fury falleth upon thee? If when Daniel's enemies were cast into the den of lions, both they and their wives and their children the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces ere ever they came at the bottom of the den; what shall be done with thee, when thou fallest into the hands of the living God, when he shall crush thee into a thousand pieces in his wrath?

O, do not then contend with God! Repent, and be converted, so none of this shall come upon thee. Isa. lv. 6. 7. "Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found; call upon him, while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

CHAP. VI.

Containing Directions for Conversion.

BEFORE thou readest these Directions, I charge thee before God and his holy angels, thou resolve to follow them, (as far as conscience shall be convinced of their agreeableness to God's word,) and call in his assistance that they may succeed: and as I have sought the LORD, and consulted his oracles, what advice to give thee, so must thou entertain it with that awe, reverence, and purpose of obedience, which the word of the living God doth require.

Now then attend: Set thine heart unto all that I shall 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 spoken hitherto, to bring you to make use of God's means for your conversion. I would not trouble you, nor torment you before your time, with the thoughts of your eternal misery, but in order to your making your escape. Were you shut up under your present misery 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 refuse the means of your recovery. Behold, I hold open the door to you; arise, take your flight: I set 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, spare thyself.

Would it not grieve a person of any humanity, if in the time of a raging plague he should have a receipt that would infallibly cure all the country, and recover the most hopeless patients, and yet his friends and neighbours should die by hundreds about him, because they would not use it? Men and brethren, though you carry the certain symptoms of death, yet I have a receipt that will cure you all: follow but these directions, and if you do not then win heaven, I will be contented to lose it.

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

Direct. I. Set it down as an undoubted truth, that it is impossible for thee ever to get to heaven in this unconverted state. Can any other but Christ save thee? And he tells thee he never will do it, except thou be converted. Doth he not keep the keys of heaven? And canst 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 sense and feeling of thy sins. Till men are weary and heavy laden, and sick of sin, they will not come to Christ, for ease and cure. They must set themselves down for dead men before they will come to Christ, that they may have life. Labour therefore to set all thy sins in order before thee; never be afraid to look upon them, but let thy spirit make diligent search. Inquire into thine heart, and into thy life; enter into a thorough examination of thyself, and all thy ways, that thou mayest make a full discovery; and call in the help of God's Spirit, for it his work to convince of sin. Spread all

before the face of thy conscience, till thy heart and eyes be set abroach: leave not striving with God, and thy own soul, till it cry out under the sense of thy sins, What must I do to be saved? To this purpose, Meditate on the numerousness of thy sins. David's heart failed when he thought of this, and considered that he had more sins 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 didst not sin? Look inward: what part or power canst thou find in soul or body, but it is poisoned with sin? What duty dost thou ever perform, into which poison is not shed? O how great is the sum of thy debts, who hast been all thy life running upon thy books, and never didst nor canst pay off one penny! Look over the sin of thy nature, and all its cursed brood, the sins of thy life: call to mind thy omissions, commissions, the sins of thy thoughts, words, and actions, the sins of thy youth, and the sins of thy years. Be not like a desperate bankrupt, that is afraid to look over his books: read the records of conscience carefully. These books must be opened sooner or later.

Meditate on the aggravations of thy sins, as they are the grand enemies of the God of thy life, and of the life of thy soul. In a word, they are the public enemies of all mankind. O man! how canst thou make so light of sin? This is the traitor that sucked the blood of the Son of God, and sold him; that mocked him, that scourged him, that spat in his face, that digged his hands, that pierced his side, that pressed his soul, 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 shame. This is that deadly poison, so powerful of operation as that one drop of it, shed on the root of mankind, hath corrupted, spoiled, poisoned, and undone his whole race at once. This is the bloody executioner, that hath killed the prophets, burnt the martyrs, murdered all the apostles, all the patriarchs, all the kings and potentates; that has de

stroyed cities, swallowed empires, butchered and devoured whole nations. Whatever was the weapon it was done by, sin was it that did the execution. Dost thou yet think it but a small 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 matchless murderer was guilty of all this blood? it would be found in the skirts of sin. Study the nature of sin till thy heart inclines to fear and loathe it; and meditate on the aggravations of thy particular sins how thou hast sinned against all God's warnings, against thy own prayers, against mercies, against correction, against light, against love, against thine own resolutions, against promises, vows, and covenants of better obedience. Charge thy heart home with these things till it blush for shame, and be brought out of all good opinion of itself.

Meditate on the desert of sin. It crieth to heaven; it calls for vengeance. Its due wages is death and damnation; it pulls the curse of God upon the soul and body. The least sinful word or thought lays thee under the infinite wrath of God Almighty. O what a load of wrath, what a weight of curses, what a treasure of vengeance, have all the millions of thy sins then deserved!

Above all other sins, fix the eye of consideration on the sin 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 streams, when the fountain is running that fills up all again. Study how deep, how close, how permanent, is thy natural pollution, how universal it is; cry out, with Paul feeling, upon thy body as dead. Look into all thy parts and powers, and see what unclean vessels, what dunghills, what sinks they are become. The heart is never soundly broken, till thoroughly convinced of the heinousness of original sin. 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, inconstancy, obstinacy, into thy will; inordinate heats and colds into

thy affections; insensibleness, benumbedness, unfaithfulness, into thy conscience; and, in a word, hath put every wheel in thy soul out of order, and made it, of a 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 unrighteousness, and servants of sin. And wilt thou yet be in love with thyself, and tell us any longer of thy good heart? O never leave meditation on the desperate contagion of original corruption, till with the deepest shame and sorrow thou smite on thy breast, and, with Job, abhor thyself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Direct. III. Strive to affect thy heart with a deep sense of thy present misery. Read over the foregoing chapter again and again, and get it into thy heart. Remember, when thou liest down, that for ought thou knowest thou mayest awake in flames; and when thou risest up, that by the next night thou mayest make thy bed in hell. Is it a trifling matter to live in such a fearful case? to stand tottering upon the brink of the bottomless pit, and to live at the mercy of every disease, that if it will but fall upon thee, will send thee forthwith into the burnings? Suppose thou sawest a condemned wretch hanging over Ne buchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace by nothing but a thread, which was ready to break every moment, would not thy heart tremble for such a one? Why, thou art the man. This is thy very case, O man, O woman, that readest this, if thou be yet unconverted. What if the thread of thy life should break? (why, thou knowest not but it may be the next night, yea, the next moment,) where wouldst thou be then? Whither wouldst thou drop? Verily into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; where thou must lie scalding and sweltering in a fiery ocean while God hath a being, if thou die in thy present case.

Direct. IV. Settle it upon thy heart, that thou art under everlasting inability ever to recover thyself.— Never think thy praying, reading, hearing, confessing