A30209:80
The strait gate, or, Great difficulty of going to Heaven plainly proving
The strait gate, or, Great difficulty of going to Heaven plainly proving by the Scriptures that not only the rude and profane, but many great professors will come short of that Kingdom / by John Bunyan.
London: printed for Francis Smith, 1676
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3ly, He that striveth lawfully must be therefore very temperate in all the good and lawful things of this life. And every one that striveth for the mastery, is temperate in all things: now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible, 1 Cor. 9. 25. most professors give leave to the world, and vanity of their hearts, to close with them and to hang about their necks, and make their striving to stand rather in an out-cry of words, then a hearty labour against the lusts, and love of the world, and their own corruptions, but this kind of striving is but a beating of the air, and will come to just nothing at last, 1 Cor. 9, 26.
4ly, He that striveth lawfully, must take God and Christ along with him to the work, otherwise he will certainly be undone: whereunto, said Paul, I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily, Colo. 1. 29. and for the right performing of this, he must observe these following particulars.
1. He must take heed, that he doth not strive about things, or words to no profit, for God will not then be with him: of these things, saith the Apostle, put them in remembrance; charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no profit, but […] the subverting of the hearers, 1 Tim. 2. 14. But alas! how many professors in our days are guilty of this transgression, whose religion stands chiefly, if not only, in a few unprofitable questions, and vain ranglings, about words and things to no profit, but to the destruction of the hearers, Tit. •. 9.