A26695:294
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.
First, His Justice is like a flaming Sword unsheathed against thee. If I whet my glittering Sword, and my Hand take hold on Judgment, I will render vengeance to mine adversaries, and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, &c. Deut. 32. 40, 41. So exact is Justice, that 'twill by no means clear the guilty, Exod. 34. 7. God will not discharge thee, he will not hold thee guiltless, Exod. 20. 7. but will require the whole debt in person of thee; unless thou canst make a Scripture claim to Christ and his satisfaction. When the enlightened Sinner looks on justice, and sees the balance in which he must be weighed, and the sword by which he must be executed, he feels an earth-quake in his Breast. But Satan keeps this out of sight, and persuades the Soul while he can, that the Lord is all made up of mercy, and so lulls it asleep in sin. Divine justice ⟨p. 94⟩is very strict; it must have satisfaction to the utmost farthing; it denounceth indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, to every soul that doth evil, Rom. 2. 8, 9. It curseth every one that continueth not in every thing that is written in the Law to do it, Gal. 3. 10. The justice of God to the unpardoned sinner, that hath a sense of his misery is more terrible than the sight of the Bailiff or Creditor to the bankrupt debtor, or than the sight of the Judge, and Bench to the Robber, or of the Irons and Gibbet to the guilty Murderer. When Justice sits upon life and death, Oh what dreadful work doth it make with the wretched sinner? Bind him hand and foot, cast him, into utter darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, Mat. 22. 13. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, Mat. 25. 41. This is the terrible sentence that Justice pronounceth. Why sinner, by this severe Justice must thou be tried; and as God liveth, this killing sentence shalt thou hear, unless thou repent and be converted.