Section 2: The Plague and Fire as God's Terrible Judgments

The word in the original is [in non-Latin alphabet] from [in non-Latin alphabet] which signifies, he feared: terrible things are such great judgments of God, as do usually make a general impression of fear upon the hearts of people.

Take some instances.

1. The plague is a terrible judgment by which God speaks to men. The Hebrew word is [in non-Latin alphabet] from [in non-Latin alphabet] he spoke. It is a speaking judgment; where God sends the plague, he speaks, and he speaks terribly; the plague is very terrible, as it effects terror; the pestilence which walks in darkness, is called the terror by night (Psalm 91:5-6).

The plague is very terrible, in that

1. It is so poisonous a disease; it poisons the blood and spirits, breeds a strange kind of venom in the body, which breaks forth sometimes in boils, and blains, and great carbuncles, or else works more dangerously, when it preys upon the vitals more inwardly.

2. It is so noisome a disease; it turns the good humors into putrefaction, which putting forth itself in the issues of running sores, does give a most noisome smell. Such a disease for loathsomeness we read of (Psalm 38:5, 7, 11): My wounds stink and are corrupt, my loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there is no soundness in my flesh; my lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off.

3. It is so infectious a disease; it spreads itself worse than the leprosy among the Jews; it infects not only those which are weak, and infirm in body, and full of ill humors, but also those which are young, strong, healthful, and of the best temperature; and that sometimes sooner than others. The plague is infectious, and greatly infectious, whole cities have been depopulated through its spreading, many whole families have received infection, and death one from another thereby, which is the third thing that renders the plague so terrible.

4. It is so deadly; it kills where it comes without mercy; it kills (I had almost said certainly) very few do escape, especially upon its first entrance, and before its malignity be spent; few are touched by it, but they are killed by it: and it kills suddenly; as it gives no warning before it comes, suddenly the arrow is shot which wounds to the heart; so it gives little time of preparation before it brings to the grave. Under other diseases men may linger out many weeks and months; under some various years; but the plague usually kills within a few days; sometimes within a few hours after its first approach, though the body were never so strong and free from disease before.

The plague is very terrible; it is terrible to them that have it; insomuch as it usually comes with grim death, the king of terrors, in its hand: and it is terrible to them which have it not; because of their danger of being infected by it; the fear of which has made such an impression upon some, that it has erased out of their hearts, for the while, all affections of love and pity to their nearest relations and dearest friends; so that when the disease has first seized upon them, and they have had the greatest need of succor, they have left their friends in distress, and flown away from them, as if they had been their enemies.

2. A deluge by water is a terrible judgment: there have been several floods which we read of in histories, that have suddenly broken in upon some places, and overwhelmed habitations and inhabitants together.

But God never did, and never will speak so terribly by a deluge of water, as by the great deluge in the days of Noah, when the whole world was drowned thereby, excepting Noah, and those which were with him in the Ark.

And because the judgment was so dreadful, and the history so affecting, I shall set it before your eye out of Genesis 7, from verse 11 to the end of the chapter. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, and the seventeenth day of the month, in the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up. God withdrew the bounds which he had set to the great sea, so that the waters covered the earth as they did at the beginning; and the windows of heaven were opened, out of which God looked forth in anger upon the earth, and poured forth a vial of his wrath, causing it to rain forty days and forty nights in dreadful showers, accompanied, as is probable, with stormy winds, and hideous tempest, which put the world into a fright and amazement; when the element of air seemed to be changed into water, and such a torrent flowed in upon them on every side; we may guess what fear they were overwhelmed with; but Noah and his family were got into the Ark, and the Lord shut them in; then the waters increased, and bore up the Ark, and it was lifted up above the earth, and the waters increased, and prevailed greatly upon the earth, [in non-Latin alphabet] and the Ark went upon the face of the waters, so that all the high hills and mountains were covered fifteen cubits. Then all flesh died, fowl, and cattle, and beast, and every thing that crept or moved on the earth, and every man, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the Ark. God spoke then terribly indeed to the wicked world by the flood, which devoured them all together in the midst of their security and sin; but God has promised he will never speak thus by water any more.

3. Fire is another terrible thing, whereby God sometimes calls to contend by with a sinful people: fire is very dreadful when it has a commission from God, and meets with much combustible matter, and prevails without resistance. God spoke terribly by fire to Sodom and Gomorrah, when he rained fire and brimstone on those cities, and consumed them. See (Genesis 19:24-29): The Lord rained fire and brimstone out of heaven, and overthrew those cities and the inhabitants together; and when Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and the land of the plain, he saw the smoke of the country go up like the smoke of a furnace.

God spoke terribly, though not so terribly to Jerusalem, when he suffered their city to be set on fire by the Babylonians, and their temple to be burnt to the ground. See (Jeremiah 52:12-13).

But the most fearful instances of God's terrible voice by fire are yet to come: Thus God will speak by fire to Spiritual Babylon, which may easily be proved to be Rome, from (Revelation 17:18). She being the then great city, which reigned over the kings of the earth. Babylon's burning with fire you may read, (Revelation 18:8-10, etc.). Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burnt with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judges her: And the kings of the earth who have committed fornication, and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning; standing afar off for fear of her torment, saying, Alas! alas! that great city Babylon! that mighty city! for in one hour is your judgment come. etc.

God spoke terribly by fire when London was in flames, of which in the application; but he will speak far more terribly when Babylon shall be in flames; and not only in part, but wholly, and utterly, and irreparably burnt and turned into ashes: when not only the city shall be consumed, but also the whore herself shall be hated and made desolate, and devoured with fire by the kings of the earth (Revelation 17:10).

The last instance of God's speaking terribly by fire will be the last day, when the Lord Jesus Christ, the Judge of quick and dead, shall come down from heaven in flaming fire, to take vengeance on all those that know not God, and obey not the Gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). And the Apostle Peter tells us, that the heavens and the earth are reserved in store for fire against this day: when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and all the works therein shall be burnt up (2 Peter 3:7, 10). Then God will speak terribly by fire, and above all, most terribly to the ungodly world, when he will sentence them to, and cast them into the fire of hell, where they must dwell with devouring fire, and inhabit everlasting burnings.

4. The sword is a dreadful judgment, whereby God speaks sometimes very terribly; especially when he draws it forth against his own and his people's enemies. Hear how terribly God speaks, as in (Deuteronomy 32:39-42). See now that I, even I am he, and there is no God with me; I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand: For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live forever. If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to my enemies, and reward them that hate me; I will make my arrows drunk with blood (and my sword shall devour flesh) and that with the blood of the slain, and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemies.

When God furbishes his sword, and whets it; when God girds his sword upon his thigh, and marches against his enemies; when he draws his sword, and makes slaughter with it; when his sword devours much flesh, and is made drunk with the blood of the slain; when God gives commission to the sword, saying, Sword, go through such a land; as (Ezekiel 14:17). And pours out his fury on the land in blood; as (verse 19). So that the sword is bathed in blood, and garments are rolled in blood, and the land is soaked in blood; when blood is poured forth like water, and dead bodies are cast forth into the open field without burial; and God makes an invitation to all feathered fowl to gather themselves together, and feast themselves upon the carcasses of the slain; as (Ezekiel 39:17-20). When God comes with dyed garments from Bozrah (Isaiah 63:1). When he gathers the nations, and brings them into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and there causes his mighty ones to come down against them (Joel 3:2, 11). When the day of God's indignation does come, and he makes such slaughter among his enemies, that the earth does stink with their carcasses, and the mountains do melt with their blood (Isaiah 34:2-3). When God treads the winepress of his wrath without the city, and the blood comes out of the winepress even to the horses' bridles (Revelation 14:20). In a word, when the Lord shall come forth upon his white horse with his armies, and shall destroy the Beast, and all the powers of the earth that take part with him: as (Revelation 19, from verse 11 to the end): Then God will speak terribly indeed against his enemies by the sword; then he will roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and that in such a manner, as will make both the heavens and the earth to tremble (Joel 3:16).

And indeed God speaks with a terrible voice wherever he sends the sword, and makes the alarm of war to be heard; as sometimes he sends it among his own people for their sin (1 Kings 8:33).

When God brings into a land a people of another language and religion, of a fierce countenance and cruel disposition, and gives them power to prevail, and bring the land under their feet, so that the mighty men are cut off by them, and the men of valor crushed in the gate; the young men fly and fall before them, and there is none to make any resistance; when they break in upon cities, plunder houses, ravish women and maids, strip, and spoil, and put all to the sword, the young, with the grey-head, cruelly rip up women with child, and without any pity on little infants, dash them against the stones. God speaks more terribly by such a judgment, than by plague or fire.

5. The famine is a dreadful judgment, whereby God speaks sometime to a people very terribly; when God stretches upon a place the lines of confusion, and the stones of emptiness; as (Isaiah 34:11). When God sends cleanness of teeth into cities; as (Amos 4:6). When God shoots into a land the evil arrows of famine, and it becomes exceeding sore, this is one of the most dreadful judgments of all judgments in this world, far beyond plague, or fire, or sword. See how pathetically the famine among the Jews is described by Jeremiah in his Lamentations (Lamentations 4:4-12). The tongue of the sucking child cleaves to the roof of his mouth for thirst; the young children ask for bread, and no man breaks it to them. They that feed delicately are desolate in the streets. They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown in a moment, and no hand stayed on her. The Nazarites were purer than snow; whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies; their polishing was of sapphire: their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets; their skin cleaves to their bones, it is withered, it is become like a stick. They that be slain with the sword, are better than they which be slain with hunger; for these pine away stricken through for want of the fruits of the earth. The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children, they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. The Lord has accomplished his fury, he has poured out his fierce anger.

6. The sixth terrible judgment is a famine of the word, which is threatened (Amos 8:11-12). Behold the days come, says the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north to the east, and they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

A famine of the word is a worse judgment, than a famine of bread; indeed few do really think so, because the most judge according to sense; but that it is so, is evident to a man of faith and consideration; for as the soul is more excellent than the body, and the concernments of the other life, far beyond the concernments of this life: so the provisions for the soul are more excellent than the provisions for the body, and the means of getting eternal life to be preferred before the means of preserving temporal life; and therefore by consequence the dearth and scarcity of provisions for the soul must needs be a greater judgment, than a scarcity of provisions for the body. To which I might add, that the famine of the word does usually bring with it many temporal judgments; the burning of the temple at Jerusalem, and the failing of vision was accompanied with slaughter by the sword, and captivity of the land.

7. And lastly, God speaks most terribly to a people when he sends divers of these judgments together, as (Lamentations 1:20). Abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is death, when enemies without, plague and famine within. God speaks terribly, when fire and sword go together, or sword and famine; or famine and plague, or famine of bread, and famine of the word.

These are some of the terrible things by which God does sometimes speak.