Art thou unladen of the things of this world; as pride, pleasures, profits, lusts, vanities?  What, dost thou think to run fast enough, with the world, thy sins and lusts in thy heart?  I tell thee, soul, they that have laid all aside, every weight, every sin, and are got into the nimblest posture, they find work enough to run; so to run as to hold out.  To run through all the opposition, all the jostles, all the rubs, over all the stumbling-blocks, over all the snares, from all the entanglements that the devil, sin, the world, and their own hearts lay before them—­I tell thee, if thou art going heavenward, thou wilt find it no small or easy matter.

Art thou therefore discharged or unladen of these things?  Never talk of going to heaven if thou art not.  It is to be feared thou wilt be found among the “many that shall seek to enter in and shall not be able.”  If so, then in the next place, what will become of them that are grown weary before they are got half-way thither?  Why, man, it is he that holdeth out to the end, that must be saved; it is he that overcometh, that shall inherit all things; it is not every one that begins.  Agrippa took a fair step for a sudden:  he steps almost into the bosom of Christ in less than half an hour.  “Almost,” saith he to Paul, “thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”  Ah, it was but almost; and so he had as good have never been a whit; he stepped fair indeed, but yet he stepped short; he was hot while he was at it, but he was quickly out of wind.  O this but almost!  I tellyou, this but almost lost his soul.  Methinks I have seen sometimes how these poor wretches that get but almost to heaven, how fearfully their almost and their but almost will torment them in hell; when they shall cry out in the bitterness of their souls, saying, “Almost a Christian.  I was almost got into the kingdom, almost out of the hands of the devil, almost out of my sins, almost from under the curse of God; almost, and that was all; almost, but not altogether.  O that I should be almost at heaven, and should not go quite through!” Friend, it is a sad thing to sit down before we are in heaven, and to grow weary before we come to the place of rest; and if it should be thy case, I am sure thou dost not so run as to obtain.

Evangelist. The crown is before you, and it is an incorruptible one; “So run, that you may obtain it.”  Some there be that set out for this crown, and after they have gone far for it, another comes in and takes it from them:  “Hold fast, therefore, that ye have; let no man take your crown:”  you are not yet out of the gunshot of the devil; “you have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin:”  let the kingdom be always before you, and believe stead-fastly concerning things that are invisible; let nothing that is on this side the other world get within you; and, above all, look well to your own hearts and to the lusts thereof, for they are “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:”  set your faces like a flint; you have all power in heaven and earth on your side.