b0 FIRST SERMON against Manasseh, and every man eateth the flesh of his own arm," Isa. ix. 9. 21. 0 let us all remember what it cost Shechem and Abimelech, what it cost Benjamin and the other tribes, even the loss of three- score and five thousand men : remember Babylon will clap their hands ; no such time for Shishak the Egyptian to trouble Jerusalem, as when Israel is divided, 2 Chron. xii. 2. Let it never be said of God's own people, that they are fallen into the curse of Midianites, and Amorites, and Edomites, and Philistines, to help forward the destruction of one another. O that God would give this whole nation hearts to consider these things; that he would put a spirit of peace and resolved unity into the minds of this whole people, to be true to their own happiness ; and by how much the greater are the subtleties of men to divide them, to be so much the more firmly united in prayers to God, and in concord between themselves, that they may not expose their persons, estates, posterity, and (which is dearest of all) their religion, to the crafty and bloody advantages of the enemies of the protestant churches, who in human view could have no way to overthrow them, but by their own dissensions. 2. I shall now conclude all with a very few words of the next point, which is drawn from the scope and connexion of the prayer suggested to the judgment threatened. It is this : When temporal judgments are felt or feared, God's people should pray for spiritual mercies. Human sorrows cannot overcome where the joy of the Lord is our strength. Thus the Lord seems to have taught his apostle he was under some pressing discomfort, the messenger of Satan sent to buffet him ; he prays for particular deliverance, and God answers him, not
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