Use 3

USE. III.

For exhortation to sinners; such as have had more observable sparing mercies afforded to them: you have been brought low by your iniquity; God has laid his hand heavy upon you; you were under a sentence of death in your own apprehension, and the terrors of it made you afraid; you then reflected, and remembered how unprofitably you had lived, and how wofully you had despised all the means of grace: then you earnestly called for prayers, and made a great many solemn promises; and God has heard prayers for you, and granted you the desire of your souls and you are now escaped, and returned to his house again. Let the truth in hand urge these three lessons upon you, and put them in practice.

1. Beware of turning to your former courses again. It was our Savior's advice to one whom he had healed (John 5:14): Behold, you are made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing befall you. If you find any temptation so to do, check yourselves with this thought, certainly God did not deliver me for this; this will be an ill requital of the Lord for this great benefit to me; and know it, that if you do return to your vomit, after such afflictions, it had been better for you, if you had died under such stroke of God's hand, and been then sent down to the pit: little do you know what an aggravation this will be to your guilt.

2. Be sure therefore now hearken to the solemn and earnest strivings with you in the ordinances. Think when you come to the house of God again, what a mercy it is that when you were going to silence, God said return and live: now remember what it was for, namely, that you might have these means given you to invite you to repentance, that are not afforded to them in the grave: if then he directs his messengers to plead hard with you, and to lay your condition open before you, hearken as for your lives, for indeed it is your life; bless God that you have such another price in your hands, and be afraid of living unconverted one Sabbath more, lest your hearts should grow harder again: and therefore,

3. Tremble so much as to think, that the next judgment should come, and find you barren still. Remember, though you have escaped one, yet you are not secure; God has more ways, and more judgments to fall upon sinners by; beware of security: it is good to be often thinking, that as you are in God's hand, so if you should by abusing this mercy of his, and living impenitent after it, stir up his indignation, and bring another visitation upon you, what little reason there will be, that you should expect another deliverance; what credit would God give to your promises, who have already so broken them with him? what aggravated provocation will be thus offered to him, to forbear no more? and what matter of horror and despair will it supply your minds withal, to think that such mercies, and such endeavours have been so lamentably despised by you.