Go, says He, slay the old and the young, and begin at My sanctuary. They were the persons who had polluted His worship, and there the first stroke lighted. And in a spiritual sense, because all His people are His own elect priesthood, and should be holiness to the Lord; when they are not really so, and do not sanctify Him in their walking, He sanctifies Himself, and declares His holiness in His judgments on them.

3. There is mercy in this dispensation too; even under the habit of judgment, Love walks secretly and works. So loving and so wise a Father will not undo His children by sparing the rod, but because He loves, He rebukes and chastens. (See Heb. xii. 6, Prov. iii. 11, Apoc. iii. 19.) His Church is His house; therefore, that He may delight in it, and take pleasure to dwell in it, and make it happy with His presence, He will have it often washed and made clean, and the filth and rubbish scoured and purged out of it; this argues His gracious purpose of abiding in it.

And as He doth it, that He may delight in His people, so He doth it that they may delight in Him, and in Him alone. He embitters the breast of the World, to wean them; makes the World hate them, that they may the more easily hate it; suffers them not to settle upon it, and fall into a complacency with it, but makes it unpleasant to them by many and sharp afflictions, that they may with the more willingness come off and be untied from it, and that they may remember home the more, and seek their comforts above; that finding so little below, they may turn unto Him, and delight themselves in communion with Him. That the sweet incense of their prayers may ascend the more thick, He kindles those fires of trials to them. For though it should not be so, yet so it is, that in times of ease they would easily grow remiss and formal in that duty.

He is gracious and wise, knows what He does with them, and the thoughts He thinks toward them. (Jer. xxix. 11.) All is for their advantage, for the purifying of their iniquities. (Isa. xxvii. 9.) He purges out their impatience, and earthliness, and self-will, and carnal security, and thus refines them for vessels

of honour. We see in a jeweller's shop, that as there are pearls and diamonds, and other precious stones, so there are files, cutting instruments, and many sharp tools, for their polishing; and while they are in the work-house, they are continual neighbours to them, and often come under them. The Church is God's jewellery, His work-house, where His jewels are a-polishing for His palace and house; and those He especially esteems, and means to make most resplendent, He hath oftenest His tools upon.

Thus observe it, as it is in the Church compared to other societies, so is it in a congregation or family; if there be one more diligently seeking after God than the rest, he shall be liable to meet with more trials, and be oftener under afflictions than any of the company, either under contempt and scorn, or poverty and sickness, or some one pressure or other, outward or inward. And those inward trials are the nearest and sharpest which the World sees least, and yet the soul feels most. And yet all these, both outward and inward, have love, unspeakable love in them all, being designed to purge and polish them, and, by the increasing of grace, to fit them for glory.

Inf. 1. Let us not be so foolish as to promise ourselves impunity on account of our relation to God, as His Church in covenant with Him. If once we thought so, surely our experience hath undeceived us. And let not what we have suffered harden us, as if the worst were past. We may rather fear it is but a pledge and beginning of sharper judgment. Why do we not consider our unhumbled and unpurified condition, and tremble before the Lord? Would we save Him a labour, He would take it well. Let us purify our souls, that He may not be put to further purifying by new judgments. Were we busy reading our present condition, we should see very legible foresigns of further judgments; as for instance: [1.] The Lord taking away His eminent and worthy servants, who are as the very pillars of the public peace and welfare, and taking away counsel, and courage, and union, from the rest; forsaking us in our meetings, and leaving us in the dark to grope and rush

one upon another. [2.] The dissensions and jarrings in the State and Church, are likely, from imagination, to bring it to a reality. These unnatural burnings threaten new fires of public judgments to be kindled amongst us. [3.] That general despising of the Gospel and abounding of profaneness throughout the land, not yet purged, but as our great sin remaining in us, calls for more fire and more boiling. [4.] The general coldness and deadness of spirit; the want of zeal for God, and of the communion of saints, that mutual stirring up of one another to holiness; and, which is the source of all, the restraining of prayer, a frozen benumbedness in that so necessary work, that preventer of judgments, that binder of the hands of God from punishments, and opener of them for the pouring forth of mercies.-Oh! this is a sad condition in itself, though it portended no further judgment, the Lord hiding Himself, and the spirit of zeal and prayer withdrawn, and scarcely any lamenting it, or so much as perceiving it! Where are our days either of solemn prayer or praises, as if there were cause for neither! And yet, there is a clear cause for both. Truly, my brethren, we have need, if ever we had, to bestir ourselves. Are not these kingdoms, at this present, brought to the extreme point of their highest hazard? And yet, who lays it to heart?

Inf. 2. Learn to put a right construction on all God's dealings with His Church, and with thy soul. With regard to His Church, there may be a time wherein thou shalt see it not only tossed, but, to thy thinking, covered and swallowed up with tears: but wait a little, it shall arrive safe. This is a common stumbling stone, but walk by the light of the word, and the eye of Faith looking on it, and thou shalt pass by and not stumble at it. The Church mourns, and Babylon sings-sits as a queen; but for how long? She shall come down and sit in the dust; and Sion shall be glorious and put on her beautiful garments, while Babylon shall not look for another revolution to raise her again; no, she shall never rise. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and VOL. II.

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cast it into the sea, saying, Thus, with violence, shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. Rev. xviii. 21.

Be not hasty take God's work together, and do not judge of it by parcels. It is indeed all wisdom and righteousness; but we shall best discern the beauty of it, when we look on it in the frame, when it shall be fully completed and finished, and our eyes enlightened to take a fuller and clearer view of it than we can have here. Oh, what wonder, what endless wondering will it then command!

We read of Joseph hated, and sold, and imprisoned, and all most unjustly, yet because, within a leaf or two, we find him freed and exalted, and his brethren coming as supplicants to him, we are satisfied. But when we look on things which are for the present cloudy and dark, our short-sighted, hasty spirits cannot learn to wait a little, till we see the other side, and what end the Lord makes. We see judgment beginning at the house of God, and this perplexes us while we consider not the rest, What shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel? God begins the judgment on His Church for a little time, that it may end and rest upon His enemies for ever. And indeed, He leaves the wicked last in the punishment, that He may make use of them for the punishment of His Church. They are His rod; (Isa. x. 5;) but when He hath done that work with them, they are broken and burnt, and that, when they are at the height of their insolence and boasting, not knowing what Hand moves them, and smites His people with them for a while, till the day of their consuming come. (Ver. 16, 24, 25.) Let the vile enemy that hath shed our blood and insulted over us, rejoice in their present impunity, and in men's procuring of it, and pleading for it *; there is Another Hand whence we may look for justice. And though it may be, that the judgment begun

* I am ready to believe this refers to the escape of many who had deserved the severest punishments, for their part in the grand Irish rebellion, but were screened by the favour of some great men in the reign of King Charles II.-Dr. Doddridge.

at us, is not yet ended, and that we may yet further, and that justly, find them our scourge, yet, certainly, we may and ought to look beyond that, unto the end of the Lord's work, which shall be the ruin of His enemies, and the peace of His people, and the glory of His name.

Of them that obey not the Gospel.] The end of all the ungodly is terrible, but especially the end of such as heard the Gospel, and have not received and obeyed it.

The word aπSoÚvтwy hath in it both unbelief and disobedience; and these are inseparable. Unbelief is the grand point of disobedience in itself, and the spring of all other disobedience; and the pity is, that men will not believe it to be thus.

They think it an easy and a common thing to believe. Who doth not believe? Oh, but rather, who does? Who hath believed our report? Were our own misery, and the happiness that is in Christ, believed, were the riches of Christ and the love of Christ believed, would not this persuade men to forsake their sins and the world, in order to embrace Him?

But men run away with an extraordinary fancy of believing, and do not deeply consider what news the Gospel brings, and how much it concerns them. Sometimes, it may be, they have a sudden thought of it, and they think, I will think on it better at some other time. But when comes that time? One business steps in atfer another, and shuffles it out. Men are not at

leisure to be saved.

Observe the phrase, The Gospel of God. It is His embassy of peace to men, the riches of His mercy and free love opened and set forth, not simply to be looked upon, but laid hold on ; the glorious holy God declaring His design of agreement with man, in His own Son, His blood streaming forth in it to wash away uncleanness. And yet, this Gospel is not obeyed! Surely, the conditions of it must be very hard, and the commands intolerably grievous, that are not hearkened to. Why, judge you if they be. The great command is, to receive that salvation; and the other is this, to love that Saviour; and there is no more. Perfect obedience is not now the thing; and