A Treatise of Conversion, To the reader
To the Reader. An Account of this slender Work.
YOU have here presented to you a common Subject, handled in a mean and vulgar Stile, not onelyonly without those subtilties and citations, which might sute it to the pallates of learned men, but also without that conciseness, sententiousness, and quickness which might make it acceptable to the ingenuous and acute! If you wonder why I should trouble the world with such an ordinary dull Discourse, as I owe you an account of it, so I shall faithfully give it you. Besides, my defect of leisure and acuteness to satisfie the expectations of these sharper wits, I did here purposely avoid that little which I could have done. I was to preach, not onelyonly to a popular Auditory, but to the most ignorant, sottish part of that Auditory; for it is they that are principally concerned in the matter. And knowing that the whole Nation abounds with such, I was easily perswaded to permit the Press to offer it to their view, and that, as it was preached, without alteration. For the subject, I know it is the needfullest that can be offered them. The Reason why they must be condemned, is, because they are not converted; And were they but truly converted, they would escape. To convert a sinner from the errour of his way, is to save a soul from death, and to cover a multitude of sins, Jam. 5. 19, 20. To convert them, is to pull them out of the fire, Jude 23. It is to recover them out of the snare of the Devil, who are taken captive by him at his will, 2 Tim. 2. 25, 26. Conversion is the most blessed work, and the day of conversion, the most blessed Day that this world is acquainted with. It takes a salve from Satan, and a hand from his service; it addeth a subject, a son, a member to the Lord Jesus: it rescueth a soul from everlasting torments, and maketh him an heir of everlasting Joyes. And for such a work, we can never do too much. And alas, the most are little sensible of the Nature, or necessity of this change: many that say they believe in God as their Creator, and in Christ as their Redeemer, do declare that they are deluded by their deceitful hearts, in that they believe not in the Holy Ghost as their sanctifier: for they know not what sanctification is, nor ever much lookt after it in themselves. The commonness and the greatness of mens Necessity, commanded me to do any thing that I could for their relief; and to bring forth some water to cast upon this fire, though I had not at hand a silver Vessel to carry it in, nor thought it the most fit. The plainest words are the profitablest Oratory in the weightiest matters. Fineness is for ornament, and delicacy for delight; but they answer not Necessity, though sometime they may modestly attend that which answers it. Yea, when they are conjunct, it is hard for the necessitous hearer or Reader to observe the matter of ornament and delicacy, and not to be carried from the matter of Necessity; and to hear or read a neat, concise, sententious Discourse, and not be hurt by it; for it usually hindereth the due operation of the matter, and keeps it from the heart, and stops it in the fancy, and makes it seem as light as the stile. We use not to stand upon Complement or Precedency when we run to quench a common fire, nor to call men out to it by an eloquent speech. If we see a man fall into fire or water, we stand not upon mannerliness in plucking him out, but lay hands on him as we can without delay. I shall never forget the relish of my soul when God first warmed my heart with these matters, and when I was newly entered into a seriousness in Religion: when I read such a Book as Bishop Andrews Sermons, or heard such kind of preaching, I felt no life in it: me thoughts they did but play with holy things. Yea, when I read such as Bishop Hall, or Henshaws Meditations, or other such Essays, Resolves, and witty things, I tasted little sweetness in them; though now I can find much. But it was the plain and pressing downright Preacher that onelyonly seemed to me to be in good sadness, and to make somewhat of it, and to speak with life, and light, and weight: And it was such kind of writings that were wonderfully pleasant, and savoury to my soul. And I am apt to think that it is thus now with my Hearers; and that I should measure them by what I was, and not by what I am. And yet I must confess, that though I can better digest exactness and brevity, than I could so long ago, yet I as much value seriousness and plainness; and I feel in my self in Reading or hearing a despising of that wittiness as proud foolery, which savoureth of levity, and tendeth to evaporate weighty Truths, and turn them all into very fancies, and keep them from the heart. As a Stage-player or Morrice-dancer differs from a souldier or a King, so do these preachers from the true and faithfull Ministers of Christ: And as they deal liker to Players then Preachers in the Pulpit, so usually their Hearers, do rather come to play with a Sermon, than to attend a Message from the God of Heaven about the life or death of their souls.
Indeed, the more I have to do with the ignorant sort of people, the more I find that we cannot possibly speak too plainly to them. If we do not speak in their own vulgar dialect, they understand us not: Nay, if we do so, yet if we compose those very words into a handsomness of sentence, or if we speak any thing briefly, they feel not what we say: Nay, I find, if we do not purposely draw out the matter into such a length of words, and use some repetition of it, that they may hear it inculcated on them again, we do but over run their understandings, and they presently lose us: That very stile and way, that is apt to be a little offensive to the exact, and that is tedious and loathsome to the curious ear, whose Religion is most in ayr and fancie, must be it that must do good upon the ignorant, and is usually most savoury and acceptable to them. Upon such considerations I purposely chose so course a stile in the handling of this subject: For I preacht and wrote it; not for the judicious, but for the special use of the most sensless ignorant sort. And indeed, I am very sensible that herein I have not reacht the thing that I desired; and yet have not spoke half so plainly as I should: especially, that here wanteth that life and piercing quickness which may concur with plainness, and a subject of such Necessity doth require. The true causes of this were, the dulness and badness of my own heart, and a continual decay of the quickness of my spirits, through the encrease of pituitous scotomatical distempers, together with that exceeding scarcity of leisure, which weakness and oppressing business have caused. But if God will give help and leisure, I shall seek a little to amend it, in something more which on the same subject I have begun.
One other reason that moved me to consent to this publication, is the scarcity of Books that are wrote purposely on this subject: Though, on the by and by parts, I know that nothing is more common in English, yet on this subject purposely and alone I remember scarce any besides Mr. Whateley's New Birth (and some Sermons of Repentance) And indeed I have long perswaded all that I had opportunity to perswade, to buy that Book of Mr. Whateleys, and to give them abroad among the ignorant ungodly people. And if I had seen any such fruit of my perswasions as I desired, I think I should never have published this. But when I cannot prevail with the one sort to buy them, nor with the other sort to give them, I resolved to print somewhat on so necessary a point, were it never so meanly done, if it were but that I might have some books to give my self to some that need, and also that the newness and other advantages might entice this book into the hands of some, that are never like to read those which heretofore I have commended to them.
One thing more I observe is like to be offensive in this writing, and that is, that the same things do here and there fall in, which formerly have been spoken. I confess my memory oft lets slip the passages that I have before written, and in that forgetfulness I write them again: But I make no great matter of it. The writings of the same things is safe to the Reader, and why then should it be grievous to me? Phil. 3. …. Not because it is displeasing to the curious, till I set more by their applause, and take the approbation of men for my Reward. I like to hear a man dwell much on the same Essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel were grown stale. This speaking the same things is a sign that a man hath considered what he speaks, and that he hath made it his own, and utters not that which accidentally falls in. And its a sign that he is still of the same belief, and doth not change, and that he loves the Truth which he so much dwells upon; and that he looketh more at the feeding of mens souls, and strengthening their graces, then at the feeding of their itching fancies, and multiplying their opinions. For it is the Essentials and common Truths (a I have often said) that we daily live upon as our bread and drink. And we have incomparably more work before us, to know these better, and use them better, than to know more. The sea will afford us more water after we have taken out a thousand Tuns, than an hundred of those wels and pits from whence we never yet fetcht any. I speak not against the need of cloathing the same truths with a grateful variety in representing it to the world, nor against a necessary compliance with the diseases of some itching Novelists in order to the Cure; but onelyonly give you an account of this Publication, by him that had rather be charged with the greatest rudeness of stile, then with the guilt of neglecting what he might have done for the saving of one soul.
Richard Baxter.