A fruitful and Godly sermon

but seeing of all other, those sins bite the sorest, and pierce deepest, for that they are aggravated with all the mercies of God going before▪ and sin is then most sinful, when after we know the trueth; after we have been delivered from sin; after we have been enlightened with the good grace of God, we have fallen into it. I think that examination most especially is to be had of these sins: wherefore, to iterate our former examples in a new matter, as we may see the former kind of examining: first, from sins before our calling, in the sons of Jacob: so we have a pattern of the latter in the practise of the Prophet David, who ⟨p. 36⟩at the hearing of his sin was so troubled in his spirit, that he could not rest: in the Prophets speech, telling him his sin was forgiven him, but still was disquieted as one utterly forsaken of God, and as though he could find no comfort of Gods spirit in him: For, as it fareth often in sores, so also it cometh to pass in sins, we are loath to have our wounds often grated on, we cannot so well away to have our sores rifled, seared, lanced, but fed with healing salves: so we are hardly brought to have our Consciences seared, or our sins ransacked, sifted and ripped: but could still have them plastered with sweet promises, and bathed in the mercies of God: whereas it is far safer, before incarnative & healing medicines, to use corrosive and mundifying waters: without which, though our sores may seem to close and skin up apace, yet they prove worse, and being rotten still at the core, they have above a thin skin, and underneath dead flesh: In ⟨p. 37⟩like manner we would cloak, we would hide and cover our sins as it were with a curtain: but it is more sound Chirurgery, to prick and parch our conscience with the burning iron of the law, and to cleanse the wound of the soul, by sharp threatening; lest that a skin pulled over the conscience for a while, we do lament the rotten corruption, which remaineth uncured underneath: and so we be constrained to cry out, that our sins openeth. As it is a folly then to dissemble our sores whilst they be curable, and after to make them known when they be uncurable. So it is as great folly, to dissemble our sins whilst they may be remedied, and so after be constrained with shame for to blaze them abroad, when they are unremediable.

but seing of al other, those sinnes bite the sorest, and pearce deepest, for that they are aggrauated with all the mercies of God going before and sin is then most sinfull, when after we knowe the trueth; after we haue bene delivered from sinne; after we haue beene enlightned with the good grace of God, we haue fallen into it. I think that examination most especially is to be had of these sins: wherefore, to iterate our former examples in a new matter, as we may see the former kinde of examining: first, from sins before our calling, in the sonnes of Iacob: so wee haue a patterne of the latter in the practise of the Prophet David, who