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upon it: and you debase your own souls, and make them brutish, as if they had no better a happiness than a swine! or as if you were worms that live in the earth; or rather beetles that live in dung. Who can marvel, if a carnal man abuse God, and the godly, and all things else, when he wilfully and delightfully doth so abuse himself? It may turn the passion of those they abuse into compassion, when they consider, whatsoever they do against others, they do an hundred times more against themselves: they scorn us, and they wound themselves: they tempt others to sin, but they cast themselves into it: they wrong our names, or estates, or bodies, and they damn their own souls. Alas, poor wretches, who would have thoughts of revenge on such men that are the most cruel persecutors and destroyers of themselves? O what a base indignity do they put upon a noble and immortal soul, to make it like the body, inclining unto earth, as if it had been taken hence as the body was, to take it down from living upon God, and engage it in a life of mere vanity!

Moreover consider, that all the while you continue unconverted, you grow hardened in your sin; and as you forsake God more, so doth his Spirit withdraw from you: and custom will still make you worse and worse. Your recovery will be harder the next week than this, and therefore it is not a state to be continued in: but of this we shall speak, when we come to the particular exhortation.

10. As long as you remain in an unconverted state, you Deprive yourselves of a world of happiness, that God doth offer you, and you might possess. You might have God

instead of the creature; and Christ instead of a carnal self; and the Spirit instead of the devil that doth deceive you: you might have holiness instead of the filth of wickedness; and justification for condemnation; and a blessing for the curse; and the state of reconciledness, instead of the enmity that you are in to God: you might have peace of conscience instead of terrors or groundless security: you might serve a better master now and in better company; and have better wages both here and hereafter. You do not know what you lose every day that you remain unconverted, more than all the pleasures of sin can afford you. Ask any of them that have escaped out of that condition that you are in, whether

they are willing to return? You see not perhaps that they have got any thing by the change, and therefore you think you lose nothing by continuing as you are; but their gains are out of sight: it is almost out of their own sight, and therefore it well be out of yours. may But if themselves should deny it, it is not therefore an uncertain or contemptible thing; for the foundation of God standeth sure; he knoweth who are his. If it were but to be employed upon higher things, and to escape the deadly wounds of conscience which you give yourselves, or else prepare for, it is no small gain to be a true believer; and if they found themselves in no better a case than they were before, they would be tempted to return to their former state; but that they will not do for a world. I dare say, if you did know but the danger and horrible misery of the life that you now live, you would make as much haste out of it, as a man would do out of a house that was on fire over his head; or as a man that was at sea in a leaking vessel, that if he did not bestir himself as for his life to get it to the shore, would sink and drown him. And if you knew but the case of a converted soul, even of those that walk most heavily, and most bewail their own condition, you would not be out of it one day longer, if you could possibly help it. Well, I have shewed you what it is to be unconverted: if any of you dare yet go on in such a case, and unbelievingly cavil at the word of God, or carelessly trample it under your feet; if God do forsake you and leave you to yourselves, and if death do find you in that sad estate, you may thank yourselves.

CHAPTER V.

HAVING said thus much to you by way of terror, if it may be to drive you from an unconverted state, I shall not so leave you; but shall next say somewhat also by way of allurement to draw you to a better state. For as there is enough in your misery to drive a sober man from it, so is there enough in the hope that is set before you, to draw any believing heart to embrace it. The Gospel is a joyful message, and bringeth glad tidings of salvation to all that entertain it; if you will not shut your eyes by unbelief, or incon

siderateness, you shall see that God calls you not to your hurt or loss. If there be.not more to be had in his service than in the service of the world, the flesh, or the devil, take your course, and never regard me more. If I do not give you sufficient reason to prove to you that you may make a better bargain by speedy conversion, than by continuing in your carnal, unconverted state, I am contented that you never more give me the hearing: for my part, I would not persuade you to your hurt or loss, nor make such a stir about an uncertain gain; nor about a small matter, were it never so certain but my principal arguments are yet behind. Fear is not the principal affection of a true convert; and therefore terrifying arguments are not the principal means; yet these must be used, or else God had never put such an affection into man's heart; nor such terrifying passages into his word and we all feel the need and usefulness of it; for in reason he that is in danger should know it. But yet, it is love that must be the predominant affection, and therefore it is the discovery of the amiableness of God, and the wonderful gain that comes by godliness that must be the principal argument that we must use with you. For we know that men will not be directly affrighted into love, though they must be affrighted from the contrary that hindereth it : do not think that God hath no better argument to use with you, than to take you by the throat, and say, 'Love me or I will damn thee.' Thus he will use to wean you from the contrary love, and to let you know the fruit of your folly, that he may equally carry on his work upon all the affections of your souls together. But he that principally requireth your love, doth give you undeniable reason, why you should love him: and he that calls for your hearts, doth shew you that which might take with your hearts, and effectually win them, if your eyes were opened to see what he sheweth you. He draweth them as the loadstone doth the iron, by the force of his attractive love. If there be not more in God that is worth your love than in all the world, if all were yours, then hold on your present course and spare not. But why make I any comparison in such a case? It were a dangerous irreverence in me, but that your necessity requireth it; because wicked men do not only make a comparison first, but also prefer the world before God, though

not in their tongues, yet in their hearts and lives: if I were but able to make you thoroughly know what that condition is that I persuade you to, I would desire no better argument to prevail with you; were it in my power but to open your eyes to make you know what conversion is, and what it doth for those that have it, I should make no doubt of your speedy conversion: for none withdraw their hearts from God, but for want of knowing him; and none are against a holy life, but those that understand not sufficiently what it is and none do prefer this world, and the pleasures and profits of it before the glorious things that God doth offer them, but only they that are cheated and bewitched by it, and know not what it is that they dote upon. If I were but able to give you such a sight as Stephen had, (Acts vii, 56.), when he saw the heavens opened, and Christ standing at the right hand of God, I should have no need to call you from your fleshly vanities. O how contemptuously would you throw away your former pleasure, and run to see and be possessors of that glory! If I could but bring you with Paul into the third heaven, to see the unutterable things that every true believer shall possess, I would give you no thanks to cast off this world, and presently to turn to God. Nay, if you had but the light about you that Paul had at his conversion, it would do much but what talk I of these extraordinary things? If you did but know by a sound belief such as all the converted have, what a blessed life it is that we invite you to, away you would come without delay; as the apostles when Christ called them from their trades and friends, and bid them follow him, they presently left all, though they saw nothing in the world to draw them on; so would you, if you were but well illuminated. And because all that I can do in this work, is to propound to your understandings the excellency of that condition which I persuade you to, I shall next fall upon that, and leave the issue to God, desiring him to open your eyes, to see what shall be propounded.

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1. When a sinner is converted, he is delivered from the power of satan, Acts xxvi. 18. The bonds of your captivity will all be broken in your return to Christ, as Peter's chains fell off him, and the prison doors were set open, when the angel raised him up, (Acts xii. 7.); so will it be with thy soul when God converteth thee. Ignorance and wilfulness in

fleshly pleasures, and the love of this world, these are the chains that satan holds men in; and conversion will bring thee "from darkness to light," Acts xxvi. 18.

Even from

the "power of darkness into the kingdom of Christ,” Col. i. 13. It will bring such a marvellous light into thy mind, as thou never hadst before, which will make thee marvel at the riches of grace and glory, and marvel at the wonderful love of God, and wonder at that thy former folly that couldst neglect it. Thus will God bring thee "out of darkness into his marvellous light," 1 Pet. ii.9. Telling you what this light is, will not be sufficient to make you know it, till you see it yourselves. You shall then have other apprehensions of things than now you have, even of the same things which you see and seem to know. You will have another knowledge of the world, and of Christ, and grace, and duty, and all spiritual things, even of good and evil than now you have. `As the first sin did open Adam's eyes to know good and evil by sad experience, as having lost the good and felt the evil, and also to know them in a separated sense, as distinct and separated in his thoughts from God; so true conversion will open your eyes to know good and evil by a blessed experience, even to see God the chiefest good, as recovered to you for your felicity; and sin and hell the greatest evils from which you are delivered; and to see God in all the creatures, and the respect and tendency they have all to him. I cannot by bare telling you make you conceive what a marvellous change will be in your understanding; what an excellent and marvellous light you will see, when once conversion hath opened your eyes. Let me endeavour by a familiar comparison to acquaint you with somewhat of it in general, though I cannot give you the thing itself. You know that a dog that liveth in the house with you doth see the same things, and place, and persons in the house as you do; he knoweth every room, and every person in the house: suppose now that God should turn this dog suddenly into a man; do you think there would not be a marvellous change in his apprehension? Would he not see something in every thing, and place, and person to marvel at? Would he not know all these things in another manner than before he did? I do not say, that the change which conversion makes is just of such a kind as this; but it is very marvellous, and

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