Add to this. That as one sinner confirms and fixes another, wedging in each other, as men in a crowd *, who must move as it moves ; so they make it their business to render all that differ from them odious and ridiculous : So the apostle notes their practice and Satan's policy in it, 1 Pet. iv. 4. wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you, gsi^/^ovra/ ; they gaze strangely at them. And that is not all ; they not only gaze at them as a strange generation, making them signs and wonders in Israel, as the prophet speaks, but they de- fame, revile, and speak evil of them, representing them as a pack of hypocrites, as turbulent, factious, seditious persons, the very pests of the times and places they live in ; and all this, not for do- ing any evil against them, but only for not doing evil with them, because tliey run not with them into the sa7ne excess of riot. Thus the world smiles upon its ovv^n, and derides those that are afraid to follow them to hell, by which it sweeps away the multitude with it in the same course.
The third way to hell shut up.
But O ! if the Spirit of God would please to set on, and follow home the following considerations to your hearts, you would cer- tainly resolve to take a persecuted patii to heaven, though few ac- company you therein, rather than swim like dead* fishes with the stream into the dead sea of eternal misery.
1. Though you go vvith the consent and current of the world, yet you go against the express law and prohibition of God : He hath laid his command upon you, " not to be conformed to the " world,'' Rom. xii. 2. " That you live not the rest of your time "to the lusts of men, but to "the will of God," 1 Pet. iv. 2.
* Na man errs to his own hurt only, but spreads madness among his neighboars. Seneca.
192 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
" That you follow not a multitude to do evil," Exod. xxiii. 2. " That you go not in the way of evil men."" Prov. iv. 14. " That *^ you have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness."" All these, and many more, are commands flowing from the highest sovereign authorit\^, obliging your consciences to obedience under the greatest penalties ; by them your state must be cast to all eter- nity in the day of judgment: you may make a jest of the precept, but see if you can do so of the penalty.
2. Other men, in all ages of the world, that were as much con- cerned in the world as you, and valued their lives, libertiss, and es- tates as well as you, have yet got out of the croud, disengaged themselves from the way of the multitude, and taken a more soli- tary and suffering path out of a due regard to the safety of their souls : And why should not you love them as well, and care for them as much as ever any that went before you did ? Noah walked with God all alone, when all flesh had corrupted their ways; Elijah was zealous for the Lord, when he knew of none to stand by him, but thought he had been left alone ; Job was upright with God in the land of Uz ; Lot stood by himself, a godly non-confor- mist, in a vile, debauched Sodom ; David was a wonder to many ; so was Jeremiah, and those few with him, for signs and wonders in Israel ; I demand of your consciences what discouragements have you that these men had not ? Or what encouragements had they that you have not .'' Why should not the salvation of your souls be as precious in your eyes as theirs was in theirs ? Shall you be im- poverished and persecuted if you embrace the way of holiness ? So were they. Shall you be reproached, scorned, and reviled : So were they. All your discouragements were theirs, and all their motives and encouragements are yours.
3. Is not the way which you have chosen marked out by Christ as the way to destruction ? And that v,hich you dare not chuse and embrace as the way to life ? See the marks he has given you of both in that one text, Mat.vii. 13, 14. " Enter ye in at the strait " gate ; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to " destruction, and many there be which go in thereat ; because " strait is the ^ate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto " life, and few there be that find it."*' And where now is your encouragement and hope that God will be more merciful than to damn so great a part of the world ? If you will do as the many do, dream not of speeding as well as that little flock, separated by sanc- tification from the multitude, shall speed. You have your choice, to be damned with many, or saved with few ; to take the broad, smooth-beaten road to hell, or the diflicult, suffering, self-denying path to heaven. O then make a seasonable, necessary stand, and pause a while : con«>ider your ways, and turn your feet to God"'s
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 193
testimonies : It is a great and special part of your salvation to save yourselves from this untoward generation.
The fourth way of losing the soul opened.