London's lamentation, or, A serious discourse concerning the late fiery dispensation that turned our…

Thirdly, By severe Providences, and by fiery Trials, §3God designs the embittering of sin to his people. When God shall come and burn up mens comforts round about ⟨p. 37⟩them, then they will cry out, Ah, what a bitter thing is sin! that puts God upon burning work; then they will speak that language to their own Souls, that the Prophet once spake to the Jews, Jer. 2. 15. They made his land waste: his cities are burnt with fire. Vers. 17. Hast thou not procured these things to thy self? Vers. 19. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy back-slidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of Hosts. So Chap. 4. 18. Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee: this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thy heart Yea, now they will say, that sin is bitternesses in the abstract, and in the plural number also, according to that of the Prophet Hosea, Hos. 12. 14. Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly, or with bitternesses, as the Hebrew has it. Relations and friends may tell us, that sin is a bitter thing, and conscience may tell us, that sin is a bitter thing, and good books may tell us, that sin is a bitter thing, and men under terrors and horrors of spirit may tell us, that sin is a bitter thing, and the fore and heavy Judgments of God upon others may tell us, that sin is a bitter thing, and the Spirit by his secret whispers may tell us, that sin is a bitter thing, and Ministers may tell us, that sin is a bitter thing; they may tell you, that 'tis bitter to God, it being the only thing in all the world that he has revealed his wrath from Heaven against, and that is contrary to the Nature of God, the Law of God, the Being of God, the Glory of God, and the grand Designs of God. They may tell you, that 'tis bitter to Christ, witness his crying out in the bitterness of his Soul, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? and witness the sorrows and heaviness of his Soul, and his sweating clods of blood. When he hung upon the Cross, they gave him gall and vinegar to drink; but no gall was so bitter to him as your sins. They may tell you, that sin is bitter to the Spirit of God;