Their spiritual good, whereby we may keep up this watch, is to be sought two ways; — by the prevention of evil, on the one hand; and by recovery from evil, promotion of grace, and confirming in it, on the other hand.
We are to prevent evil in others. There are two ways whereby we may do it, — by example, and by exhortation.
If a considerable number of the church would engage to endeavour after an exemplary holiness and usefulness in all things, it would prevent much evil in others. Some things are troublesome in the church; but still, exemplary holiness and usefulness in believers are great means to prevent evil in others.
Exhortation will be so too. Exhort one another to edification. We are pitiful creatures as to this duty.
We want three things: we want love; we want ability; we want holy consciousness to ourselves of unbelief. Nothing can conquer
548 NATIONAL SINS AND NATIONAL JUDGMENTS.
these things but the grace of God ; and unless we have these things, we cannot do it. Our recovery from any of these evils is a great part of this watch.
I will tell you of two defects : —
1. If we do come unto it, to admonish others, we do not do it with that meekness, that evidence of love, that tenderness, that are re quired in us. I would have no man come to admonish another but that he should carry it as the offender, and the other as the offended person, — with that profession of love.
2. We want wisdom ; for this is very certain, ill management hath spoiled many things in this congregation, — talking, reflecting, com plaining, even among carnal people. It is the constant exercise of the mind renewed by the Holy Ghost, and furnished with the prin ciples of spiritual light and life, in thoughts and meditations upon spiritual things, proceeding from the cleaving of the affections unto them, with a sense of a spiritual gust, relish, and savour in them, that must enable us to this duty.
SERMON IX.
NATIONAL SINS AND NATIONAL JUDGMENTS.
PREACHED APRIL 11, 1679.
" For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen : because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory. The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves/' — ISA. iii. 8, 9.1
First, HEEE is a confluence of sins delighted in.
Secondly, Here is a concurrence of various judgments unregarded. In the ninth chapter of this prophecy, the prophet enumerates, from the 13th verse to the end of the chapter, all sorts of judgments and indications of the continuance of God's displeasure, concluding every one of them with this : " For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still;" and it will end in their utter destruction.
Thirdly, Here are the preparative causes of ruin, that which would dispose Jerusalem and Judah to ruin and destruction. There are five of them reckoned up in this chapter:—
1. When God takes away the good, the sober, the understanding
1 This sermon was begun before the writer came in. What he wrote is as fol lows. [This note is by Sir John Hartopp. On the top of the first page the word "fast" is written ; seemingly to intimate that the sermon had been preached on the occasion of a fast. —Eo.]
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part of a nation, and leaves a nation very tliin of such kind of persons : Verses 1-3, " Behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, the mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the coun sellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator/' When God makes a nation thin of such persons, it is a preparation and disposition to their ruin.
2. Weakness in their government is another preparation and dis position : " And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them/' verse 4.
3. Horrible disorder in the minds of men, and contempt of God's order, that should be among them: "And the people shall be op pressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable," verse 5.
4. When there is great oppression and persecution : " As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them/' verse 12. And what did they do? " Ye have eaten up the vine yard ; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts," verses 14, 15.
5. And, lastly, there is horrible pride, and especially the pride of vain and foolish women ; which the prophet insists upon from verse 16 to the very last words of the chapter, and concludes, " Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn ; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground."