such a person, will he make me welcome, were it not the greatest affront I
could put upon him? Would it not alienate his affection more than any
thing, to be jealous of his real kindness to me.

I would desire to hold out unto you the sin, the danger, and the vanity of
such a way. I say the sin is great, it is no less than the highest and
most heinous disobedience to the gospel, which of all others is of the
deepest dye. You have disobeyed the law, and broken all the ten
commandments. And will ye therefore disobey the gospel, too, and break
this fundamental commandment? Is it not enough that ye have broken the
rest, and will ye break this also, which was given for the cure of all?

Consider, I say, this is his commandment. Now commands should be obeyed,
and not disputed, coming from an infallible and uncontrollable authority.
Would ye not silence all the rebellions of your hearts against the
commands of praying, hearing, reading, dealing justly, and walking
soberly, with this one word, it is his command, it is his sovereign will?
And why do ye not see the stamp of that same authority upon this? Now if
you consider it aright, it hath more authority upon it than upon others,
because it is his last command, and so would be taken as most pungent and
weighty. When your hearts rise up to question and dispute this matter, I
pray you cut all these knotty objections with the sword of his
commandment. You use to go about to loose them by particular answers and
untie them at leisure with art and skill, but truly it would be a readier
and wiser course to cut them in pieces at one stroke, by this piercing and
pungent precept. If your reasons and scruples be weighty, and you cannot
get answers to overbalance them, I pray you put this weighty seal of
divine authority into the balance, and sure I am it will weigh down all.
Consider then the danger of it. It is the last and most peremptory
command, after which you may expect no other, but the execution of
justice. How sad and severe is the certification, "He that believeth not
is condemned already," and "the wrath of God abideth on him." There needs
no new sentence to be pronounced against you. Why? Because, if you believe
not, that prior sentence of the law is yet standing above your heads to
condemn you, that wrath abides on you. This is the only way to remove it,
to come to him, who hath taken it on himself, after the breach of all
commands. Ye have this retreat, this refuge to flee