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

Quest. 25. Is it not the graceless miserable sort of men, that cry out, What needs all this ado? Certainly it is: For Scripture, and Reason, and Experience tell us, that all that are godly, are of another mind: The more grace they have, the more they would have: The more they love God, the more they would love him. The more good they do, the more they would do. Do you not see how they labour after more grace? and hear how they complain that they are no better? O how it would glad them to be more Holy and more Heavenly! It is therefore the strangers and despisers of grace, that never knew by experience, the nature, and power, and sweetness of it, than say, It is more ado then needs. And is it not a most unreasonable thing for a man that hath no saving grace and holiness at all, to cry out against excess of holiness? And for a man that is in the captivity of the Devil, and ready suddenly to drop into Hell, if death do but strike the fatal blow, before he be regenerate, to talk against doing too much for heaven? And for a man that never did God one hours pleasing service, (Heb. 11. 6.) to prate against serving God too much? O poor wretch! were thy eyes but opened, thou wouldst see that of any man in the Town or Country, this language ill beseemeth thee. When God hath been so long offended; and thy soul is almost lost already, and death and hell is hard at hand, and may swallow thee up in endless desperation for ought thou knowest, before thou hast read this Book to the end, or before thou see another year, or month, or day, is it time for such a one as thee to say, What needs so much ado? One would think if there be any life in thee, thou shouldst stir as for thy life: and if thou have a voice to cry, thou shouldst cry out to God hoth day and night […] ⟨p. 82⟩[…] ⟨p. 83⟩⟨p. 80⟩in the fervour of thy soul, even now while mercy may be had, lest time should over-slip thee, and thou be shut up in the place of torment: If Hell-fire will not make thee stir, What will? Should a weak Christian that is cast behind hand by his negligence, but once speak against a diligent life, he were exceedingly too blame. But for thee that art yet in the gall of bitterness, and the misery of an unregenerate state, to speak against holy diligence for salvation, when thou art in such great and deep distress, and like a man that is drowning, or a house on fire, that must presently have help or perish;