16 FIRST SERMON If mercies do not work upon love, let judgments work upon fear. Extremities are a warrant unto importu- nities. Even heathen mariners in a storm will cry mightily upon God. When there is a deluge coming, is it not time for Noah to fear, and to prepare an ark ? Heb. xi. 7. What meanest thou, O thou sleeper, to lose the season and benefit of God's visitations ? when there is a tempest over the ship, heavy distresses, and distractions both at home and abroad, to be so secure in thy wonted impenitency, as if thou hadst had no sins to procure these judgments, or no sense to feel them ? as if there were agreements, and sealed cove- nants between thee and the sword, that it should not touch thee ? If thou be falling, is it not high time to consider thy ways ? to search and to judge thyself ? to have thine eyes, like the windows of Solomon's temple, broad inwards, to find out thine own provocations, and, as David speaks, to keep thyself from thine own iniquity ? Thus, when in one and the same time, mercies and judgments are intermixed, then is the most solemn season to call upon men for repentance. If we felt nothing but fears, they might make us despair ; if nothing but mercies, they would make us secure. If the whole year were summer, the sap of the earth would be exhausted ; if the whole were winter, it would be quite buried. The hammer breaks metal, and the fire melts it, and then you may cast it into any shape. Judgments break, mercies melt, and then, if ever, the soul is fit to be cast into God's mould. There is no figure in all the prophets more usual than this, to interweave mercies and judgments; to allure and to bring into a wilderness, Hos. ii. 14. And this of all other is the critical time of diseased people, wherein the chief conjuncture lieth, whether they are mending
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