Directions and persuasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…Directions and perswasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…

12. To conclude; Consideration would prevent a world of misery, which else will make you Consider when it is too late. It must be a principal means of your Salvation if ever you be saved. If God have so much Mercy for you, he ⟨p. 107⟩will make you Consider; and set your sins in order before you, Psal. 50. 21. And set Hell fire before your face, and hold your Thoughts on it, that you cannot look off. He will set before you a Crucified Christ, and tell you, that this your sins have done, and make you think of the Reason of his sufferings; & what there is in sin that could require it; and what it is to rebel against the Lord, and run your selves into the Consuming fire. Now your Thoughts are gadding abroad the world, and straggling after every trifle, and going away from God: But if ever God will save you, he will overtake your hearts, and fetch them home, and show them that they have somewhat else to think on. If Commands will not serve, he will send out his threatenings, and terrors shall come upon you, and pursue your Soul as the wind, Job 30. 15. He'll fetch you out of the Ale-house, and the Gaming-house, and take you off the merry pin; and lay that upon your heart, that you shall not easily shake off. If you are taken up with the Cares of the world, he'll show you that you have somewhat else to care for, and drown those Cares in greater Cares. If ⟨p. 108⟩you have such giddy, unsettled, vagrant minds, that you cannot call in your Thoughts to God, nor hold them with him; he will lay those clogs and bolts upon them at first, that shall restrain them from their idle vagaries: and then he will set upon them such a bias, as shall better order them, and fix them for the time to come. Men do not use to go to Heaven, and never think of it. And to scape Hell fire, and the plague of sin, and the curse of the Law, and the Wrath of God, and the rage of Satan, and never think on it: Nor do they use to mind other matters, and find themselves in Heaven, before they ever dreamed of it, or before their hearts were set upon it. No Sirs, if ever God will save you, he will make you Consider, and again Consider, and perhaps with many a sigh and groan; and bring these things so near your hearts, that you shall not only Think on them, but feel them: According to that Command,