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.
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