case for after all He may do what he will as I have clearly shewn But what is fit for us to do and what we have reason to expect if notwithstanding a plain and express threatning of the vengeance of eternal fire we still go on to treasure up to our selves wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous Judgment of God and will desperately put it to the hazard whether and how far God will execute his threatnings upon Sinners in another World And therefore there is no need why we should be very sollicitously concern'd for the honour of God's Justice or Goodness in this matter Let us but take care to believe and avoid the Threatnings of God and then how terrible soever they are no harm can come to us And as for God let us not doubt but that he will take care of his own Honour and that He who is holy in all his ways and righteous in all his works will do nothing that is repugnant to his eternal Goodness and Righteousness and that He will certainly so manage things at the Judgment of the Great Day as to be justified in his sayings and to be righteous when we are judged For notwithstanding his Threatnings he hath reserved Power enough in his own hands to do right to all his Perfections So that we may rest assur'd that he will judge the world in righteousness and if it be any-wise inconsistent either with Righteousness or Goodness which He knows much better than we do to make Sinners miserable for ever that He will not do it nor is it credible that he would threaten Sinners with a Punishment which he could not justly execute upon them Therefore Sinners ought always to be afraid of it and reckon upon it And always to remember that there is great Goodness and Mercy in the severity of God's Threatnings and that nothing will more justify the infliction of eternal Torments than the foolish presumption of Sinners in venturing upon them notwithstanding such plain and terrible Threatnings This I am sure is a good Argument to all of us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling and with all possible care to endeavour the prevention of that misery which is so terribly severe that at present we can hardly tell how to reconcile it with the Justice and Goodness of God This God heartily desires we would do and hath solemnly sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live So that here is all imaginable care taken to prevent our miscarriage and all the assurance that the God of Truth can give us of his unwillingness to bring this misery upon us And both these I am sure are arguments of great Goodness For what can Goodness do more than to warn us of this misery and earnestly to persuade us to prevent it and to threaten us so very terribly on purpose to deterr us from so great a danger And if this will not prevail with us but we will still go on to despise the riches of God's goodness and long suffering and forbearance what in reason remains for us but a fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation to consume us And what almost can Justice or even Goodness it self do less than to inflict that punishment upon us which with eyes open we would wilfully run upon and which no warning no persuasion no importunity could prevail with us to avoid And when as the Apostle says knowing the Judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death yet for all that we would venture to commit them And therefore whatever we suffer we do but inherit our own choice and have no reason to complain of God who hath set before us Life and Death eternal Happiness and Misery and hath left us to be the Carvers of our own Fortune And if after all this we will obstinately refuse this happiness and wilfully run upon this Misery Wo unto us for we have rewarded evil to our selves You see then by all that hath been said upon this Argument what we have all reason to expect if we will still go on in our Sins and will not be brought to Repentance You have heard what a terrible Punishment the just God hath threatned to the Workers of Iniquity and that in as plain words as can be used to express anything These that is the wicked shall go away into everlasting Punishment but the righteous into Life eternal Here are Life and Death Happiness and Misery set before us Not this frail and mortal Life which is hardly worth the having were it not in order to a better and happier Life nor a temporal Death to get above the dread whereof should not methinks be difficult to us were it not for the bitter and terrible consequences of it But an eternal Life and an eternal enjoyment of all things which can render Life pleasant and happy and a perpetual Death which will for ever torment us but never make an end of us These God propounds to our choice And if the consideration of them will not prevail with us to leave our sins and to reform our lives what will Weightier Motives cannot be propos'd to the understanding of Man than everlasting Punishment and Life eternal than the greatest and most durable happiness and the most intolerable and lasting misery that human Nature is capable of Now considering in what terms the Threatnings of the Gospel are express'd we have all the reason in the world to believe that the Punishment of Sinners in another world will be everlasting However we cannot be certain of the contrary time enough to prevent it not till we come there and find by experience how it is And if it prove so it will then be too late either to prevent that terrible Doom or to get it revers'd Some comfort themselves with the uncomfortable and uncertain hope of being discharg'd out of Being and reduc'd to their first Nothing at least after the tedious and terrible suffering of the most grievous and exquisite Torments for innumerable Ages And if this should happen to be true good God! how feeble how cold a comfort is this Where is the Reason and Understanding of Men to make this their last Refuge and Hope and to lean upon it as a matter of mighty consolation that they shall be miserable beyond all imagination and beyond all patience for God knows how many Ages Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge No right sense and judgment of things No consideration and care of themselves no concernment for their own lasting Interest and Happiness Origen I know not for what good reason is said to have been of opinion That the punishment of Devils and wicked men after the Day of Judgment will continue but for a thousand years and that after that time they shall all be finally saved I can very hardly persuade my self that so wise
to be better inform'd A proud and conceited temper of mind is very likely to run into mistakes because pride and fulness of a man's self does keep out knowledge and obstructs all the passages by which wisdom and instruction should enter into men Besides that it provokes God to abandon men to their own follies and mistakes for God resisteth the proud but the meek will he guide in judgment and will give more grace and wisdom to the humble When men are once come to this to think themselves wiser than their Teachers and to despise and cast off their Guides no wonder if then they go astray Lastly Let us be sure to mind that which is our plain and unquestionable duty the great things of Religion wherein the life and substance of it doth consist and the things likewise which make for peace and whereby we may edify one another And let us not suffer our disputes about lesser matters to prejudice and hinder our main duty But let it be our great care not to fail in those greater things which are comprehended under the two great Commandments of the Law the Love of God and of our Neighbour Let us be strict and constant in our piety and devotion towards God chast and temperate in reference to our selves just and honest kind and charitable humble and meek patient and peaceable towards all men submissive and obedient to our Superiours Natural Civil and Spiritual A due regard to these great Vertues of the Christian life is the way to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men And surely the best means to have our doubts cleared about matters of lesser moment in Religion is heartily to set about the practice of the great and unquestionable Duties of it So our Blessed Saviour hath assur'd us that if any man will do the will of God he shall know of his Doctrine whether it be of God I come now in the VI th and Last place to consider the great Motive and Encouragement to this conscientious care of our Lives and Actions which St. Paul here tells us was his belief of a Resurrection and of the Rewards and Punishments consequent upon it I have hope says he towards God that there shall be a Resurrection both of the just and unjust For this cause therefore I exercise my self to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men If we believe the Resurrection of the dead and a future Judgment we ought to be very careful to discharge a good Conscience now in order to the rendring of a good Account hereafter that we may be sincere and without offence with respect to the day of Christ as the Apostle expresseth it For when that great Day of Recompences shall come we shall most assuredly find that nothing will then raise our hearts and make us to lift up our heads with joy like the witness of a good Conscience And therefore we should make that our constant care and companion now which will then be our great comfort and rejoycing a good Conscience and the testimony of it that in all simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world And on the contrary when we come to appear before the Great Judge of the World nothing will fill our minds with so much terrour and our faces with so much confusion as the clamorous accusations of a guilty Conscience which will be more than a thousand witnesses against us and will anticipate our condemnation and pass almost as severe a Sentence upon us as the Judge himself can This is that which will make the sinner to droop and to hang down his head for ever And one of the principal ingredients of his misery and torment will be the perpetual regret and remorse of his own mind for his wilful wickedness and folly which will kindle a fire within him as hot as that without him and as hard to be quench'd This consideration ought to have a mighty Operation upon us to make us very careful to have Consciences void of offence now that they may be free from torment and anguish hereafter That when we shall come into the other World we may not be eternally displeas'd with our selves and enrag'd at our own doings but may carry with us thither Consciences clear of all guilt either by Innocency or by Repentance The firm belief of a future state of eternal Happiness or misery in another World is the great weight or spring that sets a going those two powerful Principles of humane Activity the Hopes and the Fears of men and is in its Nature so fitted to raise these Passions to that degree that did not experience shew us the contrary one would think it morally impossible for humane Nature to resist the mighty force of it All men are sensible more or less at one time or other of the true force of these Arguments but the mischief is that in some persons they work quite the wrong way and instead of leading men to Repentance they drive them to Infidelity They cannot deny the force of these Arguments if they were true but that they may avoid the force of them they will not believe them to be true And so far they are in the right that granting these things to be true they cannot but acknowledge that they ought to live otherwise than they do But here is their fatal miscarriage that being resolv'd upon an evil course since they cannot reconcile their practice with such Principles as these they will fit their Principles to their practice and so they will believe nothing at all of the Rewards and Punishments of another World lest this should disturb them in their course Vain men as if Heaven and Hell must needs vanish and disappear because some witty but wicked men have no mind to believe them These men are Infidels in their own defence and merely for the quiet of their own minds that their Consciences may not perpetually rate them and fly in their faces For a right belief and an evil Conscience are but unsuitable companions they are quarrelsome Neighbours and must needs live very uneasily by one another He that believes the Principles of Religion and yet is conscious to himself that he hath liv'd contrary to them and still continues to do so how can he possibly have any peace and quiet in his mind unless like Jonah he can sleep in a storm and his conscience be as it were seared with a hot iron For if his Conscience be awake and in any degree sensible the evident danger of eternal ruine continually hanging over him must in reason either drive him to repentance or to despair If so forcible and violent an Argument can make no impression upon us we are stupid and bewitch'd we are lost and undone we are wretched and miserable for ever But besides the future Reward of a holy and conscientious course which is unspeakable and full of glory it hath also this
passages we may easily understand wherein these Monthly Fasts of the Jews were defective and what was the fault that God finds with them when he expostulates so severely in the Text When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh Month even these seventy years did ye at all fast unto me even unto me In the general the fault which God finds with them was this that these Solemnities did not serve any real end and purpose of Religion but fail'd in their main design which was a sincere repentance and reformation of their lives For which reason he tells them that they were not at all acceptable to Him nor esteem'd by Him as perform'd unto Him because they did not answer the true intention and design of them My work at this time shall be First to consider in general what it is to fast unto God that is to keep a truly Religious Fast Secondly to bring the matter nearer to our selves I shall consider more particularly what the Duty of this Day appointed by their Majesties for a solemn Humiliation and Repentance throughout the Nation does require at our hands I. I shall consider in general what it is to fast unto God that is to keep a truly Religious Fast And of this I shall give an account in the following particulars First a truly Religious Fast consists in the afflicting of our Bodies by a strict abstinence that so they may be fit and proper instruments to promote and help forward the grief and trouble of our minds Secondly in the humble Confession of our Sins to God with shame and confusion of face and with a hearty contrition and sorrow for them Thirdly in an earnest deprecation of God's displeasure and humble supplications to Him that he would avert his Judgments and turn away his Anger from us Fourthly in Intercession with God for such spiritual and temporal Blessings upon our selves and others as are needful and convenient Fifthly in Alms and Charity to the poor that our Humiliation and Prayers may find acceptance with God I do but mention these particulars that I may more largely insist upon that which I mainly intended and proposed to consider in the next place namely II. What the Duty of this Day appointed by their Majesties for a solemn Humiliation and Repentance throughout the Nation doth require at our hands And this I shall endeavour to comprize in the following particulars First that we should humble our selves before God every one for his own personal Sins whereby he hath provoked God and increased the publick Guilt and done his part to bring down the judgments and vengeance of God upon the Nation Secondly that we should likewise heartily lament and bewail the Sins of others especially the great and crying Sins of the Nation committed by all Ranks and Orders of men amongst us and whereby the wrath and indignation of Almighty God hath been so justly incensed against us Thirdly we should most importunately deprecate those terrible Judgments of God to which these our great and crying Sins have so justly exposed us Fourthly we should pour out our earnest prayers and supplications to Almighty God for the preservation of their Majesties Sacred Persons and for the establishment and prosperity of their Government and for the good success of their Arms and Forces by Sea and Land Fifthly our Fasting and Prayers should be accompanied with our Charity and Alms to the poor and needy Lastly we should prosecute our Repentance and good Resolutions to the actual Reformation and Amendment of our lives Of these I shall by God's Assistance speak as briefly and as plainly as I can and so as every one of us may understand what God requires of him upon so solemn an Occasion as this First We should humble our selves before God every one for his own personal Sins and Miscarriages whereby he hath provoked God and increased the publick Guilt and done his part to bring down the Judgments and Vengeance of God upon the Nation Our Humiliation and Repentance should begin with our selves and our own Sins because Repentance is always design'd to end in Reformation but there cannot be a general Reformation without the Reformation of particular Persons which do constitute and make up the generality And this Solomon prescribes as the true Method of a National Reformation and the proper effect of a publick Humiliation and Repentance in that admirable Prayer of his at the Dedication of the Temple If there be says he in the Land famine if there be pestilence blasting mildew locust or if there be caterpillar or if their Enemy besiege them in the Land of their Cities what-ever plague what-ever sickness there be what prayer or supplication soever be made by any man or by all thy People Israel WHO SHALL KNOW EVERY MAN THE PLAGUE OF HIS OWN HEART and spread forth his hands towards this House Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place and forgive and do and give to every man according to his way whose heart thou knowest for thou even thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men that they may fear thee all the days which they live in the Land which thou gavest to their Fathers You see here that in case of any publick Judgment or Calamity the Humiliation and Repentance of a Nation must begin with particular Persons What prayer or supplication so-ever be made by any man or by all thy People Israel WHO SHALL KNOW EVERY MAN THE PLAGUE OF HIS OWN HEART Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place and forgive Particular persons must be convinced of their personal Sins and Transgressions before God will hear the Prayers and forgive the Sins of a Nation And because we cannot perform this part of confessing and bewailing our own personal Sins and of testifying our particular Repentance for them in the publick Congregation any otherwise than by joining with them in a general Humiliation and Repentance therefore we should do well on the Day before the publick Fast or at least the Morning before we go to the publick Assembly to humble our selves before God in our Families and especially in our Closets confessing to Him with great shame and sorrow all the particular Sins and Offences together with the several Aggravations of them which we have been guilty of against the Divine Majesty so far as we are able to call them particularly to our remembrance and earnestly to beg of God the pardon and forgiveness of them for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ And so likewise after we return from the Church we should retire again into our Closets and there renew our Repentance with most serious and sincere Resolutions of reforming in all those particulars which we have confessed and repented of And if we would have our Resolutions to come to any good we must make them as distinct and particular as we can and charge it upon our selves as to such and such Sins for which we have declared our sorrow and repentance that we
First I observe the charitable Decorum which our B. Saviour keeps in this as well as in the rest of his Parables as if He would fain suppose and hope that among those who enjoy the Gospel and make profession of it the number of them that are truly good is equal to those that are bad For our B. Saviour here represents the whole number of the Professors of Christianity by ten Virgins the half whereof the Parable seems to suppose to be truly and really good and to persevere in goodness to the end vers 1 2. Then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be likened unto ten Virgins which took their Lamps and went forth to meet the Bridegroom And five of them were wise and five were foolish Secondly I observe how very common it is for men to neglect this great concernment of their Souls viz. a due preparation for another World and how willing men are to deceive themselves herein and to depend upon any thing else how groundless and unreasonable soever rather than to take pains to be really good and fit for Heaven And this is in a very lively manner represented to us in the description of the foolish Virgins who had provided no supply of Oyl in their Vessels and when the Bridegroom was coming would have furnish'd themselves by borrowing or buying of others vers 8.9 10. Thirdly I observe That even the better sort of Christians are not careful and watchful as they ought to prepare themselves for Death and Judgment Whilst the Bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept even the wise Virgins as well as the foolish Fourthly I observe further how little is to be done by us to any good purpose in this great work of Preparation when it is deferr'd and put off to the last Thus the foolish Virgins did and what a sad confusion and hurry they were in we may see vers 6 7 8 9. And at midnight there was a cry made Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye out to meet Him At midnight the most dismal and unseasonable time of all other Then all those Virgins arose and trimmed their Lamps and the foolish said unto the wise give us of your Oyl for our Lamps are gone out But the wise answered not so lest there be not enough for us and you but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for your selves And how ineffectual all that they could do at that time prov'd to be we find verse 10 11 12 And whilst they went to buy the Bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut Afterwards came also the other Virgins saying Lord Lord open to us But he answered and said verily I say unto you I know you not Fifthly I observe that there is no such thing as Works of Super-erogation That no man can do more than needs and is his duty to do by way of preparation for another World For when the foolish Virgins would have begg'd of the wise some Oyl for their Lamps the wise answered not so lest there be not enough for us and you It was only the foolish Virgins that had entertain'd this foolish conceit that there might be an over-plus of Grace and Merit in others sufficient to supply their want But the wise knew not of any that they had to spare but suppos'd all that they had little enough to qualify them for the reward of eternal life Not so say they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest at any time lest when there should be need and occasion all that we have done or could do should prove little enough for our selves Sixthly and lastly I observe That if we could suppose any persons to be so over-good as to have more grace and goodness than needs to qualify them for the reward of eternal life yet there is no assigning and transferring of this over-plus of Grace and Virtue from one man to another For we see verse 9 10. that all the ways which they could think of of borrowing or buying Oyl of others did all prove ineffectual because the thing is in its own nature impracticable that one Sinner should be in a condition to merit for another All these Observations seem to have some fair and probable foundation in some part or other of this Parable and most of them I am sure are agreeable to the main scope and intention of the whole I shall speak to them severally and as briefly as I can First I observe the charitable Decorum which our B. Saviour keeps in this as well as in the rest of his Parables as if he would fain suppose and hope that among those who enjoy the Gospel and make Profession of it the number of those who make a firm and sincere Profession of it and persevere in goodness to the end is equal to the number of those who do not make good their Profession or who fall off from it I shall not be long upon this because I lay the least stress upon it of all the rest I shall only take notice that our B. Saviour in this Parable represents the whole number of the Professors of Christianity by ten Virgins the half of which the Parable seems to suppose to have sincerely embraced the Christian Profession and to have persever'd therein to the last The Kingdom of heaven shall be likened unto ten Virgin which took their Lamps and went forth to meet the Bridegroom And five of them were wise and five were foolish And this Decorum our B. Saviour seems carefully to observe in his other Parables As in the Parable of the Prodigal Luke 15. where for one Son that left his Father and took riotous courses there was another that stayed always with him and continued constant to his duty And in the Parable of the ten Talents which immediately follows that of the ten Virgins two are supposed to improve the Talents committed to them for one that made no improvement of his He that had five Talents committed to him made them five more and he that had two gained other two and only he that had but one Talent hid it in the earth and made no improvement of it And in the Parable which I am now upon the number of the Professors of Christianity who took care to fit and prepare themselves for the coming of the Bridegroom is supposed equal to the number of those who did not And whether this be particularly intended in the Parable or not it may however be thus far instructive to us That we should be so far from lessening the number of true Christians and from confining the Church of Christ within a narrow compass so as to exclude out of its Communion the far greatest part of the Professors of Christianity that on the contrary we should enlarge the Kingdom of Christ as much as we can and extend our charity to all Churches and Christians of what Denomination soever as far as regard to Truth and to the foundations of the
measure of their Sins is full it is no wonder if the Cup of his indignation begin to overflow It is said of the Amorites four hundred years before God brought that fearful ruin upon them that God deferr'd the extirpation of them because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full When neither the Mercies nor the Judgments of God will bring us to repentance we are then fit for destruction according to that of the Apostle What if God willing to shew his wrath and make his power known endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction They who are not wrought upon neither by the patience of God's Mercies nor by the patience of his Judgments seem to be fitted and prepared to be ripe and ready for destruction 2. Because this incorrigible temper shews the Case of such persons to be desperate and incurable Why should they be smitten any more says God of the People of Israel they will revolt more and more How often would I have gathered you says our B. Saviour to the Jews even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not Behold your house is left to you desolate that is ye shall be utterly destroyed as it hapned forty years after to Jerusalem and to the whole Jewish Nation When God sees that all the means which he can use do prove ineffectual and to no purpose he will then give over a People as Physicians do their Patients when they see that nature is spent and their case past remedy When men will not be the better for the best means that Heaven can use God will then leave them to reap the fruit of their own doings and abandom them to the demerit of their Sin That which now remains is to apply this to our selves and to the solemn Occasion of this Day And if this be our Case let us take heed that this be not also our Doom and Sentence First The Case in the Text doth very much resemble Ours And that in three respects God hath sent great Judgments upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespasses He hath punish'd us less than our iniquities have deserv'd And hath given us a very great and wonderful Deliverance 1. God hath inflicted great Judgments upon us for our evil deeds and for our great Trespasses Great Judgments both for the quality and for the continuance of them It shall suffice only to mention those which are of a more ancient Date Scarce hath any Nation been more calamitous than this of Ours both in respect of the Invasions and Conquests of Foreigners and of our own Civil and intestine Divisions Four times we have been Conquer'd By the Romans Saxons Danes and Normans And our intestine Divisions have likewise been great and of long continuance Witness the Barons Wars and that long and cruel Contest between the two Houses of York and Lancaster But to come nearer to our own Times What fearful Judgments and Calamities of War and Pestilence and Fire have many of us seen And how close did they follow one another What terrible havock did the Sword make amongst us for many years And this not the Sword of a Forreign Enemy but of a Civil War the mischiefs whereof were all terminated upon our selves and have given deep wounds and left broad scars upon the most considerable Families in the Nation Alta manent civilis vulnera dextrae This War was drawn out to a great length and had a Tragical end in the Murther of an excellent King and in the Banishment of his Children into a strange Countrey whereby they were exposed to the Arts and Practices of those of another Religion the mischievous Consequences whereof we have ever since sadly labour'd under and do feel them at this day And when God was pleas'd in great mercy at last to put an end to the miserable Distractions and Confusions of almost twenty years by the happy Restoration of the Royal Family and our ancient Government which seem'd to promise to us a lasting settlement and all the felicities we could wish yet how soon was this bright and glorious morning overcast by the restless and black Designs of that sure and inveterate Enemy of ours the Church of Rome for the restoring of their Religion amongst us And there was too much encouragement given to this Design by those who had power in their hands and had brought home with them a secret good will to it For this great Trespass and for our many other Sins God was angry with us and sent among us the most raging Pestilence that ever was known in this Nation which in the space of eight or nine Months swept away near a third part of the Inhabitants of this vast and populous City and of the Suburbs thereof besides a great many thousands more in several parts of the Nation But we did not return to the Lord nor seek him for all this And therefore the very next year after God sent a terrible and devouring Fire which in less than three days time laid the greatest part of this great City in ashes And there is too much reason to believe that the Enemy did this that perpetual and implacable Enemy of the peace and happiness of this Nation And even since the time of that dreadful Calamity which is now above twenty years agone we have been in a continual fear of the cruel Designs of that Party which had hitherto been incessantly working under ground but now began to shew themselves more openly and especially since a Prince of that Religion succeeded to the Crown our eyes have been ready to fail us for fear and for looking after those dreadful things that were coming upon us and seem'd to be even at the door A fear which this Nation could easily have rid it self of because they that caused it were but a handful in comparison of us and could have done nothing without a foreign force and assistance had not the Principles of Humanity and of our Religion too restrain'd us from violence and cruelty and from every thing which had the appearance of undutifulness to the Government which the Providence of God had set over us An instance of the like patience under the like provocations for so long a time and after such visible and open attempts upon them when they had the Laws so plainly on their side I challenge any Nation or Church in the World from the very foundation of it to produce Insomuch that if God had not put it into the hearts of our kind Neighbours and of that incomparable Prince who laid and conducted that great Design with so much skill and secrecy to have appear'd so seasonably for our rescue our Patience had infallibly without a Miracle been our ruine And I am sure if our Enemies had ever had the like Opportunity in their hands and had overbalanced us in numbers but half so much as we did them they would never have
not enter into his Rest yet we are to consider that both the tenour of the Sentence which our Blessed Saviour hath assur'd us will be pass'd upon them at the Judgment of the Great Day Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire and likewise this Declaration in the Text that the Wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment though they do not restrain God from doing what he pleases yet they cut off from the Sinner all reasonable hopes of the relaxation or mitigation of them For since the great Judge of the World hath made so plain and express a Declaration and will certainly pass such a Sentence it would be the greatest folly and madness in the world for the Sinner to entertain any hope of escaping it and to venture his soul upon that hope I know but one thing more commonly said upon this Argument that seems material And that is this That the words death and destruction and perishing whereby the punishment of wicked men in the other World is most frequently express'd in Scripture do most properly import annihilation and an utter end of Being and therefore may reasonably be so understood in the matter of which we are now speaking To this I answer that these words and those which answer them in other Languages are often both in Scripture and other Authors used to signify a state of great misery and suffering without the utter extinction of the miserable Thus God is often in Scripture said to bring destruction upon a Nation when he sends great Judgments upon them though they do not exterminate and make an utter end of them And nothing is more common in most Languages than by perishing to express a person's being undone and made very miserable As in that known passage in Tiberius his Letter to the Roman Senate Let all the Gods and Goddesses saith he destroy me worse than at this very time I feel my self to perish c. in which Saying the words destroy and perish are both of them us'd to express the miserable anguish and torment which at that time he felt in his mind as Tacitus tells us at large And as for the word Death a state of misery which is as bad or worse than death may properly enough be call'd by that name And for this reason the punishment of wicked men after the Day of Judgment is in the Book of the Revelation so frequently and fitly call'd the second death And the Lake of fire into which the wicked shall be cast to be tormented in it is expresly call'd the second death But besides this they that argue from the force of these words that the punishment of wicked men in the other world shall be nothing else but an utter end of their Being do necessarily fall into two great inconveniencies First That hereby they exclude all positive punishment and torment of Sinners For if the second death and to be destroy'd and to perish signify nothing else but the Annihilation of Sinners and an utter extinction of their Being and if this be all the effect of that dreadful Sentence which shall be pass'd upon them at the Day of Judgment then the Fire of Hell is quench'd all at once and is only a frightful Metaphor without any meaning But this is directly contrary to the tenour of Scripture which doth so often describe the punishment of wicked men in Hell by positive torments And particularly our Blessed Saviour describing the lamentable state of the damned in Hell expresly says that there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which cannot be if Annihilation be all the meaning and effect of the Sentence of the Great Day Secondly Another inconvenience of this Opinion is that if Annihilation be all the punishment of Sinners in the other World then the punishment of all Sinners must of necessity be equal because there are no degrees of Annihilation or not-being But this also is most directly contrary to Scripture as I have already shewn I know very well that some who are of this Opinion do allow a very long and tedious time of the most terrible and intolerable torment of Sinners and after that they believe that there shall be an utter end of their Being But then they must not argue this from the force of the Words before mentioned because the plain inference from thence is that Annihilation is all the punishment that wicked men shall undergo in the next Life And if that be not true as I have plainly shewn that it is not I do not see from what other words or expressions in Scripture they can find the least ground for this Opinion that the torment of wicked men shall at last end in their Annihilation And yet admitting all this for which I think there is no ground at all in Scripture I cannot see what great comfort Sinners can take in the thought of a tedious time of terrible torment ending at last in Annihilation and the utter extinction of their Beings Thirdly We may consider further that the primary end of all Threatnings is not punishment but the prevention of it For God does not threaten that men may sin and be punish'd but that they may not sin and so may escape the punishment threaten'd And therefore the higher the threatning runs so much the more mercy and goodness there is in it because it is so much the more likely to hinder men from incurring the penalty that is threatned Fourthly Let it be consider'd likewise that when it is is so very plain that God hath threatned eternal misery to impenitent Sinners all the prudence in the World obliges men to believe that he is in good earnest and will execute these threatnings upon them if they will obstinately stand it out with him and will not be brought to Repentance And therefore in all reason we ought so to demean our selves and so to perswade others as knowing the terrour of the Lord and that they who wilfully break his Laws are in danger of eternal Death To which I will add in the Fifth and last place That if we suppose that God did intend that his threatnings should have their effect to deterr men from the breach of his Laws it cannot be imagin'd that in the same Revelation which declares these threatnings any intimation should be given of the abatement or non-execution of them For by this God would have weaken'd his own Laws and have taken off the edge and terror of his threatnings Because a threatning hath quite lost its force if we once come to believe that it will not be executed And consequently it would be a very impious design to go about to teach or perswade any thing to the contrary and a betraying men into that misery which had it been firmly believ'd might have been avoided We are all bound to preach and You and I are all bound to believe the terrors of the Lord. Not so as sawcily to determine and pronounce what God must do in this
our lives and call our selves to a strict account for them that where-in-soever we have fail'd of innocency we may make it up by repentance and may get our Consciences clear'd of guilt by pardon and forgiveness And if we do not do this we cannot with confidence rely upon the testimony of our Consciences because many great Sins may slip out of our memories without a particular repentance for them which yet do require and stand in need of a particular repentance Especially we should search our Consciences more narrowly at these more solemn Times of repentance and when we are preparing our selves to receive the Holy Sacrament And if at these Times our hearts do accuse and condemn us for any thing we should not only heartily lament and bewail it before God but sincerely resolve by God's Grace to reform in that particular and from that time to break off that Sin which we have then repented of and have ask'd forgiveness of God for For if after we have repented of it we return to it again we wound our Consciences afresh and involve them in a new guilt In the last place We should reverence our Consciences and stand in awe of them and have a great regard to their testimony and verdict For Conscience is a domestick Judge and a kind of familiar God And therefore next to the Supreme Majesty of Heaven and Earth every man should be afraid to offend his own Reason and Conscience which when-ever we knowingly do amiss will beat us with many stripes and handle us more severely than the greatest Enemy we have in the World So that next to the dreadful sentence of the great Day every man hath reason to dread the sentence of his own Conscience God indeed is greater than our hearts and knows all things but under Him we have the greatest reason to fear the judgment of our own Consciences For nothing but that can give us Comfort and nothing can create so much trouble and disquiet to us And though the judgment of our Consciences be not always the judgment of God yet we have great reason to have great regard to it and that upon several Accounts which I shall but briefly mention and so conclude First Because the judgment of our Conscience is free from any compulsion No body can force it from us whether we will or no and make us to pass sentence against our selves whether we see reason for it or not Secondly The sentence of our own Consciences is very likely to be impartial at lest not too hard on the severe side because men naturally love themselves and are too apt to be favourable in their own case All the World cannot bribe a man against himself There is no man whose mind is not either distemper'd by melancholy or deluded by false Principles that is apt to be credulous against himself and his own interest and peace Thirdly The judgment which our Conscience passeth upon our own Actions is upon the most intimate and certain knowledge of them and of their true motives and ends We may easily be deceiv'd in our judgment of the Actions of other men and may think them to be much better or worse than in truth they are Because we cannot certainly tell with what mind they were done and what circumstances there may be to excuse or aggravate them how strong the temptation was or how weak the judgment of him that was seduc'd by it into errour and folly But we are conscious to all the secret springs and motives and circumstances of our own Actions We can descend into our own hearts and dive to the bottom of them and search into the most retired corners of our intentions and ends which none besides our selves but only God can do for excepting Him only none knows the things of a man but the Spirit of a man which is in him Fourthly The Sentence of our Conscience is peremptory and inexorable and there is no way to avoid it Thou mayest possibly fly from the wrath of other men to the uttermost parts of the Earth but thou canst not stir one step from thy self In vain shalt thou call upon the mountains and rocks to fall on thee and hide thee from the sight of thine own Conscience Wretched and miserable man when thou hast offended and wounded thy Conscience For whither canst thou go to escape the eye of this Witness the terrour of this Judge the torment of this Executioner A man may as soon get rid of himself and quit his own being as fly from the sharp Accusations and stinging Guilt of his own Conscience which will perpetually haunt him till it be done away by repentance and forgiveness We account it a fearful thing to be haunted by evil Spirits and yet the Spirit of a man which is in him throughly affrighted with its own Guilt may be a more ghastly and amazing Spectacle than all the Devils in Hell There is no such frightful Apparition in the World as a man 's own guilty and terrified Conscience staring him in the face A spirit that is thus wounded who can bear To conclude Let these considerations prevail with us always to live not with regard to the opinion of others which may be grounded upon mistake or may not indeed be their opinion but their flattery but with regard to the judgment of our own Conscience which though it may sometimes be mistaken can never be brib'd and corrupted We may be hypocrites to others and base flatterers but our Consciences when-ever they are throughly awaken'd are always sincere and deal truly with us and speak to us as they think Therefore what-ever we say or do let it be sincere For though hypocrisie may for a while preserve our esteem and reputation with others yet it can signifie nothing to the peace of our own minds And then what will it avail us to conceal any thing from other men when we can hide nothing that we say or do from our own Consciences The Summ of all is this If we would keep a Conscience void of offence let us always be calm and considerate and have the patience to examine things throughly and impartially Let us be humble and willing to learn and never too proud and stiff to be better inform'd Let us do what we can to free our selves from prejudice and passion from self-conceit and self-interest which are often too strong a byass upon the judgments of the best men as we may see every day in very sad and melancholy instances And having taken all due care to inform our Consciences a-right let us follow the judgment of our minds in what we do and then we have done what we can to please God And if we would always take this care to keep a good Conscience we should always be easie and good company to our selves But if we offend our Consciences by doing contrary to the clear dictate and conviction of them we make the unhappiest breach in the World we stir up a
Flock what wilt thou say when he shall punish thee 3. The Sins of the People amongst whom there is almost an universal corruption and depravation of Manners insomuch that Impiety and Vice seem to have over-spread the face of the Nation so that we may take up that sad complaint of the Prophet concerning the People of Israel and apply it to our selves that we are a sinful Nation a People laden with iniquity a seed of evil-doers that the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint and that from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in us but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores We may justly stand amaz'd to consider how the God of all patience is provok'd by us every day to think how long he hath born with us and suffered our manners our open Profaneness and Infidelity our great Immoralities and gross Hypocrisy our insolent contempt of Religion and our ill-favour'd counterfeiting of it for low and sordid ends And which is the most melancholy consideration of all the rest we seem to be degenerated to that degree that it is very much to be fear'd there is hardly integrity enough left amongst us to save us And then if we consider further our most uncharitable and unchristian Divisions to the endangering both of our Reformed Religion and of the Civil Rights and Liberties of the Nation Our incorrigibleness under the Judgments of God which we have seen abroad in the Earth and which have in a very severe and terrible manner been inflicted upon these Kingdoms that the Inhabitants thereof might learn righteousness Our insensibleness of the Hand of God so visible in his late Providences towards us and in the many merciful and wonderful Deliverances which from time to time He hath wrought for us And lastly if we reflect upon our horrible Ingratitude to God our Saviour and mighty Deliverer and to Them likewise whom He hath so signally honour'd in making them the happy Means and Instruments of our Deliverance And this not only express'd by a bold contempt of their Authority but by a most unnatural Conspiracy against Them with the greatest Enemies not only to the Peace of the Nation but likewise to the Reformed Religion therein profess'd and by Law established and to the interest of it all the World over So that we may say with Ezra And now O our God what shall we say unto thee after this And may not God likewise say to us as He did more than once to the Jews Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord and shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation as this Thirdly We should likewise upon this Day earnestly deprecate God's displeasure and make our humble Supplications to Him that He would be graciously pleas'd to avert those terrible Judgments which hang over us and which we have just cause to fear may fall upon us and that He would be entreated by us at last to be appeas'd towards us and to turn from the fierceness of his Anger This we find the People of God were wont to do upon their Solemn days of Fasting and Prayer and this God expressly enjoyns Blow the Trumpet in Zion sanctifie a Fast call a solemn Assembly gather the People sanctifie the Congregation assemble the Elders c. Let the Priests the Ministers of the Lord weep between the Porch and the Altar and let them say Spare thy People O Lord and give not thy heritage to reproach that the Heathen should rule over them Wherefore should they say among the People Where is their God And to this earnest deprecation of his Judgments God promiseth a gracious answer for so it immediately follows Then will the Lord be jealous for his Land and pity his People And thus likewise Daniel when he set his face to seek the Lord God by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes does in a most humble and earnest manner deprecate the displeasure of God towards his People and beg of Him to remove his Judgments and to turn away his Anger from them O Lord according to all thy righteousness I beseech thee let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy City Jerusalem thy Holy Mountain Because for our sins and for the iniquity of our Fathers Jerusalem and thy People are become a reproach to all that are about us Now therefore O God hear the prayer of thy servant and his supplication and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary which is desolate for the Lord's sake O my God incline thine ear and hear open thine eyes and behold our desolations and the City which is called by thy Name For we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness but for thy great mercy O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do deferr not for thine own sake O my God for thy City and thy People are called by thy Name And thus also should We upon this Solemn Occasion cry mightily unto God and with the greatest importunity deprecate those terrible Judgments which we so righteously have deserv'd and to which the great and crying Sins of the whole Nation have so justly exposed us Humbly beseeching Him not for our Righteousness but for his great Mercy for his own Name 's sake and because we are his People and are called by his Name and because his Holy Truth and Religion are profess'd amongst us that He would be pleas'd to hear the Prayers of his Servants and their Supplications which they have made before him this Day for the Lord's sake Fourthly We should likewise upon this Day pour out our most earnest Supplications to Almighty God for the preservation of Their Majesties Sacred Persons and for the prosperity and establishment of Their Government and for the good Success of Their Arms and Forces by Sea and Land And more especially since His Majesty with so many Confederate Princes and States of Europe is engaged in so necessary an Undertaking for the Common good of Christendom and for the mutual preservation and recovery of Their respective Rights We should earnestly implore the favour and assistance of Almighty God in so just and glorious a Cause against the common Invader and Oppressor of the Rights and Liberties of Mankind And that of his infinite Goodness He would be graciously pleased to take the Person of our Sovereign Lord the King into the particular care and protection of his Providence That He would secure his precious Life from all secret Attempts and from open Violence That He would give his Angels charge over him and cover his Head in the day of Battel and crown it with Victory over his Enemies and restore Him to us again in safety And that He would likewise preserve and direct the Queen's Majesty in whose hands the Administration of the Government is at present so happily plac'd That He would give Her Wisdom and Resolution for such a Time as
and that men who are resolv'd to continue in an evil course are glad to be of a Church which will assure Salvation to men upon such terms The great difficulty is for men to believe that things which are so apparently absurd and unreasonable can be true and to persuade themselves that they can impose upon God by such pretences of service and obedience as no wise Prince or Father upon earth is to be deluded withal by his Subjects or Children We ought to have worthier thoughts of God and to consider that He is a great King and will be obey'd and observ'd by his creatures in his own way and make them happy upon his own terms and that obedience to what he commands is better and more acceptable to him than any other sacrifice that we can offer which he hath not required at our hands and likewise that he is infinitely wise and good and therefore that the Laws which he hath given us to live by are much more likely and certain means of our happiness than any inventions and devices of our own Thirdly I observe that even the better and more considerate sort of Christians are not so careful and watchful as they ought to prepare themselves for Death and Judgment whilst the Bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept Even the Disciples of our Saviour whilst he was yet personally present with them and after a particular charge given them from his own mouth Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation yet did not keep that guard upon themselves as to watch with him for one hour In many things says St. James we offend all even the best of us And who is there that doth not some time or other remit of his vigilancy and care so as to give the Devil an advantage and to lye open to temptation for want of a continual guard upon himself But then the difference between the wise and foolish Virgins was this that tho they both slept yet the wise did not let their Lamps go out they neither quitted their Profession nor did they extinguish it by a bad life and tho when the Bridegroom came suddenly upon them they were not so actually prepar'd to meet him by a continual vigilancy yet they were habitually prepar'd by the good disposition of their minds and the general course of a holy life Their Lamps might burn dim for want of continual trimming but they had Oyl in their Vessels to supply their Lamps which the foolish Virgins had taken no care to provide But surely the greatest wisdom of all is to maintain a continual watchfulness that so we may not be surpriz'd by the coming of the Bridegroom and be in a confusion when Death or Judgment shall overtake us And blessed are those Servants and wise indeed whose Lamps always burn bright and whom the Bridegroom when he comes shall find watching and in a fit posture and preparation to meet Him Fourthly I observe likewise how little is to be done by us to any good purpose in this great work of Preparation when it is deferr'd and put off to the last And thus the foolish Virgins did but what a sad confusion and hurry they were in at the sudden coming of the Bridegroom when they were not only asleep but when after they were awaken'd they found themselves altogether unprovided of that which was necessary to trim their Lamps and to put them in a posture to meet the Bridegroom When they wanted that which was necessary at that very instant but could not be provided in an instant I say what a tumult and confusion they were in being thus surpriz'd the Parable represents to us at large vers 6 7 8 9. and at midnight there was a cry made Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye out to meet him Then all those Virgins arose and trimmed their Lamps that is they went about it as well as they could and the foolish said unto the wise give us of your Oyl for our Lamps are gone out At midnight there was a cry made that is at the most dismal and unseasonable time of all other when they were fast asleep and suddenly awaken'd in great terror when they could not on the sudden recollect themselves and consider what to do when the summons was so very short that they had neither time to consider what was fit to be done nor time to do it in And such is the Case of those who put off their Repentance and Preparation for another World till they are surpriz'd by Death or Judgment for it comes all to one in the issue which of them it be The Parable indeed seems more particularly to point at our Lord 's coming to Judgment but the case is much the same as to those who are surpriz'd by sudden Death such as gives them but little or not sufficient time for so great a work because such as Death leaves them Judgment will certainly find them And what a miserable confusion must they needs be in who are thus surpriz'd either by the one or the other How unfit should we be if the general Judgment of the World should come upon us on the sudden to meet that great Judge at his coming if we have made no preparation for it before that time What shall we then be able to do in that great and universal consternation when the Son of man shall appear in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory when the Sun shall be darken'd and the Moon turned into blood and all the powers of Heaven shall be shaken when all Nature shall feel such violent pangs and convulsions and the whole World shall be in a combustion flaming and cracking about our ears When the Heavens shall be shrivel'd up as a Scroll when it is roll'd together and the Earth shall be toss'd from its Center and every Mountain and Island shall be removed What thoughts can the wisest men then have about them in the midst of so much noise and terror Or if they could have any what time will there then be to put them in execution when they shall see the Angel that standeth upon the Sea and upon the Earth lifting up his hand to Heaven and swearing by Him that liveth for ever and ever that Time shall be no longer as this dreadful Day is described Rev. 10.5 6. and chap. 6.15 where Sinners are represented at the Appearance of this Great Judge not as flying to God in hopes of mercy but as flying from Him in utter despair of finding mercy with Him The Kings of the Earth and the Great Men and the Mighty Men and the Rich Men and the Great Captains hid themselves in the Dens and in the Rocks of the Earth and said to the Mountains and Rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb For the Great Day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand The biggest and the boldest Sinners
our great trespass Our evil deeds bring all other evils upon us 2. That great Sins have usually a proportionable punishment after all that is come upon us there is the greatness of our punishment for our evil deeds and for our great trespass there is the greatness of our Sin But when I say that great Sins have a proportionable Punishment I do not mean that any temporal Punishments are proportionable to the great evil of Sin but that God doth usually observe a proportion in the temporal punishments of Sin so that although no temporal punishment be proportionable to Sin yet the temporal punishment of one Sin holds a proportion to the punishment of another and consequently lesser and greater Sins have proportionably a lesser and greater Punishment 3. That all the Punishments which God inflicts in this Life do fall short of the demerit of our Sins and seeing thou our God hast punish'd us less than our iniquities deserve In the Hebrew it is and hast kept down our iniquities that is that they should not rise up against us The LXX expresseth it very emphatically thou hast eased us of our sins that is thou hast not let the whole weight of them fall upon us Were it not for the restraints which God puts upon his anger and the merciful mitigations of it the Sinner would not be able to bear it but must sink under it Indeed it is only said in the Text that the punishment which God inflicted upon the Jews though it was a long Captivity was beneath the desert of their Sins But yet it is universally true and Ezra perhaps might intend to insinuate so much that all temporal Punishments though never so severe are always less than our iniquities deserve 4. That God many times works very great Deliverances for those who are very unworthy of them and hast given us such a Deliverance as this notwithstanding our evil deeds and notwithstanding our great Trespass 5. That we are but too apt even after great Judgments and after great Mercies to relapse into our former Sins should we again break thy Commandments Ezra insinuates that there was great reason to fear this especially considering the strange temper of that People who when God multiply'd his blessings upon them were so apt to wax fat and kick against Him and tho he had cast them several times into the furnace of Affliction though they were melted for the present yet they were many times but the harder for it afterwards 6. That it is good to take notice of those particular Sins which have brought the Judgments of God upon us So Ezra does here after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass and should we again join in affinity with the People of these abominations Secondly Here is a Sentence and determination in the Case wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping Which Question as I said before doth imply a strong and peremptory affirmative as if he had said after such a provocation there is great reason to conclude that God would be angry with us till he had consumed us From whence the Observation contained in this part of the Text will be this That it is a fearful aggravation of Sin and a sad presage of ruin to a People after great Judgments and great Deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again Hear how passionately Ezra expresses himself in this Case verse 6. I am ashamed O my God and blush to lift up mine eyes to thee my God Why what was the cause of this great shame and confusion of face He tells us verse 9. for we were bondmen yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage but hath extended his mercy to us to give us a reviving to set up the House of our God and to repair the desolations thereof and to give us a Wall in Judah and in Jerusalem that is to restore to them the free and safe exercise of their Religion Here was great Mercy and a mighty Deliverance indeed and yet after this they presently relapsed into a very great sin verse 10. And now O our God what shall we say after this for we have forsaken thy Commandments In the handling of this Observation I shall do these two things First I shall endeavour to shew that this is a very heavy aggravation of Sin and Secondly That it is a fatal presage of ruin to a People First It is a heavy aggravation of Sin after great Judgments and after signal Mercies and Deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again Here are three things to be distinctly spoken to 1. That it is a great aggravation of Sin to return to it after great Judgments 2. To do this after great Mercies and Deliverances 3. After both to return to the same Sins again 1. It is a great aggravation of Sin after great Judgments have been upon us to return to an evil course Because this is an Argument of great obstinacy in evil The longer Pharaoh resisted the Judgments of God the more was his wicked heart hardned till at last he arriv'd at a monstrous degree of hardness having been as the Text tells us hardned under ten plagues And we find that after God had threaten'd the People of Israel with several Judgments he tells them that if they will not be reformed by all these things he will punish them seven times more for their sins And if the just God will in such a case punish seven times more we may conclude that the Sin is Seven times greater What sad complaints doth the Prophet make of the People of Israel growing worse for Judgments Ah! sinful Nation a People laden with iniquity children that have been corrupters a seed of evil doers He can hardly find words enough to express how great Sinners they were and he adds the reason in the next verse Why should they be smitten any more they will revolt more and more They were but the worse for Judgments This renders them a sinful Nation a People laden with iniquity And again The People turneth not to him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts therefore his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still And the same Prophet further complains to the same purpose When thy hand is lifted up they will not see There is a particular brand set upon King Ahaz because affliction made him worse This is that King Ahaz that is that grievous and notorious Sinner And what was it that rendr'd him so In the time of his distress he sinned yet more against the Lord this is that King Ahaz who is said to have provoked the Lord above all the Kings of Israel which were before him 2. It is likewise a sore aggravation of Sin when it is committed after great Mercies and Deliverances
vouchsafed to us Because this is an argument of great ingratitude And this we find recorded as a heavy charge upon the People of Israel that they remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side neither shewed they kindness to the House of Jerubbaal namely Gideon who had been their Deliverer according to all the goodness which he had shewed to Israel God we see takes it very ill at our hands when we are ungrateful to the Instruments of our Deliverance but much more when we are unthankful to Him the Author of it And how severely does Nathan the Prophet reproach David upon this account Thus said the Lord God of Israel I anointed thee King over Israel and delivered thee out of the hand of Saul c. And if this had been too little I would moreover have done such and such things Wherefore hast thou despis'd the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight God here reckons up his manifold mercies and deliverances and aggravates David's Sin upon this account And he was very angry likewise with Solomon for the same reason because he had turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appear'd to him twice However we may slight the mercies of God he keeps a punctual and strict account of them It is particularly noted as a great blot upon Hezekiah that he returned not again according to the benefits done unto him God takes very severe notice of all the unkind and unworthy returns that are made to Him for his Goodness Ingratitude to God is so unnatural and monstrous that we find Him appealing against us for it to the inanimate Creatures Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourish'd and brought up Children but they have rebelled against me And then he goes on and upbraids them with the Brute Creatures as being more grateful to men than men are to God The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass her Masters Crib but Israel doth not know my People doth not consider And in the same Prophet there is the like complaint Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but the shall see and be ashamed They that will not acknowledge the Mercies of God's Providence shall feel the strokes of his Justice There is no greater evidence in the World of an intractable disposition than not to be wrought upon by kindness not to be melted by mercies not to be obliged by benefits not to be tamed by gentle usage Nay God expects that his mercies should lay so great an obligation upon us that even a Miracle should not tempt us to be unthankful If there arise among you a Prophet says Moses to the People of Israel or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder cometh to pass whereof he spake to thee saying let us go after other Gods and serve them thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet And he gives the reason because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord God of Israel which brought you out of the Land of Egypt and delivered you out of the House of Bondage 3. It is a greater aggravation yet after gteat Mercies and Judgments to return to the same Sins Because this can hardly be without our sinning against knowledge and after we are convinced how evil and bitter the Sin is which we were guilty of and have been so sorely punish'd for before This is an argument of a very perverse and incorrigible temper and that which made the Sin of the People of Israel so above measure sinful that after so many signal Deliverances and so many terrible Judgments they fell into the same Sin of murmuring ten times murmuring against God the Author and against Moses the glorious Instrument of their Deliverance out of Egypt which was one of the two great Types of the Old Testament both of temporal and spiritual Oppression and Tyranny Hear with what resentment God speaks of the ill returns which they made to him for that great Mercy and Deliverance Because all these men which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the Wilderness and have tempted me now these ten times and have not hearkned unto my voice surely they shall not see the Land which I sware to their Fathers And after he had brought them into the promised Land and wrought great Deliverances for them several times how does he upbraid them with their proneness to fall again into the same Sin of Idolatry And the Lord said unto the Children of Israel did not I deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites from the Children of Ammon and from the Philistins The Zidonians also and the Amalekites and Maonites did oppress you and ye cryed unto me and I delivered you out of their hand yet you have forsaken me and served other Gods wherefore I will deliver you no more go and cry unto the Gods which ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation This incensed God so highly against them that they still relaps'd into the same Sin of Idolatry after so many afflictions and so many deliverances Upon such an occasion well might the Prophet say Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy sins shall reprove thee know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God It is hardly possible but we should know that the wickedness for which we have been so severely corrected is an evil and bitter thing Thus much for the first part of the Observation namely that it is a fearful aggravation of Sin after great Judgments and great deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again I proceed to the Second part namely That this is a fatal presage of ruin to a People Should we again break thy Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these abominations wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping And so God threatens the People of Israel in the Text which I cited before wherefore I will deliver you no more Wherefore that is because they would neither be reform'd by the Afflictions wherewith God had exercised them nor by the many wonderful Deliverances which he had wrought for them And there is great reason why God should deal thus with a People that continues impenitent both under the Judgments and Mercies of God 1. Because this doth ripen the Sins of a Nation and it is time for God to put in his Sickle when a People are ripe for ruin When the
let it slip but would long since have extirpated us utterly and have made the remembrance of us to have ceas'd from among men And now if you ask me for what Sins more especially God hath sent all these Judgments upon us It will not I think become us to be very particular and positive in such determinations Thus much is certain That we have all sinn'd and contributed to these Judgments every one hath had some hand more or less in pulling down this vengeance upon the Nation But we are all too apt to remove the meritorious cause of God's Judgments as far as we can from our selves and our own Party and upon any slight pretence to lay it upon others Yet I will venture to instance in one or two things which may probably enough have had a more particular and immediate hand in drawing down the Judgments of God upon us Our horrible contempt of Religion on the one hand by our Infidelity and Prophaneness and our shameful abuse of it on the other by our gross Hypocrisy and sheltering great wickedness and immoralities under the cloak and profession of Religion And then great Dissensions and Divisions great uncharitableness and bitterness of Spirit among those of the same Religion so that almost from the beginning of our happy Reformation the Enemy had sown these Tares and by the unwearied Malice and Arts of the Church of Rome the seeds of Dissension were scattered very early amongst us and a sowre humour had been fermenting in the Body of the Nation both upon account of Religion and Civil Interests for a long time before things broke out into a Civil War And more particularly yet That which is call'd the great Trespass here in the Text their joining in affinity with the People of these abominations by whom they had been detain'd in a long Captivity This I say seems to have had both from the nature of the thing and the just Judgment of God no small influence upon a great part of the Miseries and Calamities which have befallen us For had it not been for the countenance which Popery had by the Marriages and Alliances of our Princes for two or three Generations together with those of that Religion it had not probably had a continuance among us to this day Which will I hope now be a good warning to those who have the Authority to do it to make effectual provision by Law for the prevention of the like inconvenience and mischief in this Nation for ever 2. Another Parallel between our Case and that in the Text is That God hath punish'd us less than our iniquities did deserve And this acknowledgment we have as much reason to make for our selves as Ezra had to do it in behalf of the Jews Thou our God hast punish'd us less than our iniquities deserve Thou our God hast punish'd us there is the reason of so much mercy and mitigation It is God and not Man with whom we have to do and therefore it is that we the children of men are not consumed And it is our God likewise to whom we have a more peculiar relation and with whom by virtue of our Profession of Christianity we are in Covenant Thou our God hast punish'd us less than our Iniquities deserve He might justly have pour'd forth all his wrath and have made his jealousie to have smoak'd against us and have blotted out the remembrance of us from under Heaven He might have given us up to the will of our Enemies and into the hands of those whose tender mercies are cruelty He might have brought us into the net which they had spred for us and have laid a terrible load of affliction upon our loins and suffer'd insolent men to ride over our heads and them that hated us with a perfect hatred to have had the rule over us But he was graciously pleas'd to remember mercy in the midst of judgment and to repent himself for his servants when he saw that their power was gone and that things were come to that extremity that we were in all humane probability utterly unable to have wrought out our own Deliverance 3. The last Parallel between our Case and that in the Text is the great and wonderful Deliverance which God hath wrought for us And whilst I am speaking of this God is my witness whom I serve in the Gospel of his Son that I do not say one word upon this Occasion in flattery to men but in true thankfulness to Almighty God and constrain'd thereto from a just sense of his great mercy to us all in this marvellous Deliverance in this mighty Salvation which he wrought for us So that we may say with Ezra Since thou our God hast given us such a Deliverance as THIS So great that we know not how to compare it with any thing but it Self God hath given us this Deliverance And therefore Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy Name be the praise For thou knowest and we are all conscious to our selves that we did in no wise deserve it but quite the contrary God hath given it and it ought to be so much the welcomer to us for coming from such a Hand It is the Lord 's doing and therefore ought to be the more marvellous in our eyes It is a Deliverance full of Mercy and I had almost said full of Miracle The Finger of God was visibly in it and there are plain Signatures and Characters upon it of a more immediate Divine interposition And if we will not wisely consider the Lord's doings we have reason to stand in awe of that Threatning of His Because they regard not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hands he shall destroy them and not build them up It was a wonderful Deliverance indeed if we consider all the Circumstances of it The Greatness of it and the strangeness of the Means whereby it was brought about and the Suddenness and Easiness of it The Greatness of it it was a great Deliverance from the greatest Fears and from the greatest Dangers the apparent and imminent Danger of the saddest Thraldom and Bondage Civil and Spiritual both of Soul and Body And it was brought about in a very extraordinary manner and by very strange means Whether we consider the greatness and difficulty of the Enterprise or the closeness and secrecy of the Design which must of necessity be communicated at least to the Chief of those who were to assist and engage in it Especially the States of the Vnited Provinces who were then in so much danger themselves and wanted more than their own Forces for their own Defence and Security a kindness never to be forgotten by the English Nation And besides all this the difficulties and disappointments which happen'd after the Design was open and manifest from the uncertainties of Wind and Weather and many other Accidents impossible to be foreseen and prevented And yet in Conclusion a strange concurrence of
we are now so loth to think upon I say if we believe this it is time for us to be wise and serious And happy that man who in the days of his health hath retir'd himself from the noise and tumult of this world and made that careful preparation for Death and a better Life as may give him that constancy and firmness of Spirit as to be able to bear the thoughts and approaches of his great Change without amazement and to have a mind almost equally poiz'd between that strong inclination of Nature which makes us desirous to live and that wiser dictate of Reason and Religion which should make us willing and contented to die whenever God thinks fit Many of us do not now so clearly discern these things because our eyes are dazzel'd with the false light and splendor of earthly felicity But this assuredly is more worth than all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them to be able to possess our Souls at such a time and to be at perfect Peace with our own minds having our hearts fixed trusting in God To have our Accounts made up and Estate of our immortal Souls as well settled and secur'd as by the assistance of God's Grace humane care and endeavour though mix'd with much humane frailty is able to do And if we be convinc'd of these things we are utterly inexcusable if we do not make this our first and great care and prefer it to all other interests whatsoever And to this end we should resolutely disentangle our selves from worldly cares and incumbrances at least so far that we may have competent liberty and leisure to attend this great concernment and to put our Souls into a fit posture and preparation for another World That when Sickness and Death shall come we may not act our last part indecently and confusedly and have a great deal of work to do when we shall want both time and all other advantages to do it in Whereby our Souls when they will stand most in need of comfort and support will unavoidably be left in a trembling and disconsolate condition and in an anxious doubtfulness of mind what will become of them for ever To conclude This care of Religion and our Souls is a thing so necessary that in comparison of it we are to neglect the very necessaries of Life So our Lord teacheth us Take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be cloathed But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness The Calls of God and Religion are so very pressing and importunate that they admit of no delay or excuse whatsoever This our Saviour signifies to us by denying the Disciple whom he had call'd to follow him leave to go and bury his Father Let the dead says he bury their dead but do thou follow me There is one thing needful and that is the business of Religion and the care of our immortal Souls which whatever else we neglect should be carefully minded and regarded by every one of us O that there were such a heart in us O that we were wise that we understood this that we would consider our latter end Which God grant we may all do in this our day for his mercies sake in Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory now and ever Amen Of the Eternity of Hell-Torments A SERMON Preached before the QUEEN AT WHITEHALL March 7. 1689 90. Of the Eternity of Hell-Torments MATTH 25.46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the Righteous into life eternal AMong all the arguments to Repentance and a good Life those have the greatest force and power upon the minds of men which are fetch'd from another World and from the final state of good and bad men after this Life And this our Saviour represents to us in a most lively manner in that prospect which in the latter part of this Chapter he gives us of the Judgment of the great Day namely that at the end of the World the Son of Man shall come in his glory with his Holy Angels and shall sit upon the Throne of his Glory and all Nations shall be gathered before him and shall be separated into two great Companies the Righteous and the Wicked who shall stand the one on the Right hand and the other on the Left of this great Judge who shall pronounce sentence severally upon them according to the actions which they have done in this Life The Righteous shall be rewarded with eternal happiness and the Wicked shall be sentenc'd to everlasting punishment And these that is the Wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment but the Righteous into Life eternal The Words are plain and need no explication For I take it for granted that every one at first hearing of them does clearly apprehend the difference between the Righteous and the Wicked and between endless Happiness and Misery But although these Words be so very easy to be understood they can never be too much consider'd by us The Scope and design of them is to represent to us the different Fates of good and bad men in another World and that their Ends there will be as different as their Ways and doings have been here in this World The serious consideration whereof is the greatest discouragement to Sin and the most powerful argument in the World to a holy and vertuous life Because it is an argument taken from our greatest and most lasting interest our happiness or our misery to all Eternity A concernment of that vast consequence that it must be the greatest stupidity and folly in the World for any man to neglect it This eternal state of Rewards and Punishments in another World our Blessed Saviour hath clearly revealed to us And as to one part of it viz. That good men shall be eternally happy in another World every one gladly admits it But many are loth that the other part should be true concerning the eternal punishment of wicked men And therefore they pretend that it is contrary to the Justice of God to punish temporary Crimes with eternal Torments Because Justice always observes a proportion between Offences and Punishments but between temporary Sins and eternal Punishments there is no proportion And as this seems hard to be reconcil'd with Justice so much more with that excess of Goodness which we suppose to be in God And therefore they say that though God seem to have declar'd that impenitent Sinners shall be everlastingly punish'd yet these declarations of Scripture are so to be mollified and understood as that we may be able to reconcile them with the essential perfections of the Divine nature This is the full force and strength of the Objection And my work at this time shall be to clear if I can this difficult Point And that for these two Reasons First For the vindication of the Divine Justice and Goodness
That God may be justified in his sayings and appear Righteous when he judgeth And Secondly because the belief of the threatnings of God in their utmost extent is of so great moment to a good Life and so great a discouragement to Sin For the sting of Sin is the terrour of eternal punishment and if men were once set free from the fear and belief of this the most powerful restraint from Sin would be taken away So that in answer to this Objection I shall endeavour to prove these two things First That the eternal punishment of wicked men in another World is plainly threatned in Scripture Secondly That this is not inconsistent either with the Justice or the Goodness of God First That the eternal punishment of wicked men in another World is plainly threatned in Scripture namely in these following Texts Matth. 18.8 It is better for thee to enter into Life halt and maimed than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire And Matth. 25.41 Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels And here in the Text these that is the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment And Mark 9. It is there three several times with great vehemency repeated by our Saviour where their worm dyeth not and the fire is not quenched And 2 Thes 1.9 speaking of them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of his Son it is said of them who shall be punish'd with everlasting destruction I know very well that great endeavour hath been us'd to avoid the force of these Texts by shewing that the words for ever and everlasting are frequently us'd in Scripture in a more limited sense only for a long duration and continuance Thus for ever doth very often in the Old Testament only signify for a long time and till the end of the Jewish Dispensation And in the Epistle of St. Jude verse 7th The Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire that is of a fire that was not extinguish'd till those Cities were utterly consumed And therefore to clear the meaning of the forementioned Texts First I shall readily grant that the words for ever and everlasting do not always in Scripture signify an endless duration and that this is sufficiently proved by the instances alledg'd to this purpose But then Secondly it cannot be denied on the other hand that these words are often in Scripture used in a larger sense and so as necessarily to signify an interminable and endless duration As where Eternity is attributed to God and he is said to live for ever and ever And where eternal happiness in another World is promised to good men and that they shall be for ever with the Lord. Now the very same words and expressions are used concerning the punishment of wicked men in another life and there is great reason why we should understand them in the same extent Both because if God had intended to have told us that the punishment of wicked men shall have no end the Languages wherein the Scriptures are written do hardly afford fuller and more certain words than those that are used in this case whereby to express to us a duration without end And likewise which is almost a peremptory decision of the thing because the duration of the punishment of wicked men is in the very same sentence express'd by the very same word which is us'd for the duration of the happiness of the righteous As is evident from the Text These speaking of the wicked shall go away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into eternal punishment but the righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into life eternal I proceed to the Second thing I propos'd namely to shew that this is not inconsistent either with the Justice or the Goodness of God For in this the force of the Objection lies And it hath been attempted to be answered several ways none of which seems to me to give clear and full satisfaction to it First It is said by some that because sin is infinite in respect of the Object against whom it is committed which is God therefore it deserves an infinite punishment But this I doubt will upon examination be found to have more of subtlety than of solidity in it 'T is true indeed that the dignity of the Person against whom any offence is committed is a great aggravation of the fault For which reason all offences against God are certainly the greatest of all other But that crimes should hereby be heighten'd to an infinite degree can by no means be admitted and that for this plain reason because then the evil and demerit of all sins must necessarily be equal for the demerit of no sin can be more than infinite And if the demerit of all sins be equal there can then be no reason for the degrees of punishment in another World But to deny that there are degrees of punishment there is not only contrary to reason but to our Saviour's express assertion that some shall be beaten with many stripes and some with fewer and that it shall be more tolerable for some in the day of judgment than for others Besides that by the same reason that the least sin that is committed against God may be said to be infinite because of its object the least punishment that is inflicted by God may be said to be infinite because of its Author and then all punishments from God as well as all sins against him would be equal which is palpably absurd So that this answer is by no means sufficient to break the force of this Objection Secondly It is said by others that if wicked men lived for ever in this World they would sin for ever and therefore they deserve to be punish'd for ever But this hath neither truth nor reason enough in it to give satisfaction For who can certainly tell that if a man lived never so long he would never repent and grow better Besides that the Justice of God doth only punish the sins which men have committed in this life and not those which they might possibly have committed if they had lived longer Thirdly It is said in the last place that God hath set before men everlasting Happiness and Misery and the sinner hath his choice Here are two things said which seem to bid fairly towards an answer First That the reward which God promiseth to our obedience is equal to the punishment which he threatens to our disobedience But yet this I doubt will not reach the business Because though it be not contrary to Justice to exceed in Rewards that being matter of meer favour yet it may be so to exceed in Punishments Secondly It is further said that the sinner in this case hath nothing to complain of since he hath his own choice This I confess is enough to silence the sinner and to make him to acknowledge that his destruction is of
and learned a man as Origen was should be positive in an Opinion for which there can be no certain ground in Reason especially for the punctual and precise term of a thousand years and for which there is no ground at all that I know of from Divine Revelation But upon the whole matter however it be be it for a thousand years or be it for a longer and unknown term or be it for ever which is plainly threatned in the Gospel I say however it be this is certain that it is infinitely wiser to take care to avoid it than to dispute it and to run the final hazard of it Put it which way we will especially if we put it at the worst as in all prudence we ought to do it is by all possible means to be provided against So terrible so intolerable is the thought yea the very least suspicion of being miserable for ever And now give me leave to ask You as St. Paul did King Agrippa Do you believe the Scrâ—ptures And I hope I may answer for you my self as he did for Agrippa I know you do believe them And in them these things are clearly revealed and are part of that Creed of which we make a solemn profession every day And yet when we consider how most men live is it credible that they do firmly believe this plain Declaration of our Saviour and our Judge That the wicked shall go away into everlasting Punishment but the righteous into Life eternal Or if they do in some sort believe it is it credible that they do at all consider it seriously and lay it to heart So that if we have a mind to reconcile our belief with our Actions we must either alter our Bible and our Creed or we must change our Lives Let us then consider and shew our selves men And if we do so can any man to please himself for a little while be contented to be punish'd for ever and for the shadow of a short and imperfect happiness in this life be willing to run the hazard of being really and eternally miserable in the next World Surely this consideration alone of the extreme and endless misery of impenitent Sinners in another World if it were but well wrought into our minds would be sufficient to kill all the temptations of this World and to lay them dead at our feet and to make us deaf to all the Enchantments of Sin and Vice Because they bid us so infinitely to our loss when they offer us the enjoyment of a short Pleasure upon so very hard and unequal a condition as that of being miserable for ever The eternal Rewards and Punishments of another Life which are the great Sanction and Security of God's Laws one would think should be a sufficient weight to cast the Scales against any Pleasure or any Pain that this World can tempt or can threaten us withal And yet after all this will we still go on to do wickedly when we know the terrors of the Lord and that we must one day answer all our bold violations of his Law and contempts of his Authority with the loss of our immortal Souls and by suffering the vengeance of eternal Fire What is it then that can give men the Heart and Courage but I recall that Word because it is not true Courage but fool hardiness thus to out brave the Judgment of God and to set at nought the horrible and amazing consideration of a miserable Eternity How is it possible that men that are awake and in their wits should have any ease in their minds or enjoy so much as one quiet hour whilst so great a danger hangs over their heads and they have taken no tolerable care to prevent it If we have any true and just sense of this danger we cannot fail to shew that we have it by making haste to escape it and by taking that care of our Souls which is due to immortal Spirits that are made to be Happy or Miserable to all Eternity Let us not therefore estimate and measure things as they appear now to our sensual and deluded and deprav'd Judgments but let us open our eyes and look to the last issue and consequence of them Let us often think of these things and consider well with our selves what apprehensions will then probably fill and possess our minds when we shall stand trembling before our Judge in a fearful expectation of that terrible Sentence which is just ready to be pronounced and as soon as ever it is pronounc'd to be executed upon us When we shall have a full and clear sight of the unspeakable Happiness and of the horrible and astonishing Miseries of another World When there shall be no longer any Veil of Flesh and Sense to interpose between them and us and to hide these things from our eyes And in a word when Heaven with all the Glories of it shall be open to our view and as the expression is in Job Hell shall be naked before us and Destruction shall have no covering How shall we then be confounded to find the truth and reality of those things which we will not now be persuaded to believe And how shall we then wish that we had believed the terrors of the Lord and instead of quarrelling with the Principles of Religion and calling them into question we had lived under the constant sense and awe of them Blessed be God that there is yet hope concerning us and that we may yet flee from the wrath to come and that the Miseries of Eternity may yet be prevented in Time And that for this very end and purpose our most Gracious and Merciful God hath so clearly revealed these things to us not with a desire to bring them upon us but that we being warned by his Threatnings might not bring them upon our selves I will conclude all with the Counsel of the Wise Man Seek not Death in the error of your Life and pull not upon your selves destruction with the works of your own hands For God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the Living But ungodly men with their works and words have called it down upon themselves Which that none of us may do God of his infinite Goodness grant for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ To whom with Thee O Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory Dominion and Power Thanksgiving and Praise both now and for ever Amen Success not always answerable to the probability of Second Causes A FAST-SERMON Preached before the House of COMMONS ON Wednesday April the 16th 1690. Jovis 17. die April 1690. Ordered THat the Thanks of this House be given to Dr. Tillotson Dean of St. Pauls for the Sermon Preached before this House Yesterday And that he be desired to Print the same And that Sir Edmund Jenings do acquaint him therewith Paul Jodrell Cler. Dom. Com. Success not always answerable to the probability of Second Causes Ecclesiastes IX 11 I
Sir Thomas Pilkington Lord-Mayor of the City of London AND THE Court of Aldermen MY LORD IN Obedience to Your Commands I have publish'd this Sermon lately preach'd before You and do now humbly present you with it heartily wishing it may have that good effect for the reformation of our Lives and reconciliation of our unhappy Differences which was sincerely intended by MY LORD Your most Faithful and Humble Servant JOHN TILLOTSON The way to prevent the Ruin of a Sinful People Jeremiah VI. 8 Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a land not inhabited THese Words are a merciful warning from God to the People of Israel by the Prophet Jeremiah the last Prophet that God sent to them before their Captivity in Babylon The time of his Prophecy was of a long continuance above the space of forty years viz. from the thirteenth year of King Josiah to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah the year in which Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon This I observe to shew the great patience of God to a sinful Nation And this is much the same space of time that God gave warning by our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles to the same People of the Jews concerning their final Destruction For it was about forty years after the Prediction of our Saviour concerning it just before his Death that the terrible Destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation was executed upon them by the Romans or rather chiefly by themselves as I shall presently shew Of which dreadful Desolation the first taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and their Captivity into Babylon was a kind of Type and Forerunner For as Josephus observes the taking of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian did happen in the very same Month and on the very same Day of the Month in which Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar viz. upon our tenth of August And it is not unworthy of our observation that the time of God's warning is wont to hold some sort of proportion with the extent of his Judgments Before the universal Deluge which destroyed the whole World Noah and his Family only excepted God gave a much longer warning by the preaching of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty years Before the destruction of a particular Nation if we may judge by God's dealing with the Jews his time of warning is forty years And before the destruction of a particular City if we may conclude any thing from the single example of Niniveh the time of God's warning is yet much shorter the space of forty days And now to what end doth God exercise so much patience and threaten so long beforehand but that by the terror of his threatnings men may be brought to repentance and by repentance may prevent the execution of them For all the while that God by his Prophet threatens ruin and destruction to the People of Israel he earnestly invites and urges them to repentance that by this means they might escape the ruin that was denounced against them This being a condition perpetually implyed in the denunciation of publick judgments that if a People repent of the evil of their doings God also will repent of the evil which he said he would do unto them as he expresly declares chap. 18. vers 7 8. At what instant I speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it if that Nation against whom I have pronounc'd turn from their evil I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them And here in the Text after God had threaten'd destruction to Jerusalem because of the overflowing of all manner of wickedness and oppression in the midst of her he gives her a merciful warning to prevent this ruin and desolation by repentance vers 6 7. Thus hath the Lord of Hosts said Hew ye down trees and cast a mount against Jerusalem this is a City to be visited she is wholly oppression in the midst of her As a fountain casteth out waters so she casteth out her wickedness Before me continually is grief and wounds And yet when he had pronounced this fearful Sentence upon her he tells her that all this misery and desolation might yet be prevented if they would but hearken to the counsel of God and be instructed by him concerning the things of their peace For so it follows in the next words Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a land not inhabited Be thou instructed O Jerusalem that is do but now at last take that counsel and warning which hath so often and so long been tender'd to thee by my servant the Prophet who hath now for the space of forty years continually and that with great earnestness and importunity been warning thee of this danger and calling thee to repentance and a better mind Lest my soul depart from thee In the Hebrew it is Lest my soul be loosened and disjointed from thee as it is in the margin of your Bibles hereby signifying in the most emphatical manner the wonderful affection and kindness which God had for his People and how strongly his soul was link'd to them and how loth he was to withdraw his love from them it was like the tearing off of a limb or the plucking of a joint in sunder so unwilling is God to come to extremity so hardly is he brought to resolve upon the ruin even of a sinful Nation How much rather would he that they would be instructed and receive correction and hearken to the things of their peace But if they will not be persuaded if no warning will work upon them his spirit will not always strive with them but his soul will at last though with great unwillingness and reluctancy depart from them And then no intercession will prevail for them as he threatens by the same Prophet chap. 15. verse 1. Then said the Lord unto me though Moses and Samuel stood before me yet my mind could not be towards this People cast them out of my sight and let them go forth away with them into Captivity for they have lost my heart and no intercession of others for them nothing but their own repentance can recover it And when his Soul is once departed from a People and his heart turn'd against them then all sorts of evils and calamities will be let loose upon them as we may read in the next verse of that Chapter And it shall come to pass if they say unto thee whither shall we go forth Then shalt thou tell them Thus saith the Lord such as are for death to death and such as are for the sword to the sword and such as are for the famine to the famine and such as are for the captivity to the captivity For then God will be weary of repenting as he tells them verse 6. Thou hast forsaken me saith the Lord thou art
their gross and stupid infidelity and horrible ingratitude to God their Saviour and all their rebellious murmurings and discontents yet he suffer'd their manners for the space of forty years And when they were at last peaceably settled in the promised Land notwithstanding their frequent relapses into Idolatry with what patience did God expect their repentance and the result of all the merciful messages and warnings given them from time to time by his Prophets as one that earnestly desir'd it and even long'd for it O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved how long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee that is how long wilt thou delude thy self with vain hopes of escaping the judgments of God by any other way than by repentance And again O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be And chap. 8. ver 6. says God there I hearkened and I heard but they spake not aright no man repented him of his wickedness saying What have I done Where God is represented after the manner of men waiting with great patience as one that would have been glad to have heard any penitent word drop from them to have seen any sign of their repentance and return to a better mind And when they made some shews of repentance and had some fits of good resolution that did presently vanish and come to nothing how passionately does God complain of their fickleness and inconstancy O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee O Judah what shall I do unto thee for your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away And at last when nothing would do with what difficulty and reluctancy does God deliver them up into the hands of their Enemies How shall I give thee up Ephraim How shall I deliver thee Judah How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim mine heart is turned within me and my repentings are kindled together I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger I will not destroy Ephraim What a conflict is here what tenderness and yerning of his bowels towards them He cannot find in his heart to give them up till he is forced to it by the last necessity And when the Nation of the Jews after their return from the Captivity of Babylon had in the course of several Ages greatly corrupted themselves and fill'd up the measure of their sins by crucifying the Lord of Life and Glory yet how slow was the patience of God in bringing that fatal and final Destruction upon them Not till after the most merciful warnings given to them by the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour not till after the most obstinate impenitency of forty years under the most powerful means of repentance that any People in the World ever enjoyed I proceed to the Second Observation from the Text namely What is the only proper and effectual means to prevent the ruin of a sinful People And that is if they will be instructed and take warning by the threatnings of God to become wiser and better then his soul will not depart from them and he will not bring upon them the desolation threatned Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee and I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited intimating or rather plainly declaring to us that if we will receive instruction and take warning the evil threaten'd shall not come For what other reason can there be why God should threaten so long before he strikes and so earnestly press men to repentance but that he might have the opportunity to spare them and to shew mercy to them And indeed as I observ'd before all the denunciations and threatnings of God to a sinful Nation do carry this tacit condition in them that if that Nation turn from their evil ways God will repent of the evil which he thought to do unto them For God never passeth so irrevocable a Sentence upon a Nation as to exclude the case of repentance Nay on the contrary He gives all imaginable encouragement to it and is always ready to meet it with a pardon in his hand How often would I have gathered thee says our merciful Lord when he wept over Jerusalem as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not therefore your House is left unto you desolate God is very merciful to particular persons upon their repentance When the Prodigal Son in the Parable after all his riot and lewdness came to himself and resolv'd to return home his Father seeing him yet afar off coming towards him came out to meet him and had compassion on him and kissed him And can any of us be so obstinate and hard-hearted as not presently to resolve to repent and return and to meet the compassions of such a Father Who after we have offended him to the uttermost is upon the first discovery of our repentance ready to be as kind to us as he could possibly have been if we had never offended him And much more is God ready to receive a Nation upon their sincere Repentance when his Judgments must needs make great havock and so many are like to suffer under them This consideration God urgeth and pleads with his froward Prophet in behalf of the great City of Niniveh And shall not I spare that great City of Niniveh wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons who cannot discern their right hand from their left that is so many innocent children by which we may judge of the vast number of the rest of the Inhabitants For this is a great consideration with God in his sending of publick Calamities the multitude of the Sufferers and that not only the guilty but the innocent also without a special and miraculous Providence must be involved in a common Calamity Sometimes God respites his Judgments upon the mere external humiliation of a People and some formal testimonies and expressions of their repentance When the People of Israel sought God and enquired early after him though they did but flatter him with their mouth and their heart was not right with him yet the Psalmist tells us that being full of compassion he forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not that is he forgave them so far as to respite their ruin And much more will a sincere and effectual Repentance stay God's hand and infallibly turn him from the fierceness of his anger Insomuch that after he had fix'd and determin'd the very Day for the destruction of Niniveh and had engaged the credit of his Prophet in it yet as soon as he saw their works and that they turned from their evil ways and how glad was he to see it he presently repented of the evil which he had said he would do unto them and he did it not In this case God does not stand upon the reputation of his Prophet by whom he had sent so peremptory a message to them but his mercy
cruelties which it occasion'd within the City did force great numbers of them to steal out by night into the Roman Camp where they met with as cruel but a speedier death For Titus in hope to reduce them the sooner by terror order'd all those that came out of the City to be crucified before the Walls Which order was so severely executed that for several days five hundred a day were crucified till there was neither room left to place Crosses in nor wood whereof to make them So that they who once cried out so vehemently against our Saviour Crucify him Crucify him had enough of it at last and by the just and most remarkable judgment of God were paid home in their own kind Behold the sad Fate of a sinful People when God is departed from them Then all evils overtake them at once For as their misery increased so did their Impiety to that degree that the Historian tells us they scorned and mocked at all divine and holy things and derided the Oracles of the Prophets esteeming them no better than Fables and in a word were carried to that extremity of wickedness as not only to prophane their Temple in the highest manner and to break the Laws of their own Religion but even to violate the Laws of Nature and Humanity in the grossest Instances which made their Historian to give that dismal character of them that as he thought no City ever suffer'd such things so no Nation from the beginning of the World did ever so abound in all manner of wickedness and impiety A certain sign that God's Soul was departed from them And the same Historian afterwards upon consideration of the lamentable state into which their Seditions had brought them breaks out into this doleful lamentation over them O miserable City what didst thou suffer from the Romans though at last they set thee on fire to purge thee from thy sins that is to be compar'd with those miseries which thou hast brought upon thy self To such a dismal state did things come at last that as the same Historian relates many of the Jews prayed for the good success of their Enemies to deliver them from their civil Dissensions the Calamity whereof was so great that their final Destruction by the Romans did rather put an end to their misery than increase it En quo discordia Cives Perduxit miseros To conclude this sad Story It was the Jews themselves that by their own folly and dissensions forc'd the Romans to this sorrowful Victory over them for in truth all the remorse and pity was on the Enemies side The Romans were little more than Spectators in this cruel Tragedy the Jews acted it upon themselves And they only who were arriv'd at that prodigious height of Impiety and wickedness were fit to be the executioners of this vengeance of God upon one another As if the Prophet had foretold this when he says Thine own wickedness shall correct thee When Impiety and wickedness are at their highest pitch in a Nation then they themselves are the only proper instruments to punish one another The Romans were by far too good and gentle to inflict a suffering upon the Jews that was equal to the evil of their doings None but their own barbarous Selves who were sunk down into the very lowest degeneracy of humane nature were capable of so much cruelty and inhumanity as was requisite to execute the Judgment of God upon them to that degree which their sins had deserved You see my Brethren by what hath been said upon this Argument what were the Faults and what the Fate of the Jewish Nation Now these things as the Apostle expresly tells us were written for our admonition and to the intent that we upon whom the ends of the World are come might be instructed by them We I say who next to the Jewish Nation seem to be a People highly favoured by God above all the Nations of the Earth We resemble them very much in their many and wonderful Deliverances and a great deal too much in their Faults and Follies But as I intend it not so God forbid that there should be any just ground for a full and exact Parallel between us Yet this I must say that nothing ever came nearer to them than We do in several respects In our fickleness and inconstancy in our murmurings and discontents for we are never pleasâ—d with what God does neither when he brings us into danger nor when he delivers us out of it We resemble them likewise in our horrible prophaneness and infidelity and in our impiety and wickedness of several kinds in our monstrous ingratitude and most unworthy returns to the God of our Salvation and lastly in our Factions and Divisions which were the fatal sign of God's being departed from the Jews and the immediate cause and means of those dismal Calamities which wrought their final Ruin And how can we chuse but dread lest their Fate should overtake us the Example of whose Faults and Follies we do in so many things so nearly resemble That this may not nor any thing like it be our Fate let us apply our selves to the great Duties of this Day a serious and deep Repentance and humiliation of our selves before Almighty God for the many and heinous Sins which we in this Nation have been and still are guilty of against His Divine Majesty by our prophaneness and impiety by our lewdness and luxury by our oppression and injustice by our implacable malice and hatred one towards another and by our senseless divisions and animosities one against another without cause and without end By our neglect of God's Worship and prophanation of his Holy Day and by our dreadful abuse of God's great and glorious Name in those horrid Oaths and Curses and Imprecations which are heard almost day and night in the streets of this great City For these and all other our innumerable provocations of the patience and goodness and long-suffering of God towards us let us sadly repent our selves this Day and turn unto the Lord with all our hearts with fasting and with weeping and with mourning And rent our hearts and not our garments and turn unto the Lord our God For he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth him of the evil And who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him Turn thou us unto thee O Lord and we shall beturned Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously And let us earnestly beg of Him that he would be pleased to prevent those terrible Judgments and Calamities which hang over us and which our Sins have so justly deserved should fall upon us And that He would perfect that wonderful Deliverance which he hath begun for us and establish the thing which he hath wrought That He would bless Them whom he hath set in Authority over us and particularly that He would preserve the Person of the King
this and support and carry Her through all the Difficulties of it And Lastly That He would bless them Both with a long Life and a peacefull and happy Reign over us that under them we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty Fifthly Our Fasting and Humiliation should be accompanied with our Alms and Charity to the poor and needy And we should every one of us according to the counsel given by the Prophet to King Nebuchadnezzar break off our sins by righteousness and our iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it may be a lengthning of our tranquillity Hereby intimating that if there be any way to prevent or remove the Judgments of God and to prolong the tranquillity and happiness of Prince and People a sincere Repentance and a great Charity to them that are in necessity and distress are most likely to prevail with God not only to respite the ruine of a sinful People but to incline Him to thoughts of peace towards them For so he promiseth to the Jews upon their sincere Repentance and earnest Supplication to Him which are always accompanied with Charity to the Poor For I know the thoughts which I think towards you saith the Lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an unexpected end Then shall ye call upon me and ye shall go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you And ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart And I have often thought that the extraordinary Charity of this whole Nation and of our pious Princes who are so ready to every good work and such bright and shining Examples in this kind more than once so seasonably extended to the relief of our distressed Brethren who fled hither for refuge from the Rage and Cruelty of their Persecutors I say I have often thought that this very thing next to the infinite Mercy and Goodness of Almighty God hath had a very particular influence upon our preservation and deliverance from those terrible Calamities which were just ready to rush in upon us And what cause have we to thank God who hath allotted to us this more blessed and merciful part to give and not to receive to be free from Persecution our selves that so we might be in a capacity to give refuge and relief to them that were persecuted There are but few that have the faith to believe it but certainly Charity to the Poor is a great security to us in times of evil So David assures us speaking of the Righteous or Charitable Man He shall not says he be afraid in the evil time and in the days of Dearth he shall be satisfied And so likewise in Times of publick Distress when we are beset with cruel and powerful Enemies who if God were not on our side would swallow us up the publick Charity of a Nation hath many times prov'd its best safeguard and shield It shall fight for thee saith the Son of Sirach speaking of the Charity of Alms against thine Enemy more than a mighty shield and strong spear And of this as I said before I doubt not but We of this Nation by the great Mercy and Goodness of God to us have had happy experience in our late wonderful Deliverance under the Conduct and Valour of one of the best and bravest of Princes to whom by too many among us the most unworthy and unthankful returns have been made for all the unwearied pains he hath undergone and for the many desperate hazards to which he hath exposed himself for our sakes that ever were made to so great and generous a Benefactor To so great a Benefactor I say not only to these Nations but even to all Europe in asserting and maintaining their Liberties against the insolent pride and unjust encroachments of one of the greatest Oppressors the World hath known for many Ages Of whom it may be said as Job doth of the Leviathan Vpon the earth there is not his like I am glad I cannot apply what immediately follows That he is made without fear but surely the next words are apposite enough He beholdeth all high things and is King of all the children of pride And yet He that is higher than the highest even He that sitteth in the Heavens doth laugh at him for He seeth that his Day is coming To conclude this Particular If we would have our Prayers ascend up to Heaven and find acceptance there our Alms must go along with them So the Angel intimates when he says to Cornelius Thy Prayers and thine Alms are gone up for a memorial before God Thy Prayers and thine Alms they must go together if we desire that our Prayers should be effectual And the Prophet Isaiah speaking of the Fast which God hath chosen and which is acceptable to Him makes Charity and Alms a most essential part of it Is it not says he to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer thou shalt cry and He shall say Here I am Sixthly and Lastly We should prosecute our Repentance and good Resolutions to the actual Reformation and Amendment of our Lives For in this Repentance doth mainly consist This is the proper fruit and effect of all our Humiliation and good Resolutions to forsake our sins and to become better for the future more pious and devout towards God more sober and chast with regard to our selves more just and charitable more humble and meek towards all men In a word more innocent more useful and more holy in all manner of conversation And without this all our Fasting and Humiliation our most earnest Prayers and Supplications will signifie nothing All our Sorrow and Tears will be but as water spilt upon the ground and will not turn to any account either to save our own Souls or to preserve this untoward Generation this crooked and perverse Nation from ruin and destruction So God tells Solomon that this is the only way to appease and reconcile Him to a sinful People If my People which is called by my Name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways Then will I hear in Heaven and forgive their sin and heal their Land And if this were the happy effect of our Prayers and Humiliation this Day to turn us from our wicked ways God would then turn away his anger from us and as he promised to the Jews by the Prophet Zachary He would turn these our Monthly Fasts into joy and gladness and cheerful Feasts as he hath in a great measure already done Blessed be his great and glorious Name But if we will not hearken and obey can we expect that God should deliver us from the hands of our
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this That he understandeth and knoweth Me that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth For in these things I delight saith the Lord. In the handling of these Words I shall abstract from the particular Occasion of them and only consider the general Truth contained in them Which I shall do under these two Heads First What we are not to glory in Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches Secondly What it is that is matter of true glory But let him that glorieth glory in this That he understandeth and knoweth Me that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righousness in the Earth I. What we are not to glory in The Text instanceth in three things which are the great Idols of mankind and in which they are very apt to pride themselves and to place their confidence namely Wisdom and Might and Riches I shall consider these severally and shew how little reason there is to glory in any of them 1. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom This may comprehend both humane Knowledge and likewise prudence in the management of affairs We will suppose both these to be intended here by the name of Wisdom Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom that is neither in the largeness and compass of his Knowledge and Understanding nor in his skill and dexterity in the contrivance and conduct of humane Affairs and that for these two reasons First Because the highest pitch of humane Knowledge and Wisdom is very imperfect Secondly Because when Knowledge and Wisdom are with much difficulty in any competent measure attained how easily are they lost First The highest pitch of humane knowledge and wisdom is very imperfect Our Ignorance doth vastly exceed our Knowledge at the best Wisdom in any tolerable degree is difficult to be attain'd but perfection in it utterly to be despair'd of Where is there to be found so strong and found a Head as hath no soft place so perfect so clear an understanding as hath no flaw no dark Water in it How hard a matter is it to be truly wise And yet there are so many pretenders to wisdom as would almost tempt a man to think that nothing is easier Men do frequently murmur and repine at the unequal distribution of other things as of health and strength of power and riches But if we will trust the judgment of most men concerning themselves nothing is more equally shar'd among mankind than a good degree of wisdom and understanding Many will grant others to be superiour to them in other gifts of Nature as in bodily strength and stature and in the gifts of Fortune as in riches and honour because the difference between one man and another in these qualities is many times so gross and palpable that no body hath the face to deny it But very few in comparison unless it be in mere complement and civility will yield others to be wiser than themselves and yet the difference in this also is for the most part very visible to every body but themselves So that true Wisdom is a thing very extraordinary Happy are they that have it And next to them not those many that think they have it but those few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections and know that they have it not And among all the kinds of Wisdom none is more nice and difficult and meers with more frequent disappointments than that which men are most apt to pride themselves in I mean Political wisdom and prudence because it depends upon so many contingent Causes any one of which failing the best laid design breaks and falls in pieces It depends upon the uncertain wills and fickle humours the mistaken and mutable interests of men which are perpetually shifting from one point to another so that no body knows where to find them Besides an unaccountable mixture of that which the Heathen call'd Fortune but we Christians by its true name the Providence of God which does frequently interpose in humane Affairs and loves to confound the wisdom of the wise and to turn their counsels into foolishness Of this we have a most remarkable Example in Achitophel of whose wisdom the Scripture gives this extraordinary Testimony That the counsel which he counselled in those days was as if one had enquired at the Oracle of God Such was all the counsel of Achitophel both with David and with Absalom It seems he gave very good counsel also to Absalom and because he would not follow it was discontented to that degree as to lay violent hands upon himself And now who would pride himself in being so very wise as to be able to give the best counsel in the world and yet so very weak as to make away himself because he to whom it was given was not wise enough to take it The like miscarriages often happen in point of Military skill and prudence A great Prince or General is sometimes so very cautious and wary that nothing can provoke him to a Battel and then at another time and perhaps in another Element so rash and wilful that nothing can hinder him from fighting and being beaten As if the two Elements made the difference and caution were great wisdom at Land and confidence and presumption great prudence at Sea But the true reason of these things lies much deeper in the secret Providence of Almighty God who when he pleases can so govern and over-rule both the understandings and the wills of men as shall best serve his own wise purpose and design And as the highest pitch of humane Wisdom is very imperfect in it self so is it much more so in comparison with the Divine knowledge and wisdom Compar'd with this it is mere folly and less than the understanding and wisdom of a child to that of the wisest man The foolishness of God says St. Paul is wiser than men that is the least grain of Divine wisdom is infinitely beyond all the wisdom of men But in opposition to the wisdom of God the wisdom of men is less than nothing and vanity Let men design things never so prudently and make them never so sure even to the Popish and French degree of infallibility let them reckon upon it as a Blow that cannot fail Yet after all the counsel of the Lord that shall stand and he will do all his pleasure for there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. And now we may ask the Question which Job does Where shall wisdom be found and where is the place of understanding And we must answer it as he does It is not to be found in
the accidental Ornaments of our Fortune If they descend upon us they are the Privilege of our Birth not the effect of our wisdom and industry and those things in the procurement whereof we had no hand we can hardly call our own And if they be the fruit of our own prudent industry that is no such matter of glorying because men of much slower understandings do commonly out-do others in diligence and drudging their minds lying more level to the low design of being rich At the best Riches are uncertain Charge them says St. Paul that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded nor trust in uncertain riches Men have little reason to pride themselves or to place their confidence in that which is uncertain and even next to that which is not So the wise man speaks of Riches Wilt thou set thine heart upon that which is not for riches certainly make themselves wings and fly as an Eagle towards heaven He expresses it in such a manner as if a rich man sate brooding over an Estate till it was fledg'd and had gotten it self wings to fly away But that which is the most stinging consideration of all is that many men have an evil eye upon a good Estate so that instead of being the means of our happiness it may prove the occasion of our ruin So the same Wise man observes There is a sore evil which I have seen under the Sun namely riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt And it is not without example that a very rich man hath been excepted out of a general Pardon both as to Life and Estate for no other visible reason but his vast and over-grown Fortune So Solomon observes to us again Such are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain which taketh away the life of the owners thereof And why should any man be proud of his danger of that which one time or other may be the certain and only cause of his ruin A man may be too rich to be forgiven a fault which would never have been prosecuted against a man of a middle Fortune For these reasons and a great many more Let not the rich man glory in his riches II. I proceed to consider What it is that is matter of true glory But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth For in these things I delight saith the Lord. That he understandeth and knoweth me Here are two words used to express the thing more fully understanding and knowledge which seem not only to import right apprehensions of the Being and Providence and Perfections of God but likewise a lively sense of these things and affections suitable to these apprehensions That he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord that is the Creator and the Sovereign Governor of the World Which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth The best Knowledge of Religion and that which is the foundation of all the rest is the Knowledge of the Divine Nature and Perfections especially of those which are most proper for our imitation and such are those mentioned in the Text loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness which we may distinguish thus Loving-kindness comprehends God's milder Attributes his Goodness and Mercy and Patience Judgment signifies his severer dealings with men whether in the chastisement of his People or in the remarkable Punishment of great Offenders for example and warning to others Righteousness seems to be a word of a larger signification and to denote that universal Rectitude of the Divine Nature which appears in all the Administrations of his Providence here below for the Text speaks of the Exercise of these Perfections in this World which exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth Several of the Perfections of the Divine Nature are incommunicable to a Creature and therefore cannot be thought to be proposed to us for a Pattern as self-existence independence and all-sufficiency the eternity and the immensity of the Divine Being to be the original Cause of all other things and the Sovereign Governour of the whole World For God only is sufficient for that and to be a Match for all the World a nec pluribus impar is not a Motto fit for a mortal man A Creature may swell with pride till it burst before it can stretch it self to this pitch of Power and Greatness It is an insufferable Presumption and a sottish Ignorance of the necessary Bounds and Limits of our Being to think to resemble God in these Perfections This was the Ambition of Lucifer to ascend into Heaven and to be like the most High In our imitation of God we must still keep within the station of Creatures not affecting an independency and sovereignty like God and to be omnipotent as he is Hast thou an arm like God and canst thou thunder with a voice like Him as God himself argues with Job For in these things I delight saith the Lord. God takes pleasure to exercise these Perfections himself and to see them imitated by us and the imitation of these Divine Perfections is our perfection and glory in comparison of which all humane wisdom and power and riches are so far from being matter of glory that they are very despicable and pitiful things Knowledge and Skill to devise mischief and power to effect it are the true Nature and Character of the Devil and his Angels those Apostate and accursed Spirits who in temper and disposition are most contrary to God who is the Rule and Pattern of all perfection I shall only make two Observations or Inferences from what hath been said and then apply the whole Discourse to the great Occasion of this Day And they are these First That the wisest and surest Reasonings in Religion are grounded upon the unquestionable Perfections of the Divine Nature Secondly That the Nature of God is the true Idea and Pattern of Perfection and Happiness First That the wisest and surest Reasonings in Religion are grounded upon the unquestionable Perfections of the Divine Nature Upon those more especially which to us are most easie and intelligible such as are those mentioned in the Text. And this makes the Knowledge of God and of these Perfections to be so useful and so valuable Because all Religion is founded in right Notions of God and of his Perfections Insomuch that Divine Revelation it self does suppose these for its foundation and can signify nothing to us unless these be first known and believed For unless we be first firmly persuaded of the Providence of God and of his particular care of Mankind why should we suppose that he makes any Revelation of his Will to us Unless it be first naturally known that God is a God of Truth what ground is there for the belief of his Word So that the Principles of Natural Religion are
the foundation of that which is reveal'd And therefore nothing can in Reason be admitted to be a Revelation from God which does plainly contradict his essential Perfections Upon this Principle a great many Doctrines are without more a-do to be rejected because they do plainly and at first sight contradict the Divine Nature and Perfections I will give a few Instances instead of many that might be given In vertue of this Principle I cannot believe upon the pretended Authority or Infallibility of any Person or Church that Force is a fit Argument to produce Faith No man shall ever persuade me no not the Bishop of Meaux with all his Eloquence that Prisons and Tortures Dragoons and the Galleys are proper means to convince the Understanding and either Christian or Humane Methods of converting men to the true Religion For the same Reason I cannot believe that God would not have men to understand their publick Prayers nor the Lessons of Scripture which are read to them Because a Lesson is something that is to be learnt and therefore a Lesson that is not to be understood is nonsense for if it be not understood how can it be learnt As little can I believe that God who caused the Holy Scriptures to be written for the instruction of mankind did ever intend that they should be lock'd up and concealed from the People in an unknown Tongue Least of all can I believe that Doctrine of the Council of Trent That the saving Efficacy of the Sacraments doth depend upon the intention of the Priest that administers them Which is to say that though the People believe and live never so well yet they may be damn'd by shoals and whole Parishes together at the pleasure of the Priest And this for no other reason but because the Priest is so cross and so cruel that he will not intend to save them Now can any man believe this that hath any tolerable Notion either of the Goodness or Justice of God May we not appeal to God in this as Abraham did in another Case Wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked That be far from thee to do after this manner Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right Much more to destroy the righteous for the wicked and that righteous and innocent People should lie at the mercy and will of a wicked and perverse Priest to be sav'd or damn'd by him as he thinks fit That be far from thee Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right For to drive the argument to the head if this be to do right there is no possibility of doing wrong Thus in things which are more obscure we should govern all our Reasonings concerning God and Religion by that which is clear and unquestionable and should with Moses lay down this for a certain Principle All his ways are judgment a God of truth and without iniquity just and right is He And say with St. Paul Is there then unrighteousness with God God forbid And again We know that the Judgment of God is according to truth 2 ly The other Inference is this That the Nature of God is the true Idea and Pattern of Perfection and Happiness And therefore nothing but our conformity to it can make us happy And for this reason to understand and know God is our great excellency and glory because it is necessary to our imitation of Him who is the best and happiest Being And so far as we are from resembling God so far are we distant from Happiness and the true temper of the Blessed For Goodness is an essential ingredient of Happiness and as without Goodness there can be no true Majesty and Greatness so neither any true Felicity and Blessedness Now Goodness is a generous disposition of mind to diffuse and communicate it self by making others to partake of our Happiness in such degrees as they are capable For no Being is so happy as it might be that hath not the power and the pleasure to make others happy This surely is the highest pleasure I had almost said pride of a great Mind In vain therefore do we dream of Happiness in any thing without us Happiness must be within us the foundation of it must be laid in the inward frame and disposition of our spirits And the very same causes and ingredients which make up the Happiness of God must be found in us though in a much inferiour degree or we cannot be happy They understand not the Nature of Happiness who hope for it upon any other terms He who is the Authour and Fountain of Happiness cannot convey it to us by any other way than by planting in us such dispositions of mind as are in truth a kind of participation of the Divine Nature and by enduing us with such qualities as are the necessary Materials of Happiness And a man may assoon be well without Health as happy without Goodness If a wicked man were taken up into Heaven yet if he still continue the same bad man that he was before coelum non animum mutavit he may have chang'd the Climate and be gone into a far Country but because he carries himself still along with him he will still be miserable from himself Because the man's mind is not chang'd all the while which would signifie a thousand times more to his happiness than change of place or of any outward circumstances whatsoever For a bad man hath a Fiend in his own Breast and the fewel of Hell in his guilty Conscience There is a certain kind of temper and disposition which is necessary and essential to Happiness and that is Holiness and Goodness which is the very Nature of God and so far as any man departs from this temper so far he removes himself and runs away from happiness And here the foundation of Hell is laid in the evil disposition of a man 's own mind which is naturally a torment to it self And till this be cur'd it is as impossible for him to be happy as for a Limb that is out of joint to be at ease because the man's Spirit is out of order and off the hinges and as it were toss'd from its Center and till that be set right and restored to its proper and natural state the man will be perpetually unquiet and can have no rest and peace within himself The wicked saith the Prophet is like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest There is no peace saith my God to the wicked No peace with God no peace with his own mind for a bad man is at perpetual Discord and Wars within himself And hence as St. James tells us come Wars and Fightings without us even from our Lusts which warr in our members And now that I have mention'd Wars and Fightings without us this cannot but bring to mind the great and glorious Occasion of this Day Which gives us manifold Cause of Praise and Thanksgiving to Almighty God For several wonderful Mercies and Deliverances and
more particularly for a most glorious Victory at Sea vouchsafed to Their Majesties Fleet in this last Summer's Expedition For several great Mercies and Deliverances For a wonderful Deliverance indeed from a sudden Invasion design'd upon us by the inveterate and implacable Enemies of our Peace and Religion which by the merciful Providence of God was happily and strangely prevented when it was just upon the point of execution Next for the preservation of our Gracious Sovereign from that horrid and most barbarous Attempt design'd upon his Sacred Person And from those great and manifold Dangers to which he was exposed in his late tedious Expedition And for His safe and most welcome Return to us And lastly For a most glorious Victory at Sea The greatest and the cheapest that ever the Sun saw from his first setting out to run his Course The Opportunity indeed of this Victory was through the rashness and confidence of our Enemies by the wise Providence of God put into our hands But the improvement of this Opportunity into so great and happy a Victory we owe under God to the matchless Conduct and Courage of the Brave Admiral and to the invincible Resolution and Valour of the Captains and Seamen This great Deliverance from the design'd Invasion and this glorious Victory God vouchsaf'd to us at Home whilst His Sacred Majesty was so freely hazarding his Royal Person abroad in the Publick Cause of the Rights and Liberties of almost all Europe And now what may God justly expect from us as a meet return for his Goodness to us What but that we should glorifie Him first by offering praise and thanksgiving and then by ordering our conversation aright that he may still delight to shew us his Salvation God might have stood aloof from us in the Day of our distress and have said to us as he once did to the People of Israel so often have I delivered you from the hands of your Enemies but ye have still provok'd me more and more Wherefore I will deliver you no more He might have said of us as he did of the same People I will hide my face from them I will see what their end shall be For they are a very froward generation children in whom is no faith Our resolutions and promises of better obedience are not to be trusted all our Repentance and Righteousness are but as the morning cloud and like the early dew which passeth away Nay methinks God seems now to say to us as he did of old to Jerusalem Be instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee and I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited We are here met together this Day to pay our Solemn acknowledgments to the God of our Salvation who hath shewed strength with his Arm and hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart Even to him that exerciseth loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth In Him will we glory as our sure Refuge and Defence as our Mighty Deliverer and the Rock of our Salvation And now I have only to entreat your patience a little longer whilst I apply what hath been discoursed upon this Text a little more closely to the Occasion of this Day I may be tedious but I will not be long And blessed be God for this happy Occasion The greatest England ever had and in the true consequences of it perhaps the greatest that Europe ever had of Praise and Thanksgiving You have heard two sorts of Persons described in the Text by very different Characters The One that glory in their Wisdom and Might and Riches The other that glory in this that they understand and know God to be the Lord which exerciseth loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth And we have seen these two Characters exemplified or rather drawn to the Life in this present Age. We who live in this Western part of Christendom have seen a mighty Prince by the just permission of God raised up to be a Terrour and Scourge to all his Neighbours A Prince who had in perfection all the Advantages mentioned in the former part of the Text And who in the opinion of many who had been long dazzled with his Splendour and Greatness hath pass'd for many years for the most Politick and Powerful and Richest Monarch that hath appear'd in these parts of the World for many Ages Who hath govern'd his Affairs by the deepest and steddiest Counsels and the most refin'd Wisdom of this World A Prince mighty and powerful in his Preparations for War formidable for his vast and well disciplin'd Armies and for his great Naval Force And who had brought the Art of War almost to that perfection as to be able to Conquer and do his business without fighting A Mystery hardly known to former Ages and Generations And all this Skill and Strength united under one absolute Will not hamper'd or bound up by any restraints of Law or Conscience A Prince that commands the Estates of all his Subjects and of all his Conquests which hath furnish'd him with an almost inexhaustible Treasure and Revenue And One who if the World doth not greatly mistake him hath sufficiently gloried in all these Advantages and even beyond the rate of a mortal man But not knowing God to be the Lord which exercises loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth How hath the pride of all his Glory been stain'd by Tyranny and Oppression by Injustice and Cruelty by enlarging his Dominions without Right and by making War upon his Neighbours without Reason or even colour of Provocation And this in a more Barbarous manner than the most Barbarous Nations ever did carrying Fire and Desolation wheresoever he went and laying wast many and great Cities without necessity and without pity And now behold what a terrible Rebuke the Providence of God hath given to this mighty Monarch in the full Carrier of his Fortune and Fury The consideration whereof brings to my thoughts those Passages in the Prophet concerning old Babylon that standing and perpetual Type of the great Oppressors and Persecutors of God's true Church and Religion How is the Oppressor ceased the exactor of gold ceased He who smote the People in wrath with a continual stroke he who ruled the Nations in anger is himself persecuted and none hindreth The whole Earth is at rest and is quiet and breaks forth into singing The grave beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming it stirreth up the dead for thee even all the Captains of the Earth it hath raised up from their Thrones all the Kings of the Nations all they shall speak and say unto thee art thou also become weak as we are art thou also become like unto us how art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer Son of the morning How art thou cut down to the ground that didst weaken the Nations For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my
Throne above the Stars of God I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North That is upon Mount Zion for just so the Psalmist describes it Beautiful for situation the joy of the whole Earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the North. Here the King of Babylon threatens to take Jerusalem and to demolish the Temple where the Congregation of Israel met for the Worship of the true God I will also sit upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North. Much in the same Style with the threatnings of Modern Babylon I will destroy the Reformation I will extirpate the Northern Heresie And then he goes on I will ascend above the height of the clouds I will be like the most High Yet thou shalt be brought down to the grave to the sides of the pit They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee saying Is this the man that made the earth to tremble that did shake Kingdoms that made the World as a Wilderness and destroyed the Cities thereof and opened not the House of his Prisoners God seems already to have begun this Work in the late glorious Victory at Sea and I hope he will cut it short in righteousness I have sometimes heretofore wondred Why at the destruction of Modern and Mystical Babylon the Scripture should make so express mention of great wailing and lamentation for the loss of Her Ships and Seamen Little imagining thirty years ago that any of the Kingdoms who had given their power to the Beast would ever have arrived to that mighty Naval Force But the Scripture saith nothing in vain Whether and how far Success is an Argument of a good Cause I shall not now debate But thus much I think may safely be affirmed That the Providence of God doth sometimes without plain and down-right Miracles so visibly shew it self that we cannot without great stupidity and obstinacy refuse to acknowledge it I grant the Cause must first be manifestly just before Success can be made an Argument of God's favour to it and approbation of it And if the Cause of true Religion and the necessary defence of it against a false and Idolatrous Worship be a good Cause Ours is so And I do not here beg the Question we have abundantly proved it to the confusion of our Adversaries If the vindication of the common Liberties of Mankind against Tyranny and Oppression be a good Cause then Ours is so And this needs not to be proved it is so glaringly evident to all the World And as our Cause is not like theirs so neither hath their Rock been like our Rock our Enemies themselves being Judges And yet as bad an Argument as success is of a good Cause I am sorry to say it but I am afraid it is true it is like in the conclusion to prove the best Argument of all other to convince those who have so long pretended Conscience against submission to the present Government Meer Success is certainly one of the worst Arguments in the World of a good Cause and the most improper to satisfie Conscience And yet we find by experience that in the issue it is the most successful of all other Arguments and does in a very odd but effectual way satisfie the Consciences of a great many men by shewing them their Interest God has of late visibly made bare his Arm in our behalf though some are still so blind and obstinate that they will not see it Like those of whom the Prophet complains Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed for their envy at thy People Thus have I represented unto you a mighty Monarch who like a fiery Comet hath hung over Europe for many years and by his malignant influence hath made such terrible havock and devastations in this part of the World Let us now turn our View to the other part of the Text And behold a greater than he is here A Prince of a quite different Character who does understand and know God to be the Lord which doth exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth And who hath made it the great Study and Endeavour of his life to imitate these Divine Perfections as far as the imperfection of humane Nature in this mortal state will admit I say a greater than he is here who never said or did an insolent thing but instead of despising his Enemies has upon all occasions encounter'd them with an undaunted Spirit and Resolution This is the Man whom God hath honoured to give a Check to this mighty Man of the Earth and to put a hook into the Nostrils of this great Leviathan who has so long had his pastime in the Seas But we will not insult as he once did in a most unprincely manner over a Man much better than himself when he believed Him to have been slain at the Boyne And indeed Death came then as near to him as was possible without killing him But the merciful Providence of God was pleased to step in for his Preservation almost by a Miracle For I do not believe that from the first use of great Guns to that Day any mortal man ever had his shoulder so kindly kiss'd by a Cannon-bullet But I will not trespass any further upon that which is the great Ornament of all his other Vertues though I have said nothing of Him but what all the World does see and must acknowledge He is as much above being flatter'd as it is beneath an honest and a generous mind to flatter Let us then glory in the Lord and rejoice in the God of our Salvation Let us now in the presence of all his People pay our most thankful acknowledgments to him who is worthy to be praised even to the Lord God of Israel who alone doth wondrous things Who giveth Victory unto Kings and hath preserved our David his Servant from the hurtful Sword And let us humbly beseech Almighty God that he would long preserve to us the invaluable Blessing of our two Excellent Princes whom the Providence of God hath sent amongst us like two good Angels not to rescue two or three Persons but almost a whole Nation out of Sodom By saving us I hope at last from our Vices as well as at first from that Vengeance which was just ready to have been poured down upon us Two Sovereign Princes reigning together and in the same Throne and yet so intirely one as perhaps no Nation no Age can furnish us with a Parallel Two Princes perfectly united in the same Design of promoting the true Religion and the Publick Welfare by reforming our Manners and as far as is possible by repairing the breaches and healing the Divisions of a miserably distracted Church and Nation In a Word Two Princes who are contented to sacrifice Themselves and their whole Time to the care of the Publick And for the
evil-speakings And the Apostle ranks backbiters with fornicators and murderers and haters of God and with those of whom it is expressly said that they shall not inherit the Kingdom of God And when he enumerates the Sins of the last times Men says he shall be lovers of themselves covetous boasters evil-speakers without natural affection perfidious false accusers c. And which is the strangest of all they who are said to be guilty of these great Vices and Enormities are noted by the Apostle to be great pretenders to Religion for so it follows in the next words Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof So that it is no new thing for men to make a more than ordinary profession of Christianity and yet at the same time to live in a most palpable contradiction to the Precepts of that Holy Religion As if any pretence to Mystery and I know not what extraordinary attainments in the knowledge of Christ could exempt men from obedience to his Laws and set them above the Vertues of a good Life And now after all this do we hardly think that to be a Sin which is in Scripture so frequently rank'd with Murther and Adultery and the blackest Crimes such as are inconsistent with the life and power of Religion and will certainly shut men out of the Kingdom of God Do we believe the Bible to be the Word of God and can we allow our selves in the common practice of a Sin than which there is hardly any Fault of men's Lives more frequently mention'd more severely reprov'd and more odiously branded in that Holy Book Consider seriously these Texts Who shall abide in thy Tabernacle who shall dwell in thy holy Hill He that backbiteth not with his tongue nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour Have ye never heard what our Saviour says that of every idle word we must give an account in the day of Judgment that by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemn'd What can be more severe than that of St. James If any man among you seemeth to be religious and bridleth not his tongue that man's Religion is vain To conclude The Sin which I have now warned men against is plainly condemn'd by the Word of God and the Duty which I have now been persuading you to is easie for every man to understand not hard for any man that can but resolve to keep a good guard upon himself for some time by the grace of God to practice and most reasonable for all Men but especially for all Christians to observe It is as easie as a resolute silence upon just occasion as reasonable as prudence and justice and charity and the preservation of peace and good-will among men can make it and of as necessary and indispensible an obligation as the Authority of God can render any thing Upon all which Considerations let us every one of us be persuaded to take up David's deliberate Resolution I said I will take heed to my ways that I offend not with my tongue And I do verily believe that would we but heartily endeavour to amend this one Fault we should soon be better Men in our whole lives I mean that the correcting of this Vice together with those that are nearly allied to it and may at the same time and almost with the same resolution and care be corrected would make us Owners of a great many considerable Vertues and carry us on a good way towards perfection it being hardly to be imagin'd that a man that makes conscience of his Words should not take an equal or a greater care of his Actions And this I take to be both the true meaning and the true reason of that saying of St. James and with which I shall conclude If any man offend not in Word the same is a perfect man Now the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ the great Shepherd of the Sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good word and work to do his will working in you always that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ To whom be glory for ever Amen FINIS V. 8 9 10 11 12. V. 8. V. 9. V. 10. V. 8. V. 9. V. 13. 1 Pet. 5.12 Philip. 1.27 1 Chron. 29.4 Psal 103.10 Lev. 26.13 Isaiah 1.4 Verse 5. Isaiah 9.13 Isaiah 26.11 2 Chron. 28.22 Judges 8.34 35. 1 Kings 11.9 2 Chron. 32.25 Isaiah 1.2 Verse 3. Isaiah 26.10 Deut 13.1 2. Verse 5. Numb 14.32 Judges 10.11 12 13 14. Jer. 2.19 Judges 10.13 Gen. 15.16 Rom. 9.22 Isaiah 1.5 Matth. 23.37 38. Psal 28.5 Psal 118.23 24. 1 Cor. 10.6 7 9 10 11. Numb 2.5 6. V. 11. Dr. Barrow Dr. Barrow Prov. 14.29 Eccl. 7.9 Prov. 16.32 Verse 45. Eph. 4.32 chap. 5.1 Luke 17.3 4. Rom. 12.17 V. 18. Matth. 6.14 15. Matth. 18.23 V. 35. M. Aur. Antoni lib. 7. Eccl. 23 1 2 3 4. Heb. 11.6 Joh. 17.3 Matth. 5.3 4 c. Matth. 7.21 V. 24. V. 26 27. John 13 17. Luke 6.46 1 Joh. 5.3 1 Joh. 2.4 John 14.15 V. 21. 1 Joh. 3.7 V. 10. Gen. 3.7 Isa 3.10 11. Matth. 19.17 Matth. 6.31 33. * Ita me Dij Deaeque omnes pejus perdant quà m bodiè perire me sentio c. Rev. 20.14 Wisd of Solomon ch 1. ver 12 13 16. 2 Chron. 14.11 Ps 33.16 Psal 44 6. Prov. 21.30 31. Prov. 3.5 6. Deut. 23.9 Isa 37.23 26 27 28 29 32. Isa 26.10 11. Isa 58.5 6 c. Jer. 15.2 Hos 9.12 Gen. 7.1 1 Cor. 10.11 Jer. 4.14 Jer. 13.27 Hos 11.8 9. Jonah 4.11 Psal 78. * Lib. 1. c. 3. Lib. 4. c. 5. Lib. 7. c. 1. Lib. 5. c. 2. Lib. 6. c. 11. Lib. 7. c. 1. Jer. 2.19 Psal 122. John 16.2 Luke 23.34 Acts 3.17 Acts 26.9 1 Tim. 1.13 Acts 3.19 Jam. 1.20 Boeth Acts 22.4 Acts 26.9 John 7.17 1 Cor. 4.4 Job 25.5 6. 1 Joh. 3.21 Prov. 14.32 Ps 37.37 Acts 23.1 John 17.4 2 Tim. 4.6 7 8. Zech. 8.18 19. Verse 9 10 11 12 13. 1 Kings 8.37 38 39 40. Jer. 8.6 Jer. 13.17 Psal 119.36 v. 53. v. 158. Dan. 9.5 7 8. Ezr. 9.6 7. Jer. 5.30 31. Jer. 13.20 21. Isai 1.4 5. Ezra 9.6 Joel 2.15 16 17. Ver. 18. Dan. 9 3â— Ver. 16 17 18 19. Dan. 4.27 Jer. 29.11 12 13. Job 41.33 34. Acts 10.4 Isa 58.7 9. 2 Chron. 7.14 Zech. 8.19 Ezek. 33.31 Ver. 1. Ver. 2. Ver. 10. Ver. 12. Ver. 13. Ver. 14. Ver. 15. Ver. 16. Ver. 17 18. Ver. 21. Ver. 23. Psal 22.9 10 11. Rom. 8.35 v. 38 39. Prov. 1.24 25 c. Isa 27.11 Psal 4.6 7 8. Psal 119. 1 Cor. 1.25 Job 28.12 Ch. 28.12 Job 28.28 Eccl. 9.11 â—â— 38.22 23. Psal 52.1 Prov. 23.5 Eccl. 5.13 Prov. 1.18 Job 40.9 Judg. 10.13 Deut. 32.20 Jer. 6.8 Isa 14. Psal 48.2 Rev. 18.17 Isa 26.11 Ecclus 19.16 James 3.2 Jam. 1.26 Eccl. 19.8 Ecclus. 19.13 14 15. Matth. 24.12 Ecclus. 19.8 9. Matth. 7. Psal 34.12 13. Jam. 1.26 1 Cor. 6.10 Wisdom of Solomon c. 1. v. 11. Ecclus. 19.10 Psal 34.12 13. Matth. 15.19 Rom. 1.29 1 Cor. 6.10 2 Tim. 3.2 3. Psal 15.1 Psal 31.1