sanctified and the carnal; between an obedient and a rebellious life. While you sit here you little know these things. You see them not you feel them not: and the Lord grant you may never so know them by woful experience: that you may escape such a knowledge, is the end of all that I am saying to you: But that will not be, but by another kind of knowledge, even the knowledge of belief and serious consideration.

For your souls' sake therefore come into the light, and try yourselves, and huddle not over a work of such unspeakable consequence, as the searching of your hearts and judging of your spiritual state! O be glad to know what you are indeed! Put home the question, Am I sanctified or not? Am I in the Spirit or in the flesh?' Be glad of any help for the sure resolution of such doubts. Take not up with slight and venturous presumptions. It is your own case; your nearest and your greatest case; all lies upon it: who should be so willing of the plainest dealing, the speediest and the closest search as you? O be not surprised by an unexpected sight of an unrenewed, miserable soul at death! If it be so, see it now, while seeing it may do good: if it be not so, a faithful search can do you no harm, but comfort you by the discovery of your sincerity. Say not too late, 'I thought I had been born again of the Spirit, and had been in a state of grace: I thought I had been a child of God, and reconciled to him, and justified by faith!' O what a hearttearing word would it be to you, when time is past, to say, I thought it had been better with me!'

4. Consider also, that it is one of Satan's principal designs of your damnation, to keep you ignorant of yourselves. He knows if he can but make you believe, that you are regenerate when you are not, you will never seek to be regenerate: and that if he can make you think that you are godly, when you are ungodly, and have the Spirit of Christ, while you are servants to the flesh, he may defeat all the labours of your teachers, and let them call on you to be converted till their hearts ache, to no purpose, but leave you as you are: He knows how light you will sit by the physician, if he' can but make you believe that you are well! and how little care you will take for a pardon, if you think that you need it not, or have one already. In vain we may call on you till

we are hoarse, to turn and become new creatures, and give up yourselves to Christ, if you think that you are good Christians, and are in the way to heaven already.

And when you know beforehand, that there lieth the principal game of the deceiver, and that it will be his chief contrivance, to keep you unacquainted with your sin and danger, till you are past recovery, one would think there should be no need to bid you to be diligent to know yourselves.

5. And I beseech you consider also, that without this design there is no likelihood that Satan could undo you: if he keep you not ignorant of yourselves, he is never likely to keep you in his power: you come out of his kingdom when you come out of darkness. He knoweth that if once you did but see how near you stand to the brink of hell, you would think it time to change your standing.

There is a double principle in nature, that would do something towards your repentance and recovery, if your eyes were opened to see where you are.

1. There is since the seduction and ruin of man, by Satan's temptations, an enmity put into the whole nature of man against the whole satanical, serpentine nature; so that this natural enmity would so much conduce to your deliverance, as that you would not be contented with your relation, if you knew that you are the drudges of the devil; nor would you be charmed into sin so easily, if you knew that it is he indeed that doth invite you; nor would you dance after his pipe, or take his bait, if you perceived indeed that it is his no language would be so taking with you, which you knew was uttered by his voice. It would do much to affright you from his service, if you knew that it is he indeed that setteth you on to work, and is gratified by it. He keepeth men in his bondage, by making them believe that they are free: he persuadeth men to obey him, by persuading them that it is God that they obey: and he draweth them to hell by making them believe that they are following Christ to heaven; or at least, that they are following the inclination of their nature in a pardonable infirmity.

2. And the natural principle of self-love, would in order to self-preservation, do much to drive you from your sinful state, if you did but know what a state it is. There is no man so far hateth himself, as to be willing to be damned.

You cannot choose an habitation in hell; for such a place can never be desired. Surely he that cannot choose but to fly from an enemy, or a bear that did pursue him, or fly from fire, or water, or pestilence, when he perceives his danger, would fly from hell if he perceived his danger.

I beseech you all, that are secure in an unsanctified state, do but look inwards, and help me in preaching this doctrine to your hearts, and tell yourselves, whether you do think that your state is good, and that you are the children of God as well as others; and that though you are sinners, yet your sins are pardoned by the blood of Christ, and that you shall be saved if you die in the state that you are in? And are not these thoughts the reason why you venture to continue in your present state, and look not after so great a change as Scripture speaketh of as necessary?

And I pray you deal plainly with your hearts, and tell me, you careless sinners, young or old, that sit here as quietly as if all were well with you, If you did but know that you are at this hour unregenerate, and that without regeneration there is no salvation: if you did but know that you are yet carnal and unholy, and that "without holiness none shall see God:" if you did but know that you are yet in a state of enmity to God while you call him Father, and of enmity to Christ while you call him your Saviour, and of enmity to the Holy Spirit, while you call him your Sanctifier: if you did but know that your sins are unpardoned, and your souls unjustified, and that you are condemned already, and shall certainly be damned if you die as you are, Could you live quietly in such a state? Could you sleep, and eat and drink quietly, and follow your trades, and let time run on without repenting and returning unto God, if you knew that you are past hope, if death surprise you in this condition? For the Lord's sake, sirs, rouse up yourselves a little, and be serious in a business that concerneth you more than ten thousand natural lives; and tell me, or rather tell yourselves, If you did but know that while you sit here, you are unrenewed, and therefore under the curse of God, and in the bondage of the devil, and are hastening towards perdition, and are gone for ever, if you be not sanctified and made new creatures before you die: could you then put off this sermon with a sleepy, careless hearing, and go home and talk of common matters, and no more mind it, as you have done by

sermons until now? Could you forbear going alone, and there bethink yourselves, 'O what a sinful, dreadful condition are we in! What will become of us, if we be not regenerate before we die! Had we no understandings, no hearts, no life or sense, that we have lingered so long, and lived so carelessly in such a state! O where had we been now, if we had died unregenerate! How near have we been oft to death! How many sicknesses might have put an end to life and hope! Had any of them cut off the slender thread that our lives have hanged on so long, and had we died before this day, we had been now in hell without remedy.' Could any of you that knew this to be your case, forbear to betake yourselves to God, and cry to him in the bitterness of your souls, O Lord, what rebels, what wretches have we been! We have sinned against heaven and before thee, and are no more worthy to be called thy children! O how sin hath captivated our understandings, and conquered our very sense, and made us live like men that were dead, as to the love and service of God, and the work of our salvation, which we were created and redeemed for! O Lord, have mercy upon these blind and senseless miserable souls! Have mercy upon these despisers and abusers of thy mercy! O save us or we perish! Save us from our sins, from Satan, from thy curse and wrath! Save us, or we are undone and lost for ever! Save us from the unquenchable fire, from the worm that never dieth! from the bottomless pit, the outer darkness, the horrid gulf of endless misery! O let the bowels of thy compassion yearn over us! O save us for thy mercy sake; shut not out the cries of miserable sinners. Regenerate, renew and sanctify our hearts; O make us new creatures! O plant thine image on our souls, and incline them towards thee, that they may be wholly thine! O make us such as thou commandest us to be! Away with our sins, and sinful pleasures, and sinful company! We have had too much, too much of them already! Let us now be thine, associated with them that love and fear thee; employed in the works of holiness and obedience all our days! Lord, we are willing to let go our sins, and to be thy servants: or if we be not, make us willing.'

What say you, sirs, if you knew that you were this hour in a state of condemnation, could you forbear making haste

with such confessions, complaints, and earnest supplications to God?

And could you forbear going presently to some faithful minister, or godly friend, and telling him your case and danger, and begging his advice, and prayers, and asking him, what a poor sinner must do to be recovered, pardoned and saved, that is so deep in sin and misery, and hath despised Christ and grace so long? Could you tell how to sleep quietly many nights more, before you had earnestly sought out for help, and made this change? How could you choose but presently betake yourselves to the company, and converse, and examples of the godly that are within. your reach? (For whenever a man is truly changed, his friendship and company is changed, if he have opportunity.) And how could you choose but go and take your leave of your old companions, and with tears and sorrow tell them, how foolishly and sinfully you have done, and what wrong you have done each other's souls, and entreat them to repent and do so no more, or else you will renounce them, and fly from their company as from a pesthouse?

Can a man forbear thus to fly from hell, if he saw that he is as near it as a condemned traitor to the gallows? He that will beg for bread, if he be hungry, and rather lay by shame than famish, would beg for grace, if he saw and felt how much he needeth it: and seeing it, is the way to feel it. He that will seek for medicines when he is sick, and would do almost any thing to escape a temporal death, would he not seek out to Christ, the remedy of his soul, if he knew and felt that otherwise there is no recovery? and would he not do much against eternal death? "Skin for skin, and all that a man hath, he will give for his life;" was a truth that the devil knew and maketh use of in his temptations. And will a man then be regardless of his soul, that knows he hath an immortal soul? and of life eternal, that knows his danger of eternal death?

O, sirs, it is not possible, but the true knowledge of your state of sin and danger, would do very much to save you from it. For it is a wilful, chosen state. All the devils in hell cannot bring you to it, and continue you in it against your will. You are willing of the sin, though unwilling of the punishment. And if you truly knew the punishment,