434 LIFE OF FAITH. it would make you glad to be among them, and fast, and pray, and watch, and rejoice with them, and better to understand what it is to believe the communion of saints. In à word, did you but see what God reveals, and saints be- lieve, and must be seen, I would scarce thank you to be all as seri- ous and solicitous for your souls, as the holiest man alive ; and presently to repent and lament the folly of your negligence and delays, and to live as men that know no other work to mind, in comparison of that which extendeth tó eternity. Iwould scarce thank the proudest of you all, to lie down in the dust, and in sack- cloth and ashes, with tears and cries, to beg the pardon of those sins which before you felt no weight in. Nor the most sensual wretch, that now sticks so close to his ambition, covetousness and lust, that he saith he cannot leave them, to spit them out as loath- some bitterness, and be ashamed of then as fruitless things. Ypu would then say to the most godly, that now seem too precise, ' why do you not make more haste, and lay hold on heaven with greater violence? Why do you pray with no more fervency, and bear witness against the sins of the world with no more Undaunted courage and resolution ? And why do you not more freely lay out your time, and strength, and wealth, and all that you have, on the work of God ? .Is heaven worth no more ado than this ? Can 'youdo no more for an endless life, and the escaping of the wrath to come ? Shall worldlings overdo you?' These wouldbe your thoughts on such a sight. CHAPTER IL Use' of Exhortation. WHAT now remains but that you come into the light, and beg of God, as the prophet for his servant, (2 Kings vi. 17.) to open your eyes, that you may see the things that would do so much, "That the God ofour Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of revelation, in the knowledge of him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope ofWs calling, andwhat is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints ; " Ephes. i. 17, 18. 0 set those things continually before your eyes, that must forever be before them! Look seriously into.the infallible word; and what- soever that foretells, believe It as if it were come to pass. The unbelief of God's threatenings and penal laws is the perdition of souls, as well as the unbelief of promises. God giveth not false
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