that he were finally rejected, he were obliged to believe it.  But shall it ever be said, God hath made anything a man’s duty which were inconsistent with his felicity.  The having sinned himself into such a condition wherein he is forsaken of God is indeed inconsistent with it.  And so the case is to stand—­i.e., that his perdition be in immediate connection with his sin, not with his duty; as it would be in immediate, necessary connection with his duty, if he were bound to believe himself finally forsaken and a lost creature.  For that belief makes him hopeless, and a very devil, justifies his unbelief in the gospel, toward himself, by removing and shutting up, toward himself, the object of such a faith, and consequently brings the matter to this state that he perishes, not because he doth not believe God reconcilable to man, but because, with particular application to himself, he ought not so to believe.  And it were most unfit, and of very pernicious consequence, that such a thing should be generally known concerning others....

But tho none ought to conclude that their day or season of grace is quite expired, yet they ought to deeply apprehend the danger, lest it should expire before their necessary work be done and their peace made.  For tho it can be of no use for them to know the former, and therefore they have no means appointed them by which to know it, ’tis of great use to apprehend the latter; and they have sufficient ground for the apprehension.  All the cautions and warnings wherewith the Holy Spirit abounds, of the kind with those already mentioned, have that manifest design.  And nothing can be more important, or opposite to this purpose, than that solemn charge of the great apostle:  “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”; considered together with the subjoined ground of it; “For it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure.”  How correspondent is the one with the other; work for He works:  there were no working at all to any purpose, or with any hope, if He did not work.  And work with fear and trembling, for He works of His own good pleasure, q.d., “’Twere the greatest folly imaginable to trifle with One that works at so perfect liberty, under no obligation, that may desist when He will; to impose upon so absolutely sovereign and arbitrary an Agent, that owes you nothing; and from whose former gracious operations not complied with you can draw no argument, unto any following ones, that because He doth, therefore He will.  As there is no certain connection between present time and future, but all time is made up of undepending, not strictly coherent, moments, so as no man can be sure, because one now exists, another shall; there is also no more certain connection between the arbitrary acts of a free agent within such time; so that I can not be sure, because He now darts in light upon me, is now convincing me, now awakening me, therefore He will still do so, again and again.”  Upon this ground then, what