The application of redemption

Men judg their sins according to the present sense and feeling of the flesh, and the verdict of their sensual appetites pass thereupon, and sit down under the sentence of their corrupt hearts, and they report of things according as they relish them. It is […] a sinful soul as with a sick body; the sick man that is distempered in his […] mach, and his mouth out of taste, and his palate out of temper, he reports of his […] and diet he takes as his palate relisheth it: So that in issue he tells you not what in truth it is, but how and what he tastes; bitter things he calls sweet, because they are so to his Taste; sweet things bitter, because they are so to his sense, though far otherwise in themselves. So it is with a distempered heart, though otherwise gracious, if yet it judgeth of them according to the relish of carnal Reason, or the present apprehensions, their inordinate passions would put upon them; Jonah in a feverish fit of a passionate distemper, he strikes he cares not whom, falls out with God, his Providence, nay, his Counsel though most seasonably, sweetly dispensed to him, Dost thou well to be angry Jonah? Yea (says he) I do well to be angry, and that unto death, Jonah, 4. 9. his passion like the palate of his sick soul, relisheth it so, to his own inordinate distemper, and so he judgeth it. 1 Kings, 22. 8. 18. The heart of Ahab was inordinately transported with a venomous hatred against Michaiah, and his message, though it was no other counsel than the Lord had revealed, and he charged him to speak as in his Name; yet it is no wise pleasing to his palate, and so he speaks of it, Did not I tell thee he would not speak good to me? So it was with Asa, when the Prophet seasonably and sadly condemned his distrustful carriage, 2. Chron. 16. out of an unbelieving wrathful disposition he cannot relish it, but it carries the taste of an insolent contempt and therefore he imprisons him, and very likely all those ⟨p. 68⟩that came to speak for him, and plead in his behalf, for so the words follow, He put many of the […] into prison, 10. verse. while he was in the this distemper his spirit could savour nothing nor yet perceive the bitterness of […] heinous and high handed provocations of his against the truth of the Lord and his Servants.