A62053:298
The sinners last sentence to eternal punishment, for sins of omission
The sinners last sentence to eternal punishment, for sins of omission wherein is discovered, the nature, causes, and cure of those sins / by Geo. Swinnock.
London: printed for Geo. Swinnock, 1675
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Chapter 23: The danger of sins of Omission, in their destructiveness to man, and our proneness to o…
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And there are three Reasons why we are so apt to over-look sins of Omission:
1. Because Conscience doth not so soon cheek us for them, as for sins of Commission. If a man commit Murder, or Adultery, or Theft, his Conscience ⟨p. 166⟩is ready to fly in his face, and thunder in his ears, as it did with Cain, after the slaughter of his Brother, that he cried out, My punishment is greater than I can bear; and he went up and down trembling (as some think) all his days, Gen. 4.13, 14. But men may neglect Praying, or Reading, or Charity, especially in regard of the manner of doing them, and Conscience will take little notice of it. Such Omissions may pass with little or no regard. Cain in the Offering he brought to God, neglected (probably) to bring the best of the fruit of the ground, however to offer it with an upright believing heart; but we read not that he took notice of these Omissions, though he did of God's manifest disrespecting his Offering, Gen. 4.3, 4, 5. It's ordinary with some moral men, if they fall into ill Company sometime by accident, and are made drunk, to be ashamed of it, and much troubled for it; but these men can live in their Families without Prayer and Scripture, and neglect to teach their Children and Servants the ways of God; and yet these Omissions do not at all ⟨p. 167⟩disturb them, they go up and down, and eat, and drink, and sleep, as merrily as if they obeyed the whole Will of God. Job tells you of those that bid God depart from them, that desire not, nor endeavour to know him; that cast off Prayer to him, and all his Service as fruitless; and yet these men, guilty of such great and gross Omissions, could take the Timbrel and Harp, and rejoice at the sound of the Organ, and spend their days in wealth and mirth,