Heaven upon earth, or, The best friend in the worst of times. Delivered in…

If you would be acquainted with God, labour to get a through sense of your great estrangement from him, and of the danger of such an estrangement. This is that which makes people so well contented with their condition, because they see no great evil nor danger in it. Men are ready to ⟨p. 287⟩think very well of their condition, although they be enemies to God, and no Friends to Christ. Enemies to God! they scorn your words, though all this while they express the greatest contempt of him conceivable; though they regard neither his Commands, Threatenings, nor Promises, though they value the company of a drunkard, a whore, before the company of God; though they do all that they can against God, Love nothing that he loves, though they side with Gods greatest enemies, yet they abhor to be thought to be any others then well wishers to Christ, and the Friends and Servants of God; though they never come near God, yet they take it very ill if they be not reckoned amongst his acquaintance, and special Friends. Where is the professor almost living, that doth not count it a high piece of uncharitableness, if one do not Canonize them among the Saints, though they live more like brutes! How heinously do they take it, if any one do but question their state? They ignorant of God! They enemies to the Cross of Christ, they blind! they unconverted! Who is that man which dare question their condition? They hope to fare as well as any precise Puritan of them all, they will hope to be saved, say what you will then, you shall never beat then out of their trust in God. And though in Faithfulness to their Souls, we beg of them to make a more diligent inquiry into the state of their Souls, because we know that the heart is so deceitful, and we have very great cause to suspect that they know not God; yet they will go on very cheerfully with this confidence, until Christ himself show them their mistake, and tell them plainly that he