3. It must be granted that many on whom this work hath been wrought, producing great resolutions of amendment and much re-
CHAP. VI.] IN THE INSTANCE OF AUGUSTINE. 353
formation of life, do lose all the j^otuer and efficacy of it, with all the impressions it had made on their affections. And some of these Avax worse and more profligate in sinning than ever they were be- fore; for having broken down the dam of their restraints, they pour out their lusts like a flood, and are more senseless than ever of those checks and fears with which before they were bridled and awed, 2 Pet. ii. 20-22. So the person lately mentioned declares, that after many convictions which he had digested and neglected, he was grown so obdurate and senseless, that falling into a fever, wherein he thought he should die and go immediately unto hell, he had not that endeavour after deliverance and mercy which he had many years before on lesser dangers. And this perverse effect is va- riously brought about: —
(1.) It is with most an immediate product of the -power of their own lust. Esi^ecially is it so with them who together with their convictions receive no gifts of the Holy Ghost ; for, as we observed, their lusts being only checked and controlled, not subdued, they get new strength by their restraint, and rebel with success against con- viction. Such as these fall away from what they have attained suddenly. Matt. xiii. 5, 21. One day they seem to lie in hell by the terror of their convictions, and the next to be hasting to- wards it by their sins and pollutions: see Luke xi. 24-26; Hos. vi. 4.
(2.) This apostasy is promoted and hastened by others; as, — [1.] Such as undertake to be spiritual guides and instructors of men in their way towards rest, who being unskilful in the Avord of right- eousness, do heal their wounds slightly, or turn them out of the way. Seducers also, it may be, interpose their crafty deceits, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and so turn men off from those good ways of God whereinto they would otherwise enter. So it fell out with Austin, who, beginning somewhat to inquire after God, fell into the society and heresy of the Manichees, which frustrated all the convictions wdiich by any means he had received. [2.] Such as directly, and that perhaps with importunity and violence, will en- deavour to draw men back into the ways of the world and the pur- suit of their lusts, Pro v. i. 11-14. So the same person declares with what earnestness and restless importunities some of his companions endeavoured to draw him unto the spectacles and plays at Rome. And it is not easily imagined with what subtlety some persons will entice others into sinful courses, nor what violence they will use in their temptations, under a pretence of love and friendship. [3.] The awe that is put on the minds of men in their convictions, arising from a dread of the terror of the law, and the judgments of God threatened therein, is apt of itself to wear off when the soul is a
VOL. III. 23
354 THE MANNER OF CONVERSION EXPLAINED [BOOK III.
little accustomed unto it, and yet sees no evil actually to ensue, Eccles. viii. 11; 2 Pet. iii. 4.
4. In some the Holy Spirit of God is pleased to carry on this work of conviction towards a farther blessed issue, and then two thinfj-s ensue thereon in the minds of them who are so convinced : —
(1.) There will follow great and strange conflicts between their corruptions and their convictions. And this doth especially manifest itself in them who have been accustomed unto a course of sinning, or have any particular sin wherein they delight, and by which they have given satisfaction unto their lusts; for the law, coming with power and terror on the conscience, requires a relinquishment of all sins, at the eternal peril of the soul. Sin hereby is incited and pro- voked,^ and the soul begins to see its disability to conflict with that which before it thought absolutely in its own power : for men that indulge themselves in their sins doubt not but that they can leave them at their pleasure; but when they begin to make head against them on the command of the law, they find themselves to be in the power of that which they imagined to be in theirs. So doth sin take occasion by the commandment to work in men all manner of concupiscence; and those who thought themselves before to be alive do find that it is sin which lives, and that themselves are dead, Rom. vii. 7-9. Sin rising up in rebellion against the law, discovers its own power, and the utter impotency of them in whom it is to contest with it or destroy it. But yet men's convictions in this con- dition will discover themselves, and operate two ways, or in a twofold degree : —
[1.] They will produce some endeavours and promises of amend- ment and reformation of life. These men are unavoidably cast upon or wrought unto, to pacify the voice of the law in their consciences, which bids them do so or perish. But such endeavours or promises, for the most part, hold only unto the next occasion of sinning or temptation. An access of the least outward advantage or provoca- tion unto the internal power of sin slights all such resolutions, and the soul gives up itself unto the power of its old ruler. Such effects of the word are described, Hos. vi. 4. So Austin expresseth his own experience after his great convictions and before his full conversion, lib. viii. cap. 5 : " Suspirabam ligatus non ferro alieno, sed mea ferrea voluntate. Velle meum tenebat inimicus, et inde mihi catenam