Use. And now, doth the Lord Jesus Christ offer this Liberty to you? Oh then, I beseech you, let it be accepted of you. Oh Beloved, 'tis offer to this end, that it should be accepted: not that it should be made light of, as if there were no great matter in it, whether you had it, or had it not. I therefore urge that Scripture upon you now, Heb. 12:25. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. What, shall Christ make such an offer to you, and will you not close with it? Will you that are in Bondage perish in your Bondage, when you might be set free? Is it such a good condition that you are in, that you should desire to stay in it? The prison and bondage of the Body, though it be nothing to this that your souls are in, yet how glad are poor Creatures to hear, that there is any hope or way for deliverance out of that. Oh, sirs, let not Christ lose his love, let him not lose his labour, let him not lose his longing: fain he would have you set at liberty: And therefore, don't hug your chains, as if you were loath to part with them. Lay this to your heart, that Freedom is offered to you; how can you shift it, but you must close with it now? If it had not been offered, there had been some excuse: but will you put it off, now it hath been offered; yea, when it hath been offered particularly to every one of you, that there is none of you have been excluded from this gracious Invitation: and when it hath been offered with a notwithstanding, notwithstanding all the great and grievous sins which you have lived in, as it was said to Judah, Jer. 3:1-2. Thou hast played with many lovers: yet return to me, saith the Lord: And when it hath been offered frequently, not once or twice, but often; How often would I have gathered you, saith Christ to Jerusalem? God hath seen you neglect this Salvation, such a Sermon, and such a Sermon; and yet he hath sent again, and again, and again to you: And when it hath been offered with so much importunity and earnestness, that you have never been pleaded with about any thing in this World, as you have about getting this Freedom: and when it hath been offered to you so freely, that you shall be redeemed at another's cost, and not at your own: you have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without price: I say, when it hath been offered, and thus offered, why what's your duty from all this, but to close with it? 1. Close with it thankfully. What? Is there yet Freedom for me, for such a one as I? Oh, blessed be God! admired be his Mercy! adored be his Name! 2. Close with it thoroughly. Take heed of doing it by halves: take heed of parting with your sins but as Pharaoh would part with the children of Israel; he would yield to this and that upon force, but he never came up to God's terms. 3. Close with it quickly, before your day of Grace be at an end, before it be too late to look out for it. Oh, sirs! stir, stir for your souls, for the Lord's sake, quickly, quickly; you may else be undone to all eternity. Opportunities of grace are not long lived; and when they are over, you will wish you had improved them, and then there will be no fetching them back. I commend that awakening Scripture to you, Heb. 12. 15-17. Look diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled: Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat, sold his birth-right. For ye know, how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. That may be lost in a little time, that can never be recovered.
Nathanael Ball, Spiritual Bondage and Freedom (London: Printed for Jonathan Robinson, at the Golden Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1683), 64–67.
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