The application of redemption

2. As it dams up the way, and stops the passage, that §2there is no possibility of any good to come, so it deeds all a mans endeavours, takes off the edge of a mans abilities, puts all out of joint and off the hooks, that there is no striving after a good when there is no hope to attain it. All men that are carried by counsel (if not fools or mad-men) they ever have an end in their eye, at which they look, and for which they labour; this is the white they shoot at, the price they run for, for this they devise ⟨p. 34⟩and contrive means, and use what they have attained, improve what they take in hand, in hope the end they have attended, may be brought about. Now where there is no hope (which […] casts off) there is no good to be expected, therefore no possibility to attain our end, therefore no reason to attend our labour in that behalf. Why should I see k (says the despairing man) when I have no hope to find? Why should I spend my labour in praying, hearing, reading, improving any Ordinance, when there is no possibility I should speed, that ever God should help, or hear, or bless? as good sit still, as rise and fall. So Cain when he had laid that desperate conclusion, My sin is greater than can be forgiven, he flies into the Land of Nod, drowns himself in sensual delights, but forsakes the Lord. The Hope of Good is the Load-stone of a mans labour, it carries on our course with speed and resolution: So they in Jonah, 3. 9. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? Therefore do these two things:

2. As it dams up the way, and stops the passage, that §2there is no possibility of any good to come, so it deads all a mans endeavors, takes off the edg of a mans abilities, puts all out of joynt and off the hooks, that there is no striving after a good when there is no hope to attain it. All men that are carried by counsel (if not fools or mad-men) they ever have an end in their eye, at which they look, and for which they labor; this is the white they shoot at, the price they run for, for this they devise ⟨p. 34⟩