Use 2. What reason all of us have to bless God for his forbearance and long-suffering, and to acknowledge it as a great mercy ; for his long- suffering tendeth to repentance, either the beginning or the perfecting of it. Now this mercy is the more enhanced when we consider —
1. What we have done against God. A good man cannot tell how often he offendeth : Ps. xix. 12, ' Who can understand his errors ? ' Ps. xl. 12, ' Innumerable evils have compassed me about ; they are more than the hairs of my head.' God's people have cause to wonder at his patience, as well as others.
2. What is the desert of sin in the general : Rom. vi. 23, ' The wages of sin is death.'
3. The instances of those who have been taken away in their sins. Zimri and Cosbi unloaded their lives and their lusts together. Lot's wife in her looking back was turned into a pillar of salt : Luke xvii. 32, ' Remember Lot's wife ; ' a lasting monument of rebellion against God. Gehazi blasted with leprosy. Korah, Dathan and Abiram, the earth swallowed them.
4. With how much ease God can do the like to you : 1 Sam. xxiv. 19, ' If a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away ? ' when he has a fair opportunity to satisfy his wrath. God can easily do this : Job vi. 9, ' That he would loose his hand and cut me off.' With one beck of his will he can turn us into our first nothing.
5. With how much justice and honour he might have taken us away long since, and have shut us up in chains of darkness, for a monument to the careless world ! Sometimes God maketh instances in every table : Rom. i. 18, * The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. who hold the truth in unrighteousnes."^' In every law, both by way of omission
SERMON UPON 2 PETER III. 9. 235
and commission. Why might not I have served for one of these instances ? '
6. How many mercies have been vouchsafed to you in the time of God's long-suffering ? The mercies of daily providence : Ps. Ixviii. 19, ' Who loadeth us daily with his benefits.' Especially deliverances out of imminent dangers, when you were snatched as a ' brand out of the burning,' Amos iv. 11 ; and preserved in a general destruction: Lam. iii. 22, ' It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.' Or when some disease hath been upon you, that you thought you should have gone down to the chambers of death : Ps. Ixxviii. 38, ' He being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not ; ' that is, he respited his vengeance. It is a kind of a pardon when God remitteth some measure of the deserved punishment: so far as any part of the punishment is remitted, so far is the same pardoned. Sometimes God seemeth to put the bond in suit, but spareth upon our intercession. Now this should be taken notice of, and notably improved. A man is sick, afraid to be damned, but he recovers again. Now, though it be not a total pardon, we cannot say it is none at all ; for God took such a one out of the jaws of hell for that time. So Mat. xviii. 32, the debt was forgiven, yet required afterwards : the meaning is, he was spared for the present; he did not obtain that full pardon which amounteth to justification, yet he was recovered out of sickness, misery, and apparent danger, and that upon his cry to God.
7. If you are continued till you have some experience of the grace of Christ, then much more have you cause to bless God for his long- suffering. How ill would it have been for your souls if you had died in your sins ! God may say to you, as he did to his people, Isa. xliii. 24, 25, ' Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. I, even I, am he that blotteth out your transgressions, for my own sake, and will not remember thy sins.' If God had been quick with us, where should we have been ? We are of an hot and eager nature, cannot bear affronts or despiteful usage : Luke ix. 54, ' Lord, wilt thou that we call for fire from heaven to con- sume them, as did Elias ? ' This was James and John, beloved dis- ciples, eKkeKTwv eKkeKTOTcpoL. The fury of rash zeal appeared in the best, even in the disciple of love ; but God does not deal so with us.
Use 3. To exhort to repentance. If a malefactor arraigned at the bar of justice should perceive by any speech, or word, or gesture, sign, or token, any inclination in the judge to mercy, how would he work upon that advantage to get a reprieve and the execution put off ! So should we improve God's forbearance and long-suffering to sue out a pardon.
SERMON UPON ROMANS X. 5-9.
For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the laio, that the man luhich doth those things shall live hy them. But the right- eousness ivhich is of faith speaheth on this tvise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heavenl {that is, to bring Christ doivnfrom above) ; or, Who shall descend into the deep ? (that is, to bring up Christ again from, the dead). But tohat saith it ? The loord is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart ; that is, the loord of faith ivhich we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. — KoM. X. 5-9.