Seasonable truths in evil-times in several sermons / lately preached in and about London

4. Look when the Solemn Assembly doth lie under Reproach, then all the People of God, the whole Generation of the Righteous are afflicted, distressed, and as a Lamp despised before him, that is at ease: Who would not grieve to see the necks of all the people of God lye upon the block together, ready to be cut off? Pray do but mind that place in Esther, 'Tis said there, that when the Decree came out upon the Jews, that their necks lay all upon the block, in the third of Esther, The Decree was given in Shushan the Palace, and the King and Haman sate down to drink, but the City Shushan was perplexed: The City Shushan, Why the City Shushan? 'Tis not said the Jews: What was the City Shushan, Jews? No, there were a hundred to one in the City, ⟨p. 101⟩that were no Jews, I, but the Neighbours of the people of God were perplexed. O then, is the City Shushan perplexed in such a day? and shall not the Jews themselves be perplexed? shall they not be affected much with it? Then all the Saints, their necks lie upon the block. Look but into the Psalms, and you shall see that when the Temple of God is defiled, The reproach of the house of God, and the persecution of the Saints go together, Psal. 79. 1, 2. O God, the Heathen are come into thine Inheritance, thy Holy Temple have they defiled, they have laid Jerusalem on heaps; the dead bodies of thy Servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the Heaven, the fl•sh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the earth, their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them, we are become a reproach to our Neighbours. I, these two go together, the defilement of the house of God, the reproach of the Solemn Assembly, and the persecution of the Saints likewise. Now who can see these things and not be affected?

4. Look when the Solemn Assembly doth lie under Reproach, then all the People of God, the whole Generation of the Righteous are afflicted, distressed, and as a Lamp despised before him, that is at ease: Who would not grieve to see the necks of all the people of God lye upon the block together, ready to be cut off? Pray do but mind that place in Esther, 'Tis said there, that when the Decree came out upon the Jews, that their necks lay all upon the block, in the third of Esther, The Decree was given in Shushan the Palace, and the King and Haman sate down to drink, but the City Shushan was perplexed: The City Shushan, Why the City Shushan? 'Tis not said the Jews: What was the City Shushan, Jews? No, there were a hundred to one in the City,