A26701:320
The way to true happiness in a serious treatise /
The way to true happiness in a serious treatise / by Joseph Alleine.
London : Printed and are to be sold by Nevil Simmons, 1678
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Introduction › Chapter 6: Containing DIRECTIONS for Conversion.
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.
Just thus is the wilful destruction of ungodly ⟨p. 138⟩men. The God that made them beseecheth them, and crieth out to them, as Paul to the distracted Jailer, when about to murder himself, Do thy self no harm. The Ministers of Christ forewarn them and follow them, and fain would hold them back. But alas! No expostulations, nor obtestations will prevail; but men will hurl themselves into perdition, while pity it self looketh on.
Just thus is the wilful destruction of ungodly ⟨p. 138⟩men. The God that made them beseecheth them, and cryeth out to them, as Paul to the distracted Jaylor, when about to murder himself, Do thy self no harm. The Ministers of Christ forewarn them and follow them, and fain would hold them back. But alas! No expostulations, nor obtestations will prevail; but men will hurl themselves into perdition, while pity it self looketh on.
What shall I say? Would it not grieve a person of any humanity, if in the time of a reigning plague he should have a receipt (as one well) that would infallibly cure all the Country, and recover the most hopeless patients, and yet his friends and neighbours should die by the hundreds about him, because they would not use it? Men and Brethren, though you carry the certain symptoms of death in your faces, yet I have a receipt that will cure you all, that will cure infallibly. Follow but these few directions, and if you do not then win Heaven, I will be content to lose it.
What shall I say? Would it not grieve a person of any humanity, if in the time of a reigning plague he should have a receipt (as one well) that would infallibly cure all the Countrey, and recover the most hopeless patients, and yet his friends and neighbours should die by the hundreds about him, because they would not use it? Men and Brethren, though you carry the certain symptoms of death in your faces, yet I have a receipt that will cure you all, that will cure infallibly. Follow but these few directions, and if you do not then win Heaven, I will be content to lose it.