564 BAXTER'S. FIFTY REASONS. same, and are but what you were : this dulls a minister's spirit, and makes him preach heavily and coldly, when he is almost out of heart and hope. Truly, Sirs, 1 must tell you, for my own part, that if it had not been for those that gave me better encouragement by their ' obedience, I should Dever Kaye held out with you a quarter of this time. If all had profited as little as some, and all stuck as fast in an unconverted state as some; if the humble, penitent, obedient ones among you, had not been my comfort and encouragement under Christ, I had been gone from you ,many years ago, I could never have held out till now ; either my corrup- tion would have made me run away with Jonah, or my judgment would have commanded me to shake the dust off my feet, as a witness against you, and depart. But to what end do I speak all this to you ? To what end ? Why, to let you see how you abuse both God and man, by your delays and disobedience. You cannot possibly do us, that are your teachers, a greater injury or mis- chief in the world. It is not in your power to wrong us more. Are our studies and our labours worth nothing, think you ? Are our watchings and waiting worth nothing? Are our prayers, and tears, and groans to be despised ? God will not despise them if you do ; believe it, he will set them all on your account, and you will one day have a heavy reckoning of them, and "pay full dear for them. Is it equal dealing with us, that when we are watching for your souls, as men that know we must give an account, you should rob us of our comfort, and make us do it with sighs and sorrow ? Heb. xiii. 17. Yea, that you should undo all that we are doing, and make us lose our labour and our hopes and yet do you not think to pay for this? I tell you again, uncon- verted sinners, we are wearied with your delays. Many years we have been persuading you but to turn and live, and yet you are unturned.; you have been con- vinced long, and thinking on it, and wishing long, and talking of it, and promising long, and yet it is undone, and here is nothing but delays. We see while you delay, death takes away one this week, and another the -next week, and yóu are passing into another world
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