TO A SOUND CONVERSION. 855 must be like- minded to him. God knows, it is small pleasure to your teachers to see you wilfully run into the flames of hell. Alas ! to foresee your everlasting torments, and know not how to prevent them, is to see how near you are to hell, and we cannot make you believe it and consider it : to see how easily, how certainly, you might escape, if we knew but how to make you willing ! how fair you are for everlasting salvation, if you would but turn and do your best, and make it the care and business of your lives ! but you will not do it ! Do you think that this is a pleasant thing to us? Again, it is none of your godly friends. Alas ! it is the grief of their souls to see your misery, and they lament for you many a time when :tou give them little thanks for it, and when you have not hearts to lament for yourselves. Who is it then that takes pleasure in your sin ? It is none but three great enemies of God, whom you renounced in your baptism. 1. The devil takes pleasure in your sin and death ; for this is the end of all his temptations. You can- not please him better than to go on in sin : how glad is he when he sees thee go to the alehouse, and when he hears thee curse, or swear, or rail! These are his delight. 2. The wicked are also delighted in it ; for it is agreeable to their nature. 3. But I know, for all this, that it is not the pleas- ing of the devil that you intend; but it is your own flesh, the greatest and most dangerous enemy. It is the flesh that would be pleased in meat and drink, and clothing; that would be pleased in company, and in applause and credit with the world ; and this is the gulph that devours all. This is the very god you serve. For the scripture says of such, their belly is their god. (r) But I beseech you stay a little, and consider the business. (r) Phil. iii. 1.9
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