A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures

¹Secondly, The frequent commission of presumptuous sins, makes Men despair of ever obtaining pardon for them, and that hardens them in resolutions to continue ⟨p. 197⟩in them, and then they cry out with Cain, My iniquity is greater than can be forgiven. Despair of pardon oftentimes exasperates to more and greater offences; as if a Thief when he is robbing of a Man, should argue with himself, if I am detected of this robbery it will cost me my life, and if I murder him I can but lose my life; just so do many argue: My sins are already so many and so great, that I cannot avoid damnation for them; I see my Name pricked down among Reprobates, it is but in vain for me to struggle against my own fate and God's decrees; it is too nice a scruple since God hath given me up to the Devil, for me not to give up my self to sin, and so away they go to sin, and sin at random desperately and resolvedly; oh horrid hardness! that when the thoughts of Hell use to quench and allay the wickedness of other Men when it is most furious; yet these wretches never think of Hell, but that that Eternal Fire inflames their lusts, and the thoughts of their own destruction doth even confirm them in the practice of those very sins that destroy them; and yet to this pass doth the commission of ⟨p. 198⟩presumptuous sins bring many a wretched Soul in the World to. Why, now resolution to sin out of despair is to sin as the Devil sins; indeed it is to give the Devil's image in the Soul it's last flourish. The Devils and the damned Spirits as they lie always smothering and burning in Hell, so they always hear that dreadful sound For ever thus, for ever thus; and because their Chains are made strong and eternal by an Almighty Decree, this makes them implacable, they fret and look upward, and curse that God that hath plunged them into those torments, from which Hell will never free them; this makes them desperate in their resolutions to sin, because they despair of ever bettering their condition; beware therefore, least you also by frequent commissions of Presumptuous Sins be given up to Hellish despair, such as this is, so to despair of mercy as at the same time to provoke and defy Justice; and that's the first great danger of sinning presumptuously, it will make Men resolute, either thorough security or thorough despair to continue in sin.