ous, and will by no means clear the guilty. As a prince is to be merciful, so also he should be just; clemency is not to destroy equity; every virtue must have a right object, and must keep a mediocrity, otherwise it is no true virtue; such who confess and forsake their sin God hath promised them mercy; and when princes find penitence and amendment in their guilty subjects, then they are fit objects for mercy and clemency. If persons be involved and insnared in a turbulent course through ignorance and inadvertency, or by the subtle dealings of others, or through a surprising fear and hazard, excuse not the contrivers of mischief, but blindly led on by others, or out of a blind zeal, supposing they are doing God good service; yet if such, after better information, will retract the evil of their ways, and be gained to better courses, without all doubt these are proper objects for princely clemency. As on the one hand we have an abhorrence of cruelty, as a thing not only contrary to christian charity but to humanity itself, and we incline a great deal more to mercy and clemency than to rigour and severity, yea, though justly deserved; yet prudence and justice being two cardinal virtues, which must of necessity attend and govern the other virtues, it cannot rationally offend any rational or just man, to take consideration of such persons, to whom favour and clemency is to be shewed. 1st. Though such as forsake and confess their fault are fit objects of mercy, yet it would be considered, how far clemency is to be extended to such as stubbornly persevere in their turbulent courses. 2nd. Though clemency be well bestowed upon such who by it can be gained, but for such who make no better use of clemency, but to lurk under its warm wing, until they have recovered breath and strength, the more powerfully and vigorously to prosecute their sinister and cruel designs, to the ruin of that sovereignty, which hath shewed them cleVOL. V. Р mency; good heed would be taken in dispensing clemency to such. 3rd. Though clemency may be used to such who by infirmity or mistake have been overtaken in a fault, yet for such who, after many favours bestowed, do not only relapse, but from a stated and radical principle do persevere in a course of turbulence to overturn an established government, and hold themselves obliged in conscience so to do; how dangerous clemency thus bestowed may prove, ought to be considered. [The rest of this Manuscript is wanting.] A FRAGMENT ON EZRA IX. OUR UR joys and griefs are the pulse of our hearts, and tell the temper of them; earthly joy and sorrow take deep with an earthly heart, but little affect that which is spiritual and heavenly; and in this these prayers and griefs are strong that arise from the spiritual causes, which most of men scarce feel at all; yea, a holy heart stays not in his own interest, in its mourning or rejoicing, hath more even of other men's sins, than commonly they themselves that are guilty rivers of waters, &c. Of this same temper was this holy man. Oh! how would a few, how would one such person in a congregation advance the work of a public fast, more than hundreds of us, and such an one's silence speaks more than all our noises. His sitting astonied till the evening sacrifice; little shallow griefs find the tongue more readily, but the greater are not of so easy vent, but stop a while, though pressing to be out, as a full vessel with a narrow mouth. It was so with Ezra's sorrow for the people's sin, but when it gets out, it springs upward with the greater force, even up to heaven. "I fell on my knees, and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, and said, Oh! my Lord, I am ashamed, our iniquities are increased over our heads; these cover me with shame, and I blush to lift up my face to those heavens whither our iniquities are gone up before; when I would look to thee, I spy our horrible transgressions got thither first, and standing before thee and accusing us." Transgression grown up to heaven; it hath had a long time to grow in, and all that time hath been incessantly growing, and therefore grown so high; since the days of our fathers we have been in this trespass; generations pass, but yet your sins abide, when the succeeding generation follows on in it, the former sins are reserved, and the latter added to them, and so they are kept alive, then they grow, this fills up the measure and ripens a people for judgment, that is filling and growing all the while suitable to the sin, till it be poured out, hence public calamities and long lasting judgments on people. Now these two things aggravate great judgments inflicted, and great deliverances granted, yet after both, &c. after all this, Is not this just our case? have we not been sharply scourged? (though indeed far less than our iniquities) and have we not been seasonably and wonderfully delivered in our extremities? And yet have we not again broken his com mandments? and do we not still generally and grossly continue so doing? Oh! what shall we say to our God, we cannot stand before him because of this, let us therefore fall down before him and confess and supplicate, and there is yet hope that he will be gracious. GENERAL INDEX. VOL. I. ACCESS to God, how attained, 482, 483 Afflictions ought to be felt, 63, 64 Alexander, a saying of his, 37 Archimedes, his end, 173 Assurance tends to holiness, 121, 133 Athens, the conduct of a madman there, 230 Attributes of God, most glorified in Christ's sufferings, 367, 368 sayings of his, 62, 89, 122, 203, 244, 282, 355, 477 178 united by a threefold cord, 327 their state compared with that of unbelievers, 254, 255 Blessings, spiritual, make others taste insipid, 205, 206 Calling, the execution of eternal election, 9, 20, 22, 213, 247, 248 Censoriousness, an evidence of little grace, 439, 440 Chastity, three kinds of it, 412 Christ, no saving faith in God without him, 151, 152, 203 Evidences of interest in him, 237 union with him indissoluble, 234, 276 his fitness for his work, 367, 368 the covenant of grace made with him, 369 Christianity, pleasant and pure, 120, 121 how it grows in prosperity and in adversity, 214 Compassion, an evidence of strong grace, 439, 440 |