Such a seasonable and becoming sense as this, were in itself sufii- cient to cool a wise man's heats, if penal lav/s were left standing in their full force and vigour ; But when the wisdom and reason of the state shall plainly discern both the usefulness and necessity of liberty, and thereupon take away (as they have now most prudently and sea- sonably done) the further occasions of mischiefs to the whole, by relaxing the yoke that bound some (and those a very great body of truly loyal and useful subjects) leaving the rest in the quiet posses- sion of "their own liberties and properties ; what shall we call that fire, which still continues burning and increasing, not only after, but by all this, but an unquenchable hell-fire.
If chimeras, and self-created jealousies, are indulged, that some car- nal interests of ours are not so well secured to us under liberty, as they were under persecution and tyranny ; this will be the right way to pepetuate dissensions and persecutions to the end of the world.
And now, gentlemen, I hope I may say, without being vain or opinionative, our reason hath plainly disarmed you of these pleas and excuses, by which you have hitherto defended yourselves in your most sinful practices of profane cursing and swearing, drunkenness, uncleanness, and bitter enmity against your Protestant brethren, for things that touch not the essence of Christianity.
And believe it, sirs, it is truly genteel and glorious, to suffer yourselves to be subdued and conquered by the plain convictions of your own reason and conscience. It is ten thousand times more ho-
THE UEASONABLE^^ESS OF PERSONAL REFORMATION. 5^^
nourable and glorious to lay down your arms at the feet of these, than to lay down both reason and conscience at the feet of Satan and your lusts, and continue fighting obstinately against God, your own souls, bodies, estates, reputations ; yea, your very reasons and con- sciences, your innocent brethren, and the peace of church and state, under Satan's banner.
In all this discourse I have not designed to exasperate, but assuage and restrain your lusts and passions, by laying the loving and gentle hands of your own reasons and consciences upon them. I have not given the least injurious touch to your honour, but all along pleaded for the recovery and security of it. I have exposed no man by any particular mark, or indignation.
But now I have done with you ; If your own consciences shall begin to make a rounder and more particular application of these general reasonings and arguments, and say to you, as Nathan to David, thou art the man ; I am not accountable to God for that. But be confident of it, you are accountable to God for all those plain convictions, and faithful endeavours used with you, and tried upon \'ou to save you from all those miseries your head-strong lusts, with fufious precipitation, are manifestly running you into.
If you can substantially and solidly repel those arguments against, and vindicate those pleas for sin, which reason and conscience have urged and censured above ; and can produce stronger and clearer arguments to defend and justify the courses here censured and condemned ; or if you can obtain a writ of error, to remove these causes to another lawful court of judicature, where you shall obtain a more favourable verdict, your complaint of severe dealing with you here, will not want some ground or colour ; but if you cannot, (as you know you cannot) then never blame your own reasons nor mine, for dealing rigorously or injuriously with you.
I am willing to hope, and persuade myself, that I shall at least ob- tain a reformation of life from many of you. I have strove hard for it with you here. I will strive harder with God in prayer, to obtain it for you. But yet, gentlemen, I must tell you in the close, that though an external reformation of these evil courses may make your lives more healthy, happy, and durable in this world, and will greatly conduce to the public as well as your personal and private interest; yet if you expect complete and perfect happiness in the world to come, you must advance one step further beyond reformation, unto sound conversion. Thefirst makes you comparatively happy here ; but the second will make you perfectly happy and blessed for ever hereafter. The first frees you from many temporal miseries upon earth ; but the second, from eternal miseries in hell. And this brings you t» the other blessed step, by conversion ; which is the second part.
530 THE POSSIBILITY AND NECESSITY OF CONVERSION,
POSSIBILITY, NECESSITY, AND EXCELLENCY
The only thing that makes men truly happy, and perfectly blessed, in the world to come.
§ I. Conviction supposed, and grace admired.
iVE ASON and conscience having been shaming men out of their profaneness, in the former part of this discourse, free grace invites them to the life of holiness, and thereby to the life of blessedness, in this second part.
There you see what it is to live like beasts ; here you may see what it is to live like Christians.
My charity commands me to suppose, that some readers stand, by this time convicted in their own consciences, both of the extreme w ickedness, and the immediate danger of that profane course they have hitherto pursued, and persisted in ; and that by this time they begin to interrogate them in the apostle's close and cutting language, Rom. vi. 21. " What fruit had ye then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed ? For the end of these things is death.'' It is hard to imagine, that so many close debates and reasonings, as you have heard in the former part, should not leave many of you under con- viction and trouble of spirit. You see, your own reasons and con- sciences have condemned you ; " And if our heart condemn us, (saith the apostle) God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things;" 1 John iii. 20. It is folly to imagine you shall be acquitted at God's immediate bar, who are already cast and condemned at your own privy sessions.
If this be the happy effect, as I hope it is, of all the former close and solemn debates with your consciences, it will naturally and imme- diately cast thy soul, reader, into great admiration of, and astonish- ment at, the patience and long-suffering of God, that hath borne with thee, under a life of prodigious and reiterated provocations until this day. And his goodness will be as admirable to thee, as his pa-
THE POSSIBILITY ASVi ^'ECESSITY OF COXVEIISIOX. 531
tience ; in that he hath not only suffered thee to Uve till this day, but made it the day of thy conviction, the first necessary step towards thy conversion ; and the very first things he entertains thy convinced and troubled soul with, to be the possibility and probability of thy conversion to God.