Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

Secondly, Be sure that all of you get your hearts filled and awed with the true fear of God. In which you ought and are commanded to be all the day, Prov. 23.17. Lye down at night in it, awake and rise in the morning in it, and so walk up and down in all Places and Companies, and about all your businesses and affairs. No persons in the world are so audaciously and impudently vile as those who have their hearts hardened from this fear. That passage is very observable which you find in Psal. 36.1. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, there is no fear of God before his Eyes. Sin hath a voice, it cries aloud in the Ears of God, and it speaks loud to men, to the hearts of good men. It speaks that which grieves and saddens them, it speaks that which informs them. So here. The transgression of the wicked, his visible and open transgression, the life he leads, which is flagitious, the course he takes which is Lewd, the Villainies he commits, these speak within my heart, saith David, they speak to my mind and understanding; but what do they say? Enough, so much as amounts to a plain and full evidence, so much as is to me a sufficient and firm foundation to build this conclusion upon, that there is no fear of God before his Eyes. Either he doth not believe that there is a God, or else he believes that he is not a terrible God, a Consuming Fire, and Everlasting Burnings, but such an one as himself, Psal. 50.21. A God not to be trembled before, but to be trifled and plaid with. One that did not mind what is done here below, or that hath pleasure in wickedness, as he hath himself.

Secondly, Be sure that all of you get your hearts filled and awed with the true fear of God. In which you ought and are commanded to be all the day, Prov. 23.17. Lye down at night in it, awake and rise in the morning in it, and so walk up and down in all Places and Companies, and about all your businesses and affairs. No persons in the world are so audaciously and impudently vile as those who have their hearts hardned from this fear. That passage is very observable which you find in Psal. 36.1. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, there is no fear of God before his Eyes. Sin hath a voice, it cries aloud in the Ears of God, and it speaks loud to men, to the hearts of good men. It speaks that which grieves and saddens them, it speaks that which informs them. So here. The transgression of the wicked, his visible and open transgression, the life he leads, which is flagitious, the course he takes which is Leud, the Villanies he commits, these speak within my heart, saith David, they speak to my mind and understanding; but what do they say? Enough, so much as amounts to a plain and full evidence, so much as is to me a sufficient and firm foundation to build this conclusion upon, that there is no fear of God before his Eyes. Either he doth not believe that there is a God, or else he believes that he is not a terrible God, a Consuming Fire, and Everlasting Burnings, but such an one as himself,