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

O Sirs, if Jesus Christ be wise that condemneth their course and them, then certainly all these men are fools: And if Christ knew what he said, we must needs think that they know not what they do. O what is the matter that reasonable men should have no more use of their reason in things of such importance, then thus to neglect their everlasting state for a thing of naught? Did God make them unreasonable, or give them understandings uncapable of things of such high concernment? Or rather, have […] not drowned their reason in sensuality, and wilfully poiso•th malicious averseness to God and Holiness? What is •ter that the One thing needful is no more regarded? Hath God made them believe that they shall dwell here for ever, and never die? No surely, this is so gross a lye, that the Devil himself cannot make them believe it. They know that they mus• sure as they are alive: And yet they prepare not, but weir days in scraping in this dunghill world, as if they wer•o no further. Did God never warn them by a Sermon, or […], to prepare for the life which they must live for ever? Yes •y a time; but they would take no warning. Did God never ••ll them that after this life there is another, where they must live in endless joy or torment? Yes, and they professed that they did believe it: They heard it an hundred times over, till they were weary of hearing it. Did God make them believe that they shall die like beasts that have no further to go, nor any other life to live? No: if they do believe this, it is the Devil and not God that maketh them believe it. What then is the matter that the One thing needful is no more regarded? Hath God shut up their souls in desperation, so that it is in vain to seek, or trouble themselves for that of which there is no hope? Oh no! his compassion hath provided them a full remedy: by the death of his Son Redemption is procured, and he hath made them a deed of gift, of Christ, and pardon, and eternal life, and tendered it to them, that upon the•• acceptance it may be theirs. Many a time hath he offered this ⟨p. 47⟩mercy to them, and many a time hath he urged them to accept •t: He hath set before them life and death, and given them their choice, and directed and persuaded them to choose aright: Impossibility of attainment is not their hinderance;