The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of Christ

1. Because terrors of Conscience put them upon their duties: tho afterwards they may find some delight in them, and some affections to God and his ways; yet the first thing that sets them going is terror, fear makes them reform and pray, they are scared into Religion, they are forced out of these sinful practises, and fired out of those ways of sin that they were addicted unto: their fear does direct them unto this way as the safest: if they knew a better way they would not violently pursue this, for there is that principle in every man by nature that carries him out necessarily to seek his own happiness: fear and dread of hell make them do what they do in Religion, Job 41.25. by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

1. Because terrors of Conscience put them upon their duties: tho afterwards they may find some delight in them, and some affections to God and his wayes; yet the first thing that sets them going is terror, fear makes them reform and pray, they are scared into Religion, they are forced out of these sinful practises, and fired out of those wayes of sin that they were addicted unto: their fear does direct them unto this way as the safest: if they knew a better way they would not violently pursue this, for there is that principle in every man by nature that carries him out necessarily to seek his own happiness: fear and dread of hell make them do what they do in Religion, Job 41.25. by reason of breakings they purifie themselves.

2. They are afraid to see the plague of their own hearts; experience witnesses to this, that they dare not yield themselves to be such as they are; many a sinner dare not yield himself to be unsound in Religion, to be unconverted; they compass sea and land to strengthen their false hopes: and many a man that ⟨p. 186⟩knows he is unconverted, and has some conviction that he must see the badness of his heart before he be converted, and accordingly praes for it, that God would open his eyes and discover it to him, yet all the while he is secretly nourishing an apprehension that his heart is better than it is: he hopes he hates sin, that he desires holiness, that he is sincerely labouring after the work of humiliation, and he dreads the sight of his own heart, is very loth to yield it to be so bad as it is, and when God forces the conviction on him, it is a terror unto him, he is like a man that desires that a limb of his body should be cut off for the preservation of his life, yet when it comes to be done it is a terror to him: so a natural man does not see the plague of his own heart, nor will he ever see it till it be forced upon him.