long? fhould I wait for ever upon creatures madly furious against me? I have fworn by my holinefs, that after death ne more forbearance; the word hath gone out of my mouth, it cannot be recalled: I am not a man, that I should change. I appointed a time for every thing; a time of forbearance, and a time of punishment. This is the eternal day of wrath; the endless day of vengeance is in my heart; The year of my redeemed is come: 1 curfe you, bitterly curfe you; all the woes that ever I pronounced fall upon you; let them be written upon your foreheads, and on your hands, and fill all the powers and faculties of foul and body: Wo, wo, wo! world of woes and curfes fall down inceffantly and eternally upon you all, according to your wickednefs: as every one of you hath fown, fo fhall you reap. Wo unto you, who have joined houfe to houfe, and field to field, extruding Adam's fellow heirs. Wo unto you, that have mingled ftrong drink. Wo unto you, that have drawn iniquity with cords of vanity; who have called good evil, and evil good. Wo unto you, whe were wife in your own eyes, and prudent in your own fight. Curfed be you, that placed your confidence in creatures, and not in the Lord JEHOVAH. Wo unto you, that shut heaven both upon yourfelves and others: wo unto you, who devoured the needy, and for a pretence made long prayers. Wo unto you, who compaffed fea and land, to draw others unto your faction, under the pre-. tence of the falvation of fouls: wo unto you, who, by your foolish fubtleties, did caft a mift upon all the duties of religion: wo unto you, who were strict in the circumstantials and externals of religion, and careless of the power and life thereof wo unto you, who pretended love : and and reverence to the dead faints, because they could not teftify against you; but maligned, perfecuted, and contemned the living ones, because of their standing out against the fins of the geneneration wherein they lived. O curfed wretches, the flames of my rage fhall feed themfelves upon you try your ftoutnefs and magnanimity now; the threatening of my fury and indignation did little affect you: you gave me the lie, and faid, It is not the Lord, neither fhall evil befal us. When my hand was ftretched out, you would not fee; but now you fee, and feel, and are, everlaftingly afhamed. Your Atheism is quite done away: know ye not now, that I am a God of truth and equity? have I not performed all upon you, that ever I fpoke? are you not filled with wrath? is not foul and body tormented with the dreadful flames of my fury? fhower I not down upon you inceffantly fire and brimftone, and an horrible tempeft of all manner of pains, griefs, and torments? Devils and wicked men, tear and torment, and curfe one another; you concurred bravely in finning, concur in your punishing; you loved the fellowfhip of one another, be eternally together: com. panions in time, and companions in eternity. The fellowship of my holy ones you little cfteemed; I have made betwixt them and you a vast gulf of eternal feparation: had you known their dignity, you fhould have wondered, that I fuffered you to abide in the fame world with them. What think you now of provoking me, vile wretches? are you the creatures that thought highly of finning? are you able to defpife and mock at the just pu nishment thereof? No more vain laughing jollity; the fewel of your bafe finful delights have Į taken for ever from you: not one fmile of joy from and from henceforth. All the mercies I vouchfafed upon you, did ye use against me; the more I continued my bounty, the more you rebelled and vexed my holy Spirit; though in me you lived, moved, and had your being, yet you forget me, and minded your own worldly things more than my glory and intereft through the world. All your actions were fubordinate to bafe felf; even your most excellent-like actings and fufferings for my cause, were ever out of one selfish design or other : I will fill you with your own ways. You shall not be troubled with offers of mercy any more, or with the exercifes of godliness any more: nothing but blafphemy fills your hellish mouths. You fhall not be vexed with the company of my faints any more: you shall have your fill of one another's hellifh fellowship throughout eternity: your choice, and delight fhall not be taken from you. Know you not who I am? Am I not he whom you despised and forgot? am I not he whofe yoke you brake afunder from your necks? am I not he whom you defied, and proclaimed war againft? Gird up now your loins, like men, and maintain your quarrel valiantly; fhew, by your magnanimous deportment, the juftnefs of your enmity against me. Desperate wretches, you have not the heart to fubmit; neither are you able to stand against one billow of my indignation. It was plainly manifested unto you all would come to this; but your minds were filled with vanity: I am free from the ruin and unfpeakable mifery of you all; only yourselves have destroyed yourselves: madly and defparately have you run to your own deftruction; and who was obliged to ftand in your way? Who hath ftruck you with fuch a monstrous hatred to all good, and inclination to all evil? are ye not na turally turally wicked and abominable? are you not haters of my holinefs and excellency? had ye not from the beginning a strange averfenefs from my fpotlefs holiness? Blafphemous wretches, you fee my ways are equal, to your eternal torment and con fufion; your mouths are for ever stopped, and you are found guilty: nothing have you to fay for yourfelves, your monstrous hellish frame is as a thoufand witnesses against you. Should not I alone be exalted? fhould I not crush to pieces all the defpifers of my glory fhall I not for ever cause you to drink the pure and unmixed wrath of the Almighty, that is poured forth without mixture? that ye may be filled with my fury and indignation, and may be drunk, and made mad, and torment, and tear, and devour, and curfe yourfelves, and one another; that every thought may bring in a dreadful horror, and hellifle pangs. O mine enemies, mine enemies! whom I made the fhields of the earth, who became greater in wickednefs, than in your worldly greatness: you ringleaders of iniquity, betrayers of the great truft I dignified you with; the ruin of thousands fhall fall on your heads. Did you tyrannize without law or reafon, alledging you were accountable to none for outrages, but unto me? that you might fulfil your wicked defires without controlment? O vileft of wretches, whom I fet over my church, to defend her from all external damages, to hold her in all her glorious privileges, that I left her in my legacy, and to hold the crown upon my head, in defpite of the oppofers; did you make havock of her? did you rob her of her adornments? did you pull the crown off my head, and put it on your own? did you neglect the affairs of my church, and fubordi. nate them to your own temporal, vain, tranfient af fairs? did you put the sword in the bowels of my chofen, which I gave you to protect them with? Ó mine enemies! I will neither fight with small nor great, in comparison of you; even you I will for ever be avenged upon; you, and all your parafites, executors, applauders, connivers, and confulters to your horrid rebellion. Durft you, you base, you vile wretches, be fo monftroully audacious, as to ufurp my prerogatives? durft you destroy, imprifon, banish, torment, and be as thorns in the fides of my excellent ones? What you did to every one of them, you did to me; I will recompenfe it. It had well become you, to stoop and lick the duft at the feet of my brethren: it had well become you, to hold up the train of my robe royal, in the day of my wounding: it had well become you, to have honoured, and reverenced every one of them, from the highest to the least: had you confidered their dignity, you would have wondered I permitted you in my providence, to dwell in that world they inhabited; far more to have had any manner of fuperiority over them. Here I meet you, my curfed enemies; know you with whom you contended? Am not I He, whom you contemned, defpifed, impoverished, imprifoned, banished, maligned, and fpewed out the venom of hell against ? I am He, whofe blood you efteemed as water; my brethren you hated, because they bare my image: for my fake, even for my fake, you perfecuted them; whatever were your pretenfions, the power of godliness was the but of your malice: durft you malign the exercifing of my Spirit of grace, in its highest actings, as a fpirit of fedition, and rebellious combinations? did you take it upon you, tỏ fhape out the government of my church according to your foolish fancy, as an indifferent thing? as if |