* Wc arc worthy, saitli Chrysostom, of hell, if for no other cause, yet for fearing hell and the es-il of punishment more than Ciirist. — Chrys. Horn. 5, in Epist. ad Rom. "' Ingenuousness.'— G. ^ Qu. ' Peter'?- -Ed.
IsA. XLTI. 24, 25.] the late fiery dispensation. 25
spreading judgments upon them : Eev. xv. 4, ' Who shall not fear thee, 0 Lord, and glorify thy name ? for thou only art holy : for all nations shall come and worship before thee ; for thy judgments are made manifest.' 0 sirs ! when the judgments of the Lord come to be made manifest, then it highly concerns all ranks and sorts of men to fear the Lord and to glorify his name. How manifest, how visible has the raging pestilence, and the bloody sword, and the devouring flames of London been in the midst of us ! and oh that our fear, and dread, and awe of God were as manifest and as visible as his judg- ments have been and still are ; for his hand to this very hour is stretched out against us ! Isa, ix. 12. But,
[3.] Thirdly, God inflicts great and sore judgments upon the sons of men, and upon cities and countries, to express and make knoivn Ms power, justice, anger, severity, and indignation against sinners and their sinful courses, by lohich he has been provoked : '^ Dent, xxxii. 19 ' And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the pro- voking of his sons and of his daughters.' Ver. 21, ' They have pro- voked me to anger with their vanities ; and I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.' Ver. 22, ' For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the moun- tains.' Ver. 24, ' They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, or with burning coals, and with bitter destruc- tion.' There is a knowledge of God by his works as well as by his word, and by his judgment as well as by his mercies. In his dreadful judgments every one may run and read his power, his justice, his anger, his severity, and his indignation against sin and sinners. It is irrevocable sins that bring irrevocable judgments upon sinners. Whilst men hold on in committing great iniquities, God will hold on in inflicting answerable severities. When God cannot prevail with men to desist from sinning, men shall not pre- vail with God to desist from destroying of them, their habitations and all their pleasant things : Jer. ii. 1.5, ' The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste : his cities are burnt without inhabitant.' Ver. 17, ' Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, when he led thee by the way?' When Nicephorus Phocas had built a mighty strong wall about his palace for his own security, in the night-time he heard a voice crying unto him, & ^aaikev v-^Itlol'^ TO, T6Lxn, <^c., 0 emperor, though thou bulkiest the wall as high as the clouds; yet if sin be within, it will overthrow all.2 Sin, like those traitors in the Trojan horse, will do cities and countries more hurt in one night than ten thousand open enemies could do in ten years. Cities and countries might flourish, and continue as the days of heaven, and be as the sun before the Almighty, if his wrath be not provoked by their profaneness and wickedness ; so that it is not any divine 3 aspect of the heavens, nor any malignant conjunction of the stars and planets, but the loose manners, the ungracious lives and
1 See Jer. xiv. 15, 16 ; Lam. iv. 11 ; Jer. iv. 15-19.
- Brooks's allusion is to the strong ' tower ' built by Xicephorus II. (Phocas) in his palace. Cf. Oihbon, xlviii. -s. ?i. — G. ^ Q". 'muliiin ' ?-- Ed.
26 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
the enormous sins of men, that lay cities and countries desolate: Jer xiii. 22, ' And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these thin<^s upon me ? wherefore hath the Lord sent plague, sword, famine, and tire to devour and destroy, and to lay all in aslies ?' The answer is, ' For the greatness of thine iniquity.' God will in flames of fire discover his anger and indignation against sin and sinners. The heathen historian [HerodotusJ observes in the ruin of Troy, that the sparkles and ashes of burnt Troy served for a lasting monument of God 8 great anger and displeasure against great sinners. The burn- ing of Tioy served to teach men that God j)unisheth great sinners with great plagues ; and certainly London's being laid in ashes is a high evidence that God knows how to be angry with sinners, and how to punish sin with the sorest of judgments. The gods of the Gentiles were senseless stocks and stones, not able to apprehend, much less to revenge, any injury done unto them. Well therefore might the philosopher be bold with Hercules to put him to his thir- teenth labour in seething of his dinner ; and Martial with Priapus, in threatening him to throw him into the fire if he looked not well to his trees. 1 A child may play at the hole of a dead asp, and a silly woman may strike a dead lion ; but who dare play with a living ser- pent ? who dare take a roaring lion by the beard ? Oh that Chris- tians then would take heed how they provoke the living God, for he is ' a consuming fire,' and with a word of his mouth, yea, with the breath of his mouth, he is able to throw down, and to burn up the whole frame of nature, and to destroy all creatures from the face of the earth. Some heathen philosophers thought anger an unseemly attribute to ascribe to God, and some heretics conceived the God of the New Testament void of all anger. They imagined two Gods : the God of the Old Testament was, in their account, DeiLS Justus, a Deity severe and revengefid : but the God of the New Testament was Deus bonus, the good God, a God made up all of mercy ; they would have no anger in him. But Christians do know that God proclaims this attribute among his titles of honour: Neh. i. 2, ' God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, and is furious ; he reserveth wrath for his enemies.' It is the highway to atheism and profaneness, to fancy to ourselves a God made up all of mercy, to think that God cannot tell how to be angry and wroth with the sons of men. Surely they that have seen London in flames, or believe that it is now laid in ashes, they will believe that God knows how to be angry, and how to fix the tokens of his wrath upon us. But,
[4.] Fourthly, God inflicts great and sore judgments upon the sons of men, and upon cities and countries, that they may cease from sin, receive instruction, and reform and return to the most High; as you may evidently see by comparing the scriptures in the margin together.2 God's corrections should be our instructions, his lashes should be our lessons, his scourges should be our schoolmasters, his chastisements should be our advertisements : and to note this the
' Epig., lib. viii. ; Ep. xl. — G.