A59669:496
The Sincere Convert
The sincere convert discovering the paucity of true believers and the great difficulty of saving conversion by Tho. Shepherd ....The sincere convert discovering the paucity of true beleevers and the great difficulty of saving conversion by Tho. Shepheard ....
London: printed by T.P. and M.S. for Humphrey Blunden, 1641
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.
Fourthly, because they know no §4better an estate: Hence though they feel their woeful and miserable condition, yet they desire not to come out of it. Although men find hard lodging in the world, hard times, hard friends, hard hearts, yet they make a shift with what they find in this miserable Inn, until they come to Hell; for such a man pursued by outward miseries or inward troubles, there stays. O miserable man, that makes shift till he come to Hell. They may hear of the happy estate of GODS people, but not knowing of it experimentally, they stay where they are, Joh. 4. 14.
Fourthly, because they know no §4better an estate: Hence though they feele their wofull and miserable condition, yet they desire not to come out of it. Although men finde hard lodging in the world, hard times, hard friends, hard hearts, yet they make a shift with what they finde in this miserable Inne, untill they come to Hell; for such a man pursued by outward miseries or inward troubles, there stayes. O miserable man, that makes shift till he come to Hell. They may heare of the happy estate of GODS people, but not knowing of it experimentally, they stay where they are, Ioh. 4. 14.
Take a Princes child, and bring it up in a base house and place, it never aspires after a Kingdom or Crown: So men, hatched in this world, knowing ⟨p. 218⟩no better an estate, never cast about them to get a better inheritance than that they scramble for here. Wives mourn for the long absence of their beloved Husbands, because they know them and their worth. God may absent himself from men, weeks, months, years, but men shed not one tear for it, because they never tasted the sweetness of his presence. It is strange to see men take more content in their cups and cards, pots and pipes, dogs and hawks, than in the fellowship of God and Christ, in Word, in Prayer, in Meditation, which Ordinances are burdens and prisons unto them. What is the reason of it? Is there no more sweetness in the presence of Gods smiling in Christ, than in a filthy Whore? Yes, but they know not the worth, sweetness, satisfying goodness of a God; yet into fresh waters they will never return, because now they taste a large difference of each estate: So it is here, if men did but once taste of the happiness of Gods people, they would not for a thousand