A call to the unconverted, to turn and live

If you never heard it, or observed it before, remember that you were told from the word of God, this day, that if you will but turn you may live; and if you will not turn, you shall surely die.

What now will you do, sirs? What is your resolution? Will you turn, or will you not? Halt not any longer between two opinions: If the Lord be God, follow him; If your flesh be God, then serve it still. If heaven be better than earth and fleshy pleasures, come away then and seek a better country, and lay up your treasure where rust and moths do not corrupt, and thieves cannot break through and steal, and be awakened, at last, with all your might, to seek the kingdom that cannot be moved, Heb. xii. 28. and to employ your lives on a higher design, and turn the stream of your cares, and labours, another way than formerly you have done. But if earth be better than heaven, or will do more for you, or last you longer, then keep i• and make the best of it, and follow it still. Sirs, are you resolved what to do? If you be not, I will set a few more moving considerations before you, to see if reason will make you resolve.

Consider first, what preparation mercy hath made for your salvation: and what pity it is that any ⟨p. 59⟩man should be damned after all this. The time was, when the flaming sword was in the way, and the curse of God's law would have kept thee back; if thou hadst been never so willing to turn to God: The time was when thyself and all the friends that thou hast in the world, could never have produced thee the pardon of thy sins past, though thou hadst never so much lamented and reformed them. But Christ hath removed this impediment, by the reason of his blood. The time was that God was wholly unreconciled, as being not satisfied for the violation of his law: But now he is so far satisfied, and reconciled, as that he hath made thee a free act of oblivion, and a free deed of gift of Christ and life, and offereth it to thee, and entreateth thee to accept […], and it may be thine if thou wilt. For, "he was […] Christ reconciling the world to himself, and hath committed to us the word of actual reconciliation." […] Cor. v. 18, 19. Sinners, we are commanded to o this message to you all as from the Lord. (Come, or all things are ready.