Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

2. His Patience is manifest, in that when he begins to send out his judgments, he doth it by degrees. His Judgments are as the Morning Light, which goes forth by degrees, in the Hemisphere. Hos. 6.5. He doth not shoot all his thunders at once, and bring his sharpest judgments in array at one time, but gradually, that a people may have time to turn to him. Joel 1.4. First the Palmer-worm, then the Locust, then the Canker-worm, then the Caterpillar; What one left, the other was to eat, if there were not a timely return. A Jewish Writer^* saith, these judgments came not all in one year, but one year after another. The Palmer-worm and Locust might have eaten all, but divine Patience set bounds to the devouring creatures. God had been first as a moth to Israel; Hos. 5.12. Therefore will I be to the house of Ephraim as a Moth; Rivet translates it, I have been, in the Hebr. 'tis I without adding, I have been, or I will be, and more probably I have been; I was as a Moth, which makes little holes in a garment, and consumes it not all at once; And as rottenness to the house of Judah, or a worm that eats into wood by degrees. Indeed this people had consumed insensibly, partly by civil combustions, change of Governors, Foreign Invasions, yet they were as obstinate in their Idolatry as ever; At last God would be no longer to them as a Moth, but as a Lyon, tear, and go away; ver. 14. So, Hos. 2. God had disowned Israel for his Spouse, ver. 2. She is not my Wife, neither am I her Husband, yet he had not taken away her Ornaments, which by the right of divorce he might have done, but still expected her Reformation, for that the threatening intimates, ver. 3. let her put away her Whoredom, least I strip her naked, and set her as in the day when she was born. If she returned, she might recover what she had lost, if not, she might be stripped of what remained. Thus God dealt with Judah, Ezek. 9.3. The Glory of God goes first from the Cherub to the Threshold of the house, and stays there, as if he had a mind to be invited back again; ⟨p. 805⟩