ur bill of deserving.
So then, complain not,--it is mercy that life is saved. Are you men, and
living men? Wonder at this, and wonder not that you are not wealthy, are
not honourable, seeing you are sinners: all that came on Jerusalem maketh
not Ezra think God out of bounds, chap. ix. 13. As we are less than the
least of God's mercies, and all our goodness deserveth none of them, so is
the least sin greater than the greatest of all his judgments, and
deserveth still more. Nay, if there were no more but original corruption
common to men, and the filthiness that accompanieth men's good actions,
yet is God righteous in punishing severely, and this people acknowledge it
so. You use to inquire what sin hath such a man done, when so terrible
judgments come on? Nay, inquire no more;--he is a sinner, and it is mercy
there is not more, and it is strange mercy that it is not so with you
also. You use to speak foolishly when God's hand is upon you: I hope I
have my punishment here, I hope to suffer here for my sins. Poor souls, if
God make you suffer for sins, it will be another matter. Though now your
punishment be above your strength and patience, yet it is below your sin.
As sin hath all evil in it, so must hell have all punishment in it. The
torment of the gravel, racking with the stone, and such like, are but play
to hell,--these are but drops of that ocean that you must drink out, and
you shall go out of one hell into a worse; eternity is the measure of its
continuance, and the degrees of itself are answerable to its duration.
There is much impatience even among God's children under the rod, you vex
and torment yourselves, and do well to be angry. Any piece of thwarting
dispensation, that goes cross to your humour and inclination, imbitters
your spirit against God and maketh you go cross to his providence; how
often do your hearts say, Why am I thus? What aileth the Lord at me? But,
Christians, learn to study your own deservings, and stop your mouth with
that, that you may not speak against heaven. If you knew sin well, you
would not wonder at judgments, you would rather wonder that you are out of
hell. Know what right God hath over you, and how little use he maketh of
it against you. When you repine at a little, shall it not be righteousness
with God to exact more, and let you know your deserving better? He that
thinketh it rigour in God to exact fifty, it is justice that God crave an
hundred. If the law require forty stripe