A supplement to the several discourses upon various divine subjects

3. It will sweeten Judgments. Such may say of Judgment, as Paul of death, Oh Judgment where is thy sting! 'Tis a double burden to lye under the weight of common Judgments, and the weight of common sins; grief for them is a means to remove the guilt, and thereby to ease thee of a Judgment. If we are concerned in mourning for sin, we shall be more fit to honour God, if he makes us fall under his stroke. A holy sorrow will bring us into a submissive frame. Aaron had been, without question, humbled for his timorous compliance with the people in the making of the golden Calf; and when God came to strike him near in his own Children, he held his peace, Levit. 10.3. No doubt but his former humiliation fitted him for his present patience.

3. It will sweeten Judgments. Such may say of Judgment, as Paul of death, Oh Judgment where is thy sting! 'Tis a double burden to lye under the weight of common Judgments, and the weight of common sins; grief for them is a means to remove the guilt, and thereby to ease thee of a Judgment. If we are concerned in mourning for sin, we shall be more fit to honour God, if he makes us fall under his stroak. A holy sorrow will bring us into a submissive frame. Aaron had been, without question, humbled for his timorous compliance with the people in the making of the golden Calf; and when God came to strike him near in his own Children, he held his peace, Levit. 10.3. No doubt but his former humiliation fitted him for his present patience.

4. Our repentance for our own sins was never right, unless we are of this temper. Repentance is a justice towards God, and therefore is conversant about other mens sins in a hatred of them. 'Tis for sin as sin, and sin is sin in whatsoever subject it be, and worthy of hatred according to right reason, and therefore that grace whereby a Man hates it in his own person, will engage him to hate it wheresoever it is: and we always grieve for the increase of that which is the object of our hatred. A truly just man hates the injury committed against another as well as that against himself. That filthiness which displeaseth a penitent in his own act, displeaseth him in another's act, there being the same adequate reason, and sin being of the same nature against God in another as in himself. 'Tis All abominations, in the text; this is an argument of sincerity: to mourn for one may be from self interest, to mourn for all must be from a pure affection.