4I6 LIFE os' FAITH. if you had seen the things you say you do believe? Would you ever again reproach it as preciseness, or count it more ado than needs, and think your time were better spent in playing than in praying ; in drinking, and sports, and filthy lusts,, than in the holy services of the Lord? Would you think, then, that one day in seven were too much for the work for which you live; and that an hour on this holy day were enough to be spent in instructing you for eternity? Or would you not believe that he is the blessed man, whose delight is in the law of God, and meditateth in it day and fright? Could you plead for sensuality, or ungodly negligence, or open your mouths against the most serious holiness of life, if heaven and hell stood open to your view? Quest. 3. If you saw but what you say you do believe, would you ever again be offended with the ministers of Christ for the plainest reproofs, and closest 'exhortations, and strictest precepts and discipline, that now are disrelished so much? Or, rather, would you not desire them to help you presently to try your state, and to search you to the quick, and to be more solicitous to save you than to .please you ? The patient, that will take no bit- ter medicine in time, when he sees he must die, would then take any thing. When, you see the things that now you hear of, then you would do any thing. O, then,- might you have these days again, sermons would not. be too plain or long: in season and out of 'season would then be allowed of. Then you would under- stand what moved ministers to be so importunate with you for con- version, and whether trifling or serious preaching was the best. Quest. 4. Hadyou seen the things that you say you do believe, what effect would sermons have upon you, after such a sight as this? O, what a change it would make upon our preaching, and your hearing, if we saw the things that we speak and hear of How fervently should we importune you in the name of Christ! How attentively would you hear, and'carefully consider and obey! We should then have no such sleepy' and hearing as now we have. Could I but show to all this congregation, while I am preaching, the invisible world of which we preach, and did you hear with heaven and hell in your eyesight, how confident should I be (though not of the saving change of all) that I should, this hour, teach you to.plead for sin, and against a holy life, no more; and send you home another people thanyou came hither. I durst, then, ask the worst that heareth me, ' Dare you now be drunk, or gluttonous, or worldly? Dare you be voluptuous, proud, or for- nicators any more ? Dare you go home,.and make a jest at piety, and neglect your souls as you have done ?' And why, ,then, should not the believed truth prevail, if indeed you did believe it, when the thing is as sure as if you saw it?
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