gone backward therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee and deliver thee I am weary of repenting By our obstinate impenitency we harden the heart of God against us and make him weary of repenting And when his soul is thus departed from a People nothing remains but a fearful expectation of ruin Wo unto them saith God by the Prophet when I depart from them Therefore be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited Having given this account of the Words I shall observe from them three things well worth our consideration First The infinite goodness and patience of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruin and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is He that things should come to this extremity He is not without great difficulty and some kind of violence as it were offered to himself brought to this severe resolution his soul is as it were rent and disjointed from them Secondly You see here what is the only proper and effectual means to prevent the misery and ruin of a sinful People If they will be instructed and take warning by the threatnings of God and will become wiser and better then his soul will not depart from them he will not bring upon them the desolation which he hath threatned Thirdly You have here intimated the miserable case and condition of a People when God takes off his affection from them and gives over all further care and concernment for them Wo unto them when his soul departs from them For when God once leaves them then all sorts of evils and calamities will break in upon them I shall speak as briefly as I can to these three Observations from the Text. First I observe the infinite patience and goodness of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruin and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is God that things should come to this He is very patient to particular persons notwithstanding their great and innumerable provocations God is strong and patient though men provoke him every day And much greater is his patience to whole Nations and great Communities of men How great was it to the old World when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty years And did not expire till he saw that the wickedness of man was grown great upon the earth and that all flesh had corrupted its way not till it was necessary to drown the World to cleanse it and to destroy Mankind to reform it by beginning a new World upon the only righteous Family that was left of all the last generation of the Old For so God testifies concerning Noah when he commanded him to enter into the Ark saying Come thou and all thy house into the Ark for thee that is thee only have I seen righteous before me in this Generation The patience of God was great likewise to Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities about them For when the cry of their sins had reached heaven and called loud for vengeance to be poured down upon them to express the wonderful patience of God towards such grievous Sinners though nothing is hid from his sight and knowledge yet he is represented as coming down from Heaven to Earth on purpose to enquire into the truth of things and whether they were altogether according to the cry that was come up to him And when he found things as bad as was possible yet then was he willing to have come almost to the lowest terms imaginable that if there had been but ten righteous persons in those wicked Cities he would not have destroy'd them for the ten 's sake Nay he seems to come to lower terms yet with the City of Jerusalem Jer. 5.1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if ye can find a man if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth and I will pardon it What can be imagin'd more slow and mild and merciful than the proceedings of the Divine justice against a sinful People God is represented in Scripture as taking a long time to make ready his bow and to whet his glittering sword before his hand takes hold of vengeance as if the instruments of his wrath lay by him blunt and rusty and unready for use Many a time he threatens and many a time lifts up his hand before he gives the fatal blow And how glad is he when any good man will step in and interpose to stay his hand As we read Psal 106.23 Therefore he said speaking of the People of Israel that he would destroy them had not Moses his servant stood in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them And how kindly doth God take it of Phinehas as a most acceptable piece of service done to him and which he hardly knew how sufficiently to reward that he was a means of putting a stop to his anger against the People of Israel Insomuch that the Psalmist tells us that it was accounted to him for righteousness to all generations for evermore I will recite the whole passage at large because it is remarkable When the People of Israel were seduced into Idolatry and Whoredom by the Daughters of Moab Phinehas in great zeal stood up and executed judgment upon Zimri and Cozbi in the very act By which means the Plague which was broken out upon the Congregation of Israel was presently stayed Hear what God says to Moses concerning this act of Phinehas The Lord spake unto Moses saying Phinehas the son of Eleazer the son of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the Children of Israel whilst he was zealous for my sake that I consumed them not Wherefore say Behold I give unto him my Covenant of peace and he shall have it and his seed after him even the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the Children of Israel That which God takes so kindly at his hands next to his zeal for Him is that he pacified God's wrath towards the Children of Israel And thus did God from time to time deal with the People of Israel that great Example of the Old Testament of the merciful methods of the Divine Providence towards a sinful Nation And an Example as St. Paul tells us purposely recorded for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come Let us therefore consider a little the astonishing patience of God towards that perverse People After all the signs and wonders which he had wrought in their deliverance out of Egypt and for their support in the Wilderness and notwithstanding
vouchsafed to us Because this is an argument of great ingratitude And this we find recorded as a heavy charge upon the People of Israel that they remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side neither shewed they kindness to the House of Jerubbaal namely Gideon who had been their Deliverer according to all the goodness which he had shewed to Israel God we see takes it very ill at our hands when we are ungrateful to the Instruments of our Deliverance but much more when we are unthankful to Him the Author of it And how severely does Nathan the Prophet reproach David upon this account Thus said the Lord God of Israel I anointed thee King over Israel and delivered thee out of the hand of Saul c. And if this had been too little I would moreover have done such and such things Wherefore hast thou despis'd the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight God here reckons up his manifold mercies and deliverances and aggravates David's Sin upon this account And he was very angry likewise with Solomon for the same reason because he had turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appear'd to him twice However we may slight the mercies of God he keeps a punctual and strict account of them It is particularly noted as a great blot upon Hezekiah that he returned not again according to the benefits done unto him God takes very severe notice of all the unkind and unworthy returns that are made to Him for his Goodness Ingratitude to God is so unnatural and monstrous that we find Him appealing against us for it to the inanimate Creatures Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourish'd and brought up Children but they have rebelled against me And then he goes on and upbraids them with the Brute Creatures as being more grateful to men than men are to God The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass her Masters Crib but Israel doth not know my People doth not consider And in the same Prophet there is the like complaint Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but the shall see and be ashamed They that will not acknowledge the Mercies of God's Providence shall feel the strokes of his Justice There is no greater evidence in the World of an intractable disposition than not to be wrought upon by kindness not to be melted by mercies not to be obliged by benefits not to be tamed by gentle usage Nay God expects that his mercies should lay so great an obligation upon us that even a Miracle should not tempt us to be unthankful If there arise among you a Prophet says Moses to the People of Israel or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder cometh to pass whereof he spake to thee saying let us go after other Gods and serve them thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet And he gives the reason because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord God of Israel which brought you out of the Land of Egypt and delivered you out of the House of Bondage 3. It is a greater aggravation yet after gteat Mercies and Judgments to return to the same Sins Because this can hardly be without our sinning against knowledge and after we are convinced how evil and bitter the Sin is which we were guilty of and have been so sorely punish'd for before This is an argument of a very perverse and incorrigible temper and that which made the Sin of the People of Israel so above measure sinful that after so many signal Deliverances and so many terrible Judgments they fell into the same Sin of murmuring ten times murmuring against God the Author and against Moses the glorious Instrument of their Deliverance out of Egypt which was one of the two great Types of the Old Testament both of temporal and spiritual Oppression and Tyranny Hear with what resentment God speaks of the ill returns which they made to him for that great Mercy and Deliverance Because all these men which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the Wilderness and have tempted me now these ten times and have not hearkned unto my voice surely they shall not see the Land which I sware to their Fathers And after he had brought them into the promised Land and wrought great Deliverances for them several times how does he upbraid them with their proneness to fall again into the same Sin of Idolatry And the Lord said unto the Children of Israel did not I deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites from the Children of Ammon and from the Philistins The Zidonians also and the Amalekites and Maonites did oppress you and ye cryed unto me and I delivered you out of their hand yet you have forsaken me and served other Gods wherefore I will deliver you no more go and cry unto the Gods which ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation This incensed God so highly against them that they still relaps'd into the same Sin of Idolatry after so many afflictions and so many deliverances Upon such an occasion well might the Prophet say Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy sins shall reprove thee know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God It is hardly possible but we should know that the wickedness for which we have been so severely corrected is an evil and bitter thing Thus much for the first part of the Observation namely that it is a fearful aggravation of Sin after great Judgments and great deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again I proceed to the Second part namely That this is a fatal presage of ruin to a People Should we again break thy Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these abominations wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping And so God threatens the People of Israel in the Text which I cited before wherefore I will deliver you no more Wherefore that is because they would neither be reform'd by the Afflictions wherewith God had exercised them nor by the many wonderful Deliverances which he had wrought for them And there is great reason why God should deal thus with a People that continues impenitent both under the Judgments and Mercies of God 1. Because this doth ripen the Sins of a Nation and it is time for God to put in his Sickle when a People are ripe for ruin When the
all things on all sides to bring the thing which the Providence of God intended to a happy issue and effect And we must not here forget the many Worthies of our Nation who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune for the preservation of our Religion and the asserting of our ancient Laws and Liberties These are all strange and unusual means but which is stranger yet the very counsels and methods of our Enemies did prepare the way for all this and perhaps more effectually than any counsel and contrivance of our own could have done it For even the Jesuits those formal Politicians by Book and Rule without any consideration or true knowledge of the temper and interest and other circumstances of the People they were designing upon and had to deal withal and indeed without any care to know them I say the Jesuits who for so long a time and for so little reason have affected the reputation of the deepest and craftiest States-men in the World have upon this great Occasion and when their whole Kingdom of Darkness lay at stake by a more than ordinary infatuation and blindness so outwitted and over-reach'd themselves in their own counsels that they have really contributed as much or more to our Deliverance from the Destruction which they had designed to bring upon us than all our wisest and best Friends could have done And then if we consider further how sudden and surprising it was so that we could hardly believe it when it was accomplish'd and like the Children of Israel when the Lord turned again the Captivity of Zion we were like them that dream When all things were driving on furiously and in great haste then God gave an unexpected check to the Designs of men and stopp'd them in their full cariere Who among us could have imagin'd but a few Months ago so happy and so speedy an end of our fears and troubles God hath at once scatter'd all our fears and outdone all our hopes by the greatness and suddenness of our Deliverance O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men And lastly If we consider the cheapness and easiness of this Deliverance All this was done without a Battel and almost without Blood All the danger is lest we should loath it and grow sick of it because it was so very easy Had it come upon harder terms and had we waded to it through a Red Sea of Blood we would have valued it more But this surely is great wantonness and whatever we think of it one of the highest provocations imaginable For there can hardly be a fouler and blacker Ingratitude towards Almighty God than to slight so great a Deliverance only because it came to us so easily and hath cost us so very cheap I will mention but one Circumstance more which may not be altogether unworthy our observation That God seems in this Last Deliverance in some sort to have united and brought together all the great Deliverances which He hath been pleas'd to work for this Nation against all the remarkable attempts of Popery from the beginning of our Reformation Our wonderful Deliverance from the formidable Spanish Invasion design'd against us happen'd in the Year 1588. And now just a hundred years after God was pleased to bring about this last great and most happy Deliverance That horrid Gun-powder Conspiracy without Precedent and without Parallel was design'd to have been executed upon the Fifth Day of November the same Day upon which his Highness the Prince of Orange landed the Forces here in England which he brought hither for our Rescue So that this is a Day every way worthy to be solemnly set apart and joyfully celebrated by this Church and Nation throughout all Generations as the fittest of all other to comprehend and to put us in mind to commemorate all the great Deliverances which God hath wrought for Us from Popery and its inseparable Companion Arbitrary Power And we may then say with the Holy Psalmist This is the Lord 's doing it is marvellous in our eyes This is the Day which the Lord hath made we will rejoice and be glad in it Secondly As the Case in the Text is much like Ours so let us take heed that the Doom and Sentence there be not so too If after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass and since God hath punish'd us less than our iniquities did deserve should we again break his Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these Abominations would He not be angry with us till he had consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping What could we in reason expect after all this but utter ruin and destruction We may here apply as St. Paul does God's Dealing with the People of Israel to the Times of the Gospel for he speaks of it as an Example and Admonition to all Ages to the end of the World Now these things says the Apostle were our Examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted Neither be ye Idolaters as were some of them c. Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of Serpents For the explication of this passage we must have recourse to the History which gives this account of it And the People spake against God and against Moses Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the Wilderness c. impeaching God and his Servant Moses as if by this Deliverance they had put them into a much worse condition than they were in when they were in Egypt And the Lord sent fiery Serpents among the People and they bit the People and much People of Israel died \ But how was this a tempting of Christ Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted that is let not us now under the Gospel tempt our Saviour and Deliverer as the Israelites did theirs by slighting that great Deliverance and by speaking against God and against Moses Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the Destroyer And how far this may concern Us and all Others to the end of the World who shall tempt Christ the great Patron and Deliverer of his Church and murmur without cause as the Israelites did at the Deliverances which He works for them and against the Instruments of it the Apostle tells us in the next words Now all these things happened unto them for Ensamples or Types and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come Let us not tempt Christ who is now beginning the Glorious Deliverance of his Church from the Tyranny of Antichrist To draw now towards a Conclusion I will comprehend my Advice to you upon the whole matter in as few words as I can Let us use this great Deliverance which God