O that they that read me could but feel me! for my heart is affected with this merciful visitation of the Father of lights and spirits to this poor nation, and the whole world through the same testimony. Why should the inhabitants thereof reject it? Why should they lose the blessed benefit of it? Why should they not turn to the Lord with all their hearts, and say from the heart, Speak Lord, for now thy poor servants hear: O that thy will may be done, thy great, thy good, and holy will, in earth as it is in heaven! do it in us, do it upon us, do what thou wilt with us; for we are thine, and desire to glorify thee our Creator, both for that, and because thou art our Redeemer; for thou art redeeming us from the earth, from the
vanities and pollutions of it, to be a peculiar people unto thee. O! this were a brave day for England, if so she could say in truth! but alas, the case is otherwise! for which some of thine inhabitants, O land of my nativity! have mourned over thee with bitter wailing and lamentation. Their heads have been, indeed, as waters, and their eyes as fountains of tears, because of thy transgression and stiffneckedness; because thou wilt not hear, and fear, and return to the Rock, even thy Rock, O England! from whence thou art hewn. But be thou warned, O land of great profession, to receive him into thy heart. Behold, at that door it is he hath stood so long knocking; but thou wilt yet have none of him. O! be thou awakened! lest Jerusalem’s judgments do swiftly overtake thee, because of Jerusalem’s sins that abound in thee. For she abounded in formality, but made void the weighty things of God’s law, as thou daily dost.
She withstood the Son of God in the flesh, and thou resistest the Son of God in the Spirit. He would have gathered her, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and she would not; so would he have gathered thee out of thy lifeless profession, and have brought thee to inherit substance; to have known his power and kingdom: for which he often knocked within, by his grace and Spirit; and without, by his servants and witnesses: but, on the contrary, as Jerusalem of old persecuted the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh, and crucified him, and whipped and imprisoned his servants; so hast thou, O land! crucified to thyself afresh the Lord of life and glory, and done despite to his Spirit of grace; slighting the fatherly visitation, and persecuting the blessed dispensers of it by thy laws and magistrates: though they
have early and late pleaded with thee in the power and Spirit of the Lord; in love and meekness, that thou mightest know the Lord, and serve him, and become the glory of all lands.
But thou hast evilly entreated and requited them, thou hast set at nought all their counsel, and wouldst have none of their reproof, as thou shouldst have had. Their appearance was too straight, and their qualifications were too mean for thee to receive them; like the Jews of old, that cried, Is not this the Carpenter’s Son, and are not his brethren among us; which of the scribes, of the learned (the orthodox) believe in him? Prophesying their fall in a year or two, and making and executing of severe laws to bring it to pass: endeavouring to terrify them out of their holy way, or destroy them for abiding faithful to it. But thou hast seen how many governments that rose against them, and determined their downfall, have been overturned and extinguished, and that they are still preserved, and become a great and a considerable people, among the middle sort of thy numerous inhabitants. And notwithstanding the many difficulties without and within, which they have laboured under, since the Lord God eternal first gathered them, they are an increasing people; the Lord still adding unto them, in divers parts, such as shall be saved, if they persevere to the end. And to thee, O England! were they, and are they lifted up as a standard, and as a city set upon a hill, and to the nations round about thee, that in their light thou mayst come to see light, even in Christ Jesus the light of the world, and, therefore, thy light and life too, if thou wouldst but turn from thy many evil ways, and receive and obey it. “For in the light of the Lamb must the nations
of them that are saved walk,” as the scripture testifies.
Remember, O nation of great profession! how the Lord has waited upon thee since the dawning reformation, and the many mercies and judgments by which he has pleaded with thee; and awake and arise out of thy deep sleep, and yet hear his word in thy heart, that thou mayst live.
Let not this thy day of visitation pass over thy head, nor neglect thou so great salvation as is this which is come to thy house, O England! for why shouldst thou die? O land that God desires to bless, be assured it is he that has been in the midst of this people, in the midst of thee, and not a delusion, as thy mistaken teachers have made thee believe. And this thou shalt find by their marks and fruits, if thou wilt consider them in the spirit of moderation.
CHAP. III.
Of the Qualifications of their Ministry. Eleven marks that it is Christian.