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

PROPOSITION 5.

Destruction for sinning after deliverance, will be the most dreadful destruction: what can be more clear than this, from the words of my Text? Should we again break thy commands, wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping? That is, no common calamity would then fall upon us; no ordinary punishment would be our portion; but we exceeding ⟨p. 66⟩the common measure and degree of sin, thou wouldst exceed the common degree of judgment: E dulcissimo vino acerrimum fit acetum; The sweetest wines make sourest vinegar; the strongest perfumes are fatal as poisons; abused mercy will be avenged with unusual miseries. No mercy is to be expected in judgment, when mercies are despised that kept off judgments. Kindness not effecting an answerable reformation, will abundantly aggravate revengeful destruction: Isaiah 29.1, 2. God threatens Ariel, sc. Jerusalem, that wonderful distress should fall upon it; and it should be to him as Ariel. Ariel was the Altar for wholeburnt offerings, Ezech. 43.15. Now to avenge their abuses of mercies there, God would make their City, once the richest of their mercies, an Altar on which their blood should be offered as a sacrifice to justice. Thus our mercies abused, may become knives to open our throats; our Cities and Towns so often delivered, may be as Altars, about which our lifeless bodies may be heaped as sacrifices about the Altar. The quintessence of all judgments, the substance of all Plagues, shall be mingled in one cup, with all the dregs of ⟨p. 67⟩wrath, for the despisers of clemency and mercy. Mercy is sweet that is extended to us in midst of judgments; and judgments severe, when executed on a people abounding with mercies. A deliverance cannot bring so great mercies, but sinning after it will usher in as dreadful judgments. By how much the greater the deliverance is we receive, so much the greater will be the destruction for sinning after it. A thick cloud hath been over our heads, and the favourable gale of mercy hath partly dispersed it; but the ascending of sinful vapours will cause the Lord to return our sins upon our heads, with overwhelming inundations of judgments; slighting the gales of mercy, preventing ruin, will bring most dreadful storms of vengeance. Our float of goodness may be turned into floods of misery. Our sun may set at noon-day;