THE UNCONVERTED. 129 hear of it. They are in a mist of ignorance. They are lost and bewildered in sin; like a man that has lost himself in the night, and knows not where he is, nor how to come to himself again, till the day-light recover him. 3. They are wilfully c(}nfident that they need no conversion, but some partial amendment; and that they are in the way to heaven already; and are converted when they are not. And if you meet a man that is quite out of his way, you may long enough call on him to turn back again, if he will not believe you that he is out of the way. 4. They are become slaves to their flesh, and drowned in the world to make provision for it. Their lusts, and passions, and appetites have distracted themvand got such a hand over them, that they cannot tell how to deny them, or how to mind any thing else; so that the drunkard saith, I love a cup of good drink, and I cannot forbear it: the glutton saith, I love good cheer, and I cannot forbear; the fornicator saith, I love to have my lust fulfilled, and I cannot forbear; and the gamester loves to have his sports, and he cannot forbear. So that they are become even captivated slaves to their flesh, and their very wilfulness is become an impotency; and what they would not do, they say they cannot. And the worldling is so taken up with earthly things, that he hath neither heart, nor mind, nor time, for heavenly; but, as in Pharaoh's dream, Gen. xli. 4. the lean kine <lid eat up the fat ones; so this lean and barren earth doth eat up all the thoughts of heaven. 5. Some are so carried away by the stream of evil company, that they are possessed with hard thoughts of a godly life, by hearing them speak against it; or at least they think they may venture to do as they see most do, and so they hold on in their sinful ways; and when one is cut off, and cast into hell, and another snatched away from among them to the same condemnation,-it doth not much daunt them, because they see not whither they are gone. Poor
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=