A Treatise of Conversion, Chapter 7 · Section 12
SECT. XII.
Hinderance 6. THe next great Impediment to your Conversion, is: Hardness of heart, and searedness of conscience. Though every man have some of this in his Original c…rruption, yet resisting of Light and motions of Grace, doth usually bring men to a far greater measure of it; both by the Nature of the thing, and by the just Judgement of God. When men have sinned often or long against Knowledge and Conscience, and receive not the Truth in the Love of it that they may be saved, but suppress the Light, and live not up to the Convictions that …re upon their consciences, it is usual for such to grow blockis… …nd sensless, and for the brutish part so far to prevail, that they are in a sort unreasonable men, 2 Thess. 3. 2. Men are naturally dead in sin, but when they have sinned wilfully, they grow more dead; That is, they are more insensible, and have more of the marks of Death upon them. And when they fall, especially from former conviction and profession, they become twice dead and plucked up by the Roots, Jude 12. And then the work of conversion is hard indeed: when the heart is thus hardened, no words are much regarded by them; no saying will serve; you speak as to a Post. We shoot our Arrows as at a wall of flint, where they will not enter: The dew of holy Instructions doth fall upon a stone where no fruit can be expected. You cannot devise what to say that will …uch them, because they are stupid and will not lay it to heart: you cannot tell how to sharpen your words to make them enter. The Lord have mercy upon poor wretches, for their Case is Lamentable. It would make a man of Consideration wonder to see what piercing weighty Truths a hard heart will make light of. Speak to them as from the God that made them, and they regard you not. Speak to them of their everlasting state, and they regard you not: tell them of the hainous evil of sin, and all its aggravations, and they take it all but as words of Course; and will say, God help us▪ we are all sinners, and theres an end. Tell them of the Infinite Love of God; and the pretious blood of Christ that was shed for them, and the free pardon that is offered, and the rich abun…ant Grace which they might have, and it will encrease their presumption and security, but it will not raise their estimation of it, nor quicken their desire after it, nor make them forsake all and follow Christ. Tell them of an everlasting state of Glory which they may obtain in the presence of the Lord, and they make light of it, and hear it as they do a story of the fortunate Islands, or the Elisian fields: Tell them of the endless Torments of the Damned that despised Grace in the day of their visitation, and either they feel not, and fear not what you say, or if they fear a little, it is not so much as to move them from their courses, no… bring them to a change of heart and life. Oh what a sad work it is to have to deal with a hardned heart! it is to hew at a stone, and to cleave a knotty block that will not receive the wedge; to plough and sow on a Rock where you cannot make the plough to enter. This is the trouble of a Preachers Life: this dulleth his hopes; this wearieth and tireth him; this maketh him say, I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought; and this hath broken many of their hearts. Alas! To see our poor people within a few daies or years of eternal fire which they might prevent if they would look about them in time, and we cannot get them to lay it to heart! Alas! …o hear what a feeling they must have for ever, and yet we cannot get them to feel or fear and prevent it now. Oh! Thinks a poor Minister [if I could but awaken him, and make him regard the case of his soul, I should have hope yet to prevent his damnation: For no man can destroy him against his will; and the Light is so clear, that me thinks he should see it, if he would not wilfully shut his eyes.] But alas! we cannot get them to regard it. How sad a case is it to think of an everlasting glory which they might have and how freely Christ hath purchased it, and how freely he doth offer it to them, and they might have it if they would, and if they did not wilfully sleight it and reject it▪ and yet that we cannot awaken them to consideration, nor bring such matters as these to their hearts! I have formerly said it, and I will say it again, that I profess that I often marvell that the weight of everlasting matters doth not rather over-match your spirits, and over-whelm them. I have wondered that it doth not even amaze and astonish you to think how great a change you are near; and what a thing it is to be everlastingly in heaven or in hell: and yet we cannot get our people to feel or lay to heart these things. Oh what lamentable hearts are these! What will they regard and feel if they will not feel everlasting matters? What words will ever pierce their hearts if the words of the living God will no… do it, and the words by which they know they shall be judged? Do but call one of them by some disgracefull name, and he will quickly feel: threaten him with Death; promise him but an hundred pound, and he will regard it: but let God declare his sin and misery to him, and he will not feel it: Let God threaten him with hell, and promise him everlasting life, if he will return, and he will not regard it. Oh what a happy life might a Minister have if it were not for hard-hearted men! If we could deal with them but on such terms for their souls as we do for their bodies, how certainly should we prevail, and then how comfortable would our employments be! If a Lawyer tell them their Evidence or cause is nought, they will hear and regard him: If a Physitian tell them they must take Physick or die, they will lay it to heart. If their Landlord tell them they must pay their rent, or be turned out of their houses▪ they can feel what he saith; But if we tell them that they must repent and be converted, or be condemned for ever, and miss of Salvation, we cannot be regarded. Their hearts are blockt up from us, by the world, and pride, and lust, and sin, and we cannot get into their bosom: we know not how to come at their hearts, Alas! If it were not for their own sakes this trouble wer… small to us; for what good else should it do us to trouble them▪ and break their hearts and change them? But when we consider, if we could but convert them▪ we should save them; and if we could help them to Grace▪ we might meet them in everlasting Glory, this maketh us long for better success. Fain then would we get them to hear, and regard, and feel what we say, that it might go well with them for ever: but we cannot. Alas, to the grief of our hearts we cannot. It is a tiring life to have none but hardhearted sinners to perswade: we lose our study for them; we lose our breath upon them. Some of them can think of other things while we are speaking to them of the greatest matters in all the world, and some of them can drop asleep under it, and some of them sit as dull as blocks; and some of them will look upon us as if they were affected, and yet it never goes to the quick: and some of them that seem to be somewhat sensible, do shake off all again in a few dayes time, and when they have been a while among their old companions, and about their old business, they shew us that they are the old men, and that it is one thing to be a little affrighted for a few dayes, and another thing to have a changed softened heart. Were it not for this sin of hardness of heart, it were not possible that so many Sermons should be lost▪ nor that so many Ministers in England, should see so litle fruit of their labours. Why alas sinners, what else can be the matter? We come on as reasonable an errand as any men in the world can come on: it is but that men would accept Salvation that is freely purchased and offered them, and that they would be content to change a life of sin and misery, for a life of Grace and everlasting Glory: one would think that such a message as this should take with every man and woman in the Congregation; especially when it is sent from God himself, and brought to them with such Evidence of certain Truth, and themselves profess to believe what we say. One would think a message so reasonable as this should prevail with every man in a whole Countrey or Kingdom where it comes: and yet it doth not. Nay alas! How few are they with whom it doth prevail? If we come hither to offer every man in this Congregation that he should live in a Pallace as a Prince, on condition he would leave his cottage and accept it, who would make any Question of the success? I should not doubt but every man and woman of you would yield: And yet when we come in the name of God to offer them Grace and Glory on free cost, if they will but let go sin and the world, they will not be perswaded; say what we can, though they will not tell us so, yet they will not be perswaded. And whence can this come but from an hardned heart? Did we not speak to men that have lost their sense and reason, and are past feeling, it could not be. When every man naturally desireth his own happiness, and yet men will not be happy when it is offered them.
Yea, this is not all; but when the heart is thus hardned, some of them are given over to such a desperate case that they hear the Word with a malitious mind, and instead of Receiving it in power to their Salvation, they do but cavill at it, and pick quarrels with it to their condemnation; and prate among their companions against that which they understand not, nor ever laid to heart. If a Physitian would heal them for nothing, and they should Maliciously Reproach him or quarrell with all that he doth for them, did they not deserve to be left to perish by the Disease? If they had forfeited their lives and a free pardon were offered them, what would you think of him, that instead of a thankfull Accepting of the Pardon, would pick quarrels with it, and prove it nonsense, or scorn the Messenger? This is the case of many of our Hearers. Poor souls, their lives declare their misery, and God sendeth us to them with the offers of a Remedy, and one goes home and makes a jest of it, and another foolishly Cavilleth against it, and another thinks it a needless thing▪ and this is our success with hard-hearted men. Now the Lord have mercy upon you that hear me in this Congregation, and grant that this may be none of your Case, or if it be, that he would powerfully and quickly cure it: For it is one of the saddest cases in this world: and of all sorts of men there is few or none that we have so little hope of, as hard-hearted men. If a man were never so much mistaken, and never so far out of the way, yet if he had but any regard or feeling with him, we might hope by the force of reason, and the Light of the Word of God, to bring him to himself, and set him in the way: But when men are past feeling, what shall we say to them, or what can we do for them? Nay, it is not onelyonly words, but even the Works of God that are lost upon such men: Mercies do but harden them; and Judgemenrs themselves do but harden them, which one would think, should humble and soften them▪ if any outward means could do it, Isa. 42. 24. 25. When the Jews had sinned, God punished them with War, and let loose plundering robbing Souldiers upon their estates, and Destroyers upon their bodies, and yet they were so far from being humbled and softned by it, that they did not so much as regard …he cause, nor the hand that did it. Who gave Jacob for a sp…il▪ and Israel to the Robbers? Did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his way, neither were they obedient to his Law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battel, and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not, and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart. And hath not this been our own case in England? Who would have thought, if people had but had life, and sense, and reason in them: but that so many years war should have humbled them for their sins, and made them willing to learn and to be Reformed? Who would have thought but they would have searched and tried their waies, and turned to the Lord that did afflict them; and have loved his Word, and have given up themselves to his will, and even in the open Assemblies have voluntarily acknowledged and bewailed their Iniquities? and yet we see how many are the same. As the sword found them, so it hath left them, if not worse: and if the fury of Gods anger cannot be felt, no wonder if they cannot feel our preaching: And if they lay not to heart the fire that burneth them up, what wonder if they lay not to heart the Message we deliver? If Peter and Paul, yea or Christ himself, had preached to one of these hardened sinners, they would have made light of it; or gone home and ignorantly cavilled against them as they do against the Ministers now, unless the powerfull arm of God had inwardly concurred to the softening of their hearts: For indeed they did thus by Christ and his Apostles while they were upon Earth: and by all the Prophets that went before them, Ezek. 3. 7. saith the Lord, ver. 4. Son of man▪ Get thee to the house of Israel, and speak with my words to them▪ Not to many people of a strange speech and a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand: Surely had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened to thee, but the house of Israel will not hearken to thee, for they will not hearken to me, for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted: And Christ himself when he had wrought even Miracles to confirm his Doctrine, was put to grieve for the hardness of their hearts, Mar. 3. 5. And when the Apostles preached the Gospel of Salvation, divers were hardened and believed not, but spoke evil of the way of God before the people, till the Apostles resolved to leave them to themselves, Act. 19. 9. So that, Hardness of heart is the great Impediment of Conversion.