TO A SOUND CONVERSION. 407 but strengthen his kingdom within them, and he knows that they are like to endure but for a while. And thus you may perceive, how hard it is to con- vert one of these half - converted men, that have stran- gled the new creature as it were in the birth, and that are fortified against all the means of grace, by a false conceit that they are sanctified already. See therefore that you make sure work, and take not up in the middle, and with halves; but take your present time, and give up your souls to a total change. 3. Consider ; if you take up short of a thorough conversion, you lose all your labour, and sufferings, and hopes, as to the matte' t r of your salvation. And what a pity is it that so much should be lost ! Alas, to see many of our hearers touched at a sermon, and come to a minister and bewail their sin, and seem to be humble, and promise to be new men, and yet all this to be lost ! How sad a case is this to think of! To see them leave their company and former course of life, and come among the professors of holiness, and all men take them for real converts; and yet all this to be lost, and their souls lost after all : how sad a case is this ! If you grow up to the greatest parts of outward duty, and be able to discourse, or pray, or preach, even to the admiration of the hearers ; yet if you do not ground this on a thorough conversion, all is but lost as to your own salvation. If you keep up the highest strain of profession, and get the high- est esteem to the church, so that others depend upon you as oracles ; yea, if the pope with all his infalli- bility should cannonize you for saints ; it were all but loss. If you should keep up the most confident persuasions of your salvation, and hope to go to hea- ven, to the last hour of your lives ; it were all but lost, if you build not all on a thorough conversion. "Yea, if you should be taken by persecutors for one of the party to which you join, and should suffer for the cause of religion among them ; all were but lost, with- out a sound conversion. "(y) (y) 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2, 3.
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