You cannot choose an habitation in hell; for such a place can never be desired. Surely he that cannot choose but to fly from an enemy, or a bear that did pursue him, or fly from fire, or water, or pestilence, when he perceives his danger, would fly from hell if he perceived his danger.

I beseech you all, that are secure in an unsanctified state, do but look inwards, and help me in preaching this doctrine to your hearts, and tell yourselves, whether you do think that your state is good, and that you are the children of God as well as others; and that though you are sinners, yet your sins are pardoned by the blood of Christ, and that you shall be saved if you die in the state that you are in? And are not these thoughts the reason why you venture to continue in your present state, and look not after so great a change as Scripture speaketh of as necessary?

And I pray you deal plainly with your hearts, and tell me, you careless sinners, young or old, that sit here as quietly as if all were well with you, If you did but know that you are at this hour unregenerate, and that without regeneration there is no salvation: if you did but know that you are yet carnal and unholy, and that "without holiness none shall see God:" if you did but know that you are yet in a state of enmity to God while you call him Father, and of enmity to Christ while you call him your Saviour, and of enmity to the Holy Spirit, while you call him your Sanctifier: if you did but know that your sins are unpardoned, and your souls unjustified, and that you are condemned already, and shall certainly be damned if you die as you are, Could you live quietly in such a state? Could you sleep, and eat and drink quietly, and follow your trades, and let time run on without repenting and returning unto God, if you knew that you are past hope, if death surprise you in this condition? For the Lord's sake, sirs, rouse up yourselves a little, and be serious in a business that concerneth you more than ten thousand natural lives; and tell me, or rather tell yourselves, If you did but know that while you sit here, you are unrenewed, and therefore under the curse of God, and in the bondage of the devil, and are hastening towards perdition, and are gone for ever, if you be not sanctified and made new creatures before you die: could you then put off this sermon with a sleepy, careless hearing, and go home and talk of common matters, and no more mind it, as you have done by

sermons until now? Could you forbear going alone, and there bethink yourselves, O what a sinful, dreadful condition are we in! What will become of us, if we be not regenerate before we die! Had we no understandings, no hearts, no life or sense, that we have lingered so long, and lived so carelessly in such a state! O where had we been now, if we had died unregenerate! How near have we been oft to death! How many sicknesses might have put an end to life and hope! Had any of them cut off the slender thread that our lives have hanged on so long, and had we died before this day, we had been now in hell without remedy.". Could any of you that knew this to be your case, forbear to betake yourselves to God, and cry to him in the bitterness of your souls, O Lord, what rebels, what wretches have we been! We have sinned against heaven and before thee, and are no more worthy to be called thy children! O how sin hath captivated our understandings, and conquered our very sense, and made us live like men that were dead, as to the love and service of God, and the work of our salvation, which we were created and redeemed for! O Lord, have mercy upon these blind and senseless miserable souls! Have mercy upon these despisers and abusers of thy mercy! O save us or we perish! Save us from our sins, from Satan, from thy curse and wrath! Save us, or we are undone and lost for ever! Save us from the unquenchable fire, from the worm that never dieth! from the bottomless pit, the outer darkness, the horrid gulf of endless misery! O let the bowels of thy compassion yearn over us! O save us for thy mercy sake; shut not out the cries of miserable sinners. Regenerate, renew and sanctify our hearts; O make us new creatures! O plant thine image on our souls, and incline them towards thee, that they may be wholly thine! O make us such as thou commandest us to be! Away with our sins, and sinful pleasures, and sinful company! We have had too much, too much of them already! Let us now be thine, associated with them that love and fear thee; employed in the works of holiness and obedience all our days! Lord, we are willing to let go our sins, and to be thy servants: or if we be not, make us willing.'

What say you, sirs, if you knew that you were this hour in a state of condemnation, could you forbear making haste

with such confessions, complaints, and earnest supplications to God?

And could you forbear going presently to some faithful minister, or godly friend, and telling him your case and danger, and begging his advice, and prayers, and asking him, what a poor sinner must do to be recovered, pardoned and saved, that is so deep in sin and misery, and hath despised Christ and grace so long? Could you tell how to sleep quietly many nights more, before you had earnestly sought out for help, and made this change? How could you choose but presently betake yourselves to the company, and converse, and examples of the godly that are within your reach? (For whenever a man is truly changed, his friendship and company is changed, if he have opportunity.) And how could you choose but go and take your leave of your old companions, and with tears and sorrow tell them, how foolishly and sinfully you have done, and what wrong you have done each other's souls, and entreat them to repent and do so no more, or else you will renounce them, and fly from their company as from a pesthouse?

Can a man forbear thus to fly from hell, if he saw that he is as near it as a condemned traitor to the gallows? He that will beg for bread, if he be hungry, and rather lay by shame than famish, would beg for grace, if he saw and felt how much he needeth it: and seeing it, is the way to feel it. He that will seek for medicines when he is sick, and would do almost any thing to escape a temporal death, would he not seek out to Christ, the remedy of his soul, if he knew and felt that otherwise there is no recovery? and would he not do much against eternal death? "Skin for skin, and all that a man hath, he will give for his life;" was a truth that the devil knew and maketh use of in his temptations. And will a man then be regardless of his soul, that knows he hath an immortal soul? and of life eternal, that knows his danger of eternal death?

O, sirs, it is not possible, but the true knowledge of your state of sin and danger, would do very much to save you from it. For it is a wilful, chosen state. All the devils in hell cannot bring you to it, and continue you in it against your will. You are willing of the sin, though unwilling of he punishment. And if you truly knew the punishment,

and your danger of it, you would be the more unwilling of the sin; for God hath affixed punishment to sin for this end, that they that else would love the serpent, may hate it for the sting. Will you not say, he is a beast and not a man, that will avoid no danger but what he seeth? Foreseeing is to a man, what seeing is to a beast: if he see it before his eyes, a beast will not easily be driven into a coalpit or a gulf; he will draw back and strive, if you go about to kill him. And is he a man, or some monster that wants a name, that will go on to hell, when he seeth it as it were before him? and that will continue in a state of sin, when he knows he must be damned in hell for ever, if he so continue to the end? Indeed sin is the deformity and monstrosity of the soul. He is a monster of blindness that seeth not the folly and peril of such a state, and that a state of holiness is better. He is a monster of stupidity that finds himself in such a state, and doth not feel it, but maketh light of it. And he is a monster of slothfulness, that will not stir when he finds himself in such a case, and seek for mercy, and value the remedy, and use the means, and forsake his sinful course and company, till further mercy take him up and bring him home, and make him welcome, as "one that was lost but now is found, was dead but is alive." I do not doubt, for all these expostulations, but some men may be such monsters, as thus to see that they are in a state of wrath and misery, and yet continue in it.

As, 1. Such as have but a glimmering, insufficient sight of it, and a half belief, while a greater belief and hope of the contrary (that is, presumption) is predominant at the heart: But these are rather to be called men ignorant of their misery, than men that know it; and men that believe it not, than men that do believe it, as long as the ignorance and presumption is the prevailing part.

2. Such as by the rage of appetite and passion are hurried into deadly sin, and so continue, whenever the tempter offereth them the bait against their conscience, and some apprehension of their misery. But these have commonly a prevalent self-flattery secretly within, encouraging and upholding them in their sin, and telling them, that the reluctancies of their consciences are the Spirits' strivings against the flesh, and their fits of remorse are true repen

tance and though they are sinners, they hope they are pardoned, and shall be saved, so that these do not know themselves indeed.

3. Such as by their deep engagements to the world, and love of its prosperity, and a custom in sinning, are so hardened, and cast into a slumber, that though they have a secret knowledge or suspicion that their case is miserable, yet they are not awakened to the due consideration and feeling of it; and therefore they go on as if they knew it not: but these have not their knowledge in exercise. It is but a candle in a dark lantern, that now and then gives them a convincing flash, when the right side happens to be towards them; or like lightning, that rather frightens and amazeth them, than directeth them. And (as I said of the former) as to the act, their self-ignorance is the predominant part, and therefore they cannot be said indeed to know themselves. Now and then a convinced apprehension, or a fear, is not the tenor of their minds.

4. Such as being in youth or health, do promise themselves long life, or any others that foolishly put away the day of death, and think they have yet time enough before them; and therefore though they are convinced of their misery, and know they must be converted or condemned, do yet delay, and quiet themselves with purposes to repent hereafter, when death draws near, and there is no other remedy but they must leave their sins, or give up all their hopes of heaven. Though these know somewhat of their present misery, it is but by such a flashy, ineffectual knowledge as is afore described; and they know little of the wickedness of their hearts, while they confess them wicked. Otherwise they could not imagine that repentance is so easy a work to such as they, as that they can perform it when their hearts are further hardened, and that so easily and certainly, as that their salvation may be ventured on it by delays. Did they know themselves, they would know the backwardness of their hearts; and manifold difficulties should make them see the madness of delays, and of longer resisting and abusing the grace of the Spirit that must convert them, if ever they be saved.

5. Such as have light to show them their misery, but live where they hear not the discovery of the remedy, and