(seq. 20)

8 you are naturally a sinful polluted creature &
that you have carried it so sinfully & unworthingly to-
ward so gracious a God. There is all reason we shant
remember our sinful wayes & miscarriages toward
God with selfe loathing & abhorrency. Ezek. 36. 31. It
becomes us to acknowledge & judge our selves not
worthy of ye least good thing from God. The spirit
of the returning prodigal should be in us. Luk. 15. 21
2. You have the more need of great grace from God.
The more your sin hath been & the more misery you
have brought your selves into by it. By how much
more prevalent corruption hath been or is & the more
abundant & gross miscarriages have been so much ye
more need you have of the pardoning cleansing &
healing grace of God. If you have so utterly un-
done your selves who hath more need of the riches
of Gods grace to recover & set you up again? If
God dont fill your hungry starved souls with good
things whence can you have supply? When the Psal-
mist confesses that they had sinned with great aggravation
Psal. 106. 6. then he earnestly begs Gods special fa-
vour, v. 4, 5.
3. It is not sin impenitency in sin that will hinder
you from receiving mercy & being filled with good
things. Sin is so far from hindering your receiving
of mercy that they are only sinners that God will shew
mercy to. Christ came to save sinners, to call them
& not the righteous to Repentance. Mat. 9.13. Let your
sins be or have been what they will, & so your case
never so bad, you have destroyed your selfe griev-
ously transgressed, slighted mercyes, neglected means
indulged sloth & security: This makes your case bad,
yet not hopeless. There is sufficiency encough in the
merit of Christs death to save the worst of sinners.
But Impenitency in Sin that will hinder mercy and
good being received. If Sin be retained, loved, li-
ked that will indeed put a bar to our being filled
with good things. If we like our sins & will keep
them we shall have them & the fruits and conseque[nces]
of them. God won't make make the obstinate soul of the sinner
the subject of his special mercyes, till it be changes.
But if notwithstanding all your sin & miscarriage you
will be now penitent, & willing to comply with God's
will in putting away sin & returning to God, God is
ready to show you mercy & seasonably to fill you with
his good things. Isaiah 1.18, 19. tho your sins be as scarlet