2. You that are so grossly ignorant in the matter of your salva- tion, are many of you very knowing, prudent, and subtle persons in the affairs of the world. Luke xvi. 8. " The children of this " world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." Had those parts which you have, been improved and heightened by study and observation about spirituals, as they have been about earthly things, you had never been so ignorant or dead -hear ted as you are : You might have been as well versed in your bibles, as you
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 189
are in the almanacks you yearly buy and study. You might have understood the proper seasons of salvation as well as of husbandry. The great and necessary points on which your salvation depends, are not so many or so abstruse and intricate, but your plain and in- artificial heads might have understood them, and that with less pains than you have been at for your bodies : What though you cannot comprehend the subtilties of schoolmen, you may apprehend the essentials of Christianity. If you cannot strictly and scholasti- cally define faith, what hinders, if your hearts were set upon Christ and salvation, but you may feel it ? Which is more than many learned men do that can define and dispute about it. You cannot put an argument in mood and figure; no matter, if you can by comparing your bibles and hearts together, draw savingly and ex- perimentally this conclusion ; I am in Christ, and my sins are par- doned. You cannot determine whether faith goes before repent- ance, or repentance before faith ; but for all that you might feel both the one and the other upon your own souls, which is infinitely better. It is not, therefore, your incapacity, but negligence and worldliness that is your ruin.
3. How many are there of your own rank, order, and education, all whose external advantages and helps you have, and all your in- cumbrances and discouragements they had, who yet have attained to an excellent degree of saving knowledge and heavenly wisdom ? How often have I heard such spiritual, savoury, experimental truths, in conference and prayer from plain rustics, such spiritual reasonings about the great concerns of salvation, such judicious and satisfying resolutions of cases depending upon the sensible and ex- perimental part of religion, as have humbled, convinced, and shamed me, and made me say surgunt indocti, &c. these are the men that will take heaven from the proud and scornful iJigeniosi of the world ; not many wise, not many learned and acute. Many knowing and learned heads are in hell, and many illiterate and weak ones gone to heaven ; and others in the way thither who never had better education, stronger parts, or more leisure than yourselves : So that you are without excuse.
To conclude. Would you heartily seek it of God, and would the Spirit (which he hath promised to give them that ask him) become your teacher, how soon would the light of the saving knowledge of God in the face of Christ shine into your hearts ! No matter how ignorant, dull, and weak the scholar be, if God once become the teacher. You are not able to purchase, or want time to read many books ; but if once you were sanctified persons, the anointing you would receive from the Father would teach you all things, 1 John ii. S7. your own hearts would serve you for a commentary upon a
190 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAK.
great part of the bible ; it would make you of a quick understand- ing in the fear of the Lord : One drop of your knowledge would be more worth than all learned arts and sciences in the world to you. And is God so far from you, and his illuminating Spirit at such a distance, that there is no hope for you to find him ? Is there never a private corner about your houses or barns, or in the fields, where you can turn aside, if it be but a quarter of an hour at a time, to pour out your souls to God, and beg the Spirit of him ? Miserable wretch ! Is thy whole life such a cumber and clutter of cares and puzzles about the world, that thou hast no leisure to mind God, soul, or eternity ? O doleful state ! the Lord in much mercy pity and awaken thee. Wilt thou not once strive and struggle to save thy soul ? What, perish, as it were, by consent ! How great then is that bhndness !
The third way to hell discovered.
III. A vast multitude of precious souls are lost for ever by fol- lowing the examples, and being carried away with the course of this world : It is indeed a poor excuse, a silly argument. That the multitude do as we do ; yet, as * Junius rightly observes, men's consciences take sanctuary here, and they think themselves safe in it : For thus they reason, If I do as the generality do, I shall speed no worse tha/n they speed : and certahdy God is more merciful than to suffer the greatest part of manJcind to perish. They resolve to follow the beaten road f, let it lead whither it will.
Thus the Ephesians, in their unregenerate state, " walked ac- " cording to the course of this world," Eph. ii. 2. and the " Co- *' rinthians were carried away unto dumb idols, even as they were *' led," 1 Cor. xii. 2. just as a drop of water is carried and moved according to the course and current of the tide : For look as every drop of water in the sea is of one and the same common nature, so are all carnal and unsanctifled persons ; and as these waters being collected into one vast body in the ocean, unite their strength, and make a strong current, this way or that ; so doth the whole collec- tive body of the unregenerate world, all the particular drops move as the tide moveth. Hence they are said " to have received the '' spirit of this world," 1 Cor. ii. 12. one common spirit or principle acts and rules them all ; and therefore they must needs be carried away in the same course. And there are two special considera- tions that seem to determine them by a kind of necessity to do
* What a poor mean defence have they who think themselves safe from the example ©f their superiors. Jud. Parol, b. 2.
f The example of the multitude is a very poor argument.
A TllEATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAV. l9l
as the multitude do; the one is, that they find it the easiest and most commodious way to the flesh ; here they meet with quietness and safety : hereby they are exempt from reproaches, losses, perse- cutions and distresses for conscience sake : Rest is sweet, and here only they think to find it. The other is, the prejudice of singula- rity, and manifold tribulations they see that little handful that walk counter to the course of the world involved in ; this startles them from their company, and fixes them where they are. Against such sensible arguments, it is to no more purpose to oppose spiri- tual considerations, motives drawn from the safety of the soul, or importance of eternity, than it is for a man to turn the tide or course of a river with his weak breath.