IV.

SERM. exceeding sinful, and destruction exceeding destructive, and -after some intermission of judgments but none of provocations-since a dove-like emblem of peace hath been hovering over our heads, but not permitted to rest upon us, disclaimed and driven out of our region as a vulture or screech-owl, the most ominous hated enemy; since the concurrence of all these, I say, it is also as possible we may be now improved and advanced to our full measure.

But then 4. I should have shewed you also the indiscernibleness, to the eye of man, of the difference of these distant states, till God by His promulgate sentence have made the separation;—we have not such skill in palmistry as to interpret the lines and strokes in God's hand, which hath been long upon us, nor in symptoms, as to judge whether ὀλέθριον κάρτα λίαν, whether it be infallibly mortal or no;-and from thence the possibility yet, that it may not be too late for us to return and live, to set God a copy repenting. But then

of

5. Till this be done, every minute we breathe we suck our poison, we run upon all the spears and cannons in the world; nay, if God should hear us before we have answered Him, if mercy should interpose before repentance and reformation make us capable of it, that very mercy were to be deprecated as the greatest judgment in the world, a kind of hell of deser[Is. i. 5.] tion, a "why should ye be smitten any more?" a not vouchsafing us the medicinal stripes, a delivering us up to ourselves as to the fatallest revengefullest enemies, the most merciless bloodiest executioners. God may spare us in wrath, relieve us in fury, give us a treacherous settlement, a palliate peace, the saddest presage and forerunner imaginable;-and such it is sure to be if the surface of the flesh be healed before the Bálos kapdías, the depth of the wound in the heart, be searched and mollified, if God repent before we repent; and against such mercies we have more reason to pray than against all the Túpwσis and intestine flames, all the Tophets, and purgatories, and hells, that the fury of men or devils can kindle within our coasts: the same motive that made St. Basil call for his fever again, to wit, if the recovering of his health were the reflourishing of his pride, may move us to pray for the continuance of this state fever till our impeni

IV.

tent hearts be humbled. I will make you my confessors; till SER M. this kingdom be really and visibly the better for stripes, I cannot without some regrets, some fears of uncharitableness, pray absolutely for peace for it. Lord, purge us, Lord, cleanse us with Thy sharp infusions, cure and heal our souls by these caustics of Thine, and then Thou mayest spare that charge, pour in Thy wine and Thine oil instead of them; but till then, Domine nolumus indulgentiam hanc, "Lord, we are afraid of Thy indulgence," we are undone if Thou be too merciful, we tremble to think of our condition if Thou shouldest give over Thy cure too early, if Thou shouldest tear off our plasters and our flesh together, restore our flourishing before Thou hast humbled and changed our souls.

I have done with my last particular also.

Please you now but to spell these elements together, the sad threats of a direful kingdom, the but one word between us and that, only repentance, to sanctify it to us, and avert it from us, the Baptist miraculously born to preach it to them, and the same voice now crying in the wilderness to this nation, in the midst of a whole Africa of monsters, a desert of wilder men; and if this raven sent out of the ark, the place of God's rest in heaven, thus long hovering over this earth of ours,-going to and fro only on this errand, to see whether the waters be dried up from off the earth, whether the deluge of sin be abated,-may not yet be allowed some rest for the sole of her foot: if at the heels of that, the dovelike Spirit moving once more upon the waters, may not find one olive leaf among us to carry back, in token that we are content to hear of peace, to be friends with God; if having Moses and so many prophets, the rod of the one so long on our shoulders, and the thunder of the other in our ears, we cannot yet be brought this day to hear this voice, this pwvn Kрálovoa, this clamorous importunate voice, "Repent" or perish irreversibly, I must then divert with that other prophet, with an "O altar, altar, hear the word of the Lord," [1 Kings xiii. 2.] because Jeroboam's heart was harder than that, with an "O earth, earth, earth," with a "Hear, O heaven, and hearken, 29.] O earth," fly to the deafest creatures in the world, because I [Is. i. 2.] can have no better auditors. In this case preaching is the

[Jer. xxii.

IV.

SERM. most uncharitable thing, apt only to improve our ruin, like breath when it meets with fire, only to increase our flames. There is nothing left tolerably seasonable but our prayers, that our hearts, being the only whole creatures in the kingdom, may at last be broken also; that by His powerful, controlling, convincing Spirit, the proud atheistical spirit that reigns among us may at last be humbled to the dust; that in the ruin of the kingdom of Satan, his pride, his sorceries, his rebellions, may be erected the humble heavenly kingdom of our Christ, that meekness, that lowliness, that purity, that mercifulness, that peaceableness, that power of the Gospel spirit, that we may be a nation of Christians first, and then of saints; that having taken up the close of the angels' anthem, [Luke ii. "Good will towards men," we may pass through "peace on 14.] earth," and ascend to that "Glory to God on high,” and with all that celestial choir ascribe to Him the glory, the honour, the power, the praise, &c.

SERMON V.

GOD IS THE GOD OF BETHEL.

GEN. xxxi. 13.

I am the God of Bethel.

V.

THE story of God's appearing to Jacob at Luz, is so known SERM. a passage, so remarkable even to children by that memorative topic, the ladder and the angels, that I shall not need Gen. xxviii. assist your memories, but only tell you that that passage at large, that vision and the consequents of it, from the twelfth verse of the twenty-eighth to the end of the chapter, is the particular foundation of the words of this text, and the rise which I am obliged to take in the handling of them. That hard pillow which the benighted Jacob had chosen for himself in Luz,—and became so memorable to him by the vision afforded him there, he anointed and christened, as it were, named it anew, on that occasion, into Bethel, the "house" or residence "of God," consecrated it into a temple, solemnized that consecration, endowed that temple with a vow and resolution of all the minchahs and nedabahs, acts of obedience and free-will offerings, duty and piety imaginable; and the whole business was so pleasurable and acceptable to God, God's appearing to him, and his returns to God, that in the words of my text,-twenty years after that passage,-God puts him in mind of what there passed, and desires to be no otherwise acknowledged by him than as He there appeared and revealed Himself, "I am the God of Bethel," &c.

For the clear understanding of which it will be necessary to recollect the chief remarkable passages that are recorded in that story, and seem to be principally referred to here, and then I shall be able to give you the survey and the

SERM. full dimensions of Bethel, the adequate importance of this text.

15.

V.

And the passages are more generally but three.

1. God's signal promises of mercy and bounty to Jacob, emblematically resembled by the ladder from earth to heaven, God standing on the top of that, and the angels busy on their attendance, ascending and descending on it; and then in plain words the emblem interpreted, the hieroglyphic ver. 13 explained, "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, &c. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, &c. And behold,"-there is the signal promise I told you of, that belongs to every pilgrim patriarch, every tossed itinerant servant and favourite of Heaven, that carries the simplicity and piety of Jacob along with him, though he be for the present, in that other title of his, the poor Syrian ready to perish,-" behold I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of."

ver. 20.

[ver. 17.]

The second passage is, Jacob's consecrating of this place of God's appearance, anointing the pillar, and naming it Bethel, in the eighteenth and nineteenth verses.

The third and last is Jacob's vow unto God, on condition of that His blessing him. "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that Thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto Thee."

These are the three principal passages in that story, and in relation to each of these, I am now obliged to handle the words, and consequently to divide them, not into parts, but considerations, and so look on them as they stand.

First, in relation to God's promise there made; and so first, God is the God of Bethel.

Secondly, in relation to this dreadful, this consecrated place, as Bethel signifies the residence, the house of God; and so secondly, God is the God of Bethel.