A treatise of the incomparableness of God in his being, attributes, works and word…

1. How great is their madness in daring to offend him? yea, in daring him to his face? Reader, if thou shouldst see a man without any cause striving with an whole Army, hacking and hewing, and provoking them to kill him, you would think surely the man is mad, otherwise he would never thus wilfully run himself into a certain ruin. I tell thee every time thou wilfully breakest his Laws, thou actest more like a distracted man; for thou fightest against that God who is stronger than millions of Armies, who is Almighty; and thou provokest him to destroy thee who can wink thee into the other world, and look thee into the eternal ⟨p. 194⟩Lake, and hiss thee into Hell flames. Man, art thou Gods match, that thou offerest to enter the List with him? Do ye (saith the Apostle) provoke the Lord to anger? Are ye stronger than he? 1 Cor. 10.22. It's one thing to provoke men to anger, and another thing to provoke the Lord to anger. Man hath but a little heart, and a small hand; his anger and power cannot at utmost exceed finite; but Gods heart and hand, his anger and power are both infinite. If the wrath of a King be a Messenger of Death, what thinkest thou is the wrath of immensity, and the stroke of Omnipotency? What then is the wrath of a God? Sinner dost thou know what thou dost when thou breakest his Laws, slightest his Love, dishonourest his Name, grievest his Spirit? I tell thee thou provokest a God who is incomparable in holiness, and hath threatened thy destruction; who is incomparable in power, and can accomplish what he hath threatened; and who is incomparable in truth, and cannot but make good with his arm, what he hath spoken with his mouth: Woe be to him that striveth with his Maker: let the Potsherds strive with the Potsherds of the earth, Isa. 45.1. God is ⟨p. 195⟩a God of Peace, he hates strife; but if men will be striving, he wisheth them rather to meddle with those that are their matches, poor silly worms like themselves, and not to strive with their Maker, who is infinitely their Superior in authority and power, and every perfection. Here is sauciness indeed, for a pitiful nothing to challenge Almightiness to Battle. Who (in his wits, in his senses, that were not quite distracted) would set Briars and Thorns against me in Battle? I would go through them, I would burn them up all together,