A Treatise of Conversion, Title page – Dedication
A Treatise of Conversion.
Preached, and now published for the Use of those that are strangers to a true Conversion, especially the grosly ignorant and ungodly.
By Richard Baxter, Teacher of the Church of Christ at Kederminster.
2 Cor. 5. 17.
If any man be in Christ, he is a New Creature: Old things are past away; behold all things are become New.
LONDON, Printed by R. W. for Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kiderminster, and are to be sold by Joseph Nevil, at the Plough in Pauls Church-yard. 1657.
To the Inhabitants of the Burrough and Forreign of Kiderminster: both Magistrates and People.
Dearly beloved Friends in the Lord,
AS it was the unfeigned love of your souls, that hath hitherto moved me much to print what I have done, that you might have the help of those Truths, which God hath acquainted me with, when I am dead and gone, so is it the same Affection that hath perswaded me here to send you this familiar Discourse. It is the same that you heard preacht; And the Reasons that moved me to preach it, do move me now to publish it; that if any of you have forgot it, it may be brought to your remembrance; or if it workt not upon you in the hearing, yet in the deliberate perusall it may Work. I bless the Lord that there are so many among you that know by experience the Nature of Conversion, which is the cause of my abundant affections towards you, above any other people that I know (especially in that you also walk in so much Humility, Unity, and Peace, when pride and divisions have caused so many ruines abroad.) But I see there is no place or people on earth that will answer our desires, or free us from those troubles, that constantly attend our earthly state. I have exceeding cause to rejoyce in very many of you; but in many also I have cause of sorrow. Long have I travelled (as Paul speaks, Gal. 4. 19.) as in birth, till Christ be formed in you. For this have I studied, and prayed, and preached; for this have I dealt with you in private exhortation; for this have I sent you all, such books as I conceived sutable to your needs: And yet, to the grief of my soul, I must speak it, the lives of many of you declare, that this great work is yet undone. I believe God, and therefore I know that you must every soul of you be converted or condemned to everlasting punishment. And knowing this, I have told it you over and over again: I have shewed you the proof and Reasons of it, and the certain misery of an Unconverted state: I have earnestly besought you, and begged of you to return; and if I had tears at command, I should have mixed all these exhortations with my tears; and if I had but time and strength (as I have not) I should have made bold to have come more to you, and sit with you in your houses, and entreated you on the behalf of your souls, even twenty times, for once that I have entreated you. The God that sent me to you knows, that my soul is grieved for your blindness, and stubbornness, and wickedness, and misery, more then for all the losses or crosses in the world, and that my hearts desire and prayer for you to God, is, that you may yet be converted and saved. But alas, I see not the answer of my desires, some few of you (and I thank God they be but few) will not so much as come to me, nor be willing that I should come to you to be Catechised or instructed. Some of you still quarrel with the holy way in which you must walk if ever you will be saved. Some of you give up your selves to the world, and thrust God out of your hearts and houses, and have not so much as a Chapter read, or an earnest prayer put up to God, nor once a savoury word of Heaven, from morning to night. I would there were none of you that secretly hate the diligent strictness that God hath commanded us, and think this daily care for our salvation to be more ado then needs; as if you had found out something else that better deserved your care and diligence, and would better pay you for it. Too many among you are carping and cavilling against those humble godly Christians, whom you should carefully imitate; you are harkening after and aggravating all their infirmities, and charging them as hypocrites, because they will not be as careless as your selves: But you consider not that in so doing, you censure your selves, and speak the greatest terrour to your souls, that you can imagine: for if they that go so far be hypocrites, what will become of you that come not near them? If they that set their minds on the life to come, and think nothing too much that they can do to be saved, be yet but hypocrites; if they that dare not swear, and curse, or drink, or whore, or deceive, or wilfully live in any sin, are yet but hypocrites; what then shall become of such as you, that so much neglect a holy life, and live so much to the world and flesh, and never did a quarter so much as they for the saving of your souls? If the Righteous themselves are scarcely saved (that is, with much striving and suffering, and with much ado) and if hypocrites cannot be saved at all, where then shall the ungodly and the sinners appear? 1 Pet. 4. 17, 18 Matth. 23. 33. Your Judge hath told you, that Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, Matth. 5. 20. If these men then be no better than Pharisees, you must exceed them, or there is no possibility of your salvation. Go beyond them first, and then you may the better condemn them. Till then, you doubly condemn your selves that come so short of them: if malice did not blind you, you would have seen, that this stone which you cast at others, would fly back in your faces.
But above all, it is the odious swinish sin of tipling and drunkenness, and such like sensuality, that declareth too many of you to be yet strangers to Conversion: I have told you the danger of it: I have shewed you the Word of God against it; resolving that drunkards shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6. 9, 10. And commanding us not to keep company with you, or to eat with you, 1 Cor. 5. 11, 12, 13. I have told you, and told you an hundred times, with what a face these sins will look upon you in the end. And yet all will no… do, for ought I yet see, as I found you I must leave you; and after all my pains and prayers, instead of rejoycing in the hopes of your salvation, I must part with you in sorrow, and appear against you before the Lord, as a witness of your wilfulness, and negligence, and impenitency. Ah Lord! is there no remedy, but I must leave so many of my poor Neighbours in the power of Satan, and in a slavery to their flesh, and a contempt of Heaven, and a wilfull neglect of a holy Life! Is there no perswading them to cast away their known and wilfull sin; and to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness? Must I see them condemned by Christ that would have saved them? Must my preaching and perswasions be brought in against them, that were intended by me for their Conversion and salvation! Oh, whats the matter, that we cannot prevail with reasonable men in so plain a Case! Can they imagine that sin is better than holiness; or that its better to obey their flesh than God? Do they think that this life will last alway? Or that the pleasures of sin will never have an end: or that they shall never be called to a reckoning for all this? Can they imagine that Heaven is not worthy to be sought, and Eternal things to be preferred before those that are transitory? Or that a careless, loose, and fleshly life will be better at last than a life of diligence, obedience, and holiness? Oh, that we did but know what to say to these men that would go to their hearts, and bring them to their wits, or what to do for them that might turn them from their sin, and fetch them home to God and save them? Is their no hope to prevail with them before they find themselves in Hell? Poor miserable souls! Oh that I knew but what to do for you, that might do you good, and save you before it be too late. But, alas, what should we do more! If my life lay on it I cannot perswade a drunkard from his filthy drunkenness, nor a covetous man from his worldly mind and life, how much less to a through Conversion, and a heavenly Conversation. The example of their godly Neighbors at the next doors will not allure them, but they will go on towards hell with the voyce of prayers and exhortations in their ears! The Reproofs of their Neighbors do but anger them, and they cry out, that all is said in malice! As if it were a malicious thing to go about to save them from sin and Hell! Ministers cannot prevail with them in publike nor in private: Many of them will speak me fair; but they will not be perswaded to turn and live a holy Life. And if neither Neighbours, nor friends, nor Ministers can be heard! If Conscience it self cannot be heard; if the God that made them, if Christ that bought them cannot be heard! If the plainest Scripture cannot be regarded; If mercies and afflictions; if Heaven and Hell cannot prevail to draw a sinner to be willing to be saved, and for so reasonable a matter as to let go his filthy vice and vanity, and to be ruled by his Maker rather than by his flesh; then what remedy, and who shall pity them that sees them in damnation.
Neighbours, my request to you is now but this much; and as your friend, as your Teachers I beseech you deny me not so small a matter: Even that you will be but at so much labour as to read over this book to your selves, and with your families; and that you will consider of it as you go, between God and your own hearts, whether it be not a matter that concerneth you to the quick: and that you will daily beg of God upon your knees to give you this necessary mercy of Conversion. Away with your known sins, and with the unnecessary company & occasions that would draw you to them. You were baptized into the name of the HolyGhost as your Sanctifier: and will you hate Sanctification, or refuse it, or neglect it? You say you believe the Communion of Saints, and will you abhor their Communion, and choose the company of ignorant ungodly men? Well! If after all this you will be still the same, and any of you shall appear before the Lord in an Unconverted state, this book, besides the rest of my Labours, shall witness to your faces, that you were told of the danger, and told of the Necessity of a through-Conversion. And you that now are alway telling us, that All are sinners, and quiet your selves with this, that all men have their faults; shall then be convinced to your everlasting confusion, that there is so great a difference between sinners and sinners, the Converted sinners and the Unconverted, that the former shall enter into the Joy of their Lord, when you with the rest must be cast into perdition, Matth. 25. & 13. That you were forewarned of this, is here witnessed against you, under the hand of,
Your faithfull Monitor Richard Baxter. June 1. 1657. Kiderminster.