5. Consider what a doleful company that will be that be left after this extraordinary time of mercy is over. We have reason to think that there will be a number left. We read that when Ezekiel’s healing waters increased so abundantly, and the healing effect of them was so very general; yet there were certain places, where the water came, that never were healed: Ezek. xlvii. 9-11, “And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and everything shall live whither the river cometh. And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.
But the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.” And even in the apostles’ times, when there was such wonderful success of the gospel, yet wherever they came, there were some that did not believe: Acts xiii. 48, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord; and as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed.” And chap. xxviii. 24, “And some believed, and some believed not.” So, we have no reason to expect but there will be some left amongst us. ’Tis to be hoped it will be a small company. But what a doleful company will it be! How dark and awful will it look upon them!
If you shall be of that company, how well may your friends and relations lament over you, and bemoan your dark and dangerous circumstances! You would not be one of them, make haste, delay not and look not behind you. Shall all sorts obtain, shall everyone press into the kingdom of God, while you stay loitering behind in a doleful undone condition? Shall everyone take heaven, while you remain with no other portion but this world? Now take up that resolution, that if it is possible you will cleave to them that have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them. Count the cost of a thorough, violent, and perpetual pursuit of salvation, and forsake all, as Ruth forsook her own country and all her pleasant enjoyments in it. Don’t do as Orpah did, who set out, and then was discouraged, and went back: but hold out with Ruth through all discouragement and opposition. When you consider others that have chosen the better part, let that resolution be ever firm with you: “Where thou goest, I will go; where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”
