If you consider, first, those speeches in Ezekiel, I desire not the death of a sinner: and, Why will ye die, O ye house of Israel? Such expostulations are very frequent; O that my people would return: and, How often would I have gathered you as the hen gathereth her chickens? I say, these are the speeches of God, and God speaks as he means; you shall find by the manner, and the fashion, and the figure of the speeches, that God desires it earnestly: Why will ye die? O ye house of Israel? by way of interrogation: and, O that my people would do thus and thus. Even this God desires, that a sinner would return.
John Preston, The Breast-Plate of Faith and Love. (London, 1651), 93.
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