A26695:417
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.
Oh! I am even lost and swallowed up in the abundance of those arguments that I might suggest. If there be any point of wisdom in all the world, it is to repent and come in, if there be any thing righteous, any thing reasonable, this is it. If there be any thing in the world that may be called madness, and folly, and any thing that may be counted sottish, absurd, brutish, unreasonable, it is this, to go on in thine unconverted estate. Let me beg thee, as thou wouldst not wilfully destroy thy self, to sit down and weigh, besides what hath been said, these following Motives, and let conscience speak, if it be not reason, that thou shouldst repent and turn.
1. The God that made thee doth most graciously invite thee.
First, His most sweet and merciful nature doth invite thee; Oh the kindness of God, his working bowels, his tender mercies! they are infinitely above our thoughts, higher than heaven, what can we do? Deeper than hell, what can we know? Job 11. 7, 8, 9. He is full of compassion, and gracious; long suffering, and plenteous in mercy, Psal. 86. 15. This is a great argument to persuade sinners to come in. Turn unto the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, •low to anger, of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. If God would not repent of the evil, it were some discouragement to us, why we should not repent. If there were no hope of mercy, it were no such wonder, if rebels should stand out; but never had Subjects such a gracious Prince, such Piety, Patience, Clemency, pity to deal with, as you have. Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity? &c. Mic. 7. 18