92 THE GREAT MISERY OF THOSE up my part in glory !" O that sinners would think of this, when they are swimming. in the delights of the flesh, and studying how to be rich and honourable in the world ! When they are desperately venturing upon knowing transgression, and sinning against the checks of conscience. § 17. It will add yet more to their torment, when they consider that they most wilfully procured their. own destruction. Had they been forced to sin, it would much abate the rage of their consciences; or if they were punished for another man's transgressions ; or any other had been the chief author of their ruin. But to think it was the choice of their own will, and that none in the world could have forced them to sin against their- wills ; this will be a cutting thought. " Had I not enemies enough in the world, (thinks this miserable creature,) but I must be an enemy to myself? God would never give the devil, nor the world, so much more power over me as to force me to commit the least transgression. They could but entice : it was myself that yielded, and, did the evil. And must I lay hands upon. my own soul ; and imbrue my hands in my own blood? Never had I so great an enemy as myself. Never did God offer any good to my soul, but I resisted him. He bath heaped mercy upon me, and renewed one deliverance after another, to draw my heart to him : yea, he bath gently chastised me, and made me groan under the fruit of my disobedience ; and though I promised largely in my affliction, yet never was I heartily will- ing to serve him." Thus will it knaw the heart of these sinners, to remember that they were the cause of their own undoing; and that they wilfully and ob- stinately persisted in their rebellion, and were mere volunteers in the service of the devil. 18, The wound in their consciences will be yet deeper, when they shall not only remember it was their own doing, but that they were at so much cost and pains for their own damnation. What great un- dertakings did they engage in to effect the ruin ; to
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