[4.] Fourthly, Fire is 'probatory and vefitiing, and so are the judg- ments of God ; they will try what metal men are made of ; they will try whether men are sound and sincere, or hypocritical and hollow ; whether men are real Christians or nominal Christians ; whether they are throughout Christians or almost Christians ; whether their graces are true or counterfeit, and whether they have much, or but a little, grace, Isa. i. 25 ; Mai. iii. 1-3 ; Acts xxvi. 28, 29. Isa. xxxi. 9, ' The Lord's fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem :/ Zech. xiii. 9, ' And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried :' 1 Pet. iv. 12 ' Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you.' Stars shine brightest in the darkest night. Torches are the better for beating. Grapes come not to the proof till they come to the press. Spices smell sweetest when pounded. Young trees root the faster for shaking. Vines are the better for bleeding. Gold looks the brighter for scouring; and juniper smells sweetest in the fire. The application is easy. But,
[5.] Fifthly, Fire is of a consuming and devouring nature, as we have lately found by woeful experience: Ps. xviii. 8, ' There went out a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured :' Jer, XV. 14, ' A fire is kindled in my anger, which shall burn upon you : ' Ezek. xxii. 31, ' Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them ; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath ;' Isa. Ixvi. 15, 16 ; Ps. xxi. 9 ; Jer. xvii. 4 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 19, 20.' Natural fire is a great devourer, but mystical fire, the fire of divine wrath, is infinitely a greater devourer. Men may stand before a natural fire| but no man has ever been able to stand before the devourino- fire of divine wrath. The anger and wrath of God against wicked men is exceeding hot ; it is a burning, fiery, flaming wrath, against which they are never able to stand : Isa.. xxvii. 4, ' Who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle ? I would go through them, I would burn them together.' Briers and thorns are as well able to stand before a devouring fire, as wicked men are able to stand before the smoking wrath of that God which is ' a consuming fire,' Heb. xii. 29.
[6.] Sixthly, Fire breaks out suddenly and unexpectedly ; in an hour, in a moment, when no man thinks of it, when no man looks for it ; as you see by that late dreadful fire, that in a few days turned a glorious city into a ruinous heap. So the judgments of God, they come sud- denly and unexpectedly upon the sons of men. Witness the judgments of God that came upon the old world, Sodom and Gomorrah, Nadab and Abihu, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram : 1 Thes. v. 3, ' For when they shall say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon
20 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLTI. 24, 25.
them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.' ►Security is a certain forerunner of desolation and destruction. The apostle, by the similitude he uses, shews that the destruction of the wicked is — (1.) certain, (2.) sudden, (3.) inevitable. Mat. xxiv. 37-39; Gen. xix. But,
[7.] Seventhly, Fire is imjyartial ; it makes no difference between rich and poor, high and low, iionourable and base, bond and free, male and female, <fec. So the judgments of God are impartial, they reach all sorts and ranks of persons. But,
[S.] Eighthly and lastly, Fire is violent and iiTesistihle. We have hail as dreadfid a proof of this in the late dreadful confiagi-ation of London as ever any i)eople have had since the Lord Jesus was on earth. 8o are the judgments of God violent and irresistible. Witness the raging pestilence and the bloody sword that, in 1665 and 1666, has sent many score thousands to their long homes. And thus you see how that metaphorically or typically great and sore judgments do re- semble fire. But,
(2.) Secondly, Premise this with me : Fire is sometimes attributed unto God : Heb. xii. 29, ' Our God is a consuming fire.' Sometimes fire is attributed to Christ : Mai. iii. 2, ' But who may abide the day of his coming ? and Avho shall stand when he appeareth ? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.' And sometimes fire is attri- buted to the Holy Ghost : Mat. iii. 11, '1 indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire' — that is, with that fiery Holy Ghost, that spirit of judgment and of burning wherewith the filth of the daughter of Zion is washed away, Isa. iv. 4. But,
(3.) Tliirdly, Premise this with me : The luordjire in Scripture is sometimes used by the Holy Ghost to set forth sin by : Isa. ix. 18, ' For wickedness burnetii as the fire, it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.' So the burning lust of unclean- ness : Rom. i. 27, ' They burned in lust one towards another.' So 1 Cor. vii. 9, ' It is better to marry than to burn.' And so Sodom was first in a flame of burning lusts, before it was burned with fire from heaven. But this is not the fire that is here meant in the proposition that we are upon. But,
(4.) Fourthly, Premise this with me: Fire is sometimes taken for the blessed angels : Ps. civ, 4, ' Who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire,' Heb. i. 7. Hence it is that the angels are called serai)hims, which signifies burning or flaming ones, and they are set forth by this name to note their ii-resistible power, Isji. vi. 2 ; for as there is no withstanding of the furious flames, so there is no withstanding of these burning or flaming ones. Jerome, Musculus, and several others, are of opinion that the angel that destroyed of Sen- nacherib's host a hundred and fourscore and five thousand in one night, that he did it by fire, burning their bodies, their garments being un- touched, 2 Kings xix. 35. But the fire in the proposition cannot be understood of the blessed angels, for several reasons not here to be alleged. Bu(,
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 21
(5.) Fifthly, Premise this with me : Fire in Scripture is sometimes taken for loars : 'The fire of thine enemies' — that is, the wars that shall be amongst the nations—' shall devour them.' ' Thou shalt be visited of the Lord with a flame of devouring fire ; but the nations that fight against the altar shall be a dream,' Isa. xxvi. 11, 12, &c., and xxix. 6, 7. Now fire in this sense is not to be excluded out of the proposition. But,