More certainly still may we reckon upon it, that the fatal arts of luxury reigned in Capernaum: Ostentatious ornaments of dress and furniture, exquisite food, rich wines, and not improbably, concerts of music and other theatrical entertainments, which we know Herod introduced into some of their cities, drawing the world after them, and employing the great, when their minds should have been occupied about the affairs of the public; perhaps too intoxicating those in common life, and leading them to forget the cares and interrupt the labours, upon which their own subsistence and that of their families depended, and so bringing upon their families a ruin that would not have so much as the consolation of being pitied; at once exhausting the substance, and corrupting the taste of the rising generation. Wretched offspring of cruelly-indulgent parents! who instead of being trained up in the fear of the Lord, in the methods of a wise, virtuous, and pious education, might have their minds broken by effeminacy, and a thousand artificial wants created, when perhaps there might hardly be enough left from the ravages of luxury, to supply the necessities of nature. They would no doubt grow up exorbitant, petulant, and audacious; ignorant of every art but that of corrupting and injuring others, of every science but that of deriding the little remainder of religion and virtue, that might be found in the midst of so general a wreck. Alas, what an inheritance laid up for them! But whatever the offences of Capernaum were, it is to be remembered, 2. That they would not reform under all the efforts which Christ used with them for that purpose. The Son of God himself was among them; A wise Reprover, but it was on disobedient ears*. Neither his remonstrances, nor his example, nor his miracles, would make any lasting impression upon them. Perhaps there were those, who would not condescend to give him the hearing: They thought themselves wise and polite in looking with contempt upon the man of Nazareth, and would not give themselves the trouble of enquiring into what seemed to them so incredible a tale, as that of his miracles; or if the evidence forced itself upon their minds, and laid down certain favourite maxims to themselves, and resolved to reject every thing inconsistent with them, whatever wretched shifts they might make to do it: Nay, it seems manifest, that here that blasphemous suggestion was advanced, that he Cast out devils by the prince of the devils †. There might be others more decent, who yet heard in vain; If they Wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, those words were To them but as the lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument †; they heard them, but they would not do them: Or if any impressions were made, they quickly wore them off again, and were enchanted back into the same circle of pleasure or business. So that on the whole, they rejected the gospel which was so well calculated to reform them, and grew more hopeless under it than ever. If he had not come and spoken unto them, they would in comparison have had no sin; but now they had no cloak for their sin : And the interpretation, that he himself with all his unequalled candour was obliged to pass upon their conduct, with whatever indignation they might reject the charge, was this, that They had both seen, and hated, both him and his Father §. What could be expected then from such aggravated and incorrigible wickedness, but III. The doom pronounced upon them; that dreadful doom, which we are next to consider, that having been exalted unto heaven, they should be brought down to hell; and it should be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for them. You will easily observe a strong and beautiful opposition in the former clause of the sentence; and both that, and the latter, may express-their temporal ruin, but much more cer-their future condemnation. 1. It may perhaps express their temporal ruin. We know that this is sometimes signified by this expression, being brought down to hell. The destruction of Babylon is foretold by Isaiah by this very phrase, to shew How the oppressor should cease, and the golden city cease: Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell ; that is, thou shalt be utterly destroyed and buried in thy own ruins. And such, we know, was the doom of Capernaum. Many of the vices, which we have naturally enough supposed to have abounded in it, would in their own consequences have led it on to certain, though to slower ruin: But God, as is frequently his method, interposed to execute this fair, yet abandoned criminal, before she died of her own debaucheries. I do not remember, that we read any thing particular concerning the circumstances of the ruin of Capernaum: But as *Luke iv. 22. + Ezek. xxxiii. 32. Isa. xiv. 4, 13, 15. John xv. 22. all the country about the Galilean sea was over-run by the Roman army in the war that quickly happened, it undoubtedly shared the fate of its neighbours, of whose terrible destruction Josephus gives a most affecting description in the third and fourth books of the Jewish war. It was then plundered of its wealth, and in all probability its streets and palaces were filled with the dead bodies of its slaughtered inhabitants; as the historian says expressly," that the lake on which the city stood, after a terrible sea-fight there, was covered with the floating corpses of the slain, which almost poisoned all the country round by the insufferable stench they emitted, while they remained unburied *." The country being thus subdued and trodden down by the Gentiles, who became its absolute Lords, Capernaum must have soon lost all its glory; so soon indeed, that many of the young people, who had been present while Christ preached in their synagogues and wrought miracles among them, must in a course of nature have lived to share the desolation. Thus the sword of the enemy entered into those hearts which had been impenetrable to that Two-edged sword that went out of the mouth of the Son of God †. And so entire was the ruin of the place, that, as we learn from Jerom, in his time, which was less than 400 years after Christ, “All that remained of the magnificence and glory of Capernaum, was six or seven poor fishermen's cottages ;" and modern travellers can hardly find a trace of it: So literally is it grown, like the much more celebrated city of Tyre, Like the top of a rock, a place to spread nets upon §. Such is the ancient Tyre; such, after all the privileges it enjoyed, Capernaum now is; and such the proudest city upon earth shall be, if God but mark it out for the like ruin. But more than this, these awful words of our blessed Redeemer did certainly express, 2. Their future and final condemnation. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, in the great day of final retribution, than for thee. You see, the day of judgment is introduced, that great and terrible day of the Lord. And it is very necessary, that the memory of it should be kept up in the world, that men Knowing the terror of the Lord may, if possible, be awakened and persuaded. Our blessed Redeemer himself, who was Anointed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, considered it also as a part of his commission to declare the day of vengeance of our *Joseph, de Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 10. §. 9. † Rev. i. 16. De Loc. Hebr. § Ezek. xxvi. 14. || 2 Cor. v. 11. God. And nothing is so awful as the language in which he describes it. But we are here to observe, it is implied, that Sodom and Gomorrah should have a part in it, but that their part should be less dreadful than that of the people of Capernaum. It is implied, "that Sodom and Gomorrah should have a part in the day of judgment." You well know, that God executed his vengeance upon them in the most tremendous manner, for those detestable crimes, which have rendered the name of Sodom so infamous to these very distant ages: And the history of their ruin is so circumstantially described, that it is evident, God intended it should never be forgot. Let me call you all, let me call especially the impenitent sinners that hear me this day, to pause for a few moments on the case of these wretched men. When the rising sun in all its beauty and glory was on a sudden obscured to them, fatally and for ever obscured, by that storm of wrath; when the awful moment came, in which God had determined to Rain upon them snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest † ; Snares indeed, that took them, wherever they might attempt to fly: Endeavour to conceive as you can, though you can but imperfectly conceive, what must be the consternation of these wretches, that felt the earth reeling under them, and saw at the same time the heavens thundering upon them, and pouring a vast shower of burning brimstone instead of rain, firing their habitations, and torturing with far more than the agonies of common flame the bodies they had so delicately pampered, so infamously abused. For a few minutes they remained, either stupid and dumb with amazement, or shrieking out in torment and despair, and Blaspheming the God of heaven because of their paint; the most lively image of hell, that earth ever saw, or shall see ; till down they sink into the opening ground, the city and its inhabitants vanished in a moment, and nothing remained of their country, which just before was Like the garden of the Lord §, but a smoaking sulphurous lake: For so it is expressly said, that Abraham Beheld, and lo, its smoke went up as the smoke of a furnace . Thus they became a sign and a proverb; for when God would describe the most entire destruction that can be conceived, it is by this emblem, As the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah T. § Gen. xiii. 10. Gen. Isa. i. 7-10. iii. 9. xiii. 19. Zeph. ii. 9. Mat. x. 15. and *Isa. Ixi. 1, 2. + Psal. xi. 6. Rev. xvi. 11. xix. 28. Compare Deut. xxix. 23. xxxi. 32. Jer. xxiii. 14. xlix. 18. Lam. iv. 6. Amos iv. 11. Rev. xi. 8. Their memorial is now perished; except it be that memorial which is preserved of them in the book of God, where they are marked out in so dreadful a manner: And yet, all their punishment is not over. Our Lord tells us, that in the day of judgment they shall be remembered and visited: And we may assure ourselves, that their doom then shall be more terrible, than that which they suffered from the sulphurous rain, the earthquake, and the pit, into which many of them no doubt went down alive. Whatever their anguish and their terror then was, it shall in the great day be far exceeded: For we can never imagine, that God would bring them into final judgment, to punish them less in that tremendous solemnity, than they had formerly been punished; and we may be confident, that to Depart accursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels *, to be cast into that Lake which burns for ever with fire and brimstone +, must be infinitely more terrible than the momentary pain, under the anguish of which they would soon have expired, and from which suffocation would probably much sooner deliver them. But is this the sentence of Sodom and Gomorrah only? And shall this dreadful climate, be inhabited only by them? Nay, but it is the doom of Capernaum too; and what is most terrible of all, it is expressly said, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for Capernaum. And thus, It is implied, "that their part shall be less dreadful in the day of judgment, than that of the people of Capernaum." And it is reasonable that it should be so. Sodom and Gomorrah were righteously condemned: They abused the light of nature, which strongly witnessed against wickedness monstrous like theirs They rejected the preaching of Lot, by whom they might have learnt the knowledge of the true God, and the way. to serve him with acceptance. But though they violated the dictates of reason, though they abused the bounties of providence, though they despised the preaching of Lot; yet they heard not the gospel of the Son of God. A much greater than Lot, was in the midst of thee, O Capernaum! Justly therefore are thy children, who would not receive his doctrine, who would not obey his charge, who would not regard his miracles, doomed to a severer vengeance, to a more intolerable condemnation so as to look with envy upon the milder tortures inflicted upon those egregious sinners against their own souls, VOL. III. * Mat. xxv. 41. + Rev. xxi. 8. L |