A call to the unconverted, to turn and live

USE.

I BESEECH you now all that love your souls, that, instead of quarrelling with God and with his word, you will presently stoop to it, and use it for your good. All you that are yet unconverted in this assembly, take this as the undoubted truth of God; you must ere long, be converted or condemned; there is no other way but turn or die. When God, that cannot lie, hath told you this; when you hear it from the Maker and Judge of the world, it is time for him that hath ears to •ear; by this time you may see what you have to trust to. You are but dead and damned men, except you will be converted. Should I tell you otherwise, I should deceive you with a lie. Should I hide this from you, I should undo you, and be guilty of your blood, as the verses before my text assure me, ver. 8. When I say to the wicked man, O wicked man, thou shalt su••ly die? if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. You see then, though this be a rough and unwelcome doctrine, it is such as we must preach and you must hear. It is easier to hea• of hell than to fe•l it. If your necessities did not require it, we would not •••l your tender ears with truths that seem so hearth and grievous. Hell would not be so full if people were but willing to know their case, and •o hear and think of it. The reason why so few escape it is, because they strive not to enter in at the strait gate of conversion, and go the narrow way of Ho•••••s while they have time: and they strive not, because they be not awakened to a lively feeling of the •••ger they are in; and ⟨p. 16⟩they be […] wakened because they are loath to hear or think of it; and that is partly through foolish tenderness and carnal self-love, and partly because they do not well believe the word that threateneth it. If you will not thoroughly believe this truth, methinks the weight of it should force you to remember it, and it should follow you, and give you no rest till you are converted. If you had but once heard this word by the voice of an angel, thou must be converted, or condemned: turn or die; would it not stick in your mind, and haunt you night and day? so that in your sinning you would remember it, as if the voice were still in your ears, turn or die!