Captives bound in chains, made free by Christ their surety

2. God might be infinite in mercy, though thou (and thousands such as thou art) do perish in thy bondage, and be for ever damned. What a proud blasphemous thought is this that God should not be merciful, except he take thee reeking in thy sins, except he take thee off thy Ale-House-Bench, and put thee into Heaven. The greatness of God's mercy is not manifested so much by the number of the persons that shall be saved, as by the way and method which he saveth them by. If God had saved but one man out of all the many millions of mankind, without his own desert, and contrary ⟨p. 92⟩to it, by the death of his own Son, it would have been a plain demonstration of the mercy of God. Must thou measure the mercy of God by thy being saved, or not saved, while thou walkest contrary to his Laws, and to his revealed Will? This is, as if a Malefactor that for murder hath deserved death, and is to be tried for his Life, yet hopes he shall escape, because the Judge is a merciful man, when notwithstanding the Judge proceedeth to pass a sentence of death upon him, you will all acknowledge he might be a very merciful man; and that the Prisoner was a fool, from the mercy of the Judge to be confident he should escape the execution due unto him for the violation of the Law. So it is in this case, which is easiest to apply.

2. God might be infinite in mercy, though thou (and thousands such as thou art) do perish in thy bondage, and be for ever damned. What a proud blasphemous tho't is this that God should not be merciful, except he take thee reaking in thy sins, except he take thee off thy Ale-House-Bench, and put thee into Heaven. The greatness of God's mercy is not manifested so much by the number of the persons that shall be saved, as by the way and method which he saveth them by. If God had saved but one man out of all the many millions of mankind, without his own desert, and contrary ⟨p. 92⟩to it, by the death of his own Son, it would have been a plain demonstration of the mercy of God. Must thou measure the mercy of God by thy being saved, or not saved, while thou walkest contrary to his Laws, and to his revealed Will? This is, as if a Malefactor that for murder hath deserved death, and is to be tried for his Life, yet hopes he shall escape, because the Judge is a merciful man, when notwithstanding the Judge proceedeth to pass a sentence of death upon him, you will all acknowledge he might be a very merciful man; and that the Prisoner was a fool, from the mercy of the Judge to be confident he should escape the execution due unto him for the violation of the Law. So it is in this case, which is easiest to apply.