The deceit fitheefe of mIMI heart. ( 21 I fore wee may boldly finne. For firft, fay that thou couldeft fatisfie God for the wrong which thy finne Toth to him , maift thou therefore lawfully offer wrong and violence to him ? Wouldeft thou think thy neighbour might lawfully fteale from thee, if after be would make fore reftitution ? or break thy head,ifafter he would give thee a plaifter? But then it is not Co, that any works of obedience can fa.tisfie for thy former difobedience. If thou were bound co a man in two feveralI bonds for two feverall debts, and having forfeited one, fhouldit afterward pay the other, woulditthou be fo foolifh as to think that by paying this lacer, thou hadit Cufficiently dif- charged the former? If a fervant,having loytered all one week, fhould painfully labour all the next, would his Matter yet endure him pleading the laft weeks diligence, as a Cufficienc recompence of the formersnegli zence ? No , For it was his duty to labour both weeks: So the obedience thou perfor- meft to God is a debt due to him; thou canft not pay one debt with another. If a Chapman, having gone long in the Merchants books, fhould at length I pay for that he took Taft, had he therefore fatisfied + for all that was taken before ?And yet this is the fop, pith deceit, not of the Papiîs only, but of many of our ftives allo; (for naturally there is much of the popifh leaven in us) to think that if after we have tinned,we be for a while a little more carefull than ordinary,of p-ayer,confeflìor, reading, hearing, and fuch like exercifes, then all is well againe : But S. lonaon tels us, that the facrifice of the wicked is abo- mination to the Lord : And therefore the exerciles P 2 of
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