Man ashiv le-Yahoweh, or, A serious enquiry for a suitable return for continued life,…

III. ¹Wicked men are oftentimes worse by Gods delivering them from Judgements and calamitous distresses. Take a wicked man upon his sick bed, when God is shaking him over the Grave, and threatening him with death, and affrighting him with the terrors of Hell, you shall hear him acknowledge his sin, confessing his drunkenness, his neglect of his soul, and you shall hear him, it may be, with tears in his eyes promising, if God will raise him from his sickness, and trust him with life and time a little longer, he will forsake his wicked company, and profane the Sabbath no more; If God will but try me (saith the sick, dying man) how will I live, and what will I do, and how obedient will I be to the Commands of God: And when God answereth his desires in his restoration, he performeth not his Promise in his reformation, but is more wicked and more vile than before. You might see this in Pharaoh, when the Plagues were upon him, Oh then send for Moses, and let him entreat the Lord for me, and then I will let Israel go: then he confesseth, I and my people have sinned, but the Lord is righteous. Though many wicked men, will not acknowledge nor confess their sin in times of Judgement, so much as an hardened Pharaoh did. But yet when the Plagues were removed he hardened himself more against God still. Read Exod. 8.8.15.24.28.32. ⟨p. 43⟩and 9.23.27. So Nehem. 9.27, 28, 29, 30. And the Reasons are,

III. ¹WIcked men are oftentimes worse by Gods delivering them from Judgements and calamitous distresses. Take a wicked man upon his sick bed, when God is shaking him over the Grave, and threatning him with death, and affrighting him with the terrours of Hell, you shall hear him acknowledge his sin, confessing his drunkenness, his neglect of his soul, and you shall hear him, it may be, with tears in his eyes promising, if God will raise him from his sickness, and trust him with life and time a little longer, he will forsake his wicked company, and prophane the Sabbath no more; If God will but try me (saith the sick, dying man) how will I live, and what will I doe, and how obedient will I be to the Commands of God: And when God answereth his desires in his restoration, he performeth not his Promise in his reformation, but is more wicked and more vile than before. You might see this in Pharaoh, when the Plagues were upon him, Oh then send for Moses, and let him entreat the Lord for me, and then I will let Israel goe: then he confesseth, I and my people have sinned, but the Lord is righteous. Though many wicked men, will not acknowledge nor confess their sin in times of Judgement, so much as an hardened Pharaoh did. But yet when the Plagues were removed he hardened himself more against God still. Read