The zealous Christian taking heavenThe zealovs Christian taking heaven

2. Though God doth give unto wicked men more then their hearts can wish, yet God doth not give it as any return of prayer, but only as fruits of general and common providence, as they are his creatures, whom he will preserve.

2. Though God doth give unto wicked men more then their hearts can wish, yet God doth not give it as any return of prayer, but onely as fruits of general and common providence, as they are his creatures, whom he will preserve.

3. God may give wicked men more then their hearts can wish, and this is not in mercy, but in wrath. They may receive mercies, but not as mercies, not in mercy. And there are four demonstrations when God hears a man in wrath.

1. When he asks any thing of God that is sinful in its own nature; as the denial of it is an act of mercy, so the grant of it is a fruit of Gods anger. God doth many ¹times give those things in his anger, which he denies when he is well pleased. God will not hear his own people according to their wills, but according to his own will. It is in this case, as it is with a father, when his child, for want of knowledge, asks a knife of him, by which he may cut his fingers; the father will not give him the knife, except it be in wrath. So a man may ask mercies at the hand of God, and it may ⟨p. 82⟩be God will give them in wrath to cut themselves with them.

1. When he asks any thing of God that is sinful in its own nature; as the denial of it is an act of mercy, so the grant of it is a fruit of Gods anger. God doth many