Thursday, May 19, 2016

NOTE:  IF YOU HAVEN'T PREVIOUSLY READ THE MAY 17 and 18, 2016, POSTING OF THIS BLOG, PLEASE DO SO.  

It was a saying of the noble Roman, when he was hasting with corn to the city in the famine, and the mariners were loth to set sail in foul weather, It is necessary for us to sail—it is not necessary for us to live.  What is it that thou dost count necessary?  Is thy bread necessary?  Is thy breath necessary?  Then thy conversion is much more necessary.  Indeed, this is the one thing necessary.  Thine estate is not necessary; thou mayest sell all for the pearl of great price, and yet be a gainer by the purchase.  Thy life is not necessary; thou mayest part with it for Christ, to infinite advantage.  Thy reputation is not necessary; thou mayest be reproached for the name of Christ, and yet be happy; yea, much more happy in reproach than in repute.  But thy conversion is necessary; thy salvation depends upon it; and is it not needful, in so important a case, to look about thee?  On this one point depends thy making or marring to all eternity.....
.....Man, unconverted, is like a choice instrument that hath every string broken or out of tune.....
     An unsanctified man cannot work the work of God.....He hath neither due instruments nor materials for it.  A man may as well hew the marble without tools, or paint without colors or instruments, or build without materials, as perform any acceptable service, without the graces of the Spirit, which are both the materials and instruments in the work.....
.....Suppose a man were to travel through some perilous wood or wilderness, having but one jewel in all the world, in which his all was bound up, and should see some stand on one hand and some on the other, and hear one company in this place and another in that cry out under the hands of some cruel robbers; O, in what fear would this traveler go lest he should lose this jewel, and be robbed of all at once!  Why, thou art the man; this traveler is thyself; this jewel is thy soul; this wilderness or wood is this world thou art to travel through:  swarms of sins, legions of devils, and a whole world of temptations—these are the robbers that lie in wait for thy soul; and if all that these can do can keep thee out of heaven, thou shalt never enter there.  O! what if thy pride or worldliness, thy delays and triflings in religion should at last betray thy soul into the robbers' hands?  Other losses may be repaired; but thy soul being once lost, God is lost, Christ is lost, heaven is lost, all lost for evermore.
                                                                                                                                         Joseph Alleine


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