N03796:615
An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: showing I. What conversion is…An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: shewing I. What conversion is…
An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: showing I. What conversion is not, and correcting some mistakes about it. II. What conversion is, and wherein it consisteth. III. The necessity of conversion. IV. The marks of the unconverted. V. The miseries of the unconverted. VI. Directions for conversion. VII. Motions [i.e., Motives] to conversion. : Whereunto are annexed Divers practical cases of conscience judiciously resolved. / By Joseph Alleine, late Minister of the Gospel at Taunton, in Somersetshire.An alarm to unconverted sinners. In a serious treatise: shewing I. What conversion is not, and correcting some mistakes about it. II. What conversion is, and wherein it consisteth. III. The necessity of conversion. IV. The marks of the unconverted. V. The miseries of the unconverted. VI. Directions for conversion. VII. Motions [i.e., Motives] to conversion. : Whereunto are annexed Divers practical cases of conscience judiciously resolv'd. / By Joseph Alleine, late Minister of the Gospel at Taunton, in Somersetshire.
Philadelphia: printed by B. Franklin, 1741
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
4. Where this Weariness of and Unwillingness to Duties is painful and grievous, as a Sore in the Eye, as a Sickness in the Heart, the State is good, but where it is naturally allowed, and meets with little or no Resistance, it is a black Mark. For this argues there is nothing but Flesh, that there is no contrary Principle in such a Heart. For if there were, the Spirit would at least make Opposition: This was the very Frame of those unsanctified Sinners that counted the Sabbaths and Services of God an unprofitable Burden, a very Weariness, a Bondage not to be born, Mal. 1.13. A gracious Heart, when under such a Distemper, as that God's Service seems a Weariness, is even weary of himself, whiles this is burdensome, he is a Burden to himself. He cannot enjoy himself while in such a Frame wherein he cannot enjoy God: and if this be the Case, our State is good, though the Frame be bad.
5. Where this Weariness and Unwillingness is not from a rooted Dislike of the Food, but an accidental and pre•ematural Indisposition of the Stomach, or being disappointed of God's Presence in Duties, the ⟨p. 55⟩main State is safe. You know under a Distemper, the Appetite may disgust, and nauseate the Food that a Man doth love above all other Meats when he is well, and so it is here. Do you when you are your selves relish more Sweetness in God's Service than in your Meats and Drinks? Are no Sweets so delightful to you as Fellowship and Communion with God, when you can attain to it in Duties? Do you come away discontented, because you cannot meet with God? Is the Ground why your Countenances fall, and your Hearts be discouraged, because you have (with them) toiled and spread the Net, and have not caught what you went for: because you have no Answer nor Income from God? If it be thus, it is a Sign your Hearts be set upon God; and that you place the Happiness and Comfort of your Lives in God; and so that your State is safe: Otherwise when there is a fixed Antipathy to Duties, and an habitual Dislike of them, and Contrariety to them, the Case is very sad.