Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

2. Secondly, He's good to thee, Rom. 2. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance? &c. What hast thou that thou hast not received from his bountiful hand? Consider of this, and let this be a means to draw thee off from thy sinfulness. When David had greatly sinned against God, and when God brings his murder home to him, he pleads thus with him: When thou wert nothing in thine own eyes, I brought thee (saith God) to the Kingdom, I took thee from the sheep-fold, and exalted thee, and brought the to a plentiful house, Vid. 2 Sam. 12.7, 8. And may not God say the like to us? and do you thus requite the Lord, O you foolish people and unwise, Deut. 32.6. that the more his mercy and goodness is to you, the higher your sins should be against him.

2. Secondly, He's good to thee, Rom. 2. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance? &c. What hast thou that thou hast not received from his bountiful hand? Consider of this, and let this be a means to draw thee off from thy sinfulness. When David had greatly sinned against God, and when God brings his murther home to him, he pleads thus with him: When thou wert nothing in thine own eyes, I brought thee (saith God) to the Kingdom, I took thee from the sheep-fold, and exalted thee, and brought the to a plentiful house, Vid. 2 Sam. 12.7, 8. And may not God say the like to us? and do you thus requite the Lord, O you foolish people and unwise, Deut. 32.6. that the more his mercy and goodness is to you, the higher your sins should be against him.

5. Besides, consider more than all this, we have the examples of good men before our eyes. God commands us not, what we cannot do: If God had not set some before our eyes, that walk in his ways, and do his will, then we might say that these are precepts, that none can perform: But we have patterns, of whom we may say, such a man I never knew to lye, such a one never to swear, and this should be a means to preserve us from sinning,