472 SERMONS UPON EZEKIEL XVIII. 23. [SeR. II.
as 3'^our ears by his Spirit ; waited for your amendment for many years, tried you by mercies if they could melt you, by afflictions if they would reduce you to a sense of your dut}'. But all this will not do ; yet you are still alive, and these means continued. What shall God do more ? Now why are you not converted ? Others are wrought upon by the same means and turned to the Lord, and have entered in by the strait gate, and framed their desire to walk in the narrow way. They have not offers more rich, or free, or particular. God hath not told them of a hotter hell or a better heaven, or another or a more taking gospel. God speaketh to you and them in the same terms, with the same grace and favour, and maketh the door wide enough to get in. Why are you not converted ? Did God cut off all hopes fr«m you, and tell you that your repentance would do you no good ? No ; certainly the fault is in your own obstinacy and impenitence: Ps. Ixxxi. 11, 'Israel would none of me ; ' Luke xix. 14, ' We will not have this man to reign over us ; ' Jer. ii. 17, ' Hast thou not procured this to thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God when he led thee by the way ? ' It was not his leaving you, but your leaving him. You would not try what you could do with these common means. And will you after all this bring a charge against God and say. If you be damned, you cannot help it ? It was God delighted in your destruction ? What have you to allege against him ?
1. Is it because you would continue in your sins and yet be saved ? But God hath decreed the wicked shall be damned, and hath made a law that whosoever will not accept of his grace, but continue in their sins, shall perish for ever : Kev. xxi. 27, ' And there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.' This is to tax the wisdom of the lawgiver, and the whole way of his government in the world. Must God be accounted cruel because he taketh that course which all governors take to exact duty, upon penalties and rewards ? Is there not a mercy and an help in that he will bind you to your duty by so strict a way of engagement? Are not these the ' cords of a man,' Hosea xi. 4. A way of dealing suitable to reasonable natures ? Do not men even renounce humanity in excepting against such a curse, fear and love being the two things that excite us to anything ? Or is it because these rewards and penalties are eternal ? Is there not the more help, the more weighty the considerations are that move us ? And can they be supposed to have any inclination to virtuous and holy living that will not be drawn by so great a benefit as eternal happiness, and warned by so great a danger as eternal misery ? If God did enforce duty, and conceal the importance of it as to your personal happiness or misery, were not then the objection against his proceeding more rational? And besides, is it not fit that God should deal according to the excellency of his being in his way of government ? That bis laws should be more spiritual, since he is a judge of spirits ? His punishments and rewards must be greater and eternal, since he liveth for ever. Earthly princes must promise and threaten as their being and power will permit, lest their authority be made ridiculous by affixing penalties which they cannot inflict. As your obedience to God is built upon an higher right, so his enforce- ments should be proportionable. The power of earthly princes is
VeR. 23.] SERMONS UPON EZEKIEL XVIIT. 23. 473
temporal, and reachetli onlj- to the body ; they die, and can reach no further than the outward man ; but God liveth for ever : therefore, according to the sublimity of his nature, so must his punishments be more terrible. Your offence is greater, so is your punishment. Or what is it that your cavil lieth against ? Not so much the making of the law with penalties, as the executing of it. Would you think so basely and blasphemously of God that he should not satisfy his word lest such as you should suffer ? Will it stand with his wisdom to make a law and never execute it ? or with his truth to threaten punishment and break his word, and cause it to become a vain scare- crow ? Must he rule the world by a law, and say that to awe sinners which he never meaneth to do? with his goodness, that the worst should fare as well as the best ? that he should suffer a sort of sinful creatures to despise his mercy, abuse his patience, trample his laws underfoot, and after all this escape unpunished ? Oh, consider how unreasonable it is that God should alter the tenor of his covenant to gratify you in your sins ? Surely it would be a bold demand if any creature should ask it of God that he should turn day into night, and night into day at their pleasure, to gratify their sports. It is bolder by far that he should alter all his wise counsels by which he governeth the world ; to make the way to hell serve for the way to heaven ; that they may wanton it in their sins, and please their senses without control. Therefore your hearts should not fret against the Lord because he hath appointed such a punishment. You love the bait, and yet complain of the hook.