533 / 652
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
no
quarter,
and therefore
you
must
give
them
none.
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
law
will be
hourly and
impudently violated,:
If
magistrates
who
behold wickedness
will
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
the
circuit 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