Behold God calls upon us Turn you turn you at my reproof why will you dye O House of Israel As I live saith the Lord I desire not the death of sinners Our Lord Christ calls upon us Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will ease you In the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles he stood and cryed Saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink The Spirit says come and who ever will let him come and take of the water of life freely The Gospel assures us That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Behold I set before you this day life and death blessing and cursing and as an unworthy Ambassadour in Christs stead I pray you be reconciled to God take his yoke upon you his yoke is easie and his burden light embrace now the tender of the Gospel only repent and believe in the Lord Jesus accept him for your Saviour and your Lord. Your Prophet to instruct you your King to govern you your Priest to save you and you shall be saved Saved from the fears and horrors of a Guilty Conscience condemned by its own witness Saved from the wrath of God and of the Lamb. You shall meet the Lord with Confidence We shall be able to stand with boldness in the Judgment to lift up our heads with joy because our redemption draweth near This is the way to save our own souls from perishing which is the General design of all our Preaching And this is the way to appease the wrath which is gone out against us and to preserve our Nation from destruction which is the particular and more immediate end of our present Humiliation whereof I am yet to speak THe hand indeed of the Lord hath been heavy upon us his wrath hath been kindled it hath waxed hot against the Sheep of his pasture and he hath plagued our Nation very sore His Judgments have been multiplyed his strokes have been redoubled and for all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still Warrs and Pestilences and those other fore-runners of Christ's coming to Judgment have been seen and felt amongst us and now when these have not been able to prevail To awaken a drowsie people to rowse up a Lethargic Nation to ferment a people setled upon their Lees. God has made anew thing in the midst of us he hath wrought a work in our days which makes the ears of all that hear it to tingle A work not to be parallel'd perhaps in all the circumstances since the Creation of the World How hath the Lord covered the Daughter of our Zion with a cloud in his anger and hath cast down from Heaven to Earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his footstool in the Day of his Anger he hath swallowed up the habitations of his people he hath taken away his Tabernacles and destroyed his places of Assemblies the Ramparts and the Walls lament and languish her Gates are sunk to the ground her Barrs are destroyed Who can express the terror of this fatal Judgment the unexpected eruption the sudden increase the irresistible force the remorsless rage the insatiable voracity of this fiery Judgment the present sufferings the lasting miseries of private persons are inexpressible the publique damage the dangerous consequences it may be unconceivable What thing shall I liken to thee O Daughter of my People Whereunto shall I compare the day of thy Visitation To the destruction of Jerusalem to the great and terrible day of Judgment O the terrors and affrightments the shreikes and lamenations the agonies the confusions of that Day They that were on the house top durst not stay to take any thing out of their houses nor he that was in the field return back to take his Cloathes they that were in the City betook themselves to the Fields and Mountains where they beheld their flaming habitations where they trembled to behold the abomination of desolation raging in the holy places How were the wise men amazed and the strong men terrified despair seised them counsel and strength fled away from them there was no help in them they presently gave all for lost they stood affrighted at a distance gazing at the dreadful spectacle in vain they thought it to contend it looked so like the coming of the Son of Man The breath of the Lord kindled the fire he rode upon Cherub he came flying upon the wings of the wind He made the winds his Messengers and the flames of fire his Ministers He brought the Winds out of his Treasure and to point the flame directly upon the bulk and body of the City through his power he brought in the South-East wind as a theif in the night as pains upon a woman in travel as the lightning that cometh from the East and passeth to the West so came this flaming Judgment and so shall the coming of the Son of Man be I cannot endure to dilate upon this Argument Sorrow and anguish are in the consideration of it Animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit Great is the Judgment and there is reason for us to fear that it may be portending and symtomatical YEt who can tell but God may have mercy upon us but he may yet save us from destruction though our breach be great as the Sea yet is not in it self irreparable though our wounds be deep and gaping they are not desperate or uncurable hitherto we may say with the Apostle We are chastned but not killed afflicted but not in despair The signs and symptoms of an approaching final Judgment are not so decretory and peremptory that we should despair God's signal Judgments have hitherto been accompanyed with signs of mercies and this is a plain case that he is not fond of our destructions and that he had rather that we should live He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men He stands pausing and hoesitating as he did once before O Ephraim how shall I give thee up O Ephraim O England How shall I give thee up O England What mean else those Alternations and those mixtures and combinations of wonderful Judgments and of wonderful deliverancies and mercies which our ears have heard and our eyes have seen We have heard with our ears and our Fathers have told us what wonderful deliverances he wrought in their time of old We have seen vicissitudes great and prodigious mixtures and combinations marvellous in our eyes horrible destructions and wonderful restitutions succeeding one another raging Plagues at home and signal Victories abroad God hath filled us with bitterness and covered us with ashes But it is his mercy that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not If the arm of his Justice and Severity hath been made bare that it might be seen of all the people He hath not left his mercy without
witness If his Judgment hath been great and terrible in that which is consumed his mercy is wonderful and miraculous in that which is preserved Plainly except the Lord had left us a Remnant and visibly interposed to do it we should not have had this place wherein to humble our solves before him We should have been as Sodem and we should have been like unto Gomorrah It was he that in the midst of Judgment remembred mercy when the flaming vengeance was in its height when in the opinion of all men it had arrived at the state of irresistibility and when every mans heart failed him when the hopes of all men were sunk into despair He checked the domineering vengeance he put up the flaming Sword he controul'd the streaming waves of sire and said thus farr shall ye come and no further In a wonderful manner he preserved the Goods and Persons of the poor Inhabitants of the City He restreined the rage of our enemies that cryed concerning our Jerusalem Down with it Down with it Aha! so would we have it He suffered not a foreign Enemy to land nor our domestick loes to make a head in our confusions He was a wall of fire about the persons of our Gracious Soveraign and his Royal Highness and of those valiant Noble Persons which adventured boldly and strenuously and indefatigably laboured the publique preservation He hath given signal Preservations and Victories to our Fleets abroad he hath restored our High-born and Noble-Generals and our Fleet in health and safety He hath given us plenty of all things necessary for the life of man In one great word to sum up an aggregation of great and various mercies he hath upheld our Religion and our Government in peace and for an earnest of his further preservation he hath given us this seasonable opportunity with health and safety in this place to attend the Publique Service to advise and assist in this arduous Juncture of affairs Arduous and difficult indeed it is to restore our City and defend our Country to restore the Houses of God and Publique Buildings to re-edifie ten Thousand private habitations to sustein the poor and needy to preserve the rights and properties of men to find such a temper of Justice and equity that there be no decay no just complaining in our Streets To uphold the Traffick of the Nation and to keep it in order and security free from private Robberies and publick Insurrections and therefore in order to all those ends to uphold our Religion in the zealous and effectual exercise in the sincerity and uniformity thereof to preserve it from encroachments and undermining Tollerations ruinous to Religion destructive to the Government of the Nation And all this while to make provision against our dangerous and cruel Enemies Gebal and Ammon and Amalech the French Dutch and the Dane who have conspired to our destruction These things are arduous but not insuperable difficult but not to be despaired of Concerning Jerusalem burned and laid wast by the Assyrians Daniel foretold that the streets and the walls thereof should be rebuilded even in troubleous times and when the time came that they were re-edified we read in Nehemiah that the labourers in one hand held the trowel and the other held a weapon one half of the people laboured in the work and the other half held the Spears the Shields the Bows and the Habergeons because of their cruel enemies on every side If God shall be pleased to give us a spirit of Understanding and teach our Senaters Wisdom If he shall pour out a publick spirit upon our Councels a spirit of tenderness and compassion of Justice and Equity Temperance and Frugality Fortitude and Magnanimity If all Orders and Degrees amongst us Civil and Military and Ecclesiastical shall take to themselves the spirits of Christians and of men If our Counsels and endeavours shall be answerable to the care and benignity to the fervour and strenuous industry of our gracious Soveraign and to the alacrity and magnanimity of our couragious and generous Country-men then speaking humanely and abstracting from our Deservings we need not greatly fear but we may yet subdue the pride and insolence of our barbarous Enemies we may yet behold our City rising out of its ashes in greater splendour than we have seen it heretofore Wherefore arise and gird your selves O ye Princes ye Nobles ye Rulers of our Israel Consult consider and give sentence Men Brethren and Fathers let us arise and labour let us up and be doing be strong and of good courage and the good hand of our God shall be upon you he shall give you the honour to be the defenders of your Country he shall make you repairers of the breaches restorers of our City to dwell in Yet I cannot I may not forbear to put you in remembrance of this one thing Except the Lord build the City their labour is but lost that build it It is not our wisdom or industry much less our confidence that will do it unless God be for us neither will God be for us unless we turn from the evil of our ways except we repent we have reason to fear that what we have seen hitherto will be no more but the beginning of our sorrows The Prophet Esay tells us That the Lord sent a word unto Jacob and it lighted on Israel and all the people shall know that say in the pride and stoutness of their hearts the Bricks are fallen but we will build with hewn Stones the Sycamores are down but we will change them into Cedars Therefore the Lord will set up their Adversaries and joyn their Enemies together the Syrians before and the Philistims behind and they shall devour Israel with open mouth Because this people turneth not to him that smiteth them Wherefore turn you turn you every one from the evil of his ways Let us search our hearts and try our ways and turn to him that hath smitten us Turn unto him with all our hearts with fasting and with weeping and mourning he hath smitten us and he will heal us because his compassions fail not Come and let us reason together saith God though your sins were as scarlet they shall be white as snow There is yet a way open to take away the terror of our Particular Judgment and to prevent a final Judgment from falling upon the Nation We are yet in the Land of hope and space is given for Repentance the door of mercy is not yet shut upon us nor the ears of our Judge sealed against us O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his Goodness and declare the wonders that he hath done for the children of men that hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our Iniquities that hath not cut us off in the midst of our sins nor in the height of our impenitencies snatched us away to Judgment that hath not dealt with us as with the Apostate Angels
call it betimes to thy remembrance Wouldst thou drive off thy thoughts of it to the time of sickness to the hour of death and rudely throw thy self upon it But then try and examine all these together contemplate a little upon the mixtures and combinations of them these will afford us many millions of millions of wayes farr exceeding the varieties of the corporeal nature which proceed from the mixture of fewer elements so many as will utterly confound our thoughts to number Who can reckon up the wayes of the hearts of the children of Men Who can understand his errors And now that he that hath the World to uphold the Planets and Stars to guide the course of nature to maintain should keep a Register of our impertinencies and bring to Judgment all the wayes of Men the traces of a Ship in the Sea of a Serpent upon a Rock Who hath believed our report we are apt to think it cannot be Surely he sees not these things Tush he cares not for them This is indeed the last resort of the treacherous hearts of men the grand imposture which resolves into a species of Atheism and Infidelity O but then if I shall use the language of the Scriptures I must call thee fool and beast to doubt of that which is plain and evident to disbelieve that which may be known This Article concerning the Judgment to come is not a problem of Philosophy to be disputed this way and that way with equal probability neither is it only an Article of faith but it is a principle of natural Theology the Scripture speaks of it under terms of greater evidence St. Paul reasoned with Felix he disputed with the Philosophers concerning it he speaks of the terror of Judgment under terms of certainty and of a kind of Demonstrative evidence Knowing the terror of the Law c. and here in the Text it is not said Think or believe But know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment He is a fool that hath said in his heart there is no God and he that thinks he hath no understanding may well be compared to the beasts that perish and so sure as there is a God and that man hath an understanding soul so surely it may be known That for all these things c. For if there be a God he must be infinitely just and if so he must render to every one according to their actions and if not here then hereafter and if so he must bring them to Judgment But he doth it not here The wayes of Providence seem to be promiscuous there is a wicked man to whom it happens according to the way of the righteous and a righteous man to whom it happens according to the way of the wicked Dives receives pleasure Lazarus pain therefore so sure as there is a God there will be a Judgment Again If man have an understanding soul he must have freedom in his actions and if so he deserves either good or evil and if there be deserts there must be rewards and if there be rewards there must be a Judgment So then so sure as thou art an understanding creature so sure there is a Judgment to come Once more Reward is answerable to desert and desert is only in what is free and what is free in man is the ways of his heart wherefore they are to be brought to Judgment and if any then all for no reason can be fancied why some should be brought to Judgment and others not Wherefore if it be sure that God is in Heaven and that Man hath an understanding soul then it is also sure that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment that God shall bring to judgment every secret thing And now how sure and evident are these things more sure and more plain if we will attend than any other truths in the world for there is not any known truth which doth not evict the truth of these things We know a truth because we plainly and evidently understand the composition or division of the notions in a Proposition or the Deduction of a Proposition from some others therefore if we know any truth we presuppose that we have souls which understand the notions of things and if souls which understand these notions then to be sure they are not bodies no combination os fire and air and earth and water no disposition of insensible atomes can cause the subject to apprehend and judge to reason and discourse and if they be no bodies then they are not subject to corruption It is evident therefore that our souls are understanding and also immortal deserving and capable of future Judgment And as evident it is also that there is a soveraign Power a God that governs and will judge the Earth This is not a Rhetorical undertaking but a just and measured truth there is not any thing in the world from whence these two may not be plainly and evidently evicted viz. a Godhead from the Creature and thine own Immortality from the discovery of a Godhead The world which thou seest had it a beginning or had it not if it had a beginning he is thy God that made it if it had no beginning then there are past as many myriads of years as minutes of time which is infinitely more absurd to grant than tosay thou hast as many hands as fingers as many wholes as parts If then at any time we find our selves to doubt of these things it is not because we are the beaux esprits or forts sprits our doubting proceeds from dulness and the want of that strong reason to which we do pretend the things are certain in themselves and evident He is not farr from any one of us in whom we live and move and have our being and the Light of Nature discovered our Immortality not only to Philosophers but even to the Heathen Poets to him that sung to us that We are also his off-spring So that now thy pretences are all taken off and every imposture of the heart discovered Return then once again into thy bosome and take account of thy apprehensions The day of the Lord is coming and stealing upon thee as a theif in the night the day of Judgment the great and terrible day A day of anguish and of gloominess a day of a whirlwind and a tempest a day of anguish and tribulation Where wilt thou hide thy self O that 's impossible Whether shall we goe then from his presence shall we call to the Mountains to fall upon us How wilt thou appear O that 's intollerable for our God is a consuming fire What wilt thou do when the day of Judgment comes and this may be the hour this minute thou mayst be smitten and hurried hence to Judgment Thousands have fallen besides us and Ten Thousands at our right hand and why may not we be next The time of our particular Judgment cannot be farr away and why may we
not reasonably apprehend the approach of the General Judgment either of this World or at leastwise of this sinful Nation Our Lord Christ indeed tells us that of the day and hour of the final Judgment Knoweth no man Yet he hath given us the signs of his coming The Apostles have left us Characters of the last days the Prophets have declared the manner and apparatus of the coming of the Lord to Judgment We read that when the Disciples admired the stones and the building of Herod's Temple at Jerusalem Christ told them That the day was coming when there should not be left one stone upon another upon this the Disciples ask him privately three Questions 1. When shall these things be 2. What shall be the sign of thy second coming And 3. of the end of World As for the precise moment of these things he denies to tell it them Nay he professes that as he was the Son of Man he did not know it But for the other two he cendescends to their curiosity he tells them the signs of his coming and of the end of the World and that they shall be such as these You shall hear saith he Matth. 24. of Warrs and rumours of Warrs Nation rising against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom There shall be Traytors and false Prophets Saying Lo here is Christ Behold a new Messias in the Wilderness Lo there is Christ Behold he is at a Conventicle in the secret Chambers He tells us that iniquity shall abound and the love of many shall wax cold that he shall hardly find faith on the earth as it was in the days of Noe they ate they drank till the floud came and swept them all away so shall the coming of the Son of Man be He tells us Luke 21. there shall be Famines and Earthquakes Pestilence and fearful sights great signs from Heaven in the Earth distress of Nations great perplexities the Sea and Waves roaring Mens hearts failing them for fear looking after those things that are coming upon the Earth Concerning the last days St. Paul tells us that there shall be perilous times that on one hand there shall be a sort of men that shall be lovers of themselves Covetous Proud Boasters Ranters and Blasphemers On the other hand there shall be a Race of heady high minded Traytors having a form of godliness creeping into houses leading captive silly women They shall despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities They shall be Separatists from the Church and false pretenders to the Spirit Thâ—se saith St. Jude are they that separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit St. Peter tells us that in the last times there should be a loose prophane a bold Atheistical Gigantick race of scoffers walking after their own lusts saying Where is this God of Judgment let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it Where is the promise of his coming since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were before And for the manner and Apparatus of his coming Our God shall come saith the Psalmist and shall not keep silence there shall go before him a devouring fire and a mighty Tempest shall be stirred up round about him Behold the Lord will come with fire saith the Prophet and with his Chariots like a Whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebukes with flames of fire The streams of Zion shall be turned into Pitch and the dust thereof into Brimstone the Earth thereof shall be burning Pitch the smoke thereof shall ascend day and night and shall not be quenched compare Revel 6. with Esai 34. The Kings of the Earth shall tremble the Captains and the mighty shall be horribly afraid the great men and the rich men shall hide themselves all the bond-men and all the freemen shall fly to the Rocks of the Mountains And soon after all this The Heavens shall be rivel'd as a sâ—râ—wl the Earth and the Elements shall melt away for God shall arise to judge terribly the Earth Have not all these things come upon us the men of this Generation Is it weakness is it a vain and superstitious scrupulosity to call these things to our remembrance Have we no reason at all to apprehend the approach of a General Judgment either upon the World or upon our sinful Nation Do we not now envy those despised souls which have made their accounts ready We thought it madness to see them pine away with poenitential exercises and macerate themselves with mourning We thought it folly which they called Conscience for which they denyed themselves the pleasures and enjoyments of the World We fools counted their life madness and their latter end to be without horror But the time is coming when they shall be comforted and we shall be tormented Because he hath called and we have refused he hath stretched out his hand and we have not regarded He will laugh at our calamity and mock when our fear cometh When our destruction cometh as a Whirlwind when distress and anguish comes upon us May we not therefore give up our selves to the torments of our hearts and surrender up our souls unto Despair so Israel said there is no hope we will follow every one the devices of his heart after 20 30 or 40 years continuance in our courses ' tisin vain to think of turning from them Our arrears are so farr gone that there is no hope to discharge them and why should we trouble our selves with the thoughts of our Account Nay that which must come let it come and what is a few days respite to Eternity Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye Let us go forth as at other times and shake our selves and scatter these troublesom apprehensions of future Judgment What if we should drink a little to drive away Melancholy Yes and fall perhaps and spew and rise no more Nay but I beseech you stay a little and consider consider at least in this your day the things which belong to your peace It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Who among us can dwell with a devouring fire Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings Such careless and desperate resolutions are the advantages which the Devil aims at that he may sear our Consciences and seal us up in a final obduration But there is another kind of advantage which God and our Lord Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Gospel and the Ministers aim at That advantage which I told you of in the beginning of my Discourse That knowing the terror of the Lord they may perswade men And now what is it that they would perswade us that we will be contented to part with the tormenting fears of Judgment that we will condescend not to be miserable to all Eternity That we will accept of deliverance from the wrath to come that we will not neglect so great salvation nor trample on the bloud of the everlasting Covenant