Great is the heinousness of sin, since it can provoke a God of much Mercy to express much severity. That drop of Gall must needs be bitter that can imbitter a whole Sea of honey, how offensive must sin then be that can provoke a God, to whose Ocean of pity the Sea is but a drop! God doth not Afflict us willingly: He gives Honey naturally, but stings only when he is provoked by us. So that every Sufferer Coines his own Calamities, & there is no Arrow of Judgment falls down upon us, but what was first (in sinning) shot upwards by us; no shower of miseries sent down upon us, but what was First caused by the ascent of the vapours of our sin; Nor any Print of Calamity made on us, but sin is the Print that makes it. What a folly is it then for us in our suffering to be impatient against God, and yet patient with our sin, or to be angry with the Medicine, and yet in love with the disease. Let us justify God therefore in all our sufferings, and condemn ourselves.Mr. Jenkins's Dying Thoughts: Who Departed this Life on Monday the 19th of this Instant January, in the Prison of Newgate (London: Printed for Edward Goldwin, 1685).
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Jenkyn is one of my favorite Puritans. It seems that every sentence in his writings is loaded with wisdom and excellent illustrations.
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