Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…

Secondly▪ It will make us more careful to live by Faith more bold to approach the throne of Grace for mercy to cover, and for Grace to cure our sores and nakedness. In matters of life and death, impudence and boldness is not unseasonable. A man will never die for modesty: when the Soul is convinced by the Law that it is accursed, and eternally lost, if it do not speedily plead Christs satisfaction at the Throne of Grace, it is emboldened to run unto him: when it finds an issue of uncleanness upon it, it will set a price upon the meanest thing about Christ, and be glad to touch the hem of his garment. When a Child hath any strength, beauty, or loveliness in himself, he will haply depend upon his own parts, and expectations to raise a fortune ⟨p. 393⟩and preferment for himself: but when a Child is full of indigence, impotency, crookedness, and deformity, if he were not then supported with this hope, I have a father, a•d Parents do not cast out their Children for their deformities he could not live with comfort or assurance: so the sense of our own pollutions and uncleanness, taking off all conceits of any loveliness in our selves, or of any goodness in us to attract the affections of God, makes us r•ly only on his fatherly compassion. When our Saviour called the poor woman of Syrophenicia Dog, a beastly and unclean Creature, yet she takes not this for a deny all, but turns it into argument. The less I have by right, the more I hope for by mercy; even men afford their Dogs enough to keep them alive, and I ask no more. When the Angel put the hollow of Jacobs thigh out of joint, yet he would not let him¹ go; the more lame he was, the more reason he had to hold. The Prodigal was not kept away or driven of from his resolution, by the fear, shame, or misery of his present estate; for he had one word which was able to make way for him through all this, the name of Father. He considered, I can but be rejected at the last, and I am already as low as a rejection can cast me; so I shall loose nothing by returning, for I therefore return because I have nothing; and though I have done enough to be for ever shut out of doors, yet it may be, the word Father may have rhetoric enough in it to beg a reconcilement, and to procure an admittance amongst my fathers servants.