N03796:513
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.
Q. V. When others are for the cheap and easy Religion, are you for Self-Denial? When others are for the Religion that will serve them best, are you for that which will serve God best? When others are all upon the sparing Hand, and will spare what may be spared, and study how they may best save Charges in going to Heaven, are you of princely Spirits, to resolve not to serve the Lord with that which will cost you nothing? Is your Course of Religion such as doth put your Flesh to it, and cross and curb its Desires, or do you love to give it what it craves, and suffer it to make its own Way? Have you no Enemy you dread so much as Self? Do you pamper and please it and make Provisions for it? or do you pray and watch against it, and grieve for its unhappy Infirmities in your Actions? And had rather than all the World that this Enemy were under your Feet?
Q. VI. When others are for no more of Religion than needs must, are you for the Height of Religion? The Hypocrite (as one well) is very inquisitive what is the lowest Pitch that a Man may have and go to Heaven; and upon this Design, if he could ⟨p. 12⟩find but this, he would look no farther: But the sincere Christian, though satisfied that his State is safe, will rest in no Attainments in Grace, but reaches forward and presses on, if it were possible, to attain to the Resurrection of the Dead. He that doth not desire, and design, and endeavour Perfection, never yet came up to Sincerity. A true Believer desires Holiness for Holiness sake, and therefore is set upon perfecting Holiness: Others desire it only for Heaven sake, and therefore only for so much as will bear their Charges thither; others make use of Holiness only as a Bridge to Heaven, and therefore are for no more than will just serve their turn. *The true Believer hath a holy Nature, and therefore Holiness is his Element; and natural Employment; and he must needs desire Holiness in its Height because every Nature reaches after Perfection in its Kind; the godly Man desires not Holiness, because it is the Way to Heaven, but he he loves Heaven the better for the holy Way that leads to it, and for the perfect Holiness which is there.