hey
not such in which men stumble, though they seem to walk easily and plainly
in them? Yet O that everlasting stumble that is at the end of them, when
you shall fall out of one darkness of sin and delusion into another
extreme, eternal darkness of destruction and damnation! O that fearful
dungeon and pit of darkness you post into! Therefore, if you love your
own souls, be warned. I beseech you be warned to flee from that utter
darkness. Be awaked out of your deceiving dreams, and deluding self
flattering imaginations, and "Christ shall give you light." The discovery
of that gross darkness you walked in, in which you did not see whither you
went. I say, the clear discerning of what it is, and whither it leads, is
the first opening of that light, the first visit of that morning star,
that brings salvation.

If ye will not be convinced of that infinite danger you are in, yet ye are
not the further from it. He that walketh in darkness lieth, &c. His strong
confidence and persuasion hath a lie, a contradiction in the bosom of it,
and that will never bottom any true happiness. It is a lie acted by the
hand, the foot, and all the members, a lie against the holy truth and word
of God, and the very reproach of the name of Christ; a lie against
yourselves, and your own professions, a foul-murdering lie, as well as a
Christ denying lie. And this lie, as a holy man saith, hath filled
houses, cities, families, countries. It hath even overspread the whole
nation, and filled all with darkness, horror, confusion, trouble, and
anguish. Once being a holy nation by profession of a covenant with God,
and our open, manifest, universal retraction of that, by an unholy,
ungodly, and wicked conversation, this hath brought the sword against a
hypocritical nation, and this will bring that far greater, incomparably
more intolerable day of wrath upon the children of disobedience. Therefore
let me exhort all of you, in the name of the Lord, as ye desire to be
admitted to that eternally blessed society within the holy city, and not
to be excluded among those who commit abomination, and make a lie, that ye
would henceforth impose this necessity upon yourselves, or know that it is
laid upon you by God, to labour to know the will and truth of God, that
you may see that light that shines in the gospel, and not only to receive
it in your minds, but in your hearts by love that so you may endeavour in
all sincerity the doing of that truth, the conscion