Third Consideration. Consider the horrid cruelty of this act, for thee, by thy incorrigible and impenitent heart, to pull down eternal destruction on thy own head. O what a sad epitaph is this to be found on a man’s grave‑stone! Here lies one that cut his own throat, that unnaturally made away himself! this the man, that the woman, who would not be reclaimed! They saw hell before them, and yet would leap into it, notwithstanding the entreaties of Christ by his Spirit and ministers to the contrary! And the oftener thou hast attempted to do it, and God hath been staying thy hand by his gracious solicitations, the greater will be thy shame and confusion before God, men, and angels, at the last day. God hath set a brand upon those acts of cruelty which a man commits upon himself above all other. It would speak a man of a harsh currish nature, that could see a horse in his stable or hog in his sty starve, when he hath meat to lay before him; more cruel to hear his servant roar and cry for bread and deny it; yet more horrid if this were done to a child or wife; but of all—because nature cries loudest for self-preservation—the greatest violence that can possibly be done to the law of nature is, to forget the duty we owe to out own life. O what is it then for a sinner to starve his soul by rejecting Christ ‘the bread of life,’ and to let out his soul's blood at this wide sluice! This is matchless cruelty! Indeed, that which makes the self-murder of the body so great a crime is, because it doth so eminently—I will not say unavoidably—hazard the destruction of the soul. O how unworthy then art thou to have so noble a guest as thy soul dwell in thy bosom, who preparest no better lodgings than hell for it in another world!—that soul whose nature makes it being capable of being preferred to the blissful presence of God in heaven’s glory, if thou hadst not bolted the door against thyself by thy impenitency. But alas! this which is the worst murder is the most common. They are but a few molesters that we now and then hear of who lay violent hands upon their bodies, at the report of which the whole country trembles; but you can hardly go into any house one day of the week, in which you shall not find some attempting to make away their souls; yea, that carry the very knife and halters in their bosoms—their beloved sins I mean—with which they stab and strangle them; even those that are full of natural affections to their bodies, so as to be willing to spend all that they are worth, with her in the gospel, on physicians when the life of it is in danger; yet are so cruel to their dying damning souls, that they turn Christ their physician out of doors, who comes to cure them on free cost.
In a word, those that discover abundance of wisdom and discretion in ordering their worldly affairs, you would wonder how rational they are, what an account they will give why they do this, and why that; when it comes to the business of heaven and the salvation of their souls, they are not like the same men. So that, were you to judge them only by their actings herein, you could not believe them to be men. And is it not sad, that the soul, which furnisheth you with reason for the despatch of your worldly business, should have no benefit itself from the very reason it lends you to do all your business with. This, as one well saith, is as if the master of the house, who provides food for all his servants, should be himself kept by them from eating, and so remain the only starved creature in the house. And is not this the sad judgment and plague of God, that is visibly seen upon many, and those that go for wise men too, stilo mundi —after the manner of the world? Are not their souls, which give them understanding, to provide for back and belly, house and family, themselves starving in the meantime? being kept by the power of some lust from making use of their understanding and reason so far as to put them upon any serious and vigorous endeavour for the salvation of them. How then can souls that are so treated prosper?
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