day, with refpect to heaven? God has hid his face from the generation. He is evidently difpleased with us, and loaths us. Where are the former tokens of

his favour and prefence among us? Look to ordinances, and our dead and lifeless affemblies; look to the feveral corners of the land, and the name of the whole may be Ichabod, for the glory is departed. It has been these many years a-departing, and grows always lefs and lefs, departing farther and farther. And this brings me to,

DocT. HI. God, hiding his face from a froward generation, waits to fee what iffue they will bring it to, that he may take courfe with them accordingly. I will fee what their end will be.

This is a very heavy word, and implies three things.

1. God will give them head. They are froward, and will not be managed by him; he will not ftrive with them as he has done, but he will give them head to take their course, and follow their mark, as he did with Ifrael of old, Pfal. lxxxi. 11. 12. My people would not hearken to my voice and Ifrael would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts luft : and they walked in their own counfels. The farther finners go in apostasy from God, they find their way the plainer, and not fo many rubs in it as they met with at the first.

2. He will narrowly mark every step which they take, when they have gotten their will, though he do not presently tell them of it, nor ftrive with them to hold them in, Amos viii. 7. The Lord hath fworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. They could not endure his being a monitor, and a reprover to them: he will let it alone, and be only a fpectator, but not an idle spectator, but one that will lay up every article in order to count and reckoning in due time, Deut. xxxii. 34. 35. Is not this laid up in store with me, and

fealed

fealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance, and recompenfe, their foot ball flide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make hafte.

:

3. They will bring the matter at that rate to a miferable iffue, If. lvii. 17. forecited. They will go from evil to worse. And fo they did, till they crucified the Lord of glory, perfecuted his followers, and turned downright blafphemers, and God rejected them and cut them off, Deut. xxxii. 21. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, I will provoke them to anger with a foolifb nation. Thus finners, having provoked God to give them head, go on to fuch a pitch of apoftafy and wickedness, as will justify before all the most fevere proceedings against them.

USE. Alas! this feems to be too like to be the cafe of this church and land at this day, and of many particular perfons in it. In former generations the Lord held his church fhort by the head: and because they could never hold right long, they got no long reft ordinarily, but were thrown into the furnace to purge them. But now the reft which this generation has got, is near on the borders of forty years; and we have been long going wrong, and ftill our peace is preferved; and always the longer the farther, and the cafe the more hopeless. So it looks as if God, having given the generation head, were even feeing what iffue they will bring it to: And if it be fo, God pity them that will live to fee the end of it; for it will be dreadful firft in the pitch that the apoftafy will be brought to, and the judgement which will follow it. And fo will it be in the

cafe of particular persons.

DOCT. IV. What provokes God to deal thus with a generation, is their being children in whom is no

faith, men profeffing the true religion, and yet fo false as that they are not to be trusted. This we may

take up

in these two things.

1. Their being men who cannot be bound to their duty by the moft folemn and facred engagements, but fay, Let us break their bands afunder, and caft away their cords from us, Pfal. ii. 3.

2. Perfons who, in their profeffions of duty which they make, lie to God and man, will fay well at a time, but in practice do not mind nor regard what they fo faid; Jer. ii. 20. Thou faidft, I will not tranfgrefs when upon every high hill, and under every green tree thou wandereft, playing the harlot.

USE. Now whether God is feeing what our end will be, fure this is the cafe of this generation, children in whom is no faith. Our folemn national covenants with God, the confcience of them is generally worn out at this day, and the facred ties of them are felt by very few, the sense of them being deadened by contrary practices, laws, and oaths. Sacramental engagements to duty in our baptifm and at the Lord's table, are too weak to bind most of those that have taken them on to a tolerable Christian walk; but they carry as if they had been engaged to ferve the devil, the world, and the flesh. And with many marriage is but a jeft, and their marriage-vows are to them but as ropes of fand, whence thefe lands are filled with vile adulteries. Men profefs to know God, but in works they deny him. There is no truth left among men, and common honefty is turned rare. There is no trufting of mens words or proteftations, and hardly their caths. The mafter cannot truft the fervant, nor can one neighbour trust another; for it is rare to find a perfon, that will not facrifice truth and faithfulness to their own interest. So that the character of the generation may be, Chitdren in whom there is no faith. And what will the end of these things be?

G

The

The certain, though flow, Accomplishment of threatened Judgements.

A

SER MON

Preached at ETTRICK, on a congregational Faftday, February 26. 1729.

EZEKIEL xii. 23.

Say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vifion.

TH

HIS is a meffage from God, and a heavy one, to the Jews, who being often threatened, and yet fpared from time to time, were like to turn infidels to all Heaven's threatenings, and to make a jeft of them. It confifts of two parts.

The

Of these

1. They were to be affured, that now at length the days of threatened wrath were at hand. days are at hand, Heb. have come near. days four things are to be observed. (1.) They were days of wrath, wherein they were to get fuch a ftroke as they had never got fince they fettled in Canaan, viz. the deftruction of Jerufalem, and the laying the land defolate of them by Nebuchadnezzar. Of thefe days they had long been forewarned, particularly by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. (2.) They had been long put off, from the time that the Lord began to threaten them; fo long that it was turned. to a proverb, a profane jeft, The days are prolonged, ver. 2. Heb. will be long a-coming. There is no appearance of them, for all that the angry prophets

are

are always faying, and all the noise they have made about them if they come at all, and. do not blow by, they are not like to come in our time. (3.) Though they were flow in their motion, they were neither flack nor fleeping; they have come near, they have been ftill advancing. (4.) Their prefent fituation; they were now near at hand. If ye afk, how near they were then? They were within three years of their beginning, Ezek. viii. 1. with 2 Kings xxv. 1. And that the Lord would have them to reckon near.

2. They were to be affured, that in these days all fhould come on together; And the effect of every vifion. It imports two things. (1.) That every vifion fhould have an effect. The prophets had got feveral vifions of wrath on Jerufalem, of war, famine, fword, and captivity, which they had revealed to the people. But they were fo long delayed as to accomplishment, that they began to fay, Every vifion faileth, ver. 22. Now affure them, faith God, they fhall every one have their accomplishment, and not one of them mifcarry. (2.) That every vifion should have an effect in these days, and fo all thefe miferies fhould come on together: The effect of every vifion is as at hand. The fubftance of these words may be gathered up in the following doctrine.

DocT. Days of threatened wrath long delayed come near to breaking out at length, on an impenitent people; and when they do break out, they are very fore, all coming on together.

For the first part of this doctrine, I fhall,

I. Shew why days of threatened wrath are long delayed.

II. Confider thefe days of threatened wrath coming near at length to breaking out on an impenitent people. III. Apply.

G 2

L. I