UNCONVERTED READER. 521 And being thus moved with necessary pity, we ask ofGod what he would have us to do for your salvation. And he bath told us in scripture, That the preaching of his gospel, to acquaint you plainly with the truth, and earnestly and frequently entreat you to turn from the flesh and world to God by Jesus Christ, is the means with which his grace is ready to concur for your salvation; when obstinate resistance causeth the Holy Spirit to forsake the sinner, and leave him to himself to pursue his own counsels, . lusts, and will. In this hope we undertook the sacred ministry, and gave up ourselves to this great and most important work. In the great sense of our unworthiness, but yet in a sense of our soul's necessity, we were not such fools. at our first settin c ut, as not to know it must be a life of labour, self - enial, and patience ; and the devil will do his worst to hinder us, and have all his instruments ready to serve him against our labours, and against your souls. Christ our Captain was saved by patient conquest; and so must we save ourselves and you; and so must you save yourselves under Christ, if ever you be saved. 'T was no strange thing to Paul, that bonds and afflictions did every where attend him; nor did he account his life dear, that he might finish his course with joy, and the ministry committed to him by the Lord, Acts xx. 23, 24. It was no strange thing to him to be forbidden preaching to the Gentiles, that they might be saved ; by such as were filling up the measure of their sins, and were under God's ut- most wrath on earth, 1 Thess. ii. 16. Devils and Pha- risees, and most where they came, both high and low, were against the apostles preaching of the gospel; and yet they would not sacrilegiously and cruelly break their covenant with Christ, and perfidiously, desert the souls of men ; even as their Lord, for the love of souls, did call Peter Satan, who would have tempted him to save his life and flesh, instead of making it a sacrifice for our sins, Matt. xvi. 23. What think you should make us undertake a calling so contrary to bur fleshly ease and interest ? Do we 17 3 U
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