454 DIRECTIONS AND PERSUASIONS consideration ; but if I could persuade you to this rea- sonable, this cheap, this necessary work, and to follow it close, I should have exceeding great hopes of the salvation of you all. I have told the truth : consider what I say, and the Lord give you understanding ! Or if you put me to conclude on harsher terms, they shall still be the oracles of God. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you. Psalm 1. 22. The next direction which I shall give you, that the work of your conversion may not miscarry, is this : See that the work of humiliation be thoroughly done, and break not away from the Spirit of contrition, before he have done with you : and yet see that you mistake not the nature and the ends of the work, and that you drive it not on further than God requireth you. Here I shall, 1. Shew you the true nature of humi- liation. And, 2. The use and ends Of it. And, 3. The mistakes about it that you must avoid. And lastly, I shall press on the substance of the direction, and show you the necessity of it. 1. There is a preparatory humiliation that goes be- fore a saving change, which yet is not to be despised, because there is a drawing somewhat nearer unto God, though it be not a faithful close with him. This pre- paratory humiliation, which many have that perish, doth chiefly consist in these things following : 1. It lieth most in the fear of being damned ; as it is most in the passions, so most in this of fear. 2. It consisteth also in some apprehensions of the greatness of our sins, and the wrath of God that hangs over our heads, and the danger that we are in of being damned for ever. 3. It consisteth also in some apprehensions of the folly that we are guilty of in sinning, and of some repentings that ever we did it, and some remorse of conscience for it. 4. Hereto may be joined some passions of sor- row, and this expressed by groans and tears. 5. And all this may be accompanied with confessions of sin to God and man, and lamentations for our misery, and in some measure it proceedeth to desperation itself.
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