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…

You are as miserable as the other, and more in this, that ⟨p. 468⟩yours is in your natures, and theirs is but an accident; yours is continued, and theirs (in that particular) but by fits. In the Name of God Sirs, bethink you, whether you can possibly more disgrace your wits, then to be unresolved of a case as plain as the high way, and which your Everlasting Salvation or damnation lieth on? If one of you could not in twenty years be Resolved; whether the the Sun be light or dark, or whether the day or the night be fitter for rest; or whether it be better plough and sow, or let all alone, and hope God will give you a crop without labour; would you take this for a wise man? Again I tell you, your folly is more gross, that cannot all this while be Resolved, whether you should cast away your wilful sins, and give up your selves to Christ, and a Holy life, to obtain the Glory, and scape the misery that is hard at hand. If you stood up to the neck in the water, or stood but in a storm of rain, you would not be so long in deliberating, whether it were better for you to stay there longer or come out. If your finger were but in the fire, you need not so long a deliberation, whether you ⟨p. 469⟩should take it out. Any yet these wise men, are under many thousand unpardoned sins, and under the curse of the Law of God, and within a step of everlasting fire, and have no way possible to escape, but by Conversion, Faith and Holiness; and this God hath told them, as plain as the tongue of man can speak, and yet they are Considering of it, whether it be best to come out of it; and yet they cannot be Resolved? Did I say They are Considering? Nay, the Lord be merciful to them, they are so dead-hearted and besotted, that they do not so much as seriously Consider of it: But even run on without Consideration: Ah poor wretches! They are ready to go to another world, and may look every day when the bell tolls for them, and when death will bring them to their endless life, and yet they have not wit enough, to Resolve whether they should make ready: no nor with enough in their most careless, worldly state, to know that they are unready. Death is coming, and Judgment is coming, and the burning Wrath of God is coming, and are even at the door; and yet these wise men are unresolved of that only way that ⟨p. 470⟩is of absolute necessity to their safety;