Apples of Gold (continued)
paradise into his bosom, when he was ready to be turned off the ladder of life. Therefore I may spend the primrose of my days in following sin, and the delights, profits, vanities, and amusements of this world, and at my last gasp I may have mercy as well as the thief. God is a God made up of mercy, and surely he will not deny some crumbs of mercy to a poor sinner in misery, etc.
Now to this objection I shall give these following answers.
1. First, God is as just as he is merciful; witness his casting the angels out of heaven, and Adam out of paradise; witness all the threatenings, the curses, the woes, that the Bible is filled with, from one end to the other; witness the hell, the horror, the terror and astonishment that he raises in the consciences of sinners; witness the devastations that he has made of the most stately and flourishing towns, cities, countries, and kingdoms, that have been in all the world; witness the variety of diseases, calamities, miseries, dangers, deaths, and hells, that always attend the inhabitants of the world; but above all, witness Christ's treading the wine-press of his Father's wrath; witness his hiding his face from him, and the pouring out of all his displeasure and vengeance upon him.
Zeleucus, the Locrensian lawgiver, thrust out one of his own son's eyes, for his transgressing of a righteous law which he had enacted— but God the Father thrust out both Christ's eyes for our transgressing of his royal law. Oh! the justice and severity of God. But,