The saints everlasting rest

CHAP. XIV. An Advice to some more particularly to help others to this Rest.

UP then every man that hath a tongue, and is a servant of Christ, and do something of this your Master's work: Why hath he given you a tongue but to speak in his service? And how can you serve him more eminently, than in the saving of souls? He that will pronounce you blessed at the last day, and sentence you to the kingdom prepared for you, because you fed him, and clothed him, and visited him, in his members, will surely pronounce you blessed for so great a work as the bringing over of souls to his kingdom. He that saith, The poor you have always with you, hath left the ungodly always with you, that you might still have matter to exercise you charity upon. O if you have the hearts of Christians, or of men in you, let them yearn towards your poor, ignorant, ungodly and neighbours! Alas, there is but a step betwixt them, and death, and hell; many hundred diseases are waiting ⟨p. 232⟩ready to seize them, and if they die unregenerate, they are lost for-ever. Have you hearts of rock, that cannot pity men in such a case? If you believe not the word of GOD, how are you christians yourselves? If you do but believe it, why do you not bestir you to help others? Do you not care who is damned, so you be saved? If so, you have as much cause to pity your ownselves; for it is a frame of spirit inconsistent with grace: should you not rather say, as the lepers of Samaria, is it not a day of glad tidings, and we sit still, and hold our peace? Hath GOD had so much mercy on you, and will you have no mercy on your poor neighbours? You need not go far to find objects for your pity: look but into the streets, or into the next house to you, and you will probably find some. Have you not a neighbour that sets his heart below, and neglecteth eternity? What blessed place do you live in, where there is none such? If there be not some of them in thine own family, it is well; and yet art thou silent? Dost thou live close by them, or meet them in the streets, or labour with them, or travel with them, or sit still and talk with them, and say nothing to them of their souls, or the life to come? If their houses were on fire, thou wouldst run and help them; and wilt thou not help them when their souls are almost at the fire of hell? If thou knowest but a remedy for their diseases thou wouldst tell it them, or else thou wouldst judge thyself guilty of their death.