Things for a Distressed People to Think Upon

p. 1Uttered unto the Great and General Assembly, of the Massachusetts Bay, New-England: Convened, May 27. 1696.

IN a General Assembly there is this Day Convened, a whole Province, that hath Eminently professed the Religion of the Lord JESUS CHRIST; and some Advice from the Lively Oracles of the Lord JESUS CHRIST, unto such a Province, now Labouring under the Deadly Tokens of His Displeasure, is this Day called for. The Text now to be Recommended unto you, from these Oracles of Heaven, shall be one, wherein you shall see described▪ the behaviour of the only People that the God of Heaven then had in the World, meeting together in a General Assembly, upon the Advice of his being Displeased with them. The most Reasonable, and the most Seasonable Things, that I can Recommend unto you, in this critical Time, are those Three Things which were done by the General Assembly of Israel, in the Text whereto I now desire your serious Attention.

And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and they drew water and poured it out before the Lord; and they Fasted on that Day; and they said there, We have Sinned against the Lord. [Unto which, if we duely Attend, we shall be ready for the following passages;] And Samuel Judged the Children of Israel; But the Lord Thundered with a great Thunder upon the Philistines, and discomfited them.

I Confess, that I now Entertain you with a Text very proper, for a Day of Humiliation: but it is for this very cause that I pitch upon this Text, as a very Agreeable Entertainment for us: inasmuch as we are generally agreed, That we are in most Humbling Circumstances.

'Tis possible, that it was an Anniversary Solemnity of a Sacred Importance with the People of Israel, when the memorable Actions here mentioned were performed. Jewish and Ancient Records have told us, that at the Feast of Tabernacles, they did every Day fetch a silver Flagon of Water, and pour it out at the Altar, with the Wine, for the Drink Offering; to signify p. 3the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, after the Coming of the Messiah, who indeed, was afterwa◊ds Born at the very Time of that September Festival For this Custome, we find no Institution; but the countenance which our Lord Jesus Christ gave unto it, when He thence formed a Reflection upon the Living Waters of the Holy Spirit which He has to give, would make one think, whether it were not first Instituted by the Inspired Samuel, in that History which is now before us. But we have a further Assurance, that five dayes before the Feast of Tabernacles, namely, on the Tenth Day of the Seventh Month, a Fast was kept for a Day of Expiation: Even on the same Day that Moses having Thrice Fasted forty dayes together, came down to his people, with the News of the Lords being Reconciled unto them. I know not whether the Prophet Samuel, might not, a little divert some Actions of that Great Solemnity, unto the Designs of Repentance, which the extraordinary Calamities upon his people did now require. But still, our Anniversary Solemnity of a Civil Importance, this Day recurring, will be the better accommodated▪ by our proposing those Actions to ou◊ present Imitation.

p. 3The People of Israel, were, by their Sins, like us, the poor People of New England, brought into very dismal circumstances. Those Ta◊ ny p. 4Pagans the Philistines, had made cruel and bloody Depredations, upon several of their Villages: and besides their Loss of men, by the Hand of the Philistines, they lost a great number of their Principal men, by the more Immediate Hand of Heaven upon them. The least comp◊tation of that mischief, is that of them, who thus read the Story: When they were together met from all Quarters at Bethshemesh, about Fifty Thousand People, the Lord smote Threescore and ten men: and it may be those Threescore & ten men were equivalent unto Fifty Thousand People, of the more common sort. Under these awful Judgments of God, they continued Impenitent, for as many years, as have ran out, since the Children of those Philistines were first let Loose upon our selves; even for Twenty years together. But it was well for them, that they had a Samuel among them; a faithful Minister of God, who had no little part of their Civil, as well as of their Sacred Affairs, falling under his Direction. Upon the Exhortations of that Blessed Samuel, they began to Lament after the Lord, that is, to cry unto the Lord for 〈…〉 g◊ievous Lamen◊ation; and they 〈…〉 private Reformations of their Families, all the Land over, to their Lamentations. But 〈…〉 must have something more publickly done in this matter: the whole Body of that People must p. 5Assemble at Mizpeh, a Town of some Note in the Confines of Judah and Benjamin, near the center of the Countrey, where we suppose there might be an Altar Erected for the Worship of God; and at Mizpeh they do Three Things, whereto, may the Body of this People, to Day, endeavour some Conformity.

We have Three Things here done, by a General Assembly of Israel.

First, The Drew Water, and poured it out 〈…〉 the Lord. This passage puts Interpreters, as ◊he Dead Body of Asahel did the Travellers, and Spectators, unto a Stand; they almost content themselves with saying, Mirabilis hic locus, ac Difficilis; 'Tis too hard for us to Interpret it. But, if the Exposition, which we have already guess'd, will not hitt, there are several other Conjectures to be made upon the Literal Sense of this passage, which we will at present wave; that we may in the room thereof substitute that Figurative Sense, which has no less Authority, than that of the Chaldee Paraphrase to support it; Hauserunt Aquas e puteo cordis sui, et abunde Lacrymati sunt coram Domino. And indeed, Expositors do mostly go this way; Expounding it of the plentiful Years which they shed in such abundance, as if, to use the the words of the Weeping Prophet elsewhere, Their Heads had been Waters, and their Eyes a Fountain of Tears. However, Let us take what p. 6Sense we will, of all that the Commentators have ordinarily offered us, the words will still have some Sense of Humiliation in them. The other two passages, are more Intelligible.