A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures

¹Seventhly, God sometimes selects out the greatest and most notorious Sinners, to vouchsafe Grace and Pardon to them, when he suffers others eternally to perish under far less guilt. He makes a difference in his Proceedings, quite contrary to the difference he finds in Mens Demerits. And wherefore is this but only to show ⟨p. 37⟩forth the absolute freeness of his Grace, greater Debts are blotted out, when smaller stand still upon the account, only that it may be known, that God is free to do what he will with his own, and that he will show mercy to whom he will show mercy, and whom he will he pardons. How many Heathens, Men of improved Natural Endowments, and proportionable Virtues; and yet not having Faith in, and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, are excluded from pardon and forgiveness, whose sins rather show them to be Men, than not to be Christians: Whereas others under the Noontide of the Gospel, are guilty of such flagitious Crimes, that show them to be Monsters, rather than Men; and yet these upon their Faith and Repentance, obtain Pardon and Remission, as if it were with God, as it is with Men, the more there is to be remembered, the sooner he forgets. It is these Riches of Pardoning Grace that St. Paul admires and adores, when he tells us concerning himself, I was a Blasphemer, and a Persecutor, and Injurious, but I obtained mercy, 1 Tim. 1.13.

¹Seventhly, God sometimes selects out the greatest and most notorious Sinners, to vouchsafe Grace and Pardon to them, when he suffers others eternally to perish under far less guilt. He makes a difference in his Proceedings, quite contrary to the difference he finds in Mens Demerits. And wherefore is this but only to shew ⟨p. 37⟩forth the absolute freeness of his Grace, greater Debts are blotted out, when smaller stand still upon the account, only that it may be known, that God is free to do what he will with his own, and that he will shew mercy to whom he will shew mercy, and whom he will he pardons. How many Heathens, Men of improved Natural Endowments, and proportionable Virtues; and yet not having Faith in, and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, are excluded from pardon and forgiveness, whose sins rather shew them to be Men, than not to be Christians: Whereas others under the Noontide of the Gospel, are guilty of such flagitious Crimes, that shew them to be Monsters, rather than Men; and yet these upon their Faith and Repentance, obtain Pardon and Remission, as if it were with God, as it is with Men, the more there is to be remembred, the sooner he forgets. It is these Riches of Pardoning Grace that St. Paul admires and adores, when he tells us concerning himself, I was a Blasphemer, and a Persecutor, and Injurious, but I obtained mercy,