If thou art in great afflictions, and feelest any tumultuous thoughts, any rebellious risings within thee, consider thou art a sinner, guilty of ten thousand provocations, and darest thou appear before his enlightened and terrible tribunal, and challenge him for any unrighteous proceedings? 'Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins ?' Lam. 3. 39. Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I will not offend any more. That which I know not, teach thou me; and if I have done iniquity, I will do no more. Job. 34. 31,32. Besides, all the punishments of men here, are with merciful allays, not in just proportion to their guilt. The church in its calamitous state, described in the most doleful lamentations of Jeremiah, when the greatest number of the Jews perished by the sword, or famine that attended the war, their city and temple were laid in ruins, and the unhappy people that escaped the fury of the Chaldeans, were the captives and triumphs of their enemies; yet in that unparalleled affliction she acknowledges, 'it is the Lord's mercies that we are not' utterly and totally 'consumed' Lam. 3. 22.; and lays her mouth in the dust, a posture of the lowest abasement. And holy Ezra reflecting upon that dreadful calamity, acknowledgeth their punishment was beneath their desert, as their deliverance was above their expectation: 'and for all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and great trespasses, seeing thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and given us such a deliverance as this.' Ezra 9. 13.
Hosea 4:6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge
In a short time there will (we have reason to fear) remain but two kinds of persons among us, either those who think not at all, or those whose imaginations are active indeed, but continually evil. Of these latter it may be said, "Their foolish heart was darkened." Of the principles, I do not say of the detail, of political science, a sound theology is the only sure and steady basis. Now we trace the operations by which a destruction so extended in its consequences has been effected. The master-spring of every principle which can permanently secure the stability of a people is the fear and knowledge of Almighty God. The first operation of a principle of atheism, and perhaps one of the most formidable in its consequences, is that which leads political men to conceive of Christianity as a mere auxiliary to the State. Religion was not instituted (in the Divine council I mean) for the purpose of society and government, but society and government for the purposes of religion. As a...
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