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

12. ¹This will be a great provocation unto God, when thou dost sin, not only against his Precepts, but against thy own purpose; not only against the obligations he layeth upon thy soul by Mercy and Afflictions, but against the Obligations thou layest upon thy self by thy Purposes and Resolutions: And in thy Affliction and fears didst thou not apprehend God to be exceedingly provoked, but thou must after he hath preserved, recovered thee, go on, to provoke him more.

12. ¹This will be a great provocation unto God, when thou dost sin, not only against his Precepts, but against thy own purpose; not only against the obligations he layeth upon thy soul by Mercy and Afflictions, but against the Obligations thou layst upon thy self by thy Purposes and Resolutions: And in thy Affliction and fears didst thou not apprehend God to be exceedingly provoked, but thou must after he hath preserved, recovered thee, go on, to provoke him more.

1. 1It provoketh God.

13. ¹If this neglect be found in thee who hast the truth of grace, yet it will much hinder thy confidence at the throne of grace, and stop the Influences of the Spirit of God, and obstruct the illapses of the Spirit from descending upon thy heart. When thou keepest thy resolutions, and keepest out of the ways of sin, thou canst go to God with an humble, holy boldness, and pour out thy heart with much enlargedness before God, and there is sweet intercourse betwixt God and thee, thou feelest thy heart to burn in love to God, and thou perceivest God to bear a love to thee; and oh how sweet is this unto thy soul! But when thou neglectest to watch against sin, and to walk with God; when thou hadst resolved to do both, when thou goest to thy duty, thou wilt find Conscience reproach thee, and thy heart straitened, and thy mouth stopped, and thy confidence abated, thy heart much estranged from God, and God carrying himself as a stranger