ON HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 1, 2. 49 help in trouble, and whether he will not magnify the wisdom of his counsel in the perplexity of yours. [4.] Unto fidelity, in the use of any good which God bestows upon us : for God gives not talents to men, barely to enrich men, but to employ them therefore as the vessel hath one passage to let the wine into itself, and another to pour it out into the flagon, so we should not only fill ourselves by depen- dence upon God, but should supply others by love and service unto our brethren. Right honourable, this nation bath put into your hands all that is outwardly dear unto them, their per- sons, posterities, liberties, estates. In these sad and woful distractions, they look upon you as binders, and healers, and standers in the gap, and repairers of waste places ; God hath called you unto an high and a great trust ; and men call upon you, like the man of Macedonia, in St. Paul's vision, Acts xvi. 2. Come and help us. Now in this great strait stir up the graces of God in you, call together all that is within you to call upon his name, improve the uttermost of your interests in him for the state of his church, manage every one of his gifts to the closing of those miserable breaches which threaten an inundation of calamity upon us all ; wisdom, and learning, and piety, and prudence, are healing things. Remember (and O that God would put it into the hearts of this whole kingdom, from the throne to the plough, to remember) the fate of a divided kingdom from the mouth of truth itself. O that we would all remember that misunderstandings, and jealousies, and divisions of heart are a high evidence of God's dis- pleasure ; and that through the wrath of the Lord of hosts, a land is darkened, and as it were infatuated, when " Manasseh is against Ephraim, and Ephraim E
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