A call to the unconverted, to turn and live

Quest. "But how cometh it to pass, that men should be so unreasonable in the matters of salvation? They have wit enough in other matters, what makes them so loth to be converted, that there should need so many words in so plain a case, and all will not do, but the most will live and die unconverted?"

Answ. To name them only in a few words, the causes are these:

1. Men are naturally in love with earth and flesh, they are born sinners, and their nature hath an enmity to God and goodness, as the nature of a serpent hath to a man; and when all that we can say goes against an habitual inclination of their natures, no marvel if it little prevail. 2. They are in darkness, and know not the very things they hear. Like a man that was born blind, and hears a high commendation of the light; but what will hearing do, unless he sees it. They know not what God is, nor what is the power of the cross of Christ, nor what the spirit of holiness is, nor what it is to live in love by faith: They know not the certainty, and suitableness, and excellency of the heavenly inheritance. They know not what conversion, and a holy mind and conversation is, even when they hear of it. They are in a mist of ignorance. They are lost and bewildered in sin; like a man that has lost himself in the night, and knows not where he is, nor how to come to himself again, till the day light do recover him. 3. They are wilfully confident, that they need ⟨p. 96⟩no conversion, but some partial amendment; and that they are in the way to heaven already; and are converted, when they are not. And if you meet a man that is quite out of his way, you may long enough call upon him to turn back again, if he will not believe you, that he is out of the way. 4. They are become slaves to their flesh, and drowned in the world, to make provision for it. Their lusts, and passions, and appetites have distracted them, and got such an hand over them, that they cannot tell how to deny them, or how to mind any thing else, so that the drunkard saith, 'I love a cup of good drink, and I cannot forbear it." The glutton saith, 'I love good cheer, and I cannot forbear.' The fornicator saith, 'I love to have my lust fulfilled, and I cannot forbear.' And the gamester loves to have his sports, and he cannot forbear. So that they are become even captivated slaves to their flesh, and their very wilfulness is become an impotency, and what they would not do, they say they cannot. And the worldling is so taken up with earthly things, that he hath neither heart nor mind, nor time for heavenly; but as in Pharaoh's dream,