Q. III. What if I should lose my soul? What fair work should I make of it then? This is very possible, Matth. 16. 26. Yea it is the case of the most: There are but few, few of the children of men that do escape safe to Heaven, Matth. 7. 14. Sirs, be aware of your danger, and fear lest a promise being left of entering into Rest, any of you should at last come short of it, Heb. 4. 1. Suppose a man were to travel through some perilous Wood or Wilderness, having but one Jewel in all the world, in which his All was bound up, and should see some stand on one hand and some on the other, and hear one company in this place and another in that, crying out under the hands of some cruel Robbers: Oh in what fear would this Traveller go least he should lose this Jewel, and be Robbed of all at once? Why thou art the man. This Traveller is thy self; This Jewel is thy Soul; This Wilderness or Wood is this World thou art to Travel through. Swarms of sins, Legions of Devils, a whole world of Temptations, ⟨p. 68⟩these are the Robbers that lie in wait for thy Soul: and if all that these can do can keep thee out of Heaven thou shalt never come there. Oh what if thy Pride, or worldliness, thy delays, and triflings in Religion, should at last betray thy Soul into the Robbers hands? Other losses may be repaired; But thy Soul being once lost, God is lost, Christ is lost, Heaven, all lost for evermore.
Q. III. What if I should lose my soul? What fair work should I make of it then? This is very possible, Matth. 16. 26. Yea it is the case of the most: There are but few, few of the children of men that do escape safe to Heaven, Matth. 7. 14. Sirs, be aware of your danger, and fear lest a promise being left of entring into Rest, any of you should at last come short of it, Heb. 4. 1. Suppose a man were to travel through some perilous Wood or Wilderness, having but one Jewel in all the world, in which his All was bound up, and should see some stand on one hand and some on the other, and hear one company in this place and another in that, crying out under the hands of some cruel Robbers: Oh in what fear would this Traveller go least he should lose this Jewel, and be Robbed of all at once? Why thou art the man. This Traveller is thy self; This Jewel is thy Soul; This Wilderness or Wood is this World thou art to Travel through. Swarms of sins, Legions of Devils, a whole world of Temptations, ⟨p. 68⟩these are the Robbers that lie in wait for thy Soul: and if all that these can do can keep thee out of Heaven thou shalt never come there. Oh what if thy Pride, or worldliness, thy delays, and triflings in Religion, should at last betray thy Soul into the Robbers hands? Other losses may be repaired; But thy Soul being once lost, God is lost, Christ is lost, Heaven, all lost for evermore.
