Observation. When false worship, with injustice by cruelty, have possessed the goveriioi's of a nation, and wrapped in the consent of the greatest part of the people who have been acquainted with the mind of God; that people and nation, without unprecedented mercy, is obnoxious to remediless ruin.
Those two are the Bel and dragon that, what by their actings,
what by their deservings, have swallowed that ocean of blood which
has flowed from the veins of millions slain upon the face of the
earth. Give me the number of the witnesses of Jesus whose souls
1 See the appendix at the end of this bermon.
138 EIGHTEOUS ZEAL ENCOURAGED
under the altar cry for revenge against their false worsliipping mur- derers^ and the tale of them whose lives have been sacrificed to the insatiable ambition and tyranny of blood-thirsty potentates, with the issues of God's just vengeance on the sons of men for compliance in these two things; and you will have gathered in the whole harvest of blood, leaving but a few straggling gleaning-s upon other occasions. And if these things have been found in England, and the present administration with sincere humiliation do not rim across to unravel this close-woven web of destruction, all thoughts of recovery will quickly be too late. And thus far sin and providence drive on a parallel.
Thirdly. The inevitableness of the desolation threatened, and the inexorableness of God in the execution of it, verse 1, is the third thing considerable: "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people."
Should I insist upon this, it would draw me out unto Scriptm-e evidences of .a nation's travelling in sin beyond the line of God's patience, and so not to be exempted from i-uin ; but, instead thereof, I shall make it a part of my daily supplications, that they may be to our enemies, if God's enemies, and the interpretation of them to those that hate us.
In brief, the words contain an impossible supposition, and yet a negation of the thing for whose sake it is supposed. Moses and Samuel were men who, in the days of their flesh, offered up stroug supplications, and averted many imminent judgments from a slnlul people. As if the Lord should say, All that I can do, in such a case as this, I would grant at the intercession of Moses and Samuel, or others interceding in their spirit and zeal ; but now the state of things is come to that pass, the time of treaty being exj^ired, the black flag- hung out, and the " decree having brought forth," Zeph. ii. 2, that, upon their utmost entreaty, it cannot, it shall not, be reversed.
Observation. There is a time when sin grotus ripe for ruin : " For three transgressions, and for fom-, the Lord will not turn away the iniquity of a people," Amos i. 9.
When the sin of the Amorites hath filled the cup of vengeance, they must drink it. Gen. xv. 16. England, under several adminis- trations of civil government, hath fellen twice, yea thrice, into nation- destroying sins. Providence hath once more given it another bottom ; if you should stumble (which the Lord avert) at the same block of impiety and cruelty, there is not another sifting to be made, to resen'e any grains from the ground. I doubt not l>iit our three transgressions, and four, will end in total desolation. The Lord be your guide; — poor England licth at stake.
■ Rev. vi. 9; 10.
BY DIVINE PROTECTION. 139
Observation. The greatest difficulty that lieth in bringing of total destruction upon a sinful people, is in the interposition of Moses and Samuel.
If Moses would but have stood out of the gap, and let the Almighty go, he had broken in upon the whole host of Israel, Exod. xxxii. 9, 10. And let it by the way be observed, of the spirit of Samuel, that when the people of God were most exorbitant, he crieth, " As for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you," 1 Sam. xii. 23. Scarce answered by those who, if their interest be not served, or at least their reason satisfied, will scarce yield a prayer for, yea, pour out curses against, their choicest deliverers. The Lord lay it not to thek charge ! For us, seeing that praying deliverers are more prevalent than fighting deliverers (it is, Though Moses and Samuel, not Gideon and Samson, stood before me), as some decay, let us gather strength m the Lord, that he may have never the more rest for their giving over, until he establish mount Zion a praise in the earth.
Fourthly. Come we now to the fourth thing in this chapter, — the prophet's state and condition, with the frame and deportment of his heart and spirit under these dispensations. And here we find him expressing two things of himself : —
1. What he found from others, verse 10.
2. What he wrestled luithal in his oiun spirit, verses 15—18.
1. What he found from others. He telleth you it was cursing and reproach, &c. : " I have neither lent on usury, nor have men lent to me on usury, yet every one of them doth curse me," verse 10.
Now this return may be considered two ways.