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A30278
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Eighteen directions for saving conversion unto God by Daniel Burgess ... thus published for the poor.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing B5705; ESTC R36045
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21,736
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58
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Eighteen Directions FOR Saving Conversion UNTO GOD. WITH Directions for Daily Holy Living And Motives with Directions unto Religious Discourse such as tends to promote Conversion and holy Conversation By Daniel Burgess Minister of the Gospel Thus Published for the Poor LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1691. EIGHTEEN DIRECTIONS FOR Saving Conversion UNTO GOD. By Daniel Burgess Minister of the Gospel Thus Published for the Poor LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chapel 1691. To my Friends in the Counties of Wilts Berks Somerset Glocester Oxford Southampton Middlesex Grace and Peace Sirs I thankfully remember all your old true Love And by your frequent Salutations I am comfortably assured of it's continuance Having not any thing better I Re-salute you all together with this Fragment I intreat that your Children may be exercised in Learning to Understand them and Recite them Especially those Children whom I Baptized and do with an especial Affection remember This Inscription obtains its end if it certifie you that You and Yours live in the affectionate memory of one that sticks not to go out of the common Road to fetch in one Soul unto Jesus Christ Your Fervent Lover and Oratour D. Burgess Eighteen Directions for Saving Conversion unto God c. D. 1. BE Men. Be not content to be Flies and Worms or Dogs and Swine in Men's Shape You have REASON a faculty of Understanding and Judging what is True and what is False You have a WILL a freedom of Chusing what you understand to be Good and of Refusing what you think to be Evil. You have a CONSCIENCE also obliging you always to ACT upon Choice and to CHUSE upon Judgment Be not then as if you had neither of the three Be not swayed by brutish Sense and acted by Colours Smells Sounds and Tasts as if you had been Born in the Field among Cattel and had in you no nobler Principle than they Rise presently and say each of you From this moment I will use my Powers My Nature is better than Brutes and my Life shall be better I will follow my exercised Reason and seek GRACE which is it's Perfection Till this be resolutely said you have no proper Manhood No but are Bruits and worse Morally though you are Men Naturally Psal 49.20 D. 2. Know your Maker Endure not to be Silly Children that know not their own Father You know you made not your selves Your Parents know little of your inner parts and confess that they did not form the same You believe your Maker to be one that was Himself never made But an Eternal Being and the common Father and Fountain of all Beings And by consequence of more Wisdom Power and Goodness than all And more worth Knowing than all Rise then and say every one of you What good shall my Life do me if I may not know the Father of it Give me the Knowledge of my Father or else I die I will never know rest till I understand WHO and WHAT He is Go learn the Sixteen things concerning GOD in the first of my Three Questions resolved Till He be known nothing can be rightly known 2 Thes 1.7 8. D. 3. Love your Selves Being descended from so excellent a Father LOVELINESS and LOVE it self and being so excellent a race of his as Men bearing his Image do not make light of your selves The visible Creation is not by millions of times worth one of your Souls Say then straightway in your Souls every of you I see nothing but my God better than my Soul Next to his Glory I will therefore make this Souls good my chief End and Care If this Soul be lost it shall not be for want of any thing I can do to Save it I will do and suffer work and beg Live and Die for this Soul of mine For it's Felicity in my Maker's Love and Favour and Likeness Until this be said you do but Flatter you do not Love your Selves No but interpretatively you Hate your selves And you Mischief your Selves more than Devils can do Prov. 8.36 D. 4. Visit Heaven and Hell You know there is another World none of you all pretend to be sure that there is not another If there be another confine not your Acquaintance unto this Heathens Turks and Jews themselves believe another World And say it is a Bigger than this and an Everlasting one And one whose Pleasures exceed those of this lower Worlds as much as the Light of the Sun exceedeth the Gloworm's Whose Pains and Torments also be such that the worst Torments here wou'd be very Refreshments unto the tormented there Let every one then say I will as daily think of the next World as I breath in this And Fear the torments of that World more than the pains of this And Desire and seek the Pleasures of that World more than all of this Before this Practice you do not see afar off but are blind You live in this World as Spiders in their Webs careless and thoughtless of the Beesom of destruction And as Serpents in the Dust regardless of the glory of higher Regions 2 Cor. 4.18 D. 5. Call Earth your Purgatory Your Time here is all of it given you on Tryal and for Preparation for your Eternal State Your Maker is Holy his Heaven is Pure All that enter it must be Purified their Time is allowed them for Purification As they are Purified or not Purified here on Earth they are taken into Heaven or excluded No other Place of Purifying or Time is set by God Say then Reader say often unto thy self My time is my tryal for Eternity I am here on my good behaviour as I Live here I Speed for ever After my death God will neither hold me on tryal in that World nor send me back again and try me in this If I am Glorified I must be Purified and if Purified it must be now My Motto shall be NOW or NEVER Eph. 5.15 16. 2 Cor. 5.9 10. D. 6. Believe and search God's Word Believe the H. Scripture so to be It is in a manner as plain that the Scripture is his Word as that the World is his Work Men could no more invent such a Bible than they could make such a World Read Dr. Manton Dr Bates Mr. Baxter hereof you shall say so As sure as there is a God his Will must be Revealed but if it be not Revealed in the H. Scripture where is it Revealed And what is there in the Scripture but is like Him and speaks it self His And if His it be how Continually Awfully and Affectionately should it be studied Rather than neglect it I would burn all my other Books and read the Scripture by the light of them Say thou that readest this upon due consideration say thou If I had a thousand Souls I would venture them all upon the truth of