A Sermon on Occafaon of a public Fall. 3 4 to put a flop to prevailing iniquities, and pre- SERM. vent them for the future. Thus the prophet XIII. Ifaiah explains this matter, * When thy judg- t ments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteoufnefa. If a city or a country be intirely ruined, it is for a warn- ing to other nations,. that they may hear, and fear, and do no more wickedly. And for leffer corre ±ions, which do not terminate in the final overthrow of the tranfgreffors themfelves, they are gracioufly intended that they may be brought to repentance, and to the amend- ment of their evil doings ; and it is remark- able, that as God always gives warning before the fatal ftroke comes, for , judgment is his grange work, extorted from him, he is much more prone to mercy and delights in it; fo, his threatnings are always to be underflood with a referve, and leave room for repen- tance which will effetually prevent the execu- tion; nay, upon the very appearance of repen- tance and fome partial beginnings of refor- mation, which do not abide nor are carried to perfetion, God is pleafed to refrain his anger, and defer punifhing the tranfgreífors, fo that they are not cut off. It is obferved concerning Ahab king of Ifrael, that extra- ordinary example of incorrigible wickednefs, * Ifaiah xxvi, 9, 7 3 that
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