CHAP. VI.] IN THE INSTANCE OF AUGUSTINE. SiS
which I have confessed, deride me that, being sick, was healed of that physician from whom he received the mercy not to be sick, or not to be so sick ; [and therefore let him love thee so much the more, as he sees himself prevented from having fallen into the great maladies of sin, through that God by whom he sees me delivered from the great maladies of the sin into which I had actually fallen.]" /'
This brief account of the actings of corrupted nature, until it comes unto the utmost of a recoverable alienation from God, may somewhat illustrate and set off the work of his grace towards us. And thus far, whatever habit be contracted in a course of sin, yet the state of men is absolntely recoverable by the grace of Jesus Christ administered in the gospel, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11. No state of sin is absolutely unliealable until God hath variously dealt with men by his Spirit. His word must be rejected, and he must be sinned against in a peculiar manner, before remission be impossible. All sins and blasphemies antecedent thereunto may be forgiven unto men, and that before their conversion unto God, Matt. xii. 81, 32; Luke xii. 10. Wherefore, the mannei' and degrees of the operations of this Spirit of God on the minds of men, towards and in their con- version, is that which we shall now inquire into, reducing what we have to offer concerning it unto certain heads or instances: —
First, Under the ashes of our collapsed nature there are yet re- maining certain sparks of celestial fij^e, consisting in inbred notices of good and evil, of rewards and punishments, of the presence and all-seeing eye of God, of help and assistance to be had from him, with a dread of his excellencies where any thing is apprehended un- worthy of him or provoking unto him; and where there are any means of instruction from supernatural revelation, by the word preached, or the care of parents in private, there they are insensilily improved and increased. Hereby men do obtain an objective, dis- tinct knowledge of what they had subjectively and radically, though very imperfectly, before. These notices, therefore, God oftentimes excites and quickens even in them that are young, so that they shall work in them some real regard of and applications unto him. And those great workings about the things of God, and towards him, which are sometimes found in children, are not mere effects of nature; for that would not so act itself were it not, by one occasion or other, for that end administered by the providence of God, effectually ex- cited. And many can call over such divine visitations in their youth, which now they understand to be so. To this purpose speaks the person mentioned : " Puer coepi rogare te auxilium et refugium meum, et in tuam invocationem rumpebam nodes linguae me£e, et rogabam te parvus non parvo affectu, ne in schola vapularem." He prayed earnestly to God as a refuge, when he was afraid to be beat
S46 THE MANNER OF CONVERSION EXPLAINED [BOOK III.
at school. And this he resolves into instruction, or what he had ob- served in others : " luvenimus homines rogantes te, et didicimus ab eiSj sentientes te ut poteramus esse magnum aliquem; qui posses etiam non adparens sensibus nostris, exaudire nos et subvenire nobis," lib. i. cap. 9. And hereunto he adds some general instruction which he had from the word, cap. 11. And from the same principles, when he was a little after surprised with a fit of sickness, he cried out with all earnestness that he might be baptized, that so he might, as he thought, go to heaven ; for his father was not yet a Christian, whence he was not baptized in his infancy: " Vidisti, Domine, cum adhuc puer essem, et quodam die pressus stomaehi dolore repente aestuarem pene moriturus; vidisti, Deus meus, quoniam custos mens jam eras, quo motu animi et qua fide baptismum Christi tui, Dei et Domini mei flagitavi," cap. 11. Such affections and occasional actings of soul towards God are wrought in many by the Spirit. With the most they wear off and perish, as they did with him, who after this cast himself into many flagitious sins. But in some God doth, in and by the use of these means, inlay their hearts with those seeds of faith and gi'ace which he gradually cherisheth and increaseth.
Secondly, God works upon men by his Spirit in outward means, to cause them to take some real and steady consideration of him, their own distance from him, and obnoxiousness unto his righteous- ness on the account of sin. It is almost incredible to apprehend, but that it is testified unto by daily experience, how men will live even where the word is read and preached; how they Avill get a form of speakiug of God, yea, and of performing some duties of religion, and yet never come to have any steady thoughts of God, or of their rela- tion to him, or of their concernment in his will. Whatever they speak of God, " he is not in all their thoughts," Ps. x. 4. Whatever they do in religion, they do it not unto him, Amos v. 25. They have " neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape," John v. 87; knowing nothing for themselves, which is their duty, Job V. 27. And yet it is hard to convince them that such is their condi- tion. But when God is pleased to carry on his work of light and grace in them, they can call to mind and understand how it was with them in their former darkness. Then will they acknowledge that in truth they never had serious, steady thoughts of God, but only such as were occasional and transient. Wherefore God begins here with them. And thereby to subduct them from under the ab- solute power of the vanity of their minds, by one means or other he fixeth in them steady thoughts concerning himself, and their relation unto him. And there are several ways which he proceedeth in for the effecting hereof; as, —