the heart of every faithful minister, that knoweth the misery of an unconverted man, and foreseeth his latter end. It will be a grief to any honest physician, if he have a whole hospital of sick persons under cure, to see that the most of their diseases are mortal, and to find but few recovered by the greatest skill and care that he can use; how much more must the everlasting danger of men's souls be grievous to those that are appointed to watch over them? Would the Lord but cause you to know your own misery, as we know it, and to compassionate yourselves, as we must compassionate you, we should have the more hope of your recovery. Will you now join with us in lamenting your own condition, and lay to heart what a case it is to be unconverted? Truly humanity, and much more Christianity, doth bind us to think on your condition with lamentation. Should we see an enemy; should we see a very dog in torment, and have no compassion? How much less, so many men and women that are so near us, and so dear to us in the flesh? Alas, that there is such a glory, and most men will miss of it! That there is such a fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and the most will run themselves wilfully into it! Why, faith maketh things absent as if they were present. That which will be so one of these days, I look on it as if it were even so already. Oh! methinks I see the thousands of the unconverted, departing from the face of an angry Judge; who hath newly shut them up under his final sentence," Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire P." If you ask me, why I tell you of such sad things? Truly, brethren it is, because they are much more sad to suffer, than to hear of; and because you are yet alive in a possibility of preventing them. If you marvel that I should believe such things, when no man seeth them: it is because I am a Christian. And if you believe them not as well as I, you would do well to say so plainly, and do not dissemble any longer, and take on you to be Christians, when you are not; and to believe God's word, when you do not. I profess to you, I should take it but for a paltry profession, to ride up and down to preach the Gospel, and trouble the minds of men in vain, and get the ill will of most of our neighbours, and tire and spend ourselves in this work, if it

P Matt. xxv. 41.

were not certainly true, which we must tell them; and if the Gospel were a fable or human device. If the word of God were not true, ministers have the most unworthy employment upon earth. But if it be true (as nothing is more certain), O Lord, what hard hearts then have we, that we are no more affected with your condition! And what hearts have you, that are no more affected with your own! The Lord knows, if I were not confident that this word is true, that telleth us of the danger of all that are unconverted, I would not have been here to-day; nay, I would shut up my books, and take another trade in hand, and never preach more. But shall a man that knows the unconverted will be condemned, forbear to tell them of the misery that is near them? Then were our case more sinful than yours, for you know it not, and therefore love not to hear of it. I believe it, and know it, and yet should I silence it? I know it is unpleasant doctrine, but it is necessary, and it is most true! God never yet did prove a liar; if he were not true, he were not God. You will believe yourselves the things that you see not, upon common experience; and why should not I believe that which I see not, upon a better ground? You see not the sun at midnight, and yet you believe that it will rise the next morning, because it useth to do so. You see no flowers or fruits on the earth in winter, and yet you believe that you shall see them the next year, because they use to come in their seasons. You are now all alive, and see not your graves digged, nor your friends about you, there laying you, and leaving you in darkness to the worms, and yet you know that such a day will come, though now you see it not; as truly do I know, that there is endless woe to every sinner that dieth unconverted. I see not the flames, nor do I hear the cries of damned souls, but yet I know that there they are, while we sit here, and there they will be to all eternity. It is like, the man in Luke xvi. was a gentleman of quality, that had so bountiful a table, and was clothed so gorgeously every day. Alas, his poor brethren it is like, did little think what was become of his soul, when they had laid his body in the earth. If a preacher should have told them he was afraid he was in hell, do you think they would not have been ready to fly in his face, or account him intolerably self-conceited, or precise; and yet

the Lord Jesus brings us news that he was in hell-torment, wishing that one might be sent from the dead, to warn those his poor brethren that he had left behind him on the earth. No doubt, he knew that they were all of the same mind as he was, when he was alive; and as fleshly, and worldly, and careless of their salvation, and therefore were in the road-way to the same condemnation; or else if he had known them to be godly, heavenlyminded men, he would never have thought them in such danger, as it seems he did. But we read not that they had any such fears of themselves as he had. If one had come to them from the dead, and told them, that their late worshipful brother was in hell for his sin, and knowing them to be all in the way to the same misery, had sent to them to beseech them presently to be converted, lest they also come to that place of torment: what welcome do you think such a messenger would have had? I know not well what fear of a dead man appearing to them, might have done; but I partly imagine what entertainment a minister should have had, that had said the like. Verily, sirs, the case of careless sinners is never the safer, because they see not, and fear not the danger. A man in a consumption or dropsy, is never the further from death, though he be never so confident that he shall not die. If a thief at the gallows have a conceit that he shall escape, that will not save his life. What if you should have an hundred men that you had known on earth, sent to you from the dead one after another, and all of them should tell you this one sentence in my text, That there is none enter into heaven but converted souls; would you not begin to look about you, and say to yourselves, Am I converted or not? What a case am I in then, that am yet in the flesh? may be if one appeared to you in your chamber in the night, and told you this news, it would only affright you a little, and you would forget it. Perhaps if two or three only should appear to you, and tell you it, you might forget it again; but if twenty should tell it you, methinks it should awaken you. Why, sirs, the words of the Lord are of more weight, than the words of a thousand dead men are. "If you will not believe him, neither will you be persuaded though one rise from the dead." Seeing these things are

It

9 Luke xvi. 31.

so, I do not blame ministers, if they be plain and earnest with you, though some may think them precise, and besides themselves. Paul was put to make this answer; "For whether we be besides ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause "." Truly, we are like a physician, that seeth a foolish man eating arsenic, or mercury, and telleth him, O what are you doing? it is deadly poison, you must presently take a vomit, or it will kill you. But because it is sweet, derides the physician, and bids him look to himself, he hopes he shall do as well as he, till he feel the griping and burning at his heart, and then he will believe it. Oh! the gripes of a damned man's conscience, when he reflects on the day of grace which he lost on earth! We tell you not of this to drive you to despair, but to per suade you to take the vomit of repentance, and to cast up your sins before you are past hope. Do not think we wrong you, to foretel you what will come of it, if you die unconverted. If there were any wrong in it, it must be laid on God that can do no wrong. If he have not bid us tell you of them, then take us for your enemies and spare not: call us liars, if we shew you not his word for it. But alas, when God hath revealed your danger, must we hide it? And that when he hath foretold us, that if we tell you not of it, your blood shall be required at our hands, Ezek. iii. 18. Read that text well, and tell me then, whether you would have us such cruel enemies; I had almost said such devils to you and to ourselves, as to hide a matter of such inconceivable moment from your eyes? What good would it do you to be thus flattered into hell? What good would it do you to have us to be damned with you, for being unfaithful for the preventing of your damnation? Who will laugh at this but satan, the great enemy both of us and you? Alas, you may easily think with yourselves that it is no pleasure to a minister to tell you so sad a story of your misery. But if a Balaam must say, "If Balak would give me the house full of gold and silver, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord, to do less or mores;" must not Christ's ministers be as faithful? I say again, if this Gospel were not true, I would be a sweeper of channels, rather than a preacher; and I would join in a petition to have all ministers banished the

land: but seeing it is otherwise, I appeal to your consciences, who it is that wrongeth you: whether Christ and his ministers to tell you of your danger, or yourselves to make light of it, and to refuse the cure?

CHAPTER IV.

THUS much I have spoken to you, to make you willing to hear and know the truth of your condition; my next desire is, that you will lay it well to heart. You will never make out aright for the remedy, till you feel your misery. Alas, what abundance of people are there in the world that never were converted, and yet live as carelessly as if all were well with them! Come among twenty that are as merry as the best, and ask them one by one, whether they are converted or not? And some will tell you, they hope so, they cannot tell; and some will deride you; and most of them perhaps know not what conversion is, nor ever much minded any such thing; and yet these very men do read, or hear the word of God, that telleth them so plainly, that, "Except they be converted, they shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." What do you think, sirs, of such words, when you hear them, or read them? Are you never touched at the heart with them, and doth conscience never make you cry out, Alas, then, what will become of me? Well, because I would have you sensible of your condition, lest you should rest in it to your undoing, I will tell you a little further, what it is in some particulars: and the Lord awake you to lay them to heart!

1. As long as you are unconverted, you are no true. children of God, nor members of Jesus Christ. And therefore you have no part in that fatherly, special love, but still stand before his eyes as enemies. For your hearts are not towards him, but toward the things below, as you know, or might know if you would. The world is divided into two sorts, the children of God, and the children of the devil: the converted, and they only, are the children of God, as you may see, John i. 10, 11. Rom. viii. 9. All the unconverted are the children of the devil, as Christ himself calls some of them, John viii. 44. And so 1 John iii. 10. it is said of