Some general directions for a comfortable walking with God delivered in the lecture at…Some generall directions for a comfortable walking with God deliuered in the lecture at…

•. Let the wonderful patience of that mighty Lord of Heaven and Earth, who is able with one word to cast all the creatures in the World into Hell; nay even with the breath of his mouth to turn Hell, and Heaven, and Earth, and all things, into nothing; I say, let his patience against the infinite intolerable, and endless provocations of his own most obliged creatures, who like so many desperate traitors, live and lye continually in open rebellion against so great a Majesty, be a ^aPattern and Precedent unto thee a silly worm, dust and ashes, earth, or any thing that is naught; of proportionable forbearance (if there could be any proportion between infinite and finite) towards thy fellow-creatures. How many black and blasphemous mouths are uncessantly ⟨p. 102⟩open against his blessed Majesty? With what damned oaths do they tear, and re-crucify the precious Body of his glorious Son, which sits at his own right hand? With what lies and slanders do they revile his Ambassadors, and vilify his Chosen? How many graceless wretches do wilfully and obstinately profane his Sabbaths, pollute his Sacraments, and turn their backs upon his Word? How many do daily turn themselves into beasts, by their swinish drunkenness, to the great reproach of mankind, and dishonour of their reasonable nature? How many inclosing Nimrods, and cruel Landlords, do grind the faces of the poor; Nay, pluck off their skins, tear their flesh, break their ²bones, and chop them in pieces as for the pot, and eat the flesh of Gods people? In a word; How many incarnate Devils do march up and down the earth, with hearts and hands as full as Hell, with all manner of mischief, lewdness and rebellion? So many, and with such extreme insufferable audaciousness and impudency, that, as a learned Divine speaks, If but any tender-hearted man should sit but one hour in the Throne of God Almighty (if it be fit so to suppose) and look down upon the earth, as God doth continually, & see what abominations are done in that hour, he would undoubtedly in the next set all the World on fire, and not suffer his wrath to be pacified, or the fire to be quenched. And yet for all this, our gracious God in the mean time, though he be armed with his own unresistable omnipotency, and a thousand Chariots in the Whirlwind;