content to part with anything, and outwardly to suffer for the cause
of God, to part with divers pleasures and lusts, and to perform many
holy services. But here is the difference between Abraham and these
men: Abraham forsook his goods and all, but your close-hearted
hypocrites have always some god or other that they do homage to--their
ease, or their wealth, or some secret lust, something or other they
have set up as an idol within them--and so long as they may have and
enjoy that, they will part with anything else. But thou must know
that, if thou be one of Abraham's children, thou must come away from
thy gods--the god of pride, of self-love, of vainglory--and leave
worshiping of these, and be content to be alone by God and His truth.
This shall suffice for the first use; I can not proceed further in the
pressing thereof, because I would shut up all with the time.

The second use is a word of instruction, and it shall be but a word or
two; that if all the saints of God must walk in the same way of life
and salvation that Abraham did, then there is no byway to bring a man
to happiness. Look, what way Abraham went, you must go; there are no
more ways: the same course that he took must be a copy for you to
follow, a rule, as it were, for you to square your whole conversation
by. There is no way but one to come to life and happiness. I speak it
the rather to dash that idle device of many carnal men, that think the
Lord hath a new invention to bring them to life, and that they need
not go the ordinary way, but God hath made a shorter cut for them.
Great men and gentlemen think God will spare them. What, must they be
humbled, and fast, and pray! That is for poor men, and mean men. Their
places and estates will not suffer it; therefore surely God hath
given a dispensation to them. And the poor men, they think it is for
gentlemen that have more leisure and time: alas! they live by their
labor, and they must take pains for what they have, and therefore they