A call to the unconverted, to turn and live

The judge may truly say to the thief, or a murderer, "Alas, man, I have no delight in thy death; I had rather thou hadst kept the law and saved thy life; but seeing thou hast not, I must condemn thee, or else I should be unjust." So, though God have no pleasure in your damnation, and therefore call? upon you to return and live, yet he hath pleasure ⟨p. 44⟩of the demonstration of his own justice, and the executing his laws, and therefore he is, for all this, fully resolved, that if you will not be converted, you shall be condemned. If God were so much against the death of the wicked, as that he were resolved to do all that he can to hinder it, then no man should be condemned, whereas Christ telleth you, that few will be saved. But so far God is against your damnation, as that he will teach you, and warn you, and set before you life and death, and offer you your choice, and command his ministers to entreat you not to damn yourselves, but accept his mercy, and so to leave you without excuse; but if this will not do, and if still you be unconverted, he professeth to you, he is resolved of your damnation, and hath commanded us to say unto you in his name, verse 8. O wicked man, thou shalt surely die! And Christ hath little less than sworn it, over and over, with a verily, verily, except ye be converted, and born again, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, Matth. xviii. 3. John iii. 3. Mark that he saith [you cannot.] It is in vain to hope for it, and in vain to dream that God is willing of it; for it is a thing that cannot be.

In a word, you see then the meaning of the text, that God, the great Lawgiver of the world, doth take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn and live; though yet he be resolved that none shall live but those that turn; and as a Judge even delighteth in justice, and manifesting his hatred of sin, though not in their misery which they had brought upon themselves, in itself considered.