An Alarm to the Unconverted 4 of 5 — Joseph Alleine

The Necessity of Constant and Fervent Prayer

AN ALARM TO THE UNCONVERTED SINNER. By Joseph Alain. To the unconverted. Set upon the constant and diligent use of serious and fervent prayer. Neglects prayer is a profane and unsanctified sinner. He that is not constant in prayer is a hypocrite, unless the omission be contrary to his ordinary course.

Under the force of some instant temptation. One of the first things conversion appears in is that it sets men a-praying, therefore set to this duty. Let not one day pass in which you have not morning and evening set apart some time for solemn prayer in secret.

Also call your family together daily and duly to worship God with you. Will be unto you if you be found among the families that call not upon God's name. Jeremiah 10 .25. But cold and lifeless devotions will not reach halfway to heaven.

Be fervent and importunate. Importunity will carry it, but without violence the kingdom of heaven will not be taken. You must strive to enter and wrestle with tears and supplications as Jacob if he would gain the blessing.

Renouncing Sin and Fleeing Temptation

You are undone forever without grace, and therefore you must set to it and resolve to take no denial. That man who has fixed in this resolution says, Well, I must have grace, or I will never give over till I have grace.

I will never cease earnestly pleading and striving with God in my own heart till he renews me by the power of his grace. You will never be turned from sin till you decline and forego the temptations of sin.

I never expect your conversion from sin unless you are brought to some self-denial so as to flee the occasions. If you will be nibbling at the bait and playing on the brink and tampering with the snare, your soul will surely be taken.

Where God exposes man in his providence, unavoidably to temptation, and the occasions are such as we cannot remove, we may expect special assistance in the use of his means. But when we tempt God by running into danger, he will not engage to support us when we are tempted.

The Destruction Caused by Evil Companions

And of all temptations, one of the most fatal and pernicious is evil companions. O, what hopeful beginnings have these often stifled! O, the souls, the estates, the families, the towns, have these ruined!

How many poor sinners have been enlightened and convinced and been just ready to escape the snare of the devil, and have even escaped it! And yet what could come o 'er the children of hell? In a word, I have no hopes of you except you shake off your evil company.

Your life depends upon it. Forsake this, or you cannot live. Will you be worse than the ass of Balaam to run on when you see the Lord with a drawn sword in the way? Let this sentence be written in capitals upon your conscience.

A companion of fools shall be destroyed. Proverbs 8 20. The Lord has spoken it, and who shall reverse it? And will you run upon destruction when God himself forewarns you? If God ever changes your heart, it will appear in the change of your company.

O fear, and flee the gulf by which so many thousands have been swallowed up in perdition. It will be hard for you indeed to make your escape. Your companions will be mocking you out of your religion, and will study to fuel you with prejudices against strictness.

As ridiculous and comfortless, they will be flattering you and alluring you. But remember the warnings of the Holy Ghost. Come with us, cast in thy lot among us. Walk thou not in the way with them. Refrain thy foot from their path.

Avoid it, pass not by it, pass away. For the way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not at what they stumble. They lie in wait for their own blood. They lurk privily for their own lies. Proverbs 1 10 -19.

Proverbs 4 15 -19. My hearers and readers are likely to perish. Both they and their houses by this wretched mischief. Even the frequenting of such places in company by which they are drawn into sin. Do as Moses did Israel.

Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men. Numbers 16 -26. Flee from them as you would those that had the plague. Sores running in their foreheads. These are the devil's panders and decoys.

And if you do not make your escape, they will draw you into perdition and will prove your eternal ruin. Set apart a day to humble your soul in secret by fasting and prayer to work a sentence of your sins and miseries upon your heart.

Examining Sin and Seeking Conversion

Read over a thorough exposition of the commandments and write down the duties omitted and sins committed by you against every commandment and so make a catalogue of your sins. And with shame and sorrow spread them before the Lord.

And if your heart be truly willing to the terms, join yourself solemnly to the Lord in that covenant set down in Direction 10 of this chapter. And the Lord grant you mercy in His sight. Thus I have told you what you must do to be saved.

Will you now obey the voice of the Lord? Will you arise and set to the work? O man, what answer will you make? What excuse will you have? If you should perish at last through the very willfulness when you have known the way of life, I do not fear your miscarrying if your own idleness do not at last undo you in neglecting the use of the means that are so plainly here prescribed.

Rouse up, O sluggard, and ply your work. Be doing, and the Lord will be with you. A short soliloquy for an unregenerate sinner. O wretched man that I am! What a condition hath I brought myself into by sin!

The Unregenerate Sinner’s Lament

O, I see my heart has deceived me all this while in flattering me that my condition was good. I see, I see, I am but a lost and undone man, forever undone, unless the Lord help me out of this condition.

My sins, my sins, Lord! What an unclean, polluted wretch I am, more loathsome and odious to Thee than the most hateful venom or noisome carcass can be to me. O, what a hell of sin is in this heart of mine, which I have flattered myself to be a good heart.

Firstly, am I corrupted in all my parts, powers, performances. All the imaginations of my heart are only evil continually. Secondly, I am under an inability to, an aversion from, and an enmity against anything that is good, and am prone to all that is evil.

My heart is a very sink of sin, and O, the innumerable hosts and swarms of actions that have flowed for us that are all full of sin! How do they stir upon me? Woe is me! My creditors are upon me. Every commandment takes hold upon me for more than ten thousand talents of all my depths.

And all is paper written over, within and without, by arithmeticians. Yet when all were added up of what I owe to the least of God's commandments, a self and mortal is worthy to be wracked, drawn, and tortured.

What have I deserved that has so often lifted up my hand against heaven and has struck at the crown and dignity of the Almighty? O number of their honor, they have set themselves against me. O, it were better to have all the regiments of hell come against me than have my sins fall upon me to the spoiling of my soul.

Rounded, how many are they that rise up against me? They have beset me behind and before. They swarm within me and without me. They have possessed all my powers and have fortified my unhappy soul as a garrison.

Worship this brood of hell-mans, and names are many, but then they are not great. The mountains great, but then they are not many. But woe is me! My sins are as many as the sands and as mighty as the mountains.

Their weight is greater than their number. It were better that the rocks and the mountains should fall upon me than the crushing and unsupportable load of all my sins. Lord, I am heavy laden. Let mercy help, or I am gone.

Unload me of this heavy guilt, this sinking load, or I am crushed without hope and must be pressed down to hell. If my grief were thoroughly weighed and my sins laid in the balance together, they would be heavier than the sand of the sea.

Therefore, my words are swallowed up. They would weigh down all the rocks and the hills and turn the balance against all the isles of the earth, O Lord. Thou knowest my manifold transgressions and my mighty sins.

The Shame and Misery of Sin

So, how are you humbled? Once a glory of the creation in the image of God, now a lump of filthiness, a coffin of rottenness, replenished with stench and loathsomeness. O, what a work, this sin made with you!

You shall be termed forsaken and all the rooms of your faculties desolate, and the name that you shall be called by is Ichabod, or Lamitele. My beauty is turned into deformity and my glory into shame.

Lord, what a loathsome leper am I! The ulcerous bodies of Job or Lazarus were not more offensive to the eyes and nostrils of men. Then I must needs be to the most holy God whose eyes cannot behold iniquity.

In what misery have my sins brought upon me? Lord, what estate I am in, sold under sin, cast out of God's favor, accursed from the Lord, cursed in my body, cursed in my soul, cursed in my name and my estate, my relations and all that I have, my sins are unpardoned and my soul within a step of death.

Alas, what shall I do? Where shall I go? Which way shall I look? Within temptations and dangers surrounding me without. O, where shall I fly? What place can hide me from omniscience? What power can secure me from omnipotence?

What do you mean, O my soul, to go on thy covenant with me here? Alas, what shall I do? Shall I go on in my sinful way to be my end? And shall I be so besotted and mad as to go and sell my soul to the flames for a little ale or a little ease, for a little pleasure or gain or comfort to my flesh?

Shall I linger any longer in this wretched state? Shall thou any remedy for such woeful misery, any mercy after such provoking iniquity? Yes, as sure as God's oath is true, I shall have pardon and mercy yet if I presently, unfeignedly and unreservedly turn by Christ to Him.

Turning to Christ and Accepting Mercy

Why, then, I thank thee upon the bended knees of my soul. O most merciful Jehovah, that thy patience has waited for me hitherto. For hast thou taken me away in this state I had perished forever. And now I adore thy grace and accept the offers of thy mercy.

I renounce all my sins and resolve by thy grace to set myself against them and to follow thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of my life. Who am I, Lord, that I should make any claim to thee or have any part or portion in thee?

Who am I not worthy to lick up the dust of thy feet? But since thou holdest forth the golden scepter, I am bold to come and to stand off when I want to undo myself and rebel against you under pretense of humility and with all possible thankfulness accept you as mine and give up myself to you as thine.

Ye shall be sovereign over me, my king and my God. Ye shall be on the throne. Thou, my power, shall bow to thee. They shall come and worship before thy feet. Thou shalt be my portion, O Lord, and I will rest in you.

You call for my heart. I am destinedly unworthy to be thine. But since you will have it so, I freely give my heart to you. Thou alone can move it after your own heart. Come quickly. Enter in triumphantly.

Take me up for thyself forever. I give myself to thee. I come to thee as the only way to the Father as the only mediator. The moon is ordained to bring me to God. I have destroyed myself, but in thee is my help.

Save, Lord, or else I pair thee with a rope about my neck. I was a hire more due to the servant, never was a penny more due to the laborer than death and hell. My just wages are due to me for my sins.

But I fly to thy intercession. I submit to the choice of thy government. Stand open, O thou Spirit of the Most High, the Comforter and Sanctifier of thy chosen. Come in with all thy glorious train, all thy courtly inhabitation.

I can give thee but what is thine already. But here with the widow I give my two mites, my soul and my body. Too long have I hearkened to Satan. But now I renounce them all and will be ruled by thy dictates and directions and guided by thy counsel.

O blessed Trinity, I deliver myself up to you. Receive me. Write your name, O Lord, upon me and upon all that I have as your proper goods. Set your mark upon me, upon every member of my body and every faculty of my soul.

I have chosen your precepts. By law will I live before me. This shall be the copy which I will keep in mine eye. I will allow myself in the breach of none. I know my flesh will hang back. But I resolve in the power of your grace to cleave to you in your holy ways whatever it cost.

I am sure I cannot come off a loser by you. And therefore I will be content with reproach and difficulties and hardships here. And will deny myself and take to be reversed. Digression to another book by Joseph Alain's brother.

A Heart of Flesh Rather Than a Heart of Stone

I am reading at this point. I will give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36 .26. The old heart is contrary to it. Rebellion sees a wound. It cannot hit or yield. It is apt to receive impressions. The power of God will awe it.

His justice alarm it. His mercy melt it. His holiness humble it and leave the stamp and image of it upon it. And as he attributes, so the word and works of God will make sign upon it. Who sets a seal upon a stone?

Or what print will it receive? Upon the wax the print will abide. God speaks once and twice, but man, hardened man, will not regard it. Neither his word nor his rod, neither his speaking nor his smiting will make any sign on such hearts.

It is the heart of flesh that hears and yields. And with such hearts the Lord delights to be dealing. The heart of his people is waxed gross. Acts 28 .27. They will not hear. They will not understand.

And the next word is, He will no more write his laws on tables of stone. He will write in flesh. There the impression will take and go the deeper, and therefore wherever he intends to write, he prepares his table, makes his stone flesh, and engraves upon it.

Tenderness Before and After Sin

Particularly this tenderness admits of a double distinction. First, respecting the object of it to mission and after the commission of it. Before the commission of sin, whilst it is under a temptation or feels the first motion to sin, a tender heart startles, starts back at the sight of a sin as at the sight of a devil.

How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Genesis 39 .9. The manner of the speech presents Joseph as a man in a fright, startled at the ugliness of the motion, so that when he had an opportunity and a temptation to slice, all rejects it with, God forbid!

The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed. 1 Samuel 26 .11. And that not only the higher and greater, but it resists the little ones, the smallest of sins. Is it not a little one?

Is no clue with it. Little or great, it is a sin, and that is enough. 2 After the Commission. If it has been brought on upon sin, yet it cannot go out with it. The skirt of Saul's garment was too heavy for David's heart to bear.

His heart smote him presently. 1 Samuel 24 .5. Sin in the review looks dreadful. It will turn to thorn. It pricks the heart how much soever it please the eye. It ordinarily enters by the eye and often runs out the same way it came in.

Runs out in tears. When he thought thereon he wept. At least it warns and makes more watchful after. You see what it is? Take heed. Take it for a warning and do no more. The pain of sin, if it do not force a tear, it will set a watch.

Tenderness in Duties and Suffering

2 A tender heart. It will neither slight a sin nor neglect a duty. It is loath to grieve and offend, and careful to serve and please the Lord. It would not that he should suffer by it, nor so much as lose his due.

It watches against sin and unto duty. It cares how to please the Lord, and its care is tender. It would not displease by its neglects or performances. All must be done that ought, with its offering, nor will it offer an unclean thing.

It considers not only what, but how. Both matter and manner, substance and circumstance. All must be right. For it is not at ease. It will keep time, and as much as may be, keep touch with the Lord in every point.

It is not satisfied that it prays sometimes. It would not lose a praying time. God will not, and it cannot lose a duty. It would neither lose by non-performance, nor lose what is performed. It would neither leave undone, nor do amiss any failing, not only in the matter, but in the principle, end, affection, intention, any failing pains.

Number three, in point of suffering. A soft heart will not be careful what, or how much, but why, and upon what account he suffers. Will neither sinfully shun the cross, nor run upon it unwarrantably.

He waits for a call, and then follows. He is patient under the hand of the Lord, but not insensible. Can be touched with an affliction, though not offended at it. The hand of the Lord hath touched me.

He suffers more than his own, his brethren's sufferings. His brethren's burdens all lie on his shoulders. He weeps in their sorrows, bleeds in their wounds. His heart is bound in their chains. As a care, so the trouble of all the churches comes daily upon him.

Who is weak, and I am not weak. Who is offended, and I burn not. He espouses all the sufferings of Christ as his own. In all his afflictions, he is afflicted. Section 2. Tenderness may be distinguished in respect of the subject of it.

Tenderness of Conscience

And so there is a tenderness of the conscience, the will, the affections. First, tenderness of conscience stands in thee three things. Number one, clearness of judgment. Number two, quickness of sight.

Number three, uprightness or faithfulness. Number one, clearness of judgment. When it is well instructed and understands the role and can thus discern betwixt good and evil, Hebrews 5 .14, there is a tenderness that proceeds from cloudiness, scrupulosity that fears everything, stumbles at straws, starts at shadows, makes sins, picks quarrels at duties, and so sometimes dares not please for fear of offending God.

This is a sickness or soreness of conscience, not its soundness. It is the sound conscience that is truly tender. Number two, quickness of sight and watchfulness. I sleep, but my heart waketh. I can espy the least sins and smallest duties.

It can see sin in the very temptation. It can discover the least sin under the fairest face and the least duty under the foulest visor. Call it singularity, nicety, cloud it with reproaches, yet conscience can discover light shining through all the clouds.

Duty within, whatsoever unhandsome face it be presented in, the former stands in consciences understanding the role. As was said, this is straight applying the role to cases and distinguishing them by it.

The truly tender has his eyes on his head and his eyes open to discover and discern all that comes, be it good or evil, little or great. But, if a thought comes in, what comes there, says conscience? What art thou?

A friend or an enemy? Whence art thou? O what a crowd of evils do thrust into loose and careless hearts! The devil comes in in the crowd and is never discovered. If the eye be either dim or asleep, there is entrance for anything.

Little do we think of times who hath been with us, what losses and mischiefs we have sustained while our hearts have been asleep, which, had they been wakeful and watchful, might have been prevented. Number three, uprightness and faithfulness, which discovers itself in giving charge concerning duty, number two, in giving warning of sin, number three, in giving check for sin when committed, first, in giving charge concerning duty.

Conscience Warning Against Neglected Duties and Sin

Look to it, soul. There is a duty before thee, which God calls thee to. Do not say, It is no great hurt to let it alone. It is no great hurt to do it. It is questionable whether it be a duty or not, any wiser than I think otherwise.

Do not say, It is a nicety. It is but a punctilio. It is a mere folly in preciseness, and there will be no end of standing upon such small matters. See to it it is your duty. Beware you neglect it not.

The balking of the least duty is the neglecting of the great God of glory. Number two, in giving warning of sin. Take heed to thyself. Sin lies at the door. Thou art under a temptation. The devil is entering upon thee.

Do not say, It is but a little sin. As little as it is, there is death and hell in it. Look to it. It is sin. Have thou nothing to do with it. Keep thyself here, and though it run upon thee, shake it off.

To commission it, give check for it. Reproving, judging, and lashing the soul for it. Where hast thou been, behaz I? Say not, Thou hast been nowhere. Went not this heart with thee, and saw thee running after thy covetousness, gadding after thy pleasures, feeding thy pride, dandling thy lusts, playing the hypocrite, playing the harlot from thy God, pampering thy flesh, pleasing thy appetite.

And where hast thou been? What hast thou done so? Think not to excuse or mince the matter. It cannot be excused. Thou sinned against thy God, and now bear thy shame. This is our heart smiting us. 2 Samuel 24 10.

Our heart condemning us. If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and north all things. 1 John 3 20. Tenderness of the will that stands in its flexibleness and pliableness to the will of God.

The Will Broken and Submitted to God

And this is that tenderness in which chiefly stands the blessing of a soft heart, a hard heart of stubborn and obstinate. Thy neck is as an iron sinew, and thy brow brass. Thou wilt not be ruled. There is no bending thee, or turning thee out of thy course.

Thine iron is too hard for the fire. It will not be melted, and for the hammer it will not be broken. There is no dealing with thee. Thou art an intractable piece that will go neither led nor driven. Thy heart is setting thee to do evil.

Thy will is set upon sin, and thou art set upon thine own will. The word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord we will not do, but we will do whatsoever proceeds out of our own mouth. We will do what we will do.

Jeremiah 44 16 and 17. Who is Lord over us? Psalm 12 4. And Jeremiah 2 25. Thou sayest. And after them we will go, but thou wilt against it. Hold thy peace conscience. It is to no purpose to speak more.

There is no hope of prevailing. We are at a point when the rebellion and stubbornness of the Spirit is subdued and tamed and made gentle and pliable. Then it becomes a tent. There may be some tenderness in the conscience, and yet the will be of very stone.

And as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart. Conscience may be scared and frightened. Conscience may fly upon the sinner. What dost thou mean so? Were there ever thy rebellions carrying thee?

Look to thyself. Hearken, or thou wilt be lost, ere thou art aware. But however God hath gotten conscience on his side, yet the devil still rides the will, and their sin takes up its rest. There is a double resting of sin in the soul, in peace and in power.

First in peace, when it dwells and rules in the soul without disturbance or contradiction, when it carries all smoothly before it, when God lets it alone and conscience speaks not a word against it, when, notwithstanding those armies of lust fighting against the soul, there is not so much as one weapon lifted up against them, not a prayer, not a tear, nor a wish for freedom, nor the least fear concerning the issue.

This is the most dreadful hardness. Number two, in power, when, though it can have no peace, yet it hath still a place in the heart, though it can have no quiet, but conscience is still quarreling with it and warning it away, yet it still holds its power over the will.

The master of the house is content to be its servant. Oh, how many persons are there, even amongst the professors of religion, who cannot sin in quiet, or in temperate, or covetous, or false in their words, in their dealings, their formal and hypocritical and slight in their duties, but they cannot go out with it, with any quiet, that sometimes they cry, and groan, and roar for deliverance from the covetous and wicked heart.

And yet, after all this, the will remains a captive steel, sin holds its power there, though it cannot carry it on in peace, though it cannot be proud, or play the hypocrite, or be covetous, or an oppressor, without some galls and grifes in the soul.

Yet on it goes, the same trade is kept up, and some course is held on. God commands, Cast ye out, cast ye out, come off of all your wickedness and evil ways, and I will receive you. No, though conscience will, the will cannot come.

Whatever rendings and tearings, whatever terrors and torments and worryings such souls are at any time under, whatever stings and plagues and fires, they find their sins to be in their souls and bones, whatever wishings and wardings they would bring forth, that they were well rid of these plagues.

Whilst the will is still from them, there is a hard heart, desperately hard. There is none of this heart of flesh. When the will is once broken, loose from sin, when it will be content to let all go and give up itself to the dominion of the Lord, there is a broken heart.

Now speak, Lord, and I will hear. Now call, Lord, and I will answer. Now command me, impose it on me, what thou wilt, own whatever thou pleasest. What God will have me be, what God will have me do, that will I do and be.

No longer what I will, but the will of the Lord be done. When it is come to this, this is a tender heart. There is a blessing of a broken spirit. The stone he hath taken away, he hath given a heart of flesh.

Christians, never trust to tears, never talk of terrors, trouble of conscience, of the passionate workings and meltings, which at any time you feel upon your spirits, though there be something in these, as ye shall see more by and by.

Yet these are not the things you are to look at. A subdued tractable, if ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be slain with the sword. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

Isaiah 119 3. TENDERNESS OF THE AFFECTIONS. I shall instance only in three, namely, love, fear, sorrow. The tenderness of love. This is seen in its benevolence and in its jealousy. First, in its benevolence.

Tenderness of Love and Zeal for God’s Glory

Our goodness extends not to the Lord, but our good will does. Our love can add nothing to him. Can a man be profitable to God? Job 22 .2 If thou be righteous, what giveth thou to him? 35 .7. If thou can add nothing, it would not that anything be detracted from him, whilst he can have no more.

It would that he would have his own, all that is due, his due praise, his due honor and homage and worship, and subjection from every creature. It would have no abatement, not the least spotless stain upon all his glory.

What is an affront to God is an offense to love. Love beareth all things, saith the apostle 1 Corinthians 13 .7, all things from God, all things from men. And yet there are two things the love of God cannot bear, his dishonor, his displeasure.

Have God to be God, to live in the glory of his majesty in the hearts and eyes of all the world. His reproach is grievous to him that loves, for this is a cloud that takes God out of sight. He loves and honors and would that God should be loved and honored of all.

He fears and would that the whole world should fear him. He would receive in his own breast every arrow that is shot against his maker. He would that his own name and soul might stand betwixt his God in all reproach and dishonor.

He would be vile, so the Lord may be glorious, so God may increase, he is content to decrease. He is not so tender of his own heart and bowels as of the holiness of his God. He would suffer and die and be nothing, rather than that God should not be all in all.

He would rather never think, nor speak, nor know what or where would he be, rather than his own hand should be lifted up against him. Your tape to side two. In his wisdom or his truth or his sovereignty, to see sin, that devil, to see the world, that idol, set up in the throne, and the God of glory made to stand aside as insignificant, to hear that blasphemy, God is not worth this lust, or not worthy this labor.

And what is said less than every sin is a sword in his breast. The reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. Love, it hath been warned in his bosom. All his goodness hath passed before it.

Upon this it lives and feeds, and having found and felt what the Lord is, it is impatient that all his goodness should be clouded or be lied. My bowels are troubled, mine heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled.

Lamentations 120. My tears have been my meat continually, while they daily say unto me, Where is Zion? O thy God, thou trustest sin. Your God is not such in one as you boast him to be. He would give all he hath, to the whole thing be withheld.

It is dual to the Lord, and it bears in triumphs. Though all the world and hell to boot be displeased, it is well enough. Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me, and my heart shall be glad.

Psalm 4. Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. Psalm 30. Let him correct. Kill me, soul, he will but love in thy displeasure. There is life in that death. This life is death to me. Let me not be dead whilst alive.

Turn away with thine anger, which keels my liberty, or your appetite, or your companion, for the sake of the Lord. Choose rather the pleasure your friend or your flesh, than to please God. Is this your love?

Is this your kindness to your friend? Love thee when your heart is no more with him. Secondly, in his jealousy. He that loves the Lord is jealous, and jealousy hath a tender edge. He is jealous not of, but for the Lord.

Not of his God, but of himself, lest anything should steal away his heart from God. Love would be chaste, would not bestow itself elsewhere, and yet is in great jealousy. It may be enticed and drawn away.

He that loves the Lord, there is not anything, whether wife or child or friend or estate or esteem, that gets near his heart. But he is jealous of them, lest they steal it away. Get you down. Keep you lower.

This heart is neither yours nor mine. O my God, it is thine. It is thine, Lord. Take it wholly to thee. Keep it to thyself. Let no other lovers be sharers with thee. There is a tenderness of fear. The tender heart is a trembling heart.

Holy Fear, Watchfulness, and Sorrow

The tenderness of fear is manifested in its suspicion and caution. In its suspicion the fearful are suspicious. They look further than they see. He that is in dread will be in doubt. What may befall him he suspects a surprisal.

Every bush is a thief. Every bait he fears may have a hook under. There is a foolish and a causeless fear, and there is a prudent and a holy fear. This fear is a principle of wisdom. The prudent man foreseeth the evil.

But fools go ever nearer. Sinners never want woe. The devil may spare his cunning when he hath to do with such. Nothing that looks like sin offers itself to a tender heart, but he presently suspects it.

Every pleasant morsel, every pleasant cup, every pleasant companion that comes, anything that tickles and gratifies the flesh, he looks through it. E 'er he will touch with it, lest it betray his soul from God.

There may be a snare in the dish, a snare in my cup, a snare in my company. And what if there should? He feeds himself with fear, dwells, walks, converses, works, recreates himself with a trembling heart and jealous eye.

Some commanders have set their scout watches unarmed, that fear might make them watchful. A fearful Christian will take heed what in whom he trusts. He dares not trust himself in such company as may be a snare to him.

He dares not trust his heart among temptations. He will keep the devil at a distance. He will not come near where his nets do lie. Blessed is he that thus feareth always, O the unspeakable mischief, O the multitudes of sins that we run upon through our secure hearts.

I never thought of it. I never dreamed of any such danger. O, I am undermined. I am overreached. I am surprised. My foot is in the snare. The djinn hath taken me by the heel. My soul is among lions. Sin hath gotten hold on me.