Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

Sixthly, If Rulers will not take due, that is, utmost care to suppress profaneness in a Nation where their power lieth, they take a direct course to pull down the wrath of God upon that whole Nation as well as upon themselves. Solomon hath these passages, Prov. 9.12. If thou be wise thou shalt be wise for thy self, but if thou scornest thou alone shalt bear it. But we cannot say, if a Magistrate will not discharge his duty, but suffer wickedness to pass without control, he alone shall bear it; no, no, the burden may light, and lye heavy upon more shoulders than his own. His remissness and neglect may turn to the smart of the Land, and people over whom he is set; the not shutting the flood-gates of sin which let in a deluge of wickedness below, is no other than the opening of the Windows of Heaven above for the letting down Showers and Storms of wrath that shall drown and swallow up all. For want of this, as you heard under the last particular, God did not only with great severity judge the house of Eli, but also threatened to do a thing in Israel, or unto Israel, as some read it, at which both the ears of every ⟨image 169⟩one that heard it should tingle, 1 Sam. 3.11. If any enquire what that terrible thing was, I answer, it was no less than the delivering of the Army of Israel into the hands of the accursed Philistines, so that three thousand of them fell in battle before those their Enemies, and which was yet worse, the Ark of God was taken, before which they worshipped, and which was the special and delightful Symbol of the Divine presence with them. When the Sword of Magistracy lieth still and dormant in the midst of crying abominations, then God thinks it fit and high time to awake himself to the Judgment which he commanded and man neglected, and to draw his own, and how doth he then lay about him, what blows doth he give, what stupendous work doth he make! When one Jonah (that had been disobedient to his God, and being sent by him upon a Message to Nineveh, took him to his heels and run another way, when he I say) was in the Ship, and lay in peace, and at ease, the whole was in danger, nor did the storm cease, though the Heathen Mariners called every one to his God, till the guilty Criminal received his deserved punishment in being cast into the Sea. That is a notable saying of Solomon,