State of Britain's Debt to God

Finding that, amidst all their pretensions of regard to the British constitution, and concern for the indebted and dangerous state of the nation, neither old nor new ministry had in the least adverted, to the extensive accounts between us and our God, I presumed to give them some (alas! too little) serious consideration; and find that we stand infinitely deep in debt to his rich mercy, for favours innumerable received from him, and to his avenging justice, for innumerable provocations committed against him. Of the first sort are,

I. The infinitely precious blessings of redemption through Christ: such as, (1.) God’s gracious thoughts in his electing purpose and covenant of grace; Psalm xxxvi. 23; xl. 5; lxxxix. 3, 4, 19 — 37; Prov. viii. 23 — 31; Isa. liii. 10; 2 Tim. i. 9; Tit. i. 2. (2.) God’s preparing the way for his Son’s coming into our world, by visions, types, promises, and marvellous providences; Heb. i. 1; ix.,x. 1; xi. 10; Col.

ii. 17; Actsx. 43; Rom. iii. 21. (3.) The actual appearance of the Son of God in our nature; Isa. vii. 14; ix. 6; xi. 1; Jer. xxiii. 5; xxxi. 22; Zech.

iii. 8; Matt. i. 17 — 25; Gal. iv. 4, 5; 1 Tim. iii. 16; John i. 14. (4.) The great God in our nature made under the broken covenant of works, fulfilling all righteousness of obedience and satisfaction for men; 2 Cor. viii. 9; v. 21; Matt. iii. 15; v. 18;

xx. 28; Luke xxiv. 26; Dan ix, 24; Gal. iii. 15; Eph. v. 2; 1 Pet. i. 18, 19; ii. 24; iii. 18; 1 John ii. 1,2; iv. 3; v. 8; iv. 9, 10. (5.) God’s accepting of this righteousness of his Son in our stead, and rewarding him for it to our everlasting advantage; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Isa. 1. 8; lii. 13 — 15; liii. 10 — 12; Rom. iv. 25; Psalm lxviii. 18; Col. i. 19; Phil. iv. 19; 1 Pet. i. 20, 21; Heb. ii. 10;

iv. 14 — 16. (6.) Christ’s laying out himself in the whole of the work of his glorified state, to promote our eternal salvation, by continual intercession, instruction, and government; John xiv. 19; Rom. viii. 32 — 34; Heb. vii. 25; John xiv. 26; xv. 26; xvi. 7 — 14; Matt, xxviii. 18 — 20; Eph. iv. 10 — 13; Psalm ex. 1 — 3. (7.) The publication and free offers of Christ, and his purchased salvation to sinful men, in the gospel; Mark xvi. 15; 1 Tim. i. 15; iii. 8; Eph. iii. 8; i. 13; Acts xiii. 26; Rom. xv. 19; Col. i. 26, 27. (8.) God’s erecting a church or new-covenant society of sinful men on earth; Gen. xvii. 7; Exod. xix. 5, 6; Matt. xvi. 18; Eph. ii. 18 — 22; iv. 8 — 13; Rev. viii. 9; xi. 15. (9.) God’s blessing men with all spiritual blessings, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, and comfort in Christ, on this earth; Eph. i. 5; ii. 5; 1 Cor. i. 30; Col. ii. 10; iii. 11; 2 Cor.

v. 17 — 21; Ezek. xxxvi. 25 — 29. (10.) The eternal glorification of men through Christ in heaven; Eph. ii. 4 — 7; John xii. 26; xiv. 2, 3; xvii. 24; Psalm lxxiii. 24,26; xvi. 10, 11; xvii. 15; 1 Thess. iv. 17; Isa. xiv. 17; lx. 19; Rev. xxi., xxii.

II. In subordination to the above great and precious blessings of redemption, there are multitudes of personal mercies, for which every one in Britain doth or ought to stand indebted to God: as, (1.) Being born in a land of gospel light; Prov. xxix. 18; Eph. ii. 12, 19. (2.) Being descended of godly parents; Exod. xv. 1. (3.) Being early and seriously devoted to the Lord, in baptism, and in often repeated fervent prayers; Psalm xxii. 10. (4.) Early instruction in the knowledge of Christian principles by parents, masters, ministers, or others; Prov. i., vii., xxxi; Gen. viii. 19; Deut. vi. 6, 7; 2 Tim. iii. 15. (5.) God’s providential hedging-up of his elect to serious concern for their souls; Hos. ii. 6, 7, 14; Ezek. xx. 37; Lam. iii. 27 — 29; Job xxxiii. 15 — 30. (6.) His convictions of our conscience and allurements of our affections, by the strivings of his Spirit; I Samuel ii. 26; iii. 1 — 10; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3. (7.) Our being brought into a state of saving union to, and fellowship with, Christ; 1 Kings xiv. 13; 1 Cor. xv. 8; Gal. i. 15, 16; John iii. 3, 5. (8.) Our preservation from offensive stumbling in, or out of, the Lord’s way; Psalm lxxi. 17, 18; Isa. xlvi. 3, 4. (9.) Gracious visits from Christ and his Spirit to our souls; Gen. xlviii. 3; Psalm xxxiv. 6; xl. 1 — 3; cxvi. 1 — 7. (10.) Well-grounded hopes of eternal life; 2 Tim. i. 12; iv. 7, 8; Psalm lxxiii. 24 — 26.

III. We are indebted to him for multitudes of family mercies: as, (1.) His wonderfully preserving the LIFE AND REMAINS OF

members, notwithstanding their many dangers, particularly in childhood; Acts xvii. 28; Psalm lxvi. 9. (2.) His kind maintenance or restoration of health; Exod. xv. 26. (3.) His providing agreeable relations, husbands, wives, parents, children, servants, neighbours; Psalm cvii. 41; lxviii. 6; cxliv. 12. (4.) Peace and order in families; Prov. xxxi. (5.) Piety and devotion, that make the house a church; Psalm ci.; Josh.xxiv. 15; Gen. xviii. 19; 2 John iv.; Phil. ii.; Col. iv. 15; Rom. xvi. 5; Acts x. 2; xvi. 34. (6.) Provision of convenient food, raiment, and other temporal accomodations; Deut. viii. 16; Isa. xxxiii. 17; Acts xiv 17; xvii. 25; 1 Tim vi. 17. (7.) Protection from dangers; Deut. xxxiii. 25 — 29; Psalm xci. 1 — 10. (8.) Seasonable, and especially sanctified, afflictions; Psalm xciv. 12; Heb. xii. 5 — 11; Rev. iii. 19. (9.) A pleasant prospect of a seed for the Lord, Christ trained up in the family; Isa. xliv. 3 — 5; Gen. xvii. 7; Jer. xxxi. 1; Isa. lix. 21. (10.) When deaths in families are not only so ordered, as to increase love and friendship among the survivors, but even to awaken their consciences, and stir them up to seek and swallow the Lord; 2 Kings iv. 1, with Isa. lvii. 1.

IV; We are indebted to him for a multitude of public national mercies: as, (1.) His ancient gracious purposes, and his many express promises, concerning the islands and the ends of the earth; which we now see to have peculiarly respected Britain; and on which we may plead for mercy in every time of need;

Isa. xxiv. 15; xlii. 4, 10, 12; xlix. 1; li. 5; lx. 9; lxvi. 19; xlv. 22; Psalm xxii. 27 — 31; lxv. 5; lxxii. 8, 10, with 2 Pet. i. 4; Heb. iv. 1. (2.) His early introduction of the gospel of salvation into Britain, about forty years after Christ’s death; and, not long after, into the north parts of it, notwithstanding its distance from Jerusalem, and notwithstanding the poverty, and dreadful barbarity, and savage customs of our ancestors; Isa. lxvi. J 9. (3.) His thereafter continuing the gospel light and Christian church in this island, notwithstanding cruel persecution by the heathen inhabitants, and notwithstanding the dreadful and long-continued ravages of the Saxons, and all the craft, cruelty, error, profligacy, idolatry, and superstition of the papists, for more than fourteen hundred years; Psalm cxxxii. 13, 14. (4.) His reformation of the country from Popery, about the middle of the sixteenth century, notwithstanding all the exorbitant power and wealth of the Romish clergy, and all the gross ignorance, superstitious inclinations, and profligacy of the people, — and notwithstanding all the caprice of king Henry VIII., and the cruelty of queen Mary in England, and all that the house of Guise and courts of France and Scotland could do to oppose it; Zech. iv. 6, 7. While the more strict and faithful party in England were marvellously supported under the persecution which they suffered from queen Elizabeth and her agents, those in Scotland were enabled, amidst great poverty and manifold oppositions, to carry the Re-LIFE AND REMAINS OF

formation of their church to a remarkable degree of purity and order; Deut. xxxiii. 25; 2 Chron. xiv. 11. (6.) Notwithstanding all that king James, and Charles, his son, could do, by alterations of the Scotch church, by correspondence with popes, by courtship or marriage with papists, by authorizing sports on the Lord’s day, by high commissions, and by imprisonments, banishments, or tortures, he enabled his faithful ministers and people to cleave to his truths, and made even their persecutions a means of their subsequent deliverance; Rev. xi. 3; Dan. xi. 32, 33. (7.) Amidst no small confusions, civil wars, and, no doubt, many selfish designs of political managers, he, between 1638 and 1660, not only laid the foundations of our civil liberties, but also furnished the nations with a multitude of pious and laborious ministers, whose faithful preaching of the gospel he blessed to the conviction, conversion, or edification, of perhaps millions of souls; and produced such an appearance of serious godliness and devotion, throughout the most of the island, as was never before nor since known in it; Dan. ix. 25; Hos. ii. 6, 7, 14; v. 15; vi. 1 — 3. (8.) Notwithstanding all the shocking profaneness, blasphemous oaths and bonds, and cruel persecutions, introduced by king Charles II., and continued by James, his brother, the Lord enabled multitudes of his people to be faithful unto fines, imprisonments, banishments, tortures, and death; Zech. x. 8, 9; Matt, x. 19; John xvi. 33; Zeph. iii. 12, 18, 19. (9.)

At the Revolution, when all things were prepared for the establishment of Popery and slavery, he wrought a marvellous deliverance, and made the very seas, winds, and storms, as well as a branch of our enslavers’ roots, to fight for the re-establishment of our Protestant religion and liberties; Deut. xxxii. 36; Psalm xciv. 12 — 15; cxxxv. 14. (10.) When Popish pretenders to the crown, by assassinations, invasions, and rebellions, of Jacobites, have repeatedly attempted to overthrow our religion and liberties, he hath always defeated their attempts, and made them destructive to themselves; Isa. vii. 5 — 7; viii. 12, 15. (11.) When the gospel doctrines of the free grace of God, reigning through the imputed righteousness of Christ, were fearfully buried, perverted, or mixed, by the general prevalence of Arminian or Neominian errors, the Lord, by means of Mr. Hervey, and others, in England, and by means of Boston, the Seceders, and others, in Scotland, revived and spread them into many dark places of the islands, to the conversion and edification of multitudes; Ezra ix. 8, 9; Isa. lix. 19. (12.) The late peace, after a most ruinous, and, perhaps, on all hands, a most unnecessary and sinful war, he not only granted us, but mercifully timed it for the preservation of many thousands from perishing by the famine; the corn provided for the army, supplying many in want; and the ships which brought victuals from abroad, having a free and safe passage. Meanwhile, a generosity in providing for the poor, never k 2 before known, at least, in North Britain, remarkably prevailed; Gen. xxii. 14.

Hath Britain rendered unto the Lord according to these, and innumerable other benefits which he hath bestowed upon her? No; but by crimes innumerable, and highly aggravated, hath plunged herself into an infinite debt to his avenging justice by, (1.) General misimprovement of his mercies, in forgetting, undervaluing, and contemning them; by abusing them as means or occasions of wickedness, and spurning away and treading under foot such as are of a spiritual nature; Psalm cvi. 13. (2.) Gross atheism and ignorance of God and of his word and works, that neither law nor gospel, nor the most common and necessary points of truth, are understood or studied by millions; Eph. iv. 18; Isa. xxvii. 11; Hos. iv. 1, 2, 6. (3.) Proud and unbelieving contempt and rejection of Jesus Christ, and his great salvation offered in the gospel; John i. 11; Heb. ii. 3; x. 29. (4.) Contempt and neglect of the precious ordinances of the gospel, not receiving them, not observing and keeping them pure and entire, as means of communion with, and conformity to, Christ; but, instead thereof, living as brute beasts, without either secret or private daily worship of God, and even much absenting from his public worship, fearfully profaning his sacraments; Isa. lxiii. 22; Jer. x. 25; Heb. x. 25. (5.) Fearful profanation of God’s name, by swearing of broad or minced oaths in common conversation, and by imposing unnecessary or sinful oaths, or by dispensing and taking these or other oaths in a profane, light, and careless manner; Exod. xx. 7; Zech. v. 3, 4; Jer. xxviii. 10; Hos. iv. 2; x. 4; and by breach of sacramental and other solemn vows to God; Prov. xxx. 25. (6.) Notorious profanation of the sabbath, in omitting the religious exercises of it, and spending it as a season of idleness, wickedness, or worldly employments and recreations; Ezek. xxii. 26; Jer. xvii. 27. (7.) General impiety of rulers, both in church and state. Civil rulers are not, as they ought to be, men fearing God and hating covetousness, Exod. xviii. 21; but such as by bribes, influence, or the like, can push themselves into honour; and too often clergymen are such as run unsent by Christ, and neither understand nor love the gospel of his grace, nor have conversation becoming it; but addict themselves to plays and romances, instead of their bible; have scarcely a shadow of the daily worship of God either in secret or in their families, but spend much of their time in improper diversions, or in familiarity with graceless great men; Isa. i. 21, 23; ix. 16; lvi. 10 — 12; Jer. v. 5, 7, 8; Ezek. xxix. 24 — 28; Mic. iii.; Hos. vi. 1. (8.) Shocking murder of multitudes of precious souls under Charles II. and James his brother, — of infants by unnatural parents, — of duellers, by venting their pride, — of, I suppose, about twelve or fourteen millions of poor heathens, in carrying on the East India settlements and the African slave-trade, — and of I know not how

many millions of precious souls, by the bad examples of magistrates, ministers, parents, and masters, and their carelessness about those under their respective charges; Hos. iv. 2; Ezek. xxii. 3, 6, 9, 12, 13, 45; xxiv. 7, 23; Matt, xxiii. 34, 35. (9.) Drunkenness and gluttony; many making their eating and drinking, and their care about them, the principal business of their life; and even wasting their precious time, and ruining their bodily and intellectual constitution thereby; Prov. xxiii. 21, 29, 30; Eccl. x. 16, 17; Isa. xxviii. I. (10.) Uncleanness, fornication, adultery, &c.; many, particularly those of rank, rather seeming to prosecute and glory in such wickedness, as an honourable accomplishment, while magistrates generally neglect to punish, and church rulers to censure, the same; Hos. iv. 2, 11; vii. 4; Mai. iii. 5; Jer. v. 7 — 9. (H.) Dishonesty, theft, robbery, prodigality, fraudulent bankruptcies, over-reaching in bargains, oppression, extortion, bribery, and the like; Hos. iv. 2; Zech. v. 4. Mic. ii., iii., vii. 2 — 5; Isa. i. 23; Ezek. xxii. 12, 27; Amos v. 12; viii. 4, 5, 6. (12.) Lying, falsehood, deceit, dissimulation, unfaithfulness to promises or trusts, reviling, backbiting, slander, perjury, misrepresentation of causes in judicature, &c.; Hos. iv. 2; Jer. ix. 2 — 8; Isa. lix. 4, 8, 13, 14, 15: Mic. vii. 2 — 5. (13.) Covetousness, envy, uncharitableness, discontentment, and an inordinate inclination and study to push ourselves into the honours, property, or trade, of our neighbours; Jer. v. 8; Mic. v. 2; Hab. ii. 9, These are a few of the leading articles of Britain’s debt to her God. The value must be stated from the greatness of God, the holiness and authority of his law, and worth of his Son, and the infinite importance of an eternity either in heaven or hell. How infatuated then must we be, in making such work about hundreds of millions owing to men, and yet overlooking so many infinite sums owing to our Maker and Judge, and neglecting to have them happily discharged by an application of Jesus’ blood, which, purchaseth all mercies, and cleanseth from all sin!