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yea the Devil himself can afford it you for a time, while you ferve him by it, and are captivated to his will in thefe golden fetters. And fay not that it is I, that call fach fools: you fee here it is God, that knoweth what he faith, and feareth not to speak it. But let me with due fubmiffion propound to your fober confideration, these Questions which your confciences are concerned to refolve.

Quest. 1. Can any thing prove him truly wife that directly contradi&eth the wisdom of the Lord? and valueth moft the things that are most vilified by the dorine and example of Chrift and his Apoftles? and vilifieth that which Chrift extolleth?

Queft. 2. Can any thing prove that man to be wife, that is not wife enough to be faved? furely it altereth the cafe but little, whe ther Satan be ferved in English,or

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in Latin, Greek or Hebrew, Spanish,Italian or French! or whether you go towards everlasting wo,in leather or in filk; and whether a miferable unfanctified foul do dwell in a comely or deformed body, and in a ftately building or a fmoaky cottage, and be titled a Lord, a Knight, or a Plow-man and whether he feed on the moft delightful or the courfest food. Alas, all this will foon be nothing. The belly for meats: and meats for the belly but God will deftroy both it and them, I Cor. 6. 13. It is the endless life that puts the estimate upon all things here.

Queft. 3. Is he wife that preferreth a feather to a Kingdom? an hour to eternity? earth to heaven? If you fay you do not fo, let your thoughts, your defires, your deLights, your cares, and your labour and diligence be the witneffes: and confcience, and God fhall finally

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judge. A man of reafon should never make fuch a matter of nothing, as if there were fo great a difference between riches and poverty, bonour and dishonour; and a mans life or happiness confifted in his abundance! As its ufually the badge of empty, childish brainfick women, to value a curiofity of attire, and to have mindand time for fo many toyes, and to make oftentation of their pride and folly, by their curled, spotted, gawdy vanity, as if they were afraid left any fhould be unacquainted with it, and fhould think them wife, fo is it but a more plaufible deliration in thofe, that are more taken up with names, and titles, and commands, with houses and lands, and pompous attendance; and yet more brutish where luft, and sport, and meats, and drinks are taken for: felicity, while God and heaven. ftand by, neglected: and men for-

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get that they are called Chriftians, and that they are men.

Queft. 4. Is it wifdom to efteem men by their profperity and pomp? and to admirea gilded poft, or an ignorant adorned wanton and yet to overlook the divine and heavenly nature of the fanctified, and the beauty of holiness, and the image of God upon an humble gracions foul? when that which is highly esteemed among men, is abomination in the fight of God, Luk. 16. 15.

Queft. 5. Is it wisdom to be feafting, and playing,and dancing, while the foul is under the wrath of God, and in the gall of bitterness, and bonds of its iniquity and by the noife, and business and pleas fures of the world, to be diverted and hindered from the fpeedy fetling and fecuring your everlafting ftate? fhould not a man of reafon without delay, the firft

thing he doth, make sure of his title to eternal happiness, when he is not fure of another hour, and if he miscarry in this, he is undone for ever? fhould that time be laught and plaid away, that hafteth fo faft, and is all fo fhort for fo great a work, as the securing our falvation? fhould men and women be courting, and complementing, and fooling away their precious time, when the work is undone for which they were born into the world, and for which they have their lives, and all their mercies ?

Quest. 6. Should all this be done by thofe that fin against their knowledge, and confefs all this while that the world is vanity, and know how it will leave them, and that all this is true?

O firs, it must needs be the grief of a foreseeing man, to think, when you forget it, what a change.

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