The day of his signal and dreadful calamity is approaching; and the longer this day is coming, the more horrible it will be. As eternal condemnation will be nothing the less for a present reprieve upon earth; so temporal destruction will be nothing the more tolerable, for a patient toleration and continued delay before it comes. We are little aware what is coming upon us, now our dangers are a little over; but whilst we are insensibly sinning after the expressions of unmerited favour, the bottles of wrath are filling, and the clouds of vengeance gathering; and who knows but suddenly they may ease and unburden themselves in a deluge of ruin upon us an undaunted people? Will not the punishment of sins continued against light and love, distress and deliverance, so many years as we have enjoyed them, be of that nature that might make our ⟨p. 73⟩hearts tremble to conceive it? will not the vials of wrath be unspeakably full, and the storm of vengeance most horrible, which hath been so long in gathering? Sinning after deliverance, renders the destruction dreadful, as they make it in a peculiar manner our own. Now destruction lies at our own door, and our selves only are to bear the blame of it. In mercy God begins first, but in miseries we make the beginning. And what can be a more dreadful aggravation, than to have cause to say, Mercies are gone, God is departed, Enemies prevail? and what may we thank but our pride and profaneness, our ingratitude and ungodliness, after obliging mercies? what makes up the endless and intolerable torments of damned Souls, for ever banished from the comfortable presence of the excellent glory, but this, that all that misery was procured by themselves? 'Tis observed of some Birds, that the lime is made of their own dung that is used to destroy them: The lime-twigs of Gods judgments, are made of the dung of our own sins. Our sins are the feathers, whereby •he fatal darts of judgments fly unto us. Propriis conficimur alis, wounded with ⟨p. 74⟩our own weapons, with Arrows made from our selves: we do ill unjustly, and then suffer ill deservedly. All the judgments that spring up, are but from seeds of our own sowing. The Garment is ruined by the Moth bred in •t, and we by enemies of our own breeding. It was great aggravation to the misery of the Jews, that God told them, Jer. 4.18. Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee.
The day of his signal and dreadful calamity is approaching; and the longer this day is coming, the more horrible it will be. As eternal condemnation will be nothing the less for a present reprieve upon earth; so temporal destruction will be nothing the more tolerable, for a patient toleration and continued delay before it comes. We are little aware what is coming upon us, now our dangers are a little over; but whilst we are insensibly sinning after the expressions of unmerited favour, the bottles of wrath are filling, and the clouds of vengeance gathering; and who knows but suddenly they may ease and unburden themselves in a deluge of ruine upon us an undaunted people? Will not the punishment of sins continued against light and love, distress and deliverance, so many years as we have enjoyed them, be of that nature that might make our ⟨p. 73⟩hearts tremble to conceive it? will not the vials of wrath be unspeakably full, and the storm of vengeance most horrible, which hath been so long in gathering? Sinning after deliverance, renders the destruction dreadful, as they make it in a peculiar manner our own. Now destruction lyes at our own door, and our selves onely are to bear the blame of it. In mercy God begins first, but in miseries we make the beginning. And what can be a more dreadful aggravation, than to have cause to say, Mercies are gone, God is departed, Enemies prevail? and what may we thank but our pride and profaneness, our ingratitude and ungodliness, after obliging mercies? what makes up the endless and intolerable torments of damned Souls, for ever banisht from the comfortable presence of the excellent glory, but this, that all that misery was procured by themselves? 'Tis observed of some Birds, that the lime is made of their own dung that is used to destroy them: The lime-twigs of Gods judgments, are made of the dung of our own sins. Our sins are the feathers, whereby •he fatal darts of judgments fly unto us. Propriis conficimur alis, wounded with ⟨p. 74⟩our own weapons, with Arrows made from our selves: we do ill unjustly, and then suffer ill deservedly. All the judgments that spring up, are but from seeds of our own sowing. The Garment is ruin'd by the Moth bred in •t, and we by enemies of our own breeding. It was great aggravation to the misery of the Iews, that God told them, Ier. 4.18. Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee.
