God's call to England, for thankfulness after gracious deliverances

2. Hereby the Lord is made in a manner to repent of delivering a people: when men have gratified their fellow-creatures with signal favours, and after such expressions of respect have nothing but ungrateful returns; it makes them wish they had never bestowed their love on such unworthy persons. Thus the Almighty God, unjustly requited for mercies, is said to repent him of his conferring kindness on a people. But we must observe that golden rule; Quae [Greek or Hebrew] Deo ⟨p. 54⟩tribuuntur, [Greek or Hebrew] debent intelligi: Those things which are attributed to God after the manner of men, must be understood as become the Majesty of God. So Gods repenting is an improper allusive term, expressing not a change in Gods mind, but in his action: not implying such an affection in God as repentance, but alluding to the effect of such an affection in man, Gen. 6.6. It repented God that he made man, and it grieved him to the heart. This implies Gods wrathful indignation at mans miscarriage, but no disturbing alteration in the mind of God, who is ever the same. But to speak after the manner of Men, when a people continue in sins after deliverance, God may say, Oh! it repents me that I have delivered a people thus to dishonour me; it repents me to do so much for a people, to do thus much against me. Oh! how near are such a people to destruction, of whose deliverance God repents him! How soon will they be involved in ruin, of whom God may be provoked to say, as David of Nabal, 1 Sam. 25.21. In vain have I kept all this man hath in the wilderness; In vain have I preserved the lives and liberties of this people, since ⟨p. 55⟩the fruit of all is only to be rebelled against and dishonoured by them. If we thus make the Lord grieved at the heart for bestowing mercies, God will grieve us to the heart by destroying judgments.

2. Hereby the Lord is made in a manner to repent of delivering a people: when men have gratified their fellow-creatures with signal favours, and after such expressions of respect have nothing but ungrateful returns; it makes them wish they had never bestowed their love on such unworthy persons. Thus the Almighty God, unjustly requited for mercies, is said to repent him of his conferring kindness on a people. But we must observe that golden rule; Quae Deo