[ 2003] Why it is that late service done unto God is seldome accepted.
IT would seem preposterous, nay,* 1.1 ridiculous, that some inferiour Man should present his Prince with a Horse that were lame, a Clock out of order, or a Book that were torn and imperfect; Yet thus all of us do, Our Flesh is our beast, the course of our life is our Clock,* 1.2 and the history of our actions is our book; And shall we offer then our Flesh unto God, when it is lame, and tyred out with excesse of Wa••tonnesse? shall we commend our lives unto him, when all the whole course thereof is out of order? or shall we present the story of our actions unto him, when as a thousand sins of our own, (for which we should be sorrowfull) and a thousand blessings of God (for which we should be thank∣full) are quite defaced and rased out of our Memory? Or,* 1.3 if we should offer such unto God, Why should we think it strange that he should reject them? We cannot: for continency, abstinency, temperance, and such like, are in old age, no virtues, but a disability to be vitious; as to leave good Fellowship when we are sick, and many other sins when we are old, is not so much a leaving of Sin, as Sin leaving us; and surely such service will be but hardly accepted.