like strain describe in the gross the state of things preceding those judgments. And in Ezekiel (in divers places, particularly in the 8th, but especially in the 22d chapter) we have their offences in detail, and by parts (their gross impieties, their grievous cruelties, extortions, and oppressions) set out copiously, and in most lively colours. And as the quality of their provocations was so bad, and the extension of them so large, so was their condition desperate; there were no means of remedy left, no hopes of amendment; so was their forehead covered with impudence, their heart hardened with obstinacy, their minds deeply tinctured with habitual pravity and perverseness: 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil,' saith Jeremiah concerning them. All methods of reclaiming them had proved fruitless; no favorable dealings, no gentle admonition or kind instruction would avail any thing; for it is of them the prophet Isaiah saith, Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness.' No advices, no reproofs (how frequent, how vehement, how urgent soever) had any effect on them. Almighty God declares often that he had spoken unto them rising up early, but they would not hear nor regard his speech; did not only neglect, and refuse, but despise, loathe, mock, and reproach it, (turning their back on him, pulling away their shoulder, stiffening their neck, and stopping their ears, that they should not hear;) that he had spread out his hands all the day long to a rebellious and gainsaying people; to a people that (with extreme insolence and immodesty) provoked him to anger continually to his face. Nor could any tenders of mercy allure or move them: I said (God said it in Jeremiah) after all these things, Turn unto me; but she returned not. Amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin;' and innumerable the like overtures we have of grace and mercy to them; all which they proudly and perversely rejected, persisting in their wicked courses: they even repelled and silenced, they rudely treated and persecuted the prophets sent unto them with messages of kind warning and

overtures of grace; so obstructing all access of mercy to themselves: They say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things:' so Isaiah reports their proceeding. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?' so St. Stephen expostulates with them. Neither were gentler chastisements designed for their correction and cure anywise available; they made no impression on them, they produced no change in them: In vain,' saith God, I have smitten your children, they have received no correction.' And, Thou hast smitten them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than a rock, they have refused to return.' And, The people turneth not to him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts.' Unto this καταρτισμὸς εἰς ἀπώλειαν, this perfect fitness, (as St. Paul speaketh,) this maturity of desperate and irrecoverable impiety, had that people grown, not at once, and on a sudden, but by continual steps of provocation, through a long course of time, during that divine patience sparing them, and by various expedients striving to recover them. This consideration is frequently insisted on, especially in the prophet Jeremiah: The children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done evil before me from their youth: Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early, and sending them; yet they hearkened not unto me,' &c. Well then, after so many hundred years of abused patience, and unsuccessful labor to reclaim them, it was needful that justice should have her course on them: yet how then did God inflict it, with what mildness and moderation, with what pity and relenting? Nevertheless,' say they in Nehemiah, for thy great mercies sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.' And, Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve,' doth Ezra confess. I will not execute the fierceness of my anger,' doth God himself resolve and declare in Hosea. So mild he was as to the measure of his punishing; and what compassion accompanied it, those pathetical expressions declare: My heart is turned within me, my repentings

are kindled together.' Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still therefore my bowels are troubled for him.' In all their afflictions he was afflicted,' &c. We may add, that notwithstanding all these provocations of his wrath, and abusings of his patience, which thus necessitated God to execute his vengeance; yet even during the execution thereof, and while his hand was so stretched forth against them, he did retain thoughts of favor and intentions of doing good, even toward this so ingrateful, so insensible, so incorrigible a people: ' For a small moment,' saith God, have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee: I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.' Now these things being seriously laid together, have we not occasion and ground sufficient even in this instance, no less to admire and adore the wonderful benignity, mercy, and patience of God, than to dread and tremble at his justice?

V. As for the last so calamitous and piteous destruction of Jerusalem, with the grievous consequences thereof, as we might apply thereto the former considerations, so we shall only observe what was peculiar in that case; that God dispensed such means to prevent it, (to remove the meritorious causes thereof, obstinate impenitency and incredulity; resisting the truth by him sent from heaven with so clear a revelation and powerful confirmation; despising the Spirit of God, and the dictates of their own conscience; basely misusing divers ways, and at last cruelly murdering the Son of God;) such means, I say, God did employ for the removing those provocatives of vengeance, which, as our Lord himself saith, were sufficient to have converted Tyre and Sidon; yea, to have preserved Sodom itself; so that our Saviour could with a compassionate grief deplore the unsuccessfulness of his tender affection, and solicitous care for their welfare, in these passionate terms: How often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wing, but ye would not!' That St. John the Baptist's sharp reproofs, his powerful exhortations, his downright and clear forewarnings of what would follow, ('Even now,' said he, 'the axe is laid to the root of the tree,') attended with so re

markable circumstances of his person and his carriage, (which induced all the world about him to regard him as no ordinary man, but a special instrument of God and messenger from heaven,) did yet find no effect considerable: the pharisees and lawyers, those corrupt guides, whose authority managed the blind multitude, defeating the counsel of God toward themselves,' as St. Luke speaketh, (that is, defeating his gracious purpose of reclaiming them from disobedience, and consequently of withholding the judgments imminent,) they reviled the person of that venerable prophet; He hath a devil,' said they : they slighted his premonitions, and rejected his advices, by observing which, those dreadful mischiefs, which fell on their rebellious heads, might have been averted. We may add, that even those fearful judgments were tempered with mixtures of favorable design, not only to the community of mankind, (which, by so remarkable a vengeance on the persecutors of our Lord and the scorners of his doctrine, was converted unto, or confirmed in, the Christian faith,) but even toward that people whom it served to convince of their errors and crimes; to induce them to repentance, to provoke them unto the acknowlegement and embracing of God's truth, so palpably vindicated by him. So that I might here apply that passage of St. Paul, (if not directly and adequately according to his sense, yet with no incongruous allusion at least,) Have they stumbled, that they should fall?' (or, was there no other design of God's judgments on them, but their utter ruin?) un yévoiro' ‘No such matter; but through their fall salvation came to the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy' (or emulation.) And, in effect, as our Lord in the midst of his sufferings did affectionately pray for God's mercy on them, as the Apostles did offer reconciliation unto them all indifferently, who would repent, and were willing to embrace it; so were such of them as were disposed to comply with those invitations, received to grace, how deeply soever involved in the continued guilt of those enormous persecutions, injuries, and blasphemies; as particularly St. Paul, that illustrious example of God's patience and mercy in this case. So that neither by this instance is any attribute of God more signalised than his transcendent goodness, in like manner as by the former instances, and in analogy

to them by all others, that may be assigned. By all of them it will appear that God is primarily and of himself disposed to do all fitting and possible good to men, not to inflict evil more than is fit and necessary; that God is indeed optimus ex naturæ proprietate, (' most good according to property of nature,') although justus ex causæ necessitate, ('severe from the necessity of the case,') as Tertullian speaketh. To afflict men (either some men singly, or whole societies of men) may be sometimes expedient on several accounts; for vindicating the esteem, and supporting the interest of goodness, which may by impunity be disgraced, endamaged, endangered; for the discrimination of good and evil men, in an observable manner; for the encouragement and comfort of the good, the reduction and amendment of the bad; for preventing the contagion, and stopping the progress of iniquity, whereon greater guilts and worse mischiefs would ensue: it may be as necessary as sharp physic to cure public or private distempers; as an instrument of rousing us out of our sinful lethargies; as that which may cause us better to understand ourselves, and more to remember God; as a ground of fearing God, and an inducement to believe his providence. For those and many such purposes, to bring on men things distasteful to sense may be very requisite ; nor doth the doing it anywise prejudice the truth of divine goodness, but rather confirms it, commends it, and advances its just esteem. It would be a fond indulgence, not a wise kindness; a cruel, rather than a loving pity, to deal otherwise. In fine, we are to consider that all the mischiefs we undergo, God doth not so much bring them on us, as we do pull them on ourselves. They are avaípera Thμara, affected, or selfπήματα, chosen mischiefs; they are κακὰ βλαστήματα προαιρέσεως, • bad sprouts of our free choice,' as a Father calls them; they are, as another Father saith, ἑκουσίων κακῶν ἀκούσια ἔκγονα, the unwil ling offsprings of wilful evils;' they are the certain results of our own will, or the natural fruits of our actions; actions, which (however God desire, advise, command, persuade, entreat, excite) we do will, we are resolved to perform. We in a manner,' as Salvian saith,*do force God to do whatever he

*Salv. lib. 5. et 8.