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what love and compassion did he beseech me! and yet I did but make a jest<br />
of it. How oft did he convince me! and yet I stifled all these convictions.<br />
How did he open to me my very heart! and yet I was loth to know the worst<br />
of myself. O how glad would he have been if he could have seen me<br />
cordially turn to Christ! My godly friends admonished me; they told me what<br />
would become of my wilfulness and negligence at last; but I neither believed<br />
nor regarded them. How long did God himself condescend to entreat me!<br />
How did the Spirit strive with my heart, as if he was loth to take a denial!<br />
How did Christ stand knocking, one Sabbath after another, and crying to me.<br />
‘Open, sinner, open thy heart to thy Savior, and I will come in and sup with<br />
thee, and thou with me! Why dost thou delay? How long shall thy vain<br />
thoughts lodge within thee? Wilt thou not be pardoned and sanctified, and<br />
made happy? When shall it once be?' O how the recollection of such divine<br />
pleadings will passionately transport the damned with self-indignation!<br />
"Must I tire out the patience of Christ? Must I make the God of heaven<br />
follow me in vain, till I have wearied him with crying to me, Repent! return!<br />
O how justly is that patience now turned into fury which falls upon me with<br />
irresistable violence! When the Lord cried to me, ‘Wilt thou not be made<br />
clean? When shall it once be?' my heart, or at least my practice answered,<br />
‘Never.' And now, when I cry, ‘How long shall it be till I am freed from this<br />
torment? how justly do I receive the same answer, ‘Never, never!'"<br />
It will also be most cutting to remember on what easy terms they might<br />
have escaped their misery. <strong>The</strong>ir work was not to remove mountains, nor<br />
conquer kingdoms, nor fulfil the law to the smallest tittle, nor satisfy justice<br />
for all their transgressions. "<strong>The</strong> yoke was easy and the burden light" which<br />
Christ would have laid upon them. It was but to repent and cordially accept<br />
him for their Savior; to renounce all other happiness, and take the Lord for<br />
their supreme good; to renounce the world and the flesh, and submit to his<br />
meek and gracious government and to forsake the ways of their own<br />
devising, and walk in his holy, delightful way. "Ah," thinks the poor<br />
tormented wretch, "how justly do I suffer all this, who would not be at so<br />
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