A Treatise of Conversion, Chapter 7 · Section 27 – Section 32
SECT. XXVII.
Direction 13. OH you that have children, remember they are Christs. If you are Christians, both you and yours are devoted to God: will you be so forward to devote them to God in Baptism, and will you rob him afterwards of his own? and break these Covenants, and contrary to your own promises will you hinder them from the knowledge and fear of God? Oh what desperate hypocrisie and wickedness is this? Will you come here in the face of the Congregation, and consecrate and offer your children to Christ, and when you have done, will you keep them from the way of Christ, and make them believe that godliness is more ado then needs, and that holiness is but foolish preciseness? Will you here undertake to bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord, and when you have done, never once instruct them in his fear, nor perswade them to a holy life, nor restrain them from sin, but rather teach them to rail, and curse, and swear, and be carnall? Oh cruel wretches that dare thus murther your childrens souls! To murther the body is an hainous sin, yea, though it were the body of an enemy; but to murther the soul, yea and the soul of a child, and so to be guilty of their eternal Damnation; what greater sin can you commit? Oh what a horrour it will be to you to see your own children in eternal flames by your procurement! And to hear them there cry out against you: and say, I hardened them in evil; I discouraged them from good; I gave them ill examples; I used to rail, and curse, and swear before them: I took no pains to convince them of their natural sin and misery: and to get them to Christ that they might be healed by him. Oh pitty your poor children, and do not hinder them from that glory that is offered them: If the Devil be against▪ their salvation, be not you so too. It is more excusable in the Devil himself to seek to destroy the souls of your children, then it is in their own Parents to do it: For nature and Christianity doth bind them to do otherwise. If you settle them in an ignorant carnall course, they will remember it as long as they live; and if you possess them with hard thoughts of the holy waies of God, they will make this an Argument against us when ever we would seek to reform and convert them▪ Do we not hear it from them daily? Our fathers, say they, taught us otherwise, and we hope they are saved, and therefore we will venture to do as they did: so that, it is the false conceits that you put into their minds in their childhood, which Ministers have to encounter with all their daies after. The Devil hath Instruments enough to seek your childrens Damnation besides you: be not you his Instruments as ever you would not lie with them in everlasting misery; take some more pitty on your selves and them. You could not find in your hearts to dash your children against the stones, or cut their throats, and if you should, the world would ring of your wickedness, and the Law of the Land would deservedly put you to a painfull death; and will you do them a greater mischief? Will you blind them and keep them off from Christ and godliness? And will you embolden them in the way of sin, and help them to Damnation, God forbid. But alas! they that have no more pitty on their own souls but to use them thus, what wonder if they have no more pitty of others.
2. The next part of my Direction therefore is to you that have been brought up in ignorance and ungodliness from your youth. Oh look about you while you have time and means: if your Parents have been false to you, be not false to God and your souls. If your Parents have betrayed your souls, do not you betray your own. They kept you in ignorance because they were ignorant themselves; they bred you up in worldliness and ungodliness because they were worldly and ungodly themselves; they spake against holiness because they knew it not, but were themselves unholy: But you have one that hath more interest in you then your Parents, that calls to you for your conversion. Hearken to him if all the world should gain-say it: do not care as little for your own souls as your Parents cared for them: do not take on you, even to love your Parents so well as to follow them to Damnation. Their company will not make Hell any easier to you. Should not the Love of your▪ Heavenly Father do more to draw you to Heaven, then the love of your Parents to draw you to Hell? Oh hearken then to God and to his Word, though all the world should say against it.
SECT. XXVIII.
Hinderance 14. ANother Hinderance of Conversion, is: Strivving against the spirit of Grace. When God would Illuminate a sinner, and he is unwilling to see; when God would take off a sinner from his lusts, and evil waies, and he is loath to be taken off; God sheweth him his sin to humble him, and he is unwilling to be humbled, but striveth against the spirit, and runneth into worldly businesses, or merry company, or turneth his thoughts to other things. As Christ said to the Jews, Mat. 23. 37. How oft would I have gathered you, but you would not? So he may say to many a sinner, how oft did I shew thee a better way, and thou wouldst not walk in it? How oft did I shew thee the sinfulness and misery of thy estate, and thou wouldst not come off from it? When men fight against Christ, and purposely wink because they hate the Light that would Reform them, and when they strive against the Spirit that would convert them, what wonder if they be unconverted?
SECT. XXIX.
Direction 14. IF ever you would be converted, yield to the Spirit of God that would convert you It is his Office to sanctifie all that shall be saved: be not you unwilling to be sanctified by him. If you refuse help when it is offered you, you may justly be left helpless and perish for want of that which you did despise. You are baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost▪ by which you have professed to take him for your sanctifier, and are you now unwilling to be sanctified by him? And will you now strive against him when you are so solemnly engaged to him? You cannot be saved unless you be sanctified, and you cannot be sanctified unless it be done by the Holy Ghost whom you now resist. Oh how easily and prosperously doth the work go on when the Spirit of God assisteth, and how impossible is it to be done without him! They that would have a prosperous voyage will take wind and tide, and not be so foolish as to set against them when they stand to their advantage: He that would have health will not abuse the Physitian and drive him away from him. Oh take heed how you use the Spirit of God if ever you would be converted.
SECT. XXX.
Hinderance 15. ANother Hinderance of Conversion, is: Ʋnresolvedness and Half-purposes; When men will hang wavering between God and the world; and though the Light be never so clear to convince them, yet they will not be perswaded to resolve. A double-minded man, saith James, is unstable in all his waies, Jam. 1. 8. Oh how many shall perish for want of Resolution! They have been convinced that they must be changed, or else they are undone, and yet they would not resolve: they have long been inclining to a better course, and had some thoughts of it, but the world hindereth, or friends hinder, or the flesh hindereth, and they will not resolve; And thus they hang loose from God, and never unfeignedly resign up themselves to him, till either God in Judgement leave them to themselves, or Death and Hell do find them unresolved.
SECT. XXXI.
Direction 15. IF you would be converted and saved, do not stand wavering, but Resolve, and presently turn to God. If it were a doubtfull business, I would not perswade you to do it rashly, or if there were any danger to your souls in resolving, then I would say no more. But when it is a case that should be beyond all dispute with men of Reason, why should you stand staggering, as if it were a doubtfull case? What a horrible shame is it to be unresolved whether God or the world should have your hearts? Were it not a disgrace to that mans understanding that were unresolved whether gold or dung were better? or whether a bed of thorns, or a feather bed were the easier? Or whether the Sun or a clod of Earth were the more light and glorious? It is a far greater shame for a man to be unresolved, whether it be God or the world that must make him happy, and that should have his heart; and whether a life of sin or holiness be the better. What! Have you read Scripture, and heard Sermons so long, and y…t are you unresolved of this? Nay, have you common Reason, and do you believe that there is a God, and a world to come, and yet are you unresolved whether you must be godly or not? I say to you, as Elias did to Israel, 1 King. 18. 21. How long halt ye between two opinions? If God be God follow him, if Baal be God follow him. If it be better to be damned then leave your sins, then keep them, and the curse of God with them: But if it be better to deny your flesh, then to suffer everlastingly the wrath of God, then away with your Iniquities, and meddle with them no more. If it be better live in an Alehouse a while, then in Heaven for ever, then drink on and spare not, but if it be not, why do you not consider and come away? If God and godliness be not better then the world and wickedness, then take your course, but if they be, why do you stand wavering, and do not resolve to be the people of God with all your hearts? Oh what a blind and miserable creature is a wicked man, that such matters as these should seem doubtfull to him … or that he should yet be unresolved of them! What, unresolved whether it be best to go to Heaven, or not! And whether it be best be damned, or not! And all this for the love of a stinking unprofitable lust! If this be wisdom, what then is folly?
SECT. XXXII.
Hinderance 16. ANother▪ Hinderance of Conversion, is: Delay: When men are Resolved that they must be converted or condemned, and purpose to let go sin, and to take another course, yet they delay and put off the time: They would yet have a little more of the pleasure of their sin before they part with it: yet they cannot spare it, but shortly they will do it: they are yet young, and they hope they have Day-light and time enough before them: they are yet in health, and therefore they hope there is no such haste, but they may have time to think on it: Because God will receive a sinner whensoever he returneth, they think they may stay a little longer: And thus some grow hardened by custom in their sin, and others are cut off while they are purposing to return; and many thousand souls are lost for ever that once were purposed to have turned to God▪ and all because they delayed their return; as the sluggard, Prov. 6. 10. & 24. 33. saith, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber; so saith the sinner, yet I may sin a little while, till they have sinned themselves into a Reprobate sense, or provoked God to leave them to themselves, and so they must perish everlastingly by their delay.