The fourth (and last) volume of discourses, or sermons, on several scriptures

¹First, The consideration of that dreadful way and method that God took to manifest his Mercy towards us, is sufficient to affect our Hearts with Fear, though we stand fully possessed of his favour. In Gen. 28. when God had made many gracious Promises all along that Chapter unto Jacob, of blessing of him, and keeping him ⟨p. 257⟩in all his ways, of multiplying his Seed as the dust of the Earth, you would think this was no terrible Thing; and yet because God reveals this Mercy to him in an awful and amazing manner, a Gap is opened in Heaven, a bright Ladder reaching from Earth to Heaven; God on the top of it, Angels on every Round of it; though the Message was joyful, yet the strange kind of delivering of the Message makes Jacob cry out, How dreadful is this place, it is no other than the Gate of Heaven! The very Gate of Heaven becomes dreadful when it is represented in such a Majestical manner. But now the way that God took for his Mercy to arrive at us, is much more dreadful than any such Dream or Vision, and therefore we should be the more deeply affected with Fear and Trembling, even then when God speaks Peace and Pardon to us; for if we consider either the Terms upon which he is become ours, or the way by which he discovereth himself to be ours; both of them are full of Dread and Terror.

1. 11. That dreadful way that God took to manifest his mercy to us, may justly cause us to fear him.

¹First, It cannot but strike our Hearts with Fear to reflect upon those dreadful Terms upon which God is contented, to be induced to become our God. His Mercy towards us is procured upon Terms of infinite Justice and Severity. Divine Vengeance arrests our Surety, and exacts from him the utmost Satisfaction; that Curse that would for ever have blasted and withered the Souls of all Mankind, seizeth upon Christ in all its malignity; that Wrath, some few Drops of which scalds the Damned in Hell, was given him to drink off in a full and overflowing Cup, He did bear the chastisement of our Peace, and by his Stripes we are healed; nor would God upon lower Terms have consented to a Reconciliation betwixt wretched Man and himself, than the precious Blood of his only Son. As of Old, Friendship betwixt two Persons was wont to be attested and sealed by a Sacrifice, as we find it both among Heathen Authors, and also in Scripture; an Instance of which we have of Laban, in