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CHA P. VI.

Containing Directions for CONVERSION.

BEFORE thou readeft these Directions, I

charge thee before God and his holy angels, thou refolve to follow them (as far as confcience shall be convinced of their agreeableness to God's word) and call in his affiftance that they may fuc ceed and as I have fought the LORD, and confulted his Oracles, what advice to give thee, fo muft thou entertain it with that awe, reverence, and purpofe of obedience, which the word of the living God doth require.

Now then attend: Set thine heart unto all that I

fhall testify unto thee this day for it is not a vain thing, it is your life. This is the end of all that has been fpoken hitherto, to bring you to make ufe of God's means for your converfion. I would not trouble you, nor torment you before your time, with the thoughts of your eternal mifery, but in order to your making your escape. Were you fhut up under your prefent mifery without remedy, it were but mercy to let you alone, that you might take that poor comfort you are capable of in this world; but you may yet be happy, if you do not wilfully refufe the means of your recovery, behold, I hold open the door to you; arise, take your flight: I fet the way of life before you, walk in it, and you shall live and not die. It grieves me to think you should be your own murderers, and throw yourselves headlong, when God cries out to you, fpare thyfelf.

Would it not grieve a perfon of any humanity, if in the time of a raging plague he fhould have a receipt that would infallibly cure all the country, and recover the moft hopeless patients, and yet his friends and neighbours fhould die by hundreds about him, because they would not use it? Men

H 3

and

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and brethren, though you carry the certain fymptoms of death, yet I have a receipt that will cure you all: follow but thefe directions, and if you do not then win heaven, I will be contented to lofe it.

Hear then, O finner! and as ever thou wouldst be converted, embrace this counsel.

Direct. I. Set it down as an undoubted truth, that it is impoffible for thee ever to get to heaven in this unconverted fate. Can any other but Chrift fave thee? And he tells thee he never will do it, except thou be converted. Doth he not keep the keys of heaven? And canft thou get in without his leave? As thou must, if ever thou come thither without a thorough renovation.

Direct. II. Labour to get a lively fenfe and feeling of thy fins. Till men are weary and heavy-laden, and fick of fin, they will not come to Chrift, for eafe and cure. They muft fet themfelves down for dead men before they will come to Chrift, that they may have life. Labour therefore to fet all thy fins in order before thee, never be afraid to look upon them, but let thy fpirit make diligent Tearch. Inquire into thine heart, and into thy life; enter into a thorough examination of thyfelf, and all thy ways, that thou mayeft make a full difcovery; and call in the help of God's Spirit, for it is his work to convince of fin. Spread all before the face of thy confcience, till thy heart and eyes be fet abroach: leave not striving with God, and thy own foul, till it cry out under the fenfe of thy fins, What must I do to be Javed? To this purpose,

Meditate on the numeroufnefs of thy fins. David's heart failed when he thought of this, and confidered that he had more fins than hairs. This made him cry out upon the multitude of God's tender mercies. Look backward where was ever the place, what was ever the time, in which thou did!t not fin? Look inward: what part or power canft thou find in foul or body, but it is poifoned with

fin? What duty doft thou ever perform, into which poifon is not thed? O how great is the fum of thy debts, who hast been all thy life runing upon thy books, and never didft or canft pay off one penny? Look over the fin of thy nature, and all its curfed brood, the fins of thy life: call to mind thy omiffions, commiffions, the fins of thy thoughts, words, and actions, the fins of thy youth, and the fins of thy years. Be not like a defperate bankrupt, that is afraid to look over his books: read the records of conscience carefully. Thefe books must be opened fooner or later.

Meditate on the aggravations of thy fins, as they are the grand enemies of the God of thy life, and of the life of thy foul. In a word, they are the public enemies of all mankind. O man! how canft thou make fo light of fin? This is the traitor that fucked the blood of the Son of God, and fold him, that mocked him, that scourged him, that fpat in his face, that digged his hands, that pierced his fide, that preffed his foul, that mangled his body, that never left him, till it had bound him, condemned him, nailed him, crucified him, and put him to an open fhame. This is that deadly poifon, fo powerful of operation, as that one drop of it fired on the root of mankind, hath corrupted, spoiled, poifoned, and undone his whole race at once. This is the bloody executioner, that hath killed the prophets, burnt the martyrs, murdered all the apoftles, all the patriarchs, all the kings and potentates, that has deftroyed cities, fwallowed empires, butchered and devoured whole nations, Whatever was the weapon it was done by, fin was it that did the execution. Doft thou yet think it but a fmall thing? If Adam and all his children could be dug out of their graves, and their bodies piled up to heaven, and an inquest were made, what matchlefs murderer was guilty of all this blood, it would be found in the fkirts of fin. Study the nature of fin till thy heart inclines to

fear

fear and loath it; and meditate on the aggravations of thy particular fins, how thou haft finned against all God's warnings, against thy own prayers, against mercies, against correction, againft light, against love, against thine own refolutions, against promises, vows, and covenants of better obedience. Charge thy heart home with these things till it blush for fhame, and be brought out of all good opinion of itself.

Meditate on the defert of fin. It crieth to heaven ; it calls for vengeance. Its due wages is death and damnation; it pulls the curfe of God upon the foul and body. The leaft finful word or thought lays thee under the infinite wrath of God Almighty. O what a load of wrath, what a weight of curfes, what a treasure of vengeance, have all the millions of thy fins then deserved!

Above all other fins, fix the eye of confideration on the fin of thy nature. It is to little purpose to lop off the branches, while the root of corruption remains untouched. In vain do men leave out the ftreams, when the fountain is running that fills up all again. Study how deep, how close, how permanent is thy natural pollution, how univerfal it is; cry out, with Paul's feeling, upon thy body as dead. Look into all thy parts and powers, and fee what unclean veffels, what dunghills, what finks they are become. The heart is never foundly broken till thoroughly convinced of the heinoufnefs of original fin. Here fix thy thoughts, this is that which makes thee backward to all good, prone to all evil; that sheds blindness, pride, prejudice, unbelief, into thy mind; enmity, inconftancy, obftinacy into thy will; inordinate heats and colds into thy affections; infenfibleness, benumbedness, unfaithfulness, into thy confcience; and, in a word, hath put every wheel in shy foul out of order, and made it of an habitation of holiness, to become a very hell of iniquity. This is what hath defiled, corrupted, perverted all thy members, and turned them into weapons

of

of unrighteoufnefs, and fervants of fin. And wilt thou yet be in love with thyfelf, and tell us any longer of thy good heart ? O never leave meditating on the defperate contagion of original corruption, till with the deepest fhame and förrow thou fmite on thy breast, and with Job, abhor thyfelf, and repent in duft and athes.

Direct. III. Strive to affect thy heart with a deep fenfe of thy prefent mifery. Read over the foregoing chapter again and again, and get it into thy heart. Remember, when thou lieft down, that for ought thou knoweft thou mayeft awake in flames; and when thou rifeft up, that by the next night thou mayeft make thy bed in hell. Is it a trifling matter to live in fuch a fearful cafe? to ftand tottering upon the brink of the bottomlefs pit, and to live at the mercy of every disease, that if it will but fall upon thee, will fend thee forthwith into the burnings. Suppofe thou faweft a condemned wretch hanging over Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace by nothing but a thread, which was ready to break every moment, would not thy heart tremble for fuch a one ? Why, thou art the man, This is thy very cafe, O man, O woman, that readeft. this, if thou be yet unconverted. What if the thread of thy life fhould break? (why, thou knoweft not but it may be the next night, yea, the next moment) where wouldst thou be then ? Whither wouldft thou drop? Verily into the lake that burns with fire and brimftone, where thou muft lie fcalding and fweltering in a fiery ocean while God hath a being, if thou die in thy prefent cafe.

Direct. IV. Settle it upon thy heart, that thou art under everlasting inability ever to recover thyfelf. Never think thy praying, reading, hearing, confeffing, amending, will do the cure; thefe must be attended to, but thou art undone if thou restest in them. Thou art a loft man, if thou hopest to efcape drowning on any other plank but Jefus Chrift. Thou must unlearn thyfelf, and renounce

thine