THE UNCONVERTED. 59 P'er will not last long. Conversion and condemnation are both of them awakening things, and .one of them will make you feel ere long. , I can foretell it as truly as if I saw it with my eyes, that either grace or hell will shortly bring these matters to the quick, and make you say, 'What have I done? what a foolish wicked course have I taken?' The scornful and the stupid state of sinners will last but a little while; as soon as they either turn or die, the presumptuous dream will be at an end, and then their wits and feeling will return. But I foresee there are two things that are likely to harden the unconverted, and make me lose all my labour, except they can be taken out of the way; and that is the misunderstanding on those two words, the wicked and turn. Some will think to themselves, 'It is true, the wicked must turn or die; but what is that to me, I am not wicked; though I am a sinner, all men are.' Others will think, ' It is true that we must turn fi"om our evil ways, but I am turned long ago, I hope this is not now to do.' And thus while wicked men think they are not wicked, but are already converted, we lose all our labour in persuading them to turn. I shall theref6re, before I go any further, tell you here who are meant by the ·wicked; and who they are that must turn or die; and also what is meant by turning, and who they are that are truly converted. And this I have purposely reserved for this place, preferring the method that fits my end. And here you may observe, that in the sense of the text, a wicked man and a converted man are contraries. No man is a wicked man that is converted; 'and no man is a converted man that is wicked; so that to be a wicked man and to be an unconverted man, is all one; and therefore in opening one, we shall open both. Before I can tell you what either wickedness or conversion is, I must go to the bottom, and fetch up the matter from the beginning.
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