And if you are under afflictions, fly not to company to divert you, neither read what the world calls harmless books; they only tend to harden the heart, and to keep you from closing with the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
When I was a child, yea, when I came to riper years, GOD knows, it is with grief I speak it, when ignorant of the excellency of the word of GOD, I read as many of these harmless books as any one; but now I have tasted the good word of life, and am come to a more perfect knowledge of CHRIST JESUS my LORD; I put away these childish, trifling things, and am determined to read no other books but what lead me to a knowledge of myself, and JESUS CHRIST.
Methinks I could speak till midnight unto you, my brethren; I am full of love towards you; let me beseech you to fly to CHRIST for succour: “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation;” therefore delay not, but strive to enter in at the strait gate; do not go the broad way of the polite world, but choose to suffer affliction with the people of GOD, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: You will have a reward afterwards, that will make amends for all the taunts, jeers, and calamities you may undergo here.
And will not the presence of CHRIST be a sufficient reward for all you have suffered for his name’s sake? Why will you not accept of the LORD of glory? Do not say you have not heard of CHRIST, for he is now offered to you, and you will not accept of him; do not blame my master, he is willing to save you, if you will but lay hold on him by faith; and if you do not, your blood will be required of your own heads.
But I hope that you will not let the blood of JESUS be shed in vain, and that you will not let my preaching be of no signification. Would you have me go and tell my master, you will not come, and that I have spent my strength in vain; I cannot bear to carry so unpleasing a message unto him, I would not, indeed, I would not be a swift witness against any of you at the great day of accounts; but if you will refuse these gracious invitations, and not accept of them, I must do it: and will it not move your tender hearts to see your friends taken up into heaven, and you yourselves thrust down into hell? But I hope better things of most of you, even that you will turn unto the LORD of love, the JESUS who died for you, that in the day when he shall come to take his people to the mansions of everlasting rest, you may hear his voice, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, enter into the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world.” And that we may all enter into that glory, do thou, O JESUS, prepare us, by thy grace; give us thy spirit; and may our hearts be united to thee: May the word that has now been spoken, take deep root in thy people’s hearts, that it may spring up and bring forth fruit, in some thirty, in some forty, and in some an hundred fold; do thou preserve them while in this life from all evil, and keep them from falling, and at last present them faultless before thy Father, when thou comest to judge the world, that where thou art, they may be also. Grant this, O LORD JESUS CHRIST, with whatever else thou seest needful for us, both at this time and for evermore.
Now to GOD the Father, GOD the Son, and GOD the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour, power, glory, might, majesty and dominion, both now and for evermore, Amen.