of God calls the accepting of the Punishment of our Sins Lev. 26.41 But if the Sinner be not convinced that he suffers for his Sins and that his Transgressions have been the Procurers of his Afflictions it cannot easily be but that his corrupt Nature should rebel against God and impatiently rise up against his Providence as unequal too rigorous severe 2dly Neither can a Man profit by his Afflictions unless he be convinced that his Sins have been the Cause of them and that God strikes at them in his Sufferings Who can think himself concerned to amend and reform that upon the account of his Afflictions which he never discerned to be the Cause of them nor can be convinced that they have any relation to it But let a Man once be throughly apprehensive of the Displeasure of God against him for his particular Sins and see the Hand of God in his Afflictions striking at those Sins and then he will soon think himself highly concerned to rectify or remove out of the way that which hath done him so much Mischief He will think he cannot make too much haste to quit and be rid of that for which he sorely smarts already and may yet smart more unless by his speedy Reformation he prevent it When God had sent a Plague among the Israelites for their murmuring Moses being deeply sensible of the fierce Wrath of God against them for that Sin saith to Aaron Numb 16.46 Take a Censer and put Fire therein from off the Altar and put on Incense and go quickly unto the Congregation and make an Atonement for them for there is Wrath gone out from the Lord the Plague is begun Go quickly saith he for Wrath is gone out from the Lord. A lively Sense of the Anger and Displeasure of God in your Afflictions for your Sins will speed and quicken your Endeavours to make your Peace with God by answering the End of his Corrections 3dly Neither can you rationally expect to be freed from your Afflictions in a way of Mercy until they bring you to the Sight of your Sins and you look upon them as the Punishment of Sin For till that be done upon you your Afflictions are wholly fruitless as having done no part of that Work for effecting of which God sent them To understand why you are afflicted and to see the Sins which God strikes at in your Afflictions is the first Step towards God's attaining his End in afflicting you If this be not done upon you nothing is done And therefore you have no Reason to expect the Removal of them unless it be to make way for some other more smarting Rod which may effectually work that in you which God intended But though in these Respects it be most necessary to see and own our Sins as the Cause and Procurers of our Sufferings yet to do it is as difficult as 't is necessary For such is the Pride and Stubbornness of our Hearts that we are not easily brought to take Shame to our selves and to acknowledg our own particular Sins to have been the Cause of our Sufferings saying to our selves as God saith to Jerusalem Jer. 4.18 Thy VVay and thy Doings have procured these things unto thee We are very unwilling to acknowledg our own Guilt and would much rather lay the Cause of our Sufferings at any other Door than our own And this we are especially apt to do in publick and common Calamities These we ascribe 1. To Chance or common Providence in which we do not think our selves particularly touch'd or concern'd 2. To the Wickedness of some malicious and mischievous Instruments that were the Contrivers and Causers of our Sufferings 3. To the Sins of others The Provocations of such and such profligate and abominable Persons drew down the Judgments of God upon the Place and not our own Offences As for our selves we suffered only in the Croud and because we were found among those who were to be punished Or 4. If we acknowledg our Sins in the general to have been the meritorious Cause of our Sufferings yet we descend not to Particulars we charge not our selves with such and such Sins for which God hath been angry with us And so our owning our Sin only in general as the Cause of our Sufferings is but a formal thing with which we are little affected 'T is little better than if we had said We believe indeed that we have deserved all that is come upon us but we know not how nor wherein Ezra no doubt went a great deal further 't is not to be questioned but that he had in his most passionate Confessions an Eye upon the particular Sins for which they suffered in Babylon We may be sure they were not Generalities only that so deeply affected him he had upon his Heart the particular Instances of their vile Provocations together with the Circumstances of them and so must we if we desire to be affected with God's terrible Providences as we ought and to take them to Heart in a right manner Though what I am now speaking concerns us all yet there may be those amongst us who may think themselves very little concerned therein 1. Those who though they have been Sufferers together with others yet have been free from all those foul and enormous Offences and high Provocations which many others have been guilty of and possibly over and above their being free from the Guilt and Stain of fouler Sins they have been such as have made a stricter Profession of Religion than most others These Persons may be very inclinable to think that God did not particularly intend the correcting of them for their Sins in the common Judgment that lighted upon the Place but that they suffer rather upon their Neighbours Account than their own 2. Of the same Opinion perhaps may they be tempted to be who seem even as to outward things to have gained by their Afflictions and to be in a better Condition as to Trade than they were in before 'T is easy for such if any such be to entertain themselves with a pleasant Dream that God only emptied them to the end he might fill them fuller than they were before and that he had no other Design in pulling down their Houses than that he might build them up fairer But let neither the one nor the other deceive themselves They would but flatter themselves if they should think that God did not aim at their Sins in his severe Providences as well as at the Sins of their Neighbours As for the former of these though they may have been free from the fouler Abominations and crying Sins of the Place and though they may have made a strict and high Profession of Religion yet even such may have been tainted with the Pollution of many Sins which may have had no small Influence in procuring the heavy Judgments of God upon the Town And their Sins in respect of their nearer relation to God and stricter Profession
neither God nor Devil neither Heaven nor Hell O the sad condition of our Age that a Nation that hath had the light of the Gospel so long and so clearly shining amongst them that hath been as it were lifted up to Heaven in the means of Grace and that hath been honoured and dignified with so many signal Deliverances by which God hath from Heaven born witness and given testimony to the Truth which we profess should after all this so wretchedly apostatize and decline both in Opinion and Practice in Doctrine and Manners In respect of Sin and Temptations our days are evil with a witness so evil that 't is not easie to conceive how they can be much worse or what further degrees of wickedness men can arrive at 2. The days are evil in respect of the evil of Affliction and Punishments which our Sins have brought upon us and further threaten us with 1. They are evil days in respect of the Afflictions and Punishments which our Sins have brought upon us What Effusion of Blood at home and abroad by Sea and by Land What vast expence of Treasure What weakning and impairing of mens Estates What Mortality in our memory by a most grievous and terrible Pestilence raging in the Metropolis and in divers other parts of the Kingdom What dreadful Fires in the Head City and in many other places beyond all that any of our Histories make any report to have been in this Land Heretofore as far as I have heard or read of so many and such terrible Fires within the like space of time to have been in this Kingdom no Memorials of former Times for ought I know give us any account of 2. As the days are evil in respect of the sore Afflictions and heavy Judgments which our Sins have already brought upon us so are they evil also in respect of the Judgments which they further threaten us with The Apostle long since foretold 2 Tim. 3.1 that in the last days perilous times should come Such are our times There was never a time since the Reformation when our just fears and dangers were greater than of late they have been Neither the Spanish Invasion of Eighty Eight nor the Gunpowder Plot though horrid Attempts both of them exceeded the Bloody and Fatal designs of the Enemies of Church and State in our days O then how much doth it concern us to redeem the time because the days are evil To redeem it for giving all diligence to make our calling and election sure and for setling matters right between God and our own Souls to redeem time for getting strength to keep our selves untainted with the Corruptions of the Times and strength against the Assaults of the many dangerous and powerful Temptations which we meet with to redeem time for seeking God and for offering up to him our most fervent and uncessant Supplications for confounding the wicked Devices for defeating the Bloody Counsels and Barbarous Designs and for breaking in pieces the Diabolical Combinations and Traiterous Conspiracies of unreasonable men that are skilful to destroy To redeem time for seeking God in behalf of the Reformed Churches abroad groaning under the sad Miseries and Calamities of War and Persecution to redeem time to humble our selves for our manifold Sins and Provocations here at home and for averting those heavy Judgments which we may fear are hanging over our heads and hastening to come upon us and may speedily overtake us and surprize us if by our timely Humiliation and sincere Repentance we prevent it not These are sufficient Reasons to dispose of our time in such order as Religion the Concernments of our own Souls and the Publick Welfare may have a good proportion of it applied that way And the worse the times are we live in the more careful should we be to redeem it The Fourth Sermon 3 Ep. JOH V. 3. Beloved thou dost faithfully whatsoever thou dost to the brethren and to strangers THIS short Epistle of St. John was written to Gaius a sincere and zealous Christian Where he lived and to what Church he belongod is uncertain But wheresoever his abode was whether at Corinth Derbe or at Ephesus or some-where else 't is evident that he was a man eminent for Religion and greatly useful in his place The chief intention of St. John in writing this Epistle to him seems to have been that he might let him know how much he rejoyced to hear of the grace of God in him and that he might encourage him to go on and persevere in the profession and practice of the truth which he had entertained In the words which I have made choice of we have the principal thing which the Apostle here takes notice of in him commendeth him for and encourageth him in and that is his charity and hospitality to the Saints in relieving them and giving entertainment to them or rather his uprightness and sincerity therein Thou dost faithfully whatsoever thou dost to the brethren and to strangers Which words that they are to be understood of his Charity in relieving and of his Hospitality in entertaining the Saints is manifest from what follows concerning the same Subject in the 8th 9th and 10th Verses Thou dost faithfully whatsoever thou dost to the brethren and to strangers By the Brethren we may understand those who were of the same Church with Gaius or at least of the same City where his Habitation was and by Strangers those other Christians who either through persecution were constrained to come thither for shelter or whose necessary business and secular affairs drew them thither or lastly who came to preach the Gospel as it seems they did who are intended in the 7th and 8th Verses concerning whom the Apostle saith that for his Name 's sake that is for Christ's sake they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles and that therefore Christians who were of ability ought to receive them that they might thereby be Fellow helpers to the Truth and promote the propagation of the Gospel And though these also were Brethren in a more general sense yet being Strangers those other at home might in a stricter sense be so called as being Brethren not only in respect of their common Faith and profession of the same Christian Religion but also in respect of their more particular relation to one another as fellow-members of the same same Church or Inhabitants of the same City Now whereas among many other good things which without all question were to be found in Gaius the Apostle singles out this particular That he did faithfully whatsoever he did in way of charity and kindness both to the brethren and to strangers And whereas he doth not so much commend him for the thing done how good soever in it self considered as for the manner of doing it We may hence observe That 't is a great duty of a Christian to do every thing faithfully In treating of which point I shall 1. Shew what it is to do all
the worst of all the Kings that went before him shall find that in all manner of abominable Wickedness he exceeded them all His Sins were of a most horrid Nature Idolatry Witchcraft consulting with Wizards and such as had familiar Spirits his causing his own Son to be burnt in way of Sacrifice to his Idols his barbarous Cruelty in shedding innocent Blood in that abundance that he filled Jerusalem with it from one End to the other Moreover as these his Sins were hainous and abominable in their own Nature so were the Aggravations of them such as greater or higher could not easily be These Aggravations hath the Spirit of God in the History mentioned and in a special manner insisted on 1. That he wrought all this Wickedness notwithstanding the good Example that his Father Hezekiah had given him 2 Kings 21.3 2 Chron. 33.3 2 Kings 21.4 by his Zeal against Idolatry That he built up again the high Places which his Father had destroyed 2. That he built Altars in the House of the Lord of which the Lord had said In Jerusalem will I put my Name Ver. 7. That he set a graven Image of the Grove that he had made in the House which God hath chosen to place his Name therein for ever It had been an horrible Sin if he had only built his Altars and set his Images any where else how much more to set them up in the House of God the Place which God made such account of and so highly esteemed that he should set up his Idols in that Place as it were in Defiance of God and of his Worship there 3. That he should not content himself to have offered other Sacrifices to his Idols unless he had also offered his own Son in Sacrifice and caused him to pass through the Fire 3. That he did worse than those Nations which God destroyed and cast out before them for their Sins that the fearful Examples of God's Severity against them should not deter him from committing the same and greater Abominations If you demand how this could be how it was possible that Manasseh should do worse than those Heathen Nations that were cast out and destroyed for their Sins I answer 1. Manasseh and his People had those Means of Grace which those Heathen Nations never injoyed Manasseh and his People sinned against that Light which was never vouchsafed the Amorites and this did not a little heighten their Sins 2. Manasseh erected more Images and Idols than the Amorites had The several Nations in Canaan generally kept themselves to those particular Gods which they called their own but Manasseh multiplied his Idols 3. Those Nations were not wont to change their supposed Gods but strictly adhered to them Thus did not Manasseh and his People and in this Respect their Idolatry was worse than that of the Heathen as God by the Prophet Jeremiah sets it forth and aggravates it Hath a Nation changed their Gods Jer. 2.11 which are yet no Gods But my People have changed their Glory for that which doth not profit The Gods of those Heathenish Nations were no Gods and yet those Nations would not cast them off and take up other Gods they stuck and adhered to them stedfastly and resolutely and would not exchange them for the true God but Manasseh and his People forsook the only true and living God that made the Heavens and betook themselves to the Worship and Service of false Gods they changed their Glory for such was the true God to them while they owned him alone and cleaved to him they changed their Glory for them that were no Gods but the Work of Mens Hands In these Respects Manasseh did worse than the Heathen 4. Another Aggravation of his Sin was that whereas the shedding the Blood of one innocent Person had been a crying Sin he shed it at such a rate that he filled Jerusalem with innocent Blood from one End to the other there was no Part of that great City where the Blood of innocent Persons that had been causlesly spilt was not to be seen and where the Cry of it might not be heard So great and so hainous were this Man's Sins and so high were the Aggravations of them Now in the Words which I have read we are informed how God was pleased to deal with him what Courses he took to reclaim him and his People and what was the Effect thereof upon him and them This in the General More particularly in the Words following In the Words we have 1st God's great Mercy to him and his People in calling them to Repentance and in giving them warning of approaching Judgments in case they should still persevere in their Sins and Impenitency The Lord spake unto Manasseh and to his People as 't is here briefly express'd but more fully in 2 Kings 21.10 11 12 13. The Lord spake by his Servants the Prophets saying Because Manasseh King of Judah hath done these Abominations and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did which were before him and had made Judah also to sin with his Idols Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel Behold I am bringing such Evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whosoever heareth of it both his Ears shall tingle And I will stretch over Jerusalem the Line of Samaria and the Plummet of the House of Aliab and I will wipe Jerusalem as a Man wipeth a Dish wiping it and turning it upside down 2dly We have the Obstinacy and Impenitency of Manasseh and his People they would not hearken 3dly We have an Account of that further Course which God took with Manasseh in order to his reclaiming when gracious Calls and Invitations to Repentance and Warnings of approaching Judgments would not prevail The Lord brought upon them the Captains of the Host of the King of Assyria which took Manasseh among the Thorns and bound him with Fetters and carried him to Babylon 4thly We have an Account of the Effect which this severe Course had upon Manasseh When he was in Affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him 5thly We have the Issue of his humbling himself seeking God and praying to him God was intreated of him and heard his Supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdom 6thly We are informed what Manasseh gained or what he learned by all this Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God To speak of these Particulars in order 1. We have in the Words God's great Mercy to Manasseh and his People in calling them to Repentance and giving them Warning of approaching Judgments in case they should still persist obstinately and impenitently in their sinful Courses This gracious and merciful Dealing of God with Manasseh and his People may afford us these two Observations I. That God is graciously pleased to call and invite Sinners to Repentance and to give them Warnings of the Judgments that are hanging over
of your Affliction God sees that you still retain an Affection for your Sin and that though you have left it yet you look back on it with a secret Desire after it as Lot's Wife look'd back upon Sodom 3. God hath also other Designs in afflicting you as hath been said 't is probable your Faith hath not yet been sufficiently tried and Patience hath not had its perfect Work and for these and other such Ends God sees good yet still to keep you in the Furnace of Affliction though your Dross be in some good measure purged away 4. However it be or whatever other secret Reasons God may have for his Dealings with you 't is fit that you should patiently expect God's own Season of Deliverance as he hath waited for you Of the two there is infinitely more reason that you should be willing to wait for him The Tenth Sermon EZRA 9.13 14. After all that is come upon us for our evil Deeds and for our great Trespass seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our Iniquities deserve and hast given us such a Deliverance as this Should we again break thy Commandments and join in Affinity with the People of these Abominations Wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no Remnant nor Escaping THIS Chapter contains Ezra's Address unto God A Sermon preached the Day the Fire began at Northampton in which he confesseth and bewaileth the Sins of the Jews after their Return from the Captivity of Babylon and more especially their having joined themselves in Affinity with Strangers and married Wives of those idolatrous Nations round about them which was directly contrary to the Law of God forbidding all such Affinities and Alliances Now this their Sin was so much the greaten and so much the more difficult an Undertaking it was to put a stop to it upon a threefold Account 1. In regard of the general spreading of this Sin among them and the great Multitude of such as had contracted this Guilt We find Ezra 10.16 17. that they who undertook the rolling away of this Reproach and the reducing of the People to the Observation of the Law were three full Months imployed in examining Offenders in this kind and in taking Security from them that they would put away their unlawful Wives Had not the number of them been very great much less time would have sufficed for transacting that Business 2. In regard that they were not only the common and the ordinary and inferiour sort of People that had thus transgressed the Law but the Princes and the Rulers had been chief in this Trespass And the Priests and Levites Ver. 2. Chap. 10.18 19 c. as well as the Princes had been deeply involved in this Guilt Yea so far had this Corruption prevailed among them that there were found even of the Sons of Joshua the Son of Jozadak the high Priest that had taken strange Wives as in the same Place we are informed 3. In regard that some of them that were in this Trespass had been so long married to Strangers that they had Children by them Ver. 44. In all these respects I say as their Sin was exceeding great so it was a Business full of Difficulty to attempt the Reformation of a People in these Circumstances and so far ingaged in illegal Practices But however Ezra being a Man full of Zeal for the Glory of God and for the Good of that People is not discouraged by all this Notwithstanding all the Opposition that he was like to meet with in this hard Service he couragiously sets about it and through the Presence of God with him and the Blessing of God upon his Endeavours he is successful in his Enterprize and sees a desirable Issue thereof You who have Opportunities put into your Hands of doing any thing for God and for the Good of the Place where God hath cast your Lot suffer not the Apprehension of Difficulties to dismay you Arise and be doing what lies in you and leave the Success to God Zech. 4.7 he that once said VVho art thou O great Mountain before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a Plain can go before you and make the crooked Places streight and the rough Ways plain he can most easily either remove all those Difficulties that dishearten you or lift you above them he often gives that Success to zealous and sincere Endeavours which not only answers but far exceeds all our Desires and Expectations But then let 's be sure we take holy Ezra for our Pattern and observe his Method Being to undertake a great and difficult Business he begins with Humiliation he most affectionately confesseth mourns over and bewails the Sins of that People the Reformation whereof he designed to attempt The more deeply you can be affected with and take to Heart the Sins Disorders and Abuses that you would remove the more sincerely cordially and affectionately you can mourn over them and lament them the more Tears you can shed for them in your Confessions of them before God the better Success may you hope your Endeavours of Reformation will be attended withal How passionately did Ezra lay to Heart the Sins of that People As soon as he had heard how they had by illegal Affinities mingled themselves with their idolatrous neighbouring Nations how did he behave himself and what deep Sense of the Hainousness of their Sin and Greatness of their Provocation did he express VVhen I heard the thing saith he I rent my Garment and my Mantle and pluck'd off the Hair of my Head and of my Beard and sat down astonied And at the Evening-Sacrifice I arose up from my Heaviness and having rent my Garment and my Mantle I fell upon my Knees and spread out my Hands unto the Lord my God and said O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my Face to thee my God for our Iniquities are increased over our Head and our Trespass is grown up unto the Heavens And then he goes on in the same Extasy of Affection laying open God's unspeakable Goodness to them and the horrid Nature of their Provocation And what 's the Issue hereof but such a Reformation as a Man would wonder how it could ever be effected and brought about considering how many the Offenders were how great and considerable the Persons of many of them were and what strong Temptations and Ingagements they had to make them unwilling to abandon their Sin But upon Ezra's strange and almost unexampled Humiliation God was pleased to exert and put forth his Power in a strange and extraordinary manner upon the Hearts of the Offenders to prevail with them to disclaim and renounce their Sin notwithstanding whatever carnal Motives and Considerations there were to endear it to them If we could once attain to take Sin to Heart as he did we might then expect to see better Fruits of our Endeavours after Reformation than yet we can
may have reflected more Dishonour upon the Name of God than many of those Sins in others which have otherwise had much more Flagitiousness and Enormity in them And as for the latter sort who may seem to have gained by their Losses If that be the Condition of any amongst us let them not be too forward thence to conclude their Innocency God may pull down in Anger and wound in highest Displeasure and yet such is his admirable Goodness and Compassion that he may anon repent him of the Evils which he hath for our Sins most justly brought upon us and with Advantage rebuild what he had pulled down and so fully heal the Wounds that he had made as to leave us in a better Condition of Health and Strength than he found us in God by the Prophet Ezekiel foretelling the Return of the Israelites from Babylon and their Re-establishment in their own Land promised to settle them after their old Estates and to do better unto them than at their beginning Ezek. 36.11 Now what think you Might they when God had made good this Promise thence infer that God was never angry with them for their Sins and that their Sufferings in Babylon were never intended as their Punishment Their Case may be yours God hath it may be since the Fire dealt better with you than at the beginning you are in some Respects perhaps in a better Condition than formerly perhaps your Trade is doubled Will you therefore now wipe your Mouths and say you were innocent you never offended God so as to have had any Hand in procuring his Judgments to be poured out upon this Place Far be it from you to draw such a proud Conclusion from God's gracious Providence towards you Though God hath not only built you up again but adorned and beautified you and advanced you to a more splendid Condition than before yet cease not you still to acknowledge and give glory to the righteous hand of God in pulling you down and emptying you Amid all your present Mercies and Advantages be you still found putting your mouths in the dust loathing and abhorring your selves for your evil ways and from your hearts professing That as you were most justly pluckt down so you might still as justly have lain in Ruins and Ashes and have been made perpetual Desolations as God once threatned the Land of the Chaldaeans Jer. 25.12 a place never to be inhabited any more And so much concerning the second thing observable from this first aggravation of their sins The Third Particular thence observable is That to return to sin after we have been severely punished for it and grievously smarted for it doth much heighten our sin and render it much more provoking in the sight of God This is clearly implied in the form of speech which Ezra useth After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass should we again break thy commandments As if he had said This were a provocation of an high nature far be it from any of us to be guilty of it There are these three things that greaten and aggravate our sins committed against God and notwithstanding former great Severities against those our sins 1. To sin again in the same kind after that we had grievously smarted for sin argues a great degree of hardness of heart The scalled Child dreads the fire and the very bruit Beasts are afraid of medling with that for which they have been soundly beaten And were there any tenderness upon the heart of man he would not again easily be drawn to venture on that which he hath already paid so dearly for 2. It argues an heart strongly ingaged to sin and desperately bent after it which no former Severities will restrain or hold in It shews a man is mad in love with sin that will out after it whatever it cost him 'T is as much as if he said 'T is true I have already tasted of the bitter fruits of sin I can tell by experience what 't will cost me But however I must please my self I must gratify my sinful desires my sensual and brutish Lusts and I will I am resolved to do it come what will of it 3. It argues a slighting of the Anger and Displeasure of the Almighty and a contempt of his Rod. Herein a man's carriage towards God is like that of a stubborn and incorrigible Child against him that chastens him Though you make him smart he cares not correct him as long as you will he is still the same and will do what he pleaseth do you what you will or can to reclaim him Take heed of this aggravation of your sins you who have been Sufferers by the Fire and all you who have any other way been severely handled for your sins Beware how you have any more to do with those sins against which the fierce indignation of the Lord hath been so discovered and his Word as it were revealed from Heaven Keep at the greatest distance from those Sins come not near the Borders or Confines of them run away from all temptations to them And that you may be preserved from them 1. Labour to know what they be 'T is now a good while since the dreadful Fire though you were then in a miserable hurry full of dread distractions and confusions so as you had scarce the command of your own thoughts though then you had not so much sedateness and composedness of spirit nor so much freedom and liberty as to sit down and consider as to reflect and enquire into your self as to call your self to an account and find out the causes of God's fierce Indignation yet since you have had time enough to do it Have you done it Have you gotten a sight of all those your particular Sins by which the Wrath of God had been so highly incensed against you If you have not if this work hath so long been neglected if to this day you have never set about it if still you be strangers to the reasons of God's contending with you yet be now at length persuaded to make a narrow search after all those Sins which have been the procurers of so much misery to your selves and this place 2. Having found out those sins have them often in your thoughts and if it be possible carry always upon your heart the impressions of that terrible Judgment at least be sure that you often call it to mind and renew the lively remembrance of it and labour to preserve the images and representations of all the dismal circumstances of it in your mind and then say with Ezra here in the Text After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass shall we again break thy commandments So say in reference to all your particular sins your filthiness and uncleanness your drunkenness and swearing your profanation of the Lord's Day and Ordinances your pride and gallantry your covetousness and earthly-mindedness your