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SERM. GOD, as I may fay, grows impenitent, and then CXLIX. our ruin will make hafte, and deftruction "will come upon us in a moment. If men will not come to repentance, "the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night," as it follows in the next verse after the text; the judgment of God will suddenly surprize those who will not be gained by his patience.

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3. Confider that nothing will more haften and aggravate our ruin, than the abuse of God's patience. All this time of God's patience, his wrath is coming towards us; and the more we presume upon it, the fooner it will overtake us; Luke xii. 45, 46. The wicked fervant, who faid his LORD delayed his coming, and fell to rioting and drunkenness, our SAVIOUR tells us, "that the lord of that fervant will come "in a day when he looks not for him."

And it will aggravate our ruin; the longer punishment is a coming, the heavier it will be: thofe things which are long in preparation, are terrible in execution; the weight of God's wrath will make amends for the flownefs of it; and the delay of judgment will be fully recompenfed in the dreadfulness of it when it comes.

Let all those confider this who go on in their fin, and are deaf to the voice of God's patience, which calls upon them every moment of their lives. There is a day of vengeance a coming upon those who trifle away this day of GoD's patience; nothing will fooner and more inflame the wrath and displeasure of God against us, than his abused patience, and the defpifed riches of his goodness. As oil, though it be foft and finooth, yet, when it is once inflamed, burns moft fiercely; fo the patience of Gon, when it is abused, turns into fury; and his mildest attributes into the greatest severities.

And

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CXLIX.

And if the patience of GoD do not bring us to re- SER M. pentance, it will but prepare us for a more intolera ble ruin after God hath kept a long indignation in his breast, it will, at length, break forth with the greater violence. The patience of God. encreaseth his judgments by an incredible kind of proportion; Levit. xxvi. 18. "And if you will ftill (fays God to the people of Ifrael) "walk contrary to me, and if ye will not be reformed by all these things, I will "punish you yet feven times more." And ver. 28: "I will bring feven times more plagues upon you; according to your fins." At first God's juftice accufeth finners; but, after a long time of patience, his mercy comes in against us, and, instead of staying his hand, adds weight to his blows; Rom. ix. 22. What if GOD, willing to fhew his wrath, and "to make his power known, endured with much long-fuffering the veffels of wrath fitted for de"ftruction?" They upon whom the patience of God hath no good effect, are "veffels of wrath, prepared and fitted for deftruction." If ever GoD display his wrath, and make his anger known, he will do it in the most severe manner upon those who have despised and abufed his patience; for thefe, in a more peculiar manner, " do treasure up for them"felves wrath againft the day of wrath, and the "revelation of the righteous judgment of GOD."

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To conclude: let us all take a review of our lives, and confider how long the patience of GOD hath waited upon us, and borne with us; with fome, twenty, forty, perhaps fixty years, and longer. Do we not remember how GOD fpared us in fuch a danger, when we gave ourselves for loft? And how he recovered us in fuch a fickness, when the phyfician gave us up for gone? And what use have we made of this patience and long-fuffering of GOD toVOL, VIII. wards

SER M. towards us? It is the worft temper in the world, not CXLIX. to be melted by kindness, not to be obliged by be

nefits, not to be tamed by gentle ufage. He that is not wrought upon, neither by the patience of his mercy, nor by the patience of his judgments, his cafe is defperate, and past remedy. "Confider this, "all ye that forget GOD," left his patience turn into fury; for "GOD is not flack, as some men count "flackness; but long-fuffering to finners, not willing that any should perifh, but that all fhould "come to repentance."

SERM.

CL.

SERMON CL.
The long-fuffering of God.

ECCLES. viii. 11.

Becaufe fentence against an evil work is not executed Speedily, therefore the heart of the fons of men is fully fet in them to do evil.

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TOTHING is more evident, than that the world lies in wickednefs, and that iniquity every where abounds; and yet nothing is more certain, than that GOD will not acquit the guilty, and let fin go unpunished. All men, excepting those who have offered notorious violence to the light of their own minds, and have put the candle of the LORD, which is in them, under a bufhel, do believe that there is a God in the world, to whofe holy nature and will fin is perfectly contrary, "who loves righteouf" ́nefs and hates iniquity," that "his eyes are upon

"the

CL.

"the ways of man, and he feeth all his goings;" SERM. that "there is no darkness, nor fhadow of death, "where the workers of iniquity may hide them"felves." All men, except thofe whose confciences are feared, as it were, with an hot iron, are convinced of the difference of good and evil, and that it is not all one whether men serve God or ferve him not, do well, or live wickedly. Every man, from his inward sense and experience, is fatisfied of his own liberty, and that God lays upon men no neceffity of finning, but that whenever we do amifs, it is our own act, and we chufe to do fo; and fo far is he from giving the leaft countenance to fin, that he hath given all imaginable discouragement to it, by the most severe and terrible threatenings, fuch as one would think fufficient to deter men for ever from it, and to drive it out of the world; and to make his threatenings the more awful and effectual, his providence hath not been wanting to give remarkable inftances of his juftice and feverity upon notorious of fenders, even in this life; and yet, for all this, men do, and will fin; nay, they are zealously fet and bent upon it.

Now here is the wonder; what it is that gives finners fuch heart, and makes them fo refolute and undaunted in fo dangerous a courfe. Solomon gives us this account of it; because the punishments and judgments of GOD follow the fins of men fo flowly, and are long before they overtake the finner." Be"cause sentence against an evil work is not executed. "fpeedily, therefore the hearts of the fons of men "are fully fet in them to do evil."

The scope of the wife man's difcourfe is this; that by reason of God's forbearance and long-fuffering towards finners in this life, it is not fo eafy to difcern the difference between them and other men ;

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CL.

SER M. this life is the day of GoD's patience, but the next will be a day of retribution and recompence. Now because GOD doth defer and moderate the punishment of finners in this world, and referve the weight of his judgments to the next; because, through the long-fuffering of GOD, many great finners live and die without any remarkable teftimony of GoD's wrath and displeasure against them, "therefore the "hearts of the children of men are fully set in them "to do evil.”

If we render the text word for word from the original, it runs thus; "Because nothing is done as a "recompence to an evil work, therefore the hearts "of the fons of men are full in them to do evil;" that is, because men are not oppofed, and contradicted in their evil ways, becaufe divine juftice doth not presently check and control finners, because fentence is not immediately paft upon them, and judgment executed, therefore the heart of the fons of men is full in them to do evil; that is, therefore men grow bold and presumptuous in fin; for the Hebrew word which we render, "is fully fet in "them," we find Efth. vii. 5. where Ahasuerus fays concerning Haman, "Who is he? and where "is he that durft prefume in his heart to do fo? "whofe heart was full, to do fo," Fervet in iis cor filiorum hominum; fo fome render it, "the hearts "of men boil with wickedness," are fo full of it, that it works over. Men are refolute in an evil course, "their hearts are ftrengthened and hardened "in them to do evil," fo others tranflate the words. The tranflation of the LXX is very emphatical, ἐπληροφορήθη καρδία, « the heart of the fons of men "is fully perfuaded and affured to do evil." All thefe translations agree in the main scope and sense, viz. That finners are very apt to prefume upon the

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