An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

A second cause that must be removed, is, A profane careless spirit; whereby men do not at all matter their souls, nor in what relation they do stand in towards ¹God. If their bodies be well, if their worldly affairs prosper, then they say, Soul, take thy ease. But as for their spiritual condition, whether God be reconciled, or an enemy, whether yet they have been ever taken off that natural and cursed estate they were born in, they never look after it. Oh foolish and brutish man! If the Spirit of God shall once convince thee of thy sinful and dangerous estate, of the curses of the Law which may fall upon thee every moment, then thou mayest have no rest day or night, till thou obtainest some assurance herein.

A second cause that must be removed, is, A prophane carelesse spirit; whereby men do not at all matter their souls, nor in what relation they do stand in towards ¹God. If their bodies be well, if their worldly affairs prosper, then they say, Soul, take thy ease. But as for their spiritual condition, whether God be reconciled, or an enemy, whether yet they have been ever taken off that natural and cursed estate they were born in, they never look after it. Oh foolish and brutish man! If the Spirit of God shall once convince thee of thy sinfull and dangerous estate, of the curses of the Law which may fall upon thee every moment, then thou maist have no rest day or night, till thou obtainest some assurance herein.

1. 12. A profane careless spirit.2. A prophane careless spirit.

The third cause is, The over-greediness and importunate minding of our earthly ¹businesses. We rise with the world in our heart, and go to bed with it in our heart, so that we never set time apart seriously to think, how it is with us. Hence come those constant delays and procrastinations, promising our selves we will after such and such businesses are over, set our selves to the examination of our ways; but still the work is not done, our days pass away, our hearts grow more hardened and indisposed every day, till at last death unexpectedly seizeth upon us, and then we would gladly have oil, when it is too late, then with Isaiah we cry out for a blessing with tears and bitterness, but we come too late. How comfortable on the other side is it for a godly man dying, to say his soul hath been set in order long before, he hath not his evidences now to seek? The knowing of his heart, hath been all his study in his life time, Satan can object no new thing, which he hath not already thought upon.