Remedy (2). The second remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That God is as just as he is merciful. As the Scriptures speak him out to be a very merciful God, so they speak him out to be a very just God. Witness his casting the angels out of heaven, 2 Peter ii. 4-6, and his binding them in chains of dark- ness2 till the judgment of the great day ; and witness his turning Adam out of paradise, his drowning of the old world, and his raining hell out of heaven upon Sodom ; and witness all the crosses, losses, sicknesses, and diseases, that be in the world ; and witness Tophet, that was prepared of old ; wituess his 'treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath, unto the revelation of the just judgments of God ; but above all, witness the pouring forth of all his wrath upon his bosom Son, when he did bear the sins of his people, and cried out, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Mat. xxvii. 46.
Remedy (3). The third remedy against this device of Satan is, seriously to consider, That si7is against mercy will bring the greatest and sorest judgments upon mien's heads and hearts. Mercy is Alpha, Justice is Omega. David, speaking of these attributes, placeth mercy in the foreward, and justice in the rearward, saying, ' My song shall be of mercy and judgment/ Ps. ci. 1. When mercy is despised, then justice takes the throne.4 God is like a prince, that sends not his army against rebels before he hath sent his pardon, and proclaimed it by a herald of arms : he first hangs out the white flag of mercy ; if this wins men in, they are happy for ever ; but if they stand out, then God will put forth his red flag of justice and judgment ;- if the one is despised, the other shall be felt with a witness.5
See this in the Israelites. He loved them and chose them when they were in their blood, and most unlovely. He multiplied them, not by means, but by miracle ; from seventy souls they grew in few years to six hundred thousand ; the more they were oppressed, the more they prospered. Like camomile, the more you tread it, the more you .spread it ; or to a palm-tree, the more it is pressed, the further it spreadeth ; or to fire, the more it is raked, the more it burnetii. Their mercies came in upon them like Job's messengers, one upon the neck of the other : He put off their sackcloth, and girded them with glad- ness, and ' compassed them about with songs of deliverance ;' he ' carried them on the wings of eagles ;' he kept them 'as the apple of his eye,' &c.6 But they, abusing his mercy, became the greatest objects of his wrath. As I know not the man that can reckon up
1 A me, me salva Domine ; Deliver me, 0 Lord, from that evil man myself. — Aug- \\istine\
■ God hanged them up in gihbets, as it were, that others might hear and fear, and do no more so wickedly. 8 Cf. Rom. ii. 5 ; but it is the sinner, not God. — G.
* QuanCo gradus altior, tanto casus gravior ; the higher we are in dignity, the more grievous is our fall and misery.
6 Dens tardus est ad iram, sed larditatem gravitate pcenai compensat ; God is slow to anger, but he recompenseth his slowness with grievousuess of punishment. If we nbuse mercy to serve our lust, then, in Salvian'a phrase, God will rain hell out of Leaven, rather than not visit fur such sins.
6 Ps. xxxii. 7 ; Exod. six, 4 ; Deut. zxzii. 10. — G.
2 Cor. II. 11.] against satan's devices. 29
their mercies, so I know not the man that can sum up the miseries that are come upon them for their sins. For as our Saviour prophesied concerning Jerusalem, ' that a stone should not be left upon a stone,' so it was fulfilled forty years after his ascension, by Vespasian the emperor and his son Titus, who, having besieged Jerusalem, the Jews were oppressed with a grievous famine, in which their food was old shoes, old leather, old hay, and the dung of beasts. There died, partly of^the sword and partly of the famine, eleven hundred thousand of the poorer sort ; two thousand in one night were embowelled ; six thou- sand were burned in a porch of the temple ; the whole city was sacked and burned, and laid level to the ground ; and ninety-seven thousand taken captives, and applied to base and miserable service, as Eusebius and Josephus saith.1 And to this day, in all parts of the world, are they not the off-scouring of the world ? None less beloved, and none more abhorred, than they.2
And so Capernaum, that was lifted up to heaven, was threatened to be thrown down to hell. No souls fall so low into hell, if they fall, as those souls that by a hand of mercy are lifted up nearest to heaven. You slight souls that are so apt to abuse mercy, consider this, that in the gospel days, the plagues that God inflicts upon the despisers and abusers of mercy are usually spiritual plagues ; as blindness of mind, hardness of heart, benumbedness of conscience, which are ten thousand times worse than the worst of outward plagues that can befall you. And therefore, though you may escape temporal judgments, yet you shall not escape spiritual judgments : ' How shall we escape, if neglect so great salvation V Heb. ii. 3,3 saith the apostle. Oh ! therefore, when- ever Satan shall present God to the soul as one made up all of mercy, that he may draw thee to do wickedly, say unto him, that sins against mercy will bring upon the soul the greatest misery ; and therefore whatever becomes of thee, thou wilt not sin against mercy, &c.
Remedy (4). The fourth remedy against this device of Satan, is seri- ously to consider, That though God's general mercy be over all his works, yet his special mercy is confined to those that are divinely qualified* So in Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7, ' And the Lord passed by before me, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keep- ing mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.' Exodus xx. 6, ' And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my command-
1 Vespasian brake into their city at Kedron, where they took Christ, on the same feast day that Christ was taken; he whipped them where they whipped Christ; he sold twenty Jews for a penny, as they sold Christ for thirty pence. — S. Andr. Cat. [Sic in all editions; but qu. St Augustine, De Civitate Dei? — G.]
2 Men are therefore worse, because they ought to be belter ; and shall be deeper in hell, because heaven was offered unto them ; but they would not. Ingmtia beneficia, flagitia, supplicia. Good turns aggravate unkindnesses, and men's offences are increased by their obligations. [Eusebius, Eccl Hist, sub Jerusal. Josephus, Jewish War, Book vi. 5, et alibi. — G.] 3 upiXvo-avTi;. Shift off, disregard.