Riches of mercy to men in misery, or, Certain excellent treatises concerning the dignity…

Again you must take a resolution to serve him with a perfect heart for the time to come, though you have no worthiness for the present, if you be in such a disposition, as you have this the more, so you shall have the more mercies.

Again you must take a resolution to serve him with a perfect heart for the time to come, though you have no worthiness for the present, if you be in such a disposition, as you have this the more, so you shal have the more mercies.

But this is not all, it is true this is required in the beginnings of mercy, viz. an exceeding great desire after forgiveness; But a resolution to serve God for the time to come, this is to receive or to be worthy, viz. to be willing to part with father and mother and all for Christ, such a disposition must be wrought in you before you can lay hold upon any part in these riches, yet I say this is not all, but if you would have these mercies continued, you must walk worthy of them; those gracious qualifications are ordered in tendency to your introduction and admittance into the Covenant of grace and the mercies here spoken of, but after you are brought into covenant with God, you cannot secure the comfortable contents of it unless you labour to walk worthy of them, pleasing the Lord in all things, as St Paul saith, and as it is in Psal. 18. 25. with the upright man thou wilt show thy self upright, and with the froward thou wilt show thy self froward, that is, you shall find as much mercy in me as I find Enemies of behaviour in you, but if you walk stubbornly and frowardly with me, I will walk stubbornly with you. Therefore it is, that when the Saints step out of the way and walk unevenly with God that he chasteneth and afflicteth them, he recompenseth saith Solomon the righteous in this life, that is, he afflicteth ¹the righteous when they go astray from his ways. Put this together with that place in 1 Pet. 1. 17. we call him