A26695:430
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 consider your Makers condescension. Let me say to you, as Naaman's servant to him: My Father, if the Prophet had b•d thee do some great thing, wouldst then not have done it? how much rather, when he saith unto thee, wash and be clean? 2 Kings 5. 13. If God had demanded some terrible, some severe and rigorous thing of you, to escape eternal damnation, would you not have done it? Suppose it had been to spend all your days in sorrow in some howling Wilderness, or pine your selves with famine, or to offer the fruit of your bodies for the sin of your souls, would you not have thankfully accepted eternal redemption, ⟨p. 164⟩though these had been the conditions? Yea farther, if God should have told you, you should have fried in the fire for millions of ages, or been so long tormented in Hell, would you not have gladly accepted it? Alas, all these are not so much as one sand in the glass of eternity. If your offended Creator should have held you but one year upon the rack, and then bid you come and forsake your sins, accept Christ, and serve him a few years in self-denial, or lie in this case for ever and ever: Do you think you should have stuck at the offer, and disputed the terms, and have been unresolved, whether you were best to accept of the motion? O sinner return and live; why shouldest thou die, when life is to be had for the taking, and mercy should be beholding to thee (as it were) to be saved? Couldst thou say indeed, Lord, I know that thou wast an hard man, Mat. 25. 24. thou hadst some little excuse; but when the God of Heaven hath stooped so low, and bated so far, if now thou shouldst stand off, who shall plead for thee?
Oh consider your Makers condescention. Let me say to you, as Naaman's servant to him: My Father, if the Prophet had b•d thee do some great thing, wouldst then not have done it? how much rather, when he saith unto thee, wash and be clean? 2 Kings 5. 13. If God had demanded some terrible, some severe and rigorous thing of you, to escape eternal damnation, would you not have done it? Suppose it had been to spend all your days in sorrow in some howling Wilderness, or pine your selves with famine, or to offer the fruit of your bodies for the sin of your souls, would you not have thankfully accepted eternal redemption,