Surely never was any people more fitted for destruction! _Impudent children are they, and stiff hearted. Are they ashamed when they have committed abomination?_ When they have openly prophaned the day of the Lord? When they have committed lewdness? Or when they have uttered such curses and blasphemies, as are not heard of among the Heathens? Nay, _They are not at all ashamed, neither can they blush_. And though God send unto them all his servants, rising up early and sending them, yet _will they not hear; they ♦harden their neck: they do worse than their fathers_.
♦ “hearden” replaced with “harden”
What _then_ can God _do more for his vineyard which he hath not done_? He hath long tried us with mercies, _giving rain and fruitful seasons, filing us with the flour of wheat_. But still _this revolting and rebellious people say not, Let us now fear the_ Lord _our_ God. Nay, they gave him no thanks for all his mercies; they did not even acknowledge them to be his gift. They did not see the hand of God in any of these things; they could _account for them_ another way. O ye unwise, when will ye understand? Know ye not yet, there is a God that ruleth the world? What did ye see with your eyes? Was the _race to the swift_, or _the battle to the strong_? Have ye forgotten _Dettingen_ already? Does not _England_ know that God was there?――Or suppose your continuance in peace, or success in war, be the mere result of your own wisdom and strength; do ye command the sun and the clouds also? Can ye pour out or _stay the bottles of heaven_? But let it all be nature, chance, any thing――so God may have no hand in governing the earth!
* 29. Will his judgments bring us to a better mind? Do we _hear the rod, and him that has appointed it_? Let us observe: What fruit do we find in those who are _even consumed by means of his heavy hand_? Let any one that desires to be clearly satisfied herein, visit the _hospitals_ of this city. Let him judge for himself, how the patients there receive God’s fatherly visitation; especially _there_, because mercy also is mixed with judgment; so that it is evident _the Lord loveth whom he chasteneth_. Go then into any _ward_, either of men or women, look narrowly from one end to the other: are they humbling themselves under the hand of God? Are they trembling under a sense of his anger? Are they praising him for his love? Are they exhorting one another, not to faint when they are rebuked of him? How do nine in ten of them spend the time, that important time from morning to evening? Why in such a manner, that you would not easily learn, from thence, whether they were Christians, Pagans or Mahometans.
* Is there any deeper distress than this to be found? Is there a greater affliction than the loss of health? Perhaps there is, the loss of liberty, especially as it is sometimes circumstanced. You may easily be convinced of this, by going into either _Ludgate_ or _Newgate_. What a scene appears, as soon as you enter! The very place strikes horror into your soul. How dark and dreary! How unhealthy and unclean! How void of all that might minister comfort! But this is little, compared to the circumstances that attend the being confined in this shadow of death. See that poor wretch, who was formerly in want of nothing, and encompassed with friends and acquaintance, now cut off, perhaps by an unexpected stroke, from all the chearful ways of men; ruined, forsaken of all, and delivered into the hands of such masters, and such companions! I know not, if to one of a thinking, sensible turn of mind, there could be any thing like it on this side hell.
What effect then has this heavy visitation of God, on those who lie under it for any time? There is perhaps, an exception here and there; but in general, they are abandoned to all wickedness, utterly divested of all fear of God, and all reverence to man; insomuch, that they commonly go out of that school compleatly fitted for any kind or degree of villany, perfectly brutal and devilish, thoroughly furnished for every evil word and work.
30. Are our countrymen more effectually reclaimed, when danger and distress are joined? If so, the _army_, especially in time of war, must be the most religious part of the nation. But is it so indeed? Do the _soldiery_ walk as those who see themselves on the brink of eternity? _Redeeming_ every _opportunity_ of glorifying God, and doing good to men, because they know not the hour in which their Lord will require their souls of them? So far from it, that a _soldier’s religion_ is a by-word, even with those who have no religion at all; that vice and prophaneness in every shape reign among them without controul; and that the whole tenor of their behaviour speaks, _Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die_.