Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
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A30270
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A call to sinners such as are under sentence of death and such as are under any prospect of it from the long-suffering and gracious, but most righteous God / by His servant, Daniel Burgess.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing B5695; ESTC R23828
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12,715
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36
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Conscience and to all godly conscientious Folk about you that you have higher Thoughts of God than to dare go about making your Peace with his Majesty as tho' 't were a business that either did not Require or would not Requite the greatest and humblest Care and Pains R. 2. That you stick to it closely and constantly as that Work will require you to do I and would have required had you begun ever so soon and were you to live ever so long Sirs is not your Worldly business yet over is not your Peace with God now your one and only busisiness All of the four and twenty hours that ye do not sleep out methinks you might now spend very freely in the work I have proposed Formerly 't was all of it spent in running away farther from Gods peace why now should but a part of it be laid out in making after it The time was when you begrudged God an half hour's diversion from the World or sinful Pleasure You now reproach God fearfully if ye begrudge not the World the least Unnecessary diversion from Gods proper service R. 3. That you Observe and Lament in all you do that Leprosie of Selfishness which of all things is hardest to be cured To love your self is no Sin but Duty but Love of Self above God what is that think you God is so just that were there any thing else so good as He he would love it as well as himself were there ought better he would love it better than himself Now alas alas God is truly all-good and all-lovely Nothing is lovely but as of and for him yet how do you find it what care you for God but for your own ends could you not sin on as jocundly as ever and omit all Duty as profanely but for fear of your own Sufferings in Hell and for desire of your own Pleasures in Heaven Is it not for Self-ends that you list to know God or be at Peace with him Yes it is and to turn the Scales and get to love your selves but for God's honours sake to desire Pardon of Sin Peace of Conscience Deliverance from Hell principally that ye may thereby Love and Honour God is this Easie Or is it think you Vnnecessary Sirs mark it well I count not that you have receiv'd your sight or any sense of your Duty and Business 'till you are crying to this purpose viz. O blessed God thanks to thine own Grace for it I have begun to seek my Reconciliation unto thee and I do not nor dare I but hold on seeking But wo is me a cursed Selfishness I see has and still does act me Oh! I have not nor do I yet carry it towards Thee as a God and above all yea Universal good I would I could Love thee so as to be ashamed of my sin in time past and to be afraid of it for the future principally because of Love to thy All-loveliness Oh that I could say If there were no Heaven to reward nor Hell to Punish me yet so do I love God and hate sin that of all things I would desire to be Reconciled to Him and Live his Praises But Oh tho' I discern 't is as necessary to my Happiness that I Love thee as that I am Loved of thee and that if I love not thee I love not any good at all for thou art one and All I and that I do not love thee rightly 'till I do love thee above all and Love nothing but thee and for thy sake Yet is there a Milstone about my neck that presseth me down into deep Selfishness and hinders my seeking thee without giving thee greatest Provocations for ever to abhor me Sirs your real weariness of this said Milstone would be a token for good R. 4. That you by no means argue from the Multitude or Greatness or Long Continuance of your Sins that there is no Help for you in God. True Sin is an evil in one sense Infinite 'T is against an Infinite God. One sin did deserve and procure the whole World's Condemnation One sin takes more honour from God than all the Obedience of meer Creatures can repair And what then sin for all this is not Infinite so as Gods Mercy and Christs Merits and the Holy Ghosts mighty Power are infinite No such are these that if I my self had sinned all the sins of the faln Angels and of faln Mankind both Christ's Blood could satisfie for all the Holy Ghost could sanctifie and cleanse me from all The Mercy of God could forgive me all I and observe it Heaven has more than a few of them who were on earth more sinful than ordinary for a sadly long time Again I tell you Unless your present and future Unbelief hold you down under them no sins can be your ruine 'T is not falling into the water that is deepest drowns a man but 't is keeping down under the water Sirs Vomit up now all your heretofore sweet poysons make all your sins to become your shames and sorrow let no one of them live in your favour and fear it not you shall not die in their guilt If we our selves stood bound to pay unto God the satisfaction of any one Sin there were no hope of our Salvation but that is undertook by Christ who suffered death and the pains of Hell in our stead whom if the chief of sinners commit and submit themselves unto there is as little fear of their Damnation R. 5. That you be sure to be Orderly and Vniversal in this your great work My meaning is that you seek good things in their good Order the first firstly and so onward and that you seek all Gods proposed good things all and every of the Number Do not as many do wildly do not crave to have the Sacraments before you competently understand the Commandments nor pretend to be keepers of the Holy Commandments till you competently understand the Blessed Pattern of Prayer nor dream ye a possibility of profitably Receiving the Sacrament or Obeying any Commandment or making any Prayer till you are competently acquainted with the Gospel Creed Do not conceit your selves capable of Comfort before Holiness or of Holiness before Union to Christ or of saving Vnion to Christ before Faith or of Faith before Humiliation or of Humiliation before Conviction Seek all and seek in Order O seek 'em but as you believe that damned Souls in Hell wou'd seek 'em if they had but your Capacity and your Call. The Lord grant when your Bodies drop into the Pit your Souls may not fall into Eternal Flames And that your Real Conversion may be so sensible as to be Comfortable to your selves and so Visible as that it may be said by all who see your end Behold God hath granted unto these Prisoners and these Dying Creatures Repentance unto Life Amen FINIS Books to be Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside THree Questions resolved briefly and plainly Viz. 1. What Conceptions ought we to have of the blessed God 2. What are those Truths whereof the Knowledge appeareth most indispensibly necessary unto our Salvation and therefore to be first and most Learnt by us 3. What is the Change wrought in a Man by God's H. Word and Spirit before he can safely conclude himself pass'd from Death to Life Being the Summ of three Sermons The Christians earnest Expectation and Longing for the glorious Appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Set forth in a Discourse occasioned by the Decease of that Excellent Christian and Minister of Christ Mr. Noah Webb late of Sandhurst in the County of Berks. The Christian Temper Or the Quiet State of Mind that God's Servants labour for Set forth in a Sermon at the Funeral of Mrs. Vrsula Collins All three by Daniel Burgess Minister of the Gospel
A CALL TO SINNERS SUCH As are under Sentence OF DEATH AND SUCH As are under any Prospect of it FROM The Long-suffering and Gracious but most Righteous GOD. By his Servant Daniel Burgess at the Pious Request of an Excellent Person â—f God peradventure will give them Repentance 2 Tim. 2.25 LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside and Râ—bert Gibbs at the Golden Ball in Chancery-Lane 1689. To my dear Children My Hopes and my Fears THE first Adam's sin came into You thro' my Loins O may the second Adam's grace come into you thro' my means My God and the God of my Father's grant it To Him have I Dedicated you And for Him would I Educate you I am Called unto much work for Others It's little that I can do distinctly for You. Be it your Care to make Yours what is done for many Others Thus publickly I command you to read this Call as wrote singly for your selves 'T is possible some other Parents may from so mean an example Charge their Children And this my Paper may speak unto you when I am gone from you You know they are many who think my Days on Earth will be few And that You must Die Young or Live Orphans However that be order'd by God hasten ye to make sure your Peace with Him. Up and be doing O precious Souls and dear as mine own The God of my own Mercies Comforts and Hopes be with you Amen A Call to SINNERS UNDER Sentence of DEATH and under any Prospect of approaching Death O Blessed God that hast called me to lay my Paper to the Grave and to intreat the Dead to Rise to Argue with Rocks and Perswade very Mill-stones to be Saints O take the Work into thine own hand half a word of thine will make every Reader a Sincere Convert and Sound Believer Lord if thou wilt thou canst make this Call like the Trump of the Archangel to raise Millions of Dead Souls out of their Graves Amen Amen for Jesus sake Amen Miserable O miserable but not yet Helpless Sinner THE Lusts thou hast served all thy former days cannot now give thee one pleasant Thought in these thy last days The World thou hast Idolized cannot save thee from or in thy approaching Death The Devil whom thou hast Imitated and Obeyed longs to be sent to fetch thee to Hell. The God whom thou hast not sought unto for thy Peace with Him is resolved to wait but a very little longer for thy seeking unto Him. Yet so Kind is his holy Nature so Compassionate is his holy Jesus so long-suffering is his holy Spirit that by my hand He gives thee once more the Offer of his Pardon Grace and Glory He commands me to try if any or all of these ten Cousiderations will awaken thy Soul. C. 1. The very last Week and Day of thy Life is given thee to prepare for Eternity as well as all thy former ones I and the mispending of these will be a greater sin than the mispending of all thy former Weeks and Days hath been It will be a kind of sinning over all former sins again and adding unto the same Who can say thy Day of Grace is over And who can doubt but our last sins be still incomparably our worst sins C. 2. The very minute it self wherein Thou beginnest thy true Conversion God doth begin thy true Salvation Thou art under the Sentence of Condemnation not onely by the Law but by the Gospel When thou dost begin to Convert read Luk. 15.20 And he arose and came to his father But when he was yet a great way off his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him C. 3. The very Call that in this Paper God sendeth unto thee is a probable argument that God hath saving Grace in store for thee Methinks God hath said to me Go preach to the poor condemned Malefactors for I have some people among them and Hell shall not have all that die on the Gallows C. 4. The very Book of God which directs me to all I put thee upon is full of Proofs that thou mayst be saved however wicked thou hast been if even now thou dost not Deny or Delay Gods merciful Call sent thee The Heaven is not so full of Stars as Old and New Testament of Proofs hereof In the Old Testament Manasseh is a famous Instance of saving Grace to Sinners most notorious The Thief dying on the Cross is another recorded in the New Testament One of 97 years old was converted by John Rogers And Richard Rogers used to say of John I will never despair of any man for John Rogers's sake so wicked a wretch John had bin C. 5. The very Nature Decrees and Words of God make it certain that Vnbelief dishonours God more than all other Sins and Faith more honours him than all other Duties St. Austin says Judas sinn'd worse by his unbelieving sorrow for his Sin than by all his sins that he sorrowed for And such another Phoenix saith That right Faith honoureth God more than an uniform intire Obedience to the whole Law in Innocency could do C. 6. The very Pardon and Salvation of thy perishing Soul is a Work God has more Delight in than he has in all the Works of the whole Creation Seek Sinner seek seek and fear not that God will deny unto thee the thing he delighteth to give unto all that do duly seek C. 7. The very Hope that in his Gospel-way God will save thee and Confidence that through Christ he can do it without any loss of his own glory is no small Honour unto God I and 't is that without which thou canst never rightly Believe on Jesus Christ and therefore never Do any thing pleasing unto God. C. 8. The very Soul of thine which is certainly and extremely corrupted and cursed is not worse than many of the Souls which are now in Heaven once were Gods Son hath Redeemed and his Spirit hath sanctified as bad as Thou art Why not Thee too C. 9. The very Change of thine that I write for change of Covenant of Spirit of Nature of Conversation of Company it can no sooner be made but Heaven will ring with Joy for it I. and Hell gnash for envy at it Father Son and Spirit Angels Saints above and all Saints below that hear of it will be right glad C. 10. The very State that thou art now in is not so bad as that thou shalt presently pass into is good if now thou acceptest Christ offered to Thee No nor shall the very Eternity of the Damn'd be so bitter as he Eternity of thy blessed Soul and Body be sweet Sinner sinner lay this to thy heart thy State is Hellish bad as a Creatures sin can-make it But Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and in the same moment it shall be Heavenly even good as a God-Man's Obedience can deserve to have