Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…

3. But the seeming Christian hath so dim and doubtful a fore-sight of the end, and it is so frequently out of his mind, that things present do carry away his heart, and have the greatest power and interest with him, and are most regarded and sought after in this life. For he is purblind, not seeing a far off, as it is said, 2 Pet. 1.9. He wanteth that faith which is the substance of things ⟨p. 53⟩hoped for, and the evidence of things unseen Heb. 11.1. Things promised in another world, seem to him too uncertain, or too far off, to be preferred before all the happiness of this world: he is resolved to make his best of that which he hath in hand, and to prefer possession before such hopes. Little doth his heart perceive what a change is near, and how the face of all things will be altered! How sin will look, and how the minds of sinners will be changed, and what all the riches, and pleasures, and honours of the world will appear at the latter end! He foreseeth not the day when the slothful, and the worldly, and the fleshly and the proud, and the enemies of godliness shall all wish in vain, O that we had laid up our treasure in heaven, and laboured for the food that perisheth not, and had set less by all the vanities of the world! and had imitated the holiest and most mortified believers! Though the hypocrite can himself foretell all this, and talk of it to others, yet his belief of it is so dead, and his sensuality so strong, that he liveth by sense, and not by that belief; and present things are practically preferred by him, and bear the sway, so that he needeth those warnings of God, as well as the profane, Deut. 32. O that they were wise, that they understood this, and that they would consider their latter end: And he is one of the foolish ones, Mat. 25.8, 11. who are seeking oil for their lamps when it is too late, and are crying out, Lord, Lord, open to us, when the door is shut; and will not know the time of their visitation, nor know effectually in this their day the things which belong to their everlasting peace.