in the thveatening upon thee. God is under an oath to prociu'e thy destruction, if thou diest in this mind, whicli God forbid. Deatli is the trap-door which will let thee down to hell's dungeon, and when once thou art there thou art where thou wilt have space enough to weep over thy j)ast folly, though here thou hast neither mind nor leisure to make God thy friend. The very thoughts of those ofters of peace which once thou hadst (hut no heart to embrace them) will be like so much salt and vinegar, with which thy accusing conscience will be continually basting thee, as thou liest roaring in hell-fire, to make thy tor- ment the more intolerable. I know this language grates in the sinner's ears, but not so ill as the gnashing of the sinner's own teeth will in hell. I have read of a foolish, I may say cruel, law among the Lacedemonians, that none should tell his neighbour any ill news befallen him, but every one should be left in process of time to find it out themselves. Many among us, I think, would be content if there were such a law, that might tie up ministers' mouths from scaring them with their sins, and the miseries that attend their vmreconciled state. The most are more careful to run from the discourse of their misery, than to get out of the danger of it ; are more oiFended with the talk of hell, than troubled for that sinful state that shall bring them thither. But, alas! when then shall we shew our love to the souls of sinners if not now ? seeing that in hell there remains no more oflices of love to be done for them. Hell is a pest- house, that we may not write so much on the door of it as, ' Lord have mercy upon them' that are in it ; nay, they who nowpray for their salvation, and weep over their condition, nuist then with Christ vote for their danuiation, and rejoice in it, though they be their own fathers, husbands, and wives they see there. O now bethink yourselves, before the heart of God and man be hardened against you.
CHAPTER VL
FOUR DIRECTIONS BY WAY OF COUNSEL TO SINNERS, YET IN AN UNRECON- CILED STATE, HOW THEY MAY BE AT PEACE WITH GOD.
Quest. But how may a poor sinner be at peace with God ? Section L — Ans. First, See and be sensible of the feud and enmity, that at present stands betwixt God and thee. First, As to the reality of the thing that there is indeed a quarrel which God hath against thee; wherever thou goest, an angry God is at thy back, and his wrath, like a heavy cloud, hangs full of curses over thy head, ready every moment to empty them upon it. There is need of pressing this ; for though it is ordinary for men to confess themselves sinners, yet most are loth to disparage their state so far as to rank themselves among the enemies of God : no, they hope God and they are good friends, for all this. Like thieves, they will confess some little matter, but they will have a care of letting fall anything that may hazard their necks : sinner is a favourable word ; who lives and sins not? that they will grant ; but to be in a state of enmity, and under the wrath of God, this scares them too much, and brings them too near the sight of the gallows, the seat of hell, which are due to that state; and, therefore, when pressed thus far, as the Jews desired Rabshakeh, when he terrified them with the dreadful things that would befall them, if they stood out against the king his nuister, ' that he would not speak in the Jews' language in the hearing of the people,' Isa. xxxvi. 11, for fear of afiVighting them, but in a foreign tongue; so sinners desire those that deal plainly with them, that they would no! speak so broad in the hearing of their conscience, which they are afraid should know the worst. But if thou lovest thy own soul, make a true representation of thy state to thyself. O what folly is it for a man to lose his cause, by concealing the badness of it. Secondly, Labour to bring thy- self under the sense of thy miseral)le condition, as thou art. Hadst thou the em- pire of the world, and all nations creeping to thy foot, as once the beasts did to Adam, and a lease as long as Methuselah's life twice told to enjoy it in, with- out the interposition of (jiie cloud all the while to darken the glory of this thy royalty ; yet, supposing thee to be one to whom God is an enemy, I would choose to be the worm under thy foot, the toad in the ditch, sooner than thy miserable self in thy palace. One thought of thy approaching death and eternal misery, in store for thee, will blunt the edge of all thy present happiness. This, this makes the great ones of the v.-orld, indeed all unreconciled sinners, high
ggQ THE GOSPEL OP PEACE.