N03796:572
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.
Pr. •. That when you have done all, if God be not pleased, you have done nothing. Settle it upon your Hearts, that all is in vain that is not done for God: when you do not please God, you do not profit yourselves. When Men offer never so richly and freely, if not in such a manner as is pleasing to God, all is but a vain Oblation, Isa. 1.13. If Men will do more than ever God required, and be zealous in Things that God hath not commanded, 'tis but in vain that they Worship him, Matth. 15.9. Beloved, so much time as you have lived to yourselves, you have lived in vain, because it was quite besides your End. O it is a Heart-cutting Consideration to a tender Christian to think of this, that when his Life is so short, and Time so little in all, yet he must be fain to cut off so much! Why Man, so many Hours must thou cut off from thy Days, and so many Years from thy Life, as thou hast lived not to God, but to thyself; they are all lost as to the Ends of Life and Time. If on Repentance thou be forgiven, thou art not rewarded for them.
Beloved, you must count that you have lived no longer than you have lived unto God, Philip. 1.21. To me to live is Christ, I should account I did not ⟨p. 35⟩live, if I did not live to him! 'Tis the only Employment of my Life to serve him. I should not tell what to do with my Life, unless it were to spend it for him.
Christian, Thus thou must reckon: So much Time as I have li•ed to Christ, so much have I lived; and so much as I have lived to myself, so much I have lost. 'Tis not the Man but the Beast that lives, while we live below our Reason, which distinguishes the Human Life from that of Btes. Now while we live not to God, we live utterly below our Reason it self, which is sufficiently discovered, in that God is the Author and End of Man. Doth not Reason dictate that GOD should have the Glory of his own Work, and the Vessel should be to the Potter's Use? Doth any plant a Vineyard, or keep a Flock, and not expect the Fruits or Milk?