Directions and persuasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…Directions and perswasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…

Many a thought of the Goodness of God and the necessity of a Saviour, and of the Love of Christ, and of the Joys of Heaven, may be stirring, and working in the minds of the unsanctified; but if they take not up the Heart for Christ, the person is not a true Believer. As the Gospel must be Believed to be True, so Christ that is offered us in the Gospel as ⟨p. 275⟩Good; must be Heartily, and Thankfully accepted accordingly: And the Glory, the Justification, Reconciliation with God, and other benefits procured by him, and offered with him, must be valued, and desired above all earthly fleshly things. If you are convinced that sin is evil, as contrary to God, and hurtful to you, and hereupon have some mind to let it go, and some wishes that Christ would save you from it, and yet still have a Love to it that is greater then your dislike, and the bent of your heart is more for it, then against it, and your habituate desires, are rather to keep, then to leave it; this is not Sanctification, nor a saving consent to be saved by Christ. If you have some convictions that Holiness is good, as being the Image of God, and pleasing to him, and necessary to your Salvation, and so should have some mind of Holiness on these grounds; yet if you have on the other side a greater averseness to it, because it would deprive you of the pleasures of your sin, and the Habitual inclination of your will, is more against it then for it; certainly this will not stand with true Sanctification, of Faith in ⟨p. 276⟩Christ, to save you from the power of sin by his Spirit. Thousands deceive themselves, by misunderstanding some common passages, that are spoken to comfort afflicted Consciences; viz. That the least true desires after Grace, do prove the Soul to be Gracious. This is true, if you speak of the least Desires, which are Predominant in the Soul, when our Desire is more habitually then our unwillingness, and we thus prefer Christ before all the world, the least of this is an Evidence of Saving Grace. But such Desires as are subdued by the contrary Desires; and such a will as is accompanied with a greater unwillingness, habitually, and such a Faith, as is drowned in greater unbelief, these are not Evidences▪ of a saving change; nor can you justly gather any special comfort from them. He that hath more unbelief then Belief, is not to be called a Believer, but an unbeliever: