TO A SOUND CONVERSION. 429 you have missed your marks, and how far you have been from what You should have been, and how little you have done of that which was your business ; and O what abundance of aggravations have your sins! (which I shall pass over now, because I must mention them under another head.) It is not only some actual out-breakings against the bent of your heart and life ; but your very heart was false, and gone from. God, and set in you to do evil. O the time that you have lost : the means and help that you have neglected; the motions that you have resisted ; and swarms of evil thoughts that have filled your imaginations ; the streams of vain and evil works that have flowed from your mouth ; the works of darkness, in public and in secret, that God hath seen you in ! And all this while, how empty were you in inward holiness, and how barren of good words, to God or men ? What have you done with all your talents ! and how little or nothing bath God had of all ! And now consider what a case you are in, while you remain unconverted : you have made yourselves the sinks of sin, the slaves of Satan, and the flesh ; and are skilful in nothing but doing evil ; if you be call- ed to prayer or holy meditation, your hearts are against it, and you are not used to it and therefore you know not how to do it to any purpose ; but to think the thoughts of lust or covetousness, or hatred or malice, or re- venge, this you can do without any toil ; to speak of the world, or of your sports and pleasures, or against those that you bear ill will to, this you can do without any study : you are such as are spoken of, My people is ¡bolish, they have not known me ; they are sottish children, and they have no understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.(d) You are grown strangers to the God that made you, in whose love and service you should live and find your chief delights. Your hearts are hardened, and you are (d) Jer. iv. 22.
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