Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

Secondly, Consider that Revenging Wrath stirs up all that is in God against a Sinner. Wrath when it is whet and set on by Revenge, redoubles a Man's Force, and makes him perform Things that he could not do in his cold Blood, it fires all a Man's Spirits, and calls them forth to express their utmost Efforts. So this Revenging Wrath of God draws forth all the Force and Activity of his Attributes, and sets them against a Sinner, and how dreadful then must that Execution needs be? We see what great Works God can perform when he is not stirred ⟨p. 124⟩up thereunto by his Wrath and Indignation. He speaks a whole World into Being, and speaks it with a cold and calm Breath. Certainly it was no small piece of work, to spread out the Heavens, and lay the Foundations of the Earth, and to work all those Wonders of Creation and Providence which we daily behold; but yet all these Things God did, (if I may so speak) without any Emotion. But when he comes to take Vengeance upon Sinners, he is then inflamed, all that is in God, is as it were on fire. Jealousy, says Solomon, is the Rage of a Man, Proverbs 6.34. ¹Now when God's Jealousy shall be stirred in him, think how impetuously it will break forth in the fearful effects of it. ²Isa. 42.13. The Lord shall stir up Jealousy ⟨p. 125⟩like a Man of War; he shall cry, yea, roar, he shall prevail against his Enemies. If the calm and sedate Works of God are so great and wonderful, how great then will his Vengeance be, when Anger, Fury, and Indignation shall excite and whet his Power to show the very utmost of what it can do? And therefore we find that though God had inflicted dreadful Plagues upon the Israelites in the Wilderness, and had shown mighty effects of his Power and Vengeance, yet we find the Church blesseth him, That he turned away his Anger, and did not stir up all his Wrath. ³But in Hell God stirs up all his Wrath, every thing is set and bent against the Damned: And as to the Saints in Heaven, every Attribute of God concurs to make him merciful and gracious to