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

I beseech you now, beloved Hearers, to remember this urgent motive of Necessity, and use it when you are tempted to delay or trifle about the business of your salvation, as if it were some indifferent needless thing. Without worldly Riches you may be rich in faith: Without worldly honours, you may have the honour of being the sons of God: and without worldly pleasures, or health, or life, you may have the favour of God and Life eternal: But without the One thing needful, you have nothing that is durably or satisfactorily good, but are undone for ever. Without the things of the world, you will live in want for a little while, and then you will be equal to the greatest Princes: But without this One thing, you must live in endless woe and misery, and be far worse then the basest prisoner in the Dungeon, or than the toads and vermin that lie in the uncleanest holes or sinks of the earth. And yet dare you delay another day before you make so Necessary a change? You have hearts of stone, if your Own Necessity thus urged upon your Consideration will not awake you. If your hearts were not dead within you, while you hear these things, one would think such a Necessity should make you feel, and resolve upon a speedy change, and make you stir in the diligent performance. Can you go on in security, in negligence and worldliness, when you hear of your Necessity, that you ⟨p. 55⟩must change, or you are lost for ever? O stupid souls, that will not be moved with Necessity of everlasting consequence! O what hath God, or Christ, or heaven, or holiness, done against these men, that will rather lie in Hell for ever, then they will live in the love and service of this God, and in the practice of holiness, and in the hopes of Heaven! How meet are they for Hell, that will venture upon it deliberately and upon choice, to scape the trouble of living in the holy Love, delight and service of the ever blessed God? that is, to scape the trouble of Heaven. Is it so great a sin to shut up the bowels of compassion against our brother in his need? 1 John 3. 17. And is it not more unnatural to deny compassion to your selves in your own necessity? and in the greatest necessity? O poor sinners, remember your Necessities! Your own, your great, your absolute Necessities:

I beseech you now, beloved Hearers, to remember this urgent motive of Necessity, and use it when you are tempted to delay or trifle about the business of your salvation, as if it were some indifferent needless thing. Without worldly Riches you may be rich in faith: Without worldly honours, you may have the honour of being the sons of God: and without worldly pleasures, or health, or life, you may have the favour of God and Life eternal: But without the One thing needful, you have nothing that is durably or satisfactorily good, but are undone for ever. Without the things of the world, you will live in want for a little while, and then you will be equal to the greatest Princes: But without this One thing, you must live in endless woe and misery, and be far worse then the basest prisoner in the Dungeon, or than the toades and vermine that lie in the uncleanest holes or sinks of the earth. And yet dare you delay another day before you make so Necessary a change? You have hearts of stone, if your Own Necessity thus urged upon your Consideration will not awake you. If your hearts were not dead within you, while you hear these things, one would think suth a Necessity should make you feel, and resolve upon a speedy change, and make you stir in the diligent performance. Can you go on in security, in negligence and worldliness, when you hear of your Necessity, that you