Remains of that reverend and learned divine, John Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplain in…Remaines of that reverend and learned divine, Iohn Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplaine in…

but the common fashion now is to spend but a little time in such things as these are, and so think that enough too.

but the common fashion now is to spend but a little time in such things as these are, and so thinke that enough too.

This showeth us the miserable condition of those that still lye in their sins, it may be they think ¹the burden thereof to be light, and account it not; but when the burden of their sins shall be laid upon them, they will find to be intolerable; now while the burden lies not on their shoulders they feel it not, but when God shall once say, Let him bear the burden of his sins, we shall find them to be unsupportable, even able to press us down to hell, as here they did Judas. The common fashion of men is not to regard what sin they run into for the escaping of some outward cross, thinking that to be the greater, but they shall one day, to their cost, find the contrary, that these outward punishments and losses are nothing in comparison to the inward; that as outward cold and heat is nothing to the inward, the heat in summer is nothing to the heat of the fever; so that these outward crosses are but as the heat in summer; inward, like the heat of the fever. But its a wonderful thing ⟨p. 49⟩to see how men, like little children, rejoice and tremble at appearances. Children cry not at things to be feared, but at things not to be feared; as Hobgoblins, and the like, they cry: so do men most commonly fear those things that are but umbrae doloris; for outward evils are like the scabbard without the sword, which cannot cut; they are only inward evils which are like a deep pit, out of which we cannot be recovered. Set your hearts therefore in a right disposition of judging of sin, that you may judge aright thereof as it is in it self; labour to apprehend Gods wrath for sin, and beat down those lusts that like mists hinder us from the sight thereof: Judge of sin as the Scripture judgeth of it, for that is the true glass; judge of these outward things as they are; see how you should judge of them in the day of death, and so judge of them now, and by this means you shall foresee the plague, and prevent it.