PREFA CE.

To all unfanctified Perfons that fhall read this Book; efpecially of my Hearers in the Borough and Parish of Kidderminster.

MEN and BRETHREN,

THE

HE eternal God, that made you for a life everlasting, and hath redeemed you by his only Son, when you had loft it and yourselves, being mindful of you in your fin and mifery, hath indited the gofpel, and fealed it by his fpirit, and commanded his minifters to preach it to the world, that pardon being freely offered you, and heaven being fet before you, he might call you off from your fleshly pleafures, and from following after this deceitful world, and acquaint you with the life that you were created and redeemed for, before you are dead and paft remedy. He fendeth you not prophets or apoftles, that receive their meffage by immediate revelation; but yet he calleth you by his ordinary minifters, who are commiffioned by him to preach the fame gospel which Chrift and his apoftles first delivered. The The Lord feeth how you forget him and your latter end, and how light you make

of everlasting things, as men that underftand not what they have to do or fuffer. He feeth how bold you are in fin, and how fearless of his threatnings, and how careless of your fouls, and how the works of infidels are in your lives, while the belief of Chriftians is in your mouths. He feeth the dreadful day at hand, when your forrows will begin, and you must lament all this with fruitlefs cries in torment and defperation; and then the remembrance of your folly will tear your hearts, if true converfion now prevent it not. In compaffion of your finful miferable fouls, the Lord, that better knows your cafe than you can know it, hath made it our duty to speak to you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19. and to tell you plainly of your fin and mifery, and what will be your end, and how fad a change you will fhortly fee, if yet you go on a little longer. Having bought you at fo dear a rate as the blood of his fon Jefus Chrift, and made you so free and general a promife of pardon, and grace, and everlasting glory; he commandeth us to tender all this to you, as the gift of God, and to intreat you to confider of the neceffity and worth of what he offerethHe feeth and pitieth you, while you are drowned in wordly cares and pleafures, and eagerly following childish toys, and wafting that fhort and precious time for a thing of nought, in which you should make ready for an everlafting life;

and

therefore he hath commanded us to call after you, and tell you how you lose your labour, and are about to lofe your fouls, and to tell you what greater and better things you might certainly have, if you would hearken to his Call, Ifa. lv. 1, 2, 3. We believe and obey the voice of God; and come to you on his meffage, who hath charged us to preach, and be inftant with you in feafon and out of feason, and to lift up our voice like a trumpet, and fhew your tranfgreffions and your fins, Ifa. lviii. 1. 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2. But alas! to the grief of our fouls and your own. your own undoing, you ftop your ears, you ftiffen your necks, you harden your hearts, and fend us back to God with groans, to tell him that we have done his meffage, but can do no good on you, nor fcarcely get a fober hearing.Oh that our eyes were as a fountain of tears, that we might lament our ignorant, careless people, that have Chrift before them, and pardon, and life, and heaven before them, and that have not hearts to know or value them! that might have Chrift, and grace, and glory, as well as others, if it were not for their wilful negligence and contempt! O that the Lord would fill our hearts with more compaffion to these miferable fouls, that we might caft ourselves even at their feet, and follow them to their houfes, and fpeak to them with our bitter tears: For, long have we preached to many of them in vain: We

ftudy plainnefs to make them understand, and many of them will not understand us; we ftudy ferious, piercing words, to make them feel, but they will not feel. If the greateft matters would work with them, we should awake them; if the fweeteft things would work, we fhould entice them and win their hearts; if the most dreadful things would work, we fhould at least affright them from their wickednefs; if truth and certainty would take with them, we fhould foon convince them; if the God that made them, and the Chrift that bought them, might be heard, the cafe would foon be altered with them; if fcripture might be heard we should foon prevail; if reafon, even the beft and ftrongeft reafon, might be heard, we should not doubt but we fhould fpeedily convince them; if experience might be heard, even their own experience, and the experience of all the world, the matter would be mended; yea, if the confcience within them might be heard, the cafe would be better with them than it is. But if nothing can be heard, what then fhall we do for them? if the dreadful God of heaven be flighted, who then shall be regarded? If the ineftimable love and blood of a Redeemer be made light of, what then fhall be valued? If heaven have no defirable glory with them,, and everlafting joys be nothing worth, if they can jeft at hell, and dance about the bottomlefs pit, and play with the consu

ming fire, and that when God and man do warn them of it; what fhall we do for fuch fouls as these?

Once more, in the name of the God of heaven, I fhall do the meffage to you which he hath commanded us, and leave it in these ftanding lines to convert you or to condemn you; to change you, or to rife up in judgment against you, and to be a witnefs to your faces, that once you had a ferious call to turn. Hear, all you that are drudges of the world, and the fervants. of flesh and Satan! that fpend your days in looking after profperity on earth, and drown your confciences in drinking, and gluttony, and idlenefs, and foolish fports, and know your fin, and yet will fin, as if you fet God at defiance, and bid him do his worft and fpare not! Hearken, all you that mind not God, and have no heart to holy things, and feel no favour in the word or worship of the Lord, or in the thoughts or mention of eternal life, that are careless of your immortal fouls, and never beftow one hour in inquiring what cafe they are in, whether fanctified or unfanctified, and whether you are ready to appear before the Lord! Hearken, all you that, by finning in the light, have finned yourselves into infidelity, and do not believe the word of God. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear the gracious and yet the dreadful eall of God! His eye is all this while upon you. Your fins are registered, and you.