esus Christ, when possession of them is entered into by
prayer and thanksgiving, for all right is sanctified by these, and it is
the iniquities of men that separate between God and them, Isa. lix. 2. And
when God is separated and divided from enjoyments, they must needs be
empty shells and husks, no kernel in them, for God "filleth all in all,"
is all in all, and remove him, and you have nothing--your meat and drink is
no blessing, your table is a snare, your pleasures and laughter have
sadness in them. At least they are like the vanishing blaze of thorns
under a pot, and therefore, when God is angry for sin, men's beauty
consumeth as before the moth, Psalm xxxix. 11. When God beginneth to show
himself terrible, because of sin, poor man, though of late spreading his
boughs out, yet all falleth, and like ice melteth as before the sun, which
just now seemed as solid as stone. O but David was sensible of this and
could speak from much experience, Psal. xxxii. 3, 4. The anger of the Lord
did eat him up, and dried his moisture. It might be read in his
countenance,--all the world could not content him, all the showers of
creatures' dropping fatness could not keep sap in him. God's displeasure
scorcheth so, nay, is within him, that no hiding-place is to be found in
the world, no shadow of a rock among all the creatures in such a weary
land. Moses and the people knew this well, Psal. xc. 5-9. The Lord's
displeasure carried them away, as a flood coming down carrieth all
headlong with it, it scorched them and made them wither as grass. When God
setteth iniquities before him, and that which is the soul's secret,
beginneth to imprint it in visible characters on the rod, and writeth his
sin on his punishment, then no wonder that days be spent in vanity and
grief, since they are passed over in his wrath, Job xiii. 25. Then doth a
soul loathe its dainty meat, and then doth the ox low over his fodder.
Meat is laid before him, and he cannot touch it, because of the terrors of
the Almighty, and that which before he would not once touch, would not
enter into terms of communing with, as the Lord's threatenings, he must
now sit down and eat them up as his meat, how sorrowful soever, Job vi.
4-7.

But, _secondly_, when sin hath prepared a man for judgment, then, if
iniquity be added to sin, this raiseth the storm, and kindleth the fire to
consume the combustible matter. When sin hath given many blows, by
preparatory corrections at the root of