An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners

Dir. III. Strive to affect thy heart with a deep sense of thy present misery. Read over the foregoing Chapter again and again, and get it out of the book into thine heart. Remember when thou liest down, that for ought thou knowest, thou mayest awake in flames, and when thou risest up, that by the next night thou mayest make thy bed in hell. Is it a jesting matter to live in such a fearful case? to stand tottering upon the brink of the bottomless pit, and to live at the mercy of every disease, that if it will but fall upon thee, will send thee forthwith into the burnings? Suppose thou sawest a condemned wretch hanging over Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace by nothing but a twine thread, which were ready to break every moment: would not thine heart tremble for such a one? Why, thou art the man. This is thy very case, O man, woman, that readest this, if thou be yet unconverted. What if the thread of thy life should break? (Why, thou knowest not but it may be the next night, yea the next moment) where wouldst thou be then? ⟨p. 146⟩whither wouldst thou drop? verily, upon the crack but of this thread, thou fallest into the lake, that burneth with fire and brimstone, where thou must lie scalding and sweltering in a fiery ocean, while God hath a being, if thou die in thy present case. And doth not thy soul tremble as thou readest? Do not thy tears bedew the paper, and thy heart throb in thy bosom? Dost thou not yet begin to smite on thy breast, and bethink thy self, what need thou hast of a change? Oh what is thy heart made of! Hast thou not only lost all regard to God, but art without any love and pity to thy self?

Dir. III. Strive to affect thy heart with a deep sense of thy present misery. Read over the foregoing Chapter again and again, and get it out of the book into thine heart. Remember when thou liest down, that for ought thou knowest, thou maist awake in flames, and when thou risest up, that by the next night thou maist make thy bed in hell. Is it a jesting matter to live in such a fearful case? to stand tottering upon the brink of the bottomless pit, and to live at the mercy of every disease, that if it will but fall upon thee, will send thee forthwith into the burnings? Suppose thou sawest a condemned wretch hanging over Nebuch•dnezar's burning fiery furnace by nothing but a twine thread, which were ready to break every moment: would not thine heart tremble for such a one? Why, thou art the man. This is thy very case, O man, woman, that readest this, if thou be yet unconverted. What if the thred of thy life should break? (Why, thou knowest not but it may be the next night, yea the next moment) where wouldst thou be then?