N03796:564
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.
2. That is a Man's Business which he hath his Stock and Talents for. If a Man be entrusted as a Steward or a Factor, his Business is to buy in the Commodities that are useful. Beloved, all our Time, Parts, Interest, Food, Raiment, and whatever Mercies, Spiritual or Temporal, are the Stock wherewith God hath entrusted us, and all for his own Use and Service, And is it not a sad and fearful case, that God should have so great a Stock going, as lies in the Hands of all the Sons of Men, and yet have (if I may so speak) so little profit of it? I mean so little Glory by it: That he should sow so much, and reap so little? straw so much, and gather so little: Is it not sad, that Men should have so much in vain? Hast thou Health and Wealth, and dost not use it for God? It is all in vain. Hast thou understanding, and yet improvest it but for contriving thine own Affairs, and ⟨p. 31⟩worldly Designs? thy Reason and Understanding are become vain. Oh, how wilt thou answer it, that thou hast had so great Stock in thine Hands, and made so little Improvement of it? It had been good for some Men, if they had never had a Foot of Land, or an Hour's Ease, if they never had the Understanding of Men, because they have not used their Talents for God, and for the Ends for which they were put into their Hands.
2. That is a Man's Business which he hath his Stock and Talents for. If a Man be intrusted as a Steward or a Factor, his Business is to buy in the Commodities that are useful. Beloved, all our Time, Parts, Interest, Food, Raiment, and whatever Mercies, Spiritual or Temporal, are the Stock wherewith God hath intrusted us, and all for his own Use and Service, And is it not a sad and fearful case, that God should have so great a Stock going, as lies in the Hands of all the Sons of Men, and yet have (if I may so speak) so little profit of it? I mean so little Glory by it: That he should sow so much, and reap so little? straw so much, and gather so little: Is it not sad, that Men should have so much in vain? Hast thou Health and Wealth, and dost not use it for God? It is all in vain. Hast thou understanding, and yet improvest it but for contriving thine own Affairs, and ⟨p. 31⟩worldly Designs? thy Reason and Understanding are become vain. Oh, how wilt thou answer it, that thou hast had so great Stock in thine Hands, and made so little Improvement of it? It had been good for some Men, if they had never had a Foot of Land, or an Hour's Ease, if they never had the Understanding of Men, because they have not used their Talents for God, and for the Ends for which they were put into their Hands.