ur soul, for the eternal loss of your soul! Other sorrows cannot
profit you, but this is the only profitable mourning. If ye were told your
sin and misery, to make you despair and mourn eternally, ye had some
excuse to delay, and forget it as long as ye can. But when all this is
told you, that you may escape from it, will ye not consider it? When ye
are desired to mourn, that ye may be comforted for ever, will ye not
mourn? We would have you to anticipate the day of judgment, that ye may
judge yourselves, and then ye shall not be judged. What folly and madness
is this to delay it till endless, irremediless mourning come, a day that
hath no light mixed with darkness! Those that now mourn at that law, and
for their sin, and dance at the promises of the gospel, may well be called
children of wisdom, and O how may this generation be said to be begotten
of foolishness, as their father, and wildness, as their mother! For is
there any such folly as this, to lose a man's self absolutely and
irrecoverably, for that which they cannot have always? Is there any such
folly as to refuse this healing medicine, for the little bitterness which
is in it, and then to incur eternal death?

Now what should we do then? What doth the word of God call you to do? This
is it, to mourn and rejoice, and this is to justify wisdom. These two are
the pulse of a Christian. According as he finds his grief and joy, so is
he. All of you have these affections, but they are not right placed. They
are not pitched upon suitable objects. The worldling hath no other joy but
carnal mirth, no other grief but that which is carnal, these are limited
within the bounds of time. Some loss, or some gain, some pleasure or pain,
some honour or dishonour, these are the poles all his affections turn
about on. Now then we exhort and beseech you, as ye would flee from the
wrath to come, consider it now and fear it. As ye would not partake with
this untoward generation in their plagues, so be not like them in their
stupidity.

Ye are called to consider your sins and God's wrath, that ye may turn unto
the Lord, and then you will hear the voice of peace crying unto thee, "Be
of good comfort, thy sins are forgiven thee." If ye submit unto the
justice of God, or unto the holiness and righteousness of his law in
condemning you, you justify wisdom in part, but ye who have justified
wisdom thus far, do not condemn wisdom after it. Justify the gospel, in
believing upon Jesus Christ.