Now or never the holy, serious, diligent believer justified, encouraged, excited and directed, and…

And wilt thou be idle when eternal life •ies on it? Let Satan bawl against thee by his instruments. Let senseless sinners talk awhile of they know not what, till God have made them change their note. Let what will be the consequent to thy flesh. These are not matters for a man much to observe, that is engaged for an endless life. O what are these to the thing• that thou art called to prosecute! Hold on then Christians in the work that you have begun. Do it prudently, and do it universally. Take it together, both works of Piety, Justice, and Charity: But do it now without delay, and do it seriously with your might. I know not what cloud of darkness hath seized on those mens minds that speak against this; or what deadly damp hath ⟨p. 130⟩seized on their hearts, that hath so benumbed and unmanned them. For my own part; though I have long lived in a sense of the preciousness of time, and have not been wholly idle in the world; yet when I have the deepest thoughts of the great everlasting consequents of my work, and of the uncertainty and shortness of my time, I am even amazed to think that my heart can be so slow and senseless, as to do no more in such a case. The Lord knows, and my accusing wounded Conscience knows, that my slothfulness is so much my shame and admiration, that I am astonished to think that my resolutions are no stronger, my affections no livelier, and my labour and diligence no greater, when God is the Commander, and his Love the encourager, and his wrath the spur, and Heaven or Hell must be the issue. O what lives should all of us live, that have things of such unspeakable consequence on our hands, if our ⟨p. 131⟩hearts were not almost dead within us! Let who will speak against such a life, it shall be my daily grief and moan, that I am so dull, & do so little. I know that our works do not profit the Almighty, nor bear any proportion with his reward; nor can they stand in his sight, but as accepted in the Lord our Righteousness, & perfumed by the odour of his merits. But I know they are necessary, & they are sweet. Without the holy employment of our faculties, this life will be but a burden or a dream, and the next an unexpressible misery. O therefore that I had more of the Love of God, that my soul could get but nearer to him, and swiftlier move upward by Faith and Love!