140 EXCITEMENT TO SEEI. [Chap. 9. to feel their miseries, nor to pity themselves. If others do not pity them, they will have no pity ; for it is the nature of their disease to make them pitiless to themselves, yea, their own most cruel destroyers. Consider it was once thy own case. It was God's argument to the Israelites, to be kind to strangers, because themselves had been " strangers in the land of Egypt." So should you pity them that are strangers to Christ, and to the hopes and comforts of the saints, because you were once strangers to them yourselves. Consider your relation to them. It is thy neighbor, thy brother, whom thou art bound to love as thyself. He that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth daily, doth not love God, whom he never saw. And doth he love his brother, that will see him go to hell, and never hinder him ? Consider what a load of guilt this neglect lays upon thy own soul. Thou art guilty of the murder and damnation of all those souls whom thou dost thus neglect; and of every sin they now commit, and of all the dishonor done to God thereby; and of all those judgments which their sins bring upon the town or country where they live. Consider what it will be, to look upon your poor friends in eternal flames, and to think that your neglect was a great cause of it. If you should there perish with them, it would be no small aggravation of your torment. Ifyou be in heaven, it would surely be a sad thought, were it possible that any sorrow could ,dwell there, to hear a multitude of poor souls cry out for ever, " 0, if you would but have told me plainly of my sin and danger, and set it home, I might have escaped all this torment, and been now in rest !" What a sad voice will this be ! Consider what a joy it will be in heaven, to meet those there whom you have been the means to bring thither; to see their faces, and join with them for ever in the praises of God, whom you were the happy instru- ments of bringing to the knowledge and obedience ofJesus Christ! Consider how many souls you may have drawn into the way of damnation, or hardened in it. We have had, in the days of our ignorance, our companions in sin, whom we enticed or encouraged. And doth it not become us to do as much to save men, as we have done to destroy them ? Consider how diligent are all the enemies of these poor souls to draw them to hell. The devil is tempting them day and night; their inward lusts are still working
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