But so we read, and are commanded to remember, because they are
written for our example, that God destroyed at once five cities of the
plain, and all the country, and Sodom and her sisters are set forth
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Fearful it
was when God destroyed at once twenty-three thousand for fornication,
and an exterminating angel in one night killed one hundred and
eighty-five thousand of the Assyrians, and the first-born of all the
families of Egypt, and for the sin of David in numbering the people,
three score and ten thousand of the people died, and God sent ten
tribes into captivity and eternal oblivion and indistinction from a
common people for their idolatry. Did not God strike Korah and his
company with fire from heaven? and the earth opened and swallowed up
the congregation of Abiram? And is not evil come upon all the world
for one sin of Adam? Did not the anger of God break the nation of
the Jews all in pieces with judgments so great, that no nation ever
suffered the like, because none ever sinned so? And at once it was
done, that God in anger destroyed all the world, and eight persons
only escaped the angry baptism of water, and yet this world is the
time of mercy; God hath opened here His magazines, and sent His Holy
Son as the great channel and fountain of it, too: here He delights in
mercy, and in judgment loves to remember it, and it triumphs over all
His works, and God contrives instruments and accidents, chances and
designs, occasions and opportunities for mercy.
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