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

I beseech you give me a considerate hearing, you ambitious Gentlemen, you covetous worldlings, and you that serve your lusts and pleasures! Do you think you had been doing the the work of wise men, if you had all this while been burning your own fingers, or cutting your own flesh, or setting your own or your neighbours houses on fire? What would you have us call that man that would live in such employments as ⟨p. 30⟩these, and yet would be accounted wise or honourable? Do I need to tell thee, as Nathan did David, that [Thou art the man?] Do I need in so plain a case to tell you, that you have been doing worse, (I speak not rashly) a thousand times worse, against your souls, then this would have been which is supposed to be only against your bodies! Alas self-destroyers, what do you mean? Did God send you hither on no better an errand than to kindle and blow the fire of his wrath, and fall into it when you have kindled it? Have you no better work in the world to do, then to prepare your selves a place in hell? and with a great deal of care, and cost, and stir, to labour for damnation, as if you were afraid of losing it?

I beseech you give me a considerate hearing, you ambitious Gentlemen, you covetous worldlings, and you that serve your lusts and pleasures! Do you think you had been doing the the work of wisemen, if you had all this while been burning your own fingers, or cutting your own flesh, or setting your own or your neighbours houses on fire? What would you have us call that man that would live in such imployments as ⟨p. 30⟩these, and yet would be accounted wise or honourable? Do I need to tell thee, as Nathan did David, that [Thou art the man?] Do I need in so plain a case to tell you, that you have been doing worse, (I speak not rashly) a thousand times worse, against your souls, then this would have been which is supposed to be only against your bodies! Alas self-destroyers, what do you mean? Did God send you hither on no better an errand than to kindle and blow the fire of his wrath, and fall into it when you have kindled it? Have you no better work in the world to do, then to prepare your selves a place in hell? and with a great deal of care, and cost, and stir, to labour for damnation, as if you were afraid of losing it?