(1.) In extraordinary outward judgments upon open, profligate sin-
HEB. VI. 46 EXPLAINED, Al
ners, especially the enemies of his church and glory. Hence on such an occasion doth God give that description of himself, Nahum i. 2,
“ God is jealous, and the Lorp revengeth; the Lorp revengeth, and is furious; the Lorp will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.” When God acteth towards his adversaries according to the description here given of himself, he deals with them in severity. And two things are required to make these judgments of God against his adversaries in this world to be instances thereof:—[1.] That they be unusual, such as do not com- monly and frequently fall out in the ordinary dispensation of divine providence, Num. xvi. 29, 30. God doth not, in the government of the world, suffer any thing to fall out or come to pass that in the issue shall be contrary to his justice or inconsistent with his right- eousness; but yet he beareth with things so, for the most part, as that he will manifest himself to be exceedingly full of patience and long-suffering, as also to exercise the faith of them that believe in the expectation of a future judgment. Wherefore there must be somewhat extraordinary in those judgments wherein God will exer- cise and manifest severity. So it is expressed, Isa. xxviii. 21, “The Lorp shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the walley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.” The work he will do is his work, but it is his “strange work ;”’—that is, not strange from or op- posite unto his nature, for so he will do nothing; but that which is unusual, which he doth but seldom, and is therefore marvellous. Thus, in sudden destructions of persecutors or persons of a flagitious wickedness, in great desolations of provoking families, cities, and nations, in fire from heaven, in inundations, plagues, earthquakes, and such sudden, extraordinary, consuming judgments, God giveth instances of his severity in the world, Rom.i.18. [2.] In this case it is required that such judgments be open, visible, and manifest, both unto those who are punished and to others who wisely consider them. So God speaketh of himself, Deut. vii. 10, “God that re- payeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face;” —that is, he willdo it openly and manifestly, so that themselves and all others shall take notice of his severity therein. This, I say, is one way whereby God acts his severity in this world. And hereby he poureth everlasting contempt upon the security of his proudest and haughtiest adversaries; for when they think they have sufficiently provided for their own safety, and stopped all avenues of evil, accord- ing to the rules of their policy and wisdom, with the best observations: they are able to make of the ordinary effects of his providence, and so give up themselves to take satisfaction in their lusts and pleasures,
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49 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
he breaks in upon them with an instance and example of his severity to their utter destruction. So, “when they say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape,” 1 Thess, v. 3. This will be — the state one day of the whole Babylonish interest in the world, Rey. xviii, 7-10. But this is not directly intended in this place, al- though even this effect of God’s severity overtook these apostates afterward.
(2.) In spiritual judgments. By these God in his severity leaveth unprofitable, provoking, and apostate professors under the impossi- bility here intended of being renewed unto repentance. And this is the sorest of all God’s judgments. There is in it a sentence of eter- nal damnation denounced on men aforehand in this world. So our apostle tells us, “ Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment,” 1 Tim. v. 24. God so passeth judgment concerning them in this world as that there shall be no alteration in their state and condition to eternity. And this severity of God towards sinners under the gospel, shutting them up under final impenitency, consists in these four things:—
[1.] God puts an end unto all his expectation concerning them; he looks for no more from them, and so exerciseth no more care about them. Whilst God is pleased to afford the use of means for conversion and repentance unto any, he is said to look for and expect answerable fruits: “I did,” saith he, “so and so to my vineyard; and I looked that it should bring forth grapes,” Isa. v. 2, 4. Wherefore, when God takes away all means of grace and repentance from any, then he puts an end unto his own expectation of any fruits; for if a man can have no fruit from his vineyard whilst he dresseth it, or from his field whilst he tilleth it, he will never look for any after he hath given them up and laid them waste. And, on the other side, when he utterly ceaseth to look for any fruit from them, he will till them no more; for why should he put himself to charge or trouble to no purpose? Woe unto the souls of men when God in this sense looks for no more at their hands!—that is, when he puts an end unto that patience or long-suffering towards them from whence all supplies of the means of conversion and repentance do arise and spring. This God doth by some, and that in such ways as we shall afterward declare.