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

5. Furthermore Consider, that what ever else you have been ⟨p. 38⟩doing in the world, if the one thing necessary be yet undone, you have lost and abused all the mercies that God hath bestowed on you: Many a thousand precious mercies have been given you: And to what use, but to help you to everlasting mercy, and to prevent your everlasting misery! This is the End, and this is the Life and excellency of all your mercies: For all present mercies have the Nature of a Means to a further End: And the Goodness and nature of the Means consisteth in its fitness to promote the End. And therefore you have lost all the Mercies that you have received, if you are never the nearer your End for them; and if they have not promoted the Love of God, and your salvation. You have had health, and strength, and time, and peace, and liberty, and some of you also wealth and honour in the world. But you have lost them all, if your salvation be not furthered by them. Many a preservation you have had, when others have been cut off before your faces, and many a deliverance from dangers known or unknown, and much of the fruit of that Patience of God, which hath till now attended you in your sin: Many a Sermon you have heard, and many a warning you have had, and you have been planted in God, Vineyard, and daily watered with the Ordinances of grace: But all these are lost if the One thing necessary hath been neglected: Nothing in this world doth you good indeed, any further then it promoteth your Everlasting good. And do you think that you have dealt kindly or justly with God, to deal so contemptuously with all his mercies, as to cast them away, and tread them under foot? When you want but food, or raiment, or liberty or health, you value them and pray for them; and when you have them, what do you with them, but throw them as in the channel, and sacrifice them to your lusts and enemies: When Death looketh you in the face, you begin to know the worth of Time, and then O what would you not give for a little more, and that God would try you a few years longer: And when you have Time, what do you with it, but serve the Devil, and cast it away for nothing, and spend it in preparing for everlasting sorrows? How can you for shame cry to God for Mercy in your next distress, when you have contemptuously thrown away the Mercies of twenty, or thirty, or forty years already:

5. Furthermore Consider, that what ever else you have been ⟨p. 38⟩