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…

Consider how but the other day thou were mere nothing, and when an infinite number that never were nor shall be, were in as great a possibility of being as thou, (for when he made this world, he could have laid it aside wholly, and created millions of other worlds) yet he chose thee to have a room in this, but one world, (for he means to make no more) and this world could ⟨p. 20⟩have stood without thee, and did before thou wert, and shall do when thou art gone: yet he called thee forth out of nothing, and by his Almighty power, bade thee stand forth when there was no need of thee. I say he chose thee to have a being: for as there is an election of things that are to salvation, so out of things that were not unto being. And wretch that thou art, if thou repentest not, thou destroyest what God hath made, and hadst better have kept nothing still, and never have peeped out, or else to skulk into thy first nothing again, for thou art lost, better never to have been borne.

Consider how but the other day thou were meere nothing, and when an infinite number that never were nor shall be, were in as great a possibility of being as thou, (for when he made this world, he could have laid it aside wholly, and created millions of otherworlds) yet he chose thee to have a roome in this, but one world, (for he means to make no more) and this world could ⟨p. 20⟩have stood without thee, and did before thou wert, and shall doe when thou art gone: yet he called thee forth out of nothing, and by his Almighty power, bade thee stand forth when there was no need of thee. I say he chose thee to have a being: for as there is an election of things that are to salvation, so out of things that were not unto being. And wretch that thou art, if thou repentest not, thou destroyest what God hath made, and hadst better have kept nothing still, and never have peept out, or else to skulk into thy first nothing againe, for thou art lost, better never to have beene borne.

Secondly, Consider yet more goodness. Thou mightest have been admitted into the lowest form of creatures, have been a worm, a flea, a fly, which we men fillip and crush to death at pleasure: but to be made a Man, created one of the States, Barons, Lords of the world the first hour, admitted into the highest order, crowned a King in the womb, as David says of man,