TO A SOUND CONVERSION. 409 condition ? Hast thou prayed, and read, and heard, and fasted, and changed thy company, and much of thy course of life? and shall all this be lost, for want of going to the bottom, and "making a thorough work of it ? What a loss will this be ! 4. Consider also, what an admirable help and ad- vantage it will be to you, through the whole course of your lives, if the work of conversion be Once thoroughly wrought. I will shew you this in some particulars. First, It will be an excellent help to your under- standings, against the grosser errors of the world, and will establish you in the truth much more than mere arguments can do ; for you will be able to speak for the truth from feeling and experience : he that hath the law written both in his Bible and in his heart, is likely to hold it faster than he that hath it in his Bible alone. Secondly, If you be but thoroughly converted you will have a continual help against temptations : you have not only experience of the mischief of sinning, and the folly of those reasons which are brought for its defence; but you have also a new nature which is against the temp- tation, as life is against poison and as it is a great dis- advantage to the law of Christ, that it speaks against the nature of the ungodly ; so it is a disadvantage to the temptations or the devil, that they would draw a Christian against his new nature. You have that with- in you that will plead more effectually against sensual+ ity, uncharitableness, pride, or worldliness, or any the like sins, than reason or learning alone can. Thirdly, If conversion be thoroughly wrought, you will have within you a continual helper of your graces, and a remembrance to put you in mind of duty, and a spur to put you on to the performance, and a furtherer of your souls in the performance itself: it is out of this spark and principle within you, that the Holy Ghost loth raise the arts of grace. That is it that the, word, and prayer, and conference, and sacraments, and all the means of grace, must work upon. If we see you do amiss, we have hopes that you will hear us; if we 13 3 F
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