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…

35. If yet you perceive not how unreasonably you deal with God, and your Souls, I beseech you consider whether you do not deal worse with him, then you do with the Devil himself. If Satan or his servants persuade you to sin, you delay not so long, but you are presently at it: You are ready to follow every tippling companion, or gamester that puts up the finger. You are as ready to go, as they to invite you: The very sight of the cup doth presently prevail with the drunkard: and the sight of his filthy mate prevaileth with the fornicator; and sin can be presently entertained without delay. But when God comes, when Christ calls, when the Spirit moveth, when the minister persuadeth, when Conscience is convinced, we can have nothing after all, but wishes, and purposes, and promises, with Delays. O what a stomach hath that man, or what a brain, that will snatch at poison, ⟨p. 416⟩and swallow dung and dirt with greediness, without any chewing; and when you offer him meat, stands sighing, and looking on it, and hardly will be persuaded to put it in his mouth: and if he do, he is chewing it so long, that at last he even spits it out again, and cannot get it down. Thus deal ungodly wretches, between their poisonous sins, and the saving means, and Grace of Christ.

35. If yet you perceive not how unreasonably you deale with God, and your Souls, I beseech you consider whether you do not deal worse with him, then you do with the Devil himself. If Satan or his servants perswade you to sinne, you delay not so long, but you are presently at it: You are ready to follow every tipling companion, or gamester that puts up the finger. You are as ready to go, as they to invite you: The very sight of the cup doth presently prevaile with the drunkard: and the sight of his filthy mate prevaileth with the fornicatour; and sinne can be presently entertained without delay. But when God comes, when Christ calls, when the Spirit moveth, when the minister perswadeth, when Conscience is convinced, we can have nothing after all, but wishes, and purposes, and promises, with Delaies. O what a stomack hath that man, or what a brain, that will snatch at poyson, ⟨p. 416⟩and swallow dung and dirt with greediness, without any chewing; and when you offer him meat, stands sighing, and looking on it, and hardly will be perswaded to put it in his mouth: and if he do, he is chewing it so long, that at last he even spits it out againe, and cannot get it down. Thus deal ungodly wretches, between their poisonous sins, and the saving means, and Grace of Christ.