Section 2

SECT. II.

¹II. THE second Encouragement is, That your case is not singular. ²Though the commonness of a Plague make it not the better, or less mortal, yet it shows that I am not alone miserable: So, although this consideration make not the sin less heinous, yet it makes the affliction more tolerable. Poor soul! thou art not alone in thy complaints. Go to all the Saints in an Assembly, and they will all conclude, there is none hath a more giddy heart than they, and there's few at the end of an Ordinance would be pleased, that the rest should know the particulars of their straggling. Though charity binds us in particular to hope better of every one than of our selves, yet both God's Word, and ^*common experience tell us in general, that the imaginations of the thoughts of men are evil continually. And there is none thinks themselves so bad, but there are found others, that would ⟨p. 209⟩be glad to change hearts with them: some indeed are nearer the cure of this disease, and do watch more narrowly, and so have obtained more freedom than others, but yet all are tainted with this infirmity; and every man being convicted by his own conscience, will go out of the Congregation one by one, and there will not be a sinless man to cast a stone at thee^*.

¹II. THE second Incouragement is, That your case is not singular. ²Though the commonness of a Plague make it not the better, or less mortal, yet it shews that I am not alone miserable: So, although this consideration make not the sin less heinous, yet it makes the affliction more tolerable. Poor soul! thou art not alone in thy complaints. Go to all the Saints in an Assembly, and they will all conclude, there is none hath a more giddy heart than they, and there's few at the end of an Ordinance would be pleased, that the rest should know the particulars of their stragling. Though charity binds us in particular to hope better of every one than of our selves, yet both God's Word, and