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

Quest. 5. Is it not one of the two grand Principles of faith and all Religion, without which no man can please God, Heb. 11. 6. Whoever cometh to God must believe, first, that God is (that there is a God, most powerful, wise and good) secondly, that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him?] yea this is one of ⟨p. 72⟩natures principles. It is the Diligent seekers of God that he will reward. And yet dare a fleshly negligent sinner, reproach the diligent seeking of God, and take it for a needless thing, and say, What needs all this ado? Are not these the Atheists seconds; even next to them that deny that there is any God, or that blasphem• him? And indeed, if he be not worthy of all the Love and service that thou canst give him, he is not the true God! Consider therefore the tendency of thy words, and tremble.

Quest. 6. Doth not that wretch set up the flesh and the world abo•• the Lord, that thinks not most of his thoughts, and cares, and words, and time, and labour for the world to be too much ado, and yet thinks less for God and heaven to be too much? And dost thou think in thy conscience that the flesh is better worthy of thy Love, and care, and labour▪ then the Lord? or that earth will prove a better reward to thee then Heaven? Who, thinkest thou, will have the better bargain in the end? The fool that laid up riches for himself, and was not rich to God, and shall lose all at once that he so much valued, and so carefully sought, (Luke 12. 20, 21.) or he that laid up his treasure in Heaven, and there set his heart, and sought for the never fading Crown? Matth. 6. 20, 21, 33. and counted all as loss and dung for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ,