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…

two great plagues in this Kingdom, how have the most of us all here survived, and now the third is increasing and growing upon us? To have our lives in such dear years of time, when to have our life for a prey is mercy enough, as Jeremiah told Baruch! that these arrows should fly round about us, over our heads, and miss us! ⟨p. 30⟩that Gods arrests should seize upon men, walking, talking with us, and spare us! how often, many other ways, hath thy neck been upon the block, and the axe held over, and yet hath fallen besides! To go no farther than thy own body, the humours thereof, if God should not restrain them, would overflow and drown it, as the waters would the earth, if God should not say to them, stay your proud waves. And when in a sickness they have been let out, yet God hath kept a sluice, that so much should break forth, and no more, which should purge, and wash the body, and make it more healthful, as the overflowing of Nilus doth. And when then thy body hath been brought low and weak, and like a crazy rotten ship in a storm, taking in water on all sides, so that all the Physicians in the world could not have stopped those Leaks; yet he hath rebuked wind and sea, hath careened, mended thee, and launched thee into the world again, as whole, as sound, and strong as ever; and God hath said,¹ as Job. 33. that Thou shouldst not dye. In a word, if thou consider but what thy life is, and the dangers it is subject to, thou wilt acknowledge it as great a wonder to preserve it, as to see a glass, that hath been in continual use, gone through many hands, and hath had many knocks, and falls, to be kept for forty, fifty, sixty years whole and unbroken: God hath carried thy life in his hand, as it were a candle in a paper lantern in a strong windy night, and kept it from being ⟨p. 31⟩extinct, when as we often see in many, that a little cold comes but in at a little cranny, and blows their candle out, as Job speaks.

two great plagues in this Kingdome, how have the most of us all here survived, and now the third is increasing and growing upon us? To have our lives in such deare yeares of time, when to have our life for a prey is mercy enough, as Ieremy told Baruch! that these arrows should flye round about us, over our heads, and misse us!