Verse 14

VER. 14.

Therefore shall a tumult arise among your people; and all your fortresses shall be spoiled.

AS if the Prophet should say, you have the Militia on your side, and you think you shall be able to drive on your design, this your trust is, you have all the strength with you: but (says he) what if there should be seditious tumults within you; What if the power of the enemy without you should not come upon you, cannot God work your ruin that way that you think not of? Oh! how suddenly may God suffer the discontentments of people to break forth into rage and fury so that a tumult should arise among them, to make tumults and bring all into a most miserable confusion. It's a great fruit of the wrath of God and a plague upon a City or Country when God shall suffer tumults to arise among them. Therefore shall a tumult arise among them: as a threatening of God's severe wrath among these people that were so confident in their way. A man may avoid external dangers for his body, yes, but the distempers within his body may be his death. There's fearful miseries comes upon Cities and Countries when tumults rises, and there are these two main things that have been the cause of tumults.

First, Great Oppressions

Secondly, Engaging numerous parties in matters Controversal.

These going both together are very dangerous, for men they will carry on what they have begun, if once they be engaged in it. To engage a rude multitude in a business especially if it be controversal, it's a very dangerous thing; for they being once engaged we do not know what they may do to pursue and follow their engagements, the evil it is inconceivable. When the multitude is in a rage, they are like to a tiled house that is on fire; when houses are on fire in the City the great part of the evil is, if the flame have gotten to the tiles you cannot come near the house the tiles flies so about your face: so it is in tumults, there's no coming near to talk to them, to convince them, but they are ready to fly presently upon you. And there are none so cruel as the vilest of people when they are got together in a head; men of no blood care not what blood they shed. In (Proverbs 28:3) A poor man that oppresses the poor, is like a sweeping rain which leaves no food. When a poor man comes to oppress; it's true, Oppressions are great, the evil of Tyranny it's very great; but the evil of Tumults is greater than the evil of Tyranny. We see it many times in men that are of mean rank, sometimes in those Committees that some of you complain of. Now men could bear oppression a great deal more if it were from those that are much above them, rather than from those that are their equals, or it may be under them in estate, and those that are most under men, if they come to get power any way they are like to be more oppressing than others: we have cause to bless God for delivering of us from tumults in this regard.

I might show you most dreadful examples of tumults in stories. Josephus he speaks of many; for when God was about to destroy the Jews at last by the Romans, their utter ruin was prepared by tumults and seditions that were among themselves. In his second Book of the Jewish Wars the 11. Chapter he speaks of one Eleazar, and Alexander that raised a Tumult, and murdered as they went, men, women, and children, and so made havoc of the Country, that the Nobles of Jerusalem were fain to come out clothed with sackcloth and ashes upon their heads to beseech them that they would have pity upon their Country, and upon their wives and children, and the Temple, The Nobles with sackcloth and ashes upon their heads came to assuage the rage of this Tumult so grievous was it. And I find in his sixth Book and 11. Chapter another story of Tumults and seditious Spirits, that they being in some straits for food if there were but any places in the City that had their doors shut up they did suspect there was meat and would presently break in, and as soon as ever they came in, catch whoever they found by the throat so as to take the meat out of their very mouths that was half chewed, they would not stand to ask them whether they had any thing or no but would run and catch them by the throat and pull the meat half chewed out of their mouths, and if any of them should let it go down before they could get hold upon their throats they would use them most cruelly for doing so. And in another place he tells that the Citizens suffered more by them than when the Enemies took it; so that when the enemies took it they thought that it was rather a relieving of their misery, than bringing evil upon them, because the evil of the Tumults was so great among them. My Brethren, we should rather bear much than be any fomenters of the raising of Tumults, take heed of that, you know not what the end of such things will be, A Tumult shall arise among them. In (Amos 2:2) Moab shall die with Tumult.

When God intends the sorest scourge of all, utterly to destroy a people, he suffers Tumults to be among them. I find some take this word Tumult [A Tumult shall arise] that is only meant the Confusion of the hearts of people when the enemies should come upon them, that they should be all in a Confusion, not knowing what to do through fear and terror altogether. As suppose on a sudden an Army should come against a City, people would be wringing of their hands and running up and down from place to place, and paleness in their countenances, and not knowing what in the world to do, all in perplexity and tumult: Thus God threatens it should be with them. As if he should say, You are jolly and brave now, but when the Assyrians come out upon you then your hearts shall fail, and you shall all run together and not know what to do, the women and children shall cry, not knowing how to help your selves, and so shall be brought into a confused Tumult. This is the sense that some carries it in. But the sense may very well go either of these ways.

It is a mercy that God has not tried us this way; we live in our houses, and follow our tradings, and lie down and sleep in quietness and rise again, but we cannot imagin what woful distractions there would be in the spirits of people in the city, if there were a considerable army encamped round about it. Perhaps some of you here have been in places where the enemies have come suddenly so that you know what this tumult in the spirits of men and women means. Bless God (I say) that the Lord has delivered us from such tumults as these: and the power and providence of God in government of the world by a few, in keeping people from tumulting, and so bringing all to confusion, it is to be acknowledged, and his name to be sanctified.

The word that is translated Tumult, it does indeed seem to import this, the crying of fearful creatures, those that are terrified and scar'd, it signifies the crying out of them. Oh! 'tis a great mercy for the heart of a man to be so stablished that when all dangers shall be apprehended, yet they can find their hearts fixed in God, and not in a tumultuousness presently. A righteous man, it's said of him in Psalm 112:7, that when he hears ill tydings, his heart is fixed: but it is a greater blessing, that when we see the armies before us, and hear the neighings of horses, and clattering of the speers, then to be fixed. Oh! we should labor in the time of peace to make our calling and election sure. In Psalm 57:7, My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise. Awake my glory, awake psaltry and harp, I my self will awake early, I will praise you, O God, &c. When was this that David cries to awake, and to give glory to God, and sing praise, and that his heart was fixed? It was when Saul persecuted him, it was when he was in danger of his life, when Saul pursued him to take away his life, yet, My heart is fixed, my heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise (says David) even at that time. So in Psalm 46:2-3, We will not fear though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. This Psalm was wont to be called Luther's Psalm, for in times of trouble he would say, Come and let us sing the 46th Psalm. Many scriptures we might have to this purpose. I remember the story of Archimedes, that when the city of Siracuse was taken, and the enemies came in with their drawn swords and hack'd and slew whom they pleased, and abundant of blood-shed there was; yet he was so setled upon the drawing of his lines (being a mathematician) that when the soldiers came in with their swords drawn, he was drawing his lines about his art. Which of you could, if you were at prayer, or any serious duty, if you should hear of the breaking in of adversaries, could you have your hearts fixed in a setled constant way, fixed upon God in such a time as this is?

As outward tumults in cities and countries are very great evils, so are likewise spiritual tumults in the heart, when God seems to come against the souls as an enemy. I have a place for spiritual tumults, that is, the trouble and distraction of the heart in the time of the apprehension of God's absence: in Psalm 40:2, He brought me up (says the Psalmist) out of an horrible pit. Now the word is in the original the very same word we have here, From the pit of tumultuousness. Oh! it's true, as if he should say, my heart was fixed indeed, yet at other times I found my heart in a tumultuous condition when I apprehended God not coming in according as I expected, yes but the Lord did bring me up out of the pit of tumultuousness. Oh! has not this been the condition of some of you in time of trouble of your spirit, when you have apprehended the absence of God from you? Your hearts have been all in a tumult, has the Lord delivered you? Remember the Psalm, The Lord has delivered me out of the pit of tumultuousness; I was in a tumultuous condition, my heart was even overwhelmed, but the Lord has delivered me out of the pit of tumultuousness. And then in Psalm 61:2, From the end of the earth will I cry to you, when my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Remember that scripture likewise.