Some important truths about conversion, delivered in sundry sermons, / by Increase Mather, D.D.…

Pro. V. True Believers on Christ may undergo a farther, and, as it were, a second Conversion. This is plainly (and indeed a main thing intended therein) intimated in the Text: Christ here tells his own Disciples, that except they were converted: i. e. except there were, a new Conversion wrought in them, and upon them, they should not see Heaven. There is an universal & a particular Conversion: One in the state of Nature, needs the former; a true Christian may stand in need of this latter. This may be secretly hinted at by that expression, Jer. 4.3. Plough up the fallow ground of your hearts. Fallow ground you know, is such as hath been once broken up already; but by reason of its being overgrown with weeds and thorns, &c. may need a further and a new breaking up. So it is here, they that have had their hearts truly broken up for sin, may become fallow ground, so as to need that new furrows should be made in their Souls: They may be so overgrown ⟨p. 15⟩with the weeds of sin, as that the Ploughshare of Repentance must again break up their hearts […] Conversion is sometimes taken for a spiritual habit infused into the Soul, so it is not to be reiterated; for the habit of Grace wrought in the first Conversion, is never lost. Sometimes it is taken for an act proceeding from that habit: Thus a man may be converted over and over again, yea, thus a Christian is converting all his life long; that is to say, he is still getting further off from sin and the World, and nearer unto God in Christ; the life of a Christian is and ought to be a life of Faith and Repentance. Hence even true Believers yet are called upon to repent: So we find in those Epistles which the Lord Jesus sent from Heaven to the Churches, they are commanded to repent, that is, to renew their Repentance. And this Truth is evident, in that a true child of God may be too far subject to the prevailing power of some special corruption, in which case, a new or further Conversion is requisite. This was the case of the Text; the Disciples were under the present predominancy of an ambitious Lust, in a great measure, therefore the Lord tells them, they must be converted. The like we find ⟨p. 16⟩in that good Prophet Jeremiah, see chap 15. verse 19. Thus saith the Lord, if thou return, then I will bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: