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…

And because I know if we prevail not with you in this you are undone for ever, and therefore I am loath to let you go before we have brought you, if it may be, to Resolve: I will give you here some Considerations to turn the scales, and if you will but read them, and soberly consider of them, I shall have great hope to prevail with you, yet after all. One would think that the fifty Considerations ⟨p. 463⟩under the last Direction might suffice: But lest all should be too little, I will add these following.

And because I know if we prevaile not with you in this you are undone for ever, and therefore I am loath to let you go before we have brought you, if it may be, to Resolve: I will give you here some Considerations to turn the scales, and if you will but read them, and soberly consider of them, I shall have great hope to prevail with you, yet after all. One would think that the fifty Considerations ⟨p. 463⟩under the last Direction might suffice: But lest all should be too little, I will add these following.

1. Consider I beseech you, what leisure you have had to think of the matter. You have lived many years in the world already; and you have had nothing to do in it, but to seek after true Happiness: Even your worldly labours ought to have been all but in order to this. And yet are you unresolved? Alas Sirs, have you lived some twenty some thirty years and more in the world, and yet are you not Resolved, what you came hither for, or what you have to do here? Is it twenty, or thirty, or forty years, since you set out, and should by this time have been far on your journey, and are you yet unresolved whither to go, or which way to go? As if you were newly entering the world, or as if you had never heard of your business. I think so many years are a fair time of Consideration, and it's time to be Resolved, if you will Resolve at all.

1. Consider I beseech you, what leisure you have had to think of the matter. You have lived many years in the world already; and you have had nothing to do in it, but to seek after true Happiness: Even your worldly labours ought to have been all but in order to this. And yet are you unresolved? Alas Sirs, have you lived some twenty some thirty years and more in the world, and yet are you not Resolved, what you came hither for, or what you have to do here? Is it twenty, or thirty, or fourty years, since you set out, and should by this time have been farre on your journey, and are you yet unresolved whither to go, or which way to go? As if you were newly entering the world, or as if you had never heard of your business. I think so many years are a faire time of Consideration, and it's time to be Resolved, if you will Resolve at all.