Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

4. All these he bears when he hath a sense of them. He sees every day the Roll and Catalogue of sin increasing, he hath a distinct view of every one from the sin of Adam to the last, filed up in his Omniscience; and yet gives no order for the arrest of the World. He knows men fitted for destruction, all the instants he exerciseth long-suffering towards them, which makes the Apostle call it not simply long suffering without the addition of [Greek or Hebrew], much long-suffering. Rom. 9.23. There is not a grain in the whole Mass of sin, that he hath not a distinct knowledge of, and of the quality of it. He perfectly understands the greatness of his own Majesty that is vilified, and the nature of the offence that doth disparage him. He is solicited by his Justice, directed by his Omniscience, and armed with judgments to vindicate himself, but his arm is restrained by patience. To conclude no indignity is hid from him, no iniquity is beloved by him, the hatred of their sinfulness is infinite, and the knowledge of the malice is exact. The subsisting of the World under such weighty provocations, so numerous, so long time, and with his full sense of every one of them, is an evidence of such a forbearance and long-suffering, that the addition of Riches which the Apostle puts to it. Rom. 2.4. labours with an insufficiency clearly to display it.

4. All these he bears when he hath a sense of them. He sees every day the Roll and Catalogue of sin increasing, he hath a distinct view of every one from the sin of Adam to the last, fil'd up in his Omniscience; and yet gives no order for the arrest of the World. He knows men fitted for destruction, all the instants he exerciseth long-suffering towards them, which makes the Apostle call it not simply long suffering without the addition of 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, much long-suffering. Rom. 9.23. There is not a grain in the whole Mass of sin, that he hath not a distinct knowledge of, and of the quality of it. He perfectly understands the greatness of his own Majesty that is vilified, and the nature of the offence that doth disparage him. He is sollicited by his Justice, directed by his Omniscience, and armed with judgments to vindicate himself, but his arm is restrained by patience. To conclude no indignity is hid from him, no iniquity is beloved by him, the hatred of their sinfulness is infinite, and the knowledge of the malice is exact. The subsisting of the World under such weighty provocations, so numerous, so long time, and with his full sence of every one of them, is an evidence of such a forbearance and long-suffering, that the addition of Riches which the Apostle puts to it.