370 DIRECTIONS AND PERSUASIONS What reason have you wilfully to perish ? If you think you have some reason to sin, should you not remember, that death is the wages of sin ? And think whether you have any reason to undo yourselves, body and soul, for ever. You should not only Ask whether you love the adder, but whether you love the sting? It is such a thing for a man to cast away his everlasting happiness, that no good reason can be given for it ; but the more any one pleads for it, the mader he shows himself to be. Had you a lord- ship, or a kingdom, offered you for every sin that you commit, it were not reason, but madness, to accept it. 'Could you by every sin obtain the highest thing on earth that flesh desires, it were of no considerable value to persuade you to commit it. If it were to please your greatest or dearest friends, or to obey the greatest prince on earth, or to save your lives, or to escape the greatest earthly misery ; all these are of no consideration, to draw a man to the committing of one sin. If it were a right hand, or a right eye, that would hinder your salvation, it is the gainfullest way to cut it off, or pluck it out. For there is no saving a part where you lose the whole. So exceed- ing great are the matters of eternity, that nothing in this world deserves to be named in comparison with them ; nor can any earthly thing, though it were life, or crowns, or kingdoms, be a reasonable excuse for the neglect of matters of everlasting consequence. Heaven is such a thing, that if you lose it nothing can supply the want, or make up your loss; and hell is such a thing, that if you suffer it, nothing can remove your misery, or give you ease and comfort. And therefore nothing can be a valuable consideration to excuse you for neglecting your own salvation: What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? O that you did but know what matters they are which we are now speaking of! There is never a soul in hell but knows by this time, that it was a mad exchange to let go heaven for fleshly pleasure; and
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