Lamentations 1

Ver. 13, 14. By his devouring judgments he has consumed all our strength. He has entangled us so that we cannot escape. He has most furiously debased and destroyed us, and all that we had. The punishment and bondage, which we undergo for our sins, are bound so fast on us that we cannot shake them off: and our sufferings are so twisted together that we cannot break through them and escape

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. I.—Alas! how great is the desolation, when God withdraws, and we are deprived of a magistracy or ministry. Great is the slavery, the sorrow, the contempt, the poverty, to which sin brings men. And what neglect, profanation, and derision, of every thing sacred it occasions! If we wilfully depart from God, the rest of our soul, we must not hope to find rest in any thing else. And all afflictions are doubly heavy when we apprehend them coming from an incensed God. Affluence abused is the ready way to pining want: and cruel oppression of others prepares the like misery for ourselves. When sins become numerous and notorious, it is proper that God should rise to punish them. And, amidst desolating judgments, nothing is more painful to gracious souls than the violation and contempt of God’s ordinances, and the loss of those comforts which they once enjoyed in him and his favours. But it is a mercy that we may apply to him in hope, when all our friends forsake us and our enemies abuse us. And it is doubly bitter if he then keep himself at a distance.—But, if comforts be withdrawn, children murdered, friends turn enemies or be buried in death, if sword, famine, and pestilence, devour, or if enemies insult, it is but the just punishment of our iniquities. No fiery judgments devour, no entangling providences befall, no servitude or misery crush, but what are all framed out of our own transgressions. Let us therefore always justify God, and blame ourselves: and, the more that created friends, confidences, and comforts, disappoint us, let us the more earnestly supplicate his favour. A praying heart and a prayer-hearing God will quickly produce the destruction of our enemies and our own deliverance. And after he has glorified himself in our corrections, he will magnify himself in the tremendous ruin of our destroyers