3â— c. The Lord will not cast off forever but though he cause grief yet will he have Compassion according to the multitude of his Mercies For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of Men. And the Pathetical Words which I have chosen for my present Subject may give us as great an assurance hereof as any Text in the Bible and before I will repeat them I 'le give you an Account of the Occasion of them In the Four First Verses of this Chapter we find God Almighty by his Prophet making a sad Complaint of the Israelites inexpressibly Vile Returns to him for wonderful Engagements he had laid upon them When Israel was a Child then I loved him and called my Son out of Egypt As they called them so they went from them or as Moses and the Prophets called them to Piety and the Reformation of their Lives so they despised their Calls they sacrificed unto Baalim and burn'd Incense to Graven Images I taught Ephraim also to go taking them by their Arms but they knew not that I healed them Or I took the same Care of these People from their very beginning to be a Nation that tender Mothers take of their weak Children but they never would be perswaded to lay it to heart I drew them with the Cords of a man with Bands of Love or with the greatest Expressions of Love and Kindness which is the best and most proper Method to be taken with Free Agents and I was to them as they that take off the Yoke on their Iaws and I laid meat unto them Or I delivered them out of the most miserable Bondage and gave them a Land flowing with Milk and Honey and fed them in a Miraculous Manner in their Iourney thither through the Barren Wilderness And Verse 5 6. we find their gracious Father so highly provoked by their long intolerable Behaviour towards him as to pronounce very terrible Threats against them viz. They shall not return into the Land of Egypt or they shan't be suffered to flee to the Egyptians who were now their great Friends and on whom they relyed more than on the Divine Safeguard but the Assyrian shall be their King he shall subdue them and carry them away Captive because they refused to return or to return to me after so many earnest Calls And the Sword shall abide in his Cities and shall consume his Branches or choice Men because of their own Counsels Because to save themselves they take forbidden Courses making wicked Alliances and are perpetually revolting and backsliding from me as it follows verse 7. And my People are bent to back sliding from me though they called them to the most High none at all would exalt him Though I sent my Prophets from time to time to admonish them to repent and amend their lives yet they have generally still refused to give Glory to me by harkening to these Admonitions but still persist obstinately in their Rebellions against me But we see after all this as highly as they had incensed the great God against them and as dreadfully Threatned as they now were by Him He yet farther makes good when one would least expect He should that Saying of the Son of Syrach As is His Majesty so is his Mercy This He doth in the Words of my Text How shall I give thee up Ephraim How shall I deliver thee or deliver thee up Israel How can I find in mine heart to be as bad as my Word in Executing such fearful Threatnings How shall I make thee as Admah How shall I set thee as Zeboim How shall I be able to make an utter end of thee as I did of those two and their neighbouring Cities Mine heart is turned within me my Repentings are kindled together My Bowels do yearn towards you still as little as you deserve the least Compassion I feel my Nature strongly inclined to spare you yet a while longer and to give you a longer space for Repentance and I will comply with this inclination As it follows in the next verse I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger I will not return to destroy Ephraim or I will not do it yet for I am God and not man my Compassion is inconceivably beyond what a Mortal man is capable of the Holy one in the midst of thee and I will not Enter into the City or into the Head City Samaria I will not Enter into it in an Hostile manner to make a ruinous Heap of it I say the words of my Text with the verse following contain a most gracious Declaration of Almighty God that he would hold his Hand yet for some longer time from destroying these People after His Patience seemed to be perfectly spent by the Threatnings just before uttered if happily they might at last come to themselves and return to their right minds But we find that these Desperate Wretches would not to the very last be in the least wrought upon either by the most scaring Menaces or astonishing Patience or the most melting and indearing Expressions of Divine Pity and therefore in Conclusion the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost they were carried away Captive by the King of Assyria and he made a clean riddance of them For to this day they never returned but are quite lost among the Gentiles Where as Iudah returned after seventy Tears from her Captivity under the King of Babylon But we see that God here Expresseth the greatest averseness imaginable to the bringing of utter Ruin upon this Nation if consistently wich the Honour of His Laws and the Wisdom and Righteousness of His Government it could have been avoided From whence we learn That nothing less than apparent Necessity can prevail with the infinitely good God to make his Creatures miserable and much more those whom He hath taken into Covenant with Himself His visible Church and Professors of the true Religion And this will farther appear by these following Considerations First God's Earnest and most Pathetical exciting of sinners to Turn and Repent that Iniquity may not be their ruin is of it self sufficient to assure us hereof His sending His Prophets and Messengers to cry aloud in their Ears Turn ye turn ye from your evil ways Why will ye dye doth assure us of this The Bible is full of Calls to sinners of this Nature inforced with Gracious Promises to those who shall obey these Calls and as scaring Threatnings against those who will not obey them Secondly 'T is God's ordinary Method to give Warnings to sinners before He strikes and what can His meaning therein be but that He may not strike that Repentance and Reformation may stay his Hand and prevent the Blow How many inspired men did He heretofore send upon this Sole Errand Thus did He give warning to the Old World by the Preaching of Noah and his Preparing an Ark for the saving of Himself and His Houshold before He overwhelmed it with an Universal
likewise apparent that God Almighty is most backward to the destroying of a wicked People or putting them into miserable circumstances till necessitated in that he hath again and again declared his being diverted from so doing by such Motives as one would think could have but very little influence upon such a Being as He is or rather none at all As if to speak with Reverence he were glad of any Excuse for the longer sparing those who had made themselves lyable to the stroak of his Iustice. 1. A meer partial Humiliation an Humiliation far short of true Repentance hath been one of those Motives Thus upon Ahabs putting on Sackcloth Fasting and going Softly said God to the Prophet Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days c. 'T is said of Ahab that he sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord whom Iezebel his Wife stirred up And I need not recite unto you the abominable things he did for which God threatned him by the Prophet Elijah that He would bring evil upon him and take away his Posterity and cut off from him him that pisseth against the Wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and would make his House like the House of Ieroboam the Son of Nebat who made Israel to sin 1 Kin. 21. 21 c. And it follows ver 27. And it came to pass when Ahab heard these words that he rent his clothes and put Sackcloth upon his Flesh and Fasted and went softly Would any one have thought now that this Humiliation of so Vile a man could in the least have moved the Divine Compassion We are not to think that he only acted a part and play'd the Hypocrite in this Humiliation for then he would have so much the more provoked God against him But yet God knew that this his humbling himself proceeded from meer dread of the Threatned Iudgment that there was no Detestation of his wicked doings at the bottom of it and therefore that no Reformation would be produced by it Yet it pleased the Almighty to shew how averse he was to great severity by being wrought upon by so very imperfect an Humiliation as this to the putting off the Execution of this Threatning till after his time It follows verses 28 29. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself because he humbleth himself before me because he doth not mock at this Threat but so far humbleth himself as thou hast seen I will not bring the evil in his days but in his Sons days will I bring the Evil upon his House Which Threatning we may suppose had this tacit Condition I will bring the evil in his Sons days if another sort of Humiliation than the Fathers was doth not prevent it Again We have another instance like this of Ahab 2 Chron. 12. 7 8 We read in the beginning of the Chapter that when Rehoboam had Establish'd the Kingdom and had strengthened himself he forsook the Law of the Lord and all Israel with him And that in the Fifth Year of his Reign Shishack King of Egypt came up against Ierusalem because they had transgressed the Law of the Lord with 1200 Chariots and 60000 Horsemen c. And ver 5. Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and the Princes of Iudah and said unto them Thus saith the Lord you have forsaken me and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishack And what effect this terrible Message had upon them we are told in the next words Whereupon the Princes of Israel and the King humbled themselves and they said the Lord is Righteous Now what could be expected less than this from them under such frightful Apprehensions when they were in sight of so Formidable an Enemy and when as we read they had already taken the Fenced Cities of Iudah and were come to Ierusalem And it appears by ver 14. that this was but such a kind of Humiliation as that of Ahab but for all this the next verse tells us that when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah saying they have humbled themselves therefore I will not destroy them but I will grant them some deliverance and my wrath shall not be poured forth upon Ierusalem by the hand of Shishack Nevertheless they shall be his Servants or Tributaries to him that they may know my service and the service of the Kingdoms of the Countries i. e. That they may feel the vast difference between My service which they refuse and the service of Foreign Nations And again 't is said ver 12. And when he humbled himself the wrath of the Lord turned from him that he would not destroy him altogether and also in Iudah things went well 2. Another Motive by which God hath also been diverted from destroying a wicked People is the Prayers of a few good People nay of one good man 'T is said Psal. 106. 23. that God said he would destroy the Israelites had not Moses his Chosen stood before him in the Breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them And there is a strange passage Ezek. 22. 30. where God complains that there was no one to be found to intercede for those whom he had often threatned with Destruction I sought said he for a man among them that should make up the Hedge and stand in the Gap before me for the Land that I should not destroy them but I found none Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them c. But to prevent the making an ill use of God's having been perswaded from executing the fierceness of his Wrath by an Humiliation short of Reformation or by the Intercession of good People we are to know that neither the one nor the other Motive will always do nor is it fit they should These two Motives have no doubt prevailed again and again for this Nation of ours but it follows not that therefore they shall still prevail and the oftner they have so done there is much the more danger of their not doing so for the future Besides such Motives as these do only prevail for the longer staving off of Iudgments not the keeping them off for altogether There was a time when God professed concerning his Antient People That though Moses and Samuel stood before him yet his mind could not be towards them c. Ier. 15. 1. And he said the like concerning the Intercession of Noah Daniel and Iob those great Favourites of Heaven that were they on the Earth again it should nothing avail them and that they should only deliver their own Souls by their Righteousness Ezek. 14. 14. 3. We may see another Motive God laid hold on for the sparing the same Rebellious Israelites Deut. 32. 27. I said I would scatter them into Corners I would make the Remembrance of them to cease
more than that he should but he sent us Deliverance while we onely Feared the foresaid Calamities for comparatively very few of us had Felt any thing Though we saw too many Proeludia to Arbitrary Government and Popish Cruelty yet I say but a small Number comparatively had felt the least Smart of either In short God Almighty by a Series or Train of very Admirable Providences was graciously pleased to Rescue both our Religion and our Laws from the Destruction Threatened them and near Effected He set a Protestant King with a Protestant Queen upon the Throne He blest our Church with a Nursing Father and which is a great Rarity in these Nations with a Nursing Mother too And he gave us these never to be sufficiently Valued Blessings without putting us to the expense either of Blood or Treasure But hath he been better Requited for this than he was for the former Deliverance Alas no no whit better How many of us whose mouths were filled with laughter and whose tongues with singing upon their first receiving it did as much in a little time slight it did quickly grow weary of it Some because themselves or their Party did not happen to be such Gainers by it as they look't they should have been Others in regard of the Taxes which have followed upon it though they can't but acknowledge that 't would have been a good Bargain but the other day to have parted with one Half of their Estates to secure the other Half And they must needs also be sensible that these Taxes are no whit Heavier than the miserable Condition of our Fellow-Subjects of Ireland do necessarily call for and which one would have thought no sincere Protestant could have grudged at for the Delivering of that oppressed Kingdom since our Own Deliverance did cost us nothing And how many did so soon lose all sense of the Divine Goodness herein because it came so Early and the evils they are delivered from were only as I now said Feared not Felt by them Although truly Ingenuous Minds would esteem this Deliverance as much the Greater upon this account and think themselves obliged to be so much the more thankful for it Nay how many of us would never account this any Deliverance and look upon it as worse than none And if we are capable of understanding the Signs that too too many now make which I think are Broad enough to be easily understood we must conclude they are all a gog upon returning into Egypt again and that they are so very sick of the present Government whose greatest fault perhaps is that 't is too kind to them that they would run to be rid of it the most apparent danger or rather are content to fall into the humanely speaking inevitable necessity of wearing the Iron Yoke and toyling in the Brick-kilns of so cruel a Pharoah as never had his Match in the Land of Egypt How well the Obedience of these Gentlemen as mightily Passive as they would have us think 't is is able to brook King Lewis his Government I much Question but never was there a more absurd Phancy than to think it a duty to expose that to the most imminent danger which is the only Design of Government viz. the Safety of the Community the Safeguard of both its Spiritual and Temporal Interests for the sake of any Person or Persons whatsoever Or that the Obligation of an Oath of Allegiance is so Unlimited as that the Safety of the Community which is the first and principal Intention of such Oaths must be Sacrificed to it If this be sound Doctrine those ought to be accounted the greatest Enemies in the World to Humane Society who were the first Inventers of Oaths of Allegiance Nor can there be a Leuder Instance of Uncharitableness than to tax those as these men do with Apostafy and Perjury who can't be convinc't that so Incredible and Destructive a Notion as this is a Doctrine of the Gospel or of the Church of England In what I have now said I am far from designing to reflect on any who do modestly dissent from us about the Lawfulness of the New Oaths and whose Virtuous and Pious Conversations oblige us to judge them truly Consciencious in this dissent I have a more tender regard to Conscience than to be severe upon such Persons I hope in time they may be satisfied in this great Point but in the mean time it greatly becomes us to treat such with all Christian Candour But to proceed on our present Sad Argument Whereas Almighty God by the Psalmist saith Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me and cannot dispense with this return of Gratitude for his Answering our Prayers And whereas he hath frequently assured us that he expects to be Glorified by our Lives and that the praises of our Lips whilest our Lives are Unreformed and the like he hath told us of Fast-days too are no whit better than a Mocking of him What Reformation hath our late Deliverance wrought among us Are not those who were Debauched before as Debauched still That were Profane before as Profane still Are not Drunkenness and Uncleanness Unrighteousness and Oppression Profanation of the Lords-day and Contempt of Religion as common Vices Now as they were before this Deliverance came Don't we hear as we pass the Streets as Horrid Oaths and as Tremendous Curses and as many of these as we heard before Nay how few in Authority seem heartily concerned for the suppressing of any of these Vices And among those who have escaped the more Gross and Scandalous Pollutions of the World are not Covetousness and corrupt Selfishness a dear love of the World Pride and Ambition which as light matters as most make them are Vices which have the most mischievous influence of any upon the Publick Formality in the Worship of God and loathsome Hypocrisy and Placeing Religion in little Trifles compared with the plain and express Injunctions of the Gospel in a Warm Zeal for them or against them Uncharitableness bitter Strife and Emulation as much as ever observable among us Have we ever known the Form of Godliness less accompanied with the Power of it than now it is or the Spirit of Religion more decayed and nearer lost than it seems to be in most Places at this present Nothing is more Notorious than that as all Ranks Degrees and Orders of men among us have most grievously Corrupted their ways so they continue still to do so without any visible Amendment Not one Order to be excepted which is sad indeed But where as I said that we seem generally no whit the better for our great Deliverance I am constrained to add that at least in one respect we are apparently the worse for it namely in this While we were under the Melancholy Apprehension of losing our Religion and of Suffering in a short time for it those who differed in Opinion began to be more United in