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

Use 2.

IF One thing be Needful, and the neglect of this be so unreasonable, so unmanly, and so dangerous, as we have seen it proved, then what an object of compassion and lamentation is the distracted world? Look upon this text of Scripture, and look also upon the course of the earth, and consider of the disagreement, and whether it be not still as before the flood, that all the imaginations of mans heart are evil continually: Gen. 6 5. were it but possible for a man to see the affections and motions of all the world at once, as God seeth them, what a p••tisul sight would it be? What a stir do they make, alas poor souls, for they know not what? while they forget, or slight, or hate the One thing necessary. What a heap of gadding ants should we see, that do nothing but gather sticks and straw? Look among persons of every rank, in City and Country, and look into the families about you, and see what trade it is that they are most busily driving on, whether it be for Heaven or earth? and whether you can discern by their care and labours that they understand what is the One thing necessary? They are as busy as bees, but not for honey, but in spinning such a spiders web, as the besom of death will presently sweep down, Job 8. 14▪ They labour hard; but for what? for the food that perisheth, and not for that which will endure to everlasting life John 6. 27. They are diligent seekers; but for what? Not ••st for God, his Kingdom ⟨p. 44⟩and Righteousness; but for that which they might have had as an addition to their blessedness. Matth. 6. 33. They are still doing; but what are they doing? even undoing themselves by running away from God, to hunt after the perishing pleasures of the world: Instead of providing for the life to come, they are making provision for the flesh to fulfil its lusts,