An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

Thou shalt fall in the day, Thou shalt stumble as a man in the dark, but it shall be in the day to thee, and yet thou shalt stumble. [In the day;] that is, First in thy prosperity, for in the latter times of the second Jeroboam (which was a little before the destruction of the ten Tribes) they were in a better case than they had been in before, yet from thence they began to fall. I say, not long before their ruin they were in more prosperity than they had been in many years before, therefore it is here said, thou shalt fall in the day, even when thou art in a prosperous condition. Or secondly, thou shalt fall in the day, that is, you shall see your misery before you yet you shall fall, you shall not be able to prevent it; it shall be in the day time, at noon day, you shall see plainly where your misery lies, yet you shall be as if you were in the night you shall stumble and fall.

Thou shalt fall in the day, Thou shalt stumble as a man in the dark, but it shall be in the day to thee, and yet thou shalt stumble. [In the day;] that is, First in thy prosperity, for in the latter times of the second Jeroboam (which was a little before the destruction of the ten Tribes) they were in a better case than they had been in before, yet from thence they began to fall. I say, not long before their ruin they were in more prosperity than they had been in many yeers before, therefore it is here said, thou shalt fall in the day, even when thou art in a prosperous condition. Or secondly, thou shalt fall in the day, that is, you shal see your misery before you yet you shal fall, you shall not be able to prevent it; it shall be in the day time, at noon day, you shall see plainly where your misery lies, yet you shall be as if you were in the night you shall stumble and fall.

Oh my brethren this is a Scripture that doth nearly concern us here in England as much as any I know. If England falleth and perisheth now,¹ it falleth and perisheth in the day. We see apparently our evil before us; we see means to prevent it, God doth not bring night upon us in this sense, that is, he doth not bring misery so upon us as that we do not know how it comes or by what means, or how we should prevent it. No we are not so in the night, but in the day; we have seen the misery that hath come upon us by a continued design, we know almost the very bottom the very beginning of that design, how it hath gone on by degree, step by step; we see now the reason of the breaking of it out, because the stream is stopped it violently breaks out: We know who are the causers of our evil, what their counsels, intentions, what their ways are notwithstanding all their protestations, we see what we are like to be brought into if we do give but a little way and do not appear to quit our selves like men; And we see apparently what God would have us to do; we see ways to help us and power to help us if we will, we have power to help our selves, and direction to help our selves too; we all of us know or may know clearly what we should do, and