The unbelievers preparing for Christ. By T.HThe vnbeleevers preparing for Christ. By T.H

Another generation there is, that come to the house of God, and sit as Gods people do, and hear as Gods people do, but their hearts runneth after their covetousness; when in your souls you can say, our bodies are here indeed, but our hearts are after our lusts and corruptions, after our profits and pleasures; if it be thus with you, then still you resolve that your hearts shall not will the grace of God, and therefore it is clear and evident, that you have not yet received grace. Men resolve to do as they did in the 18 of the Prophecy of Jeremiah, verse, ¹12. They said, there is no hope, but we will walk every one after our own devices, and do the imaginations of our evil heart. When the Lord called upon them to walk in the good way, oh they would none of that! but they would walk after the imaginations of their hearts. And did these spirits think ye dye in those times, are not ⟨p. 47⟩some such now among us in these times, wherein men say, we will not reform our families, nor we will not pray with them, we will not keep the Sabbaths, nor we will not leave our swearing and our swaggering, our pride and our covetousness; no, all the Ministers under heaven shall not persuade us, we will take up our own lewd and wicked courses, we will be profane still, and we will swear still, we will not amend our lives, nor reform our families, in what a miserable accursed damnable estate are those men, they will not leave and forsake their lewd practises, and therefore they cannot will grace, and if they cannot will it, then we may certainly conclude, they shall never obtain it. But you will say, you would leave your wicked courses, and reform your families if you could do it, but you cannot. I answer, is it nor in your power to pluck your children and your servants into the Lords house on the Sabbath day, is it not in your power to use the means whereby you may reform your lives? you can do it, but you will not do it, you will take up your own ways, and your own practises, and therefore the case is plain, you will not take Christ, and therefore you shall never have him, and Salvation by him, there is also a cursed kind of Hypocrites which profess fair, and much, they say they will do for the Lord Jesus,² but they are like unto those in the 42. of Jeremiah, the 20.

Another generation there is, that come to the house of God, and sit as Gods people do, and heare as Gods people doe, but their hearts runneth after their covetousnesse; when in your soules you can say, our bodies are here indeed, but our hearts are after our lusts and corruptions, after our profits and pleasures; if it be thus with you, then still you resolve that your hearts shall not will the grace of God, and therefore it is cleare and evident, that you have not yet received grace. Men resolve to doe as they did in the 18 of the Prophecy of Ieremie, verse,