The Sincere Convert

Fifthly, By giving the soul fair promises of Heaven and eternal life, and fastening them upon the heart. Most men are confident their estate is good, and though God kills them, yet will they trust in him, and cannot be beaten from this. Why? oh! Satan bewitcheth them: For as he told Eve by the Serpent, she should not dye, so doth he insinuate his persuasions to the soul, though it live in sin, he shall not dye, but do well enough, as the precisest. Satan gives thus good words, but woeful wages, the eternal flashes of Hell.

Fifthly, By giving the soule faire promises of Heaven and eternall life, and fastning them upon the heart. Most men are confident their estate is good, and though God kills them, yet will they trust in him, and cannot be beaten from this. Why? oh! Satan bewitcheth them: For as he told Evah by the Serpent, shee should not dye, so doth he infinuate his perswasions to the soule, though it live in sinne, he shall not dye, but doe well enough, as the precisest. Satan gives thus good words, but wofull wages, the eternall flashes of Hell.

II. By false Teachers. Who partly by their loose examples, partly by their flattering doctrines in public, and their large charity in private, daubing up every one (especially that is a good friend unto them) for honest and religious people, and if they be but a little troubled, applying comfort ⟨p. 203⟩presently, and so healing them that should be wounded, and not telling them roundly of their Herodias, as John Baptist did Herod. Hereupon they judge themselves honest, because the Minister will give them the beggarly passport, and so they go out of the world, and dye like Lambs, being woefully cheated, Matth. 24. 11. Look abroad in the world, and see what is the reason so many feed their hearts with confidence they shall be saved, yet their lives condemn them, and their hearts acquit them; the reason is, such and such a Minister will go to the Ale-house, and he never prays in his Family, and he is none of these precise hot people, and yet as honest a man as ever lives, and a good Divine too. Ahab was miserably cheated by four hundred false Prophets. Whilst the Minister is of a loose life himself, he will wink at others and their faults, least in reproving them, he should condemn himself, and others should say unto him, Physician, heal thy self. Thieves of the same