A Treatise of Conversion, Chapter 7 · Section 4
SECT. IV.
Hinderance. 2. THe second hinderance of conversion which I shall mention: is, Bad company. It is a dangerous thing to be wilfully a companion of ignorant, careless, ungodly men. If they will say nothing directly against that which is good, yet will they do much to hinder your salvation, by keeping your thoughts, and talk, and Delight upon other things, and by giving you an evil Example, as if these matters were not Necessary. Vain talk, and vain practises, setleth the mind of men in vanity, and in a forgetfulness and neglect of heavenly things. Besides, they will be ticing you to such kind of business and Delight, as strengthen the flesh and contradict the Spirit, and fasten you in sin, and are the common causes of the perdition of the world. The noise of their foolish laughter, and giddy Discourse, will drown the voice of conscience and of the Spirit of God. It is hard keeping the heart in a sence of Duty, or the evil of sin in the midst of sin. As it is certainly a vain and graceless heart that Delighteth most in vain company, so such will make the heart more vain. When men sit over their pots, cherishing their flesh (which they once vowed to fight against as their enemy) pouring out a deal of foolish sensless Discourse; the sense of the evil of sin, and of the Love of Christ, and of the worth of glory, is then far from the heart: and if they do make any mention of God or holy things, it is commonly unreverendly and most abusively, taking the Name of God in vain, and sinning more by their Scripture Discourse, then by any other: And it is a wonder, if the Devil and their fleshly reason do not lead them to plead against God, and to take part with the flesh, and perhaps to make a scorn of godliness. Oh what a dangerous thing it is, to live among such company as will be still hindering, but never helping, in the way to Heaven! Especially among those that are worldly or sensual, or that are enemis to godliness, and set themselves against it to their power. In a way that is up hill, and all against the interest and inclination of our flesh, and in which we are so weak and backward our selves, we had need of all the help that we can get; and a little hinderance may be our undoing. But when poor sinners shall live among such, where they shall hear almost no Discourse, but vain, and almost no talk of Religion, but in distaste and contempt of it despising the way to Heaven, which is in effect, to despise Heaven it self; how can it be expected that such should be brought to the knowledge of the Truth, and the Love of those waies that they hear so much Reproached? I know God can do it, and sometimes doth, where people are unavoidably cast into such company; but if men will chuse such, when they may avoid it, the case is dangerous indeed, Prov. 13. 20. He that walketh with wise men shall be yet wiser, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Some of these ungodly wretches are so cunning in their Discourse, that weak silly people be not able to discern their folly: Some of them also have some worldly interest in them, and therefore are the liker to do them hurt: When those that they dwell with, and those that they depend upon, and those that seem to love them are ungodly, and speak against the way of salvaiton, it commonly takes so much with the ignorant, that they either say as they say, and are of their minds, or at least it hindereth them from through conversion, and setting themselves diligently to the saving of their souls. Thousands have been everlastingly undone by evill company.