FIF1'Y RE!ASONS. and cannot you allow as much to the God of wis-- • dom? ; 40. ~onsider also, that the speedines~ of your converswn, when God first calls you, doth make you the more welcome, and is a thing exceedingly pleasing to God. Our proverb is, a speedy gift is a double gift. If you ask -any thing of a friend, and he give it you presently and cheerfully at the first asking, you will think you have it with a goodwill; but if he stand long delaying first, and demurring upon it, you will think that you have it with an ill-will, and that you owe him the smaller thanks. If a very beggar at your door must stay long for an alms, he will think he is the less beholden to you. How much more may GoJ be displeased, when he must stay so long for his own, and that for your benefit! God loveth a cheerful giver, and consequently, a cheerful obeyer of his call; and if it be hearty and cheerful, it is the likelier to be speedy, without such delays. 41. And I would desire you but to do with God as you would be done by. Would you take it well of your children, if they should tear all their clothes, and cast their meat to the dogs, and tread it in the dirt, and when you entreat them, they will not regard you? Would you stand month after month entreating and waiting on them, as God doth on you? If your servant will spend the whole -day and year in drinking and playing, when he should do your work, will you wait on him all the year with entreaties, and pay him at last, as if he had served you? And can you expect that God should deal so with you? 42. And consider, I entreat you, that your delay is a denial, and so may God interpret it, for the time of your turning is part of the command. He that saith, Turn, saith, Now, even to-day, without delay. He giveth you no longer day. If time be lengthened, and the offer made again and again,
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