6. This is the faith that worketh by love, the way that leadeth to the kingdom. Do you earnestly desire to walk therein? Then put away all hindrances. Beware of company: At the peril of your soul, keep from those who neither know nor seek God. Your old acquaintance are no acquaintance for _you_, unless they too acquaint themselves with God. Let them laugh at you, or say, you are running mad. It is enough, if you have praise of God. Beware of strong drink. Touch it not, lest you should not know when to stop. You have no need of this to chear your spirits; but of the peace and the love of God: beware of men that pretend to shew you the way to heaven, and know it not themselves. There is no other name whereby you can be saved, but the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And there is no other way whereby you can find the virtue of his name but by faith. Beware of Satan transformed into an angel of light, and telling you, it is presumption to believe in Christ, as _your_ Lord and _your_ God, your wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Believe in him with your whole heart. Cast your whole soul upon his love. Trust him alone: love him alone: fear him alone: and cleave to him alone: Till he shall say to you (as to the dying malefactor of old,) _This day shalt thou be with me in paradise_.
A WORD in SEASON; OR, Advice to an _ENGLISHMAN_.¹
¹ This was published at the beginning of the late rebellion.
1. DO _you_ ever _think_? Do you ever _consider_? If not, ’tis high time you should. _Think_ a little, before it is too late. _Consider_ what a state you are in. And not you alone, but our _whole nation_. We _would_ have war. And we have it. And what is the fruit? Our armies broken in pieces: And thousands of our men either killed on the spot or made prisoners in one day. Nor is this all. We have now war at our own doors: our own countrymen turning their swords against their brethren. And have any hitherto been able to stand before them? Have they not already seized upon one whole kingdom? Friend, either _think_ now, or sleep on and take your rest, till you drop into the pit where you will sleep no more?
2. _Think_, what is likely to follow, if an army of _French_ also, should blow the trumpet in our land! What desolation may we not then expect? What a wide-spread _field of blood_? And what can the end of these things be? If they prevail, what but _Popery_ and _Slavery_? Do you know what the spirit of _Popery_ is? Did you never hear of that in queen _Mary_’s reign? And of the holy men who were then burnt alive by the _Papists_, because they did not dare to do as they did? To worship angels and saints; to pray to the virgin _Mary_; to bow down to images, and the like. If we had a king of this spirit, whose life would be safe? At least, what honest man’s? A knave indeed might turn with the times. But what a dreadful thing would this be to a man of conscience? “Either turn, or burn. Either go into that fire: or into the fire that _never shall be quenched_.”
3. And can you dream that your _property_ would be any safer than your _conscience_? Nay, how should that be? Nothing is plainer than that the Pretender cannot be king of _England_, unless it be by conquest. But every conqueror may do what he will. The laws of the land are no laws to him. And who can doubt, but one who should conquer _England_ by the assistance of _France_, would copy after the _French_ rules of government?
4. How dreadful then is the condition wherein we stand? On the very brink of utter destruction! But why are we thus? I am afraid the answer is too plain, to every considerate man. Because of our sins: because we have well-nigh _filled up the measure of our iniquities_. For, what wickedness is there under heaven, which is not found among us at this day? Not to insist on the _sabbath-breaking_ in _every corner_ of our land, the _thefts_, _cheating_, _fraud_, _extortion_; the _injustice_, _violence_, _oppression_; the _lying_ and _dissimulating_; the _robberies_, _sodomies_ and _murders_ (which, with a thousand unnamed ♦villainies are common to us and our neighbour _Christians_ of _Holland_, _France_, and _Germany_:) consider over and above, what a plentiful harvest we have of wickedness almost peculiar to ourselves? For who can vie with _us_, in the direction of courts of _justice_? In the management of _public charities_? Or, in the _accomplished_, barefaced wickedness, which so abounds in our _prisons_, and _fleets_, and _armies_? Who in _Europe_ can compare with the _sloth_, _laziness_, _luxury_ and _effeminacy_ of the _English gentry_? Or with the _drunkenness_, and stupid, senseless _cursing_ and _swearing_, which are daily seen and heard in our _streets_? One great inlet, no doubt, to that flood of _perjury_, which so _increases_ among us _day_ by _day_: the like whereunto is not to be found, in any other part of the habitable earth.
♦ “villanies” replaced with “villainies”