The way to true happiness in a serious treatise /

5. Wherein you are impotent, God doth offer grace to enable you. I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded, Prov. 1. 24. What though you are plunged into the ditch of that misery, from which you can never get out? Christ offereth to help you out; he stretcheth forth his hand to you, and if you perish, it is for refusing his help. Behold I stand at the door, and knock: if any man open to me, I will come in. Rev. 3. 20. What though you are poor, and wretched, and blind, and naked, Christ offereth a cure for your blindness, a cover for your nakedness, a remedy for your poverty, he tendereth you his righteousness, his graces. I counsel thee to buy of me gold that thou mayest be rich, and white •aiment that thou mayest be clothed and anoint thine ⟨p. 201⟩eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see, Rev. 3. 17, 18. Do you say, the condition is impossible, for I have not wherewith to buy? You must know, that this buying is without money and without price. Isaiah. 55. 1. This buying is by begging, and seeking with diligence and constancy in the use of Gods means. Prov. 2. 3, 4. God commandeth thee to know him, and to fear him. Dost thou say, yea but my mind is blinded and my heart is hardened from his fear? I answer, God doth offer to enlighten thy mind, and to teach thee his fear: that is presented to thy choice. Prov. 1. 29. For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, So that now if men live in ignorance and estrangement from the Lord, it is because they will not understand, and desire not the knowledge of his ways. Job 21. 14. If thou criest after knowledge, if thou seekest her as Silver, &c. Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.