Sermons preached on several occasionsSermons preach'd on several occasions

And as the Pleasures, so the Business of the World cause a supine Security under Judgments. We have an amazing Instance of it in Hiel the Bethlemite, who laid the Foundation of his City in the Death of his First-born, and set up the Gates of it in his youngest Son; yet he was so intent upon his Building, that he disregarded the Divine Nemesis, that was apparent, fulfilling the terrible Threatening prophesied against the Builder of Jericho.¹

And as the Pleasures, so the Business of the World cause a supine Security under Judgments. We have an amazing Instance of it in Hiel the Bethlemite, who laid the Foundation of his City in the Death of his First-born, and set up the Gates of it in his youngest Son; yet he was so intent upon his Building, that he disregarded the Divine Nemesis, that was apparent, fulfilling the terrible Threatning prophesied against the Builder of Jericho.¹

1. 1Joshua 6. 26.

3. An obstinate fierceness of Spirit, a Diabolical Fortitude is the Cause that sometimes Men despise afflicting Providences so far as to resist them. There is a passive Malignity in all, an Unaptness to be wrought on, and to receive Spiritual and Heavenly Impressions from God's Hand; but in some of the Sons of Perdition there is an active Malignity, whereby they furiously ⟨p. 145⟩repel Judgments as if they could oppose the Almighty. Their Hearts are of an Anvil-Temper, made harder by Afflictions, and reverberate the Blow, like that Roman Emperor, who instead of humbling and reforming at God's Voice in Thunder, thundered back again. All Judgments that befall them, are as Strokes given to wild Beasts, that instead of taming them, enrage them to higher degrees of Fierceness.