Dionysius, the Sicilian king, to excuse himself from the present delivery of the golden garment he took from his god Apollo, answered, that such a robe as that was could not be at any season of the year useful to his god, for it would not keep him warm in the winter, and it was too heavy for the summer, and so put off his idol god. But the God of spirits, the God of all flesh, will not be put off with any excuses or pretences, when he shall try and judge the children of men. But,
5. Fifthly and lastly, I answer, That it is a very great judgment to be given up to follow evil examples, Mat. xviii. 7. A man given up to evil examples is a man sadly left of God, wofully blinded by Satan, and desperately hardened in sin. It speaks a man ripe for wrath, for ruin, for hell : Jer. vi. 21, ' Behold,2 I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them ; the neighbour and his friend shall perish/ Oh ! it is a dreadful thing when God shall make the sinful examples of others to be stumbling-blocks to a people, at which they shall stumble, and fall, and perish for ever ; good had it been for such persons that they had never been born, as Christ once spake concerning Judas, Mat. xxvi. 24.
The Rhodians and Lydians enacted several laws, that those sons which followed not their fathers in their virtues, but followed vicious examples, should be disinherited, and their lands given to the most
1 Oculos quas peccatum. claudit, poena aperit. — Gregory, The eyes that sin shuts, afflic- tion opens ; and Jonah found it so.
* This particle, Behold, is sometimes, (1.) a note of derision, Gen. iii. 22 ; (2.) a note of attention often, Isa. xxviii. 2; Mai. i- 13; Luke i. 20 ; (3 ) a note of admiration often ; (4.) a note of asseveration ; (5.) a note of castigation ; in all these senses \vu may take it here. — Varro.
1 Kings XIV. 13.] apples of gold. 273
virtuous of that race, not admitting any impious heir whatsoever to in- herit ; and do you think that God will not disinherit all those of heaveu and happiness who follow vicious examples ? Doubtless he will, 1 Cor. x. 5-12.
Objection (5). The fifth and last objection I shall mention is this, God is a God of mercy; in him are bowels of mercy, yea, a sea, an ocean of mercy; lie loves mercy, he delights in mercy, and he is ready to shew mercy to poor sinners, when they are even at the last cast, when there is but a short stride between them and the grave, between them and eternity; as we see in his extending mercy to the thief, and, in his giving a pardon into his hand, and the assurance of paradise into his bosom, when he was ready to be turned off the ladder of life ; and therefore I may spend the primrose of my days in following sin, and the delights, profits, vanities, and contents of this world, and at last cast I may have mercy as well as the thief. God is a God made up of mercy, and surely he will not deny some crumbs of mercy to a poor sinner in misery, &c.
Now to this objection I shall give these following answers.
1. First, God is as just as he is merciful y1 witness his casting the angels out of heaven, and Adam out of paradise ; witness all the threatenings, the curses, the woes, that the Bible is filled with, from one end to the other ; witness the hell, the horror, the terror and amazement that he raises in the consciences of sinners ; witness the devastations that he hath made of the most stately and flourishing towns, cities, countries, and kingdoms, that have been in all the world; witness the variety of diseases, calamities, miseries, dangers, deaths, and hells, that always attend the inhabitants of the world ; but above all, witness Christ's treading the wine-press of his Father's wrath ; witness his hiding his face from him, and the pouring out of all his displeasure and vengeance upon him.
Zeleucus, the Locrensian lawgiver, thrust out one of his own son's eyes, for his transgressing of a wholesome law which he had enacted/ but God the Father thrust out both Christ's eyes for our transgressing of his royal law. Oh ! the justice and severity of God. But,
2. Secondly, I answer, That there is not a greater evidence of blind- ness, profaneness, hard-heartedness, spiritual madness, and hellish desperateness in all the world, than to make that an argument, an encouragement to sin, viz. the mercy of God, which should be the greatest argument under heaven to keep a man from sin : as all know that have but read the Scripture ; neither are there any sinners in the world that God delights to rain hell out of heaven upon, as upon such, who by their abuse of mercy, turn the God of mercy into a God of clouts/3 and go on out-daring justice itself:4 Deut. xxix. 19, 20, 'And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace (God is a God of mercy), though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst.' The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord^
1 God is as well all hand to puni sh, as he is all grace to pardon.
2 Valerius [Max.] lib. v. cap. 5 [§ 3]. [Rather Zaleucus. Besides Val. Max., see Aelian, V. H. xiii. 24. — G.] 8 A mere scare-crow, to threaten without accomplishing.
4 Read Isa. xxii. 12-15, and Ezek. xxiv. 11-14. VOL. I. S
274? APPLES OF GOLD. [1 KlNGS XIV. 13.
and his jealousy, shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven/ In these words you may observe, that God is absolute in his threatening, to shew that he will be resolute in punishing:1 Ps. xi. 5, 6, 'The wicked, and him that loveth iniquity, doth his soul hate. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest : this shall be the portion of their cup.'
Ah ! that all poor sinners would make these two scriptures their com- panions, their constant bed-fellows, till they are got above that sad temptation of turning the mercy of God into an encouragement to sin. Whilst Milo Crotoniates was tearing asunder the stock of an oak, his strength failing him, — the cleft suddenly closing, — was held so fast by the hands, that he became a prey to the beasts of the field.2 All the abusers of mercy will certainly and suddenly become a prey to the justice of God, that will rend and tear them in pieces, as the Psalmist speaks : Ps. 1. 22, ' Woe, woe, to that soul that fights against God with his own mercies ;' that will be bad, because he is good ; that will be sinful, because he is merciful ; that will turn all the kindness of God, that should be as so many silver cords, to tie him to love and obedience, into arrows, and to shoot them back into the heart of God. Abused mercy will at'last turn into a lion, a fierce lion ; and then woe to the abusers and despisers of it ! But,