people. God sent his people into Babylon, and their enemies added to all their sorrows and sufferings ; but will God put this up at their hands? No: Zech. i. 15, 'And I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease ; for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.' ' I am very sorely displeased,' &c., or, as the Hebrew runs,^ ' I am in such a heat as causeth fuming and foaming.' I am boiling hot, and even ready to draw upon them, and to cut them off from the land of the living. For the original word here used hath great aftinity with another word that signifieth ' to cut down and to destroy,' 2 Kings vi. 6, and importeth a higher degree of displeasure, a greater height of heat than either anger or wrath, as may be seen in that signal gradation, Deut. xxix. 28, ' The Lord rooted them out of their land,' heaph, ' in anger,' ubechemah, ' and in wrath,' uheketseph, ' and in great indignation.' The last of these three is the word in the text, and notes a higher degree of anger than the two former. So Mai. i. 4, 'Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places ; thus saith the Lord of hosts. They shall build, but I will throw down ; and they shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.' The Edomites were very great enemies to the Israelites ; they stood looking on, laughing and rejoicing at Israel's destruction. God saw this, and it greatly displeased him, he being highly sensible of the least indignity done to his people ; and therefore he is resolved to pay them home in their own coin, Obad. 8th to 19th verse. The very name and memory of the Edomites have long since been extinct and blotted out from under heaven ; they were a people of his wrath, Isa. x. 6 ; and of his curse, Isa. xxxiv. 5.2 So Amalek was a bitter enemy to God's Israel, but God utterly blots out his remembrance from under heaven ; and laying his hand upon his throne, he swears that he would have war with Amalek for ever, Exod. xvii. 14-16 ; Nahum i. 2, ' God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth ; the Lord revengeth, and is furious ; the Lord will take vengean'ce on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.' The people of God ought to rest satisfied and assured that God sees and smiles, and looks and laughs, at all the counsels and combinations of wicked men against his Son and against his saints, Ps. ii. 2 ; and when they have done their worst, the counsel of the Lord shall stand, and Christ shall reign in the midst of his enemies, Prov. xix. 21. And that the stone cut out of the mountains without hands shall bring down the golden image with a vengeance, and make it like the chaff of the summer- floor: Dan. ii. 35. Some write of lions, that as they are mindful of courtesies received— witness the story of Androcles, that fugitive ser- vant of Rome — so they will be sure to revenge injuries done to them; they will prey on them that would make a prey of them. When Juba, king of the Moors, marched through the desert of Africa, a young man of his company wounded a lion ; but the year following, when Juba returned, the lion again meets the army, and from among them
' Zfketseph, from Ketxeph, which properly signifies such anger as causeth foaming and frothing, as the tumultuous water tossed with the wind, Ecclcs. vi. 17, and Zech. i. 7, boiling or foaming anger. The word signifies a fervour, a fierceness or vehemency of anjrcr.
* See Deut. xxv. 17-19; 1 Pam. xv.; 1 Chron. iv. 42, 43; and compare them together.
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all singles out the man that hurt him, and tears him in pieces, suflfering the rest to pass by in peace and safety. And thus the Lord Jesus, who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Eev. v. 5, is always ready to revenge the cause of his people, and to take vengeance on all that have wounded his people or made a prey of his people, as you may clearly and fully see in Ezek. xxv. and xxxv. Now by this argument, as well as by all the rest, it is evident that the people of God stand upon the advantage-ground, as to their outward preservation and pro- tection, above all otlier people in the world.
Quest. But, if this be so, how comes it to pass that in this time of great mortality, many of the precious people of the Lord have been taken away as well as others, the raging pestilence having carried many pious souls out of this world, ' of whom the world was not worthy'? Heb. xi. 38. The saint as well as the sinner hath fallen by the hand of the destroying angel. In this day we have seen that word made good in Eccles. ix. 2, ' That all things come alike to all ; there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean, to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not ; as is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath.'
To this question I shall give these eight short answers: —
(L) First, God hath smitten some good men of all persuasions, that none might he proud, secure, or censorious, and that all might take the alarm and prepare to meet their God, and that all may keep humble and tremble, because of his righteous judgments: Ps. cxix. 120, ' My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments.'
(2.) Secondly, The number of those that feared the Lord that have been taken away by the pestilence are hut few, very few, if compared with the many thousands of others that never knew what it was to set up God as the main object of their fear, and that never knew experi- mentally what a changed nature, a sanctified frame of heart, an in- terest in Christ, or a title to heaven, meant. Oh that we had not cause to fear that hell hath had a very large harvest within these few last months !
(3.) Thirdly, Sometimes God's oiun people sin loith others, and there- fore they smart with others when God takes the rod into his own hand. Thus Moses and Aaron sinned with others, and therefore their carcases fell in the wilderness as well as others. Num. xx. This may some- times be the reason why some good men fall in a common calamity ; but I dare not say that it is always the reason why some good men fall in a common calamity. I believe there are several choice Chris- tians that have been swept away in this day of the Lord's wrath, who have not sinned with the wicked, though they have fallen with the wicked. Many have fallen by this dispensation who yet have kept their garments pure and clean, and are now walking with Christ in white, Kev. iii. 4. I do not think that those saints that have died by the plague were greater sinners than those that have escaped the plague; yea, I have several reasons to persuade me that several of those precious servants of the Lord that have died of the plague, had more grace in their hearts, and less sin in their lives, than many
424 A HEAVENLY CORDIAL.