A sermon preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords, in the Abbey Church…A sermon preached before the Right Honorable House of Lords, in the Abbey Church…

AS the Text of the book of divine providence (worthy Reader) is the Church and Spouse of Jesus Christ, for every line, word, and letter thereof hath a necessary relation to that body whereof Christ Jesus is head, so the draughts and passages of providence towards all creatures, yea to devils and the haters of Zion, seem to be but Annotations in the Margin of this great volume. There be many wonders and depths in the book, and the Lord doth even before our eyes in this old age of the world create new things and miracles in Britain. 1. It is most congruous to divine wisdom to time fitly the laughing and the weeping of the children of men; the triumphing of the wicked, and their prosperity; The Sackcloth and tears of the prisoners of hope seem dark and mysterious ⟨image 3⟩Chapters of the book, especially because we trade by the senses, and colour of things, for we see not how God hath set his enemies in slippery places, and that the throne that mystical Babylon sitteth on, is made of Crystal glass, and the pillars thereof nothing but Safes of ever-gilded earth, the Sons of God would not exchange their tears with the joy of the wicked. O that we had grace to read to a full period, and with the sense of a godhead, every section of the treatise of providence; we do half both the word and the works of God, wrong reading of God in his ways doth spoil the true sense and scope of God in his acting. The light of faith maketh legible to us, that The vision at the end shall speak, and not lie, and that light is sown to the righteous; then the harvest must be hoped for, and we err not a little, if we comment any otherwise on the short triumphing of the wicked,