The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature…

In the next place tell me, Quest. 3 Is not thy Conscience convinced, That God is in all respects the best Master, his worship the best work, and his pay the best reward? Hast thou not knocked many time at the Creatures door, entered in, sat down, and fed on such fare as it had to set before thee, and after all, gone away as empty and unsatisfied as thou camest? Hast thou not found by experience, that the Creature keepeth a poor, pitiful house; that they who run to it with heads full of hopes, return back with hearts full of heaviness? And shall no learning teach thee! Man, man, where is thy reason! Hast thou no eyes to behold the rottenness of the Worlds ware, because its glazed over with gaudy Dyings? Shall the sweet breath of this alluring Panther still bewitch thee, notwithstanding all his deformity and ugliness, vanity and emptiness, so as to get thee within his power, and destroy thee? Dost thou not see hundreds before thine eyes of the Worlds chief favourites, whom she dandled on her knees, and was very fond of, hurried in haste into the other World, leaving all her gifts behind them, and not a button the better for all her fondness and fooleries? Didst thou never observe, how she leaveth her Lovers in the lurch, and like a false, deceitful friend, forsakes ⟨image 16⟩them wholly in the time of their greatest extremity? Man walketh in a vain show, he disquieteth himself in vain; He returneth to his earth, and in that day his thoughts perish, Psal. 39.8. and 146. As he that goeth to a Fair with a purse full of money, is devising and debating with himself how to lay it out (possibly thinking, that such and such commodities will be most profitable, and bring him in the greatest gain) when on a sudden a cut-purse comes and easeth him both of his money and cares how to dispose of it. Surely thou mightest have taken notice how some of thy Neighbours or Countrymen, when they have been busy in their contrivances, and big with many plots and projects how to raise their estates, and names, and families, were arrested by death in a moment, returned to their earth, and in that day all their gay, their great thoughts perished, and came to nothing. The Heathen Historian could not but observe, how Alexander the Great, when he had to carry on his great designs, summoned a Parliament before him of the whole World, he was himself summoned by death to appear in the other World;

In the next place tell me, Quest. 3 Is not thy Conscience convinced, That God is in all respects the best Master, his worship the best work, and his pay the best reward? Hast thou not knocked many time at the Creatures door, entred in, sat down, and fed on such fare as it had to set before thee, and after all, gone away as empty and unsatisfied as thou camest? Hast thou not found by experience, that the Creature keepeth a poor, pitiful house; that they who run to it with heads full of hopes, return back with hearts full of heaviness? And shall no learning teach thee! Man, man, where is thy reason! Hast thou no eyes to behold the rottenness of the Worlds ware, because its glazed over with gaudy Dyings? Shall the sweet breath of this alluring Panther still bewitch thee, notwithstanding all his deformity and ugliness, vanity and emptiness, so as to get thee within his power, and destroy thee? Dost thou not see hundreds before thine eyes of the Worlds chief favourites, whom she dandled on her knees, and was very fond of, hurried in haste into the other World, leaving all her gifts behinde them, and not a button the better for all her fondness and fooleries? Didst thou never observe, how she leaveth her Lovers in the lurch, and like a false, deceitful friend, forsakes