Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

2. 'Tis dangerous to abuse his patience. Contempt of kindness is most irksome to an ingenuous spirit, and he is worthy to have the arrows of Gods indignation lodged in his heart, who despiseth the Riches of his long-suff•••ng. For,

2. 'Tis dangerous to abuse his patience. Contempt of kindness is most irksom to an ingenuous spirit, and he is worthy to have the arrows of Gods indignation lodg'd in his heart, who despiseth the Riches of his long-suff•••ng. For,

1. The time of patience will have an end. Though his Spirit strives with man, yet it shall not always strive. Gen. 6.3. Though there be a time wherein Jerusalem might know the things, that concerned her peace, yet there is another period wherein they should be hid from her Eyes. Luke 19.43. Oh that thou hadst known in this thy day? Nations have their day, and persons have their day, and the day of most persons is shorter than the day of Nations. Jerusalem had h•• day of forty years, but how many particular persons were taken off, before the last or middle hours of that day were arrived? Forty years was God grieved with the Generation of the Israelites. Heb. 3.11. One Carcass dropped after another in that limited time, and at the end not a man but fell under the judicial stroke, except Caleb and Joshua. One hundred and twenty years was the Term set to the mass of the old World, but not to every man in the old World; some fell while the Ark was preparing, as well as the whole stock, when the Ark was completed. Though he be patient with most, yet he is not in the same degree with all; every sinner hath his time of sinning, beyond which he shall proceed no further, be his lusts never so impetuous, and his affections never so imperious. The time of his patience is in Scripture set forth sometimes by years; three years he came to find fruit on the Fig-tree; sometimes by days, some mens sins are sooner ripe, and fall. There is a measure of sin,