' Yet he knew not.' Though God had burnt them up on every hand, yet they took no notice of it, they regarded it not, they were not at all affected with the fiery dispensations of God.^ Oh the dulness, the insensibleness, the sottishness of the Jews under the most awakening and amazing judgments of God ! ' And it burned him.' This some apply to the city of Jerusalem itself. God did not only fire the cities and towns round about Jerusalem, but he also set Jeru- salem itself into a flame. Jerusalem, which was ' beautiful for situ- ation, the joy of the whole earth,' the paradise and wonder of the world, is turned into ashes. ' Yet he laid it not to heart,' or upon his heart, as the original runs. Oh the monstrous stupidity, insensible- ness, and blockishness of this people ! Though God had brought them low, though their crown was fallen from their head, though their glorious city was turned into ashes, and though they were almost destroyed by many smarting miseries and dreadful calamities, yet they were not affected with the stupendous judgments of God, they were not awakened by all the flames that God had kindled about their ears, they did not lay the judgments of God to heart, nor they would not lay the judgments of God upon their hearts,
4. The fourth thing observable in the words is, the persons, the 'people that ivere spoiled, destroyed, and consumed hy fire; and they were Jacob and Israel. ' Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers?' They were a praying people, a professing people, a fasting people, a pecidiar people, a privileged people ; and yet for their
^ Diodorus Siculus writes, that in Ethiopia there is such a sottish insensible people, that if you cut them with a drawn sword, or slay their wives and children before their faces, they are not at all affected with it, nor moved at it. Such brutes were these Jews.
16 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
sins they became a destroyed people, a consumed people, a ruined people, Isa. Iviii. 2 ; Zecli. vii. 5 ; Exod. xix. 5.
5. The fiftli thinf;^ observable in the words is, the little effect the judgments of (rod had iijMn them. Now they were under such mon- strous stupidity that they were not [at] all awakened nor aftected with the judgments of God; they regarded them not, they laid them not to heart. And as stu})id and senseless were they when Titus Ves- pasian had laid their city desolate by fire and sword,i and sold thirty of them for one piece of silver, as Josephus and other historians tell us. 0 sirs, since their crucifying of the Lord of glory, they have never laid their finger upon the right sore ; to this very day they won't acknowledge their sin in crucifying of the Lord of glory. They confess they have sinned more than ever, and therefore it is that God hath more sorely afflicted them than ever ; but their cruelty to Christ, their crucifying of Christ, which ushered in the total ruin of their city and country, they cannot be brought to acknowledge to this very day, though the Lord hath burnt them up on every hand, and hath scat- tered them as dung all over the earth to this very day. A learned writer tells us that they call Christ Bar-chozab, the Bon of a Lie, a Bastard, and his Gospel Aven Gilaion, the Volume of Lies, or the Volume of Iniquity, and us Christians Goiim, that is. Gentiles, Edom- ites. When they salute a Christian, they call him Shed, that is, Devil.2 They hate all Christians, but none so much as those that are converted from Judaism to Christianity, and all this after so great a burning and desolation that the Lord has made in the midst of them. It is trua the length of those heavy judgments under wliich they groan to this very day hath often puzzled the intellectuals of their Eabbis, and hath many times put them to a stand, and sometimes to break out into a kind of confession, that surely their judgments could not last so long, but for crucifying of one that was more than a man. There was one Rabbi Samuel, who, six hundred years since, wrote a tract in form of an epistle to Rabbi Isaac, master of the synagogue of the Jews, wherein he doth excellently discuss the cause of their long captivity and extreme misery. And after that he had proved it was inflicted for some grievous sin, he sheweth that sin to be the same which Amos speaks of, Amos ii. 6, ' For three transgres- sions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they sold the righteous for silver.' The selling of Joseph he makes the first sin; the worshipping of the calf in Horeb, the second sin ; the abusing and killing of God's pro2)hets, the third sin; and the selling of Jesus Christ," the fourth sin. For the first they served four hundred years in Egypt, for the second they wan- dered forty years in the wilderness, for the third they were captives seventy years in Babylon, and for the fourth they are held in pitiful captivity even till this day. It is certain that the body of that people are under woeful blindness and hardness to this very day. And thus much for the 0]^)ening of the words.
^ By Titus Vespasian their land became a stage of blood and of all kind of barbarisms, and now their so renowned city, their temple and sanctum sanctorum, so famed all the world over, was turned into ashes and laid level to the ground.
' Buxtorf. Synag. Judaica, cap. .5 and cap 3C.
XSA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 17
The 25th verse is the scripture that I do intend to speak something to, as the Lord shall assist. Now the proposition which I only intend to insist upon is this, viz : —
That God is the author or effipient cause of all tlie great calamities and dreadful judgments that are inflicted upon cities and countries, and in particidar, of thcd of fire.
Now, that God is the author or efficient cause of all the great calamities and dreadful judgments that are inflicted upon cities and countries, will evidently appear to every man's understanding, that will but take the pains to read over the 26th chapter of Leviticus, and the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, with that 14th of Ezekiel, from ver. 13 to ver. 22.