as that you have laid up your treasure and hopes in the life to come; and that is it that you take for your felicity: so that you can truly say, that the main bent and drift of your life is, not for the pleasure or profits of the world, but how to please God, and be happy for ever? Though you may step out of the way by human infirmity, yet this is the bent and scope of your life: this is your chief care, and this hath your most serious thoughts and business. Can you truly say, you use the world for God and for heaven, and do not serve God for the world? And that you take all these outward things, but as necessaries in your journey, but look at heaven as your home and happiness? And that God hath the highest room in your hearts, and the world and flesh stand under him; and that you do not prefer these things before him? And that you are resolved, whatsoever it cost you, to stick to God though you lose the world; and not stick to the world, when it loses you the favour of God? And that God shall be first served, and that the world shall have his leavings; and not the world first served, and God have its leavings? Have you tasted of the infinite love, which he hath manifested for your salvation in the blood of his Son, and admired that free grace, that hath thus purchased your redemption? And fled to Christ, as the only refuge of a guilty soul, from the curse of the law, and the wrath of God; renouncing all conceits of any merits, or legal righteousness of your own, taking Christ and his merits for your righteousness? Do you find that you hate the former sins that you loved, and take pleasure in those holy ways that you had no pleasure in before? And are you resolved thus to hold on to the death? (3.) Is all this to be seen in your life? Have you in good sadness changed your former courses, and resolved to turn to them no more? Have you left your own ungodly company further than your calling, or necessity, or charity requireth you to be with them? And have you betaken yourselves into the company of those that fear God, and take pleasure in their holy communion, and in their help and company in the way to heaven? Especially do you avoid those great transgressions, by which you were carried away in your ignorance! And are you willing to destroy the remains of your sin, whatsoever it cost you, and not to spare, or cherish, or befriend it? So that there is no known sin, that you wilfully live in; nor known duty that you wilfully cast off. But you would fain be what God would have you be, and your greatest sorrow is, that you can be no better. And if you fall by any temptation, you rise again with shame and grief, and free confession, and renew your resolution by the grace of God, to take better heed for the time to come. This is the sum of the work of conversion, and this is the state of a gracious soul. I have left out divers particulars, lest I should be too long, because you may see them together before you; but the rest are implied in these. When you go then to examine your hearts, set these few questions before you, and put them to your hearts, or else peruse those marks that I have given you in my " Directions of Peace of Conscience," or those in my "Treatise of Judgment," or those in my " Book of Rest." You do not need to be at a loss for marks to try by. Books will help you, or ministers will help you, or friends will help you. But all the difficulty is in two things. 1. To get your heart to the work. 2. To be able to know your own hearts. For they are so dark and deceitful, that without a special light and diligence, you may easily be mistaken in yourselves. Well, brethren, I again renew my request to you, that seeing you must be converted, or condemned, will you set yourselves to try whether you are converted or not? I hope you be not willing to be deceived; and I hope you do not think that salvation is not worth this much labour. I should hope. that I might request as much as this from you, if it were for myself, or a friend; how much more, when it is for your salvation. Tell me, therefore, will you do this much at my request, at Christ's request, yea, and at his command, or will you not? Will you bestow now and then a secret hour about it, and follow it on till you get resolution, and know whether you are converted or not? Truly, neighbours, I do not speak these words to you carelessly or customarily, as matters that I shall never look after when I am out of the pulpit; or as if I cared not whether you ever more minded them, or not. But it is the matter of practice that I regard: whether you will do the thing that I am desiring of you. I am loath you should spend another day in a state of condemnation, No, but you and not know it. I am loath you should spend another day in negligent uncertainty of your everlasting state. If you are converted, I would fain have you know it; if I could procure it, I would have you sure to go to heaven when you die, before you pass another week, or before you go this night to bed. And if you are not yet converted, I would fain have you know it, that you may lay to heart your condition, and without any more delay, may make out for the grace of Christ, that must recover you. I pray you do not think that it is utter despair that I am driving you to. If you should upon trial find that you are unconverted, you need not despair, and say, there is no hope.' must know, that there is mercy before you. prepared it for you, and offereth it to you, and is willing you should have part in it if you be willing. Only you must consent to be changed now at last, and resolve to go no further in the old way. It is conversion, and not desperation, that God requireth. And I hope a man may seek after his error to amend it, rather than to despair of the amendment. What, if upon examination, you should perceive that till this hour, you have been in a state of death? doth not follow, that you must live and die so; but that you must make haste to get out of it, which you will hardly ever do, till you find that you are in it. It were a foolish traveller that will say, 'I will not ask the way, lest I find that I have missed it, and then I have no hope of getting home.' But rather he should ask the way, that if he have missed it, he may know it, and get in the right way before it be night. And because it is my present business, rather to convince the unconverted for their recovery, than the converted for their comfort, I shall here tell you for the negative, who they be that are yet unconverted, and must be changed, if ever they will be saved. It (1.) That man or woman, that never yet perceived and felt that sin is a great and detestable evil, deserving the wrath of God, and that never felt what need they stand in of the pardon of sin, by the blood of the Lord Jesus, nor was ever humbled in the apprehension of his unworthy dealing with God, but can bear his sin as a tolerable burthen, is yet unconverted; and without conversion cannot be saved i. i Matt. xi. 28. Luke xiii. 3, 51. Psal. li. 17. Isa. Ivii. 15. Luke xiv. 11. xviii. 14. (2.) That man or woman that was never driven to Christ for deliverance, nor beaten out of the conceits of merit, or sufficiency in himself; nor brought to admire the glorious design of God in the great work of redemption; nor savoured the sweetness of the glad tidings of salvation, which are brought to distressed sinners in the Gospel. So that his heart was never warmed with the sense of the Redeemer's love and blood; but heareth and readeth the Gospel as a common story. Or, as if it were not he that was thus redeemed, is yet unconverted, whatsoever he may seem *. (3.) That person that hath not his heart and hopes in heaven, and looketh not at that as his only happiness, and doth not make it the business of his life to attain it; but setteth his heart more upon the things of this life, is certainly unconverted, whatever he may pretend'. (4.) That person that is not weary of all known sin, and hateth it not, and would not be rid of it with all his heart, and is not willing to be at the labour or cost of duty, in the use of those means which God hath required for the obtaining of a conquest; but will venture his soul upon a careless life, rather than he will be brought to diligent godliness; and taketh up godliness in part upon mere necessity, having rather let it alone if he durst, and taketh it for a grievous thing to be hindred from his sin: that person is not as yet converted, but must have a further change before he can be brought into a state of lifeTM. (5.) That person that doth not set himself to the duties of holiness to God and righteousness, and mercy toward man, that hath not the Spirit of Christ within him, and the image of God upon him, and doth not express it in his worship and obedience, and is not loving, compassionate, and merciful to others, nor humble and low in his own eyes, nor delighteth in doing good, nor is willing to do as he would be done by; I say, that person is not yet truly converted, whatsoever seemings of conversion he may have; but must yet be otherwise converted, or be condemned ". * Phil. iii. 8, 9. Eph. iii. 18, 19. Luke vii. 47, 48. Rom. x. 15. Acts xiii. 32. 1 Phil. iii. 21. Matt. vi. 21. Rom. v. 2. Tit. i. 2. Heb. xi. 1 Cor. xv. 19. Col. i. 5. 23. m Luke xviii, 23, 24. Rom. vi. 14. 16, 17. 21. vii. 13. 22. 24. Psal. cxix. 5. Matt. v. Heb. xii. 14. 1 Pet. i. 15, 16. ii. 5. 2 Pet. iii. 11. Heb. iii. 1. Psal. i. 2. (6.) That man or woman that hath any thing in this world, that is so dear to them that they cannot spare it, and part with it for Christ, and obedience to his command, but will rather venture their souls upon his threatenings, and will only take up so much of religion as may stand with their worldly prosperity or seeming felicity, and are not resolved by strength of grace, rather to let go all than Christ: I say, that person is yet unconverted, and must have a further change, or be condemned o. Now, the Lord have mercy on poor sinners! What a world of them are yet in the state of death! And how little do they believe it, or lay it to heart! I wonder what men think of such words in Scripture, when they meet with them. Sure they cannot choose but consider that they concern them as well as others. And if no man can be saved without conversion, they must needs know they cannot. What then do these men think of themselves? Do they think that they are converted, or that they are not? If they think they are not, then surely they durst not rest till they are. For I do not think they are willing to be damned. It must needs be, therefore, that they think they are converted, when they are not; and that is the thing that deceiveth and quieteth them in their misery. But it is worth inquiry to find out what it is that so deceiveth men, that the grossest worldling, or the vilest sensualist, are yet persuaded that they are converted, gracious men; and I find among others these three things are the cause. 1. They do not know what conversion is, but take that to be true conversion, which is no such thing. 2. They do not know themselves, but take themselves to have what they have not, and do what they do not, and be what they be not. And 3. They are resolved to believe what they would have to be true, be it never so false; and therefore will rather think they are well already, than they will be at the trouble to know that it is otherwise, and to use the means for a thorough discovery. Use 111. By the foregoing inquiry, we have certainly found, that conversion is too strange a thing in the world; and that the greatest part of the world, yea, of those that are called by the preaching of the Gospel, are yet unconverted. The consideration of this must needs be a grief to Matt. xvi. 24. x. 37, 38. Luke xiv. 33. Phil. iii. 19. Matt. xiii. 6. 20, 21. |