(2.) It is the height of security, in such a time and season, cither
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to neglect the consideration of extraordinary providences, or to mis- interpret them, as any thing hut tokens of approacJiing judgments, if not prevented.
Nothing can be questioned herein without an airaignment of the divine wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the interpretation and application that he makes of these accidents. No doubt but they were neglected and despised by the most as common things ; — to take any gieat notice of such occurrences is esteemed pusillanimity or superstition. So it is by many at this day, wherein all things, as we shall see afterward, are filled with tokens of divine displeasure ; but things will come shortly unto another account. In the meantime, it is safe to follow this divine example, so as to find out sacred warn- ings in such providential occurrences.
II. The providential accidents spoken of are two, and of two sorts.
1. The first was that wherein the bloody cruelty of men had a hand, — " The Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacri- fices." When this was done, on what occasion, and what was the lumiber of the persons so slain, the Scripture is silent. However, it is certain that it was done at Jerusalem ; for sacrifices might not be offered anywhere else. Thither came the Gahleans with their sacri- fices;— that is, either the beasts which they Ijrought to the priests to offer for them, for they might not offer sacrifices themselves ; or the paschal lamb, which they might slay themselves.
Whilst they were engaged in this work, Pilate, the bloody Roman governor (on what occasion or provocation is unknown), came upon them, and sIcav them in a cruel manner; intimated in that expression, that " he mingled their blood with their sacrifices." And this provi- dence is the more remarkable, in that it fell out whilst they were engaged in their sacred worship; — which canies an indication of divine severity. And, it may be, there was, as it is in the ruin of mankind every day, occasion taken for it from the difference that was between two wicked governors, Pilate and Herod, unto whose jurisdiction these Galileans did belong, in whose blood Pilate thought to revenge himself on his enemy. However, they both combined at last in the killing of Christ, — as others use to do in the world; and so made themselves friends, leaving their example to their successors.
2. The other was a mere effect of divine Providence ; — the death of eighteen men by the fall of a tower in Siloam ; that is, a place of waters, and a running stream in Jerusalem itself And our Lord Jesus Christ declares herein, not only that all such accidents are disposed by the providence of God, but that he speaks in them for our instiiiction.
Both these, as they were warnings, as we shall see, so they were figures of the approaching destraction of the city and people; for that, in the first place, is the perishing here intended, as is manifest
602 THE DESIGN OF IMPENDENT JUDGMENTS.
m the ensuing parable, wherein the church-state of the Jews is com- pared unto a barren fig-tree, which was to be cut down and destroyed. And, accordingly, that destruction did befall them, partly by the bloody cruelty of the Romans, and partly by the fall and ruin of the temple, toivers, and walls of the city ; both included in the word, "likewise:" "Ye shall Hkewise perish," or in like manner. But although they were of various kinds, and men might evade the con- sideration of them on several pretences, — the one being nothing but the tyrannical fury of Pilate, the other only a somewhat unusual accident, — yet our Lord Jesus Christ finds out the hand and counsel of God in them both, and declares the same language to be spoken in them both. Signs of the same event are doubled, to show the cer- tainty of it, like Pharaoh's dreams.
And we may observe, —
First. That all sorts of unusual accidents, or effects of Providence, in a season of sin and aiyproaching judgments, are of the same in- dication, and ought to have the same interpretation.
So is the same application made of both these different signs and warnings by our Saviour; — they have, saith he, the same language, the same signification. There was nothing at this time [that] more hardened the Jews unto their utter ruin, than the false application they made of providential signs and warnings, which were all multiplied among them, as boding their good and deliverance, when they were all tokens of their approachuig ruin. For when such things are rejected as warnings, calling to repentance and reformation, as they were by them, on a presumption that they were signs of God's appear- ance on their behalf, they became to be notliing but certain fore- runners of greater judgments, and infallible tokens of destruction; and £0 they will be to them likewise by whom they are yet despised.
Secondly. God is pleased sometimes to give warnings of approach- ing judgments, not only as unto the matter of them, that they shall be accompanied with severity, but also as unto the especial nature and manner of them. So was it with these two signs, of blood by the sword, and death by the fall of the tower; representing as in a glass that common calamity which was to befall the city and nation. And I pray God that the prodigious appearance of fiery meteors, like swords, armies, and anus, with other things of the like nature, may not be sent to point out the very kind and nature of the judgments which are coming on England, if not diverted ; for a.s unto these signs not only the Scripture, but all heathen stories are filletl with an account of them. Before the approach of desolating judgments, nature, the common parent of mankind, did always put itself forth in irregular, unusual actings, — in fiery meteors, comets, earthquakes, strange appearances in the air, voices heard, and the like.