I. I fhall fhew why days of threatened wrath are long delayed.

1. Because the Lord will give finners space to repent, 2 Pet. iii. 9. The Lord is not flack concerning his promife, as fome men count flackness; but is longfuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perifb, but that all should come to repentance. The barren fig-tree, after the order to cut it down, gets another year's digging and dunging, Luke xiii. 8. 9. Who knows what a little space may do to fome, and what brands may be plucked out of the fire, while the Lord delays to ftrike? The axe lay at the root of the tree of the Jewish church, from the death of Chrift, forty years, ere it was cut down: and in that time many were converted, that would have been cut off in their fin, had it come fooner. It has been about as long fince the revolution, and many have been brought to Chrift during that period..

2. Some fuch as will never be bettered, are fpared for the fake of elect ones in their loins. The generation that came out of Egypt were a generation of wrath; but God made not a full end of them, till there was a generation come of them that might poffefs the promised land. So the wrath may be delayed for the fake of a generation yet unborn, as a woman with child is reprieved on account of the fruit of her womb, Matth. xxiv. 22.

3. Because the Lord may have fome of his own to take out of harm's way before the stroke comes, If. lvii. 1. The righteous perifbeth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none confidering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. The angel that came to deftroy Sodom, could do nothing till Lot was in Zoar, Gen. xix. 22. Good Jofiah behoved to be out of the way before the Babylonifh captivity; and Methufelah before the deluge.

4. The Lord even grants fomething to the prayers of his people in this cafe, Luke xiii. 8. 9. in the cafe

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of the barren fig-tree. Defolating strokes use not to come on, till there is a restraint of the Spirit of prayer, with the Lord's people, for averting the stroke.

5. Laftly, For the Lord's name's fake, If. xlviii. 9. For my name's fake will I defer mine anger, and for my praife will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. He will have his proceeding against a finful generation clear and unexceptionable: and the delay proclaims God's patience and long-fuffering, and leaves them inexcufable. The longer it is a-coming, God's patience appears the more.

II. We will confider these days of threatened wrath coming near at length to breaking out on an impenitent people. This implies,

1. That wrath delayed is not therefore laid afide. A generation continuing impenitent, keeps in the fire of wrath, that it goes not out, howbeit it is for a while kept back from confuming them. Sins national and perfonal are a debt that will not die out through time. Wrath hangs ftill in the threatening, as in a cloud that will break at length, if repentance prevent not.

2. Even while it is deferred, it is making speed forward, 2 Pet. ii. 3. Their judgement now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation flumbereth not. The Lord fees impenitent finners day coming, though they will not fee it, Pfal. xxxvii. 13. There is a time fet for it as the due time, and no time is loft, whatever are the delays, but it makes hafte, Deut. xxxii. 35. Their foot ball flide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that ball come upon them make hafte.

3. The longer they are delayed, they are the nearer hand; fo that when the impenitent generation has moft loft fight of them, they are hard at their heels, 1 Theff. v. 3. For when they fall fay, Peace and safety; then fudden deftruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not efcape. So in the text, The days are at hand, and the

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effect of every vifion. For finners turn fecure upon the delay; but in the mean time the longer they have been borne with, they have the less reason to be fecure. For,

ft, Such a cafe is a very desperate cafe, God's forbearance leading men to a fecure contempt of him, instead of repentance, Rom. ii. 3. 4. Defperate is the cafe when the remedy used serves but to increase the difeafe. That calls for cutting off.

2dly, Abufed patience turns always to fury at length, Ezek. xxiv. 13. In thy filthiness is lewdness : because I have purged thee, and thou waft not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthinefs any more, till I have caufed my fury to rest upon thee. It is dangerous to play with the patience of God; for fury will take its turn when men are not aware, and patience must end fooner or later with them.

Laftly, It is neceffary for the honour of God. The world would turn downright Atheists, if God did not fome time baffle their vain hopes of impunity, and thew that he has not forgot their misdemeanors, Pfal. 1. 21. Thofe things haft thou done, and I kept filence : thou thoughtest that I was altogether fuch a one as thyfelf but I will reprove thee, and fet them in order before thine eyes. Pfal. lviii. ult. Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

USE. As we have been long threatened with days of wrath that are ftill delayed, while in the mean time the generation is going on impenitently in their courfe, we have ground to reckon that thefe days are come near at length to breaking out on us. There are four things that deferve our serious confideration here.

1. That it is long fince there was a flaming controverfy with this land laid, which in the ordinary method of providence cannot mifs to be pursued with fignal judgements. That was in the days of our fathers, when folemn national covenants for reforma

tion being entered into, with uplifted hands unto God, and reformation was accordingly advanced to a very confiderable degree; they began at first to be falfe and fickle in God's covenant, and at length all of a fudden, as if ftruck with a frenzy from hell, they openly and avowedly broke and burnt their covenant with God, pulled down and razed their reformation, and for about twenty-eight years raged in oppreffion, perfecution, blood, and death against those who adhered thereto, and would not join them in their apoftafy. Reflecting on this we may fay, Shall not the Lord vifit for these things? ball not his foul be avenged on fuch a nation as this? Jer. ix. 9. That controverfy has fwept away the race of the name of our kings that did it, off the throne; it has turned our parliament that joined them with their authority, out of their house and honour, fo that we have no more a Scots parliament either to do good or evil; and it is to be feared, it will foak our land and people in blood next in their turn.

2. I can fay from perfonal knowledge, that, for more than forty years, the Lord has put it in the hearts and mouths of his minifters, that that controverfy would be vifited on this land with fearful ftrokes. And for all that is yet come and gone, the effect of thefe vifions feems not to be come yet. I own that what I heard many years ago of this nature, when minifters had more of the Spirit with them than now, being brought out of a hot furnace of trial, has weight with me.

3. Often during that time, especially within these twenty years, has the black cloud hovering over the head of this land, been at the point of breaking, and fhowering down upon us; and yet has been either quite difpelled without any fcathe at all, or only with fome drops falling, as in the cafe of the rebellion in 1715. By all which God has teftified that he did not forget the controverfy, though time after time he has delayed the thorough pleading of it.

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4. And now we have feveral fhrewd fymptoms that the days are near to break out upon us, to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, upon a generation that have entered themselves heirs to the iniquity of their fathers by a course of continued apoftafy.

It is childish and unfcriptural to fay, that thofe who · entered into and fo avowedly broke that covenant, are mostly away now: what way can the controverfy affect us? For no generation can go back from purity and reformation attained by their fathers, but upon their peril; and fo far as they infift in the steps of their backfliding fathers, they justify them in their backslidings, and fo enter themselves heirs to their fin, and confequently to their judgements. The covenant made with the Gibeonites in Joshua's time, was binding in the days of Saul, and the flaughter made of them in the days of Saul contrary to that covenant, the land fuffered for it many years after that in the latter end of David's reign, 2 Sam. xxi. The blood of Abel came on the generation that crucified Chrift, Matth. xxiii. 35.; and to the Jews in Jeremiah's days the Lord faith, They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them the boufe of Ifrael and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers, Jer. xi. 10.

Sympt. 1. From fearful lengths of apoftafy in practice, the very principles of religion have got a rootftroke in our day. Profanenefs and immoralities have hugely increafed to the filling of the land with oppreffion and fraud, fo that common honefty is rare to be met with; with luxury, fenfuality, fwearing, perjuries, till the fenfe of oaths is like to wear out; with fornications, whoredoms, and adulteries, fo that I doubt if marriage was ever fo contemptuously treated in this land; with contempt of religion and seriousness, fo that it is become fashionable to defpife it. Reformation is out of fight, head, and heart, and many a

wound