The application of redemption

Against many means wherewith the Lord hath §2striven with us to stop us in the pursuit of sin, and to reclaim us from our iniscarriages; God hems in a poor creature on every side by public dispensations and ⟨p. 261⟩private […] by ordinary and extraordinary helps, way-lays a sinner and hedgeth up his path […] thorns, and builds a wall about him that he might find the ways of ungodliness no more Hos 2. 8. He that adventures upon the commission of sin against such means, and breaks through such armies of ordinances, there is a multiplication of many sins in the commission of one, because it is against the multiplication of many truths, or one truth in a manifold dispensation, he sins against so many instructions, so many comforts, so many counsels he hath heard. Confessions he hath made, and prayers he hath put up for himself, and others have made in his behalf; every one of these dispensations hath an action against the soul because it hath been wronged by the sinner; John. 12. 48. He that heareth and rejecteth hath one that judgeth, even that word that I have spoken and he hath heard will judg him: saith our Saviour Christ. Those reproofs that thou haft heard and not submitted to, Instructions that thou hast heard and not embraced thou shalt need no other judg, those will judg thee, and how heavy will that judgment be then, John, 15. 22. If I had not come, they had had no sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin.

Against many means wherwith the Lord hath §2striven with us to stop us in the pursuit of sin, and to reclame us from our iniscarriages; God hems in a poor creature on every side by publick dispensations and ⟨p. 261⟩private 〈…〉 by ordinary and extraordinary helps, way-layes a sinner and hedgeth up his path 〈…〉 thorns, and builds a wal about him that he might find the ways of ungodlyness no more Hos 2. 8. He that adventures upon the commission of sin against such means, and breaks through such armyes of ordinances, there is a multiplication of many sins in the commission of one, because it is against the multiplication of many truths, or one truth in a manifold dispensation, he sins against so many instructions, so many comforts, so many counsels he hath heard. Confessions he hath made, and prayers he hath put up for himself, and others have made in his behalf; every one of these dispensations hath an action against the soul because it hath been wronged by the sinner;