A REFORMATION SERMON. 523 After alt, if this accusation were true, yet I would ask these men who reproach, you thus, whether they them- selves would freely' indulge and cherish the eggs of a cockatrice in their house, lest while they are crushing them, now and then a scorpion should creep out, or a fiery serpent fly abroad ? Would they themselves willingly sleep with a nest of hornets in their bed, lest by rousing them they should stir up their rage, and make their stings more angry and venomous ? Is it not far better to disturb the nest, that they be unstung and destroyed for ever ? But when the nest is disturbed, you must not sleep till you have destroyed them ; remember they will give you noquarter, and therefore you must give themnone. The second thing proposed, is to shew you what will be the dreadful consequents of prevailing iniquity : But what tongue can sufficiently describe them, or what ears endure the description ? When in reigns and triumphs over a nation, the consequences are fatal and infinite, ruinous and everlasting. The destruction extends far, it reaches to the flesh and spirit, it involves posterity with the present age, and has a terrible influence upon all the evils of the world to come ; if we take but a little pros- pect of a few of them, it may serve to awaken our fear, and provoke our drowsy zeal to activity that we may pre- vent them. I. Great dishonour to the name of God, and perpe- tual affronts to the Divine Majesty will abound amongst us. If Amalek prevail, the God of Israel will be blas- phemed. If the authority of man and human punish- ments, which are visible and sensible, be not employed to restrain sinners, they will grow up to a contempt of the authority of God who is unseen, and despise his most awful threatenings ; and because their execution is de- layed, his lawwill be hourly and impudently violated,: If magistrates who behold wickednesswill not .punish it, the all-seeing eye of God will be called in question, and his judgment-seat disbelieved: " how doth God know, will the wicked say, can he judge through the dark cloud ? Thick clouds are a covering to him that he aeeth not, and he walketh in thecircuit of the heavens," that is, afar off, above us and takes no cognizance of our actions ; Job xxii. 13, 14. " The fools will say in their hearts there is no God ;" Ps. xiv. 1. Thenr-by degrees his providence
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