362 APPENDIX. 



He was pleased to provide expedients to teach it 

 us again the second time, that we might be *re- 

 newed unto knowledge after the image of Him 

 that created us in righteousness, as the Apostle 

 speaks. And thirdly, our indocible and unteach- 

 able humour, our foul and shameful non-profi- 

 ciency under so plentiful a grace. For though the 

 text speaks of our learning righteousness, when 

 God's judgments are upon us; yet (if the appear- 

 ances of the world abroad suggested nothing to 

 the contrary) it is introduced here in the text too, 

 as the effect of the last form in God's school, in 

 exclusion of all the former as ineffectual ; his 

 utmost method not to be used but at a pinch, 

 when all the rest are baffled, and prove im- 

 prosperous upon us. And then it is expressed in 

 the original, and learned versions, with so many 

 limitations and abatements (as we shall see by 

 and by), that we may well give it up as the sum 

 and upshot of all, that our All-merciful God omits 

 no means or methods of our improvement ; but 

 we (supinely negligent, and prodigiously stubborn 

 as we are) render them all ineffectual. 



That we may do so no longer, but rather make 

 good the profession, with which we have dared to 

 appear this day before God, of humbling our- 

 selves under his Almighty Hand ; let us, before 

 we pass on any further, lift up our hands and 

 our hearts to Him in the Heavens, beseeching 

 him by the power of his mighty Grace so to sanc- 



* Col. iii. 10. Ephes. iv. 24. 



