Two treatises tending to awaken secure sinners viz., 1. The terror of the day…

we did not fall on our Knees to them, and so earnestly beg of them for the Lord's sake, to have Mercy upon their own Souls as we should have done. But yet we told them the Message of God, ⟨p. 23⟩and we studied to speak it to them as plainly and as piercingly as we could. Fain we would have convinced them of their Sin and Misery, but we could not: fain we would have drawn them to the Admiration of Christ, but they made light of it, Mat. 22. 5. we would fain have brought them to the Contempt of this vain World, and to set their Mind on the World to come, but we could not. Some Compassion thou knowest, Lord, we had to their Souls, many a weeping and groaning Hour we have had in secret, because they would not hear and obey, and some sad Complain•s we have made over them in public: we to•d them that they must shortly die and come to Judgment, and that this World would deceive them and leave them in the Dust: we told them that the time was at hand when nothing but Christ would do them good, and nothing but the Favour of God would be sufficient for their Happiness, but we could never get them to lay it to heart. Many a time did we entreat them to think soberly of this Life and the Life to come, and to compare them together with the Faith of Christians and the Reason of Men, but they would not do it: many a time did we entreat them but to take now and then an Hour in secret to consider who made them, and for what he had made them, and why they were sent into this World, and what their Business here is, and whither they are going, and bow it will go with them at their latter End: but we could never get most of them to spend one Hour in serious Thoughts of these weighty Matters. Many a time did we entreat them to try whether they were Regenerate or not, whether Christ and his Spirit were in them or not, whether their Souls were brought back to God by Sanctification; but they would not try: we did beseech them to make sure Work, and not leave such a Matter as everlasting Joy or Torment to a bold and mad Adventure, but we could not prevail. We entreated them to lay all other Businesses aside a little while in the World, and to enquire by the Direction of the Word of God, what would become of them in the World to come, and judg themselves before God came to judg them, seeing they had the Law and Rule of Judgment before them;