great mourning there shall be a fountaine opened for sin Zach. 13.1 and for uncleannesle Mourne you must mourne greatly mourne bitterly yea but it is the fountaine that must wash away sin it must be the fountaine of the Lord Christs blood that must wash away the fowle and horrible sins of Witney Come then wash in this fountaine wash and you shall be cleane In the 16 of Numbers we read of great wrath no sooner had God executed that fearfull judgment upon Korah and his rebellious compāy but the people fell to murmering immediately v. 41. But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmered against Moses and against Aaron saying ye have killed the people of the Lord. Oh desperate and adventrous sinners that when they saw the judgment of God executed the very day before yet they fell into the same sins which they were guilty of which had been so plagued How angry is the Lord for this v 44 45. And the Lord spake unto Moses saying get you up from among this congregation that I may consume them as in a moment But what doth Moses do in this case v 46. And Moses said unto Aaron Take a censer and put fire therein from off the Alter and put on incense and go quickly unto the congregation and make an atonement for them for there is wrath gone out from the Lord the plague is begun This represented the mediation of Jesus Christ Isa 53.12 who is said to make intercession for the transgressors He is that Angell in the Revelation that stands at the Alter having a golden censer and much incense given to him that he should offer it with the prayers of thee Saints chapt 8.3 Now Moses saies to Aaron go quickly or as it may be read make to go with speed that is as the Chaldee and Greeke translateth it carry quickly or in haste 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Make haste to the Lord Jesus away to him every soule of you all you that have not known what the worth of the Lord Jesus is till this houre know now how to prize him it is he that must pacify the wrath of God that is gone out against thee for thy prophanenesse and thine uncleannesse and thy neglect of the word and thine Atheisme Oh fall in love with the incomperably pretious Lord Jesus this day as soon as ever thou commest home fall upon thy knees beg thou mayest have a Christ given to thee the wrath of the Almighty is gone out against thee and will otherwise certainly consume thee There is no dealing with a sin-revenging Majesty but only in by a Mediator As for you that have interest in this pretions Name O make use of it present the righteousnesse and satisfaction of the Lord Jesus Christ unto the father It is he that must stand betweene the dead and the living some are cut off already and the wrath of the Lord is not yet appeased If you interpose not the Lord Jesus you may expect more wrath and more plagues This I commend to you as the chiefe and maine direction of all the rest it is not all thy carelesnesse and security it is not all thy sleighting and despising the judgments of God that will be able to keep off the wrath of the Lord in the end No this will bring on thee so much the more wrath and heavyer vengeance Get into the Lord Jesus hide your selves in the clefts of that rock till this indignation be over past If ever Christ be worth having now is the time You that cared not for Christ when you were at ease and when you lived in pleasure my thinkes you should long after Christ and be restlesse till you have gotten him now judgment is come upon you Oh Brethren if the Judgments of God in this world be so terrible that they are enough to abash and appale the stoutest sinners how terrible and how dreadfull will that last and great day of judgment bee If thou canst not stand before an angry God now without a Saviour without an advocate to plead thy cause when he doth but manifest a little of his displeasure and gives but a gentle touch of his finger how wilt thou stand before him without a Saviour and an advocate when he shall come with millions of Saints and Angells when the Bookes must be opened and every mans life ripped open and it shall be said There wast thou drunk in such a corner there hadst thou thy wanton dalliances upon such a bed at such a time didst thou revile at the Ministers of God and mock at his waies and the professors of them so many yeares thou livedst in the world and yet never didst study how thou mightest come to the knowledge of God or the way to life and happinesse when all this and much more shall be said and then the Lord shall not come to let in a veine of his wrath only but he will pluck up all the sluces open all the floud-gates of his wrath and vengeance when that dismall place of torment shall be set before thee where those unquencheable flames are where thou shalt heare the devills roaring the damned yelling and see all this prepared for thee how wilt thou be able to hold up thy head at such a day Make sure of Christ betimes They were the last and dying words of one who in his life time was the Jewell and Paragon of Religion and piety in the country where he lived Make sure of Christ He is better then all the gold and treasures in the world better then the Rubies or the Onyx stone Thou art eternally happy if thou get him and Eternally miserable if thou come short of him 3. The next thing that is to be studied and endeavoured after is Reformation It is Reformation that the Lord looketh after Do you think that the Lord delighteth in the death of your children that he taketh pleasure in the breaking bruising of your bones is it matter of joy to him to see the hurts and heare the dolefull complaints of your wives servants and neere relations No no God is love as you have many times heard had not your sinnes put him upon it there had not been so sad a spectacle found amongst you Put away therefore that evill thing which is in the middest of you When the children of Israel had fallen before their enemies Achan who had taken the accursed thing and been the occasion of the misery and distresse that fell upon them must be found out and stoned You have seene already some of the Achans that have troubled your peace stone them now and put them to death You have heard it was the prophanenesse the ūcleannesse the contempt of the Gospell the Atheisme and irreligion that is among you that hath caused all your trouble put away these accursed things And here let me speake more fully to you under these foure heads 1. To the looser and prophaner sort 2. To them
Lord intends you this day as to say when you come home we have heard a sermō of Judgment and that is all we expected some such thing Do not so ill requite the Lord and his word but harken to the counsels of his word and be obedient to the same The scope of the Apostle in this Epistle The Coherence is to set downe the true way of mens Justification and salvation which he affirmes to be by the pure grace of God and not by the works of men This way or modell of God in saving men the materiall principle from whence both their Justification and Salvation must arise viz imputed righteousnesse he calls the righteousnesse of God in the verse before the text which is so called because the righteousnesse by which men are saved is a righteousnesse of Gods finding out and of his own bestowing and not any such thing as men have either framed and devised themselves or were able to work out by any thing that they could doe This righteousnesse he saies is revealed in the Gospell it is the Gospell that chalkes out this modell and plat-forme of righteousnesse and life and by this way must men be justified and saved and not by their owne workes this is the maine proposition which he layes down in the 17 verse In the text we have the first proof or argument to make that assertion good the argument stands thus The workes of all men in the world whether Jewes or Gentiles ever since the fall of Adam they are wicked ungodly unrighteous workes therefore they cannot be saved by them the argument is very cleare and strong here All men deserve wrath the utmost wrath displeasure and vengeance of God by thei◠owne workes therefore they cannot deserve his love favour or good will they are so far from deserving his love that they deserve the quite contrary This is the coherence For explication of the words The wrath of God By wrath we are to understand wrath in the Root and in the Fruit in the cause The opening of the Text. and in the effect God is highly displeased with men by reason of sin he loathes their wayes and abhorres their practises he beares a bitter and a deadly hatred against all the wickednesse which men commit and he hath an inward quarrell if we may so speak a secret grudge in his heart against men themselves for the same this is wrath in the root or cause And then againe he inflicts plagues and punishments the most dreadfull curses and fearfull judgments on men by reason of sin all which are visible and signall tokens of his displeasure and manifest proofs that he cannot endure them nor any of their wayes this is wrath in the fruit or effect Is revealed from heaven There may be a twofold sense of this a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simpliciter significat Pau lus manifestius esse quam ut quisquam inficiari possit Dominum è caelo in omnes ac singulos homines indignari Beza 1. The sense may be it is revealed clearly and manifestly as much as if it were by a voice from heaven The Lord God Almighty the blessed and most holy God he proclaimes it from heaven and cries aloud in the eares of all the world that he is deeply offended with all the ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse which men cōmit that he will certainly call them to an account and punish them for it In Psalm 14 2. it is said The Lord looked from HEAVEN upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God now here it is said his wrath is revealed from heaven God is no idle spectator he doth not carelessly behold the actions of men as if so be they might doe what they listed and he not discerne or not be moved at it no he looks down from heaven upon the children of men Jehovah from the heavens looked down upon the sons of Adam so one reads it He looks with a watchfull observant eye his eye is intent and fixt upon all the sons of Adam upon the whole raceof mankind and for what is all this curious search made it is to see if there were any that did understand and seek God But was he well pleased when he found it otherwise no surely finding all to be corrupt that they were all gone aside that they were all together becōe filthy that there was none that did good no not one that they were workers of iniquity v. 1.3.4 he gives out the sentence he pronoūceth it from heaven he proclaimes it in the eares of all the world that he is highly offended and his wrath is gone out against men by reason of these things Psalm 4.2 O ye sons of men how long will ye love vanity and seek after leasing how long will ye run mad on sin and be so desperately adventerous in the waies in which you walk But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himselfe verse 3 Take it for granted that JEHOVAH that is the Highest Lord the Majesty of heaven and earth he is provoked and incensed by all these waies and it is the godly man that he lookes after know ye Jehovah hath marvelously seperated a gratious saint to him so Ainsworth It is the pious devout holy soul that Jehovah regards and he hath marvelously seperated him or selected in wondrous sort b segregavit Graecum Latinum mirificavit quod verbum non est alienum a proposito ubi bi de opilione ad regiam dignitatem evecto agitur neque a Grammatica cùm verba quae mirabile facere separare Hebraice significant fimilia sint atque idcirco suas fignificatiōes facile confundere possint ex regula Grammaticorum usn Hebraicae linguae Muis in loc he hath put him in another rank set a mark of excellency upon him he hath set him in opposition to the wicked ungodly men and such as love vanity whome he hath set on another file whose names are written in his black book and hath marked them out as the objects of his wrath this is illustrated Psal 11.4 5 ver The Lord is in his holy temple The Lords throne is in heaven his eyes behold his eye-lids tries the children of men The Lord trieth the righteous but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth Another sense may be the wrath of God is revealed from heaven that is it is manifested by evident cleare remarkable plagues and Judgments from heaven God hath discovered to all the world that he is an utter enemy to all the sin wickednesse and ungodlinesse of men because he hath punished in all generations wicked and ungodly men with most fearfull plagues and judgments he hath shewen signes and tokens from heaven so that all men have seene his hand Pareus A learned expositor understands this phrase from Heaven as that which is opposed to the opinion of prophane men who ascribe the
yea or no whether the wrath of God be a rediculous thing yea or no. Oh feare and tremble at the thoughts of these things that which hath been said might make the heart of every unrepentant sinner shake and his joynts to tremble This is the first use The second use and all the use in the generall that shall be made of the point in hand Usâ— 2. is an exhortation to Repentance Is the wrath of God gone out against all the ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse of men Oh Repent Repent betimes ere this wrath come upon you I have lately exhorted you to repentance by the mercies of God by his love and goodnesse and the sweet provision that he hath made he hath raised up his son the Lord Jesus to give that blessing to you You need not say the work is too hard it is a thing impossible for us to repent You have heard where your strength lies I must now goe another way to worke and exhort you to repentance by the Judgments of the Lord the text which I am handling calls for it and the providences of the Lord they call for it also Knowing the terror of the Lord we perswade men saith the Apostle so must we do likewise Let me speak to every soul of you that belongs to this place be thy rank or condition whatsoever it bee be thou in higher or meaner place Repent and that speedily before the indignation of the Lord come upon you to the uttermost I remember what John Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadduces that came to his baptisme it may bee looked upon as a kind of argument to presse the doctrine of repentance more closely on them Math. 3.7 who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come I may say concerning you of this place the wrath of God is already come it hath already appeared it is revealed from heaven in the face of the open sun that all that passe by you cannot but take notice of it Oh repent repent lest this wrath come upon you to the uttermost Luke 13 4.5 Suppose yee those eighteene upon whom the tower in Siloam fell slew them thinke yee that they were sinners aboue all men that dwell in Jerusalem I tell you nay but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish He doth not say that they which suffered those things were no sinners at all or that they were little sinners but he would not have them that escaped that danger put off the businesse from themselves as if so be they that were slaine and made the immediate examples of Gods displeasure were the onely sinners in Jerusalem no he tels them their sins might be as great as any of the rest and therefore he advises them to look about themselves for unlesse they repented they likewise should perish Do not thinke my bretheren that the poore children that were crushed to death the men and women that had their armes and legs broken or disioynted their bodyes sorely bruised were sinners above all the people in Witney or that there are no other sinners but theÌ„ amongst you Nay I tell you all except yee repent ye shall all likewise perish Vnlesse thou ô man or woman who ever thou art repent of thy drunkennesse lying covetuousnesse of thy coldnesse and indifferency in religion thou shalt one day perish the word saies it conscience tels thee so the damned in Hell they feele it to be so Oh what a strange passe are men come unto the wrath of God is revealed from heaven and yet they will not believe God hath testifyed it from heaven that every drunkard and swearer and prophane person shall certainly be damned and yet men will not believe 1. Cor. 6.9 Know ye not that the unrighteous c. why This is a plaine thing an evident a manifest thing a man may say it is dark at noone day if he will but this is cleare and beyond all doubt it selfe Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdome of God The gate of heaven shall never be opened to any unrighteous soule no uncleane thing shall ever enter there No if the holy and righteous God be in heaven-thou which art an unholy and an unrighteous soul shalt never get there and if the Saints and Angells stay in heaven thou which art so unlike them shalt never come there Oh think on this for the Lords sake From heaven thou art pointed out to destruction all the leaves in the Bible make against thee all the Judgments that ever God hath executed are cleare and plaine before thine eyes and yet men will not believe What will become of this Atheisticall generation There is no man feares there is no man considers his way Though the blessed God from heaven tell men that their ungodlinesse unrighteousnes doth bring his wrath upon them wil damne theÌ„ in the end they wil not believe it they will not lay it to heart The word that threatneth wrath the JudgmeÌ„ts of God they reveale make known this wrath the devils in hell they believe tremble at it the damn'd they feel it yet the stout hearted sonnes of men they care not for it 1. Cor. 10.22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy are we stronger then he Do we incense p 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pha. exasperate and put the Lord himselfe to it to shew what he can do are we content the Lord should doe his worst doe we q 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesâ—ch equall and compare our selves with him dare we justle and contend with him for mastery Oh fearefull are you come to this point let the Lord do his worst we shall deale with him and his wrath well enough Oh desperate forlorn man It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Oh repent repent Heb. 10.1 It was one of the dying words of a famous Martyr Repent O England repent repent so say I to you O Witney repent repent otherwise I feare some more dreadfull plagues will befall you You that have ungodly neighbours servants or friends go to theÌ„ ask them what meane you to lie in your ignorance prophanenesse neglect of God and holy things still What do you love to be damned and are you well pleased to be sent packing to hell as soone as you dye For the Lords sake set upon this work speedily if you do not I feare some worse thing will come next Certainely my Brethren the hand of the Lord is gone out against you in this late Tragedy for so it should be called it was not a Comedy no no it was a Tragedy a dolefull Play it had a dolefull end a bloudy a sad end Those of you that heard the screekings and bitter complaints the fearfull heart-piercing cries that saw the broken bones the disioynted armes the dead carcasses of so many children will say it was a Tragedy indeed a dolefull play and the wrath of God hath been