A Treatise of Conversion, Chapter 1 · Section 14
SECT. XIV.
3. THe third Means subordinate to Christ and the Spirit, which Converting Grace doth turn the heart to, is, The Word of God, whether heard, or read, or preached, or any way fitly made known. The Word is the very seed that doth beget him to this life, the Immortal seed of God, which alwayes must remain in him, Luke 8. 11. 1 John 3. 9. Of this Incorruptible seed is he new born, 1 Pet. 1. 23. And therefore it cannot be but he must love it and desire it. The Scripture to a carnal man is as a common book: many things in it seem to be unlikely, and many things even next to foolishness, because he hath not the Spirit to discern them. To all the ungodly it is as a sealed book; though some of them know the Grammatical and Logical sense, none of them taste the spiritual sweetness, nor partake of the life that it begets in the soul. Therefore we find the learned Papists so many of them making a jest of Scripture, even while they confess it to be the Word of God. Some of them daring to accuse the matter, and some the stile, and many the words and manner of expression, as if it were obscure, or unfit, or Insufficient to its proper use: A carnal man can easily spare it: a Chapter in the Bible to him is but as a common story. Many a one of them can delight to read a Romance, or a book of Fables and Fictions, like the Knights of the Sun, the old Champions, or Palmerine, or Guy of Warwick, or such like wicked devises of mens brains, that are made to rob God of mens hearts, and to rob themselves of their time and wit; than to read over the sacred Story, and the holy Precepts of Christ, and the spiritual Doctrine of Faith and Salvation. We may see the difference between mens dispositions towards Gods Word in the Papists and poor Protestants, in the time and place of persecution. The Protestants would make much of one leaf of the Bible; they would get together to hear a Chapter read, as to a feast, when they knew their lives were endangered by it. The Papists used all their power to suppress it, to hinder the promulgation of it, and keep the people from the knowledge of it, and burned them at a stake for the using of it: Their Inquisition in Spain and Italy enquire after it, as if it were some book of treason or witchcraft; when the poor Christians whose hearts are touched with it, do hide it and keep it, as the chiefest Jewel in the world. Luther would not take a world for one leaf of the Bible; His adversaries would have been glad if they could have banished it out of the world. In the Primitive Church the Heathen Persecutors did first seek after the Christians Bibles and other good books, that they might burn them. And if the Ministers would deliver them all the books, sometime they would space their lives; but the poor Christians would be torn in pieces and suffer any kind of Death, before they would deliver them one of those books to be burnt. And if any through fear had yielded to deliver them, they were ever after looked upon by the other Christians as if they were Apostates and denyers of Christ, and were commonly called by the name of Traditores, and the very Posterity of such was in disgrace after them. In so much that the schism of the Donatists sprung from an excessive zeal on this occasion: Because a Bishop was but ordained by one that had been a Son of a Traditor of the Bible, they separated from him and from all the Church that held communion with him, for his sake. So that you may see what thoughts the servants of Christ have ever had of the Holy Scriptures, and how contrary to these are the men of the world.
And we cannot blame them, for they know that it was by this word that God did first quicken them; by this he convinced them of sin and misery; by this he revealed to them Christ and Glory: In this is contained the Covenant of Grace; the charter for salvation and that title to all the Mercies of this life and that which is to come: Here are the Laws of heaven by which they must live, and by which they must all be Judged: Here are those promises which first revived their distressed souls; the first cordials that did refresh their fainting spirits, the first News of pardon and glad tidings of Salvation that ever they had, was from hence. They know it is a Book Inspired from heaven by the spirit of God, containing the discoverie of the will of God; and the highest mysteries which flesh and blood cannot reveal; and that they are matters also of everlasting Consequence, to which all the matters in this world are as nothing, and not worthy the naming or once remembring: and do you blame a poor Christian for being in love with this blessed Book? Especially when he knoweth these things not by bare hear-say only, but by many a sweet experience in his Soul; Many a sweet draught hath he here drunk in his extremity; and many a feast hath his soul here had, if he be a Christian of long standing, and experience. But however, this was the means of his Conversion, and the very Instrument of the Spirit for raising him from the dead: And as the Christian is so in love with the book of God, so is he with the doctrine of it, where ever he finds it. Any other book that is written to explain and apply this, is savory to him: especially the Publick preaching of this word, which is most eminently the standing Ordinance of God for mans Conversion and Edification. The same Sermons that would have made him sleep, or made his head ake before his Conversion, do now awaken him, and make his heart ake for his former folly: and yet he loveth them though they trouble and grieve him, for he loveth that kind of trouble and grief which they beget. Oh how sweet is that word to his soul, which heretofore he was wont to loath or quarrel at. He could live, with David in the Temple, even day and night: Other men can scarce be drawn to it, but for custom or by-Respects, but it would be a death to him to be kept away: If there were a famine in the Land of the word of God, he would wander from sea to sea, before he would be without it, Amos 8. 12. It is as natural, according to this New Nature, for a true Convert to seek after the word of God, as for the Infant to make to the breast, 1 Pet. 1. 2. As New born babes they desire the sincere milk of the word, that they may live and grow thereby; they Receive with meekness the engrafted word: foreign, the word which is Innaturalized to them, and Connatural with them: for it is it that is able to save your Souls, Jam. 1. 21. Able to do its own part thereto. Never did you know that Christian that could live without this word, any more then a man can live without meat. I told you the language of Job, David, and Jeremiah, before. Oh how Certainly do the careless neglecters and despisers of this word discover, that yet they are unconverted souls; that taste no more sweetness in it then in a chipp: that will rather make it a matter of Derision, when they see people read and hear so diligently, and talk so much of the word of God; and do in their hearts almost as one of the Papist Rebels in Ireland did with his feet, even stamp the Bible in the dirt, and curse it, and said, This is it that hath bred all this, and set us together by the ears: Little better thoughts have many secret I fidels of it in their hearts. But here the Christian hath grounded his hopes; here hath he build and bottomed his soul; and here will he live and dye. This then is another part of the work Conversion, Conversion, it turneth mens hearts to the word of God, and maketh them value it as their Necessary food.