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…

DIRECT. X. My next Advice that you may prove sound Converts, is this: [Rest not, and count not your selves truly Converted, till God and his holy Ways have your very Love, and Desire, and Delight: and take not that for a saving Change, when you had rather live a worldly ungodly life, if it were not for the fear of punishment.]

DIRECT. X. My next Advice that you may prove sound Converts, is this: [Rest not, and count not your selves truly Converted, till God and his holy Waies have your very Love, and Desire, and Delight: and take not that for a saving Change, when you had rather live a worldly ungodly life, if it were not for the fear of punishment.]

I shall speak but little of this, because I touched upon it before, when I told you that Christ must have your hearts, ⟨p. 364⟩and because it is but a consectary of the last, or contained in it. But yet I think it best to present it here distinctly to your Consideration, because a slavish kind of religiousness, doth deceive so many; and because the life of Grace is here expressed. I deny not but holy Fear is exceeding useful to us; even a Fear of the Threatenings and Judgments of God. But yet I must tell you, that in Fear there is much more that is common to the unsanctified, then there is in Love, Desire and Delight. Though the Fear of God be the beginning of wisdom, it is Love that is the Perfection: and that Fear is not filial, and of the right strain, if Love be not its Companion. Fear of punishment shows that you love your natural selves: but it shows not that you love God, and are true-hearted to him. The Devils fear and tremble, but they do not Love. It is Love and and not Fear that is the Bias, the Inclination, and, as I may say, the Nature of the will of man By his Love it is that you must know what the man is. The Philosopher saith, [Such as a man is, such is his end] which is all one as to say, [Such as a man is, such is his Love.] ⟨p. 365⟩You may Fear a thing at the same time when you hate it: and it's too common to have some hatred mixed with Fear. You may be as much against God and his holy ways, when Fear only drives you to some kind of religiousness, as others are that scarce meddle with Religion at all. The first thing that God looks at is, what you would do; and the next is, what you do. If you do it, but had rather leave it undone, you lose your reward, and God will take it as if you had not done it: For it was not you that did it, if you did it not from Love; but it was Fear that dwelleth in you. God takes mens hearty Desires and Will, instead of the Deed, where they have not power to fulfil it: But he never took the bare Deed instead of the Will. A blockish kind of worship, consisting in outward actions, without the heart, is fit to be given to a wooden god, a senseless Idol: but the true and living God abhors it. He is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth: such worshippers he seeketh, and such he will accept,