Reader, To cure this soul-murdering distemper, I have endeavoured (according to the trust committed to me, and the grace bestowed on me) to discover in this Treatise the life in Christ, or true Christianity, with the matchless endless felicity that accompanieth it; as also the nature and danger of unregeneracy, with the means to come out of it; by which thou mayst see that many cozen their souls with counterfeit coin (false evidences for heaven) instead of true, which will not abide the touchstone of Scripture, and so like Uriah, they carry ⟨image 15⟩those letters about them, though they know it not, which will at last cost them their lives, and cause their eternal deaths. That there is no fool like the sinner who selleth his soul for a song; his Saviour, his eternal happiness, the unspeakable pleasures at Gods right hand for evermore, for the perishing empty profits, and base brutish pleasures of sin, which are but for a season; Though sin be delightful in the act (to carnal wretches) yet it will be bitterness in the end. It will be a bitter-sweet to all its lovers, when for their momentany pleasure they shall be recompensed with eternity of intolerable unconceivable pain. That it is not for nothing that Ministers call so loudly and earnestly to thee, to kill those lusts which would kill thee, and to follow after holiness, without which no man shall ever see the Lord, Heb. 12.14. It will teach thee, that God and Christ, heaven and hell, thy soul and eternity, death and judgement are not things to be dallied with; believe it, thou wilt one day find that it is bad jesting with such edged tools. Surely the greatest seriousness that is imaginable is too too little for them. O hadst thou but the thousandth part of that seriousness about them ⟨image 16⟩which they deserve, and call for at thy hands; surely thou wouldst have other manner of thoughts of them, and carriage towards them then now thou hast. Well, I have four special things at present from the living God to commend to thee and leave with thee in order to thine eternal good (I known not how soon I may be taken from thee) If thou lovest thy soul, practice them faithfully; if not, answer the contrary when thou and I shall meet in the other world at the great and terrible day of the Lord Jesus.
Reader, To cure this soul-murdering distemper, I have endeavored (according to the trust committed to me, and the grace bestowed on me) to discover in this Treatise the life in Christ, or true Christianity, with the matchless endless felicity that accompanieth it; as also the nature and danger of unregeneracy, with the means to come out of it; by which thou mayst see that many cozen their souls with counterfeit coin (false evidences for heaven) instead of true, which will not abide the touchstone of Scripture, and so like Uriah, they carry ⟨image 15⟩those letters about them, though they know it not, which will at last cost them their lives, and cause their eternal deaths. That there is no fool like the sinner who selleth his soul for a song; his Saviour, his eternal happiness, the unspeakable pleasures at Gods right hand for evermore, for the perishing empty profits, and base brutish pleasures of sin, which are but for a season; Though sin be delightful in the act (to carnal wretches) yet it will be bitterness in the end. It will be a bitter-sweet to all its lovers, when for their momentany pleasure they shall be recompenced with eternity of intolerable unconceivable pain. That it is not for nothing that Ministers call so loudly and earnestly to thee, to kill those lusts which would kill thee, and to follow after holiness, without which no man shall ever see the Lord, Heb. 12.14. It will teach thee, that God and Christ, heaven and hell, thy soul and eternity, death and judgement are not things to be dallied with; believe it, thou wilt one day find that it is bad jesting with such edged tools. Surely the greatest seriousness that is imaginable is too too little for them. O hadst thou but the thousandth part of that seriousness about them ⟨image 16⟩which they deserve, and call for at thy hands; surely thou wouldst have other manner of thoughts of them, and carriage towards them then now thou hast. Well, I have four special things at present from the living God to commend to thee and leave with thee in order to thine eternal good (I known not how soon I may be taken from thee) If thou lovest thy soul, practice them faithfully; if not, answer the contrary when thou and I shall meet in the other world at the great and terrible day of the Lord Jesus.
