The unclean Person who hath by his lewd Courses brought those Evils upon himself which are the proper Effects and Punishments of that Sin The great Oppressor of others that is through God's righteous Judgment fallen into the merciless Hands of Oppressors himself The Extortioner that having raised an Estate by Rapine and Violence hath lived to see the Extortioner catch all that he hath The false Accuser who having by Lies and Slanders robbed others of their good Name and Estates is now fallen under the Lash of those false Tongues that spare him no more than he hath spared others Have any of these reason to murmur against God's Providence Should not their own Guilt stifle their Complaints and stop their Mouths Or if they will open them should it not be to give Glory to God's Justice by whose over-ruling and most righteous Providence it hath come to pass that they suffer either in the same kind in which they have offended or in that which corresponds and bears a visible Proportion with it 3. When Men suffer that which they have often been forewarned of when they have met with many Caveats and Cautions when it hath been often foretold them what the certain Consequents and unavoidable Issues of such Courses would be and yet they would presumptuously go on and rush into Danger as the Horse rusheth into the Battel Have these Men Reason to complain of any but themselves If Men will run into the Briars and none can withhold them have they any cause to complain that they are scratch'd and torn And yet even in such Cases as this the Circumstances whereof a Man would think are such as leave a Man no colour of complaining yet will Men find out Matter of Complaint even against God himself their Hearts rising against his Providence that he should thus leave them to themselves and suffer them to go on so wilfully and sool-hardily upon Danger As if God were bound to cure all Man's Perverseness and to subdue his Obstinacy and as if it were God's Fault that Man will not hearken to good Counsel If obstinate and refractory Sinners will run upon their own Ruine notwithstanding all Warnings they must know their Destruction is of themselves and they have none to thank for it but themselves 4. When the Evils under which Men lie are the direct and proper Issues and Products of their own impatient Desires and most importunate Prayers when Men beg things of God and pursue them with restless Importunities and will take no Denial whether the things be good for them or no if having obtained them they relish nothing but Gall and Wormwood in them instead of the Content and Satisfaction they promised themselves where can they justly lay the Blame but on themselves Have they any Plea to justify their murmuring against God who indeed gave them their Desires in Anger and gratified them to their Smart because nothing else would satisfy them They would be their own Carvers and take upon themselves to understand what was good for them better than God If Rachel's longing for Children be so impatient that she must have them or she will die if God give her a Child that shall cost her her Life what reason hath she to complain of any but her self and the impetuous Irregularity of her own Desires that she purchased it at so dear a rate If the Israelites must have Quails and no other Food will please their inordinate Palat if they eat till they surfeit of them till they come out of their Nostrils and the next News be that the Plague is among them shall they yet charge God foolishly and lay the Blame upon him If the boundless Desires of the ambitious Man aspire to a Crown and nothing else will satisfy him when he hath gotten it if he find it lined with Thorns can he murmur at Providence that hath set it on his Head If murmuring be any where unreasonable and unjust then certainly 't is when Men suffer in those very things which were the Objects of their most passionate Desires and unwearied Importunities But yet 5. After all that hath been said they have least Reason to complain and of all others have least to justify their Murmurings who have the best and most effectual Arguments to quiet their Spirits under every Providence and to keep down all the inordinate Workings of their Hearts And such are all they who having obtained the Pardon of their Sins have an Interest in God's special Love and Favour through Christ For 1st They may know that whatever befals them Sin being pardoned the Curse and Sting of every Affliction is taken out Though their Afflictions may be bitter and grievous to Nature yet there is no Poison in them nothing of a hurtful or destructive Nature Christ hath removed the Curse Gal. 3.13 being made a Curse for us 2dly They may know that all their Sufferings are intended for their Advantage not for their Prejudice and shall undoubtedly be advantagious to them in the End however for the present they may not so clearly discern God's particular Design and Intendment in them Rom. 8.28 God hath assured them that all things work together for Good to them that love God to those that are called according to his Purpose 3dly They are sure to be supported under all their Pressures They may sometimes be hardly put to it but yet they shall never want Supplies of Strength proportionable to their Burdens God will mercifully consider their Weakness and lay no more upon them than he will enable them to bear He is faithful 1 Cor. 10.13 and will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able 4thly They are sure to be eased of their Afflictions in God's due time The Rod of the Wicked shall not rest upon the Lot of the Righteous it shall not always rest there Psal 125.3 Many are the Afflictions of the Righteous but the Lord delivereth them out of them all Psal 34.19 5thly Tho their Afflictions should run parallel with their Lives and have no other End than by Death yet the endless and unspeakable Happiness of the World to come will be an abundant Compensation for all their Afflictions here Rom. 8.18 The Sufferings of this present time being not worthy to be compared with the Glory that shall be revealed in us Now I say if such as have these excellent and sovereign Cordials these solid Grounds of Consolation these efficacious Means of quieting their Hearts and suppressing all their sinful Distempers should yet murmur under the Hand of God their Murmuring of all others would be most inexcusable If such should murmur what might be expected from them who have none of these things to charm and compose their Spirits Well might they gnaw their Tongues and blaspheme the God of Heaven for Anguish because of their Pains as the Carriage of some of the Wicked in their Afflictions is described Rev. 16.10 11. But let not us by our unquiet and
them than of the other Luke 12 48. For to whom much is given of them much shall be required And if any have so much time to spare as they know not how to imploy it they must know that God will take it ill at their hands unless they measure to him in some proportion according to what they have If they who so abound in time should think to put off God with a small pittance of it this were 1. A great slighting of God and would be so interpreted by him Mal. 1.14 He is a great king and will accordingly be treated by his Subjects 2. It were a great undervaluing of his Grace as if it were either so cheap a commodity as that it might be obtained at any rate and with less pains than any thing else that is of any value or so vile and worthless a thing as that time were ill bestowed in labouring after it 3. It were a great undervaluing of our own Souls as if we thought so meanly of them that we grudged any time that is bestowed on them 4. As for those who in respect of their Callings and the imployments in which the Providence of God hath ingaged them are much straitned in time and cannot help it I shall recommend these three things to them 1. The less time they can redeem from their Callings for holy Duties the more heavenly-minded let them labour to be while they follow their Imployments setting God much before their eyes in the duties of their Calling endeavouring to keep a good Conscience and to carry themselves justly and uprightly in all their dealings and upon all occasions throughout the day sending up many short but fervent Prayers and holy Ejaculations unto God So doing they may rest assured that they serve God acceptably in the Duties of their Calling and shall accordingly be both accepted and rewarded An instance hereof we may see Coloss 3.24 Eph. 6.8 2. The less time they have for holy Duties the more careful must they be that the little time they have be not lost in a slight careless formal and heartless performance of holy Duties Having but little time for such things let them be sure they make the most of it by a truly spiritual improvement of it 3. The less time they can redeem from their Callings in the week time the more careful let them be to spend the Lord's Day in a due manner and so as may best conduce to their spiritual advantage To be able to gain very little time from their Callings throughout the week and also to spend the Lord's Day either in idleness or pastimes or in the meer outward formalities of Worship void of all spiritual life and power were the ready way to starve your Souls Such as do this if they had any true grace must needs be sensible of the continual decays and declinings thereof unless they be those that never reflect upon themselves and take any account of the state of their Souls And so much touching the third particular how time is to be redeemed 4. Why is time to be redeemed There are many reasons for it but I shall here mention only some of them reserving the rest to be after mentioned in the Application We must redeem the time 1. Because 't is a Talent for which we must give an account Time is lent us and put into our hands not to be wasted and trifled away as we please but to be managed and imployed to be laid out and expended according to the pleasure of him who hath intrusted us with it Wherefore our Account will be sad if when we shall be called to give it in it shall appear that we have neglected the Work for the dispatching whereof time was allotted us and spent our time in that which was no part of our business 2. We must redeem the time because our chief and most necessary work is limited to a certain time the time of this our temporal life here Our most necessary and important work here is to make our peace with God and get a title through Christ to a better life when this shall be at an end Now this work must be done here or never the other World is no place for it Now is the accepted time 2 Cor. 6.2 now is the day of salvation Mercy is here offered and we are called on and importuned to accept of it but after this life the door of mercy will be for ever shut 3. The continuance and duration of the time allotted us for this great work is in sundry respects very uncertain 1. The life of man is uncertain No man knows how near he may be to his long home This may be the last day this the last hour that he hath to live for ought that he can tell Who can give him any security for the lengthening out of his life one hour more Psal 31.15 Psal 104.29 Our times are in God's hand When he pleaseth he takes away our breath and we return to the dust And he hath not thought fit to reveal or declare when or how he will do it he hath given us no assurance that he will not put an end to our days before we go out of this place 2. If life be continued 't is uncertain whether or no the means of grace shall be continued Though God lengthen out mens lives yet he often withdraws the means of grace from them and he hath threatned to do it where means are not improved and where men walk unsuitably to them Thus he threatned the Jews for their sins Matth. 21.43 to take away his kingdom from them and to give it to a notion bringing forth the fruits thereof And to the same effect Christ threatned the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2.5 saying Remember from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place 3. Though life and outward means of grace should be continued yet God may in wrath suspend or withdraw the co-operation of his Spirit Though the Jews enjoyed the ministry of the Prophet Isaiah and he must prophecy to them yet God tells him before-hand that the issue of all his Labours among them would be no other than the hardning of them in their sins Isa 6.9 10. Go saith he tell this people hear ye indeed but understand not see ye indeed but perceive not Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and convert and be healed The meaning is Though God gave his Servant a command to prophesy to them yet for their former sins and provocations he would so give them up to the wickedness of their own hearts that they would be never the better but the worse for having had a Prophet among them A fearful thing when those means
before the coming of the Messiah Yet once it is a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and will shake all nations 2. We have a Prediction of his coming And the desire of all nations shall come 3. A Promise of the Glory of the second Temple together with an answer to an objection against it And I will fill this house with glory the silver is mine and the gold is mine 4. An Amplification of that Promise concerning the glory of the second Temple The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former 5. An additional Promise of Peace as an Appendix to all other Mercies promised And in this place will I give peace 6. The Ratification or Confirmation of the whole in those last words saith the Lord of Hosts so often mentioned before and with which all that was before promised is at last shut up and sealed To begin with the first of these the Prediction of great concussions and shakings in the World before the coming of the Messiah It is yet a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and will shake all nations By these Metaphorical Expressions according to the usual Language and Style of the Prophets we are to understand great Troubles Commotions Changes and Alterations in the World in which high and low Persons of all Conditions Ranks and Qualities represented by the Heavens and the Earth should take their turns and have their share So God speaking of his terrible Judgments on the World saith Isa 13.13 I will shake the heavens and the earth shall remove out of its place in the wrath of the Lord of Hosts and in the day of his fierce anger But now all the difficulty is what shakings should be here intended Some understand the words of the great things which the Evangelists report to have been done at and upon the Birth of Christ the Miracles wrought by him in his Life the strange and miraculous Providences at his Death and Resurrection and of the shaking of the World afterwards by the preaching of the Gospel whereby Idols were thrown down Heathenish Idolatry and Superstitions were abolished the Christian Religion and the Worship of the true God coming in place thereof These were great and wonderful things but how they should be here by the Prophet intended is not easie to conceive For he seems to speak of such concussions and shakings as should be antecedent to the coming of Christ and go before it not concur with it much less follow after it Thus saith the Lord of Hosts I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and I will shake all nations and the Desire of all nations shall come that is after God should thus have shaken the World Christ should come And indeed very great and dreadful shakings there were between the time of this Prophecy and the coming of the Messiah in which shakings the people of God the Jewish Nation were not a little concern'd The Persian Empire under which they now were was not only shaken but shaken in pieces dissolved and ruined by the Grecians under the Conduct of Alexander the Great Then presently after Alexander's Death who died in the flower of his Age the Empire which he had but just then acquired and been possessed of was in effect once more rent in pieces and divided amongst his Chieftains and Principal Commanders While this state of things continued the Jews were miserably shaken oppressed and harassed by the Tyranny and Cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes besides many other grievous pressures and sufferings which during the Government of the Seleucides they underwent After some time the Romans came upon them all and subdued all to themselves in which Revolution the distressed Jews fell under the power of the Romans and were at their Mercy After all these terrible shakings nearer the coming of Christ the Civil Wars under Augustus Caesar caused horrible shakings and convulsions in the Empire after which the Temple of Janus was shut up and a peaceable time ensued all Swords being sheathed and all Arms laid aside throughout the whole Empire and then was Christ the Prince of Peace born in the Forty first or as some will have it in the Forty second year of the Reign of Augustus Caesar Now whereas all these shakings were to go before the coming of Christ which was the greatest Mercy that ever was vouchsafed the World we may observe That great Troubles and Afflictions sometimes go before and make way for great and signal Mercies This is indeed the ordinary and usual method of God's most wise and gracious Providence Thus Joseph is sold to the Midianites carried into Egypt and there again sold to Potiphar falsly accused cast into Prison and laid in Irons that by this Series of long-continued Afflictions way might be made for his Advancement to the highest Honour in Pharaoh's Court and for his being made Ruler over all the Land of Egypt Thus seventy years Captivity and Bondage in Babylon goes before the joyful and triumphant Return of God's people into their own Land of which the Psalmist thus speaks Psal 126.1 2. When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion we were like them that dream then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing then said they among the heathen The Lord hath done great things for them Which Psalm though placed among the Psalms of David yet is by Learned men upon good grounds supposed to have been penned by some other Person after the return from Babylon as also Psal 137. that is to say 460 years at least after that David had been gathered to his Fathers and perhaps much more for we know not how long after the return from Babylon it might be penned Thus the Ten most Cruel and Bloody Persecutions of the Christian Church in the first Ages thereof went before that quiet and tranquillity which the Church enjoyed under Constantine and the succeeding Christian Emperors when to use the expressions of the Prophet God made the peace of his Church as a river and the righteousness thereof as the waves of the sea Thus that wicked Usurpation and Tyranny of Antichrist making havock of the Church which hath been drawn out to so great a length already and yet we know not how much longer it may last goes before that happy estate of the Church and of the World when those joyful Acclamations shall be heard The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Rev. 11.15 And when they who shall have gotten the victory over the beast and over his image shall sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb saying Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways thou king of saints Rev. 15.1 2. And to add but one instance more here at home thus