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 they shall see and be ashamed They that will not acknowledge the Mercies of Gods 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 sayes 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 great 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 ruine to a People Should we again break thy Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these abominations wouldest 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 exercis'd 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 ruine When 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 sayes God of the People of Israel they will revolt more and more How often would I have gathered you sayes 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
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 though 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 ruine 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 vers 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 vers 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 vers 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 sad aggravation of Sin and Secondly That it is a fatal presage of ruine to a People First It is a sad 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 sad 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 render'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 saith 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
and by the unwearied Malice and Arts of the Church of Rome the seeds of Dissention 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 marvelous 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 United 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 all things on all sides to bring the thing which the Providence of God intended to a happy issue and effect And we must not here forget the many Worthies of our Nation who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune for the preservation of our Religion and the asserting of our ancient Laws and Liberties These were all strange and unusual means but which is stranger yet the very counsels and methods of our Enemies did prepare the way for all this and perhaps more effectually than any counsel and contrivance of our own could have done it For even the Jesuits those formal Politicians by Book and Rule without any consideration or true knowledg of the temper and interest and other circumstances of the People they were designing upon and had to deal withal and indeed without any care to know them I say the Jesuits who for so long a time and for so little reason have affected the reputation of the deepest and craftiest States-men in the World have upon this great Occasion and when their whole Kingdom of Darkness lay at stake by a more than ordinary infatuation and blindness so outwitted and over-reach'd themselves in their own counsels that they have really contributed as much or more to our Deliverance from the Destruction which they had designed to bring upon us than