That we have sinned, therefore our hearts are heavy, Isa. lix. 11, 12. We roar like bears, and mourn like doves, and want health, &c. for our sins and trespasses. But this we cannot endure to hear or to take notice of, Jer. ii. 30. We are smitten in vain and receive no correction; and cap. v. 3. Thou hast stricken them, but they have not sorrowed; they have refused to receive correction; they have not returned. Pestilence he hath sent, but they have not turned to him, Amos iv. [839]Herod could not abide John Baptist, nor [840]Domitian endure Apollonius to tell the causes of the plague at Ephesus, his injustice, incest, adultery, and the like. To punish therefore this blindness and obstinacy of ours as a concomitant cause and principal agent, is God's just judgment in bringing these calamities upon us, to chastise us, I say, for our sins, and to satisfy God's wrath. For the law requires obedience or punishment, as you may read at large, Deut. xxviii. 15. If they will not obey the Lord, and keep his commandments and ordinances, then all these curses shall come upon them. [841]Cursed in the town and in the field, &c. [842]Cursed in the fruit of the body, &c. [843]The Lord shall send thee trouble and shame, because of thy wickedness. And a little after, [844]The Lord shall smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with emerods, and scab, and itch, and thou canst not be healed; [845]with madness, blindness, and astonishing of heart. This Paul seconds, Rom. ii. 9. Tribulation and anguish on the soul of every man that doeth evil. Or else these chastisements are inflicted upon us for our humiliation, to exercise and try our patience here in this life to bring us home, to make us to know God ourselves, to inform and teach us wisdom. [846]Therefore is my people gone into captivity, because they had no knowledge; therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them. He is desirous of our salvation. [847]Nostrae salutis avidus, saith Lemnius, and for that cause pulls us by the ear many times, to put us in mind of our duties: That they which erred might have understanding, (as Isaiah speaks xxix. 24) and so to be reformed. [848]I am afflicted, and at the point of death, so David confesseth of himself, Psal. lxxxviii. v. 15, v. 9. Mine eyes are sorrowful through mine affliction: and that made him turn unto God. Great Alexander in the midst of all his prosperity, by a company of parasites deified, and now made a god, when he saw one of his wounds bleed, remembered that he was but a man, and remitted of his pride. In morbo recolligit se animus,[849]as [850]Pliny well perceived; In sickness the mind reflects upon itself, with judgment surveys itself, and abhors its former courses; insomuch that he concludes to his friend Marius,[851] that it were the period of all philosophy, if we could so continue sound, or perform but a part of that which we promised to do, being sick. Whoso is wise then, will