A26695:126
A sure guide to heaven, or, An earnest invitation to sinners to turn to…
A sure guide to heaven, or, An earnest invitation to sinners to turn to God in order to their eternal salvation showing the thoughtful sinner what he must do to be saved / by Joseph Alleine.A sure guide to heaven, or, An earnest invitation to sinners to turn to God in order to their eternal salvation shewing the thoughtful sinner what he must do to be saved / by Joseph Alleine.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1688
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.
Reader, dost thou view this, and never ask thy self, whether it be thus with thee? Pause a while, and breath on this great concernment.
2. The Election also is changed, so that he chooses another way, Psal. 119. 30. He pitches upon God, as his blessedness, and upon Christ as the principal, and holiness as the subordinate means to bring him to God, John 14. 6. Rom. 2. 7. He chooses Jesus for his Lord, Col. 2. 6. He is not merely forced into Christ by the storm, nor doth he take Christ for bare necessity, as the man begged from the gallows, when he takes the wife rather than the halter: but he comes off freely in the choice. This match is not made in a fright as with the terrified conscience or dying sinner; that will seemingly do any thing for Christ, but doth only take Christ, rather than Hell: but he deliberately resolves, that Christ is his best choice, Phil. 1. 23. and would rather have him to choose, than all the good of this world, might he enjoy it while he would. Again, he takes holiness for his path: He doth not out of mere necessity submit to it: but he likes and loves it. I have chosen the way of thy Precepts, Ps. 119. 173. He takes God's testimonies not as his bondage, but as his heritage, yea his heritage for ever, v. 111. He counts them not his burden, but his Bliss, not his cords, but his cordials, 1 John 5. 3. Psal. 119. 14, 16, 17. He doth not only bear, but take up Christ's yoke: He takes not holiness as the stomach doth the loathed potion, (which it will down with rather than dye) but as the hungry doth his beloved food: Now time passes so sweetly with him (when he is himself) as that he spends in the exercises of holiness; these are both his