A Body of Practical Divinity

1. With Spiritual Plagues. He gives up Sabbath-profaners to hardness of Heart, and a seared Conscience. Spiritual Judgments are sorest. Psal. 81.12. So I gave them up to their own Hearts Lusts. A Sear in the Conscience is a Brand-mark of Reprobation.

2. God punisheth this Sin of Sabbath-breaking, by giving them up to commit other Sins. God to revenge the breaking of his Sabbath, suffers Men to break open Houses, and so come to be punished by the Magistrate. How many such Confessions have we heard from Thieves going to be executed! They never regarded the Sabbath, and so God suffered them to commit those heinous Sins, for which now they are to die.

2. God punisheth this Sin of Sabbath-breaking, by giving them up to commit other Sins. God to revenge the breaking of his Sabbath, suffers Men to break open Houses, and so come to be punished by the Magistrate. How many such Confessions have we heard from Thieves going to be executed! They never regarded the Sabbath, and so God suffered them to commit those hainous Sins, for which now they are to die.

3. God punisheth Sabbath-breaking by sudden visible Judgments on Men for this Sin. God punisheth them in their Estates, and in their Persons. One carrying Corn into his Barn on the Lord's Day, both House and Corn consumed with Fire from Heaven. In Wiltshire there was a Dancing Match appointed upon the Lord's Day, and one of the Company as he was dancing fell down dead suddenly, and so was made a Spectacle of God's Justice. The Theatre of God's Judgments relates of one, who used every Lord's Day to hunt in Sermon-time, and he had a Child by his Wife with an Head like a Dog, and it cried like an Hound. His Sin was monstrous, and it was punished with a monstrous Birth. The Lord threatened the Jews, That if they would not hallow the Sabbath-day, he would kindle a Fire in their Gates,