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&c.; otherwise than to discover thy rottenness, these are too small sins; but thou shalt be given up to inward profaneness of heart (as Esau was, having been brought up in a good family), so as not to neglect holy duties only, but to despise them, to despise the good word of God and his saints, and to hate godliness and the appearance of it; thou shalt be given up to contemn God and his judgments, to trample under foot the blood of the covenant,' or else unto devilish opinions. Those other are too small to be punishments of thy sin, for still the end of such an one must be seven times worse than the beginning, as Christ says it shall. If thou wert a drunkard, a swearer, or an unclean person before, and thy knowledge wrought some alteration in thee, thou shalt not haply be so now at thy fall, but seven times worse, profane, injurious to saints, a blasphemer, or derider of God's ways and ordinances.

Fourthly, When thou comest to lay hold on mercy at death, thy knowledge will give thee up to more despair than another man. Knowledge, though when it is but newly revealed, it is an help; yet not made use of, turns against the soul, to wound it, and to work despair; and this both because we have sinned against the means that should have saved us, as also because such as sin against knowledge, sin with more presumption; and the more presumption in thy life, the more despair thou art apt to fall into at death. Therefore, Isa. lix. 11, 12, what brought such trouble and roarings like bears' upon these Jews? and that when salvation was looked for, that yet it was so far off from them, in their apprehensions? 'Our iniquities' (say they) testify to our face, and we know them.' Now, then, sins testify to our face when our conscience took notice of them, even to our faces when we were committing them; and then also the same sins themselves will again testify to our faces, when we have recourse for the pardon of them. Therefore thou wilt lie roaring on thy deathbed, and that thou knowest them will come as an argument that thou shalt not have mercy. As ignorance is a plea for mercy, I did it ignorantly, therefore I obtained mercy,' so I did it knowingly, will come in as a bar and a plea against thee, therefore I shall not have mercy.

Fifthly, Both here and in hell, it is the greatest executioner and tormentor. In this sense it may be said, Qui auget scientiam, auget dolorem, He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow,' as Solomon speaks; for knowledge enlargeth our apprehension of our guilt, and that brings more fear and torment. 'Have they no knowledge who eat up my people? Yes, there is their fear,' says David. Therefore, Heb. x. 28, after sinning after knowledge, there remains not only a more fearful punishment, but a more fearful expectation' in the parties' consciences. And this is the worm in hell that gnaws for ever. Light breeds these worms.

But then you will say, It is best for us to be ignorant, and to keep ourselves so.

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I answer, No. For to refuse knowledge will damn as much as abusing it. This you may see in Prov. i. 23, Ye fools' (says Wisdom), 'you that hate knowledge, turn, and I will pour my spirit upon you, and make known my words to you.' Well, ver. 24, they refused,' and would none of his reproof; therefore, says God, I will laugh at your calamity,' that is, I will have no pity, but instead of pity, God will laugh at you; and when your fear comes, I will not answer, because ye hated knowledge,' ver. 29; so as this is as bad, there remains therefore no middle way of refuge to extricate thyself at, and avoid all this, no remedy but turning unto God; otherwise thou canst not but be more miserable than other men. Yea, and

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this must be done speedily also. For thou having knowledge, God is quicker in denying thee grace, and in giving thee up to a reprobate mind, than another man who is ignorant. He will wait upon another that knows not his will and ways, twenty, thirty, forty years, as he did upon the children of the Israelites that were born in the wilderness, and had not seen his wonders in Egypt, and at the Red Sea; but those that had, he soon sware against many of them, that they should never enter into his rest.' Christ comes as a 'swift witness' against those to whom the gospel is preached, Mal. iii. 5; he makes quick despatch of the treaty of grace with them. Therefore few that have knowledge are converted when they are old, or that lived long under the means. And therefore you that have knowledge are engaged to repent and to turn to God, and to bring your hearts to your knowledge, and that speedily also, or else your damnation will not only be more intolerable than others, but the sentence of it pass out more quickly against you. Therefore as Christ says, John xii. 36, 'Whilst you have the light, walk in it.' For that day of grace which is very clear and bright, is usually a short one. And though men may live many natural days after, and enjoy the common light of the sun, yet the day of grace and of gracious excitements to repent may be but a short one.

AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING AGAINST

MERCY.

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.-ROM. II. 4, 5.

THIS is the last and most weighty aggravation which the apostle puts into the measure of the Gentiles' sinfulness (which in the former chapter he had, verse 29, pronounced full before), to make it fuller yet. Their sinning against mercies, and despising the riches of God's goodness, patience, and forbearance, the hateful evil and iniquity whereof can be better no way set off and illustrated unto men's consciences, than by a display of the riches of that goodness which men sin against.

My purpose therefore is to unlock and carry you into that more common treasury of outward mercies, and lead you through the several rooms thereof, all which do continually lead you unto repentance; that then, reflecting upon our ungrateful waste and abuse of so many mercies in sinning, thereby our sins, every sin, the least, may yet appear more sinful unto us, who are less than the least of all mercies.' Know then, that besides that peculiar treasure of unsearchable riches of grace laid up in Christ,' Eph. ii. 7, the offer of which neglected and despised adds yet to all that sinfulness, a guilt as far exceeding all that which shall be spoken of, as heaven exceeds the earth, there is another untold mine of riches the earth is full of, as the Psalmist tells us, Ps. civ. 24, and the apostle here, which these Gentiles only heard of, and which we partake of all as much as they. As there are riches of grace offered to you which can never be exhausted, so there are riches of patience spent upon you which you will have spent out in the end, the expense of which cast up, will alone amount to an immense treasure, both of guilt in you and of wrath in God, as these words inform us.

To help you in this account, I will,

1. In general, shew what goodness or bounty, patience, and longsuffer

ing are in God.

2. That there are riches of these spent upon all the sons of men.

3. That these all lead men to repentance. And then,

4. I will expostulate with you and aggravate your sinfulness in going on to despise all these by unrepentance, as the apostle here doth.

1. First, In that God is said here to be (1.) good or bountiful; (2.) patient or forbearing; (3.) longsuffering; they seem to note out three degrees of his common mercies unto men.

(1.) First, He is a good or a bountiful God; for so as goodness is here used, I exegetically expound it. For though it be true that goodness and bounty may differ, yet when riches of goodness are said to be communicated, it imports the same, and is all one with bounty. And such is God. And all those noble and royal qualifications and properties which concur to make one truly good and bountiful, do meet and abound in him, in all those good things which he doth bestow, and are found truly in none but in him, so that it may be truly said, that there is none good but God, as Christ says of him.

Now bounty in the general, which is in God, may be thus described.

It is a free, willing, and a large giving of what is merely his own, looking for no recompence again.

To explain this, that you may see that all these conditions are required to true goodness, and all of them to be found in God only.

[1.] He that is bountiful, he must be a giver and bestower of good things; and all he bestows it must be by way of gift, not by way of recompence unto, or by desert from the party he bestows all on. Therefore

Christ says, Luke vi. 33, that to do good to those who have done or do good to us, is not thankworthy, nor is it bounty. But God is therefore truly good, because he simply, merely, and absolutely gives away all which he bestows. For he was not, nor can any way become, beholden to any of his creatures, nor had formerly received anything from them which might move him hereunto; so Rom. xi. 35, Who hath first given him, that he may recompense him again?' Nay, until he gave us a being, we were not capable of so much as receiving any good thing from him.

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[2.] He who is truly termed good or bountiful, all that he gives away must be his own; and so all which God bestows it is his own. So Ps. xxiv. 1, The earth is the Lord's,' the ground we tread on, the place we dwell in; he is our landlord. But is that all? For the house may be the landlord's when the furniture is the tenant's. Therefore he further adds,' And the fulness of it' is his also; that is, all the things that fill the world, all the furniture and provision of it both, all the moveables. So Ps. 1. 11, 12, The cattle and the fowls upon a thousand hills are mine,' says he; and also all the standing goods, the corn and oil' which you set and plant, are mine,' Hos. ii. 9; yea, and the Psalmist, in the 24th Psalm, adds further, that they who dwell therein' are his also; not the house and furniture only, but the inhabitants themselves. And this by the most sure and most sovereign title that can be, better than that of purchase or inheritance of and from another; for he hath made them. 'All is thine, because all comes of thee,' says the same David, 1 Chron. xxix. 11, 12. And all things are not only of him, but through him, Rom. xi. 36; that is, they cannot stand nor subsist without him. Even kings, the greatest and most bountiful of men, their bounty is but as that of the clouds, which though they shower down plentifully, yet they first received all from the earth below them.

[3.] He must give largely, it is not bounty else. Now God is therefore said to be rich in goodness, because he is abundant in it. So we find it, comparing Ps. xxxiii. 5, with Ps. civ. 24, in which it is said, that the

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earth is full of his goodness,' and his riches;' which we may judge of, by what he says in the 27th verse of that 104th Psalm, of what an house he keeps, and what multitudes he feeds; All these,' saith the Psalmist, wait on thee, that thou mayest give them meat; and thou openest thy hand, and they are filled with good.' King Ahasuerus, to shew his bounty, made a feast to his chief subjects, but it was but for half a year, and not to all; some few half years more would well nigh have beggared him; but ¡God doth thus continually. The greatest and most bountiful of men, when they would express the largest of their bounty, speak but of giving half of their kingdoms; so Herod and he did but talk so too; but God bestows whole worlds and kingdoms, as Daniel speaks, Dan. iv. 32, and gives them to whom he please.

[4.] He that is bountiful must give all he gives freely, and willingly. Which, though I put together, yet may imply two distinct things. As, first, that he that gives must be a free agent in it, who is at his choice, whether he would give anything away or no. The sun doth much good to the world, it affords a large light, and even half the world at once is full of its glory, yea, and all this light is its own, not borrowed, as that of the moon and stars is; yet this sun cannot be called good or bountiful, because it sends forth this light necessarily and naturally, and cannot choose but do so, nor can it draw in its beams. But God is a free giver, he was at his choice whether he would have made the world or no, and can yet when he pleaseth withdraw his Spirit and face, and then they all perish, Ps. civ. 29. Secondly, It must be willingly also; that is, no way constrained, nor by extraction wrung from him who is to be called bountiful. A willing mind in matter of bounty, is more accepted than the thing, 2 Cor. viii. 12. Now of God it is said, Dan. iv. 32, that he gives the kingdoms of the world to whom he will, and none sways him, or can stay his hand, ver. 35, yea, he gives all away with delight. So Ps. civ. 31, having spoken of feeding every living thing, and of other the like works of his goodness throughout that Psalm, he concludes with this, 'God rejoiceth in all his works;' that is, doth all the good he doth to his creatures with delight. It doth him good (as it were) to see the poor creatures feed.

[5.] Last of all, looking for no recompence for the time to come. This is another requisite in bounty. Says Christ, Luke vi. 34, If you give to receive again, as sinners do, this is not thankworthy;' but ver. 25, so doth not your heavenly Father. For, says he, 'Do good, and hope for nothing again; so shall you be like your Father,' and then you shall shew yourselves true children of the Most High. In which word he insinuates a reason why God gives all thus; because he is so great and so high a God, as nothing we do can reach him, as David speaks, Ps. xvi. 2, My goodness extends not unto thee;' he is too high to receive any benefit by what we do. And even that thankfulness he exacts, he requires it but as an acknowledgment of our duty, and for our good, Deut. x. 12.

(2.) And so much for the first, namely, what goodness and bounty is ; and how God is truly good, and he only so. But this attribute of his, and the effects of it, he exerciseth towards all our fellow-creatures, and did to Adam in paradise. But now to us ward (as the apostle speaks), namely, the sons of men, now fallen, he extendeth and manifests a further riches, namely, of patience and long-suffering, which the devils partake not of, the good angels and other creatures that sinned not, are incapable of. For as Christ says, Luke vi. 35, in what he bestows on us, he is kind to such as are evil and unthankful. Mercy is more than goodness, for mercy always doth

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