A Call to the Unconverted

Is not this the Truth of your case Sirs? You would not burn in Hell: But you will kindle the fire by your sin, and cast your selves into it: you would not be tormented with Devils for ever; But you will do that which will certainly procure it, in despite of all that can be said against it. It is just as if you would say, I will drink this rats-bane, or other poison, but yet I will not die. I will cast my self headlong from the top of a steeple, but yet I will not kill my self; I will thrust this knife into ⟨p. 153⟩my heart, but yet I will not take away my life. I will put this fire into the thatch of my house, but yet I will not burn it. Just so it is with wicked men; they will be wicked; and they will live after the flesh and the world, and yet they would not be damned. But do you not know that the means do lead unto the end? and that God hath by his righteous Law concluded that you must repent or perish? He that will take poison, may as well say plainly, I will kill my self: for it will prove no better in the end: Though perhaps he loved it for the sweetness of the Sugar that was mixed with it, and would not be persuaded that it was poison, but that he might take it and do well enough: But it is not his conceits, and confidence, that will save his life. So if you will be Drunkards, or Fornicators, or worldlings, or live after ⟨p. 154⟩the flesh, you may as well say plainly, we will be damned: For so you shall be unless you Turn; would you not rebuke the folly of a thief or murderer, that would say, [I will steal, and kill, but I will not be hanged,] when he knows that if he do the one, the Judge in justice will see that the other be done? If he say, I will steal and murder, he may as well say plainly, I will be hanged. So if you will go on in a carnal life, you may as well say plainly, we will go to Hell.

Is not this the Truth of your case Sirs? You would not burn in Hell: But you will kindle the fire by your sin, and cast your selves into it: you would not be tormented with Devils for ever; But you will do that which will certainly procure it, in despite of all that can be said against it. It is just as if you would say, I will drink this rats-bane, or other poison, but yet I will not die. I will cast my self headlong from the top of a steeple, but yet I will not kill my self; I will thrust this knife into ⟨p. 153⟩