A26682:288
An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners
An alarm to unconverted sinners, in a serious treatise ... whereunto are annexed Divers practical cases of conscience judiciously resolved / by Joseph Alleine, late preacher of the Gospel at Taunton in Somerset-shire.An alarme to unconverted sinners, in a serious treatise ... whereunto are annexed Divers practical cases of conscience judiciously resolved / by Joseph Alleine, late preacher of the Gospel at Taunton in Somerset-shire.
London: printed by E.T. and R.H., 1672
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But this is yet the more posing difficulty, that I am to speak to them that are without sense. Alas, this is not the least part of man's misery upon him, that he is dead, stark dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 2. 1.
Could I bring Paradise into view, or represent the Kingdom of Heaven to as much advantage, as the tempter did the Kingdoms of the world and all the glory thereof to our Saviour: or could I uncover the face of the deep and devouring gulf of Tophet in all its terrors, and open the grates of the infernal furnace, alas he hath no eyes to see it. Mat. 13. 14, 15. Could I paint out the beauties of holiness, or glory of the Gospel to the life; or could I bring above board the more than diabolical deformity and ugliness of sin; he can no more judge of the loveliness and beauty of the one, nor of the filthiness and hatefulness of the other, than the blind of colours. He is alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him, because of the blindness of his ⟨p. 106⟩heart. Eph. 4. 18. He neither doth nor can know the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. 2. 14. His eyes cannot be savingly opened, but by converting grace: Act. 26. 18. he is a child of darkness, and walks in darkness, 1 John 1. 6. yea the light in him is darkness. Mat. 6. 2. 3
Could I bring Paradise into view, or represent the Kingdom of Heaven to as much advantage, as the tempter did the Kingdoms of the world and all the glory thereof to our Saviour: or could I uncover the face of the deep and devouring gulf of Tophet in all its terrors, and open the grates of the infernal furnace, alas he hath no eyes to see it.