An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners

Secondly, Thy hopes of Salvation hereafter are in vain: yea worse than in vain; they are most injurious to God, most pernicious to thy self; there is death, desperation, blasphemy in the bowels of this hope. 1. There is death in it. Thy confidence shall be rooted out of thy tabernacles, (God will up with it root and branch) it shall bring thee to the King of terrors. Job 18. 14. Though thou mayest lean upon this house, it will not stand, Job. 8. 15. but will prove like a ruinous building, which when a man trusts to it, falls down about his ears. 2. There is desperation in it. Where is the hope of the hypocrite, when God taketh away his soul? Job 27. 8. Then there is an end, for ever, of his hope. Indeed, the hope of the righteous hath an end, but then 'tis not a destructive, but a perfective end; his hope ends in fruition, others in frustration. Prov. 10. 28. The godly must say at death, It is finished; but the wicked, It is perished; and in too sad earnest bemoan himself, (as he in a mistake) Where now is my hope? He hath destroyed me, I am gone, and my hope is removed like a tree. Job. 19. 10. The righteous hath hope in his death. Prov. 14. 32. When nature is ⟨p. 70⟩dying, his hopes are living: when his body is languishing, his hopes are flourishing, his hope is a living hope, 1 Pet. 1. 3. [Greek or Hebrew]. but others a dying, yea a damning, soul undoing hope. When a wicked man dyeth, his expectation shall perish; and the hope of unjust men perisheth. Prov 11. 7. It shall be cut off, and prove like the spiders web, Job 8. 14. which he spins out of his won bowels, but then comes death with the broom, and takes down all, and so there is an eternal end of his confidence, wherein he trusted. For the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost.