Part 4

4. The fourth general point in this exhortation, is the time limited them, when they should search: Before the Decree come forth, &c. As though the Prophet should say, Israel, repent before God execute his judgments on you. For behold the gracious dealing of God: man sins, his sins deserve plagues; but God does not presently plague, but defers it, he puts a time between the sin and the punishment (ordinarily): this he does to show his mercy to mankind, because that he would not destroy them, if they would amend. Therefore, after the sin, he does not smite presently, but puts off his punishment, that in the mean time man may repent. Here the Prophet compares the Lord to a mother, for as she conceives the fruit in her womb, and bears it a long time, ere she bring it out: so the Lord after a man's sins, or a people's sins, conceives (that is) ordains, and decrees a judgment for it, but he keeps it up, and all that while he bears it. But as she, when her time is come, then travails and brings forth: so, when the time that God has appointed is come, and still sin is not repented of, then his justice travails to be delivered of that judgment, which mercy has kept up so long a time. Thus the old world had a hundred and twenty years given them, for time of repentance; all that while God was in conceiving, at last when their sins were ripe, and no hope of amendment: then God travailed, and brought forth a fearful birth, namely, the universal flood, to wash away, and take revenge upon the universal iniquities of those times. So many hundred years he gave to the Jews, long he was in conceiving their destruction, and oftentimes he had it at the bringing forth, as in the captivity of Babylon, and under Antiochus; yet his mercy stayed it: and still he travailed longer: telling them here by the Prophet, that yet the Decree is not come forth (though it be conceived): but at last when Israel would not repent, but grew worse and worse; as in Christ his time, then he could contain no longer, but travailed indeed, and though it be with grief, yet he has brought forth: and what? A most fearful birth, even an utter desolation of that kingdom and country, of their city, and temple, and a dispersion of this nation over all the world. But as a woman at last is delivered with danger and difficulty, with pain and sorrow: so the Lord long conceives, but at last brings forth his judgments: yet is it with grief and unwillingness, and he is loath (as it were) and much grieved to execute his most just judgments on those, who have professed his name. He often touched the Jews a little, and as being unwilling to smite them, he drew back his hand again: but at last when their sins did so increase, and were so strong, that they even did wring out by violence his plagues from him, then with much bewailing of their great misery (as we may see in Christ weeping for them) he executes his judgments on them. But as they are long a coming: so, when they come forth, they were the heavier; as a child, the more fullness of time it has, is the greater, the livelier, and the stronger: so, God's judgments, the longer God defers them, and is in conceiving them, the heavier are they, when they come: that is manifest in the Jews, once his own people, for he has destroyed their land, with an irrecoverable destruction, and smitten their posterity, with a blindness of mind till this hour, so that to this day, when the old Testament is read, the veil is over their eyes, that they cannot see the light of Christ Jesus, but plod on in fearful and palpable blindness.

This doctrine has special use to this our church, to teach us to look to ourselves betimes, and try our own ways, and turn to the Lord, for we cannot tell how far off his judgments are: in reason they must needs be near, they have been so long deferred, and yet been so justly deserved of us. Certainly, God has long been in conceiving judgments and plagues for the sins of England, and often has God's hand been upon us, by war, famine, pestilence, inundations: and yet it has been pulled back again: and his sword has been put up into his sheath, and God has stayed his birth, even in the very travail, and we have escaped, even as a man, whose neck has been upon the block, and the axe holden up to strike. So then, yet the day is not come, yet we have time: happy we that ever we saw this day, if now we have grace to repent, and search our hearts, for then we shall stay his judgment decreed, that it shall never come forth against us. But if we defer to repent, put off from day to day, and lie rotting still in our sins: then know and be assured, that as the Decree is established, so it must needs come forth, and the stroke stricken, repentance is too late. Therefore what he said to the Jews, I say to us, Search yourself O England: (a nation not worthy to be beloved) before the Decree come forth, which is already past against you.

Thus much for the fourth point.