God's call to England, for thankfulness after gracious deliverances

1. Such sins most wretchedly cast a blot upon the most Holy God, as if he were a countenancer of sin, and a patron to persons Impieties, rather than a severe avenger of them. Christ was accounted a friend to Publicans and sinners, for showing […] ⟨image 32⟩[…] ⟨image 32⟩⟨p. 36⟩kindness unto them: and will not Atheistical wretches be ready to asperse the glorious God as a friend to sin, for improving his power to deliver such persons as improve his deliverance only for sin? 'Tis reported of one profane Dionysius, that when by his covetous pilfering he had preyed on a Temples glory, and enriched himself with its Sacred Treasure, and after transporting his Treasures, escaping a fatal Shipwreck of which he was in danger, with the greatest impudence cries out, How do the Gods love Sacrilege! Because he presumed they delivered him a Robber, he imagined they loved Robbery: Psal. 50.21. Because I kept silence, thou thoughtest me altogether such an one as thy self, i. e. Quod tuis maleficiis delector, Muis. Gods patient forbearance, made him reckon God unrighteous as himself. To go on in sin when delivered from ruin, is practically to say, I am delivered to sin. Such an Impiety was charged on the Jews, Jerem. 7.10. Will ye steal, and murder, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? They were not come to that height of profaneness, to declare it in so many words; but by their ungodly courses after his gracious deliverances, ⟨p. 37⟩they did as much as say it. What is this but to make God an unholy God? What greater aggravations of our sins can there be, than to cast dirt on the holiness of God, which is the aggravation of all his glory? Certainly, if God suffers dishonour by his exercising goodness to us, we shall suffer destruction for our abusing of it. God will show no favour to those, who make him a favourer of sin.

1. Such sins most wretchedly cast a blot upon the most Holy God, as if he were a countenancer of sin, and a patron to persons Impieties, rather than a severe avenger of them. Christ was accounted a friend to Publicans and sinners, for shewing