It may be you are ready to say, What meaneth this stir? and are apt to wonder why I follow you with such earnestness, still ringing the same lesson in your ears, that ‘ you should repent, and be converted.” But I must say to you, as Ruth to Naomi, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee.” Were it a matter of indifference—might you be saved as you are—I would gladly let you alone; but would you not have me. solicitous for you, when I see you ready to perish? As the Lord liveth, before whom I am, I have not the least hope to see one of your faces in heaven, except you be converted. I utterly despair of your salvation, except you will be prevailed with to turn thoroughly, and give up yourself to God in holiness and newness of life. Hath God said, ‘” Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” John 3: 3; and yet do you wonder why your ministers so earnestly labor for you? Thinkit not strange that I am earnest with you to follow after holiness, and long to see the image of God upon you. Never did any, nor shall any, enter into heaven by any other way but this. The conversion described is nota high attainment of some advanced Christians, but every soul that is saved passeth this change.
It was a saying of the noble Roman, when he was hasting with corn to the city in the famine, and the mariners were loath to set sail in foul weather, “It is necessary for us to sail—it is not necessary for us to live.” What is it that thou dost count necessary? Is thy bread necessary? Is thy breath necessary? Then thy conversion is much more necessary. Indeed, this is the one thing necessary. Thine estate is not necessary; thou mayest sell all for the pearl of great price, and yet be a gainer by the purchase. Thy life is not necessary; thou mayest part with it for Christ, to infinite advantage. Thy reputation is not necessary; thou mayest be reproached for the name of Christ, and yet be happy; yea, much more happy in reproach than in repute. But thy conversion is necessary; thy salvation depends upon it; and is it not needful, in so important a case, to look about thee? On this one point depends thy making or marring to all eternity.
But I shall more particularly show the necessity of conversion in five things; for without this,
I. Tey BEING is in vain. Is it not a pity thou shouldst be good for nothing, an unprofitable burden of the earth, a wart or wen in the body of the universe? Thus thou art, whilst unconverted; for thou canst not answer the end of thy being. Is it not for the divine pleasure that thou art and wast created? Did not God make thee for himself? Art thou a man, and hast thou reason? Then, bethink thyself why and whence thy being is. Behold God’s workmanship in thy body, and ask thyself, to what end did God rear this fabric? Consider the noble faculties of thy heaven-born soul, To what end did God bestow these excellencies? Was it to no other end than that thou shouldst please thyself, and gratify thy Senses? Did God send men into the world, only like the swallows, to gather a few sticks and mud, and build their nests, and rear up their young, and then away? The very heathen could sce farther than this. Art thou so “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and dost thou not yet think with thyselfsurely, it was for some noble and exalted end?
O man! set thy reason a little in its seat. Is it not a pity such a goodly fabric should be raised in vain? Verily thou art in vain, except thou art for God: better thou hadst no being, than not be for him. Wouldst thou serve thy end? thou must repent and be converted: without this thou art to no purpose; yea, to bad purpose.
Thou art fo no purpose. Man, unconverted, is like a choice instrument that hath every string broken or out of tune. The Spirit of the living God must repair and tune it by the grace of regeneration, and sweetly move it by the power of actuating grace, or else thy prayers will be but howlings, and all thy services will make no music in the ears of the Most Holy. All thy powers and faculties are so corrupt in thy natural state, that, except thou be purged from dead works, thou canst not serve the living God. An unsanctified man cannot work the work of God.
1. He hath no skill in it; he is altogether as unskilful in the work as in the word of righteousness. There are great mysteries in the practice as well as in the principles of godliness. Now the unregenerate know not the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” You may as well expect him that never learned the alphabet to read, or look for goodly music on the lute from one that never set his hand to an Instrument, as that a natural man should do the Lord any pleasing service. He must first be taught of God, taught to pray, taught to profit, taught to go, or else he will be utterly at a loss.
2. He hath no strength for it. How weak is his heart! he is presently tired. The Sabbath, what a weariness is it! He is without strength, yea, dead in sin.