I Beseech you now, all that love your souls, that instead of quarrelling with God and with his Word, you will presently stoop to it, and use it for your good. All you that are yet unconverted in this Assembly, take this as the ⟨p. 22⟩undoubted truth of God: You must ere long be converted or condemned. There is no other way, but Turn or Dye. When God that cannot lye hath told you this; When you hear it from the Maker and Judge of the world its time for him that hath ears to hear. By this time you may see what you have to trust to. You are but dead and damned men, except you will be converted. Should I tell you otherwise, I should deceive you with a lye. Should I hide this from you, I should undo you, and be guilty of your blood, as the verses before my Text assure me, Ver. 8. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man thou shalt surely dye, if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall dye in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. You see then, though this be a rough unwelcome Doctrine, its such as ⟨p. 23⟩we must preach, and you must hear. It is easier to hear of Hell then feel it. If your necessities did not require it, we would not gall your tender ears with truths that seem so harsh and grievous. Hell would not be so full, if people were but willing to know their case, and to hear and think of it. The reason why so few escape it, is because they strive not to enter in at the strait gate of Conversion, and to go the narrow way of holiness while they have time: and they strive not because they be not wakened to a lively feeling of the danger they are in: and they be not wakened, because they are doth to hear or think of it; and that is partly through foolish tenderness, and carnal self-love, and partly because they do not well believe the Word that threateneth it. If you will but throughly believe this truth, me thinks the ⟨p. 24⟩weight of it should force you to remember it; and it should follow you, and give you no rest till you are converted. If you had but once heard this word by the voice of an Angel, Thou must be Converted or Condemned; Turn or Die: would it not stick in your mind, and haunt you night and day, so that in your sinning you would remember it, and at your labour you would remember it, as if the voice were still in your ears, Turn or Die.
I Beseech you now, all that love your souls, that instead of quarrelling with God and with his Word, you will presently stoop to it, and use it for your good. All you that are yet unconverted in this Assembly, take this as the ⟨p. 22⟩undoubted truth of God: You must ere long be converted or condemned. There is no other way, but Turn or Dye. When God that cannot lye hath told you this; When you hear it from the Maker and Judge of the world its time for him that hath ears to hear. By this time you may see what you have to trust to. You are but dead and damned men, except you will be converted. Should I tell you otherwise, I should deceive you with a lye. Should I hide this from you, I should undoe you, and be guilty of your blood, as the verses before my Text assure me, Ver. 8. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man thou shalt surely dye, if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall dye in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. You see then, though this be a rough unwelcome Doctrine, its such as ⟨p. 23⟩we must preach, and you must hear. It is easier to hear of Hell then feel it. If your necessities did not require it, we would not gall your tender ears with truths that seem so harsh and grievous. Hell would not be so full, if people were but willing to know their case, and to hear and think of it. The reason why so few escape it, is because they strive not to enter in at the strait gate of Conversion, and to go the narrow way of holines• while they have time: and they strive not because they be not wakened to a lively feeling of the danger they are in: and they be not wakened, because they are doth to hear or think of it; and that is partly through foolish tenderness, and carnal self-love, and partly because they do not well believe the Word that threatneth it. If you will but throughly believe this truth, me thinks the ⟨p. 24⟩weight of it should force you to remember it; and it should follow you, and give you no rest till you are converted. If you had but once heard this word by the voice of an Angel, Thou must be Converted or Condemned; Turn or Die: would it not stick in your mind, and haunt you night and day, so that in your sinning you would remember it, and at your labour you would remember it, as if the voice were still in your ears, Turn or Die.
