Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1825 edition. Excerpt: ... commands, and all out of a desire of salvation: put these together, and there is an answer to that question. The call of conscience; the power of the Word; the affection of credit; and the desire of salvation: may carry a man so far as to be almost a Christian. III. The third question propounded is this: Whence is it that many are but almost Christians, when they have gone thus far? what is the cause of this? I might give many answers to this question; but I shall instance two only, which I judge the most material. First, It is for want of right and sound conviction; if a man be not thoroughly convinced of sin, and his heart truly broken, whatever his profession of godliness may be, yet he will be sure to miscarry; every work of conviction is not a thorough work; there are convictions that are only natural and rational, but not from the powerful work of the Spirit of God. Rational conviction, is that which proceeds from the working of a natural conscience, charging guilt from the light of nature, by the help of those common principles of reason that are in all men: this is the conviction you read of Rom. ii. 14, 15. It is said that the Gentiles who had not the law, yet had "their consciences bearing witness, and accusing, or excusing one another," though they had not the light of Scripture, yet had they conviction from the light of nature; now by the help of the gospel-light, these convictions may be much improved, and yet the heart not renewed. But there is a spiritual conviction, and this is that work of the Spirit of God upon the sinner's heart by the Word, whereby the guilt and filth of sin is fully discovered, and the woe and misery of a natural state, distinctly set home upon the conscience, to the dread and terror of the sinner, ...
