A62050:372
Ouranos kai tartaros= heaven and hell epitomized. The true Christian characterized. As also an…
Ouranos kai tartaros= heaven and hell epitomized. The true Christian characterized. As also an exhortation with motives, means and directions to be speedy and serious about the work of conversion. By George Swinnocke M.A. sometime fellow of Balliol College in Oxford, and now preacher of the Gospel at Rickmersworth in Hertfordshire.Ouranos kai tartaros= heaven and hell epitomized. The true Christian characterized. As also an exhortation with motives, means and directions to be speedy and serious about the work of conversion. By George Swinnocke M.A. sometime fellow of Baliol Colledge in Oxford, and now preacher of the Gospel at Rickmersworth in Hertfordshire.
London: printed by E.M. for Tho. Parkhurst, 1659
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.
4. Dost thou not find by experience that the longer thou delayest, the farther thou wanderest from God and holiness, and the more unfit thou art for, and the more unwilling unto the work of conversion? is it not time therefore to turn with speed, when continuance in sin insensibly hardeneth thy heart, and gradually indisposeth it more to the work of repentance? as the ground, so is thy heart; the longer it lieth fallow, not ploughed up, the harder it will be; wilt thou go one step farther from God, when thou must certainly come back every step, and that by weeping cross all the way, or be damned for ever? The purchase of heaven is like buying the Sibyls prophesies, the longer thou holdest off, the dearer. ⟨p. 201⟩A stain which hath been long in clothes, is not easily washed out; an house that hath long run to ruin, will require the more cost and labour for its reparation. Diseases that have been long in the body, are cured, if at all, yet with much difficulty. The devil which had possessed the man from his infancy, was hardly cast out, and not without much renting and raging, Mar. 9.21, 26. Satan thinks his evidence as good as eleven points at law, now he hath once got possession, and the longer he continueth Commander in chief, in the royal fort of thy heart, the more he fortifieth it against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. All the while thou delayest, God is more provoked; the wicked one more encouraged, thy heart more hardened, thy debts more increased, thy soul more endangered, and all the difficulties of conversion daily more and more multiplied upon thee, having a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in.
4. Dost thou not finde by experience that the longer thou delayest, the farther thou wandrest from God and holiness, and the more unfit thou art for, and the more unwilling unto the work of conversion? is it not time therefore to turn with speed, when continuance in sin insensibly hardeneth thy heart, and gradually indisposeth it more to the work of repentance? as the ground, so is thy heart; the longer it lyeth fallow, not ploughed up, the harder it will be; wilt thou go one step farther from God, when thou must certainly come back every step, and that by weeping cross all the way, or be damned for ever? The purchase of heaven is like buying the Sybils prophesies, the longer thou holdest off, the dearer.