A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

It would set men on seeking with greatest diligence, the Kingdom which before they did but dream of; and would turn the very stream of their hearts and lives on that which before they minded but as on the by. In a word, it would make the earthly to become heavenly, and the fleshly spiritual, and the slothful to be diligent, and rotten-hearted sinners to become renewed SAINTS, as all must do that ever will be saved. And if these words of Christ be not thus received by you, and work not such wonders on mens hearts, it is not because there is any want of fitness in the Text, but because mens hearts are hardened into a wilful contempt of the most precious truths, which in themselves are apt to change and save them.

It would set men on seeking with greatest diligence, the Kingdom which before they did but dream of; and would turn the very stream of their hearts and lives on that which before they minded but as on the by. In a word, it would make the earthly to become heavenly, and the fleshly spiritual, and the sloathful to be diligent, and rotten-hearted sinners to become renewed SAINTS, as all must do that ever will be saved. And if these words of Christ be not thus received by you, and work not such wonders on mens hearts, it is not because there is any want of fitness in the Text, but because mens hearts are hardned into a wilful contempt of the most precious truths, which in themselves are apt to change and save them.

Of all ways of Teaching, History is accounted One of the most effectual; because it hath the greatest advantage on our apprehensions, as setting our lesson before our eyes in the great character of Example, and not only in the smaller letter of a naked precept. And of all History, What can be more powerful, then I Where one of the actors is the eternal son of God: and that not above our reach in Heaven, but here in our flesh, on the stage of this sublunary world. 2. And the other actors are such as most fitly represent the different actions of all the world, at least that live within the sound of the Gospel; and lay open the great question about which the world is so much divided. 3. And when the matter it self is of the greatest consequence, that can be imagined; even concerning the present choice and resolution of our hearts, and that expending of our Time, and that business and employment of our lives, on which our Endless life dependeth. All this you have here set out even to the life, before your eyes, in the glass of this example in my Text: And the Lord of Life doth call you all to see your faces in it; and here plainly showeth you what will be expected from you and what you must be, and do, and trust o; and this not in any long and edio