This is the end of it all. So that you have an account of what are those causes whereon God in his word doth pronounce cities and nations to be ruined and destroyed, even then when they stand in their fullest security, in their own opinion.
Now, the inquiry is, how those things are with us. I told you I would do no more than speak a word or two for the present occa sion : and I shall speak that which I do believe ; and if you do so too, it may be it may be your mercy. But it is a hard thing to be lieve London is ruined and England fallen, when we have peace and enjoy all things; but if we speak it in pride, it will be harder how to avoid it.
First, Is there not a confluence of all sorts of sins among us whereof mankind can contract guilt, especially of those sins upon the commission of which God pronounces a nation ruined, — atheism and profaneness, blood and murder, adultery and uncleanness, and
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pride? When these sins are predominant in a nation that makes profession of the knowledge of God, God himself saith, and we may say, that nation is ruined. Those things have prevailed among us.
Then let us mourn over those sins as we ought to do. Have we done so in this congregation? Hath it been done in any congrega tion in England as it ought? Hath it been done in private, in our retirement, to mourn over that confluence of sins that hath pre vailed and spread itself over the nation till it hath reached to the very neck? We have not done it to this very day. There is not the least attempt for any reformation. Do we think in such a day as this is a little prayer is enough to save a dying nation? There is nothing seriously done to work that reformation without which Lon don will be undone and England will fall, and there will be no de liverance. It is all one whether you will believe it or no, but the word of God abides for ever.
Secondly, A concurrence of judgments was the second thing we showed you from the words, — a concurrence of judgments unre garded; — a confluence of sins delighted in, and a concurrence of various judgments unregarded.
Judgments are of two sorts, — temporal and spiritual.
1. Temporal judgments are of two sorts. They are either monitory tokens of God's displeasure, or they are actual punishments. All these various judgments have been upon us.
(1.) We have had monitory tokens of God's displeasure: [1.] Signs in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; — things that ought not to be despised. Our Saviour hath warned us to expect and look for them before the general dissolution. They have been monitory judgments. [2.] God is making the nation thin of persons an cient, honourable, counsellors, the wise. He threatens to do this. They are persons rarely to be found, who are the stay and staff of a nation. It is a monitory judgment, and so laid down by the pro phet. [3.] The strange and unaccountable differences and divisions that are in the minds and affections of men. Multitudes in these nations stand at this day with their swords in their hands, ready to sheathe them in the bowels of their neighbours ; Ephraim against Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim, — one part of the nation against another, and another against them, ready to destroy one another. [4.] And, lastly, the warnings God hath given us of mak ing us base and dishonourable, which I will not insist upon. We have had these monitory judgments.
(2.) We have had judgments which consist in punishments, — the plague, the fire, the sword, great distresses and poverty, that are come upon the nation ; enough to make the hearts of men to tremble, but that we are grown hard like the nethermost millstone, and are
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sensible of nothing at all. I say these judgments and warnings of God are generally disregarded.
I would but ask two things, to see if by them we can evidence the contrary, notwithstanding all the judgments that we talk of: —
[1.] Who is the man, where is the person, that hath made any abatement in any thing of the world, — in love to the world, in con formity to the world, in the pursuit of any lust? Show me the man who, upon the account of these judgments in the world, hath made any abatement.
[2.] Show me the person who can by experience show that he hath by fear been moved to provide an ark for himself and family, any other ark besides present circumstances, — so much wealth, en joyment, peace and quiet? Who is the person that hath provided an ark for himself and his family? Let us talk what we will, unless we make a visible abatement in conformity to the world, and labour to provide an ark, we disregard the judgments of God.
2. There are spiritual judgments also; and they are found among us, — (1.) In God's taking from us so many faithful labourers in the dispensation of the gospel, in the midst of their days and strength, as he hath done of late years in this nation. (2.) And in driving the remnant of his faithful ministers, many of them, into corners, where they are not able to serve the interest of Christ and the nation by promoting and furthering its return unto God : and thereby that which would have been the greatest mercy that the nation can be partaker of, the greatest means of the preservation of it and deliverance from ruin, is made the greatest means of the restrain ing and shutting up their ministerial abilities and graces; which I shall not now enlarge upon. (3.) There is another part of these spiritual judgments, and that is the general security that is come upon all sorts of men, according to the variety of their degrees, in being overtaken with the present temptations of the day. These judgments are upon us unregarded.