140 .A. C.\LL TO no mercy on themselves. And yet will these shameless transgressors say, that God is more mercifhl than to condemn them; when it is themselves that cruelly and unmercifully ruri upon condemnation; and if we should go to them, and entreat them, we cannot stop them; ifwe should fall on our knees to them, we cannot stop them, but to hell they will go, and yet will not believe that they are going thither. If we beg of them for the sake of God that made them, and preserveth them; for the sake of Christ, that died for them; for the sake of their own souls, to pity themselves, and_go rio further in the way to hell, but come to Chrfst while his arms are open, aml enter into the state of life while the door stands open, and now take mercy while mercy may be had, they will not be persuaded. If we should die for it, we cannot so much as get them now and then to consider with themselves of the matter, and to turn: and yet they can say, ' I hope God will be merciful. ' Did you never consider what he saith, Isa. xxvii. 11. "It is a people of no understanding; therefore, he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will show them no favour." If another man will not clothe you when you are naked, and feed you when you are hungry, you wi!J say he is unmerciful. If he should cast you into prison, or beat and torment you, you would say he is unmerciful; and yet you will do a thousand times more against yourselves, even cast away both soul and body for ever, and never complain of your own unmercifulness ! Yea, and God that waited upon you all the while with his mercy, must be taken to be unmerciful, if he punish you after all this. Unless the holy God of heaveB will give these wretches leave to trample upon his Son's blood, and with the Jews, as it were, again to spit in his face, and do despite to the spirit ofgrace, and make a jest of sin, and a mock at holiness, and set more light by saving mercy than by the filth of their fleshly pleasures; and unless, after all this, he will save
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