crying, ‘Stay for me;’ the other saying, ‘Do not leave me behind;’ a third saying, ’And take me along with you.’  ‘What! will you go,’ saith the devil, ’without your sins, pleasures and profits?  Are you so hasty?  Can you not stay and take these along with you?  Will you leave your friends and companions behind you?  Can you not do as your neighbors do—­carry the world, sin, lust, pleasure, profit, esteem among men, along with you?’—­Have a care thou do not let thine ear now be open to the tempting, enticing, alluring, and soul-entangling flatteries of such sink-souls as these are.  “My son,” saith Solomon, “if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.”

You know what it cost the young man whom Solomon speaks of, (in the 7th of Proverbs,) that was enticed by a harlot.  With her much fair speech she won him, and caused him to yield; with the flattering of her lips she forced him, till he went after her, as an ox to the slaughter, as a fool to the correction of the stocks; even so far till the dart struck through his liver, and he knew not that it was for his life.  “Hearken unto me, now, therefore,” saith he, “O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth:  let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths; for she hath cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain (that is, kept out of heaven) by her.  Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.”  Soul, take this counsel, and say, ’Satan, sin, lust, pleasure, profit, pride, friends, companions, and every thing else,—­let me alone, stand off, come not nigh me; for I am running for heaven, for my soul, for God, for Christ—­from hell and everlasting damnation!  If I win, I win all; and if I lose, I lose all!  Let me alone for I will not hear.’ So run.

THE SEVENTH DIRECTION.—­In the next place, be not daunted, though thou meetest with ever so many discouragements in thy journey thither.  That man that is resolved for heaven, if Satan cannot win him by flatteries, he will endeavor to weaken him by discouragements, saying, ‘Thou art a sinner,’ ‘thou hast broken God’s law,’ ’thou art not elected,’ ‘thou comest too late,’ ‘the day of grace is past,’ ’God doth not care for thee,’ ‘thy heart is naught,’ ‘thou art lazy,’ with a hundred other discouraging suggestions.  And thus it was with David, where he saith, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord, in the land of the living.”  As if he should say, ’The devil did so rage, and my heart was so base, that had I judged according to my own sense and feeling, I had been absolutely distracted.  But I trusted to Christ in the promise, and looked that God would be as good as his promise, in having mercy upon me, an unworthy sinner; and this is that which encouraged me, and kept me from fainting.’