The Election Sermon

AN ESSAY Tending to Promote Reformation.

Honoured, Reverend, much Respected, and Beloved in the Lord,

I Who am of the Least, the most Unable, and Unworthy of all your Servants in the Lord, am called at this time to Preach before this Great, and Good Assembly, an Assembly of the Chosen People of the Lord: The Choice, the Best, the most Wife, the most Able in the Province; an Assembly, which is yet accounted (notwithstanding a great Declension and Degeneracy) the most truly Honourable, Venerable, Pious, and Religious, of any in the Western World. This Land was Sown with good Seed, planted with choice Vines, Men generally Vertuous, Pious and Religious. Religion was their main interest; it was no Worldly design, but meerly on the account of Religion; they came to these remote Ends of the Earth, a vast and howling Wilderness: God signally owned, and blessed them in their great, and dangerous Undertaking, God was with them, and it was well with them. God was a Wall of fire round about them, and their glory in the midst of them: No weapons formed against them Prospered; Counsels were turned to Foolishness. We have heard with our Ears, and our Fathers have told us, what God did for them in their days, How He did drive out the Heathen, and Planted them; they got not the Land in Possession by their own Sword, neither did their own Arm save them. They were with God, and God was with them: They Sought and Served God, God Prospered them: They Sought the Kingdom of God in the first Place; They had the additional Blessings of Heaven, and Earth, Sea and Land: From Small beginnings, in few years they became a Flourishing, and considerable Plantation. But since their days, their Posterity, and Successors have much Degenerated: As we have increased, so we have Sinned, and Provoked the Lord against us. We have changed our Ways and Interest in great measure; God hath changed his Ways, and dealings towards us. God hath Witnessed against us by variety of Judgments for a long time. We have been Impoverished, brought Low, Afflicted, many evils and troubles have befallen us; especially the Sword, a cruel Sword; a Cruel Barbarous Enemy. The Sword God is not wont to draw upon His People when less Chastisements are effectual. Here hath been great Declension: God hath been greatly Provoked; How is our Gold become dim, and our fine Gold changed? This is matter of Lamentation! and that which is greater, We are still Declining, notwithstanding all Means used to prevent and to reduce.

I shall therefore endeavour to apply my self in such manner, as I judge most suitable to a People so circumstanced. Deo annuente, et adjuvante. God needeth no Instruments: He can work with them, or without them, as in pleaseth Him. The best can do nothing without God; the weakest can do much with God. God's Strength is made perfect in Weakness, 1 Cor. 3.7. He that planteth is not any thing, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.

I would not offend any Person, nor offer any thing, but what might be agreeable to all; yet to please all I account a thing next to impossible; Quot Capita tot Sensus. Omnes non idem Sapiunt. I desire not the Praise of Men, I desire to please God above all: I desire God may give me His Grace so to do. Give what He may accept and accept what He gives.

NOW may it please Your EXCELLENCY, and this Honourable Assembly; the place of Scripture I have taken for the Subject of our present Discourse, you have in,

Numbers XIV.II.

And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this People provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me? — THIS Book is called by the Hebrews, Vajedabber, from the first words: And (the Lord) Said. Some-times Bemidbar, that is, In the Wilderness, where these things were acted. According to the Greek Title, it is called Numbers; so called from the many Numbrings recorded in the Book. The most remarkable Numbring we have in Numb. 1.1, 2, 3. Where God commandeth Moses, On the first day of the second Month, in the second year after they were come cut of the Land of Egypt, to Take the Sum of all the Congregation of Israel: from twenty year old and upward, that were able to go forth to War. Except the Levites, v. 47. Twenty years old: [Heb.] a Son of twenty, entring into, or beginning to be twenty. The total Sum we have, v. 46. Six hundred thousand and three thousand, and five hundred and fifty. A wonderful increase of Seventy Souls in such a time. A reward of Faith, Heb. 11.11, 12. Through faith Sarah received strength to conceive, therefore there sprang even from one, so many as the Stars of the Skie for multitude, and as the Sand of the Sea Shore innumerable. Balaam beholds them with admiration, Numb. 23.10. Who can count the dust of Jacob, and number the fourth part of Israel. 'Tis of awful consideration, that God consumed this great body of People (all but two, Caleb and Joshua) in His Wrath. Where Note, That a People for whom God hath done great things, wrought wonders, may after by their Ingratitude and Disobedience provoke God to Destroy them. Jude v.5. I will put you in remembrance, how the Lord having saved his People out of Egypt, afterward destroyed them. The Contents of this Book are partly Doctrinal, partly Historical: The Doctrinal part contains additions, explanations of sundry Laws, Moral, Judicial, mostly Ceremonial. The Historical part containeth the most remarkable things, the Children of Israel did, or suffered in the Desert, by the space of Thirty-nine years: Dangers, Deliverances, Troubles, Travels, Provocations, Punishments. In the Fourteenth Chapter we have recorded, a Rebellion that did consummate their Provocation, and compleat their Sin, and procured their utter Destruction. …