lios there are among us, that understand it not to be a part of the divine method of God's long-sufferance, to strike others to make us afraid. But however we sleep in the midst of such alarms, yet know, that there is not one death in all the neighborhood but is intended to thee; every crowing of the cock is to awake thee to repentance and if thou sleepest still, the next turn may be thine; God will send his angel, as he did to Peter, and smite thee on thy side, and wake thee from thy dead sleep of sin and sottishness. But beyond this some are despisers still, and hope to drown the noises of Mount Sinai, the sound of cannons, of thunders and lightnings, with a counternoise of revelling and clamorous roarings, with merry meetings; like the sacrifices to Moloch, they sound drums and trumpets, that they might not hear the sad shriekings of their children, as they were dying in the cavity of the brazen idol: and when their conscience shrieks out or murmurs in a sad melancholy, or something that is dear to them is smitten, they attempt to drown it in a sea of drink, in the heathenish noises of idle and drunken company; and that which God sends to lead them to repentance, leads them to a tavern, not to refresh their needs of nature, or for ends of a tolerable civility, or innocent purposes; but, like the condemned persons among the Levantines, they tasted wine freely, that they might die and be insensible. I could easily reprove such persons with an old Greek proverb mentioned by Plutarch, Περὶ τῆς Εὐθυμίας: Οὔτε ποδάγρας ἀπαλλάTTEL KάλKLOS, "You shall ill be cured of the knotted gout, if you have nothing else but a wide shoe." But this reproof is too gentle for so great a madness it is not only an incompetent cure, to apply the plaster of a sin or vanity to cure the smart of a divine judgment; but it is a great increaser of the misery, by swelling the cause to bigger and monstrous proportions. It is just as if an impatient fool, feeling the smart of his medicine, shall tear his wounds open, and throw away the instruments of his cure, because they bring him health at the charge of a little pain. Ἐγγὺς Κυρίου πλήρης μαστίγων, "He that is full of stripes" and troubles, and decked round about with thorns, he “is near to God:" but he that, because he sits uneasily, when he sits near the King that was crowned with thorns, shall remove thence, or strew flowers, roses and jessamine, the down of thistles and the softest gossamer, that he may die without pain, die quietly and like a lamb, sink to the bottom of hell without noise; this man is a fool, because he accepts death if it arrest him in civil language, is content to die by the sentence of an eloquent judge, and prefers a quiet passage to hell before going to heaven in a storm. That Italian gentleman was certainly a great lover of his sleep, who was angry with the lizard that waked him, when a viper was creeping into his mouth: when the devil is entering into us to poison our spirits, and steal our souls away while we are sleeping in the lethargy of sin, God sends his sharp messages to awaken us; and we call that the enemy, and use arts to cure the remedy, not to cure the disease. There are some persons that will never be cured, not because the sickness is incurable, but because they have ill stomachs, and cannot keep the medicine. Just so is his case that so despises God's method of curing him by these instances of long-sufferance, that he uses all the arts he can to be quit of his physician, and to spill his physic, and to take cordials as soon as his vomit begins to work. There is no more to be said in this affair, but to read the poor wretch's sentence, and to declare his condition. As at first, when he despised the first great mercies, God sent him sharpness and sad accidents to ensober his spirits; so now that he despises his mercy also, the mercy of the rod, God will take it away from him, and then I hope all is well. Miserable man that thou art! this is thy undoing; if God ceases to strike thee, because thou wilt not mend, thou art sealed up to ruin and reprobation for ever; the physician hath given thee over, he hath no kindness for thee. This was the desperate estate of Judah, Ah, sinful nation! a people laden with iniquity: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel. Why should ye be stricken any more?'* This is the åváleμa papàv ålà, the most bitter curse, the greatest excommunication, when the delinquent is become a heathen and a publican without the covenant, out of the pale of the church: Isaiah, i. 4, 5. B the church hath nothing to do with them: 'for what have I to I do with them that are without?' said St. Paul. It was not lawful for the church any more to punish them. And this court Christian is an imitation and parallel of the justice of the court of heaven when a sinner is not mended by judgments at long-running, God cuts him off from his inheritance, and the lot of sons; he will chastise him no more, but let him take his course, and spend his portion of prosperity, such as shall be allowed him in the great economy of the world. Thus God did to his vineyard which he took such pains to fence, to plant, to manure, to dig, to cut, and to prune: and when, after all, it brought forth wild grapes, the last and worst of God's anger was this; Auferam sepem ejus;* God had fenced it with a hedge of thorns, and 'God would take away all that hedge,' he would not leave a thorn standing, not one judgment to reprove or admonish them; but all the wild beasts, and wilder and more beastly lusts, may come and devour it, and trample it down in scorn. And now what shall I say, but those words quoted by St. Paul in his sermon, Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish;'t perish in your own folly by stubbornness and ingratitude. For it is a huge contradiction to the nature and designs of God: God calls us, we refuse to hear; he invites us with fair promises, we hear and consider not; he gives us blessings, we take them and understand not his meaning; we take out the token, but read not the letter: then he threatens us, and we regard not; he strikes our neighbors, and we are not concerned then he strikes us gently, but we feel it not: then he does like the physician in the Greek epigram, who being to cure a man of lethargy, locked him into the same room with a madman, that he by dry-beating him might make him at least sensible of blows; but this makes us, instead of running to God, to trust in unskilful physicians, or, like Saul, to run to a Pythonisse: we run for cure to a crime, we take sanctuary in a pleasant sin; just as if a man, to cure his melancholy, should desire to be stung with a tarantula, that at † Acts xiii. 41. * Isaiah, v. 5. least he may die merrily. What is there more to be done that God hath not yet done? He is forced at last to break off with a Curavimus Babylonem, et non est sanata, We dressed and tended Babylon,' but she was incurable: there is no help but such persons must die in their sins, and lie down in eternal sorrow. SUMMARY OF SERMON VII. 2 PETER, CHAP. III.-VERSE 18. PART I. WHEN Christianity first enlightened the world, amazing the minds of men, entertaining their curiosity, and seizing on their affections, it was no wonder that whole nations were converted at a sermon, that multitudes were instantly professed, that their understandings followed their affections, and their wills followed their understandings, &c. All this was a great instance of providence, for the firm planting of Christianity, and affording precedents and examples to all future ages. Universality and fervor of piety among Christians in those early times descanted on. This lasted about three hundred years; after which it has gone on declining: heresies first crept in, pride increased, faith was weakened, and charity was lessened, &c. But because such is the nature of things, that either they grow towards perfection, or decline towards dissolution, there is no proper way to secure religion, but by setting its growth forward. The way of doing this indicated in the text, but grow in grace. Considerations proposed concerning, 1. what the state of grace is, into which we must enter, in order that we may grow in it: 2. the proper parts, acts, and offices of growing in grace: 3. the proper signs, consequences, and significations, whereby we may perceive that we are grown, and so judge of our state, &c. 1. Concerning the state of grace, it may be said, that no man |