[Terribilia Dei. Remarkable judgements of God, on several sorts of offenders, in several scores…

The Sixth Rule.

Among all the Judgments of God, I know none more Tremendous, than His leaving here and there some Famous Professors and Pretenders of Religion, to some Horribly Irreligious Actions. When we see ••ose Judgments, Then, Then above all, should our Flesh Tremble for Fear of God, and we should be afraid of His Judgments. Tis a Thing, that sometimes does happen among us. Persons ⟨p. 23⟩that have been Exemplary for Piety & Charity all their Days, yet have at last grown Melancholy, & God hath so left them to the Possession of some Devil, that they have laid Violent Hands upon themselves; they have Starved themselves, Hanged themselves, Drowned themselves, yea, and had a Preternatural Assistance in their doing of it. Who can Behold these unaccountable Tragedies without that out cry, Lord, I am afraid of thy Judgments! What Use can we make of these Tragical Things, but that in 1 Pet. 1.17. To pass the Time of our Sojourning here in Fear? What, but that in Phil. 2.12. To work out our own Salvation with Fear & Trembling? And, alas, what shall we say, of those Prodigious Falls into Sin, which the Lives of some that were counted First-rate Christians, have been Reproached withal? What shall we say, Oh! our God, what shall we say, of the monstrous Crimes, which we have seen some that have seemed Pillars of Christianity among us, to fall into? This I will say; That the Burning Wrath of a Righteous and a Terrible God, ha's never been so much discovered, in all our Losses by Sea and Land, and in all the bloody Depredations of our Adversaries, as in this One Thing: That ever now and then some one or other, that ha's been much Noted for Zeal in the ways of God, ha's been found in some Damnable Act of Wickedness. There is the very Venom and Spirit of Hell, in these Judgments of God upon a Land; God would never ⟨p. 24⟩