to wise men who can well judge what I say First I hope verily we are not yet come to that passe that God should say of us I will passe by England no more blessed bee God wee have a gracious King many Noble Peeres many excellent Commons who have already done great things for God I need not repeat them all the Kingdome knowes them to their comfort Yea and blessed be God the same gracious Soveraigne and Honourable Assembly of Parliament doe yet enquire what is further to be done what wrath is kindled and how it may bee quenched and have called the whole Kingdome to afflict themselves before God that his great wrath might bee turned away from us And as yet wee have a sprinkling of Phinehazzes worthy Magistrates who in their severall Countries and Counties dare appeare in Gods cause against sinne and the boldest sinners And wee have also a good sprinkling of faithfull Ministers who stand on the Watch towre and blow the Trumpet and give the people warning And for ever blessed be the Lord which is not the least pledge of our hopes for the lengthning out of our tranquility we have many ten thousand Saints in England who not onely abstaine from the abomination of the times but mourne for them and give God no rest night nor day untill hee bow the heavens and come downe and set up for himselfe a glorious Throne amongst us And unto these God hath made many promises of sparing the land for their sakes and that their posterities after them shall be blessed But as I hope this so the Lord will bee a witnesse with me that I feare whether all these persons and their graces doe beare a just proportion to the meanes and mercies which God hath given to England or to that huge Inundation of finne wherewith England is over-run at this day And here had I a tongue to speake and you and I hearts and eyes to powre out teares and sorrow wee might make this place a Bochim a place of weepers For what kinde of these sins doe not overflow us You will say at first not Idolatry but I tell you neither were the Germanes carried away with Idolatry when their desolations broke in upon them nor the Iewes before their last destruction The measure of our Iniquity may possibly be full though this sin come not in but God knowes and you know that we have not onely abundance of Idolatrous Papists who are proud insolent and daring but abundance of Popish Idolatrous spirits superstitiously addicted willing to embrace any thing that goes that way onely they will not have it goe under the name of Popery And for the other sinnes of contempt of Gods holy Ordinances his day his servants and all his wayes oppression cruelty defrauding of brethren the sensuall sinnes of uncleannesse especially that of drunkennesse Goe but to the places of greatest resorts Market-Townes populous Cities and Fayres c. and your hearts would tremble to thinke how our Land is overspread with these Oh Beloved the generality of the people of England is extreamly wicked and which argues our case to bee most miserable it seemes to beare downe and to break over all our Bankes multitudes sinning with a whores forehead proclaiming their sinnes as Sodom And the vox populi is that many of the Nobles Magistrates Knights and Gentlemen and persons of great Quality are arrand Traytors and Rebells against God taking part with wicked men and wicked causes against the Truth Patrons of Ale-houses and disorders checking inferiour Officers who discover any zeal for God against an ill cause That in many of their families not to mention Religion there is not so much as a face of Civility Many others of them who seem to wish well dare not draw out the sword which God hath given them and some few others borne downe in their places with the torrent of wickednesse And as for our Ministers how many sad complaints and petitions hath this Honourable Assembly received against many hundreds of them multitudes of them rotten and unsound in their doctrine and so vitious and corrupt in their lives that they fulfill that which Archbishop Abbot said in his Lectures upon Ionah professing that his heart bled within him to thinke of the miserable condition of the precious soules of many people who had such Ministers as Iohannes Aventinuus speakes of who if they were not in the Ministery would not bee thought fit hog-heards to keepe swine Besides thousands of others who God knowes want either will or skill to doe the Lords worke faithfully And the residue who have endeavoured to give the people warnning and to teach them the good way of the Lord have been a long time both downe and opposed as the troublers of our Israel Sure I am what ever our Ministers are or doe the sins of the land are too strong for them and our people remaine unsubdued to Jesus Christ Yea which is yet worse the very judgements of God have wrought little upon us all the long and heavy pressures of the Neighbour Churches his rods upon our selves terrible and wasting pestilences and famine his blasting all our enterprises his scaring us with rumors of warres and bloud prevaile nothing wee still grow worse and worse Indeed if any sin grow out of fashion as cloathes doe then wee leave it otherwise wee goe on boldly and impudently let God threaten or doe what he will And all these evils are aggravated by being committed against greater meanes and mercies than any nation under Heaven enjoyes this day besides our selves And which is yet sadder oh that I were mistakē upon condition I were tyed to a recantation our dealing this last year is more injurious against God than heretofore The Lord hath gathered such an Assembly of Noble Peeres and Commons who have done such great things that many of us began to hope our Pilgrimage through this wildernesse had beene almost ended and that England would now turne to the Lord and become a people zealous of good workes But verily so far as I can understand the body of the Nation makes little other use of all the mercies of this last yeare but to abuse all the liberties procured both for Church and Common wealth to greater and bolder sinning against God and now also which yet speakes more sadly the Lord God beginnes to appeare against us not onely in permitting many unexpected blocks and rubbs huge trees cast in the way of our Worthies that they cannot march on in their strength and so the much expected Reformation stickes long in the birth but God hath drawne out and fourbished the sword and made it begin to drinke blood in the Neighbour Nation which when it once begins to drinke seldome is put up againe till it bee drunke with blood this God hath suffered to bee drawne out upon our deare brethren in Ireland upon our owne flesh and blood and that by a
and never rests till it abide in hell where there is no bottome and there it burnes for ever The other is in Nahum 〈◊〉 where Gods fury and fierce anger is compared to fire which throwes down rocks licks up the sea burnes up the forrests melis and burnes the earth and world and all that dwells therein Certainly that must needs be a dreadfull and horrid thing which the Spirit of God thus describes Secondly Consider some of the effects of Gods wrath and then you will conceive in some measure what it is The throwing of many millions of Angels out of heaven into the lowest hell was nothing but the effect of Gods wrath The opening the flood-gate of all sin and misery upon all mankind was nothing but an effect of Gods wrath The deluge that over-whelmed all the world all the plagues of Egypt burning of Sodom the earths opening and swallowing up Korah and his company all the famine pestilence blood that ever the world lay under are but so many effects of Gods wrath Nay the dreadfull appearance at the last day when the Potentates and Princes of the world will bee humble Suiters to the hills and mountaines to fall on them will bee nothing but an effect of the Lords comming in wrath to render vengeance to his enemies Yea to be thrown to all eternity into the pit of hell into utter darknesse into the fire that never is quenched and among wormes that shall never cease gnawing all these are nothing but to be under the wrath of God But above all these and if ten thousand more could bee named that one effect of it in the Lords powring out his viall of his revenging justice upon the body and soule of our blessed Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ is most able to in forme us how great and fierce the wrath of God is that when he had but one Son who was his fellow as the Prophet saith Awake sword and smite the man that is my fellow yet this revenging justice being powred out upon him made him who in his person was no other than God himself yet in his humane nature when this Cup was put into his hand yea the very first taste of it made him sweat drops of blood trickling down to the ground in a cold winters night and when he had drunk it off it made him cry out in the anguish of his soule My God My God why hast thou forsaken me These effects may helpe us to conceive what a dreadfull thing it is to wrestle with the wrath of God But thirdly Were I able to open the thing it selfe and let you see it in the causes you would instantly conclude that it is beyond all apprehension Conceive it thus The revenging justice of God is Gods opposing himselfe against the creature When God takes his creature into his hand and by his almighty power upholds the being of it that it may feele what the Lord Jehovah can doe upon it and against it This no living creature can conceive When God hath only hid himselfe from his dearest friends this very hiding of himselfe hath been so dreadfull that it hath made them goe roaring all the day long dryed up their moisture neade their lives uncomfortable and a burden to themselves turned all other comforts into gall and worm-wood Now if onely an Eclipse of his loving countenance bee thus intolerable what is it for God to fall upon a creature as his enimy When a poore worme must not only stand under the weight of a huge rock falling upon it but of an almighty God You that have large thoughts may now easily conceive what a fearefull thing the wrath of God is The third Question is Against whom is this wrath of God thus kindled I Answer First Gods wrath may be kindled mildly and gently against his owne deare children when they walke not faithfully in his Covenant when they lay aside their filiall obedience when they give occasion to his enimies to blaspheme his Name though hee will not suffer all his indignation to arise yet his fatherly displeasure may bee kindled against them And even this fatherly wrath this gentle wrath if it bee not a contradiction to call it so these small drops of his displeasure are more unsupportable to them than all the miseries of the world Yea they could more willingly submit to the torments in hell provided that Gods countenance did but shine upon them than to undergoe that which this wrath of God sometimes distills upon them And yet all this while wee may truly say of them they are children under wrath but not the children of wrath not the people of his wrath not the vessels of his wrath But if you will know Secondly What are the people against whom God hath indignation for ever the Scripture tells it you in this expression ordinarily they are the children of Belial so they are usually called in the Old Testament that is such as will not beare Gods yoke master-lesse children yoke-lesse children And in the New Testament they are called children of disobedience as the Apostle For which things sake the wrath of God commeth on the children of disobedience Now who these children of Belial and of disobedience are I must a little explaine to you and then the Application will bee easie I say therefore that these children that will not carry the yoke are First all unbeleevers I doe not meane Negative unbeleevers that is those that doe not beleeve in Christ because they never heard of him but Positive unbeleevers who have had the glorious light of the Gospel shining to them to whom the Lord Iesus hath been freely offered as a Saviour to deliver them from wrath to come and yet they refuse to come in and to accept of him as hee offers himselfe in his Gospel because they doe not like to take him upon such hard termes you may be sure the wrath of God rests upon these men Turne but to Iohn 3. ult. Hee that beleeves in Christ shall be saved hee that beleeves not is a damned man and how the wrath of God abides on him Mark that expression abides on him The wrath of God takes up as it were his habitation in an unbeleever So that what Gods grace sometimes said of Solomons Temple Here will I dwell for I have a delight in it So the wrath of God seemes to say of an unbeleever Here I will dwell here I will abide for ever Secondly The children of disobedience and sonnes of Belial are such whose lives and conversations are contrary to the rules of the Gospel who as they will not take Christ to be their portion by faith so they will not take Christs word in the Gospel to be their guide but they will live indeed without all yoke doing what is good in their owne eyes these are the sonnes of Belial You may see a notable description of them in the prophesie of Zacharie ch. 7. v. 8. where the
wilfull disobedience obstinate stubbornesse and intractablenesse is expressed by divers similitudes all tending to the same purpose They refuse to hearken stop their eares as not willing to hear Gods counsel they pull'd away the shoulder as an Oxe or Bullock that shrinks back from the yoak or as one that should carry a burthen pulls away his shoulder when he should take it and lets it fall so these deale with the easie yoak and the light burthen of Gods commandements Yea they make their hearts as an Adamant Stone there is in them a stiffe and wilfull resolution to sin whereby their hearts are as intractable to any goodnesse as the hardest sort of stones Flints or Diamonds are to be wrought by the toole into any fashion we desire when you have said all you can against their wantonnesse uncleannesse prophanness pride covetousness c. you prevaile no more than when an hammer strikes upon an anvile Their hearts can easily reject all yee cannot beat a splinter off from them then immediately it followes in the next verse Therefore there came a great wrath from the Lord of Hostes These are the sons of Belial these are the vessels of Gods wrath Now to apply this to our selves it might first teach all who are reconciled to God by Christ what infinite cause they have every day of their life to blesse that grace of God which hath not appointed them unto wrath but by the blood of his own sonne hath delivered them from wrath to come and provided for them everlasting glory and happinesse Secondly it may likewise teach all that feare God never to envie the prosperous estate of any child of Belial though waters of a full cup be wrung out for them though they swim in wealth and honour and pomp in this world and have all their hearts can desire and in the meane time account it their glory that they carry not the Lords yoak never envie their lot If any here knew of half a score good fellowes set at a banquet of wine furnished with all the helps of mirth and jollity if hee knew withall that the shot to be payd for it must be every mans heart blood he would be loath to be one of the pack with them I confesse it is hard not to be troubled at the prosperity of wicked men even David and Ieremy found it a hard thing not to envie their prosperity But stay till the shot be payd enquire how able they will be to undergoe the wrath of God enter into the Sanctuary understand their end and thy envie will bee at an end but these I intended not to insist upon There is one only proper use for the present occasion and that is this you are met this day together to Fast and Pary and mourne before the Lord and as I touched before hereby you acknowledge that the wrath of God is kindled and that your selves are called to take a course to turn away Gods wrath and I verily believe this is the very end you aymed at in calling us the unworthy Ministers of Christ to your help this day that wee might bee assistant to you in whatever might turn away the wrath of God from you Now two things were at large pressed upon you in the morning as well befitting the work of this day The one was to rent and break and teare every one of your hearts in the sense of your sins kindly and throughly to humble you in the sight of God The other was to provoke you to a strong resolution to leave the waies of sin in time to come In which two things humiliation and Reformation stands the very life of unfained repentance and the spirituall part of a Religious Fast without which all our abstinence and sackcloth and bodily exercises in watching hearing c. are meere abominations in the sight of God I rejoyce that you had these things set so home in the morning some of my work being thereby spared But the bringing this lesson home if God set it on to your hearts may help to fasten the counsell given you in the morning as a nayle in a sure place I shall endeavour to further your humiliation and reformation from the meditation of the fearfulnesse and dreadfulnesse of the wrath of God I must therefore entreat you all Honourable and beloved since you have vouchsafed to call for the labour of a poor man to help you let mee be as free with you as if you were so many meane people my duty this day is to doe that which Ieremy did God calls him in a mourning time and saith goe to the King and Queen and say come yee down sit in the dust humble your selves So I say to you comedown forget that any of you are Earles or Lords Knights or Gentlemen lay for a while these thoughts aside and give mee leave to ask you two or three Questions and be so faithfull to your own soules as to think how you can answer them before the Lord Are yee not children of Belial that is the very thing which you must answer in your own bosome that is are there not amongst you such as refuse to carry the yoak of Christ who will not take Christ to be your Saviour as he offers himselfe to you in his Gospel you will have him upon other termes than to make him your King Prophet and Priest you would have him to deliver you from hell but hee shall not bee your Lord so as for you to resigne up your selves to him as a dutifull wife resignes up her selfe to her husband And for your conversations you will doe what is good in your own sight if you have a minde to sweare you will sweare you will lie bee uncleane dissemble these things please you well and you will doe them Now hear what I say what thy outward quality or condition is I know not but this I know persons of your quality do not use much to be scared men are affraid to speak any thing that may make you tremble but you must be scared or we shall doe no good to you You are now called to have your hearts rent I have that to say might rent the very cawle of your heart even this oh thou miserable and wretched worme great is the wrath of God that is kindled against thee This terrible Lyon roares against thee a dreadfull fire is kindled a horrible tempest is ready to fall upon thy head showers and floods of fire and brimstone are even ready to be powred out upon thee how art thou able to live with everlasting burnings how wilt thou dwell with devouring fire Thou that art crushed before a moth how can thy heart endure or thy hands be strong in the day that God shall deale with thee Thou that dar'st not think of lying one day upon a wrack that canst not endure for two or three dayes to be wrung with the cholick that art not able to beare the thoughts of lying
under the tearing of a Quartane Ague from Michaelmas to Easter how wilt thou bee able to stand under the fall of such a huge rock as the wrath of the Almighty God which every moment is ready to break downe upon thee How wilt thou doe when these rivers of fire and brimstone shall be powred out upon thee and thou no more able to stand before them than a few dry leaves are able to resist the huge breaking in of many waters Oh beloved would you with due care apply these things to your own hearts and present them to your souls as things present how would they bring down the most stubborn spirit how would they help to break the hardest of your hearts before the Lord But there are two things which keep most people frombeing affected with them The first is These things are looked upon as things a farre off Now it is a rule in Opticks That things farre off though they be marvellous great yet seeme very little a Starre that is bigger than all the earth seemes no bigger than a candle being many miles distant from us So while men look at the wrath of God as they did at the Prophets Vision The Vision that he sees is for many dayes to come and he prophesies of the times that are farre off And put the evill day from them All these threatnings are but light matters Secondly it fares with most men in this point as with some men that have shrewish wives though their businesse lie within doors yet they have no heart to be there for feare of chiding So though it be the most necessary work to think of these things yet because their unquiet consciences upon the least serious meditation are ready to gnaw and teare them and make them sleep uncomfortably they labour to drive off the thought of this thing as farre as they can and will not think of Gods wrath due to sinne from yeers end to yeeres end Whereas if men would bring it in rempraesentem and keep their eyes open to behold it as a thing which unavoydably will come upon them how admirably would it work upon mens hearts To this end let me tell you a story which I have often read to this purpose It is reported of a certaine Christian King of Hungary who being on a time marvellous sad and heavie his brother that was a resolute Courtier would needs know what he ailed Oh brother saith he I have been a great sinner against God and I know not how I shall appeare before him when he comes to judgment These are said his brother melancholy thoughts and makes a toy of them as Gallants use to doe The King replyes nothing for the present but the custome of that Countrey was that if the Executioner of justice came and sounded a Trumpet before any mans doore the man was presently to be led to execution the King in the dead time of the night sends his Deaths-man and causeth him to sound his Trumpet before his brothers doore who hearing and seeing the messenger of death springs in pale and trembling into his brothers presence and beseeches the King to let him know wherein hee had offended O Brother replyes the King thou hast loved me and never offended me and is the sight of my Executioner so dreadfull to thee and shall not I so great a sinner feare to be brought to judgment before Jesus Christ If we would thus suppose with Hierom that we heard this Trumpet sounding Arise ye dead and come to judgment it would work to the purpose O set yóur selves therefore in Gods presence and behold the Lord shaking his lap as Nehemiah when hee shook his lap and said so God shake out everyman from his house Thus will I shake into eternall destruction all the children of Belial and then evidence be brought in against thee how great soever thou art amongst men that thou hast a huge pile of sin heaped up against God and still hast gone on to adde drunkennesse to thirst opposing God his wayes and his cause refusing grace offered freely not willing to be at peace with God while thou hast any meanes to fight against him when all these things shallbe laid open before thee and as thy iust reward God strike theea full blow and sinke thee to the bottome of hell where thou shalt wish that thou hadst been a toad or as one in desperation sometimes wished that thou mightst live there a thousand yeers so thou mightst have any hope in the end that the wrath of God might cease towards thee Would not these things then work upon thee Couldst thou then passe such a day as this without trembling Couldst thou be before the Lord and not have thy heart rent and torn Be perswaded therefore once more to bring it home to thy own soule and say as he said of his green fig this grew in Carthage yesterday This wrath this sea of misery may break in upon me the next moment I am yet joviall and merry but Gods vengeance with woollen feet follows me close at the back and will overtake me if I cannot mourn at the hearing of wrath I must burn at the feeling of it The good Lord melt our hearts with the feare of these things lest we be swallowed up in them And then for the second part for your Reformation would the Lord make this day a day of Reformation to this honourable Assembly what glorious things would be done by you Now what more effectuall motive what Furies whip would more restraine from the practise of sin or more drive to seek a shelter under the wing of Christ and to get into the safe condition of the servants of God than the beholding of this devouring fire these everlasting burnings which sinfull men will never be able to abide I know such is the depravation of mans nature that if there were any possibility of avoiding Gods wrath without leaving their sinnes many men would resolve with that wicked Cardinall not to leave their part in Paris for their part in Paradise And with that noble man which Luther speaks of who professed that if this life of going from whore-house to whore-house might last ever hee would not envie any mans going to heaven But this will not last There is great wrath prepared for the workers of iniquity And therefore my humble request is that if any of you finde your hearts unwilling to submit to that godly counsell given you in the morning of turning to God doe but think what your sinnes which you prize so much will cost you They say the Pope hath a book called Taxa camerae Apostolicae wherein men may know the rate of any sinne upon what termes a man may keep a whore be a Sodomite or murder his Father c. But here is a rate-book where any of you may know what a beloved sinne will cost you not a farthing token lesse than to lie under the devouring fire of
Gods wrath to all eternity Porters will try their burthens upon their shoulders before they engage themselves to carry it doe thou so It is reported of Master Bilney when he thought he should be burnt he would put his finger into the candle to see how he could endure burning doe thou often so goe often alone and say here is a sinne marvellous pleasant such a sinne gaines me thus much every yeere but there is wrath to come And therefore as Elihu said to Iob Because there is wrath beware lest he take thee away with his stroak a great ransome cannot deliver thee hee will not esteeme thy riches no not gold nor all the forces of strength Fourthly and lastly there is one use peculiar to you that be our Noble Senators the Lords and Commons gathered in Parliament wee know your care is for our good but this I humbly propound to you you will never doe us good if Gods wrath bee not taken away from us were you so many Gamaliels so many Hemans so many Solomons so many Angels gathered together and all of one heart to study Englands good you can doe England no good if Gods wrath which is kindled against it be not pacified And therefore let your great study bee both to finde out what hath kindled Gods wrath against us and what may remove it from us of which I shall bee able to give you further knowledge in the next and maine lesson to which now I passe viz. That the sins of a people may come to that passe and Gods wrath may bee kindled to that heigth that notwithstanding their reformation God will goe on to a desolation In handling whereof I shall the Lord helping mee discusse these three things First I shall open the thing in Thesi clear the conclusion and see if I can make you understand it Secondly enquire in hypothesi whether it concerne us or not whether our Nation Church or State may bee thought to be in any danger of it And thirdly I shall endeavour to make some uses which may bee fitting for such an Assembly as this is For clearing the conclusion I shall endeavour these three things First I will demonstrate the truth of it Secondly I will enquire whether the signes of it may be known and how farre they may be known Whether the Lord hath left any foot-steps or rules for us to prognosticate by and so to judge when a people is come to that passe And if so then Thirdly what those tokens are And I shall endeavour to speak plainly and freely of them all For the truth of it were there no other Instance to be found in any other story but this in my Text it were sufficient to prove that such a thing may bee That which hath been already may bee so againe Iosiah we see wrought such a Reformation that the whole Kingdome did all his dayes follow the Lord and notwith standing all this God turned not from his fierce wrath but went on to destroy them The Lord threatens else-where that he would doe it Zeph. 2. 1 2. Gather your selves together before the decree bring forth before the day passe as the chaffe before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you As if he should have said The decree is not yet come forth but if once it bring forth it will be too late for you to seek for mercy There be other examples though not so full as this sufficient to prove this truth As Nineveh for one The Lord sent the Prophet Ionah to preach repentance or destruction to them and you know it is said The King laid aside his Crown and called them all to repentance and repent they did and God saw their works and for a while forbore that City and yet the judgement of most Interpreters is that within fourty years after the City was destroyed even in the same age wherein the Reformation was made That Instance of the Iewes is most remarkable in our Saviour Christs time Iohn Baptist came before him and turned the hearts of the parents to the children and the children to the parents made ready a people prepared for the Lord there went out to him Ierusalem and all Iudea and all the region about Iordan and were baptized of him confessing their sins And Christ had so many followers that the Scribes and Pharisees said all the world went after him that is the body of their Nation And the Apostles converted so many that they said to Paul that there were many myriads many ten thousands of Iewes that beleeve who are all zealous yet notwithstanding in that very age wherein the Gospel wrought thus effectually among them the wrath of God came upon that Nation to the utmost and scattered them over all the world It is likewise recorded of the Romane Empire which for a matter of sixe or seven hundred yeares had been a dreadfull enemy to the Kingdome of the Lord first against the Church of the â—ewes and afterwards against the Christians while it was unconverted in Constantines time the Empire turned to Christianity and in the very first age of the Empires Christianity came the destruction and dissolution of it So that there is a truth in it that Gods wrath may be so far kindled that he will accept of no attonement but will inexorably proceed to desolation The second Question is Whether this may be known whether we may possibly find out any direction whereby to iudge of Gods purpose of thus comming against a people Answ. And for that I confesse a great many men especially such as are not willing to have any dangerous truth preached to them doe thinke that all preaching and study in such points as these is of no more certainty than the iudgement of judiciall Astrology Tell them of wrath to come or desolation of Churches or destruction of Common-wealths they look on such as shall tell them of these things as upon a company of ignorant people who will be of their Authors faith or esteem them as proud men who would be thought to have more acquaintance with Gods secrets than their neighbours and therefore they must adventure upon such high points or at best conceive them to be sullen discontented melancholick people who look on every thing with black spectacles but in the meane time themselves will never be perswaded that any can give them rules of directions to judge in this kind But you are wise and if you please to take two or three places of Scripture into your serious thoughts you will conclude quickly that this is a point may be known The one is Ierem. 8. 7. where the Lord blames the stupidity of the people that whereas the Stork in the heavens knowes her appointed times and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow observe the times of their comming but his people would not know the judgements of the Lord arguing them to bee more filly and simply than the very
birds and fowles who could observe what seasons were fit or unfit for their staying or removing in such or such a Countrey and Gods people remained ignorant of the seasons of Gods approaching judgements Another place you shall find Hos. 7. 9. where the Lord saith of Ephraim that is the ten Tribs gray haires are scattered here and there upon him yet hee knowes it not The meaning plainly is this That as gray hairs are remembrances and plain tokens of declining old age comming upon men so there were symptomes and tokens of Ephraims ruine comming upon him and yet he would take no notice of it Our blessed Saviour also in Mat. 16. v. 1 2 3. tells his hearers that they could make Almanacks for weather and discerne the face of the skie and yet could not discerne the signes of the times implying that Prognostications might also bee made if men would study the right way whereby they might know what God intends to doe with a people So then there is one step gained that something may be known of Gods approaching judgements But that I may not deliver any thing but what you shall have a sull suffrage for I adde in the next place and confesse that because all seasons are in Gods hands and all people under his absolute prerogative so that if hee pleaseth hee may destroy a Nation for one sinne and againe if hee pleaseth hee can exercise so much mercy that no sinnes of a people can set any bounds or limits thereunto nothing but his owne holy will setting limits to his patience long-suffering and mercy and because also God doth alwayes beare such a tender regard to his owne children that where-ever they live hee doth often for their sakes as it were reverse his sentence of desolation In regard of these things and some others which might bee suggested I thinke I may say no mortall man can possibly determine when the precise time of this or that Nations utter ruine is certainly come What Christ said of the day of Judgement may fitly bee applyed here the very day and houre of the last Judgement no man knowes but only the Father and the Sonne to whom it is revealed from the Father and that also since his Resurrection but yet there bee signes whereby wee may know the approaching of that day So wee may say of this though wee cannot know the very time of a Nations desolation yet wee may know when the ruine of it comes neere at hand And what learned men say of them who have studied for the Philosophers stone though they could never finde out the Elixar yet in their search after it they have found out many excellent things admirably usefull for mankinde so in this search if wee cannot determine that such a Nation will infallibly bee ruined yet wee may certainly finde such things as thereby to learne what to feare what to expect what to pray against what to strive after c. And so consequently the handling of this question may bee exceedingly usefull to such an Assembly as I am now called to speak to in the name of God This then is a second step that wee may know such things as may make us feare desolation and consequently labour to prevent it or prepare for it Thirdly the maine question is to enquire what are the Tokens the gray haires the flourishing of the Almond tree whereby wee may guesse at mans going to his long home I answer Politicians and some Divines will tell you of the fatall period of Kingdoms that they have their youth their strength and after a time their declination and shew by abundance of experience that States seldome continue above five or six hundred years without some fatall change But we must goe by a surer rule than this It is not length of time which makes God weary of shewing mercy but what Solomon saith of Kings for the transgressions of a land many are the Princes thereof so for the transgressions of a land and the transgressions only many are the ruines thereof Now there is one rule which God hath alwayes proceeded by in the dissolution of Churches and Kingdoms ever since the beginning of the world and that is this That whensoever the sins of any Church Nation City Family or Person you may take it as large or as narrow as you will are come to a full measure then God infallibly brings ruine upon them This is the rule which I shall make plaine to you God hath set severall vessels to limit the sinnes of all Nations beyond which they shall not goe as once God said to the waves of the Sea hitherto thou shalt goe but here thy proud waves shall be staied so God hath said of the sinnes of Nations Families Persons thus farre I will forbeare thee but farther thy wickednesse shall not exceed then comes thy end Take foure or five cleare evidences for it in the Scripture First that speech of God to Abraham I will give thy posterity all this land but not yet because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full though they were Amorites God would beare with them till their iniquities were come to the full and then he would spare them no longer Another is Zachary 5. verse 6. The prophet in a vision saw an Ephah a thing like a bushell and moreover the Lord told him this is the resemblance of the Ephah throughout all the earth as if God should have said this is not only proper to this people but this rule I go by throughout the whole world and what was that the Ephah is brought out and into the Ephah is cast a Woman this woman sate and filled the Ephah then one brings a talent of lead for a cover to it and that stops the mouth of it and shuts the woman in then come two women with the wind in their wings and they take up the Ephah and carry it between heaven and earth and place it in the land of Shinar or Babylon there to build it an house and to set it upon its own base Now what is the meaning of all this there is one word in the vision which is a key to open this lock viz. this is wickednesse the meaning whereof is That the Lord had brought the Jewes from the captivity of Babylon where they had beene seventy yeeres as soone as they came home though they turned not to idolatry yet they proved stark naught God sets them their Ephah puts their iniquity into a vessell and doth as it were say Goe on till yee have filled the Ephah but as soone as that is full I will clap a talent of lead in the mouth of it I will take a course yee shall sinne no longer in this land but will scatter you into Mesopotamia into the land of Shinar and there be as wicked as yee will So you see when the measure is full then vengeance comes Take another instance in the first of Iames verse 15. When
lust hath conceived it brings forth sinne and sinne when it is finished brings forth death which is of the same interpretation with the former and shewes us sins progresse in the rising reigning and ruine First a man hath lust a wicked corrupt heart that hee brings into the world every man comes into the world with a heart full of lust now this lust brings forth iniquity God leaves people to goe on in wickednesse if they be not such as he means to save and when their sinne is perfected it brings forth death when it comes to the full fourty weeks and hath gone the full time then comes destruction Take yet two instances more both in the fourteenth of the Revelation verse 14 c. in the Parables of the vintage and of the harvest when they were ripe then ruine comes Till then God useth to beare with people smaller judgements often come before sinne is ripe and are removed againe but when once the measure is full then God saith as in Nahum chap. 1. verse 6. He will make an utier end affliction shall not rise up the second time hee will so doe it at once that they shall not need to feare a second Now if by the way you desire to know why God defers so long and rather cuts not off wicked men sooner I answer it should suffice us that it is his will to do it but further he doth it partly that they may be for exercise to his people to purge and humble them as Ashur was his rod to whip his people before the rod was burnt And partly to declare his long-suffering and patience thereby to leave them without excuse if they prove incorrigible Thirdly this is for salvation to some who in the meane time are to be gathered in and this I take it the Apostle meanes 2 Pet. 3. 9. when he saith the Lord defers his comming to judgement because the Nation of the Jews is first to be gathered in So that as the Angel staid till Lot was plucked out of Sodom so God hath some brands to snatch out of the fire for whose sakes he defers the execution of vengeance against them whose sins call for it For these causes and it may be others not known to us but secret to himselfe doth God deferre the full execution of his wrath till sinne be ripe But how may wee judge when the sins of a people grow to the full I answer and but briefly because I would not be burthensome to an attentive auditory the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak in the best to finde out sinnes fulnesse foure things must come into consideration First what kindes of sinnes they are which are land-destroying sinnes Secondly the quantity of these sinnes Thirdly the aggravation of them Fourthly which is the upshot of all the incorrigiblenesse of them First the kinds of them I meane thus there was never any Church or Nation without sinne but all sinnes are not Church-wasting sinnes nor Land-destroying sins but there are sins which are called abominations such as make a land spue out the inhabitants such as make God drive them out And they are some against the first Table some against the second Table Against the first Table first the sin of Idolatry Evermore as Idols come in God goes out When there was an Image of jealousie set up God goes farre from his Sanctuary God likes no such neighbours When Ephraim offended in Baal he dies for it when the meane man bowes himself and the great man humbles himselfe to stockes and stones God will spare them no longer When the glory due to Jehovah is communicated to dumbe Idols this God will bear at no peoples hand And the reason is plaine this is as the marriage bed to God this provokes his jealousie which is his rage then he will accept of no ransome This therefore is the abomination that makes all desolation Secondly the sins of prophaning contemning scorning and persecuting of Gods holy things his holy day his holy servants I joyne all these sinnes together because they come all from the same roote that is malignancy against God God himselfe is prophaned sleighted contemned in all these Thou hast despised my holy things and prophaned my Sabbaths therefore thou hast caused thy day to draw neere God therefore would make Moab as Sodom and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah because they reviled his people but there is one proofe may serve in stead of an hundred 2 Chron. 36. The Lord did a long time beare with them but when once they came to that passe they polluted his House despised his Word mooked his messengers misused his Prophets his wrath grew hot against them till there was no remedy God could thē beare them no longer but utterly would destroy them And it is our Country-man Venerable Bedes observation that when the old Britains grew to that height of sinne as to cast odium in religionis professores tanquam in adversaries God presently sent in the Saxons who destroyed them all There are also some sinnes against the second Table which greatly helpe to fill the measure of a peoples iniquity As first such sinnes as are destructive to humane society cruelty bloud oppression deceit these were the sinnes which brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly These are the sins which the King of Nineveh saw would ruine him and his Kingdome Secondly the sensuall lusts of drunkennesse and whoredome I joine these sinnes together because they are usually joined in Scripture and seldome severed in mens practice And you shall cleerly in the search of the Scripture finde them to be among the abominations which helpe to fill up the measure of a peoples sin and prepares them for judgement I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel saith God speaking of the sinnes which made God hew them downe there is the whoredome of Ephraim whoredome and wine and new mine take away their heart This was one of the things that made God have controversie with the land to make it mourne and to take them all away I have not time to prosecute these things you shall easily finde that these are gray haires in any Nation where ever they are found Secondly the quantity of these sinnes is very considerable when they are universall no Nation ever was without them but when once they come to spread as a Gangrene over the whole body then the measure quickly growes full When all flesh had corrupted their wayes then the flood came rushing in When from the crowne of the head to the sole of the foot the whole body was full of wounds and bruses and putrified sores then it was to no purpose for God to strike them any more with any hope of healing You shall finde in the 24. of Ezekiel 〈◊〉 notable description of Jerusalems condition when Nebuchadnezzar came to destroy them the Prophet compares