Consideration 1. Bethink yourselves of the great and manifold provocations you have given the Lord to put an end to all further patience towards you ; not only in the days of your vanity and un- regeneracy, but even since your reconciliation to him. Do you not believe thousands of sinners are now in the depths of hell, who never provoked the Lord at a higher rate than you have done ? Were you not herded once among the vilest of sinners ? 1 Cor. vi. 11. " And such were some of you ;" as vile as the vilest among them : yet you are washed in the blood of Christ, and your com- panions roaring in the lowest hell ; or if your lives were moi'e clean, sure your hearts and natures were as filthy as theirs. And certain- ly, your sins, since the time of reconciliation have had special ag- gravations in them, enough to put an end to all further mercies towards you. Light and love have aggravated these sins, and yet' the Lord will not cast you off.
Consid. 2. How often have you been upon the rery brink of hell, in the days of your unregeneracy ? Every sickness, and every dan- ger of life which you have escaped in those days, was a marvellous escape from the everlasting wrath of God. Had thy disease pre- vailed one degree further, thou hadst been past hope, and out of the reach of mercy's arm now. Doubtless some of you can remem- ber, when in such and such a disease, you were like a ship riding in a furious storm by one cable, and two or three of the strands of that cable were snapt asunder. So it hath been with you, the thread of life, how weak soever, hath held till the bonds of union betwixt Christ and your souls were fastened, and the eternal hazard over. This is admirable grace.
Consid. 3. How often hath death come up into your windows, entered into your houses, fetched off your nearest relations ; but had no commission to carry you out with them, because the Lord had a design of mercy upon your souls ?
This cannot but affect a gracious heart, that God should smite so near, and yet spare you.
Consid. 4. Lastly, This is affecting, yea, very transporting, that God hath not only given you time beyond others, but in that time the precious opportunities and means of your salvation, both ex- ternal and internal ; there is the very marrow and kernel of the mercy. Had God lengthened out hb patience for a while, but
eiven you no means of salvation, or afforded yoii the tiieatiSj but denied you the blessing arid efficacy of them ; at the most it could have been but a reprieve from hell : But for the Lord to give you the gospel, and with the gospel to send down his Spirit, to perstiade and open thy heart to Christ ; here is the riches of his goddness, a^ Well as forbearance.
Exhort 3. This doctrme of the patience of Christ exhorts all that have felt it, to exercise a Christ-like patience towards others ; as you have found the benefit of divine patience yourselves, see that you exercise the meekness and long-suffering of Christians to- wards those that have wronged and injured you. Who shoulcj shew patience more than those that have found it.^ Do not be severe, short, and quick with others, who have lived yourselves so many years upon the long-suffering of God. We are poor, short-spirited creatures, quick to revenge injuries ; but oh, had God been so to usj miserable had our condition been. Christ hath made this duty the very scope of that excellent parable, Mat. xviii. from ver. 25. onward, where the king takes an account of his servants, reckoning with them one by one, and amongst them finds one which c^ed him ten thousand talents, and having not to pay, com- mands him, his wife and children, and all he had^ to be sold, and payment to be made ; but the servant falling down, and begging patience, his Lord was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and not only forbore, but forgave the debt. One would think the heart of this man should have been a fountain of compassion to- wards others ; but see the deep corruption of nature ; the same servant finding one of his fellow-servants which owed him but an hundred pence, laid hands on him, and took him by the throat. Alas, the wrongs done to us are but trifles, compared with our injuries done to God; where others have wronged you once, you have ^vronged God a thousand times. Methinks the patience of Christ towards you, should melt your hearts into an ingenuous easiness to forgive others, especially, considering that an unfor- giving spirit is a dreadful sign of an unforgiven person.
Exhort. 4. Burden not the patience of Christ after your admissiort of him and reconciliation to him ; let it suffice that you tried his patience long enough before ; give him no new exercises now he is come to dwell in, and with you for ever. There are two ways wherein God's own people do greatly provoke him after their re- conciliation.
1. By sluggishness in duty.
2. By sinning against light.
1. By sluggishness and deadness of spirit in the ways of duty and obedience, turning a deaf ear to the calls and motions of Christ's Spirit exciting them to the sweet and pleasant duties of
religion. We have a sad instance of this in the spouse, Cant. V. 2, 3. " It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, open " to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled : for my *' head is filled ^ith dew, and my locks Avith the drops of the night."" One would think that Christ might have opened the heart of his own spouse w^th less solicitation and importunate arguments than he here useth ; what wife could shut the door upon her own dear husband, and bar him out of his own house ? And yet see the lazy excuse she makes, rer. 3. " I have put off my coat, how '' shall I put it on.^ I have washed my feet, how shall I defile " them ?''
Oh the sluggishness of the flesh, even in regenerate persons ! those that have opened the door to Christ by regeneration, even they do often shut the door against Christ in the hours and seasons of communion with him. Strange, that such a suitor as Christ should be put by, moving and calling to such heavenly, pleasant exercises, as communion with him is ; but flesh will be flesh, even in the most spiritual Christians : Little do we know what a grief this is to Christ, and loss to us.
2. i\Ianv grieve Chrisf s Spirit, and sorely try his patience, even after reconciliation, by sinning against light and love. That cau- tion, Eph. iv. 30. is not without weighty cause. " And grieve " not the Holy Spirit of God, by which you are sealed to the day " of redemption.*"