment of the world to come: and therefore, our blessed God, bless us with this external, and this internal, and make that lead us to an eternal peace. But I speak of this subject, especially to establish and settle them, that suspect God's power, or God's purpose, to succour those, who in foreign parts, groan under heavy pressures in matter of religion, or to restore those, who in foreign parts, are divested of their lawful possessions, and inheritance; and because God hath not done these great works yet, nor yet raised up means in appearance, and in their apprehension, likely to effect it, that therefore God likes not the cause; and therefore they begin to be shaken in their own religion at home,

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since they think that God neglects it abroad. But, beloved, since God made all this world of nothing, cannot he recover any one piece thereof, or restore any one piece, with a little? In the creation, his production of specific forms, and several creatures in the several days, was much, very much; but not very much, compared with that, which he had done immediately before, when he made heaven and earth of nothing. For, for the particular creatures, God had then præjacentem materiam, he had stuff before him; enough to cut out creatures of the largest size, his elephants of the earth, his whales and leviathans in the sea. In that matter there was semen creaturarum, the seed of all creatures in that stuff. But for the stuff itself, the heaven and earth, God had not semen cæli, any such seed of heaven as that he could say to it, do thou hatch a heaven; he had not any such semen terræ, as that he could bid that grow up into an earth: there was nothing at all, and all that is, was produced from that; and then who shall doubt of his proceeding, if by a little he will do much? He suffered his greater works to be paralleled, or to be counterfeit by Pharaoh's magicians; but in his least, in the making of lice, he brought them to confess digitum Dei, the finger of God; and that was enough; the arm of God, the hand of God needs not; where he will work, his finger is enough; it was not that imagination, that dream of the rabbins, that hindered the magicians, who say, that the devil cannot make any creature, less than a barley-corn; as it is with men, they misconceive it to be with the devil too; harder to make a little clock, a little picture, anything in a little, than in a larger form. That was no part of the reason in that case: but since man ordinarily esteems it so, and ordinarily admires great works in little form, why will he not be content to glorify God that way, in a faithful confidence, that he can and will do great works by weak means? Should God have stayed to levy, and arm, and train, and muster, and present men enow to discomfit Sennacherib? He took a nearer way; he slew almost two hundred thousand of them, in one night, by an angel'. Should God have troubled an angel to satisfy Elisha his servant? Only by apparition in the clouds, he brought him to acknowledge, that

7 Isaiah xxxvii. 36.

there were more with them, than with the enemy, when there was none". He troubled not so much as a cloud, he employed no creature at all, against the Philistines, when they came up with thirty thousand chariots'; but he breathed a damp, an astonishment into them, he imprinted a divine terror in their hearts, and they fought against one another. God foresaw a diminution of his honour, in the augmentation of Israel's forces, and therefore he reduced Gideon's thirty-two thousand to three hundred persons 10. It was so in persons, God does much with few, and it was so in time, God does much, though late; though God seem a long time to have forgot his people, yet in due time, that is, in his time, he returns to them again. St. Augustine makes a useful historical note, that that land to which God brought the children of Israel, was their own land before; they were the right heirs to it, lineally descended from him, who was the first possessor of it, after the flood: but they were so long out of possession of it, as that they were never able to set their title on foot; nay they did scarce know their own title, and yet God repossessed them of it, reinvested them in it. It is so for persons, and times in his ways in this world, much with few, much though late, and it is so in his ways to the next world too: for persons, Elias knew of no more but himself, that served the right God aright: God makes him know that there were seven thousand more; seven thousand was much to one, but it was little to all the world: and yet these seven thousand have peopled heaven, and sent up all those colonies thither; all those armies of martyrs, those flocks of lambs, innocent children, those fathers, the fathers of the church, and mothers, holy matrons, and daughters, blessed virgins, and learned and laborious doctors; these seven thousand have filled up the places of the fallen angels, and repeopled that kingdom: and wheresoever we think them most worn out, God at this time hath his remnant, (as the apostle says") and God is able to make up the whole garment of that remnant. So he does much with few, in the ways to heaven; and that he does much though late, in that way too, thou mayest discern in his working upon thyself. How often hast thou suf

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