N03796:26
An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: showing I. What conversion is…An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: shewing I. What conversion is…
An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: showing I. What conversion is not, and correcting some mistakes about it. II. What conversion is, and wherein it consisteth. III. The necessity of conversion. IV. The marks of the unconverted. V. The miseries of the unconverted. VI. Directions for conversion. VII. Motions [i.e., Motives] to conversion. : Whereunto are annexed Divers practical cases of conscience judiciously resolved. / By Joseph Alleine, late Minister of the Gospel at Taunton, in Somersetshire.An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: shewing I. What conversion is not, and correcting some mistakes about it. II. What conversion is, and wherein it consisteth. III. The necessity of conversion. IV. The marks of the unconverted. V. The miseries of the unconverted. VI. Directions for conversion. VII. Motions [i.e., Motives] to conversion. : Whereunto are annexed Divers practical cases of conscience judiciously resolv'd. / By Joseph Alleine, late Minister of the Gospel at Taunton, in Somersetshire.
Philadelphia: printed by B. Franklin, 1741
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Dedication: To all the Ignorant, Carnal, and Ungodly, who are Lovers of Pleasure more than God, and…
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.
O think better what you do! God's Terms are reasonable, his Word and Ways are good and equal, Christ's Yoke is easy, and his Burden light, and his Commandments are not grievous to any, but so far as Blindness and a bad and backward Heart doth make them so. You have no true Reason to be unwilling. God and Conscience shall one Day tell you and all the World, that you had no Reason for it. You may as wisely pretend Reason to cut your Throats, to torment yourselves, as plead Reason against a true Conversion unto God. Were I persuading you not to kill yourselves, I would make no Question, but you will be persuaded; and yet must I be hopeless, when I persuade you from everlasting Misery, and not to prefer the World and Flesh before your Saviour and your God, and before a sure everlasting Joy? God forbid.
Reader, I take it for a great Mercy of God, that before my Head lieth down in the Dust, and I go to give up my Account unto my Judge; I have this Opportunity once more, earnestly to bespeak thee for thy own Salvation. I beg it of thee, as one that must shortly be called away, and speak to thee no more, till we come unto our endless State, that thou wouldest sometimes retire into thyself, and use the Reason of a Man, and look before thee, whither thou art going, and look behind thee, how thou hast lived, and what thou hast been doing in the World till now; and look within thee, what a Case thy Soul is in, and whether it be ready to enter ⟨p. xi⟩upon Eternity; and look above thee, what a Heaven of Glory thou dost neglect, and what a God thou hast to be thine everlasting Friend or Enemy, as thou choosest, and as thou livest, and that thou art always in his sight. Yea, and look below thee, and think where they are, that died unconverted. And when thou hast soberly thought of all these things, then do as God and true Reason shall direct the•. And is this an unreasonable Request? I appeal to God, and to all wise Men, and to thine own Conscience, when it shall be awakened, if I speak against thee, or if it be not true and sure, then regard not what I say; if I speak not that Message which God hath commanded his Ministers to speak, then let it be refused as contemptuously as thou wilt. But if I do but in Christ's Name and stead beseech thee to be reconciled to God,