The divine life in three treatises

Consider, 1 If you are true Christians, your Relations engage you to walk with God: Is he not your Reconciled Father, and you his Children in a special sense? And whom should Children dwell with, but with their Father? You were glad when he received you into his Covenant that he would enter into so near a Relation to you, as he expresseth, 2▪ Cor. 6. 17, 18. [I will receive you, and will be a Father to you, and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.] And do you draw back, as if you repented of your Covenant? and were not only weary of the Duty, but of the Privileges and Benefits of your Relation? You may have access to God, when others are shut out: Your Prayers may be heard, when the prayers of the wicked are abominable: You may be welcome, when the worldling, and ambitious, and carnal are despised: He that dwelleth in the highest Heaven, is willing to look to you with respect, and dwell with you, when he beholdeth the proud afar off, Isa. 66. 1, 2. & 57. 15, 16. And yet will you not come that may be welcome? Doth he put such a difference between you and others, as to feed you as his Children at his table, while others are called Dogs, and are without the doors▪ and have but your crumbs and leavings? and yet will you be so foolish and unthankful, as to run out of your Fathers presence, and choose to be without, among the Dogs? How came your Fathers presence to be so grievous to you? and the privileges of his family to seem so vile? Is it not some unchildlike carriage? the guilt of some disobedience or contempt that hath first caused this? Or have you fallen again in love with fleshly pleasures, and some vanity of the world? Or have you had enough of God and Godliness? till you begin to grow ⟨p. 278⟩aweary of him? If so, you never truly knew him. However it be, if you grow indifferent as to God, do not wonder if shortly you find him set as light by you: And believe it, the day is not far off, in which the Fatherly Relation of God, and the privileges of Children, will be more esteemed by you: when all things else forsake you in your last distress, you will be loth that God should then forsake you, or seem as a stranger to hide his face: Then you will cry out, as the afflicted Church,