time is not yet come for your funeral. Let it be considered, that that God that would not wait upon the fallen angels one instant after their sin, nor give them a moment's space of repentance, hath prolonged the life of many a sinner in the world to innumerable moments, to 420,000 minutes in the space of a year, to 8,400,000 minutes in the space of twenty years. The damned in hell would think it a great kindness to have but a year's, month's, nay, day's respite, as a space to repent in.

(5.) Consider also, how many have been taken away under shorter measures of patience some have been struck into a hell of misery, while thou remainest upon an earth of forbearance. In a plague, the destroying angel hath hewed down others, and passed by us; the arrows have flew about our heads, passed over us, and stuck in the heart of a neighbour. How many rich men, how many of our friends and familiars, have been seized by death since the beginning of the year, when they least thought of it, and imagined it far from them! Have you not known some of your acquaintance snatched away in the height of a crime? Was not the same wrath due to you as well as to them! And had it not been as dreadful for you to be so surprised by Him as it was for them? Why should he take a less sturdy sinner out of thy company, and let thee remain still upon the earth? If God had dealt so with you, how had you been cut off, not only from the enjoyment of this life, but the hopes of a better! And if God hath made such a providence beneficial for reclaiming you, how much reason have you to acknowledge him! He that hath had least patience, hath cause to admire; but those that have more, ought to exceed others in blessing him for it. If God had put an end to your natural life before you had made provision for eternal, how deplorable would your condition have been! Consider also, whoever have been sinners formerly of a deeper note; might not God have struck a man in the embraces of his harlots, and choked him in the moment of his excessive and intemperate healths, or on the sudden have spurted fire and brimstone into a blasphemer's mouth? What if God had snatched you away, when you had been sleeping in some great iniquity, or sent you while burning in lust to the fire it merited? Might he not have cracked the string that linked your souls to your bodies, in the last sickness you had? And what then had become of you? What could have been expected to succeed your impenitent state in this world, but howlings in another? but he reprieved you upon your petitions, or the solicitations of your friends; and have you not broke your word with him? Have your hearts been stedfast; hath he not yet waited, expecting when you would put your vows and resolutions into execution? What need had he to cry out to any so loud and so long, O you fools, how long will you love foolishness?' (Prov. i. 22), when he might have ceased his crying to you, and have by your death prevented your many neglects of him? Did he do all this that any of us might add new sins to our old; or rather, that we should bless him for his forbearance, comply with the end of it in reforming our lives, and having recourse to his mercy?

3. Exhortation, therefore presume not upon his patience. The exercise of it is not eternal; you are at present under his patience; yet, while you are unconverted, you are also under his anger (Ps. vii. 11), ' God is angry with the wicked every day. You know not how soon his anger may turn his patience aside, and step before it. It may be his sword is drawn out of his scabbard, his arrows may be settled in his bow; and perhaps there is but a little time before you may feel the edge of the one or the point of the other: and then there will be no more time for patience in God to us, or petition from us to him. If we repent here he will pardon us. If we defer repentance, and die without it, he will have no longer mercy to pardon, nor patience to bear. What is there in our power but the present? the future time we cannot command, the past time we cannot recall; squander not then the present away. The time will come when 'time shall be no more,' and then long-suffering shall be no more. Will you neglect the time, wherein patience acts, and vainly hope for a time beyond the resolves of patience? Will you spend that in vain, which goodness hath allotted you for other purposes? What an estimate will you make of a little forbearance to respite death, when you are gasping under the stroke of its arrows! How much would you value some few days of those many years you now trifle away! Can any think God will be always at an expense with them in vain, that he will have such riches trampled under their feet, and so many editions of his patience be made waste paper? Do you know how few sands are

yet to run in your glass? Are you sure that He that waits to-day, will wait as well to-morrow? How can you tell, but that God that is slow to anger to-day, may be swift to it the next? Jerusalem had but a day of peace, and the most careless sinner hath no more. When their day was done, they were destroyed by famine, pestilence, or sword, or led into a doleful captivity. Did God make our lives so uncertain, and the duration of his forbearance unknown to us, that we should live in a lazy neglect of his glory, and our own happiness? If you should have more patience in regard of your lives, do you know whether you shall have the effectual offers of grace? As your lives depend upon his will, so your conversion depends solely upon his grace. There have been many examples of those miserable wretches, that have been left to a reprobate sense, after they have a long time abused Divine forbearance. Though he waits, yet he 'binds up sin.' (Hos. xiii. 12), 'The sin of Ephraim is bound up,' as bonds are bound up by a creditor till a fit opportunity: when God comes to put the bond in suit, it will be too late to wish for that patience we have so scornfully despised. Consider therefore the end of patience. The patience of God considered in itself, without that which it tends to, affords very little comfort; it is but a step to pardoning mercy, and it may be without it, and often is. Many have been reprieved that were never forgiven; hell is full of those that had patience as well as we, but not one that accepted pardoning grace went within the gates of it. Patience leaves men, when their sins have ripened them for hell; but pardoning grace never leaves men till it hath conducted them to heaven. His patience speaks him placable, but doth not assure us that he is actually appeased. Men may hope that a long-suffering tends to a pardon, but cannot be assured of a pardon, but by something else above mere long-suffering. Rest not then upon bare patience, but consider the end of it; it is not that any should sin more freely, but repent more meltingly; it is not to spirit rebellion, but give a merciful stop to it. Why should any be so ambitious of their ruin, as to constrain God to ruin them against the inclinations of his sweet disposition?

4. The fourth exhortation is, Let us imitate God's patience in our own to others. He is unlike God, that is hurried, with an unruly impetus, to punish others for wronging him. The consideration of Divine patience should make us square ourselves according to that pattern. God hath exercised a long-suffering from the fall of Adam to this minute on innumerable subjects, and shall we be transported with desire of revenge upon a single injury? If God were not slow to wrath,' a sinful world had been long ago torn up from the foundation. And if revenge should be exercised by all men against their enemies, what man should have been alive, since there is not a man without an enemy? If every man were like Saul, breathing out threatenings, the world would not only be an aceldema, but a desert. How distant are they from the nature of God, who are in a flame upon every slight provocation from a sense of some feeble and imaginary honour, that must bloody their sword for a trifle, and write their revenge in wounds and death! When God hath his glory every day bespattered, yet he keeps his sword in his sheath; what a woe would it be to the world, if he drew it upon every affront! This is to be like brutes, dogs, or tigers, that snarl, bite, and devour, upon every slight occasion: but to be patient is to be divine, and to shew ourselves acquainted with the disposition of God. 'Be you therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect' (Matt. v. 48): i. e. Be you perfect and good; for he had been exhorting them to bless them that cursed them, and to do good to them that hated them, and that from the example God had set them, in causing his sun to rise upon the evil as well as the good. • Be you therefore perfect. To conclude: as patience is God's perfection, so it is the accomplishment of the soul: and as his slowness to anger argues the greatness of his power over himself, so an unwillingness to revenge is a sign of a power over ourselves which is more noble than to be a monarch over others.

INDE X.

272.

Activity required in spiritual worship,
139, 140.

Adam, the greatness of his sin, 575, 684.
-See Man, and Fall of man.
Additions in matters of religion an inva-
sion of God's sovereignty, 686, 687.-
See Worship, and Ceremonies.
Admiration ought to be exercised in
spiritual worship, 143.

Affections, human, in what sense ascribed
to God, 216, 217.

Afflictions, sharp, make Atheists fear
there is a God, 42. Make us impatient
(see Impatience). We should be patient
under them (see Patience). Many
call on God only under them, 89. Fill
us with distraction in the worship of
God, 161. The presence of God a
comfort in them, 255; and his know-
ledge, 307. The wisdom of God ap-
parent in them, 355-357. The wisdom
of God a comfort in them, 387; and his
power, 459, 460; and his sovereignty,
699. Do not impeach his goodness,
558. The goodness of God seen in
them, 603, 604. His goodness a com-
fort in them, 625. Acts of God's sove-
reignty, 646, 647; the consideration of
which would make us entertain them
as we ought, 703.

Age, many neglect the serving of God till
old, 63.

Air, how useful a creature, 22.
Almighty, how often God is so called in
Scripture, 400.

417.

How often in Job,

Angels, good, what benefit they have by
Christ, 348, 571, 572. Not instruments
in the creation of man, 420. Evil, not
redeemed, 571, 572.

Angels, not governors of the world, 615,
616. Subject to God, 651, 652.
Apostacy. Men apostatize from God
when his will crosses theirs, 77, 78. In
times of persecution, 87, 88. By reason
of practical atheism, 99.

Apostles, the first preachers of the gospel,
mean and worthless men, 440, 441.
Spirited by Divine power for spreading
of it, 442. The wisdom of God seen in
using such instruments, 376, 377.
Applauding ourselves.-See Pride.
Atheism opens a door to all manner of
wickedness, 2. Some spice of it in all
men, 2, 4. The greatest folly, 3-38.
Common in our days, 3, 40. Strikes at
the foundation of all religion, 3. We
should establish ourselves against it, ib.
It is against the light of natural reason,
4. Against the universal consent of all
nations, 6. But few, if any, professed it
in former ages, 7, 8, 40. Would root
up the foundations of all government,
39. Introduce all evil into the world,
39, 40. Pernicious to the atheist him-
self, 40. The cause of public judg-
ments, 40, 41. Men's lusts the cause
of it, 42. Promoted by the devil most
since the destruction of idolatry, 43.
Uncomfortable, 44. Directions against
it, 45. All sin founded in a secret
atheism, 49.

Atheism, practical, natural to man, 46.
Natural since the fall, 47. To all men,
ib. Proved by arguments, 53-96. We
ought to be humbled for it, both in our-
selves and others, 100. How great a
sin it is, 101-103. Misery will attend
it, 103. We should watch against it,
ib. Directions against it, 103, 104.
Atheist can never prove there is no God,
41. All the creatures fight against
him, 42. In afflictions, suspects and
fears there is a God, ib. How much
pains he takes to blot out the notion,
ib. Suppose it were an even lay that
there were no God, yet he is very