Moses his choice with his eye fixed upon Heaven, discovering the happy condition of…

Lastly, these afflictions that you say will discourage, ¹they will bring forth a gracious end, they are but as a dark entry into your Fathers house, a dirty lane to a Palace; do but shut your eyes, and there will be a change, and as a Martyr said, Though we have an ill breakfast, we shall have a good dinner: Now put all these together, what great matter is there to discourage any from the ways of God?

1. 17.

But now come to the other part: A gracious heart ¹discourses of the ways of sin, what if I should choose the pleasure of sin, and should go on that way? 1. If I go on in those ways, I shall be sure to go on in a way of direct opposition against the God of all the world, and so treasure up to my self the wrath of an infinite God. And is it nothing for a poor creature to go on in a way of opposition and enmity to an infinite Deity? how much better were it for me if I had never been born, then thus to do? 2. I shall be sure to have no peace in those ways, in my own spirit, in conscience; I shall have within me a conscience galling, girding, and lashing of me, the worm gnawing of my heart, my conscience continually damping of my soul, telling of me, Surely I am not in those ways an immortal soul should walk in; I shall never have any pleasure, but when my conscience shall be stopped; and what cursed pleasure is this for a man that he can never have it, but only when he can stop his conscience? if his conscience had but ⟨p. 114⟩the mouth open, he could not have pleasure, and all the pleasure that he hath, he must steal it at that time, when his conscience is asleep, he can never have it upon other terms; if a mans conscience be enlightened, and awaked, it is impossible to have pleasure in the ways of sin: it is poor living, when a servant or child can get no victuals, but as they steal it, when the master or mistress is asleep, or is on the to side; and so it is poor pleasure that the world hath, when it must be stolen when conscience is asleep; What good is it for a man to have a broken leg, and a silken stocking? and what great content is it for a man to have outward pleasure, and inward dampings of spirit?