The real Christian, or, A treatise of effectual calling wherein the work of God…

Sixthly, But what if you be taken off from your lusts and idols, and enjoy a better content in the room of them, I hope you are not hurt? If this could be made good, it were but rational indeed, you say; and if it cannot be made good, say I, it were but an irrational thing to call thee off from them to God and Christ. Were there no more then the escaping those woeful evils, temporal and eternal, which do attend them, yet it were rational, because the pleasure, the good bears no proportion with the greatness, exceeding greatness of the evils. But the will I know is a hungry appetite, and will not be satisfied with privative good, it must have positive good to feed upon, else it will not be quiet. A man who is very hungry, and hath meat before him to eat which pleases his palate, if one tell him there is poison mixed with his dish, this will make him abstain from it, because of the evil that will attend it; but this doth not satisfy his hunger; give me something to eat, saith he: 'Tis the same with our rational appetite, when set upon a lust, creature, or whatever is opposite to God, tell him this will cost thee Hell, the eternal wrath of an infinite God, it may possibly prevail so with some to abstain (though with most Hell signifies nothing, Hell is but a Bugbear, a thing fit to scare Children withal) but this doth not satisfy, the will still calls out, give me something to assuage my hunger, I feel emptiness, fill up that; yea, and it shall be filled up, when we come to speak of the Term to which thou art called, or else hold to thy lust and idol still; all that I say at present, till I come to it, is this, Redemption from lusts and creatures fill with more solid satisfying content and delight, then the enjoyment of lusts and creatures; unto which ⟨p. 65⟩Position I am assured, all those who have been slaves to them, but are now redeemed, will set their hands.

Sixthly, But what if you be taken off from your lusts and idols, and enjoy a better content in the room of them, I hope you are not hurt? If this could be made good, it were but rational indeed, you say; and if it cannot be made good, say I, it were but an irrational thing to call thee off from them to God and Christ. Were there no more then the escaping those woful evils, temporal and eternal, which do attend them, yet it were rational, because the pleasure, the good bears no proportion with the greatness, exceeding greatness of the evils. But the will I know is a hungry appetite, and will not be satisfied with privative good, it must have pasitive good to feed upon, else it will not be quiet. A man who is very hungry, and hath meat before him to eat which pleases his palate, if one tell him there is poyson mixed with his dish, this will make him abstain from it, because of the evil that will attend it; but this doth not satisfie his hunger; give me something to eat, saith he: 'Tis the same with our rational appetite, when set upon a lust, creature, or whatever is opposite to God, tell him this will cost thee Hell, the eternal wrath of an infinite God, it may possibly prevail so with some to abstain (though with most Hell signifies nothing, Hell is but a Bugbear, a thing fit to scare Children withall) but this doth not satisfie, the will still calls out, give me something to asswage my hunger, I feel emptiness, fill up that; yea, and it shall be filled up, when we come to speak of the Term to which thou art called, or else hold to thy lust and idol still; all that I say at present, till I come to it, is this, Redemption from lusts and creatures fill with more solid satisfying content and delight, then the enjoyment of lusts and creatures; unto which