od, ye people of Gomorrah,"
&c.

It is strange to think what mercy is mixed with the most wrath like
strokes and threatenings. There is no prophet whose office and commission
is only for judgment, nay, to speak the truth, it is mercy that premises
threatenings. The entering of the law, both in the commands and curses, is
to make sin abound, that grace may superabound, so that both rods and
threatenings are the messengers of Jesus Christ, to bring sinners to him
for salvation. Every thing should be measured and named by its end, so,
call threatenings promises, call rods and judgments mercies, name all
good, and good to you, if so be you understand the purpose of God in
these. The shortest preaching in the Bible useth to express itself what it
means, though it be never so terrible. This is a sad and lamentable
beginning of a prophet's ministry, the first word is, to the heavens and
to the earth(282) a weighty and horrible regrate(283) of this people, as
if none of them were to hear, as if the earth could be more easily
affected than they. The creatures are taken witnesses by God of their
ingratitude, and then who shall speak for them? If heaven and earth be
against them, who shall speak good of them? Will their own conscience? No
certainly, it will, in the day of witnessing and judging, precipitate its
sentence, and spare the judge the labour of probation, "a man's enemy
shall be within his own house," though now your consciences agree with
you. Nay, why doth the Lord speak to them? Because the people consider
not, because consciences have given over speaking to them, therefore the
Lord directs his word to the dumb earth. Yet how gracious is he, as to
direct a second word even to the people, though a sad word? It is a
complaint of iniquity and backsliding, and such as cannot be uttered, yet
it is mercy to challenge them, yea, to chasten them. If the Lord would
threaten a man with pure and unmixed judgments, if he would frame a
threatening of a rod of pure justice, I think it should be this, "I will
no more reprove thee, nor chasten thee," and he is not far from it, when
he says, "Why shall ye be stricken any more?" &c. ver. 5. As if he would
say, It is in vain now to send a rod, ye receive no correction. I sent the
rod, that it might open your hearts and ears to the word, and seal your
instruction,--but to what purpose is it?--Ye grow worse and worse. Well, the
prophet compares here sin and judgment, and the one far