' Holinshcd's Chronicle. - Ilolcot. in lib. Sap. [US;3, folio. — G.]
ISA. XLII. 24, 25. J THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 35
The more general any judgment is, the more it should put us in mind of the general day of judgment. Now the burning of London was a general judgment, a judgment that reaches from one end of the land to another, as I shall more fully evidence before I close up this dis- course ; and therefore it should remind us of the universal conflagra- tion of the whole Avorld and the works thereof. And thus you see the ends that God has in respect of the wicked in inflicting great and sore judgments upon persons, cities, and countries.
Quest. But pray, sir, what are those high and holj^ ends, in respect of the people of God, that God aims at by his inflicting of great and sore judgments upon persons, cities, and countries ? I suppose they are such as follow:
Atis. (1.) First, To hring about those special favours and mercies that God intends them. By the dreadful judgments that God inflicted upon Pharaoh, and upon his people, and upon his country, God brought about the freedom and liberty of his people to worship him according to his own prescriptions. The great difference and contest between God and Pharaoh was, who should have their wills. God would have his people to worship him according to his own mind ; but Pharaoh was resolved to venture his all before they should have their freedom and liberty to serve their God, Upon this God follows him with plague upon plague, and never leaves spending of his plagues upon him till he had overthrown him, and through his ruin brought about the freedom and liberty of his poor j^eople.i The Babylonians were cruel enemies to God's poor Israel, and kept them in bondage, yea, in a fiery furnace, seventy years. At last God stirs up the spirit of Cyrus, for his church's sake, and he, by fire j^and sword, lays Babylon waste, and takes them captive who had held his people in a long captivity, Jer. xi. 4, and Dan. ix. 12. Now he, by breaking the Babylonians in pieces like a potter's vessel, brought about, as an instrument in the hand of God, the freedom and libert}^ of God's poor people, as you may see by comparing that xlvth of Isa. 1-6, with that 1st chapter of Ezra. God stirs up the spirit of Cyrus to put forth a proclamation for liberty for the Jews to go to their own land, and to build the house of the Lord God of Israel ; and then he graciously stirs up the spirits of the people wisely and soberly to improve the liberty he had proclaimed.2 Jer. xlix. 1, 'Concerning the Ammonites, thus saith the Lord, Hath Israel no sons ? hath he no heir? why then doth their king inherit Gad, and his people dwell in his cities ? ' When the ten tribes were carried away captive, the Ammonites Avho dwelt near the tribe of Gad .intruded into it and the cities of it ; but mark what God saith in ver. 2, ' Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard in Eabbah of the Ammonites [that was their chief city] ; and it shall be a desolate heap, and her daughters [that is, lesser towns] shall be burnt Avith fire : then shall Israel be heir unto them that were his heirs, saith the Lord.' 3 God, by fire and sword, would lay desolate the chief city of the Ammonites, and her towns and villages that did
'^ Exod. V. 1, 2, vii. 16, viii. 8, 20, 25, 27, 29, ix. 1, 13, x. 3, 7, 8, 11, 21, xii. 31. ^ Turn to Obadiah, and read from ver. 11 to the end of the chapter. ^ Here was Lex talionis observed ; they that invaded the inheritance of others had their own invaded by them.
36 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLTI. 21, 25.
belong to her : nnd by these dreadful dispensations he would make way for his people, not only to possess their own land, l)ut the Am- monites' also; and I will leave the prudent reader to make the a])pli- cation. We have been under greater and dreadt'uller judgments than ever this poor nation hath groaned under in former times ; and who can tell but that the Lord by these amazing judgments may bring about greater and better mercies and blessings than any yet we do enjoy ? The Kabbins say of civil liberty, that if the heavens were parchment, the sea ink, and every pile of grass a pen, the praises of it could not he comprised nor expressed. ]\Iay we not say more of a holy liberty ? Liberty to serve ami worsliip the Lord according to his own prescriptions and directions laid down in his blessed word, by which all worship and worshipiiers must be tried at last, is a pearl of price that none can sufficiently value. Justinus the second emperor's motto was, Libcrfas res ma'stimahills, Liberty is unvaluable. The Lord give his people holy, wise, prudent, sober, humble, and understanding hearts, that they may know both how to prize and how to improve those liberties and mercies that he has handed to them through terrible dispensations ! But,
(2.) Secondly, God inflicts great trials and sore judgments upon per- sons and places, that he may awaken his own people out of that deep security that oftentimes seizeth upon tliem : Ps. xxx. 5-9 ; Mat. xxv, 5 ; 2 Sam. ii. 7, '15, and xxiv. 15-17; 2 Kings xiv. 25; Mat. xii. 40; Jonah i. 1-3. What deep security had seized upon David, so that God was forced to make use of the bloody sword and of the sweeping pestilence to awaken him ! Jonah was a prophet, he was a servant of the Lord, he was a type of Christ, he was a good man. His name Jonah signifies a dove, though he had but little of the dove in him, being as passionate a man of an honest man as you have lightly i heard of, saith Luther. Now Jonah liaving contracted guilt upon his con- science by acting quite contrary to God's royal call, what a desperate, senseless stupidit}" and security had seized upon liim ! what a spiritual letharg}'' was jioor Jonah in ! not much unlike that of the smith's dog, whom neither the hammers above him, nor the sparks of fire falling round about him, can awake. Jonah was not in a slumber, but in a sound, heavy, deep, and dead sleep ; and Avhat a wonder, what a pro- digy was here, that in all this stir and tunndt and danger, the winds whistling and roaring, the sea working, raging, swelling, frothing, foaming, and boiling like a pot, the waves mounting up to heaven and sinking down again to hell, as the 2>salniist si)eaks, the ship tumbling and tossing like a tennis-ball, the mariners, as stout fellows as they were, surpiised Avith fear, and running up and down like men at their Avits' end, like men that could not look jiale death in the face with blood in their cheeks, that yet Jonah should sleep, and be as secure in that dreadful danger as if he had been in his own house sleeping on a bed of down ! Oh the desperate security that may seize upon the best of saints ! But this security God will cure in his Jonahs by some smart trial, or by some heavy judgment or other. The lethargy is best cured by a burning ague. Absalom sends once or tAvice to Joab to
^ That is, ' likely.'— G.