Peter persist in his denial of Christ and cryed as naturally I know not the Man as if he had been nursed up in infidelity It was only the reflection upon his perfidious Crime and a clear view of it that brought him to himself and sprung in him such flouds of tears What cast St. Mary Magdalen into such rigours vvhich seem incomparable vvith humane Nature but a sense and knowledge of her transgressions What opened Heavens-Gate to the expiring Thief but this Nos quidem digna factis recipimus We truly receive a punishment which our crimes deserve In a word you shall find no remarkable change in the life of any person from Vice to Vertue which took not its first rice from a serious consideration of their former ingratitude and this is confirmed in the example of our Holy Petitioner vvho first cryes out he hath sinned and presently hears Nathan who proclaims a pardon after which assurance he sits not still nor returns to his Vomit but will for the future offer up as many holocausts as before he hath had unlawful delights he will convert the number of his sins into a greater number of vertues and whatsoever in him hath contributed to the contempt of God his Creatour shall be employed in his service by penitential acts that as now he sadly acknowledges his errours he may one day be transported in the praise of the Divine goodneâ—… divulge his satisfactions the first step to which ascent he will ever owe to this lesson Because I know my iniquity The Application St. Austin prescribing a remedy to siners gives them this short Recipe tu inde non avertas withdraw not thy sight from thy sins For if thou fix thy Eyes upon them God will turn his away but in case you throw them behind your back then he will take a full view of them and punish them severely in thee the Sun setting upon a dark Cloud makes it become bright and radiant so Almighty God laying open unto our holy penitent the foulness of his iniquity he cooperates with his merciful rayes surveys them and by a true sense of his ingratitude attracts the splendour of his pardon upon him Let us then in imitation of our Holy Penitent not become a stranger to our own misdeeds that so our great Judge may examine no other witnesses an humble confession will prove our best plea which we cannot exactly do unless we know them nor know them in all their colours of deformity without a high detestation of them so that if we make a careful inquisition after our guiltiness in this life we may hope to be warranted from a severe sentence in the next Learn therefore to alledge this powerful Topick here Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco because I know my iniquity Amen CHAP. VIII Et peccatum meum contra me est semper And my sin is alwayes before me AFter this declaration of our Petitioner how knowing he is in his own misfortunes next he layes open his condition hoping it may draw some beams of mercy and pitty upon him at least serve to warn others by his harms My sin sayes he is alwayes before me sometimes as an Accuser deposing with much vehemency every crime he hath committed and omitting no circumstance that may render it more odious sometimes as a Judge delivering exactly every statute he hath prevaricated either of Heaven Nature or Reason shewing the punishment ordained for his misdeeds And lastly pronouncing a Sentence against which he hath no plea nor evasion Whence St. Chrysostom sayes what pleasure alas can there be in sin when the necessary consequences of it are accusation reproach scandals and condemnations all other afflictions have a remedy this allowes no truce nor respit in other tribulations whilst our conscience is unstained we have a Sanctuary within us whether we may retreat and find God and in him all consolation but this once forfeited by sin what can we do If in the Country or City abroad or at home still this remorse attends us and having fled from all the World we find our Enemy and Executioner in our own selves which we alwayes dragg after us wheresoever we go What dreads and horrors besieged the Heart of Cain every shadow he beheld seemed to threaten Death and destruction to him so that his thoughts were alwayes lodged in a Sepulchre the memory of his crimes still rising up as witness against him with how just reason then did St. Austin cry Lord thou hast commanded and it is fulfilled that a vicious Soul proves to her self her own tormentour Plato sayes God hath given to the faculties of the Soul a certain Harmony which infinitely delights and recreates that spiritual substance now when by inordinate actions she dissolves this unity there must needs spring from this dissolution a great grief or anguish though the cause be not known as when any vital part is offended a smart pain is dispersed through the whole Body albeit we know not from whence it proceeds If then this great Philosopher gives affliction as a natural effect of sin what must he endure who hath the addition of a supernatural precept when he looks upon it infringed and made the Subject of his contempt when he weighs the loss he hath made of Grace the Abyss of misery wherein he is plunged certainly this must create within us a torment far beyond any impression of cruelty or malice from abroad This is the state of our Penitent let him go where he will he finds a Tribunal erected within him where his Case is scanned to the full and all his Exorbitances laid home to him whil'st he in the mean like poor Job not able to return one word for a thousand looks about at lest to fee some Councel but alas every one withdraws nay his own Conscience rises up against him Paschasius upon that place of St. Mathew where two possessed persons issuing forth from Monuments encountred our blessed Saviour wonders why the Devils should rather inhabit corrupted Vaults than pleasant Fields Gardens or stately Mansions and at last satisfies himself with this reason that it is a just return for those who would not relish Heavenly delights they should be fed with Carkasses nourished with Ordure and Putrefaction to the End their punishment may be suitable to their offence this stroke of Justice our Penitent acknowledges his senses take in nothing but the species of foul and cruel acts committed by him and every glance adds a new fuel to his consuming flames the Memory of them is so Ghastly that were it to be his sole penalty he should think the reiteration of his crimes purchased at too dear a rate My sin is alwayes before me We need seek no other Topicks to prove the terrour which remorse brings to a Conscience then our Penitent's own words in the 54. Psalm where he sayes Discedunt in Infernum viventes they descend alive into Hell He thought no allusion but to the state of the damned could
birth to the Soul and communicates unto her a new Being which is called Divine in that the Soul receives from it a resemblance unto God after a manner extraordinary whose more perfect knowledge is reserved for the light of glory which will make the discovery unto us All we can now say is that no sooner this divine gift inhabits our Souls but we are designed to eternal beatitude Almighty God beholds us with an Eye of satisfaction as his Children received into his Family as Solomon sayes by grace we contract an eternal alliance with God St. Thomas stiles Grace a participation of the Divine Nature for what the Divine Nature doth in God the same Grace by imitation doth in a Soul as the Divine Nature is in God the cause of his most transcending actions to wit love and union So Grace in a Soul is the spring of glory beatitude supernatural knowledge and heavenly affections by which she regulates all her works according to integrity and holiness Nay God obliges himself to give a Soul that can plead the title of Grace the Kingdom of Heaven and possession of eternal bliss No wonder then if after the sprinklings of Hysop that is penitential tears our Petitioner expects a Harmony of joy and gladness since the divine quality of Grace purchased by repentance is attended on by so many advantages What matter of joy to be spiritually regenerated the Son of God the Brother and Coheir with Jesus Christ wherefore St. Leo sayes this gift of being the Son of God to be authorized to call God Father exceeds all his other liberalities for by generation a Father communicates his Nature to his Son producing him in species alike So by Adoption he that adopts gives unto a stranger in desire and affection what he is in himself attributing unto him the prerogative of a Son entitling him to all his inheritance the same as if he were his Son by Nature now what Man doth to another out of affection God doth in effect For imprinting Grace in a Soul he gives himself and is really in her insomuch that were it possible God could be not immense Grace would render him afresh present to and in the Soul Certainly if ever that saying was verified where guilt hath raigned there grace did yet more powerfully sway it was in the person of our holy Petitioner his raptures and Enthusiastick throwes his prophetick notions Nay God's own Testimony of him that Repentance had moulded him even conformably to his own Heart sufficiently proved his Soul to float in floods of Grace and consequently must needs swell with a great portion of joy therefore with just reason he proclaims thou wilt give unto my hearing joy and gladness Again this possession of Grace is accompanied with the expectation of a Sovereign good For the understanding enlightned by Faith knowes that Mans's Beatitude is in God that this Beatitude is promised him as his final end and the means to attain unto this End is by Grace and acts of vertue So that he enjoyes it not but upon the terms of being one day eternally happy this certain expectation of Beatitude St. Bonaventure calls the Anchor and basis of Man in this life It keeps him from dejection placing still before his thoughts an infinite good and which is infallibly to be the abject of his future acquisition it choaks presumption casting him upon the mediums ordained to lead him to this end it draws his affections from terrene things and raises them to God as the supream object alone worthy to be loved and served What joy then to have our VVills carryed on by this gift of hope which sweetly entertains us in the contemplation of Eternity and this not as a thing doubtful for what would Cloud the severity of our comfort but as a reward to which we are entitled by grace and of which by this vertue of hope we have an earnest and pledge St. Paul to the Hebrews prescribes hope as a means to compass whatsoever we would have Let us approach with confidence to the Throne of Grace as if we needed only a firm hope to be able to scale the Throne of God and bear thence what so e're we desire St. Gregory observes there is no pleasure in this World which is not greater in the expectation than fruition by which we see what a strange Operation the very hope of some temporal object hath in us what ravishments then must needs proceed from a hope that is fixed on the source of perfections and to have this addition that after our imaginations have proposed all the delights that humane wit can frame yet they fall infinitely short of those joyes the Object of a supernatural hope will discover unto us Blame not then our Petitioner if he give himself the assurance of joy and gladness when once his Soul shall be enriched with Grace and divine hope inspired into him since their presence brings the highest satisfactions we are capable off in this World I observe after Christ had declared the remission of St. Mary Magdalens misdeeds he bids her go in peace to shew she is no more impious For as they are strangers to repose so rest and satisfaction are the natural effects of a good conscience When the Thief on the Cross had obtained mercy immediately follow the glad tidings he should exchange that very day his Gibbet into a Paradise St. Austin had no sooner stepped into the Paths of pennance but he found himself overwhelmed with joy which he thus describes On a suddain sayes he it grew delightful to me to be weaned from trifling pleasures and what before I feared to loose now with joy I dismiss for thou O supream Diety didst tear them from me and supplyedst them by thy own presence who art in all honour beauty and pleasure excelling You see what he got in exchanging a few Worldly joyes for a life of pennance in quitting a Creature he came to the enjoyment of his Creatour in abandoning that we must needs once lose and which we still apprehend will be ravished from us he arrived to an inestimable and never perishing good Nay reason may tell us as happy experience hath informed Saints that if his mercy be so great and transforms it self into so many Shapes of vertues in reward to sinners it must needs be much more admirable in order to the just For it is but equitable that those who must love and honour him should have a more ample share in the Treasures of his mercies than such who injure and daily offend him If when we are Enemies he fails not to give Testimonies of his love being reconciled and readmitted to his favour what will he not do If he bestow a kiss upon a treacherous Judas with what overflowing sweetness will he visit a loyal heart which breaths forth nothing but love and a conformity to his will if a sound of his voice as Man was so charming that many of the Apostles at his first call abandoned
any stop as if the Sage ruler of all things took no cognizance of their actions and which is done parhaps from a foresight they will persevere to the end in wickedness and having performed acts of moral vertues God allowes them a little calm in this life But in our sense when God passes over as undiscerned our faults he remits them without punishment and so seems to have been a stranger to our misdeeds but yet he never doth this that is never turns away his Face from our sins unless we first turn our Face upon them placing them before our Eyes and touched with a horrour at their deformity abjure and protest against them having done this we must then expose that abstract of wonders Christ Jesus before the Eternal Father that his wounded body may serve as a bulwark to defend us and appease his angry looks which implies the aversion of his Face or fury from us Our penitent having in this manner made his way he hopes the effect will follow that God averting his Face in that act will give him an abolition of his crimes that so he may reap the fruit of a Holy penitential fear We kow St. Peter fared not the worse when prompted by a low esteem of himself he requested his Lord to withdraw from him because a sinner No more did the good Centurion lose any thing in acknowledging his little of merit to have his house blessed and made happy by Christ's presence So our Penitent's awful respect in declining the Face of his Creatour springing from a sense of his own unworthiness and believing his sins an object unfit for an Eye so pure and unstained may perhaps draw benedictions upon him and contribute in a large measure to his happiness Wherefore he goes on still repeating turn away thy face from my sins The Application From this discourse we may learn the agitations of a Soul which hath once been defiled with sin sometimes he Figures God unto him as an angry judge and is affrighted to appear before him then again as a purity so compleat and Essential that though he should be conscious of no guilt as having been cleansed and washed as white as Snow he dares not yet stand to the examen Nay on the contrary it makes him petition to have that face which is the joy of Angels to be diverted from him we must then in imitation of our penitent fix only to this comfort that humility repentance and reverential thoughts though they keep us here depressed and under hatches will at last render that face we would now decline through the terrour of our Sins amiable and pleasing into our possession whereon we may gaze and feed our glorifyed Senses for all Eternity Amen CHAP. XX. Et omnes iniquitates meas dele And wipe away all my iniquities ST Cyril of Alexandria saith in the jâ—…stification of a sinner are required certain previous dispositions amongst which he reckons up faith hope repentance and fear Whence I conceive the apprehension of our Holy Penitent lest God should fasten his regards upon his iniquities mentioned in the preceeding verse was initiative and preliminary to his present address That his iniquities may be wiped away St. Austin holds it a thing most rare that any should embrace Christian Religion who have not first received within them an impression of the fear of God That the Ninivites became Penitent and shrowded themselves under a veil of Sackcloth and Ashes The only cause was a fear of vengeance threatned them by the preaching of Jonas St. Hierom upon the First Chapter of Malachy sayes behold O Lord how the fear of punishment diverts us from evil and that the priviledge of being your Children arises from a servile apprehension Our Penitent was not ignorant of this when after a dread conceived of God's judgments he immediately proceeds as if prepared by that terrour to demand an abolition of his crimes Wipe away my iniquities Besides he here explicates himself more fully that in case he do procure the Face of God to be averted then he is confident the sequel will be an expulsion of sin by grace For it were absurd that faith love and other qualities inherent should be necessary to dispose us for pardon and yet the formal effect to be extrinsecal and a justice not ours but imputed to us St. Paul desides this in his Epistle to the Colossians Christ hath freed us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of the love of his Son Where you see the infusion of justice by which a Man becomes pious succeeds to the Remission of sin by which we cease to be impious and just as the Air by the same ray of the Sun hath not only its darkness expelled but also is filled with light so that true Son of Justice communicating unto Man his divine grace doth at once by this gift disperse the Clouds of sin and replenish him with the splendour of inherent Justice The same Apostlâ—… Rom. 5. takes away all doubt in this point saying that the grace of God is diffused into our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us and that no mistake in this Text may happen St. Austin explicates it in this Sense The charity of God is said to fill our hearts not with that love by which he loves us but by â—heâ—…by which we love him It is then in this fountain of love which springs within us whose over-flowing streams arise from Christ's donation in these we are washed we are sanctifyed and made just by this regeneration we are said to become a new Creature and from an Enemy purchase the title of being the Son of God all which powerfully import a mutation and real change within us St. John in his First Epistle sayes he that doth justice is just Abel was just in that he sacrificed unto God with all the circumstances of homage due unto a supream Being Noah just in that he gave credit unto God feared his judgements and obeyed his commands St. Luke affirms Zachary and Elizabeth to be just from their compliance and obedience to Divine precepts so that it is clear the Principle of their justification was inherent and that nothing extrinsick or imputative can be the formal cause of our actions for if not issuing from something within us we cannot own them to be ours Our Holy Penitent filled with supernatural illustrations was not a stranger to Divine Lawes established in order to Man's conversion Wherefore he knew well his Petition to have his iniquities strook off involved the gift of grace by whose power alone they were to be destroyed Nay even Natural Reason will lead us to this Truth for justification is a motion from sin to justice whence its name is derived as calefaction from heat Now it is evident to expell cold will not be thought calefaction unless the quality of heat be introduced So the bare remission of sin cannot amount to an act of justification without the consecution
God is only permissive and accidentally concurring unto final impenitency that is in not imparting his grace dissolving Hearts unto such as will not receive it for since they obstinately cleave unto sin he is not obliged to violence the liberty of Man's free-will which he hath in his Creation decreed unto him Nor prodigally throw away his precious grace upon those who contemn it Wherefore the penal substraction of his grace springs not from the slow current of mercy to a sinner For it is alwayes ready to flow where the Channel is cut out and prepared to receive it but from the malice of Man by which he is totally averted from God opposite and refractory to his holy inspirations When therefore he begs not to be sequestred from his face far be it from his thoughts to impeach God as Author of obdurateness it would only speak he is cause of the punishment not the fault That if by the prevarication of our first Parent we were reduced to such a condition as God might justly leave us to our selves much more by actual sin do we deserve it and in this dereliction we can never rise nor frame a supernatural act without which it is not possible to attain unto Salvation So that if God will use his own right and divert his face that is the effects of his goodness and mercy from him he gives himself for lost and so justly lost as not to have the least matter of complaint against his Judge Nay on the contrary he joyns issue with the Prophet Esay saying Lord if all the Nations thou hast made should perish who can blame thee If God hath drawn some out of the gulf of perdition to issue forth the Marks of his goodness even in the height and fury of their malice this is no warrant to our Petitioner that for his sake he will break the ordinary rule of his providence he rather apprehends he may be made an Example of his Justice and be abandoned to his corrupt inclinations wherefore he petitions that he would daign to cast a benign Eye upon him nor throw him away from his blessed face Another dismal thought occurs which eggs him on to this demand and it ought certainly to be very dreadful to a sinner that is there is a certain period set to every Man's transgressions which is called the measure of his iniquities and if this be once compleated such a Cloud of obstinacy and perseverance in evil involves him as he never will be cheered with the Sun-shine of God's mercy This proceeding hath been evident in the downfall of several Nations and Cities whose excess of wickedness hath drawn upon them the exterminating hand of God Our Holy Penitent first places before his Eyes the universal deluge where it is declared that the World had accomplished their malice and by it so prepared the divine Justice as there wanted nothing but his avenging Rod to fall heavy upon them Again as to the Land of promise designed to the Seed of Abraham God told him he could not yet perform it and his patience awaited the space of four hundred years untill the Amorites and Canaanites had summed up their iniquities after which they were made a prey to the Children of Israel In sequel of this our Holy Penitent concludes that though these examples in a vast multitude were remarkable and terrifying yet God's judgements hold the same method in the concern of every particular Soul Besides his fears encrease when he considers that God's patience is spun out longer with some than others and whether his last sin might not be the upshot and close of all God's special favours to him he knowes not Wherefore in this suspence and just subject of apprehension he petitions not to be thrown away from his face Our Holy Penitent finds notwithstanding some glimmerings of comfort when he revolves in hes Mind the marks of this helpless desolation First he remembers when the Sodomites were consumed in the flames of his anger the Harbinger of their destruction was their notorious and publick commission of their crimes and this joyned with such impudence as to vaunt and boast of their impieties Our sad Penitent found himself not guilty of this for what contrivances had he nol framed to conceal his sin and when reproved by Nathan presently with shame and confusion he owned his miscarriage The next presage of Reprobation is obstinacy which was laid before him in the person of Pharaoh whose hardned heart not all the importunities of Moses nor the prodigious wonders he wrought could in the least mollify nor work him to the dismission of God's people When therefore you behold a person so bent upon his wicked wayes as no remonstrance entreaty promise nor threat can prevail you have reason to believe as St. Paul sayes they are given up to a reprobate sense which insensibly and unawares will bring them to endless ruine Our Petitioner cannot likewise accuse himself of this prelude to perdition this present Psalm which he composed immediately after the Prophet from the part of God had denounced unto him his ingratitude sufficiently evinces he was not deaf to the workings of God's inspirations nor impenetrable against the power of exciting grace Another cause of God's dereliction is an habitual application to a certain sin to which one is so fastned as his ordinary grace hath no effect to draw him from it and God is pleased not to gratify him with any thing extraordinary in punishment of his transgressions having so often abused his mercy This habitual malice was evident in the Jews who from age to age had persecuted the Prophets sent to mind them of their duties insomuch as St. Stephen laid it to their charge and defied them to name any one who had escaped their fury and this they continued untill at last they laid their hands on the Saint of Saints Christ Jesus after which Sacrilegious act arrived at the utmost pitch of their demerits they were given up to the Tyranny of the Romans who totally subverted their City and Nation Our Penitent had reason to hope his deviation was an effect of frailty rather than malice having not continued any space without repentance when once his sin was represented to him by the Minister of God's word yet knowing the web of Man's Salvation to be wrapt up in the secret of the Divine Providence that though he had revealed to many of his Servants the glad tidings of their predestination yet never had he to any communicated the doom of reprobation lest it might cast them into despair therefore he thinks it the wisest course to sail between hope and fear and in all events to implore that he may not be excluded from his sight Some again weighing the subsequent verse where our Penitent petitions God not to take away from him his holy spirit are of Opinion that this demand imports not a dread of reprobation for he seems to thinks himself in the possession of grace but argues
sin All other reasonable Creatures in this sense are mortal and if the blessed in heaven be impeccable it is not by their nature but by the power of glory communicated in which they were invested by God after they had given proof of their vertues whilest they were Viatours and under their Tryal Now as to Man the experience of his frailty helps him on to discern more clearly as the obscurity of the Night renders a fair Day the more resplendent and reverence this excellency in God Next he ought not to repine that he is not here glorious for this life is his place of Combat and the Crown is not given till the Victory be gained wherefore as long as he lives he enjoyes a liberty by which he may sin and be overcome and by which he may vanquish Lastly God decreed this liberty to Man and gave him a faculty by which he might with a full swinge of his Will be take himself to good or evil to the end he might be capable of merit or demerit for if he acted by the impulse of necessity he could merit no recompence for his vertue nor punishment for his sin no more than a tree which bears good or bad fruit and by this means the divine Justice could not be discerned either in the condemnation of the wicked or in the reward of the just Our great Penitent in the issue of this meditation hath reason to set his Tongue a work and spend it self in exalting this powerful and remunerating Iustice of God which happily converts to our advantage what at the first glance appears the Subject of our ruine and resign himself to those dangers wherein the perfection of his free will may involve him since by his grace which he implores he may embrace and practise what is pleasing to him And if to the end he carry on this noble resolution he hath an assurance to bless his Iustice for all Eternity And my Tongue shall exalt thy Iustice. St. Austin upon this place is of Opinion that our Penitent means the Messias whose Justice he will extoll in that by his merit both Men and Angels are rescued from the slavery of sin To which I agree nor do the premises any waies derogate from this interpretation for the merits of Jesus Christ are the source and cause of Sanctifying grace which grace dignifyes the works of the just and raises them to the degree of merit Now that which is cause of the cause is likewise cause of the effect and consequently the merits of Jesus Christ are cause of the merits of Saints as St. Paul to the Galatians Chap. 1. He hath blessed us with all spiritual benediction in Jesus Christ Next the merits of Jesus Christ contribute to the merits of Saints in that he hath obtained by his actions and sufferings a promise from God to accept the merits of Men in order to Heaven for it was in consideration of him and upon the score of his torments that this promise was made unto us It is this St. Peter in his Second Epistle Chap. 3. hints at when speaking of Christ he sayes by him he hath made us great and precious promises to the end we might by them be made partakers of the Divine Nature Now as Grace is the Fountain of the merits of Saints and God's promise the accomplishment both the one and the other proceeding from the merits of Jesus Christ it followes that the merits of Saints subsist not but by those of Christ Nor have they a dependency only by way of simple condition or necessary circumstance but they flow from them as from the root fountain and principal cause without which they would have no Being Our Holy Doctor therefore will praise and set forth the divine Justice under several Notions First as he is the Principium or Off-spring whence all remission of sin and collation of grace is derived and without which all Mankind had been eternally wrapt up in the darkness of sin so that the just and superabundant ransom he hath paid for us merits the Adorations and praises of all hearts and tongues Next he will extoll him under the title of a remunerating Iustice in that after he hath taught us how to fight put arms into our hands and hath stood by us to confirm our courage exacting only a firm will to overcome doth yet dispense his Crowns with applause as if we had done all our selves O who can then asperse and lay a charge upon this Opinion as if it injured Christs merits doth the fulness of a stream dishonour the source from whence it flowes or the excellency of any fruit injure the Root that gives birth to it so the merits of the just being only the rivulets and fruit of Christ's superabundant satisfaction cannot certainly in the least derogate from his they only serve in an inferiour degree to extol and do homage to the infinity of Christ's merit Wherefore Our Penitent will incessantly tune forth And my Tongue shall exalt thy Justice The Justice of God beholds Creatures in three several relations First it is distributive by which he allots unto every Creature faculties proportionable to carry them on to the End for which they were created To the Soul which he hath designed to contemplate and love him he hath given an understanding and will the Body doomed to labour he hath framed with Arms and Hands The Sun whose Office is to enlighten the World he hath vested with a lasting brightness which never fails to perform its task in fine every animal Tree Plant or what ever is existent in the World hath a vertue proper to the designment of its Creation Whence St. Dennis sayes that God is communicable in his Justice distributing to every one according to the dignity of its nature and bounding within limits most equitable the manner beauty order Ornament the inequalities and proportions of all Creatures accommodating every thing with that which is proper to it Our Penitent will not be silent in order to this his distributive Iustice he will admire the works of God give his approbation without the least Censure and confess that this wise Architect hath ballanced all things with equity and justice and if he may be so happy as to manage his individual Being conformably to those proprieties and qualities he hath received from his Creatour he will with confidence proclaim that his tongue shall exalt his justice In the second consideration his punitive justice hath place by which he inflicts a punishment on sinners the reason of this is that a sinner living contrary to the wil of God and disobedient to his order setling his contentment on things forbidden by his Sovereign doth by these his wayes throw a contempt upon him Wherefore it is most just reparation should be made and since he hath rebelled in breaking the Commands of his Creatour it is fit he should be afflicted with torments and enslaved by that will he hath so much scorned and set at naught