Aggravation of sin and sinning against knowledge. Mercy. Delivered in several sermons upon divers…Aggravation of sinne and sinning against knowledge. Mercie. Delivered in severall sermons upon divers…

2. 4. he had told us that he spared not the Angels which fell, but posted, and threw them into hell, as soon as they had sinned.

2. 4. he had told us that hee spared not the Angels which fell, but posted, and threw them into hell, as soone as they had sinned.

Sixthly, But further, in the 6. place; Is this all? ⟨p. 25⟩hath it been barely a time of ease given thee, a time of reprieval? No, it hath been more, space to repent, and so to obtain thy pardon in, Rev. 2. 21. And as it hath been more than ease of torment unto thee, so also consider it hath been more than slackness in him that hath afforded it to thee, as the Apostle there doth tell us. It is not that he hath took no notice of thy offending him, but he is sensible of every idle thought, of every oath, vain word, and as the Scripture tells us, he is pained at the very heart, in so much as he repents that ever he made thee;¹ he is angry with thee every day thou risest, every time he looks on thee, when ever he meets thee going into the Tavern to be drunk, the whorehouse to be unclean, when he meets thee reeling in the streets, he hath much ado to forbear killing thee, as he had to forbear Moses when he met him in the Inn: He is ready to have a blow at thee, and it should not need be any great stroke, or fetching his arm about; if he did but blow on thee, thou wert consumed. To suffer thee to live, doth therefore cost him much riches of patience; but to cut thee off, need cost him nothing: he can do that with ease. But further, all is joined with a willingness that thou shouldst repent, and not perish, as that place tells thee. It were much mercy for a Traitor to be reprieved, to have a lease of his life for twenty years, though there were no hope nor means of obtaining his final pardon after that time spent, and this also, though ⟨p. 16⟩