A supplement to the several discourses upon various divine subjects

(2.) To those that seek a pardon and yet are in doubt of it. Secure sinners that understand not the evil of sin, think it is an easy thing, and that forgiveness will be granted of course. But those that groan under the burden of their iniquity, imagine it more difficult than indeed it is. Presumption wrongs God in his justice, and every degree of despair or doubting, in his mercy.

[1.] God is willing to pardon. Ephraim doth but desire that God would turn him, and God presently cries out, Is Ephraim my dear Son? is he a pleasant Child? Jer. 31.18, 20. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus. A penitent Ephraim is instantly a pleasant Child. Ephraim strikes upon his thigh with confession, and God speaks to his heart with affection. God doth as it were take the words out of Ephraims mouth, as though he watched for the first look of Ephraim towards him, or the first breath of a Supplication. God is more willing to pardon sin than we are to sin; Because we sin with reluctancy, natural conscience checking us, but God hath no check when he goes to pardon. He waits to be gracious, Isa. 30.18. Therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you. He hath waited all the time of your sinning, to have an opportunity to show grace to you; and now you give it him by repenting, will he lose the fruit of his waiting? 'Tis the end of Christs exaltation, whether it be meant of his being lifted up on the cross, or his exaltation in Heaven; 'tis true of both, that his end is to have mercy upon you.

[1.] God is willing to pardon. Ephraim doth but desire that God would turn him, and God presently cries out, Is Ephraim my dear Son? is he a pleasant Child? Jer. 31.18, 20. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus. A penitent Ephraim is instantly a pleasant Child. Ephraim strikes upon his thigh with confession, and God speaks to his heart with affection. God doth as it were take the words out of Ephraims mouth, as though he watched for the first look of Ephraim towards him, or the first breath of a Supplication. God is more willing to pardon sin than we are to sin; Because we sin with reluctancy, natural conscience checking us, but God hath no check when he goes to pardon. He waits to be gracious,