SERMONS. 415 



And now, when restless and unquiet men (the 

 true spawn of him whose tail drew the third part 

 of the stars of Heaven,* and cast them to the 

 earth,) would fain, by their hellish plots and con- 

 trivances, bring us down again from thence, even 

 down to the very ground, and lay all our honour 

 in the dust : when, by their secret machinations, 

 they are at work on all hands to hurry us back 

 into the old confusions ; in hope that, out of that 

 disordered mass, they may at length rear up a new 

 world of their own ; (but what a world ? A world 

 made up of a new Heaven of superstitions, and 

 idolatries ; a new earth, too, of anarchy first, and 

 pretended liberty, but of tyranny insufferable at 

 the next remove :) in such a dangerous state of 

 affairs as this, whither should we rather (nay 

 whither else can we) run for help and deliverance, 

 but under his protections, the stretching out of 

 whose wings fills the breadth of thy land, O Eng- 

 land !t He can make all , these cockatrice eggs, 

 on which this generation of vipers (that eat out 

 the bowels of their mother) have sat so long 

 abrood, windy at last, and addle ; and he will do 

 it : so that out of the serpent's root shall never 

 come forth an adder to bite us, or a fiery flying 

 serpent to devour us. He will confound these 

 Babel builders, with their city, and their tower, 

 or temple, (their foreign polity, and their strange 

 worship; their novel modes, and models of govern- 



* Rev. xii. 4. t Is. viii. 8. 



