An earnest Invitation to Sinners to turn to God.
gladly acknowledge myself a debtor to you, and am concerned, as I would be found a good steward of the household of God, to give to every one his portion. But the physician is most solicitous for those patients whose case is most doubtful and hazardous; and the father’s pity is especially turned towards his dying child. So unconverted souls call for earnest compassion and prompt diligence to pluck them as brands from the burning, Jude 23; therefore to them I shall first apply myself in these pages.
But whence shall I fetch my argument? Wherewith shall I win them? O that I could tell. I would write to them in tears, I would weep out every argument, I would empty my veins for ink, I
would petition them on my knees. O how thankful should I be if they would be prevailed with to repent and turn.
How long have I labored for you! How often would I have gathered you! This is what I have prayed for and studied for these many years, that I might bring you to God. O that I might now do it. Will you yet be entreated? ] But, Lord, how insufficient am I for this work. Alas, wherewith shall 1 pierce the scales of Leviathan, or make the heart feel that it is hard as the nether millstone? Shall I go and speak to the grave, and expect the dead will obey me and come forth? Shall I make an oration to the rocks, or declaim to the mountains, and think to move them with arguments? Shall I give the blind to see? From the beginning of the world was it not heard that a man opened the eyes of the blind; but thou, O Lord, canst pierce the heart of the sinner; I can but draw the bow at a venture, but do thou direct the arrow between the joints of the harness, slay the sin, and save the soul of the sinner that casts his eyes on these pages.
There is no entering into heaven but by the strait passage of the second birth; without holiness you shall never see God. Now give yourselves unto the Lord. Now set yourselves to seek him. -Now set up the Lord Jesus in your hearts, and set him up in your houses. Kiss the Son, Psalm 2:12, and embrace the tenders of mercy; touch his sceptre and live; for why will ye die? I beg not for myself, but would have you happy: this is the prize I run for. My soul’s desire and prayer for you is, that you may be saved. Rom. 10:1. What greater joy to a minister than to hear of souls born unto Christ? I beseech you suffer friendly plainness and freedom with you in your deepest concern. I am not playing the orator; these lines are upon a weighty errand indeed—to convince, to convert, and to save you. If I would quiet a crying infant, I might sing to him in a pleasing mood, and rock him asleep; but when the child is fallen into the fire, the parent takes another course; he will not try to still him with a song or a trifle. I know, if we speed not with you, you are lost; if we cannot get your consent to ‘“arise and come away,” you perish for ever: no conversion, and no salvation: we must get your good-will, or leave you miserable.
But here the difficulty of my work again recurs upon me. Lord, choose my stones out of the brook. 1 Sam. 17:40, 45. I come in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. I come forth, like the stripling David, to wrestle, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, “and rulers of the darkness of this world. Eph, 6:12. This day let the Lord smite the Philistines, spoil the strong man of his armor, and give me the captives out of his hand. Lord, choose my words, choose my weapons for me; and when I put my hand into the bag, and take thence a stone and sling it, do thou carry it to the mark, and make it sink, not into the forehead, but into the heart of the unconverted sinner, and smite him to the ground like Saul of Tarsus. Acts 9:4.
But I turn me. unto you. Some of you do not know what I mean by conversion, and in vain shall I attempt to persuade you to that which you do not understand; therefore for your sakes I will show what this conversion is.
Others cherish secret hopes of mercy, though they continue as they are; and for them I must show the necessity of conversion. ’
Others are like to harden themselves with a vain conceit that they are converted already; to them I must show the marks of the unconverted.
Others, because they feel no harm, fear none, and so sleep as upon the top of a mast; to them I shall show the misery of the unconverted.
Others sit still, because they see not their way of escape; to them I shall show the means of conversion.
And finally, for the quickening of all, I shall close with the motives to conversion.;