A26695:239
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.
While we keep aloof in generals there is little fruit to be expected. It is the hand-fight that does execution. David is not awakened by the Prophet's hovering at a distance, in parabolical insinuations: he is forced to close with him, and tell him home, Thou art the man. Few will, in words, deny the necessity of the new Birth; But they have a self deluding confidence, that the work is not now to do. And because they know themselves free from that gross hypocrisy, that doth take up Religion merely for a colour to deceive others, and for the covering of wicked designs: they are confident of their sincerity, and suspect not that mor• close hypocrisy (where the greatest danger lies) by which a man deceiveth his own soul, Jam. 1. 26. But mans deceitful heart is such a matchless cheat, and self delusion, so reigning and so fatal a disease that I know not whether be the greater, the difficulty, or the displicency, or the necessity of the undeceiving work that I am now upon. Alas for my unconverted hearers! They must be undeceived, or undone; but how shall this be effected? hic labor, hoc opus est.
VVHile we keep aloof in generals there is little fruit to be expected. It is the hand-fight that does execution. David is not awaken'd by the Prophet's hovering at a distance, in parabolical insinuations: he is forced to close with him, and tell him home, Thou art the man. Few will, in words, deny the necessity of the new Birth; But they have a self deluding confidence, that the work is not now to do. And because they know themselves free from that gross hypocrisie, that doth take up Religion merely for a colour to deceive others, and for the covering of wicked designs: they are confident of their sincerity, and suspect not that mor• close hypocrisie (where the greatest danger lies) by which a man deceiveth his own soul, Iam. 1. 26. But mans deceitful heart is such a matchless cheat, and self delusion, so reigning and so fatal a disease that I know not whether be the greater, the difficulty, or the displicency, or the necessity of the undeceiving work that I am now upon. Alas for my unconverted hearers! They must be undeceived, or undone; but how shall this be effected? hic labor, hoc opus est.