O! this were a brave day for England, if so she could say in
truth! but alas, the case is otherwise! for which some of thine
inhabitants, O land of my nativity! have mourned over thee with bitter
wailing and lamentation. Their heads have been, indeed, as waters, and
their eyes as fountains of tears, because of thy transgression and
stiffneckedness; because thou wilt not hear, and fear, and return to the
Rock, even thy Rock, O England! from whence thou art hewn. But be thou
warned, O land of great profession, to receive him into thy heart.
Behold, at that door it is he hath stood so long knocking; but thou wilt
yet have none of him. O! be thou awakened! lest Jerusalem's judgments do
swiftly overtake thee, because of Jerusalem's sins that abound in thee.
For she abounded in formality, but made void the weighty things of God's
law, as thou daily dost.
She withstood the Son of God in the flesh, and thou resistest the Son of
God in the Spirit. He would have gathered her, as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings, and she would not; so would he have gathered
thee out of thy lifeless profession, and have brought thee to inherit
substance; to have known his power and kingdom: for which he often
knocked within, by his grace and Spirit; and without, by his servants and
witnesses: but, on the contrary, as Jerusalem of old persecuted the
manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh, and crucified him, and
whipped and imprisoned his servants; so hast thou, O land! crucified to
thyself afresh the Lord of life and glory, and done despite to his Spirit
of grace; slighting the fatherly visitation, and persecuting the blessed
dispensers of it by thy laws and magistrates: though they have early and
late pleaded with thee in the power and Spirit of the Lord; in love and
meekness, that thou mightest know the Lord, and serve him, and become the
glory of all lands.
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