A guide to salvation, bequeathed to a person of honour, by his dying-friend the R.F. Br. Laurence Eason, Ord. S. Franc. S. Th. L.

The third and last Condition, necessary for this work.

If we desire efficatiously to be saved, we must labour with perseverance, accor∣ding to the example of our B. Saviour on the Cross, who would not descend from thence to put an end to his sufferings, and to the incredulity of the people who de∣sired it; but as he says himself, he would there finish and consummate the work his Father had recommended to him; which was the Salvation of men for his glory. The Wise-man said, that omnia tempus habent, there is a time for all things; a time to Sow, and a time to Reap, and the like; and out of these Seasons, they are not to be done.

But the affair of our Salvation hath no certain time assigned for it; but the whole course of our life, from the first

moment that we have the use of reason, to the last, is to be employed in it. Rea∣son perswades us this truth, and gives us to understand of what importance the assiduity of this work is; because our Salvation depends on the last action of our life; if that be good, meritorious and agreeable to God, it will save us; if bad, sure enough we shall be damned, for as the Tree falls, so it shall lie: But here our death is uncertain, and every moment of our life may be the last, and the fatal stroke may surprise us when we think least of it: have we not reason then to travel incessantly in the affair of our Salvation, to secure it as much as possi∣bly we can? for unless we persevere unto the end in it, we cannot be saved. And the breaking off this work, and declining out of the right way, though it be but for a time, may be the cause of our not persevering to the end, and consequent∣ly of our eternal perdition.

Many examples in this kind, Sa∣cred and Ecclesiastical History afford us; and happy are we, if we become so wise by them, as at all times to be vigilant about this affair.