TO A SOUND CONVERSION. 465 Truly, sirs, I have led you even as far as I can ; and what more to say to you or what more to do for you, to procure your conversion, I do not know. If it had been in my power to have shown you heaven and hell itself, that you might have better known the matters that we speak of, I think I should have done it. But God will not have men live by sense in this life, but by faith. If I could but help you all to such a know- ledge and apprehension of these invisible things, as the worst of you shall have as soon as you are dead, then I should make but little doubt of your conversion and salvation. Sure if you had but such a sight, the force of it would so work upon you, that you would all cry out that you are resolved to be new creatures. But though this be beyond my power, and though I cannot show you the great and wonderful things that every eye must shortly see ; yet I come not to you without a glass of God's own making, and in that glass you may see them. There, if you have but an eye of faith, you may see that God you have so long offended, and that now so earnestly inviteth you to return : there you may see that crucified Christ, that hath opened you a way for repentance by his blood, and pleadeth that blood with you for the melting of your impenitent obstinate hearts. There you may see the odious face of sin, and the amiable face of holiness, which is the image of God. There you may see both heaven and hell, although they are invisible, and may know what will be, and that to all eternity, as well as what is. And will not such a sight, in the glass of God's word, serve to move thee presently to give up the trade of sinning, and to resolve, before thou stir, for God ? I am now come to the end of this part of my work ; if the reading of it have brought thee to the end of thy un- godly careless life, it will be happy for thee, and I shall so far attain the end of my labour. I have purposely put this direction of the necessity of resolution in the last place, that I might leave upon thy spirit the reasons for resolution that here I have laid down. And now, I beseech thee, reader, whoever thou art, with all the 15 3 N
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