A Golden Chain

XIII.

After he hath committed a sin, he ^rsorroweth and repenteth: yet this repentance hath two wants in it. First, he doth not detest his sin, and his former conversation when he repenteth: he doth bewail the loss of many things which he once enjoyed: he crieth out through very anguish, & through the perplexities which God in his judgement layeth on him: yet for his life, he is not able to leave his filthy sin: & if he might be delivered, he would sin as before: ^sEsau wept before his father with great yelling and crying, but after he was gone from his fathers presence he hated his brother, who had got his blessing, and in contempt of his father, chose him a wife against his liking. Pharaoh, as oft as the Lord laid any calamity on him, ^the evermore desired to be delivered from it, yet afterward always he returned to his old by as again. Felix trembled before Paul: for all that, he could not leave his covetousness, but even then he sought for a bribe. Secondly, the reprobate• when he repenteth, he cannot come unto God, & seek unto him: he hath no power, no not so much as once to desire to give one little sob for the remission of his sins: if he would give all the world he cannot so much as give one rap at gods mercy gate, that he may open to him.⁴ He is very like a man upon a rack, who crieth & roareth out for very pain, yet cannot desire his tormentor to ease him of his pain. ^uCain would have bin void of his trembling, but he could not ask pardon of his sin from his heart: neither could Saul, or Judas, or now can the devil.