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favour will convert into an aggravation of our sin and punishment. The great end why God delivered us, was to win us by his goodness to forsake our sins, and give us space to repent of them: for so the apostle tells us, that the goodness and longsuffering of God leads us to repentance, in Rom. ii. 4. But if it doth not lead us thither, it will leave us in a far worse condition than it found us, i. e. it will leave us loaded with much heavier guilt, and bound over to much sorer punishment. For he that sins on under his preservations, is only preserved to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and to prepare more fuel for his future flames. So that, if he still persist in his wickedness, it had been much better for him that God had let him alone to perish under his affliction for then he had passed more innocent into the other world, and suffered there a much cooler damnation. Whereas now, whenever his wretched ghost departs into eternity, it will go attended with a louder cry of guilts, with the cry of so many more wronged mercies and abused preservations; which will most fearfully enhance her accounts, and inflame the reckoning of her torments: so that when she comes into the other world among those miserable spirits that were snatched away in the common calamities from whence she was rescued and preserved, she will find herself plunged into a condition so much more intolerable, that she will wish a thousand times she had been snatched away with them, that so she might never have had the opportunity to contract those guilts that are the woful causes of it. Wherefore, as we would not make the mercies of God the causes of our misery, and turn our preservations into judgments, we are highly obliged, upon every reco

very from past judgments and calamities, to reform and amend our lives.

And now what remains, but that we seriously consider with ourselves how much we are concerned in this argument. We of this generation are a people whom God hath exercised with wondrous judgments and deliverances. We have many of us lived to see the bowels of our native country ripped up by an unnatural war, the righteous cause of the prince and father of our country oppressed by prosperous villainy; his innocent blood, our laws, liberties, and religion sacrificed to the lust of rebels and usurpers: and when we had long suffered the consequent miseries and confusions, our merciful God took pity upon us; and, after a long exile, and without the charge and smart of war and bloodshed, restored to us again the lawful heir and successor of our crown, and, with him, our liberties and religion. This, one would have thought, was enough to oblige a people of any ingenuity, and to endear to us for ever the author of such a miraculous mercy. But when, instead of being reclaimed by his goodness, we grew worse and worse, his anger was kindled again against us; and, in his sore displeasure, he breathed forth a destroying pestilence upon us, that in a few months swept our streets, unpeopled our houses, and turned our towns and cities into Golgothas. But in the midst of so many deaths we were preserved, and under the shield of that Providence were kept in safety, when ten thousand arrows flew about our ears. And could we possibly resist the powerful charms of such an endearing, such a distinguishing kindness? Alas! yes, we could, and did, and were so far from being conquered by it, that we grew more obstinate and rebellious. This

incensed him against us anew, and with firebrands in its hands, his vengeance came and kindled our houses into a devouring flame, that with wondrous fury did spread and enlarge itself from house to house, and from street to street, till it had laid this famous metropolis of our nation in a heap of ruins. But yet in the midst of judgment God remembered mercy; and when the unruly element had baffled all our arts, and triumphed over all our resistance, God put a bridle unto his mouth and stopped him in his full career; by which means a great part of us were preserved, and snatched as firebrands out of the flame. And though many of us saw our houses and estates buried in the ruins it made, yet we have lived to see, and that within a few years, the consumed phoenix rise out of her ashes in greater glory and lustre than ever. And now, what have we rendered to the Lord for all these mercies and signal preservations? O ungrateful that we are! we have turned his mercies into wantonness, and fought against him with his own favours: we have spent those lives which he hath preserved to us, in grieving, provoking, and dishonouring him: we have turned those houses he hath restored to us into open stages of pride and luxury: we have consumed those estates which he hath repaired, in supplying our manifold rebellions against him. Thus with his own mercies we have waged war with him. What then can we expect, but that he should disarm us of those mercies which we have so foully misemployed, and thunder his judgments upon us, to avenge our abuse of them? For if he cannot melt our obstinacy with the fire of mercy, it is fit he should attempt to break it with the hammer of judgment: and if, when he

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hath tried lighter judgments, they will not do, it is fit he should second them with greater and heavier. Which brings me,

2. To the second reason of the caution in the text, Lest a worse thing come upon thee; i. e. Beware thou dost not continue stubborn under the past corrections, lest thou thereby provoke thy angry God to lay his hand yet heavier upon thee, and to scourge thee with scorpions instead of rods. For it is the usual method of the divine providence, when lesser judgments prove ineffectual, to second and enforce them with greater. Thus he threatens to deal with Israel, Levit. xxvi. 21, 23, 24. And if ye walk contrary to me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins. And if yet ye will not be reformed by these things, but walk contrary to me; then will I walk contrary to you, and will punish you yet seven times more for your sins. And just as he threatened, so it came to pass; for as they continued obstinate under God's judgments, so he continued to plague them sorer and sorer; till at last, perceiving their disease to be incurable, he cut them off, and utterly destroyed them. And in this method of punishing sinners gradually with sharper and sharper strokes, when they continue obstinate under correction, there is a great deal of reason and wisdom. For, (1.) Their obstinacy swells and enhances their guilt. (2.) It renders severe punishments necessary. And, (3.) Those severer punishments render their final destruction more inexcusable. Of each of these briefly.

(1.) God punishes them with heavier, when they continue obstinate under lighter judgments; because their obstinacy is a greater aggravation of their guilt:

for though our reason indeed tells us, that sin is the greatest and most dangerous evil in the world; yet reason and argument hath not comparably that force to persuade men, as their own sense and experience hath; and they will be much sooner persuaded of the reality of any evil, by feeling the smart of it, than by a thousand dry arguments against it. And therefore, though it be a great aggravation of our guilt to sin against the clear convictions of our reason, yet it is a much greater to sin against the sharp and dolorous perceptions of our own sense and experience. But now, while the judgments of God are upon men, they feel the dire effects of their sin.: and therefore, if notwithstanding this they still persist in it, they sin against their sense, as well as their reason; which is in effect a plain defiance of God, and a daring him to do his worst with us. For this, in effect, is the sense and interpretation of our obstinacy: O God, I know thou art angry with my sins, by the dire effects I now feel and experience: but be it known to thee, I despise thy vengeance, and am resolved to sin on bravely in despite of all the judgments thou canst arm against me. what greater aggravation of sin can there be, than to repeat it with such a blasphemous contempt of the Most High? He is a daring thief, we say, that will venture to rob within sight of the gallows; and he is as insolent a sinner, that dares sin on in the face of judgment. It was looked upon as a monstrous piece of contumacy in the Jews, that when God had only forewarned them by the prophet, Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now therefore every one from his evil way; they returned this arrogant an

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