FIFTY RE.~SONS. 219 thankfully take your alms, without your entreaty and importunity, but will beg for it, and be importunate with you to give it. And yet will you delay to accept the blessed offers of grace, which are so much greater? 33. Yet consider, that it is God that is the giver, and you that are the miserable beggars and receivers. And therefore it is fitter you should wait on God, and call on him for his grace, when he seemeth to delay, and not that he should wait on you. He can live without your receiving, but you cannot live without his giving. The beggar must be glad of an alms at any time; and the condemned person of a pardon at any time; but the giver may well expect that his gifts be received without delay, or else he may let them go without. 34. And methinks you shDuld not deal worse with God, when he comes to you as a physician to save your own souls, than you would do with a neighbour, or a friend, when it is not for your own good, but for theirs. If your neighbour lay a dying, you would go and visit him without delay. If he fell down in a swoon, you would catch him up without delay. If he fell into the fire or water, you would pluck him out without delay. Yea, you would do thus much to a very beast. And yet will you delay, when it is not another, but yourselves that are sinking and drowning, and within a step of death and desperation? 35. If yet you perceive not how unreasonably you deal with God and your souls, I beseech you, consider, whether you do not deal worse with him than you do with the devil himself. If Satan or his servants persuade you to sin, you delay not so long but you are presently at it. You are ready to follow every tippling companion or gamester that puts up the finger. You are as willing to go, as they are to invite you. The very sight of the cup does presently prevail with the drunkard; and the sight of a harlot prevaileth with the fornicator; and sin
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