TO A SOUND CONVERSION. 405 daily read and hear their own doom and misery, and never once dream that they are the men that are meant, and therefore are never dismayed at the matter ! This formeth you into a state of hypocrisy, and makes the course of your duties and your lives to be hypocritical. If another man, that knows himself to be still uncon- verted, do but read thethreatenings of the word against such, or hear of the terrors of the Lord from a minis- ter, he may be brought to confess that this is his own case, and so to perceive the misery of his condition. But when such as you read and hear these things, they never trouble you, for you think that they do not touch you : You are scripture proof, and sermon proof; and all by the delusion of your half - conversion. O how zealously will such a man cry out against the sins of others ! and tell them of their misery, and persuade them to turn, and show them the danger that is near them, if they do not ; and, in the mean time, little thinks that this is his own case, and that he speaks all this against his own soul ! How will such men applaud a sermon that drives at the conversion of a sinner, and that tells them their misery while they are unconverted ! O, thinks he, this touched such and such ; I am glad that such a man and such a man heard it : and he little thinks that it as nearly touched himself". How smoothly will he go on in any discourse against wicked unregenerate men, as. David heard the parable of Nathan : and it never once enter - eth into their thoughts, that they speak all this against themselves ; till the Judge shall tell them, when it is too late, Thou art the man ! It will turn not only the stream of your thoughts into hypocrisy and self - deceit, but also the stream of your speeches to others ; yea, and the current of your prayers, and all the rest of your religious performances. When in confession you should acknowledge and lament an unregenerate carnal state, you will only confess that you bave the infirmities of the saints, and that you have this or that sin, which yet you think is mortified. When you should importunately beg for renewing grace, you will beg only for strengthening grace, or assurance : when
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