Flavel, Fountain of Life, File 44 (conclusion).
( ...continued from File 43_
1. First, It pulls you back from sin, as in Joseph; "How can I
do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" And it also inclines
you powerfully to obedience. It is a curb to sin, and an spur to
holiness. It is impossible for all others to live spiritually and
heavenly, because they have no new nature to incline them hereunto.
And, methinks, it should be hard for you to live carnally, and
sensually; and therein cross the very bent and tendency of the new
creature, which is formed in you. How can you neglect prayer, as
others do, whilst the Spirit, by divine pulsations, is awaking and
rousing up your sluggish hearts with such inward motions, and
whispers, as that, Psal. 27:8. "Seek my face". Yea, whilst you feel,
(during your omissions of duty), something within that bemoans
itself, and, as it were, cries for food, pains and gripes you, like
an empty stomach, and will not let you be quiet, till it be
relieved. How can you let out your hearts to the world, as other men
do, when all that while your spirit is restless, and aches like a
bone out of joint? And you can never be at ease, till you come back
to God, and say, as Psal. 116 "Return to thy rest, O my soul". Is it
not hard, yea, naturally impossible, to fix a stone, and make it
abide in the fluid air? Does not every creature, in a restless
motion, tend to its proper centre, and desire its own perfection? So
does this new creature also. You see how the rivers in their course
will not be checked, but bear down all the obstacles in their way,
et soevior ab obice ibit; a stop does but make them raise the more,
and run the swifter afterwards.
There is a central force in these natural motions, which cannot
be stopped. And the like may you observe, in the motions of a
renewed soul, John 4: 14 "It shall be in him as a well of water
springing up." And is it not hard for you to keep it down, or turn
its course? How hard did Jeremiah and David find that work? If you
do not live holy lives, you must cross your own new nature, and
violate the law that is written in your own hearts, and engraven
upon your own bowels. To this purpose a late writer speaks; Till you
were converted, (saith he) the flesh was predominant, and therefore
it was impossible for you to live any other than a fleshly life; for
every thing will act according to its predominant principle. Should
you not therefore live a spiritual life? Should not the law of God
written in your hearts, be legible in your lives? O should not your
lives be according to the tendency of your hearts? Thus he:
Doubtless this is no small advantage to practical holiness. But,
Secondly, Besides this principle within, you have no small
assistance for the purity of life, by these excellent patterns
before you. The path of holiness is no untrodden path to you. Christ
and his servants have beaten it before you. The life of Christ is
your copy, and it is a fair copy indeed, without a blot. Oh! what an
advantage is this, to draw all the lines of your actions, according
to his example! This glorious, grand example is often pressed upon
for your imitation, Heb 12: 2. Looking to Jesus, he has left you an
example, that ye should tread in his steps, 1 Pet 2: 21. His life is
a living rule to his people; and besides Christ's example, (for you
may say, who can live as Christ did? his example is quite above us)
you have a cloud of witnesses. A cloud for its directive use, and
these men of like passions, temptations, and constitutions with you;
who have gone before you in exemplary holiness. The Holy Ghost
(intending therein your special help and advantage) has set many
industrious pens to sock, to write the lives of the saints, and
preserve for your use, their holy sayings, and heavenly actions He
bids you "take them for an example," James 5: 10. Oh! what excellent
men are passed on before you! what renowned Worthies have led the
way! Men, whose conversions were in heaven, whilst they tabernacled
on earth. Whilst this lower world had their bodies, the world above
had their hearts, and their affections. Their actions, and their
designs were all for heaven. Men that improved troubles and
comforts; losses and gains, smiles and frowns, and all for heaven.
Men that did extract heaven out of spirituals, out of temporals, out
of all things; their hearts were full of heavenly meditations, their
mouths of heavenly communications, and their practices of heavenly
inclination: O what singular help is this! Where they followed
Christ, and kept the way, they are propounded for your imitation;
and where any of them turned aside, you have a mark set upon that
action for your cautions and prevention. Does any strange or unusual
trial befall you, in which you are ready to say with the church,
Lam. 1:12, "Was there ever any sorrow like unto my sorrow?" Here you
may see "the same affliction accomplished in your brethren", 1 Pet.
5:9. Here is a store of good company to encourage you. Do the world
and the devil endeavour to turn you from your duty, by loading it
with shameful scoffs, or sufferings? In this case you may look to
Jesus, who despised the shame; and to your brethren, "who counted it
their honour to be dishonoured for the name of Christ", as the
original of the text, Acts 5:41, may be translated. Is it a
dishonour to thee, to be ranked with Abraham, Moses, David, and such
as were the glory of the ages they lived in? Art thou at any time
under a faint fit of discouragement, and ready to despond under any
burden? Oh, how mayest thou be animated by such examples, when such
a qualm comes over thy heart? Some sparks of their holy courage
cannot choose but steal into thy breast, whilst thou considerest
them. In them, God has set before thee the possibility of overcoming
all difficulties, thou seemst men of the same mould, who had the
same trials, discouragements and fears, that now thou hast, and yet
overcame all. How is thy unbelief checked, when thou sayest, Oh! I
shall never reach the end, I shall one day utterly perish! Why dost
thou say so? Why may not such a poor creature as thou art, be
carried through as well as they? Had not they the same temptations
and corruptions with you? Were they not all troubled with an naughty
heart, an ensnaring world, and a busy devil, as well as you? Alas!
When they put on the divine, they did not put off the human nature;
but complained, and feared, as you do; and yet were carried through
all.
O what an advantage have you this way! They that first trusted
in Christ, had not such helps as you. You stand upon their
shoulders. You have the benefit of their experiences. You that are
fallen into the last times, have certainly the best helps to
holiness, and yet, will not you live strictly and purely? still you
put on the name and profession of Christians, and yet be lofty in
your spirits; earthly in your designs; neglective of duty; frothy in
your communications? Pray, from which of all the saints did you
learn to be proud? Did you learn that from Christ, or any of his?
From which of his saints did you learn to be earthly and covetous,
passionate or censorious, over-reaching and crafty? If you have read
of any such evils committed by them, have you not also read of their
shame and sorrow, their repentance and reformations? If you have
found any such blots in their lives, it was left there designedly to
prevent the like in yours. O, what an help to holiness is this!
Thirdly, And this is not all. You have not only a principle
within you, and a pattern before you, but you have also an
omnipotent assistant to help, and encourage you throughout your way.
Are you feeble and infirm? and is every temptation, even the
weakest, strong enough to turn you out of the way of your duty? Lo,
God has sent his Spirit to help your infirmities, Rom. 8:26. No
matter then how weak you are, how many and mighty your difficulties
and temptations are, as long as you have such an assistant to help
you. Great is your advantage for a holy life this way also. For,
(1 ) First, when a temptation to sin presses sore upon you, he
pleads with your consciences within, whilst Satan is tempting
without. How often has he brought such scriptures to your
remembrance, at the very opportunity, as have saved you out of the
temptation? If you attend his voice, you may hear such a voice
within you as that, Jer. 44:4, "O do not this abominable thing which
I have!" What mighty strivings were there in the heart of Spira, as
himself relates? He heard, as it were, a voice within him, saying,
Do not write, Spira, do not write. To this purpose is that promise,
Isa. 30:20, 21 "Thine eyes shall behold thy teachers, and thine ears
shall hear a word behind thee, saying, "This is the way, walk ye in
it? when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left."
Here you have a two-fold help to holiness, the outward teaching of
the word, verse 20 and the inward teachings of the Spirit, verse 21.
He shall say, this is the way, when ye are turning aside to the
right-hand, or to the left Alluding to a shepherd, saith one, who,
driving his sheep before him; whistles then in, when he sees them
ready to stray.
(2 ) Secondly, When ye walk homily and closely with God in your
duties, and the Spirit encourages you to go on, by those inward
comforts, scalings, and joys, you have from him at such times; how
often does he entertain your souls in public ordinances, in private
duties, with his hidden Manna, with marrow and fatness, with
incomparable and unspeakable comforts, and all this to strengthen
you in your way, and encourage you to hold on?
(3.) Thirdly, When you are indisposed for duties, and find your
hearts empty and dry, he is ready to fill them, quicken and raise
them; so that oftentimes the beginning and end of your prayers,
hearing or meditations, are as vastly different, as if one man had
begun, and another ended the duty. O then, what assistance for a
holy life have you! Others indeed are bound to resist temptations,
as well as you; but, alas! having no special assistance from the
Spirit, what can they do? It may be, they reason with temptation a
little while, and in their own strength resolve against it; but how
easy a conquest does Satan make, where no greater opposition is made
to him than this? Others are bound to hear, meditate, and pray, as
well as you; else the neglect of those duties would not be their
sin: But, alas, what pitiful work do they make of it! being left to
the hardness and vanity of their own hearts, when you spread your
sails, you have a gale, but they lie wind bound, heart-bound, and
can do nothing spiritually in a way of duty.
Fourthly, and lastly, to mention no more, You have a further
advantage to this holy life, by all the rods of God that are at any
time upon you. I might show you in many particulars, the advantages
this way also, but I shall only present these three to your
observation at this time.
First, By these you are clogged, to prevent your straying and
wandering. Others may wander even as far as hell, and God will not
spend a sanctified rod upon them, to reduce or stop them; but saith,
let them alone," Hos. 4: 17. But if you wander out of the way of
holiness, he will clog you with one trouble or other to keep van
within bounds, 2 Cor. 12: 7. "Lest I should be lifted up, a thorn in
the flesh, a messenger of Satan, was sent to buffet me." So David,
Psal. 119: 67. "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I
have kept thy word." Afflictions are used by God, as thorns by
husband men, to stop the gaps and keep you from breaking out of
God's way, Hos. 2: 6. "I will hedge up her way with thorns, and
build a wall, that she shall not find her paths." A double allusion;
1. To cattle that are apt to stray, I will hedge up thy way with
thorns. 2. To the sea, which is apt to overflow the country, I will
build a wall to prevent inundations. Holy Basil was a long time
sorely afflicted with an inveterate head-ache, he often prayed for
the removal of it; at last God removed it, but in the room of it, he
was sorely exercised with the motions and temptations of lust;
which, when he perceived, he heartily desired his head-ache again,
to prevent a worse evil. You little know the ends and uses of many
of your afflictions. Are you exercised with bodily weakness? it is a
mercy you are so; and if these pains and infirmities were removed,
these clogs taken off, you may with Basil, wish for them again, to
prevent worse evils. Are you poor? why, with that poverty God has
clogged your pride. Are you reproached? with these reproaches God
has clogged your ambition. Corruptions are prevented by your
afflictions. And, is not this a marvellous help to holiness of life?
Secondly, By your afflictions, your corruptions are not only
clogged, but purged. By these God dries up and consumes that spring,
of sin that defiles your lives, Isa. 27: 9. "By this therefore shall
the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take
away sin." God orders your wants to fill your wantonness; and makes
your poverty poison to your pride. They are God's physic, to purge
ill humours out of your souls. "When they fall by the sword, and by
famine, and by captivity, and by spoil, it is to try them, and to
purge them, and to make them white?" They are both purges and
lavatories to your souls. Others have the same afflictions that you
have, but they do not work on them as on you; they are to you as
fire for purging, and water for cleansing: and yet, shall not your
lives be clean? It is true, (as one well observes upon that place of
Daniel,) Christ is the only lavatory, and his blood the only
fountain to wash away sin: but, in the virtue and efficacy of that
blood, sanctified afflictions are cleansers and purgers too.
A cross without a Christ never made any man better, but with
Christ, saints are much the better for the cross. Has God been (as
it were) so many days and nights a whitening you, and yet is not the
hue of your conversation altered? Has he put you so many times into
the furnace, and yet is not the dross separated? The more
afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had
for this life of holiness.
Thirty, By all your troubles, God has been weaning you from the
world, the lusts, loves, and pleasures of it; and drawing out your
souls to a more excellent life and state than this. He makes your
sorrows in this life, give a lustre to the glory of the next.
Whoever has, be sure you shall have no rest here; and all, that you
may long more ardently for that to come. He often makes you groan,
"being burdened, to be clothed with your house from heaven," 2 Cor.
5: 4. And yet will you not be weaned from lusts, customs, and evils
of it? O what mariner of persons should you be for heavenly and holy
conversations? You stand upon the higher ground. You have, as it
were, the wind and tide with you. None are assisted for this life as
you are. Put all this together, and see what this second argument
contributes toward our further conviction, and persuasion to holy
life. Have you received a supernatural principle, fitting you for,
and inclining you to holy actions, resisting and holding you buck
from sin? Has God also set before you such eminent patterns to
encourage and quicken you in your way? Doth the Spirit himself stand
ready, so many ways, to assist and help you in all difficulties, and
has God hedged up the way of sin with the thorns of affliction, to
prevent your wandering, and yet will you turn aside? Will you offer
violence to your own principles and new nature? Refuse to follow
such leaders as have beaten the way before you? Resist, or neglect
his gracious assistance of the blessed Spirit, which he offers you
in every need, and venture upon sin, though God has hedged up your
way with afflictions? O, how can you do such great wickedness, and
sin against such grace as this!
Methinks, I need say no more to convince you how much you are
concerned to keep the issues of life pure, none being so much
obliged to it, or assisted for it, as you are. But when I remember
that Joash lost the complete victory over the Syrians, because he
smote not his arrows often enough upon the ground, 2 Kings 13: 8. I
shall level one arrow more at this mark: For, indeed, that can never
be enough pressed, which can never be enough practised. And
therefore,
Consid. 3. Thirdly, It will yet farther appear to be your high
concernment, to exact holiness in your conversations, because of the
manifold and great uses which God has to make of the visible
holiness and purity of your lives, both in this world and that to
come. The uses God puts the conversation-holiness of his people in
this world unto, are these among others.
First, To win over souls to Christ, and bring them in love with
religion. Practical holiness is a very lovely, attractive, and
obliging thing. If the heathen could call moral virtue verticordia,
turn-heart, from that obliging and winning power it exercises upon
the hearts of men; if they could say of it, that were it visible to
human eyes, all men would adore it, and fall in love with it; how
much rather may we say so of true holiness, made visible in the
lives of saints! This is the turn-heart indeed. It makes the souls
of men to cling and cleave to the persons in whom it is; as it is
prophesied, Zech. 8: 23. of the Jews, when they shall be called,
(which shall be a time of great holiness,) "in that day, ten men out
of all languages of the nations shall take hold of the skirt of him
that is a Jew, saying, we will go with you, for we have heard that
God is with you." So much of God as appears in men, so much drawing
excellency there is in them. And this is the apostle's argument, 1
John 1:3 "That ye may have fellowship with us." Why, what is there
in your fellowship to invite men to you? "Truly our fellowship is
with the Father, and with his Son Christ Jesus." Who can choose but
to covet their company, that keep company every day with God? Great
is the efficacy of visible holiness to work upon the hearts of men;
either as a concause, working in fellowship with the word, or as a
single instrument, working solitarily without the word.
Where God is pleased to afford the word unto men, there the
practical holiness of saints is of singular use, to assist and help
it in its operation upon the hearts of men. When the lives of
Christians sensibly experience that to the eyes of men, which the
gospel does to their ears; when so we preach, and so ye believe and
live; when we draw by our doctrines, and you draw with us by your
examples; when we hold forth the word of life doctrinally, and you
hold it forth practically, as Phil. 2: 16. Where is the heart that
can stand before us? O! when the plain and powerful gospel pierces
the ears of men, and at the same time, the visible holiness of
professors shines so full in their faces, that they must rather put
out their own eyes, or else be forced to acknowledge, that God is in
you of a truth; then it will work to purpose upon souls. Then will
Christ see of the travail of his soul daily.
Yea, if God deny the word to men, yet this practical holiness I
am speaking of, may be to them an ordinance for conversion. This
way, souls may be won to Christ without the word, as the apostle
speaks, 1 Pet. 3: 1. Though pulpits should be silent, and vision
fail; yet, if you would this way turn preachers, if your lives may
but preach the reality, excellency, and sweetness of Jesus Christ
and his ways; and, if you would this way preach down the love of the
world, and let men see what poor vanities these are; and preach up
the necessity and beauty of holiness; surely you, even you might be
honoured to bring many souls to Christ, to turn many to
righteousness, and cause many to bless God, on your behalf, in the
day of visitation. This is the use God has for the holiness and
purity of your lives, and does not this engage you strongly to it?
What, not when it may prove the means of eternal the to others?
Surely, if you have any bowels of mercy in you, you cannot hide from
others that whereby they may be saved. How can you, instead of
holding forth the word of life, (which is your manifest duty)
visibly hold forth the works of death before men? Have you been
beholden to others, and shall none be beholden to you for help
towards heaven? Dare you say, let others shift as well as they can,
find the way to heaven by themselves if they can, they shall have no
benefit by your light? If you be Christians, you are Christians of a
different stamp and spirit frown all those we find described in
scripture. Should you not rather say as the lepers did, 2 Kings 7:
6. "Do we well to hold our peace," whilst others are perishing?
Shall the lips of ministers, and the lives of Christians, be both
silenced together? Shall poor sinners neither hear any thing from
us, nor see any thing from you, that may help them to Christ? The
Lord have mercy then upon the poor world, and pity it, for its case
is desperate. O put on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercy.
Destroy not, by the looseness of your conversation, so many souls;
for your scandalous miscarriages are like a bag of poison put into
the spring which supplies the whole city with water.
Secondly, Another use God has for it, is to recover and salve
the credit of religion, which by the apostasies of hypocrites, and
scandalous falls of careless Christians, is wounded and exposed to
contempt. Much reproach by this means is brought upon religion, and
how shall that reproach be rolled away, but by your strictness and
purity? By this the world must be convinced that all are not so.
Though some be a blot to the name of Christ, yet others are his
glory. The more others slur and disgrace religion, the more God
expects you to honour and adorn it. I remember Chrysostom brings in
the persecutors speaking to two renowned martyrs, after this manner,
Nonne videtis alios vestri ordinis hoc fecisse? i.e. Why are you so
nice and scrupulous? See you not that others of your rank and
profession have done these things? To which they returned this brave
answer, Nos hac potissimum ratione viriliter stabimus, i.e. have
they done it? For that very reason we will stand out like men, and
will never yield to it. There is an holy Antiperistasis in the zeal
of a Christian, which makes it, like fire, burn most vehemently in
the coldest weather. If men make void God's law, therefore will
David love his commandments above gold, Psal. 119: 127. If there be
many Pendletons among professors who will betray Christ and his
truth to save their flesh; God will have some Sanders to repair that
breach, by their constancy and courage in appearing for them.
Thirdly, God makes use of it for the encouragement of his
ministers who labour among you. And indeed it is of no small use to
refresh their hearts, and strengthen their hands in their painful
work: "Now we live (saith the apostle) if ye stand fast in the
Lord," 1 Thess. 3: 8. He speaks as if their very life lay at the
mercy of the people, because so much of the joy and comfort of it is
wrapt up in their regularity and steadfastness. God knows what a
hard providence his poor ministers have, and how many
discouragements attend them in their work; hear how one of them
expresses it, "Ministers would not be gray headed so soon, nor die
so fast, notwithstanding their great labours, if they were but
successful; but this cuts to the heart, and makes us bleed in
secret, that though we do much, yet it comes to nothing. Our work
dies therefore we die. Not so much that we labour, as that we labour
in vain: When our ministry petrifies, turns hearts into stones, and
these taken up and thrown at us, this kills us; the recoiling of our
pains kills us. When our peace returns to us; when we spend our
strength to make men more nought than they were; this wounds our
hearts, which should be considered by sinners. To kill one's self,
and one's minister too, who would save them; what a bloody condition
is this! Every drop that has fallen from our heart and hand, from
our eye-lids and eye-brows, shall be all gathered up, and put as
marginal notes by all our labours, and all put in one volume
together, and this volume put into your hands at the great day, and
opened leaf after leaf, and read distinctly and exactly to you.
Christians, you hear our case, you see our work. Now a little
to cheer our spirits in the midst of our hard and killing labours,
God sends us to you for a little refreshment, that, by beholding
your holy and heavenly conversation, your cheerful obedience, and
sweet agreement in the ways of God, we may be comforted over all
these troubles, 2 Thess. 1: 3, 4. And will you wound and kill our
hearts too? O what a cut will this be!
Fourthly, God has further use for the holiness of your lives;
this serves to daunt the hearts, and overawe the consciences of his
and your enemies. And sometimes it has had a strange influence and
effect upon them. There is a great deal of awful Majesty in
holiness, and when it shines upon the conscience of a wicked man, it
makes him stoop and do obeisance to it, which turns to a testimony
for Christ and his ways before the world. Thus Herod was overawed by
the strict and holy life of John; he feared him, knowing that he was
a just and holy man, and observed (or preserved and saved) him.
That bloody tyrant was convinced in his conscience of the worth
and excellency of that servant of God, and was forced to reverence
him for his holiness. So Darius, Dan. 6: 14,18, 19, 20. What
conflicts had he with himself about Daniel, whom he had condemned;
his conscience condemned him, for condemning so holy and righteous a
person. "Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night in
fastings; neither were instruments of music brought before him, and
his sleep went from him. He goes early in the morning to the den,
and cries with a lamentable voice, O Daniel, servant of the living
God." How much is this for the honour of holiness, that it conquers
the very persecutors of it; and makes them stoop to the meanest
servant of God! It is said of Henry II of France, that he was so
daunted by the heavenly majesty of a poor taylor that was burnt
before him, that he went home sad, and vowed, that he would never be
present at the death of such men any more. When Valence the emperor
came in person to apprehend Basil, he saw such majesty in his very
countenance, that he reeled at the very sight of him; and had fallen
backward to the ground, had not his servants stept in to support
him. O holiness, holiness, thou art a conqueror. So much, O
Christians, as you show of it in your lives, so much you preserve
your interest in the consciences of your enemies: cast off this, and
they despise you presently.
Fifthly, and lastly, God will use the purity of your
conversations to judge and convince the world in the great day. It
is true, the world shall be judged by the gospel, but your lives
shall also be produced as a commentary upon it; and God will not
only show them by the word how they ought to have lived, but bring
forth your lives and ways to stop their mouths, by showing how
others did live. And this I suppose is intended in that text, 1 Cor.
6:2, "The saints shall judge the world, yea, we shall judge angels;"
i.e. our examples are to condemn their lives and practices, as Noah,
Heb. 11:7 is said to condemn the world by building the ark, i.e. his
faith in the threatening, and obedience to the command, condemned
their supineness, infidelity and disobedience. They saw him every
day about that work, diligently preparing for a deluge, and yet were
not moved with the like fear that he was; this left them
inexcusable; so when God shall say in that day to the careless
world, did you not see the care, and diligence, the holy zeal,
watchfulness, and self-denial of my people, who lived among you? How
many times have they been watching and praying, when you have been
drinking or sleeping! Was it not easy to reflect when you saw their
pains and diligence, Have not I a soul to look after as well as
they; a heaven to win or lose, as well as they? O how speechless and
inexcusable will this render wicked men, yea, it shall not only be
used to judge them, but angels also. How many shocks of temptations
have poor saints stood,; whereas they fell without a tempter? They
stood not in their integrity, though created in such excellent
natures; how much then are you concerned on this very account also
to walk exactly! if not instead of judging then, you shall be
condemned with them.
And thus you see what use your lives and actions shall be put
to; and are these inconsiderable uses? Is the winning over souls to
God a small matter? Ii the salving the honour and reputation of
godliness a small matter? Is the encouraging the hearts and
strengthening of the hands of God's poor ministers, amidst their
spending, killing labours, a small matter? Is the awing of the
consciences of your enemies, and judging them in the last day, a
light thing? Which of these can you call so?
O then, since you are thus obliged to holiness of life, thus
singularly assisted for it; and since there are such great
dependencies upon it, and uses for it, both now and in the world to
come, see that ye be holy in all manner of conversation. See that,
"as ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so ye walk in him,"
always remembering, that for this very end, Christ has redeemed, or
"delivered you out of the hands of your enemies, that you might
serve him without fear, in righteousness and holiness all the days
of your lives," Luke 1: 74, 75. And to how little purpose will be
all that I have preached, and you have heard, of Christ, if it be
not converted into practical godliness? This is the scope and design
of it all.
And now, reader, thou art come to the last leaf of this
treatise of Christ, it will be but a little while, and thou shalt
come to the last page or day of thy life; and thy last moment in
that day. Wo to thee, wo and alas for ever; if an interest in this
blessed Redeemer be then to get. The world affords not a sadder
sight, than a poor Christless soul shivering upon the brink of
eternity. To see the poor soul that now begins to awake out of its
long dream, at its entrance into the world of realities, to shrink
back into the body, and cry, O, I cannot, I dare not die. And then
the tears rundown. Lord, what will become of me? O what shall be my
eternal lot? This, I say, is as sad a sight as the world affords.
That this may not be thy case, reflect upon what thou hast read in
these sermons. Judge thyself in the light of them. Obey the calls of
the Spirit in them. Let not thy slight and formal spirit float upon
the surface of these truths, like a feather upon the water; but get
them deeply fixed upon thy spirit, by the Spirit of the Lord;
turning them into life and power upon thee; and so animating the
whole course and tenor of thy conversation by them, that it may
proclaim to all that know thee, that thou art one who esteemest all
to be but dross, that thou mayest win Christ.
The End
(... concluded)
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