a little interest of earth! He sold it to redeem his life, and thou to sell it incurrest death. And if he " found no place of repentance" to revoke the sale, it were very just that thou also shouldst not find it, seeing thy sin was greater than his; but yet, seeing that God's mercy is greater, approach to it with humility, that He may undo by His grace the evil sale that thou madest by thy sin.
2. Finally, in this and the following meditation I must lay fast hold of this truth; for it is an incredible folly to believe by faith what I believe and yet to live in the way I live; that is, to believe that sin is so great an evil as we have described it, and yet for all this to commit it: to believe that Almighty God is sq good and so right a doer of justice, and yet notwithstanding to offend Him; and so of the rest.
POINT IV.
1. The fourth point shall be to break out with these considerations into an exclamation, with an affection vehement and full of amazement, that creatures have borne with me whilst I have so grievously offended their Creator and Benefactor; that the angels, who are the ministers of God's justice, have not unsheathed their fiery swords against me; [1] that they have guarded me and been the advocates of so wicked a man as I; that the sun, moon, and stars have illuminated me with their light and preserved me with their influences. That the elements, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the beasts and plants of the earth, have helped to sustain me. I confess that I deserve not the bread I eat, nor the water I drink, nor the air I breathe; neither am I worthy to lift up my eyes to heaven. I have rather deserved that flashes of fire should descend from thence to burn me like Sodom and Gomorrha, or that the earth should open and swallow me alive like Dathan and Abiron, and
- ↑ Gen. iii. 24.
