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

But then they say, suppose the threatened evil comes not, then in vain thou hast disquieted thy self with a needless fear. Nay, but I have bettered my soul by a •autionate repentance. Nineveh was menaced, Yet forty days and it shall be destroyed. They quaked, and repented in sackcloth and ashes, turning from their wickedness; Nineveh stood still. Did they lose any thing by their sorrow, fasting, humiliation? No, their conversion saved them from subversion: had they not sorrowed, they had •eene destroyed indeed. No man is the worse for his repentant grief: if the evil do come, it is a labour well spent: if the evil do not come, it is a labour well lost. •f the body be not the worse, yet the soul is the better.

But then they say, suppose the threatned evill comes not, then in vaine thou hast disquieted thy selfe with a needlesse feare. Nay, but I have bettered my soule by a •autionate repentance. Niniveh was menaced, Yet fortie dayes and it shall be destroyed. They quaked, and repented in sackcloth and ashes, turning from their wickednesse; Niniveh stood still. Did they lose any thing by their sorrow, fasting, humiliation? No, their conversion saved them from subversion: had they not sorrowed, they had •eene destroyed indeed. No man is the worse for his repentant griefe: if the evill doe come, it is a labour well spent: if the evell doe not come, it is a labour well lost. •f the body be not the worse, yet the soule is the better.

But would it not have doubled Sauls sorrow, if he had known that he was to fall into the mountains of Gilboa, and that his enemy should succeed him? Could •iron the French martial have been so merry at the banquet, had he known his instant arrest for treason? would Julius Caesar have gone to the Senate, knowing his ruin there? These be poor exceptions against the forewarning of future evils: for, as knowing them contingent, they would have sought to prevent: so knowing them certain, they would have sought to repent. But saith Boskier, this made CHRIST himself Agelastum, kept him from laughter; the prescience of his dire future passion: he wept for other causes, but for this especially: he often spake of it, because it ran in his mind: and in the garden, he sweat blood to think of it. Grant this in part to be true: he told it to his Apostles, not for his own fear, but to show how much he loved them, that would suffer this for them: to strengthen their faith in him, and love to him; neither wept he so much for his own sorrows, as for our sins. We were more unkind and cruel to him than the thorns and nails. That which drew blood from his side, drew tears from his eyes: we were so guilty, that he could not be merry. Therefore he foretold his Disciples,