3. God will do it for the hardening of many false empty professors, and others in the world, that the judgments ap- pointed may come upon them to the uttermost.^ The hard- ening of men to their destruction, being a close and inward work, is one of the most eminent acts of the providence of God in governing the world : by this, he accomplisheth most of the judgments that he hath threatened. Now there is not any dispensatix)n of God towards man, but he can, and doth sometimes cause it to be so managed, and ordered, that it shall be a way and means of hardening such as he hath ap- pointed thereunto : some are hardened by the word, some by the mercies, some by judgments. Amongst other ways that he useth for this purpose, this is one, the disposal of the works of his providence contrary to the reasonings of men, doing things unlikely and unfitly in the eyes of flesh and blood, that so they may despise those ways of his, and be broken in opposition unto them. Take an instance in Pha- raoh's last hardening for destruction : when he brought the people out of Egypt, he did not lead them the direct way to
" Judges vii. 4. y Iloin. ix. 18. Deut. ii. 30. Psal. Ixxxi. 12, Ixix, 'JL'. Josh. xi. 20. Isff. vi.O — 12. John xii. 40—43. Deut. xxxii. 15.
THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, &C. 439
Canaan, but carries them into the wilderness, and shuts them up between the mountains and the sea : Pharaoh justly concludes that they are entangled beyond escape, and that he shall surely overtake them and destroy them; this draws him out to his ruin : had God led them in the straight path, probably he had not pursued after them, but the Lord lays this as a plot for his destruction. God will harden Jero- boam, and therefore a lion shall slay the prophet that preached against his idolatry. So was it with the Jews, they expect all glory to attend the coming of the Messiah ; and after the coming of him indeed, God follows them with judgments to a total desolation; which being so unsuited unto the dispensation they expected, hardness thereby is come upon them to the uttermost. Tertullian says, he dares say, That ' the Scriptures were on purpose framed in many things to give occasion to proud and curious, unhumbled wits, to stumble and fall.' And I dare say, that the Lord doth order many of his works in the world, in ' ways past finding out,' on purpose to give occasion to many to stum- ble and fall. God fulfilleth many mighty works, that could not otherwise be brought about, by hardening the hearts of men : the hardening of the late king's heart was an engine whereby he wrought mighty things and alterations : had not God laid obdurateness and stubbornness upon his spirit, we had long since in all probability been ruined. To accom- plish this end then God will so order the works of his pro- vidence, that men shall reason themselves into unreasonable and brutish hardness and stupidity. Thus God hath done, in the days wherein we live ; his mighty acts that he hath wrought, both for the matter of the things done, and the m.xiner of their doing, have been so contrary to men's prin- ciples, interest, expectations, and reasons, that they have slighted them to such a degree of hardening, that they seem to haye no reason left at all ; and when it comes to that, God will fall judicially upon the very faculties of their souls; he will blind their eyes, deprive them of their judgment and insight into things, that they shall be as incapable of God's mind as fools, and give them up to vile affections, to do the things that are not seemly, as it hath fallen out with too many amongst us.
Let us now make some use of this point.
440 THE ADVANTAGE OF
Use. It serves then, to discover the vanity of those men, who because the works of God have not been carried on in ways suitable to their reasonings and expectations, do ut- terly reject them, disown them, and oppose him in them. Can these men give any one instance, of any one eminent work of God, that he hath brought about by such ways and means, as men Avould rationally allot thereunto, especially in things that are in immediate subserviency to the kingdom of the Lord Christ? Can they instance that they have been so managed? Nay, hath not this been a means to harden mul- titudes to their destruction, that have limited the Holy One, and chalked out paths for him to walk in ? I cannot but fear, that it was a great provocation of the eyes of God's glory, that at the beginning, and in the carrying on the great alterations that have been wrought by his providence among us, we did speak of confirming and continuing under any condition whatsoever, any things, or persons, which it was in his design to avert: we must be promising to keep up the high tree, and to keep down the low tree, which was not at all in his thoughts, neither ever came it into his heart. I hope he hath taught us (though with thorns) to follow him sometimes, like ' Abraham, not knowing whither we go.' Now the Lord convince them who are yet under this darkness; that think the ways of God not equal, be- cause not measured by their Hue ; that bring their crooked rules unto that which is really straight, and cast it away, as abominable. The children of Israel had got a proverb against the ways of God ;" it was so taken for granted that the ways of his providence were not right and straight, that it was grown into a common by-word : a little discovery of the pride and hypocrisy of their own hearts undeceived them at last.