A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemn fast…A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemne fast…

2. There is another cause of this great humiliation, and that ⟨p. 18⟩¹is the point in the Text, to be ashamed of all that you have done. Sin, Sin is that which blacketh our faces, and covereth us with confusion as with a Mantle: and then most of all when we may read our sin in some judgement of God which lieth upon us. Therefore the Septuagints here in stead of being ashamed of all that they have done, (a) read accept their punishment for all that ²they have done. Which agreeth to ^bthat word in the Law: If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled (The Greek readeth there ashamed) and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity. This is now Englands case, whose sin is written in the present Judgement, and graven in your calamity as ^cwith a pen of iron, and with a point of a Diamond: to make you say, ^dThe Lord our God is righteous in all his works, which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice. Did not the land make Idol Gods of the Court, and of the Prelatical Clergy, and feared them, and followed them more then God, and obeyed them rather then God, so that their threshold was set by Gods threshold, and their posts by Gods posts, as it is said v. 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 bin a great compliance with the Prelates, for peace 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 Gods just judgement that such a remedy of mans invention should rather increase then 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 Gods part, that your enemies have all this while taken Gods 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