Gods husbandry

Lo, brethren, so many of you as have hitherto been servants to guile, I have revealed unto you ⟨p. 60⟩the means of recovering your liberty. Do these things, and though you have been to this time arrant hypocrites, you shall be changed and become upright. Only do these things now for the present, from this time forward, without deferring or delaying, without putting off the Lord until another time: for the plaster will come too late when the sore is past cure: After a man is dead, make him a caudle, saith the Proverb. This is madness indeed; when God hath so long borne with thy dissimulation, as that now he resolves to bear with thee no longer, nor ever to pardon thee, and therefore turns thy conscience loose upon thee to pursue thee, as he did on Judas, then shalt thou be unable to do these things, and then shalt thou find it past time a day to think of reforming thy guile, when God is now in cutting thee off for it: for the night will come when no man can work, as Christ telleth. Wherefore now at the pure reproofs of Gods Word, and at the gentle and loving motions of his Spirit, address thy self to this, though painful, yet happy and needful labour of reforming thy guile; and I protest unto thee in the name of the Lord, that thou shalt prevail. See thine hypocrisy, grieve for it before God, considering the certain and insufferable danger of it, and the assurance of escaping it by this means, and even falling out with thy self, because thou canst not grieve more for it, and withal, pray earnestly unto the Lord for his Spirit: meditate much of his excellencies and presence, and use to mark and ⟨p. 61⟩examine thy life daily, chiefly in respect of thy most dear sin which thou findest thy self loathest to see, and leave, and then hear thou the Word of the Lord unto thee, Thy sin shall be pardoned, thy guile shall be removed, and thou shalt (from this time forward) become a living and a fruitful branch. O how happy shall this change be? how comfortable this alteration? and how shalt thou bless the time, the day, the means, the cause that so changed thee? And now I pray you, brethren, give me leave yet a little further to press this exhortation upon your consciences. Answer each of you within himself, and say, What is thy resolution, and what intendest thou to do?

Lo, brethren, so many of you as haue hitherto beene seruants to guile, I haue reuealed vnto you ⟨p. 60⟩