beseech you deeply to lay to heart this awakening confideration, That multitudes mifcarry by the hand of fome fecret fin that is not only hidden, from others, but, for want of obferving their own hearts, even from themfelves. A man may be free from open pollutions, and yet die at laft by the fatal hand of fome unobserved iniquity. And there are these following hidden fins, through which fouls go down by numbers into the chambers of death. As you love your lives, read carefully, with a holy jealousy of yourselves, left you should be the perfons concerned. 1. Wilful ignorance. O how many poor fouls. doth this fin kill in the dark! While they think verily they have good hearts, and are in the ready way to heaven! This is the murderer that difpatcheth thousands in a filent manner, when they fufpect nothing. Ah! would it not have grieved a man's heart to have feen the woeful spectacle, when the poor Proteftants were fhut up a multitude together in a barn, and a butcher comes, and leads them one by one (blindfold) to a block, where he flew them one after another ? But how much more fhould your hearts bleed to think of the hundreds in great congregations, that wilful ignorance doth butcher in fecret, and lead blindfold to the block? Beware this be not your cafe: make no plea for ignorance: if you spare that fin, know that it will not fpare you: and would a man keep a murderer in his bofom ? 2. Secret referves in clofing with Chrift. To for fake all for Chrift, to hate Father and Mother, yea, a man's own life for him; This is a hard faying. Some will do much, but they will not be entirely devoted to Chrift; they must have the fweet fin; they have fecret exceptions for life, liberty, or estate. Many take Chrift thus, band over head, and never caft up the coft; and this error in the foundation mars all, and fecretly ruins them for ever, 3. For . 3. Formality in religion. Many rest in the outfide of religion, in the external performances of holy duties. And this oft times doth most effectually deceive men, and more certainly undo them than open loofenefs. They hear, they faft, they pray, they give alms, and therefore will not believe but their cafe is good. Whereas refting in the work done, and coming fhort of the inward power of religion, they fall at laft into the -burning lake, from the confident perfuafions of their being in the ready way to heaven. O dreadful cafe, when a man's religion shall serve only to harden him, and effectually to deceive his foul! 4. Trufting in their own righteoufnefs. When men truft in their own righteoufnefs, they reject Chrift's. Beloved, you had need be watchful; for not only your fins, but your duties, may undo you; a man may as certainly miscarry by his feeming righteousness as by grofs fins; when he trusts to this as his righteoufnefs before God, for the fatisfying of his juftice, and obtaining of his own pardon; for this is to put Chrift out of office, and make a faviour of our own duties and graces. 5. The refting in a certain pitch of religion. When they have fo much as will fave them (as they fuppofe) they look no farther, and fo thew them. felves fhort of true grace, which will ever put men upon aspiring to further perfection. 6. The love of the world. This is the fure evidence of an unsanctified heart, 1 John ii. 15. But how close doth this fin lurk oft-times under a fair covert of forward profeffion! Yea, fuch a power of deceit is there in this fin, that many times when every body else can fee the man's worldliness, he cannot fee it himself, but hath fo many colours, and excufes, and pretences for his eagerness on the world, that he doth blind his own eyes, and perifh in his felf-deceit. How many are there, with whom the world hath more of their hearts than Christ, who mind earthly things, and Yet and thereby are like to end in deftruction? afk these men, and they will tell you confidently, they prize Chrift above all; God forbid elfe! and fee not their own earthly-mindedness, for want of a narrow obfervation of the workings of their own hearts. Did they but carefully fearch, they would quickly find that their greateft content is in the world, Luke xii. 19. and their greatest care and main endeavour is to get and fecure the world: which is a certain difcovery of an unconverted finner. 7. Refentment against thofe that disrespect them, or are injurious to them. O how do many that seem to be religious, remember injuries and carry grudges, and will return men as good as they bring, rendering evil for evil, directly against the rule of the gofpel, the pattern of Chrift, and the nature of God. Doubtlefs where this evil is kept in the heart, that perfon is in a state of death. Reader, doth nothing of this touch thee? Art thou in one of the fore-mentioned ranks P fearch, and fearch again! take thy heart folemnly to task; woe unto thee, if, after thy profeffion, thou shouldst be found under the power of wilful ignorance, loft in formality, drowned in earthly mindednefs, envenomed with malice, or exalted in an opinion of their own righteoufnefs; this would be a fad discovery, that all thy religion was in vain. But I proceed. 8. Pride. When men love the praise of men, more than the praise of God, 'tis certain they are yet in their fins. When men fee not, nor groan, under the pride of their own hearts, 'tis a fign they are ftark dead in fin. O how fecretly doth this fin live and reign in many hearts, and they know it not. 9. Carnal fecurity, or a prefumptuous confidence that their condition is already good. Many cry, peace and fafety, when fudden deftruction is coming upon them. Men are willing to cherish in themselves, Ирод upon ever fo light grounds, a hope that their condition is good, and fo look not out after a change, and by this means perish in their fins. Are you at peace? Shew me upon what grounds your peace is maintained. Is it Scripture peace? Can you fhew the diftinguifhing marks of a found believer? If not, fear this peace more than any, trouble; and know, that a carnal peace doth commonly prove the most mortal enemy of the poor foul. By this time I think I hear my readers crying out with the difciples, Who then fhall be faved? Set out from among our congregations all the prophane on the one hand, and then all these forts, of close and felf-deceiving hypocrites on the other, and tell me then whether it be not a remnant that, fhall be faved. And now, confcience, do thy office; fpeak out, and speak home to him that readeth these lines. If thou find any of these marks upon him, thou mait pronounce him utterly unclean. Take not up a lie into thy mouth, fpeak not peace to him, to whom God (peaks no peace. I require thee in the name of God, to go with me to the search of the fufpected houfe. Wilt thou hold thy peace at fuch a time as this? I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us the truth. Is the man converted, or is he not? Doth he allow himself in any way of fin, or doth he not ? Doth he truly love, and please, and delight in God, or not? Come, put it to an iffue. How long fhall this foul live at uncertainties ? O confcience! bring in thy verdict. Is this man a new man, or is he not ? How doft thou find it? Hath there pafs'd a thorough and mighty change upon him, or not? When was the time? where was the place? or what was the means by which this thorough change was wrought in his foul? Speak, Confcience; or if thou canst not tell time and place, canft thou fhew Scripture evidence that the work is done? Hath the man ever been taken off off from his false bottom, from the falfe hopes, and falle peace wherein he once trufted? Hath he been convinced of fin, and of his loft and undone condition, and brought out of himfelf, and off from his fins, to give himself up entirely to Jefus Chrift? Or, doit thou not find him to this day under the power of ignorance, or in the mire of prophanenels? Haft thou not taken upon him the gains of unrighteousness ? Doft thou not find him a ftranger to prayer, a neglecter of the word, a lover of this prefent world? Doft thou Do not not often catch him in a lie? Doft thou not find his heart fermented with malice, or burning with luft, or going after his covetoufnefs ? Speak plainly to all the forementioned particulars: canft thou acquit this man, this woman, from being one of the characters here described ? If he bo found to be one of them, fet him afide; he mult be converted, and made a new creature, or elfe he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Beloved, be not your own betrayers. deceive your own hearts, nor fet your hands to. your own ruin, by a wilful blinding of yourselves. Set up a tribunal in your own breasts, bring the word and confcience together. O follow the fearch till you have found how the cafe ftands; miftake here and perish. And fuch is the treachery of the heart, the fubtlety of the tempter, and the deceitfulness of fin: and withal, fo common and eafy it is to be mistaken, that 'tis a thousand to one but you will be deceived, unless you be very careful and impartial in the enquiry: O! therefore, ply your work, go to the bottom, fearch with candles, weigh yourself in the balance, come to the standard of the fanctuary, bring your coin to the touchstone. Satan is malter of deceit; he can draw to the life; there is nothing but he can imitate: you cannot wish for any grace, but he can fit you to a hair with a counterfe t. warily, look on every piece you take; be jealous, trust not your own hearts. Run to God to search G Trade you |