A Treatise of Conversion, Chapter 7 · Section 25 – Section 26
SECT. XXV.
Direction 12. I Will not excuse the sins of any: Offence must come, but wo to him by whom it comes. If they be godly, their profession doth aggravate it, and therefore I do not intend to extenuate it: But yet, as I must needs say, that the malice of the ungodly doth frequently make even holiness to be a crime; and Vertue it self to be the greatest vice, and those to be faults that are really none, and those to be common that are seldom, and but the case of very few; and those to be great that are not so: So I must needs tell you that there is no sufficient Reason in the faults and divisions of those that are Religious to disswade any from Religion, or excuse them in their sin or sinfull neglect of their own Salvation: For consider these things following.
1. It is not mens lives that are any disgrace to the Word of God, no more then it is a dishonour to the Sun that some men are blind, or others wilfully abuse his light; will you fall a railing at the Sun because a thief may steal by the light of it? Or a murtherer may kill men by the light of it? or some men may miss their way? This is not long of it, but of themselves. 2. Yea consider, that it is for want of being more Religious that men are so bad, and not because they are Religious: Can you prove that ever Religion did teach men to be bad? Doth the Word of God teach men to be worldly, to be proud, to divide the Church, and abuse one another? you know it doth not. Nay, you know that it forbiddeth and condemneth all this; and that no one in the world hath said and done so much against these sins as God hath done: and no Religion is so much against them as the Christian Religion: And is it not an abuse beyond all modesty then, to think ill of the Word of God or of his way, because men offend against it and forsake it? To accuse the Law because men break it? To wrong God, because others have wronged him? 3. Consider that the sins of others will be no excuse to you: Their falls should be your warnings, and not your hardening. Will God pardon or save without Repentance and faith, because some that seemed Religious have miscarried? If they are wicked while they seem Religious, they and you, if you so continue, shall be damned together: But if they rise by Repentance, and hate and forsake the sins which they did fall into, and you stumble upon them and will not rise with them, but quarrel with Religion because of their falls, they shall be pardoned, and you shall perish. I tell thee man, if all the world should fall from God, he will not therefore change his Law, nor admit one unconverted sinner into Heaven. Do you think to be saved without holiness, because some men counterfeit holiness that have it not? Me thinks this should cast you into greater terrours, and make you think with your selves how much you have yet to do, that must go further and be better then ever any Hypocrite was; before you can have any durable hopes of Salvation. If you will have any part in God, you must stick to him though all men else should forsake him, and not forsake him because you think that others do so that seemed to stick to him. 4. Consider also, that as to the divisions that offend you, it is not every difference in Judgement or Practice that makes a new Religion. While we are here we shall know but in part, and therefore shall differ in part, but as long as we all agree in the Fundamentals and live to God, we are of one Religion for all our Differences. 5. And can you think that it will excuse you to be of no Religion, because that other men are of a wrong Religion! Will you sit still and let Heaven go▪ because some men have mist the way to it? Do you think that this is a Reasonable Conclusion? Surely they that would fain know the way if they could, and are diligent to seek it, are likelier to be accepted, though they fall into many errours, then those that mind it not, but prefer the things of the world before it. 6. The more by▪ waies there be, the more need have you to look about you, and see that you miss not the way your selves. Salvation is not a matter that we can spare, and therefore the difficulty must make us more diligent, and not more Negligent. 7. Among all the Religions and opinions in the world, God hath not left you at a loss; he hath given you his Word to tell you which is the Right, and many means to understand it: so that, if proud or careless men will err, it followeth not that therefore the humble and diligent may not be certain which way is the Right. Go you to the Scripture with an humble Reverence, willing to know the will of God, that you may do it, and take the helps which you may have from Ministers and private Christians, and shew not by your neglect that you despise the Word of God and your Salvation, and then you shall have no cause to complain that you cannot find the Right Religion, nor hit the way to Heaven because there are so many opinions. 8. I pray you consider of that which I have often answered you to this Objection. Will you but faithfully practice that which all, or almost all these different parties are agreed in? If not, then make not their differences any more a pretence for your ungodliness: if you will, then consider whether they be not all agreed of the Necessity of conversion and a holy life? will they not all acknowledge that there is▪ no Salvation without Sanctification and Newness of life? Let their agreement then move you, and do not for shame neglect so great and Necessary a thing which is owned by them all who differ much in other things.
SECT. XXVI.
Hinderance 13. THe next hinderance of Conversion, is: The ill Education of children: when they are trained up in ignorance, or kept unacquainted with the Truths of God till they are grown hardened in their evil way: especially when they are taught from their childhood to think hardly of godliness, and speak reproachfully of it, and hear nothing of the godly but by way of slander or contempt. That which people receive in their youth doth usually possess them all their dayes: They receive it with more advantage, when they are most teachable and tractable: And when they receive it from Parents and those that have the greatest interest in their affections and the most Absolute Rule over them. And therefore we see the most of the world are such as they were taught in their childhood to be: and its hard to change them from the way that they were brought up in.