Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity,…

§ 6. And alas, if you should be cut off in that unholy, miserable Estate, no heart on earth can sufficiently bewail your case! How many thousand die young, that promised themselves longer pleasure in sin, and Repentance after it? O foolish sinners! Cannot you so long borrow the use of your reason, as to think seriously whither you must go next? Do you never think when the small Pox or a Fever hath taken away one of your Companions, whither it is that his Soul is gone? Have you your Wit for nothing but to taste the sweetness of Drink or Lust, which is as pleasant to a Dog or Swine as to you? O little you know what it is to die! what it is for a Soul to leave the Body, and enter into ⟨p. 41⟩an endless World! To come to judgment for all his sins, and all his ill spent days and hours, and for choosing the pleasures of a Swine before Heaven, and the pleasures of a Saint. Little know you what it is for Devils presently to take away to Hell a wretched Soul which they have long deceived. I tell you the thought of appearing before God, and Christ, and Angels in another World, and entering on an endless state, is so dreadful, even to many that have spent their lives in holy preparation, and are indeed in a safe Condition, that they have much ado to overcome the terror of Death. Even some of Gods own faithful Servants are almost overwhelmed, when they think of so great a change: And though the belief of God's Love and the heavenly Glory do support them, and should make them long to be with Christ, yet, alas, Faith is weak, and the Change is great beyond our Comprehension, and therefore feared. O then in what a Case is a wicked, unpardoned, unprepared Wretch, when his guilty soul must be torn from his Body, and dragged in terror to hear its doom, and so to the dreadful Execution? Sinners! Is this a light matter to you? Doth it not concern you? Are you not here mortal? Do ⟨p. 42⟩you not know what Flesh is, and what a Grave is? And are not your abused Souls immortal? Are you so mad as to forget this? Or so bad as not to believe it? Will your not believing it make void the Justice and the Law of God, and save you from that Hell, which only believing could have saved you from? Will not the fire burn you, or the Sea drown you, if you can but run into it drunk or winking? Is feeling, remediless feeling easier than believing God in time? Alas!