A commentary or, exposition upon the divine second epistle general, writtenA commentary or, exposition vpon the diuine second epistle generall, written

All is but Remembrance: thrice in these four verses doth our Apostle press it; Paul, Phil. 3.1. It is not grievous to me to write the same things unto you: but for you it is safe; a most sure course. Unregenerate hearts are termed Stony hearts: if they were brazen, they might be melted: if iron, they might be wrought: but hearts of stone must be broken with continual hammering. The blood of CHRIST must be often dropped upon these adamantine hearts to mollify them. Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo. Deut. 32.2. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, and my speech distil as the dew. If all the world were Paradise, the sower might sow but once for all. Or if it were like the land of Albanoises, he need to till it but once in three years. Or if it were so fertile, as some soil is said to be under the Northern Pole; he might sow in the morning, and reap in the evening. But sin hath made the ground full of thorns, and much seed falls among these thorns, Matth. 13. Some is trampled under feet with the vulgar tract: other washed away with the common stream of the time: the rest pecked up by the fowls of the air: there is need therefore to sow even often the same seed, and always to put you in remembrance, not of other, but even of these things. We have brittle memories, weak retentions; therefore there is need or frequent and hearty incitations. Esa. 28.10. Precept must be upon precept: line upon line: here a little and there a little. The Scripture often ingeminates the same word, the same thing, to give strength to the declaration of it. Esa. 28.7. They have erred, they are out of the way, through wine: the phrase is repeated seven times in one Verse; to vilify drunkenness. So Ver. 21. The Lord shall do his work, his strange work: and bring to pass his act, his strange act. So Ver. 23. Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken and hear my speech; that the ear might be throughly charmed. Psal. 62.11. God hath spoken once, twice have I heard it. Prov. 4.14. Enter not into the way of the wicked, go not in, avoid it, pass by it, turn from it, and pass away.