surmounts the
other. Ye would think a desolate country, burnt cities, desolation made by
strangers, a sufficient recompense of their corruption and misorders, of
their forsaking and backsliding. Ye would think now, if your present
condition and the land's pressed you to utter Jeremiah's lamentation, a
sadder than which is not almost imaginable, ye would think, I say, that
you had received double for all your sins. And yet, alas! how are your
iniquities of infinite more desert? All that were mercy, which is behind
infinite and eternal punishment. That there is room left for complaint, is
mercy, that there is a remnant left, is mercy.

Now, to proclaim unto this people, and convince them that their judgment
was not severe, he gives them one word from God. And, indeed, it is
strange, that when the rod is sent, because of the despising of the word,
that after the despising of both word and rod, another word should come.
Always this word is a convincing word, a directing word, and a comforting
word. These use to be conjoined, and if they be not always expressed, we
may lawfully understand them. We may join a consolation to a conviction,
and close a threatening with a promise, if we take with a threatening.
Jonah's preaching expressed no more but a threatening and denunciation of
judgment, but the people understood it according to God's meaning and made
it a rule of direction, and so a ground of consolation. How inexcusable
are we, who have all these expressed unto us, and often inculcated, "line
upon line, and precept upon precept," and yet so often divide the word of
truth, or neglect it altogether. Most part fancy a belief of the promises
and neither consider threatenings nor commands. Some believing the
threatenings, are not so wise for their own salvation as to consider what
God says more, but take it for his last word. Shall not Nineveh rise up in
judgment against this generation? They repented at one preaching, and that
a short one, and in appearance very defective, and yet we have many
preachings of the Son of God and his apostles in this Bible,--both law and
gospel holden forth distinctly, and these spoken daily in our audience,
and yet we repent not.

This is a strange preface going before this preaching, and more strange in
that it is before the first preaching of a young prophet. He speaks both
to rulers and people, but he gives them a name such as certainly they
would not take to themselves, but seeing he is to s