hell. May not
the Lord shake you off this tree of time, and take you out of the land of
the living, to receive your portion? There is not only an universal
deadness of spirit on the land, but a profane spirit,--iniquities,
abominable sins, abound. Every congregation is overgrown with
scandals,(311) and for you, none may more justly complain. We are all
unclean, sin is not in corners but men declare their sin as Sodom, sin is
come to the maturity--defection and apostacy(312) is the temper of all
spirits, and, above all, the general contempt and slighting of this
glorious gospel, is the iniquity of Scotland,(313) so that we wonder that
the withered leaves yet stick to, that the storm is not yet raised, and we
blown away. Now, you are like stones--your hearts as adamants, and cannot
be moved with his threatening, the voice of the Lord's word doth not once
move you. You sin and are not afraid, nay, but when God's anger shall join
with iniquity, and the voice of his rod and displeasure roar, this shall
make the mountains to tremble, the rocks to move, and how much more shall
it drive away a leaf? You seem now mountains, but when God shall plead,
you shall be like the chaff driven to and fro. O how easy a matter shall
it be to God to blow a man out of his dwelling place! Sin hath prepared
you for it, he needeth no more but blow by his Spirit, or look upon you,
and you will not be. You who are now lofty and proud, and maintain
yourselves against the word, when you come to reckon with God, and he
entereth into judgment, you shall not stand--you will consume as before the
moth; your hearts will fail you--"who may abide the day of his coming?" It
will be so terrible, and so much the more terrible, that you never dreamed
of it. If the example of this people will not move you, do but cast your
eyes on Ireland,(314) who all do fade as a leaf, and their iniquities have
taken them away out of their own land. Shall not the seeing of the eye,
nor the hearing of the ear teach you? What security do you promise to
yourselves? Have not we sinned as much as they? Were not they his people
as well as we? Certainly, since God waiteth longer on you, the stroke must
be the greater: provoked patience must turn fury. If you would then
prevent this people's complaint, go about such a serious acknowledgment of
your sins. "Search your ways, and turn again to the Lord." And let not
every man sit down in a general notion of sin, but unbowel it until you
s