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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A64979 Christ's certain and sudden appearance to judgment by Thomas Vincent ... Vincent, Thomas, 1634-1678. 1667 (1667) Wing V429; ESTC R19997 176,576 295

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they were hid from their eyes they slept in the harvest they loitered away and sinned away their time and wasted their day in which they should have made provision for their souls O how will they be then ready to tear themselves in pieces that they should neglect so great salvation in the day when salvation was attainable yea that they should refuse the proffers of grace and pardon and peace and life and happiness which in that day were so frequently and earnestly made unto them then they will wish that they had opened their ear and heart that they had regarded and accepted such gracious proffers whatever they had neglected or parted withall then they will wish they had imbraced and improved the opportunities which once they had for prayer and hearing and attendance upon Gods Ordinances that they had been in the Church when they were in the Ale-house that they had associated themselves with Gods people when they frequented the company of the leud and ungodly that they had been upon their knees with grief confessing sin when they took so much delight in the commission of it that they had taken time from their sports to make their peace with God that they had worshipped God in their Closets and worshipped God in their Families and laid up for themselves treasures in Heaven and horrible will their vexation be that they did not so 4. In going away they will remember for what it was that they refused this happiness that it was only for the satisfaction of some foolish and unprofitable lust If two Kingdomes of equal worth and glory were proposed to a Mans choice it would not trouble him that he had refused the one to obtain the other but if a Man were to chuse whether he would be a King or a slave if he should refuse the former and chuse the later when he came to feel the misery of his bondage this would trouble him more than the bondage that he might have avoided it that he hath chose this thraldome and parted with a Kingdome for it they will then perceive that they have chosen to be slavesunto sin and Sathan rather than to be Heires unto the Kingdome of Glory I know that though now they are slaves and serve divers lusts and though their bondage is a thousand fold worse than if they were Vassals to the cruellest Tirant upon Earth yet they are not sensible neither are they weary of their bondage because their wills are in thraldome and their affections are captivated and though heirdome to the glory of Heaven be the choicest priviledge upon Earth and most desirable yet they do not desire it but prefer their slavery before it because they are blinde unbelieving besorted sinners and judge of things according to sense yet on the day of Christs appearance all things will appear with a new face and they will look upon things with a new eye they will then perceive that they were slaves all their dayes and that there was no such drudgery as that which they were employed in and that there was no such glory and happiness as that which they refused and foolishly cast away then it will sting them indeed to remember that they have chosen rather to do the work of the Devil and yield obedience to the basest lusts for which they must now be repayed with the wages of death and eternal misery than to do the work of the Lord who would have rewarded them with eternal life and a Crown of glory and immortality Then they will say What profit have we got by those things whereof we are now ashamed What fruit doth all our labour and toile in the World now yield unto us What are we the better for our riches and great estate on Earth for our honour and high esteem amongst men for our luscious pleasures and delights now vanished and gone which we bought at so dear a rate as the loss of our precious and immortal souls and the forfeiture of an Inheritance in the kingdome of Heaven Then they will cry out O bewitching World O deluding Devil O deceitfull hearts and lusts O what fools and mad-men have we been that we should trample Iewels under our feet like Swine and in stead of them put dross and dung into our Cabinet that we should so greedily drink the sweet poison of sin to the bane and ruine of our souls and refuse to taste of the Cup of salvation which all our dayes was held forth unto us Then they will cry out of their voluptuousness their covetousness their pride and haughtiness and the like lusts which have kept Christ out of their hearts and kept them out of the Kingdome of Heaven 5. In going away some of them shall remember how neerly they missed of this happiness that they were almost perswaded to be Christians in deed as well as in name and to accept of Christ upon his own termes that they were not far from the Kingdome of Heaven that they were come even within fight of the Heavenly Canaan and yet died in the Wilderness that they were come even to the Gate of the new Ierusalem but finding it too strait for them and the luggish of their sins together there they stuck and could not enter in that they climbed up a great way of the Hill to Zion but did not reach the top and tumbling down their fall was the greater they will remember the means of grace which they enjoyed the Ordinances which they sate under and the treaties which the Lord did make with them by his word and spirit about their life and salvation and the carriage of their hearts towards the Lord in those treaties some of them will remember what convictions the Lord wrought in them of sin and what tremblings of conscience for fear of Hell and wrath to come and if they had followed that preparative work they might have quickly been acquainted with Christ and escaped the misery which they feared but they ●tifled convictions and shook off their troubles they shut their eies against the light and stilled the noise of their consciences and calmed their spirits with the delights and pleasures of the World and so grew more hardned in sin than before and gave such repulses to the spirit that the spirit quite departed from them Others will remember that they were perswaded to ascend some steps higher under the Ministry of the Word when they were reproved for such and such gross sins which they lived in the practise of that they could have no ease in their consciences until they had broken off that wicked course that they left off their drunkenness and their swearing their uncleanness and unrighteous dealing and were in a great measure reformed in their lives but there were some lusts in their hearts which they hugged secretly and delighted in and could not be perswaded to leave which were their undoing pride revenge uncharitableness covetousness or the like remained in their reigning power which were inconsistent with
That they had as soul natures as the vilest that they had as leprous poisonous odious hearts until they were renewed and sanctified as those which they shall see condemned and tormented that they were sometimes foolish and disobedient serving divers lusts and pleasures hateful and hating one another until the kindness and free love of God was manifested in the regeneration and renovation of them by the holy Ghost Tit. 3. 3 4 5. That they were dead in sin with others and walked according to the course of the World according to the Prince of the power of the Aire who wrought in them as in other Children of disobedience so that they were as forward as others to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the minde and ran with others to the same excess of riot until God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved them had quickned them and saved them by his grace and hereby put a difference between them and the wicked who went on to the end of the sinful course in which sometimes they were running with them in company Eph. 2. 1 2 3 4 c. yea some of them will remember how they out-stripped others in sin and were guilty of more gross breaches of the Law than many millions of the wicked whom they will see condemned and that they should escape and be awakened to repent and enabled to believe and reform and that they should obtain pardon and salvation thorow Christ when others were passed by and let alone to perish under smaller sins this will fill them with astonishing admiration and wondering joy when they see some of their neer Relations going to Hel their Fathers their Mothers their Children their Husbands their Wives their Brethren their Sisters their intimate Friends and Companions however they are grieved now to see them take such courses and walk in the way to Hell and they labour to pull them out of that way and would fain perswade them to walk with them in Heavens way and are troubled to forethink of the torment which they must endure if they go on yet hereafter relative tyes and those affections which now they have to relations out of Christ wil cease and they wil not have the least trouble to see them sentenced to hel and thrust into the fiery furnace but rejoyce in the glory of God which wil be manifested upon them in their destruction and O the joy that they wil be filled withal to think that they were not passed by with the rest of their relations that they are not under the same deserved-condemnation with them that God should chuse but one or two in many families and they should be in the number of the chosen ones that when his chosen were comparatively so few and the reprobates so many that they should be elected when there was no motive in them to encline God to the choice of them that he should chuse them freely if he had not chosen them if they were now to change places with some of their wicked relations going to Hel this would be dreadful but that they are going from Hel when their relations are going into it this wil fil them with joy unspeakable Especially 3. When they consider in their going away that they were sometime so neer to Hell that whilst they were in a state of nature and under the guilt of sin that some of them were neer to death that they were brought to the sides of the pit to the doors of the grave to the very brink of Hell before they had repented and accepted of Jesus Christ some of them will remember how neer they were to death when they were young how neer they were to death by some casualties how neer by some diseases some of them will remember the great Plague in London which swept away so many thousands how ill they were provided for death at the beginning thereof how neerly they escaped the disease and some which had the disease how neerly they escaped death by it and if they had died then that they should certainly have gone to Hell O how will they admire the Providence of God in keeping them alive notwithstanding the many dangers they were in of death all the daies of their unregeneracy and when they moreover consider how they tried Gods patience and trampled upon it by their hainous provocations how they abused his goodness and turned his grace into wantonness how they did hasten in the waies of sin towards hell and were come even to the end of the line that some of them were Drunkards and Sabbath-breakers and profane persons and swearers and unclean persons and persecutors of the people of God and were arrived even to the heighth of wickedness and wan●ed but a step or two of falling into Hell and yet that the Lord should meet with them with a flaming sword in the way of sin they were driving on so fast and furiously in and stop them and turn them and change them and bring them home to himself yea when they had deafned their ears against many calls and stifled many convictions and often quenched the motions of his spirit and were so unwilling to leave their sins and to come out of the way of destruction were so desperately bent upon their ruine that yet he should knock and call again and again and follow them still by his Spirit that he should lay hold on them as the Angels did on Lot and bring them out of Sodom even by force and over-power the contranitency of their stubborn wills and break open the door of their hearts and overturn the strong holds of sin and sathan and set up the throne of his Son within them that he should snatch them like fire-brands out of the fire and pluck them out of the snare of the devil that had almost drag'd them into Hell O how will they be astonished to remember Gods infinite pitty and love and the power of his rich grace that did work salvation for them especially when they perceive how dreadful the misery is which they were hastning unto I have heard of a man who in the night galloped over a high bridge which was broken down all but a narrow plank which Gods providence directed his horses feet upon which if they had slipt never so little on the one side or the other horse and man had fallen into the deep stream and been drowned which the man did not know till the next morning but then viewing the place and considering the danger he had so narrowly escaped was struck with such astonishment at it that he fell down dead in the place When some of Gods people shall go away from Hell at the last day and look behind them into the bottomless-pit and take a view of the streams of fire and brimstone which are running in the burning lake and remember how they have galloped over those streams when they were in the carreer of their sins and by how narro●