N03796:494
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.
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.
Rule V. To suffer rather than to sin. This was Moses's choice, but the Hypocrite is quite contrary: He chooseth Iniquity rather than Affliction. To go so far with Christ as our Way lies together, is to do no more than an unsound Professor may reach to: The Trial is when Christ's Interest and ours do cross, and we must either baulk our Duty, or our Safety and Advantage. The famous Martyr under Julian, would not give one Half-penny towards the Building of the Idol's Temple, tho' he was offered his Life by the Emperor on those Terms: The godly high Priest Eleazer, when the Nobles persuaded him to eat other Meat under Colour of Swine's Flesh, and they would persuade the King Antiochus that he had eaten Swine's Flesh, would die rather than stain his Profession with the Appearance of Evil. When a Man shall lie in outward Misery, and have a Door of Deliverance opened, if he would but sin, and yet he will not accept of it, as those Worthies in Paul's Martyrology: This is to do more than others, Heb. 11.36.
Rule VI. To rejoice for Losses in Christ, and glory in the Cross. When others be discouraged at the News of Hardship, as that forward and seemingly resolved Disciple, or shall be offended as soon as the Sun of Persecution is up. When we shall take pleasure in Infirmities, in Tribulations, and rejoice ⟨p. 5⟩that we are counted worthy to suffer Shame for the Name of Christ; this is to do more than others. When the Servants of God shall not only patiently and triumphantly undergo the Crosses that crack the Brains, and break the Hearts of others, and shall shake off the Viper without receiving any hurt, when Paul and Silas shall sing in the Stocks, and the resolved Martyr shall embrace the Faggots, and kiss the Stake: When the valiant Philpot shall say of his Prison (In the Judgment of the World we are in Hell, but I find in it the sweet Consolation of Heaven) and the Holy Bradford (My Prison is sweeter to me than any Parlour, than any Pleasure I have had in all my Life.) This is indeed to exceed others.