Before thou readest these directions, I advise thee, yea, I charge thee, before God and his holy angels, that thou resolve to follow them, as far as conscience shall be convinced of their agreeableness to God’s word and thy state; and call in his assistance and blessing that they may succeed. And as I have sought the Lord and consulted his oracles what advice to give thee, so must thou entertain it with that awe, reverence, and purpose of obedience, which the word of the living God requires.
Now, then, attend: “Set your heart unto all that I shall testify unto you this day; for it is not a vain thing—it is your life.” This is the end of all that has been spoken hitherto, to bring you to set your heart upon turning to God. I would not trouble you, nor torment you before the time,” with the thoughts of your eternal misery, but in order to your making your escape. Were you shut up under your present misery without remedy, it were but mercy to let you alone, that you might take in that little poor comfort which you are capable of in this world; but you may yet be happy, if you do not wilfully refuse the means of your recovery. Behold, I hold open the door to you; arise, take your flight: I set the way of life before you; walk in it, and you shall live, and not die. It grieves me that you should be your own murderers, and throw yourselves headlong, when God and man cry out to you, as Peter in another case to his Master, Spare thyself.”
The destruction of ungodly men is wilful. God that made them crieth out to them, as Paul to the distracted jailer when about to murder himself, “Do thyself no harm.” The ministers of Christ forewarn them, and follow them, and would gladly have them back; but, alas, no expostulations or entreaties will prevail, but men will hurl themselves into perdition, while pity itself looketh on.
What shall Tsay? Would it not grieve a person of any humanity, if, in the time of a raging plague, he should have a remedy that would infallibly cure all the country and recover the most hopeless patients, and yet his friends and neighbors should die by hundreds about him, because they would not use it? Men and brethren, though you carry the certain symptoms of death in your faces, yet I have a receipt that will cure you all infallibly. Follow but these directions, and if you do not then win heaven, I will be content to lose it.
Hear then, O sinner, and as ever thou wouldst be converted and saved, embrace this following counsel.
DirecrioN LI. Set it down with thyself as an undoubted truth, that it is impossible for thee ever to get to heaven in this thy unconverted state.
Can any other but Christ save thee? and he tells thee he will never do it except thou be regenerated and converted. Doth he not keep the keys of heaven; and canst thou go in without his leave? as thou must, if ever thou come thither in thy natural condition, without a sound and thorough conversion. y ‘ Direction II. Labor to get a thorough sight and lively sense and feeling of thy sins.
Till men are weary and heaven laden, and pricked at the heart, and quite sick of sin, they will not come to Christ, in his way, for cure, nor to purpose inquire, “What shall we do?” They must set themselves down for dead men, before they will come unto Christ that they may have life. Labor, therefore, to set all thy sins in order before thee; never be afraid to look upon them, but let thy spirit make diligent search. Inquire into thine heart, and into thy life; enter into a thorough examination of thyself and all thy ways, that thou mayest make a full discovery; and call in the help of God’s Spirit, in the sense of thine own inability hereunto, for it is his proper work to convince of sin. Spread all befores thy conscience, till thy heart and eyes be set weeping. Leave not striving with God and thine own soul, till it cry out under the sense of thy sins, as the enlightened jailer, “What must I do to be saved?” To this purpose,
Meditate on the number of thy sins. David’s Allcine’s Alarm. 9
heart failed when he thought of this, and considered that he had more sins than the hairs of his head. This made him cry out for the multitude of God’s tender mercies. Look backward; where was ever the place, what was ever the time, in which thou didst not sin? Look inward;- what part or power canst thou find in soul or body but it is poisoned with sin; what duty dost thou ever perform, into which this poison is not shed? O how great is the sum of thy debts, who hast been all thy life running upon trust, and never didst or canst pay off one “penny! Look over the sin of thy nature, and all its cursed brood, the sins of thy life. Call to mind thy omissions and commissions; the sins of thy thoughts, words, and actions; the sins of thy youth, and the sins of thy riper years. Be not like a desperate bankrupt, that is afraid to look over his books. Read the records of conscience carefully. These books must be opened sooner or later..