The way to true happiness in a serious treatise /

Oh consider your makers condescension. Let me say to you, as Naaman's servant to him; My father, if the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou 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, though these had been the conditions? Yea further, if God should have told you, you should have fried in the fire for millions of ages, or been tormented so long 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 come and bid you take your choice, whether you would renounce your sins, accept his 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 ⟨p. 200⟩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 knew 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 shouldest 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 bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou 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, though these had been the conditions? Yea further, if God should have told you, you should have fryed in the fire for millions of ages, or been tormented so long 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 come and bid you take your choice, whether you would renounce your sins, accept his Christ, and serve him a few years in self-denyal, 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