Observation. When false worship with injustice by cruelty have possessed the governors 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 bell and dragon, that, what by their actings, what by their deservings, have swallowed that ocean of blood, which have flowed from the veins of millions slain upon the face of the earth. Give me the number of the witnesses of Jesus, whose souls under the altar cry for re- venge against their false worshipping murderers j"* and the tale of them, whose lives have been sacrificed to the insa- tiable 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 ga- thered in the whole harvest of blood, leaving but a few strag- gling gleanings upon other occasions. And if these things have been found in England, and the present administration
' Sec (he Appendix at tlic end of this sermon. •> Rev. vi. 9, 10.
BY DIVINE PllOTECTION. 169
with sincere humiliation do not run 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, ver. 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 Scripture evidences, of a nation's travelling in sin, beyond the line of God's patience, and so not to be exempted from ruin ; 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 sup- posed. Moses and Samuel were men, who in the days of their flesh offered up strong supplications, and averted many imminent judgments from a sinful 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 in- terceding in their spirit and zeal ; but now the state of things is come to that pass, the time of treaty being expired, 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 grows ripe for ruin : * For three transgressions, and for four, 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 ven- geance, they must drink it; Gen. xv. 15. England, under several administrations of civil government, hath fallen 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 reserve any grains from the ground. I doubt not but our three transgressions and four will end in total desolation ; the Lord be your guide, poor England lieth at stake.
170 RIGHTEOUS ZEAL EXCOUUAGED
Observation. The greatest difficulty that lieth in bringing of total destruction upon a sinful people, is in the interposi- tion 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 ob- served 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 in- terest be not served, or at best their reason satisfied, will scarce yield a prayer for, yea, pour out curses against their choicest deliverers ; the Lord lay it not to their 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 in 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 chap- ter, the prophet's state and condition, with the frame and deportment of (his heart and spirit under these dispensa- tions; and here we find him expressing two things of him- self.
1. What he found from others; ver 10.
2. What he wrestled withal in his own spirit; ver. 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 ;' ver. 10.