roken with God, we should never trust them
any more, but account them as the off-scouring of mankind, the vilest,
the basest that ever trode upon God's ground; and yet that after so many
unworthy and treacherous departures from our God, after so much
unfaithfulness and perfidiousness in the covenant, (such as it is not in
the capacity of one man to be guilty of towards another) that God should
say to us, as once to His own people, "Thou hast played the harlot with
many lovers; yet return to Me, saith the Lord:" Oh, wonder of free
grace! Oh, might this privilege be offered to the apostate angels, which
kept not the covenant of their creation, nor consequently their first
estate, and to the rest of the damned souls in hell! Would God send an
angel from heaven to preach unto them a second covenant, upon the laying
hold whereon, and closing wherewith, they might be received into grace
and favour; how would those poor damned spirits bestir themselves! what
rattling of their red-hot chains! what shaking of their fiery locks! In
a word, what an uproar of joy would there be in hell, upon such glad
tidings! how many glorious churches, as Capernaum, Bethsaida, the seven
churches of Asia, with others in latter times, who have for their
covenant-violation been cast down from the top of heaven, where once
they sat in the beauty and glory of the ordinances, to the very bottom
of hell, a dark and doleful condition; and God hath never spoken such a
word of comfort, nor made any such offer of recovery, and reconciliation
unto them, as He hath done to us unto this day? "Surely He hath not
dealt so with any people." Let it be our wisdom, and our thankfulness,
to accept of it, with both hands; yea, both with hands and hearts. If
God give us hearts suitable to this price that is in our hands,
covenanting hearts, as He gives us yet leave and opportunity to renew
our covenant, it will be to me a blessed security that we are not yet a
lost people; and a new argument of hope, that He intends to do England
good. If neglected and despised, whether this may not be the last time
that ever England shall hear from God, I much doubt, unless it be in
such a voice as that is, "I would have healed England, and she will not
be healed; because I would have purged thee, and thou art not purged,
thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have
caused My fury to rest upon thee." The Lord forbid such a thing: "for,
how shall we escape, if we ne