revival5

LECTURE XVII

FALSE COMFORTS FOR SINNERS

How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth

falsehood? – Job 21:34.

Jobs ‘ three friends insisted that the afflictions which he suffered were sent

as a punishment for his sins, and were evidence conclusive that he was a

hypocrite, and not a good man, as he professed to be. A lengthy argument

ensued, in which Job referred to all past experience, to prove that men are

not dealt with in this way according to their character; that the distinction

is not observed in the allotments of Providence. His friends maintained the

opposite, and intimated that this world is also a place of rewards and

punishments, in which men receive good or evil, according to their deeds.

In this chapter, Job urges, by appealing to common sense and common

observation and experience, that this cannot be true, because it is a matter

of fact that the wicked are often prosperous in this world and throughout

life, and hence he infers that their judgment and punishment must be

reserved for a future state. “The wicked is reserved to the day of

destruction,” and “they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath” (v. 30).

And inasmuch as the friends who came to comfort him, being in the dark

on this fundamental point, had not been able to understand his case, and so

could not afford him any comfort, but rather aggravated his grief, Job

insisted upon it that he would still look to a future state for consolation.

He rebuked them by exclaiming, in the bitterness of his soul:

“How then comfort ye me in vain,

seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?”

My present purpose is to make some remarks upon the various methods

employed in comforting anxious sinners; and I design:

I. To notice briefly the necessity and design of instructing anxious

sinners.

II. To show that anxious sinners are always seeking comfort. Their

supreme object, indeed, is to get comfort in their distress.

III. To notice some of the false comforts often administered.

I. INSTRUCTING ANXIOUS SINNERS.

The very idea of anxiety implies some instruction. A sinner will not be

anxious at all about his future state, unless he has light enough to know

that he is a sinner, and that he is in danger of punishment and needs

forgiveness. But men are to be converted, not by physical force, nor by a

change wrought in their nature or constitution by creative power, but by

the truth, made effectual by the Holy Spirit. Conversion is yielding to the

truth. Therefore, the more the truth can be brought to bear on the mind,

other things being equal, so much the more probable is it that the

individual will be converted. Unless the truth is brought to bear upon him,

it is certain he will not be converted. If it be brought to bear, it is not

absolutely certain that it will be effectual, but the probability is in

proportion to the extent to which the truth is brought to bear.

The great design of dealing with an anxious sinner is to clear up all his

difficulties and darkness, do away with all his errors, sap the foundation of

his self-righteous hopes, and sweep away every vestige of comfort that he

can find in himself. There is often much difficulty in all this, and much

instruction is required. Sinners often cling with a death-grasp to their false

dependencies. The last place to which a sinner ever betakes himself for

relief is to Jesus Christ. Sinners had rather be saved in any other way in

the world. They had rather make any sacrifice, go to any expense, or

endure any suffering, than just throw themselves as guilty and lost rebels

upon Christ alone for salvation. This is the very last way in which they

are ever willing to be saved. It cuts up all their self-righteousness, and

annihilates their pride and self-satisfaction so completely that they are

exceedingly unwilling to adopt it. But it is as true in philosophy as it is in

fact, that this is, after all, the only way in which a sinner could find relief.

If God should attempt to relieve sinners and save them without humbling

their pride and turning them from their sins, He could not do it.

Now, the object of instructing an anxious sinner should be to bring his

mind, by the shortest route, to the practical conclusion that there is, in

fact, no other way in which he can be relieved and saved, but to renounce

himself, and rest in Christ alone. To do this with effect requires great skill.

It requires a thorough knowledge of the human heart, a clear understanding

of the plan of salvation, and a precise and definite idea of the very thing

that a sinner MUST DO in order to be saved. The ability to impart such

instruction effectually is one of the rarest qualifications in the ministry. It

is distressing to see how few ministers and how few professors of religion

there are who have in their own mind so distinct an idea of the thing to be

done, that they can go to an anxious sinner and tell him exactly what he

has to do, and how to do it, and can show him clearly that there is no

possible way for him to be saved, but by doing that very thing which they

tell him, and can make him feel the certainty that he must do it, and that

unless he does that very thing he will be lost.

II. ANXIOUS SINNERS ARE ALWAYS SEEKING COMFORT.

Sinners often imagine they are seeking Jesus Christ, and seeking religion,

but this is a mistake. No person ever sought religion, and yet remained

irreligious. What is religion? It is obeying God. Seeking religion is seeking

to obey God. The soul that hungers and thirsts after righteousness is the

soul of a Christian. To say that a person can seek to obey God, and yet

not obey Him, is absurd; for, if he is seeking religion, he is not an

impenitent sinner. To seek religion implies a willingness to obey God, and

a willingness to obey God is religion. It is a contradiction to say that an

impenitent sinner is seeking religion. It is the same as to say that he seeks

and actually longs to obey God, and God will not let him; or that he longs

to embrace Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ will not let him come. The fact

is, the anxious sinner is seeking a hope, he is seeking pardon, and comfort,

and deliverance from hell. He is anxiously looking for some one to comfort

him and make him feel better, without being obliged to conform to such

humiliating conditions as those of the Gospel. And his anxiety and distress

continue, only because he will not yield to these terms. Unfortunately,

anxious sinners find comforters enough to their liking. Miserable

comforters they are, too, “seeing in their answers there remaineth

falsehood.” No doubt, millions and millions are now in hell, because there

were those around them who gave them false comfort, who had so much

false pity, or were themselves so much in the dark, that they would not let

sinners remain in anxiety till they had submitted their hearts to God, but

administered falsehood.

III. WAYS IN WHICH FALSE COMFORT IS GIVEN.

There is an endless variety of ways in which false comfort is given to

anxious sinners. The more I observe the ways in which even good people

deal with anxious sinners, the more I feel grieved at the endless falsehoods

with which they attempt to comfort their anxious friends, and thus, in

fact, deceive them and beguile them out of their salvation. It often reminds

me of the manner in which people act when any one is ill. Let any one of

you be ill, with almost any disease in the world, and you will find that

every person you meet with has a remedy for that disorder, a certain cure,

a specific, a panacea; and you will find such a world of quackery all around

you that if you do not take care and SHUT IT ALL OUT, you will

certainly lose your life. A man must exercise his own judgment, for he will

find as many remedies as he has friends, and each one is tenacious of his

own medicine, and perhaps will think it hard if it is not taken. And no

doubt this miserable system of quackery kills a great many people.

This is true to no greater extent respecting the diseases of the body than

respecting the diseases of the mind. People have their specifics and their

panaceas, to comfort distressed souls; and whenever they begin to talk

with an anxious sinner, they will bring in their false comforts – so much

that if he does not TAKE CARE, and mind the Word of God, he will

infallibly be deceived to his own destruction. I propose to mention a few

of the falsehoods that are often brought forward in attempting to comfort

anxious sinners. Time would fail me even to name them all.

The direct object of many persons is to comfort sinners; and they are

often so intent upon this that when they see their friends distressed, they

pity them, they feel very compassionate: “Oh, oh, I cannot bear to see

them so distressed, I must comfort them somehow”; and so they try one

way, and another, and all to comfort them! Now, God desires they should

be comforted. He is benevolent, and has kind feelings, and His heart yearns

over them, when He sees them so distressed. But He sees that there is

only one way to give a sinner real comfort. He has more benevolence and

compassion than all men, and wishes to comfort them. But He has fixed

the terms, as unyielding as His Throne, on which He will give a sinner

relief. He will not alter. He knows that nothing else will do the sinner

effectual good, for nothing can make him happy, until he repents of his

sins and forsakes them, and turns to God. And therefore God will not

yield. Our object should be the same as that of God. We should feel

compassion and benevolence just as He does, and be as ready to give

comfort, but we should also be sure that it is of the right kind.

Our prime object should be to induce the sinner to obey God. His comfort

ought to be, both with us and with himself, only a secondary object; and

while we are more anxious to relieve his distress than to have him cease to

abuse and dishonor God, we are not likely, by our instructions, to do him

any real good. This is a fundamental distinction in dealing with anxious

sinners, but it is evidently overlooked by many, who seem to have no

higher motives than sympathy or compassion for the sinner. If in

preaching the Gospel or instructing the anxious, we are not actuated by a

high regard to the honor of God, and rise no higher than to desire to relieve

the distressed; this is going no farther than a constitutional sympathy, or

compassion, would carry us. The overlooking of this principle has often

misled professors of religion, and when they have heard others dealing

faithfully with anxious sinners, they have accused them of cruelty. I have

often had professors bring anxious sinners to me, and beg me to comfort

them; and then, when I have probed the conscience of the sinner to the

quick, they have shuddered, and sometimes taken his part. It is sometimes

impossible to deal effectually with young people who are anxious, in the

presence of their parents, because the parents have so much more

compassion for their children than regard to the honor of God. This is a

position which is all wrong; and with such views and feelings you had

better hold your tongue than say anything to the anxious.

1. One of the ways in which people give false comfort to distressed

sinners is by asking them: “What have you done? You are not so bad!”

They see them distressed and cry out: “Why, what have you done?” as if

they had never done anything wicked, and had in reality no occasion to

feel distressed at all. A fashionable lady was spiritually awakened, and she

was going to see a minister, to converse with him, when she was met by a

friend, who turned her back, and drove off her anxiety by the cry: “What

have you done to make you feel so? I am sure you have never committed

any sin that need make you feel so!”

I have often met with cases of this kind. A mother will tell her son, who is

anxious, what an obedient child he has always been, how good and how

kind, and she begs him “not to take on so.” So a husband will tell his wife,

or a wife her husband: “How good you are!” and say: “Why, you are not

so bad. You have been to hear that frightful minister, who frightens

people, and you have got excited. Be comforted, for I am sure you have

not been bad enough to justify such distress.” When the truth is, they have

been a great deal worse than they think they have. No sinner ever has an

idea of his sins greater than they really are. No sinner ever has an adequate

idea of how great a sinner he is. It is not probable that any man could live

under a full sight of his sins. God has, in mercy, spared all His creatures on

earth that worst of sights, a naked human heart. The sinner’s guilt is much

more deep and damning than he thinks, and his danger is much greater than

he thinks it is; and if he should see his sins as they are, probably he would

not live one moment. True, a sinner may have false notions on the subject,

which may create distress, but which have no foundation. He may think he

has committed the unpardonable sin, or that he has grieved away the

Spirit, or sinned away his day of grace. But to tell the most moral and

naturally amiable person in the world that he is good enough, or that he is

not so bad as he thinks he is, is not giving him rational comfort, but is

deceiving him and ruining his soul. Let those who do it, beware.

2. Others tell awakened sinners that “conversion is a progressive work,”

and in this way ease their anxiety. When a man is distressed, because he

sees himself to be such a sinner, and that unless he turns to God he will be

lost, it is a great relief to have some friend hold out the idea that he can get

better by degrees, and that he is now “coming on,” little by little. They tell

him: “You cannot expect to get along all at once; I do not believe in these

sudden conversions, you must wait and let it work; you have begun well,

and, by and by, you will get comfort.” All this is false as the bottomless

pit. The truth is, regeneration, or conversion, is not a progressive work.

What is regeneration? What is it but the beginning of obedience to God?

And is the beginning of a thing progressive? It is the first act of genuine

obedience to God – the first voluntary action of the mind, that is what

God approves, or that can be regarded as obedience to God. That is

conversion. When persons talk about conversion as a progressive work, it

is absurd. They show that they know just as much about regeneration or

conversion as Nicodemus did. They know nothing about it as they ought

to know, and are no more fit to conduct an anxious meeting, or to advise or

instruct anxious sinners, than Nicodemus was.

3. Another way in which anxious sinners are deceived with false comfort is

by being advised to “dismiss the subject for the present.” Men who are

supposed to be wise and good have assumed to be so much wiser than

God, that when God is dealing with a sinner, by His Spirit, and is

endeavoring to bring him to an immediate decision, they think God is

crowding too hard, and that it is necessary for them to interfere. They will

advise the person to take a ride, or to go into company, or engage in

business or do something that will relieve his mind a little, at least for the

present. They might just as well say to God in plain words: “O God,

Thou art too hard, Thou goest too fast, Thou wilt make him crazy, or kill

him; he cannot stand it, poor creature; if he be so pressed he will die.” Just

so they take sides against God, and practically tell the sinner himself:

“God will make you crazy if you do not dismiss the subject, and resist the

Spirit, and drive Him away from your mind.”

Such advice, if it be truly conviction of sin that distresses the sinner, is, in

no case, either safe or lawful. The strivings of the Spirit, to bring the sinner

to Christ, will never hurt him, nor drive him crazy. He may make himself

deranged by resisting; but it is blasphemous to think that the blessed,

wise, and benevolent Spirit of God would ever act with so little care, as to

derange and destroy the soul which He came to sanctify and save. The

proper course to take with a sinner, when the striving of the Spirit throws

him into distress, is, to instruct him, clear up his views, correct his

mistakes, and make the way of salvation so plain, that he may see it right

before him. Not to dismiss the subject, but to fall in with the Spirit, and

thus hush all those dreadful agonies which are produced by resisting the

Holy Ghost. REMEMBER, if an awakened sinner should voluntarily

dismiss the subject once, probably he will never take it up again.

4. Sometimes an awakened sinner is comforted by being told that “religion

does not consist in feeling bad.” I once heard of a Doctor of Divinity giving

an anxious sinner such counsel, when he was actually writhing under the

arrows of the Almighty. Said he: “Religion is cheerful, religion is not

gloomy; do not be distressed, but dismiss your fears; be comforted, you

should not feel so bad,” and such like miserable comforts, when, in fact,

the man had infinite reason to be distressed, for he was resisting the Holy

Ghost, and was in danger of grieving Him away for ever.

It is true, religion does not consist in “feeling bad”; but the sinner has

reason to be distressed, because he has no religion. If he had religion, he

would not feel so. Were he a Christian, he would rejoice. But to tell an

impenitent sinner to be cheerful! Why, you might as well preach this

doctrine in hell, and tell them there: “Cheer up here, cheer up: do not feel

so bad!”

The sinner is on the very verge of hell, he is in rebellion against God, and

his danger is infinitely greater than he imagines. Oh, what a doctrine of

devils it is to tell a rebel against Heaven not to be distressed! What is all

his distress but rebellion itself? He is not comforted, because he refuses to

be comforted. God is ready to comfort him. You need not think to be more

compassionate than God. He will fill the sinner with comfort, in an

instant, on submission. There stands the sinner, struggling against God,

and against the Holy Ghost, and against conscience, until he is distressed

almost to death, but still he will not yield; and now some one comes in,

saying: “Oh, I hate to see you feel so bad, do not be so distressed; cheer

up, cheer up; religion does not consist in being gloomy; be comforted.”

Horrid!

5. Whatever involves the subject of religion in mystery is calculated to give

a sinner false comfort. When a sinner is anxious on the subject of religion,

very likely, if you becloud it in mystery, he will feel relieved. The sinner’s

distress arises from the pressure of present obligation. Enlighten him on

this point, and clear it up, and if he will not yield, it will only increase

his distress. But tell him that regeneration is all a mystery, something he

cannot understand, and, by leaving him all in a fog, you relieve his anxiety.

It is his clear view of the nature and duty of repentance, that produces his

distress. It is the light that brings agony to his mind, while he refuses to

obey. It is that which makes up the pains of hell. And it will almost make

hell in the sinner’s breast here, if only made clear enough. Only cover up

this light, and his anxiety will immediately become far less acute and

thrilling, but if you take up a clear light, and flash it broadly upon his

soul, then, if he will not yield, you kindle up the tortures of hell in

his bosom.

6. Whatever relieves the sinner from a sense of blame is calculated to give

him false comfort. The more a man feels himself to blame, the deeper is his

distress; so, anything that lessens his sense of blame, of course lessens his

distress – but it is a comfort full of death. If anything will help him to

divide the blame, and throw a part of it upon God, it will afford him

comfort, but it is a relief that will destroy his soul.

7. To tell him of his inability is false comfort. Suppose you say to an

anxious sinner: “What can you do? You are a poor feeble creature, you can

do nothing.” You will thereby make him feel a kind of despondency, but it

is not that keen agony of remorse with which God wrings the soul when

He is laboring to bring the sinner to repentance.

If you tell him he is unable to comply with the Gospel, he naturally falls

in with that relief. He says to himself: “Yes, I am unable, I am a poor,

feeble creature, I cannot do this, and certainly God cannot send me to hell

for not doing what I cannot do.” Why, if I believed that a sinner was

unable, I would tell him plainly: “Do not be afraid, you are not to blame

for not complying with the call of the Gospel: for you are unable, and God

will not send you to hell for not doing what you have no strength to do –

‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'” I know it is not common for

those who talk about the sinner being “unable,” to be so consistent, and

carry out their theory. But the sinner infers all this, and so he feels

relieved. It is all false, and all the comfort derived from it is only

treasuring up wrath against the Day of Wrath.

8. Whatever makes the impression on a sinner’s mind that he is to be

passive in religion is calculated to give him false comfort. Give him the idea

that he has nothing to do but to wait God’s time; tell him conversion is the

work of God, and he ought to leave it to Him; and that he must be careful

not to try to take the work out of God’s hand; and he will infer as before,

that he is not to blame, and will feel relieved. If he has only to stand still,

and let God do the work, just as a man holds still to have his arm

amputated, he feels relieved. But such instruction as this, is all wrong. If

the sinner is thus to stand still, and let God do it, he instantly infers that

he is not to blame for not doing it himself; and the inference is not only

natural but legitimate.

It is true that there is a sense in which conversion is the work of God. But

it is false, as it is often represented. It is also true that there is a sense

in which conversion is the sinner’s own act. It is ridiculous, therefore, to

say that a sinner is passive in regeneration, or passive in being converted,

for conversion is his own act. The thing to be done is that which cannot be

done for him. It is something which he must do, or it will never be done.

9. Telling a sinner to wait God’s time. Some years ago, in Philadelphia, I

met a woman who was anxious about her soul, and had been a long time in

that state. I conversed with her, and endeavored to learn her state. She told

me a good many things, and finally said she knew she ought to be willing

to wait on God as long as He had waited upon her. She said that God had

waited on her a great many years before she would give any attention to

His call, and now she believed it was her duty to wait God’s time to show

mercy to her and convert her soul. And she said this was the instruction

she had received. She must be patient, she thought, and wait God’s time,

and, by and by, He would give her relief. Oh, amazing folly!

Here is the sinner in rebellion. God comes with pardon in one hand and a

sword in the other, and tells the sinner to repent and receive pardon, or

refuse and perish. And now here comes a minister of the Gospel and tells

the sinner to “wait God’s time.” Virtually he says that God is not ready to

have him repent now, and is not ready to pardon him now, and thus, in

fact, throws off the blame of his impenitence upon God. Instead of

pointing out the sinner’s guilt, in not submitting at once to God, he points

out God’s “insincerity” – in making an offer, when, in fact, He was not

ready to grant the blessing!

I have often thought such teachers needed the rebuke of Elijah, when he

met the priests of Baal. “Cry aloud: for he is a God; either he is talking, or

he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must

be awaked” (1 Kings 18:27). The minister who ventures to intimate that

God is not ready, and tells the sinner to wait God’s time, might almost as

well tell him that God is asleep, or gone on a journey, and cannot attend to

him at present. Miserable comforters, indeed! It is little less than

outrageous blasphemy of God. How many have gone to the judgment, red

all over with the blood of souls that they have deceived and destroyed –

by telling them God was not ready to save them, and that they must wait

God’s time. No doubt such a doctrine is exceedingly calculated to afford

present relief to an anxious sinner. It warrants him to say: “God is not

ready, I must wait God’s time, and so I can live in sin a while longer, till

He gets ready to attend to me, and then I will get religion.”

10. It is false comfort to tell an anxious sinner to do anything for relief,

which he can do, and not submit his heart to God. An anxious sinner is

often willing to do anything else, but the very thing which God requires

him to do. He is willing to go to the ends of the earth, or to pay his

money, or to endure suffering, or do anything but make full and

instantaneous submission to God. Now, if you will compromise the

matter with him, and tell him of something else that he may do, and yet

evade that point, he will be very much comforted. He likes that

instruction. He says: “Oh, yes, I will do that; I like that minister, he is not

so severe as others, he seems to understand my particular case, and knows

how to make allowances.”

It often reminds me of the conduct of a patient who is very sick, but has a

great dislike for a certain physician and a particular medicine, but that is

the very physician who alone understands treating his disease, and that the

only remedy for it. Now, the patient is willing to do anything else, and call

in any other physician. He is anxious and in distress, is asking all his

friends if they cannot tell him what he shall do. He will take all the

nostrums and quack medicines in the country – before he will submit to

the only course that can bring him relief. By and by, after he has tried

everything without receiving any benefit, if he survives the experiment he

gives up this unreasonable opposition, calls in the physician, takes the

proper medicine, and is cured. Just so it is with sinners. They will eagerly

do anything, if you will only let them off from this intolerable pressure of

present obligation to submit to God.

I will mention a few of the things the telling of which to sinners distracts

their attention from the point of immediate submission.

(a) Telling a sinner he must use the means – attend meetings and pray.

Tell an anxious sinner this: “You must use the means”; and he is relieved.

“Oh, yes, I will do that, if that be all. I thought that God required me to

repent and submit to Him now. But if ‘using the means’ will answer, I will

do that with all my heart.” He was distressed before, because he was

cornered, and did not know which way to turn. Conscience had beset him,

like a wall of fire, and urged him to repent NOW. But this relieves him at

once; he feels better, and is very thankful that he has found such a good

adviser in his distress! But he may “use the means,” as he says, till the

Day of Judgment, and not be a particle the better for it, but only hasten

his way to death. What is the sinner’s use of means, but rebellion against

God? God uses means – the Church uses means, to convert and save

sinners, to impress them, and bring them to submission. But what has the

sinner to do with such means? It is just telling him: “You need not submit

to God now, but just use the means awhile, and see if you cannot melt

God’s heart down to you, so that He will yield this point of unconditional

submission.” It is a mere cavil to evade the duty of immediate submission

to God. It is true that sinners, actuated by a regard to their own happiness,

often give attention to the subject of religion, attend meetings, and pray,

and read, and many such things. But in all this they have no regard to the

honor of God, nor do they so much as intend to obey Him. Their design is

not obedience, for if it were, they would not be impenitent sinners. They

are not, therefore, using means to be Christians, but to obtain pardon, and

a hope. It is absurd to say that an impenitent sinner is using means to

repent, for this is the same as to say he is willing to repent; or, in other

words, that he does repent, and so is not an impenitent sinner. So, to say

that an unconverted sinner uses means with the design to become a

Christian, is a contradiction; for it is saying that he is willing to be a

Christian, which is the same as to say he is a Christian already.

(b) Telling a sinner to pray for a new heart. I once heard a celebrated

Sunday-school teacher do this. He was almost the father of Sunday

Schools in America. He called a little girl up to him, and began to talk to

her. “My little girl, are you a Christian?” “No, sir.” “Well, you cannot be a

Christian yourself, can you?” “No, sir.” “No, you cannot be a Christian

yourself, you cannot change your heart yourself, but you must pray for a

new heart, that is all you can do; pray to God, God will give you a new

heart.” He was an aged and venerable man, but I almost felt disposed to

rebuke him in the name of the Lord; I could not bear to hear him deceive

that child, telling her, practically, she could not be a Christian. Does God

say: “Pray for a new heart”? Never. He says: “Make you a new heart”

(Ezekiel 18:31). The sinner is not to be told to pray to God to do his duty

for him, but to go and do it himself. I know the Psalmist prayed: “Create

in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). He

had faith, and prayed in faith. But that is a very different thing from

setting an obstinate rebel to pray for a new heart. An anxious sinner will

be delighted with such instruction, saying: “I knew I needed a new heart,

and that I ought to repent, but I thought I must do it myself. I am very

willing to ask God to do it; I hated to do it myself, but have no objection

that God should do it, if He will, and I will pray for it, if that is all that

is required.”

Telling the sinner to persevere. And suppose he does persevere? He is

as certain to be lost as if he had been in hell ever since the foundation of

the world. His anxiety arises only from his resistance; and if he would

submit, it would cease; and will you tell him to persevere in the very thing

that causes his distress? Suppose my child should, in a fit of passion,

throw a book or something on the floor. I tell him: “Take it up,” but

instead of minding what I say, he runs off and plays. “Take it up!” He

sees I am in earnest, and begins to look serious. “Take it up, or I shall get a

rod.” And I put up my arm to get the rod. He stands still. “Take it up, or

you must be whipped.” He comes slowly along to the place, and begins to

weep. “Take it up, my child, or you will certainly be punished.” Now he

is in distress, and sobs and sighs as if his bosom would burst; but he still

remains as stubborn as if he knew I could not punish him. Now I begin to

press him with motives to submit and obey, but there he stands, in agony,

and at length bursts out: “Oh, father, I do feel so bad, I think I am growing

better.” And now, suppose a neighbor to come in and see the child

standing there, in all his agony and stubbornness. The neighbor asks him

what he is standing there for, and what is he doing. “Oh, I am using means

to pick up that book.” If this neighbor should tell the child: “Persevere,

persevere, my boy, you will get it by and by,” what should I do? Why, I

would ask him to leave the house; what does he mean by encouraging my

child in rebellion?

Now, God calls the sinner to repent, He threatens him, He draws the

glittering sword, He persuades him, He uses motives, and the sinner is

distressed to agony, for he sees himself driven to the dreadful alternative

of giving up his sins or going to hell. He ought instantly to lay down his

weapons, and break his heart at once. But he resists, and struggles against

conviction, and that creates his distress. Now, will you tell him to

persevere? Persevere in what? In struggling against God! That is just the

direction the devil would give. All the devil wants is, to see him persevere

just in the way he is going on, and his destruction is sure.

(d) Telling a sinner to press forward. That is, to say to him: “You are in a

good way, only press forward, and you will get to heaven.” This is on the

supposition that his face is toward heaven, when in fact his face is toward

hell, and he is pressing forward, and never more rapidly than now, while

he is resisting the Holy Ghost. Often have I heard this direction given,

when the sinner was in as bad a way as he could be. What you ought to

tell him is: “STOP, sinner, stop, do not take another step that way, it

leads to hell.” God tells him to stop, and because he does not wish to stop,

he is distressed. Now, why should you attempt to comfort him in this

way?

(e) Telling a sinner that he must “try” to repent and give his heart to God.

“Oh, yes,” says the sinner, “I am willing to try, I have often tried to do it,

and I will try again.” Does God tell you to “try” to repent?

All the world would be willing to “try” to repent, in their way. Giving this

direction implies that it is very difficult to repent, and perhaps impossible,

and that the best thing a sinner can do is, to try and see whether he can do

it or not. What is this, but substituting your own commandment in the

place of God’s. God requires nothing short of repentance and a holy heart;

anything short of that is comforting the sinner in vain, “seeing in your

answers there remaineth falsehood.”

(f) Telling him to pray for repentance. “Oh, yes, I will pray for

repentance, if that is all. I was distressed because I thought God required

me to repent; but I can wait.” And so he feels relieved, and is quite

comfortable.

(g) Telling a sinner to pray for conviction, or pray for the Holy Ghost to

show him his sins, or to labor to get more light on the subject of his guilt,

in order to increase his conviction.

All this is just what the sinner wants, because it lets him off from the

pressure of present obligation. He wants just a little more time. Anything

that will defer that present pressure of obligation to repent immediately, is

a relief. What does he want more conviction for? Does God give any such

direction to an impenitent sinner? God takes it for granted that he has

conviction enough already. And so he has. Do you say he cannot realize all

his sins? If he can realize only one of them, let him repent of that one, and

he is a Christian. Suppose he could see them all, what reason is there to

think he would repent of them all, any more than he would repent of that

one that he does see? All this is comforting the sinner by setting him to do

that which he can do, and yet not submit his heart to God.

11. Another way in which false comfort is given to anxious sinners is, to

tell them God is trying their faith by keeping them in the furnace, and they

must wait patiently upon the Lord. Just as if God were in fault, or stood

in the way of a sinner becoming a Christian. Or as if an impenitent sinner

had faith! What an abomination! Suppose somebody should tell my child,

while he was standing by the book as I have described: “Wait patiently,

my boy, your father is trying your faith.” No. The sinner is trying the

patience and forbearance of God. God is not setting Himself to torture a

sinner, and teach him a lesson of patience. But He is waiting upon him,

and laboring to bring him at once into such a state of mind as will render it

consistent to fill his soul with the peace of heaven. And shall the sinner be

encouraged to resist, by the idea that God is bantering? TAKE CARE!

God has said His Spirit shall not always strive.

12. Another false comfort is, saying to the sinner: “Do your duty, and

leave your conversion with God.” I once heard an elder of a Church say to

an anxious sinner: “Do your duty, and leave your conversion to God; He

will do it in His own time and way.” That was just the same as telling him,

that it was not his duty to be converted NOW. He did not say: “Do your

duty, and leave your salvation with God.” That would have been proper

enough, for it would have been simply telling him to submit to God, and

would have included conversion as the first duty of all. But he told him to

leave his conversion to God. And this elder, that gave such advice, was a

man of liberal education too. How absurd! As if the sinner could do his

duty and not be converted! God has required him: “Make you a new

heart” (Ezekiel 18:31); and do you beware how you comfort him with an

answer of falsehood.

13. Sometimes professors of religion will try to comfort a sinner, by telling

him: “Do not be discouraged; I was a long time in this way before I found

comfort.” They will tell him: “I was under conviction so many weeks –

or perhaps so many months, or sometimes years – and have gone through

all this, and know just how you feel; your experience is the same as mine

precisely. After so long a time I found relief; and I doubt not you will find

it by and by. Do not despair, God will comfort you soon.” Tell a sinner to

take courage in his rebellion! Oh, horrible! Such professors ought to be

ashamed. Suppose you were under conviction so many weeks, and

afterwards found relief, it is the very last thing you ought to tell an anxious

sinner.

What is it but encouraging him to hold out, when his business is to

submit? Did you hold out so many weeks while the Spirit was striving

with you? You only deserved so much the more to be lost, for your

obstinacy and stupidity.

Sinner! it is no sign that God will spare you so long, or that His Spirit will

remain with you to be resisted. And remember, if the Spirit is taken away,

you will be sent to hell.

14. Another false comfort is to say: “I have faith to believe you will be

converted.” You have faith to believe? On what does your faith rest? On

the promise of God? On the influences of the Holy Ghost? Then you are

counteracting your own faith. The very design and object of the Spirit of

God is to tear away from the sinner his last vestige of a hope while

remaining in sin; to annihilate every crag and twig he may cling to. And the

object of your instruction should be the same. You should fall in with the

plan of God. It is only in this way that you can ever do any good – by

urging him to submit at once, and leave his soul in the hands of God. But

when one that he thinks is a Christian, tells him: “I have faith to believe

you will be converted,” it upholds him in a false expectation. Instead of

tearing him away from his false hopes, and throwing him upon Christ, you

just turn him aside to depend upon your faith, and to find comfort because

you have faith for him. This is all false comfort, that worketh death.

15. Sometimes professors of religion try to comfort an anxious sinner by

telling him: “I will pray for you.” This is false comfort, for it leads the

sinner to trust in those prayers, instead of trusting in Christ. The sinner

says “He is a good man, and God hears the prayers of good men; no doubt

his prayers will prevail, some time, and I shall be converted: I do not think

I shall be lost.” And his anxiety, his agony, is all gone. A woman said to a

minister: “I have no hope now, but I have faith in your prayers.” Just such

faith is this as the devil wants them to have – faith in prayers instead of

faith in Christ.

16. It is equally false comfort to say: “I rejoice to see you in this way, and

I hope you will be faithful, and hold out.” What is this but rejoicing to see

him in rebellion against God? For that is precisely the ground on which he

stands. He is resisting conviction, and resisting conscience, and resisting

the Holy Ghost, and yet you rejoice to see him in this way, and hope he

will be faithful, and hold out! There is a sense, indeed, in which it may be

said that his situation is more hopeful than when he was in stupidity. For

God has convinced him, and may succeed in turning and subduing him. But

that is not the sense in which the sinner himself will understand it. He will

suppose that you think him in a hopeful way, because he is doing better

than formerly; when, in fact, his guilt and danger are greater than they ever

were before. Instead of rejoicing, you ought to be distressed and in agony,

to see him thus resisting the Holy Ghost, for every moment he does this,

he is in danger of being left of God, and given up to hardness of heart and

to despair.

17. Again, it is said: “You will have your pay for this, by-and-by: God

will reward you.” I once heard a sinner say: “I feel very bad, I have strong

hopes that I shall get my reward.” But that individual afterwards said:

“Nowhere can there be found so black a sinner as I am, and no sin of my

life seems so black as that expression.” He was overwhelmed with

contrition, that he should ever have had such an idea, as to think that God

should reward him for suffering so much distress, when he had brought it

all upon himself, needlessly, by his wicked resistance to the truth. The

truth is, what such “instructors” are seeking is, to comfort the sinner;

being all in the dark themselves on the subject of religion, they, of course,

give him false comfort.

18. Another false comfort is, to tell the sinner he has not repented enough.

The truth is, he has not really repented at all. As soon as the sinner

repents, God always comforts him. This direction implies that his feelings

are right as far as they go. To tell him that he has any repentance, is to tell

him a lie, and cheat him out of his soul.

19. People sometimes comfort a sinner by telling him: “If you are elected,

you will be brought in.” I once heard of a case where a person under great

distress of mind was sent to converse with a neighboring minister. They

talked for a long time. As the person went away, the minister said to him:

“I should like to send a line by you to your father.” His father was a pious

man. The minister wrote the letter, and forgot to seal it. As the sinner was

going home, he saw that the letter was not sealed, and he thought to

himself, that probably the minister had written about him, and his

curiosity at length led him to open and read it. And there he found it

written to this purport: “Dear Sir, – I found your son under conviction,

and in great distress, and it seems not easy to say anything to give him

relief. But, if he is one of the elect, he is sure to be brought in.” He had

wanted to say something to comfort the father; but now, mark: that letter

had well-nigh ruined the son’s soul; for he settled down on the doctrine of

Election, saying: “If I am elected, I shall be brought in;” and his conviction

was gone. Years afterwards he was awakened and converted, but only after

a great struggle, and never until that false impression had been obliterated

from his mind, and he had been made to see that he had nothing at all to do

with the doctrine of Election, but that if he did not repent he would be

lost.

20. It is very common for some people to tell an awakened sinner: “You

are in a very prosperous way. I am glad to see you so, and feel encouraged

about you.” It sometimes seems as if the Church were in league with the

devil to help sinners to resist the Holy Ghost. The thing that the Holy

Ghost wants to make the sinner feel is, that all his ways are wrong, and

that they lead to hell. And everybody is conspiring to make the opposite

impression! The Spirit is trying to discourage him, and they are trying to

encourage him; the Spirit to distress him by showing him that he is all

wrong, and they to comfort him by saying he is doing well. Has it come to

this, that the worst counteraction to the truth and the greatest obstacle to

the Spirit, shall spring from the Church. Sinner, do not believe them! You

are not in a hopeful way. You are not doing well, but ill – as ill as you

can, while resisting the Holy Ghost.

21. Another fatal way in which false comfort is given to sinners, is by

applying to them certain Scripture promises which were designed only for

saints. This is a grand device of the devil. It is much practiced by the

Universalists. But Christians often do it. For example:

(a) “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew

5:4). How often has this passage been applied to anxious sinners, who

were in distress because they would not submit to God. “Blessed are they

that mourn.” That is true, where they mourn with godly sorrow. But what

is this sinner mourning about? He is mourning because God’s law is holy,

and the terms of salvation so fixed that he cannot bring them down to his

mind. Will you tell such a rebel: “Blessed are they that mourn”? You might

just as well apply it to those that are in hell! There is mourning there, too.

The sinner is mourning because there is no other way of salvation, because

God is so holy that He requires him to give up all his sins, and he feels

that the time has come, that he must either give them up, or be lost. Shall

we tell him, he shall be comforted? Shall we tell the devil: “You mourn

now; but the Bible says, you are blessed if you mourn; and you shall be

comforted by and by!”

(b) “Seek, and ye shall find” (Matthew 7:7). This is said to sinners in such

a way as to imply that the anxious sinner is seeking religion. This promise

was made in reference to Christians, who ask in faith, and seek to do the

will of God, and it is not applicable to those who are seeking hope or

comfort; but to holy seeking. To apply it to an impenitent sinner is only

to deceive him, for his seeking is not of this character. To tell him: “You

are seeking, are you? Well, seek, and you shall find,” is to cherish a fatal

delusion. While he remains impenitent, he has not a desire which the devil

might not have, and yet remain a devil still.

If the sinner had a desire to do his duty, if he were seeking to do the will of

God, and give up his sins, he would be a Christian. But to comfort an

impenitent sinner with such a promise – you might just as well comfort

Satan!

“Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we

faint not” (Galatians 6:9). To apply this for a sinner’s comfort, is absurd.

As if he were doing something to please God! He has never done well, and

never has done more ill than now. Suppose my neighbor, who came in

while I was trying to subdue my child, should say to the child, “In due

season you shall reap, if you faint not,” what should I say? “Reap? Yes,

you shall reap; if you do not give up your obstinacy, you shall reap

indeed, for I will apply the rod.” So the struggling sinner shall reap the

damnation of hell, if he does not give up his sins.

22. Some professors of religion, when they attempt to converse with

awakened sinners, are very fond of saying: “I will tell you my experience.”

This is a dangerous snare, and often gives the devil a handle to lead the

sinner to hell, by getting him to copy your experience. If you tell it to the

sinner, and he thinks it is a Christian experience, he will almost infallibly

be trying to imitate it, so that, instead of following the Gospel, or the

leadings of the Spirit in his own soul, he is following your example. This is

absurd as well as dangerous. No two were ever exercised just alike. Men’s

experiences are as much unlike as are their countenances. Such a course is

likely to mislead him. The design is, often, to encourage him at the very

point where he ought not to be encouraged, before he has submitted to

God. And it is calculated to impede the work of God in his soul.

23. How many times will people tell an awakened sinner that God has

begun a good work in him, and will carry it on. I have known parents talk

so with their children, and, as soon as they have seen their children

awakened, give up all anxiety about them, and settle down at ease, thinking

that now God had begun a work in their children He would carry it on. It

would be just as rational for a farmer to say about his grain, as soon as it

comes up out of the ground: “Well, God has begun a good work in my

field, and He will carry it on.” What would be thought of a farmer who

should neglect to put up his fence, because God has begun the work of

giving him a crop of grain? If you tell a sinner so, and he believes you, it

will certainly be his destruction, for it will prevent his doing that which is

absolutely indispensable to his being saved. If, as soon as the sinner is

awakened, he is taught that, God having begun a good work, that only

needs to be carried on, He will surely carry it on, he sees that there is no

further occasion to be anxious, for, in fact, he has nothing more to do. And

so he will be relieved from that intolerable pressure of present obligation

to repent and submit to God. And if he is relieved from his sense of

obligation to do it, he will never do it.

24. Some will tell the sinner: “Well, you have broken off your sins, have

you?” “Oh, yes,” says the sinner; when it is all false; he has never

forsaken his sins for a moment, he has only exchanged one form of sin for

another; only placed himself in a new attitude of resistance. And to tell

him that he has broken them off is to give him false comfort.

25. Sometimes this direction is given for the purpose of relieving the agony

of an anxious sinner: “Do what you can, and God will do the rest”; or:

“Do what you can, and God will help you.” This is the same as telling a

sinner: “You cannot do what God requires you to do, but if you do what

you can, God will help you as to the rest.” Now, sinners often get the idea

that they have done all they can, when, in fact, they have done nothing at

all, except that they have resisted God with all their might. I have often

heard them say: “I have done all I can, and I get no relief, what can I do

more?” Now, you can see how comforting it must be to such a one to have

a professor of religion come in and say: “If you will do what you can, God

will help you.” It relieves all his keen distress at once. He may be uneasy,

and unhappy, but his agony is gone.

26. Again, they say: “You should be thankful for what you have, and hope

for more.” If the sinner is convicted, they tell him he should be thankful

for conviction, and hope for conversion. If he has any feeling, he should be

thankful for what feeling he has, just as if his feeling were religious

feeling,when he has no more religion than Satan. He has reason to be thankful,

indeed: thankful that he is out of hell, and thankful that God is yet waiting

on him. But it is ridiculous to tell him that he should be thankful in regard

to the state of his mind, when he is all the while resisting his Maker with

all his might.

IV. ERRORS MADE IN PRAYING FOR SINNERS.

I will here mention a few errors that are made in praying for sinners, by

which an unhappy impression is made on their minds, in consequence of

which they often obtain false comfort in their distress.

1. People sometimes pray for sinners as if they deserved TO BE PITIED

more than BLAMED. They pray for them as “MOURNERS”: “Lord,

help these pensive mourners”! As if they were just mourners, like one that

had lost a friend, or met with some other calamity, which he could not

help, and so were greatly to be pitied, sitting there, sad, pensive, and

sighing. The Bible never talks so. It pities sinners, but it pities them as

mad and guilty rebels, deserving to go to hell; not as poor pensive

mourners, who want to be relieved, but can do nothing but sit and mourn.

2. Praying for them as “poor sinners.” Does the Bible ever use such

language as this? The Bible never speaks of them as “poor sinners,” as if

they deserved to be pitied more than blamed. Christ pities sinners in His

heart. And so does God pity them. He feels in His heart all the gushings of

compassion for them, when He sees them going on, obstinate and willful in

gratifying their own lusts, at the peril of His eternal wrath. But He never

lets an impression escape from Him, as if the sinner were just a “poor

creature” – to be pitied, as if he could not help his position. The idea that

he is poor, rather than wicked; unfortunate, rather than guilty, relieves the

sinner greatly. I have seen the sinner writhe with agony under the truth, in

a meeting, until somebody began to pray for him as a “poor” creature. And

then he would gush out into tears, and weep profusely, and think he was

greatly benefitted by such a prayer, saying: “Oh, what a good prayer that

was!” If you go now and converse with that sinner, you will probably find

that he is still pitying himself as a poor unfortunate creature – perhaps

even weeping over his unhappy condition; but his conviction of sin, his

deep impressions of awful guilt, are all gone.

3. Praying that God would “help the sinner to repent.” “O Lord, enable

this poor sinner to repent now.” This conveys the idea to the sinner’s

mind, that he is now trying with all his might to repent, and that he cannot

do it, and therefore Christians are calling on God to help him, and enable

him to do it. Most professors of religion pray for sinners, not that God

would make them willing to repent, but that He would enable them, or

make them able. No wonder their prayers are not heard. They relieve the

sinner of his sense of responsibility, and that relieves his distress. But it

is an insult to God, as if God had commanded a sinner to do what He could

not do.

4. People sometimes pray: “Lord, these sinners are seeking Thee,

sorrowing.” This language is an allusion to what took place at the time

when Jesus was a little boy, and went into the Temple to talk with the

rabbis and doctors. His parents, you recollect, went a day’s journey

towards home before they missed him; then they turned back, and, after

looking all around, they found the little Jesus standing in the Temple

disputing with the learned men. Then “His mother said unto Him, Son,

why hast Thou thus dealt with us? behold, Thy father and I have sought

Thee sorrowing” (Luke 2:48). And so this prayer represents sinners as

seeking Jesus, but He hides Himself from them, and they look all around,

and hunt, and try to find Him, and wonder where He is, and say: “Lord,

we have sought Jesus these three days sorrowing.” It is a LIE! No sinner

ever sought Jesus with all his heart three days, or three minutes, and could

not find Him. Jesus “stands at the door, and knocks” (Revelation 3:20).

He is right before the sinner, pleading with him, and facing him with all his

false pretenses. Seeking Jesus! The sinner may cry: “Oh, how I am

sorrowing, and seeking Jesus,” but it is no such thing; Jesus is seeking him.

And yet how many oppressed consciences are relieved and comforted by

hearing one of these prayers.

5. “Lord, have mercy on these sinners, who are seeking Thy love to

know.” This is a favorite expression with many; as if sinners were seeking

to know the love of Christ, and could not. No such thing. They are not

seeking the love of Christ, but seeking to get to heaven without Jesus

Christ. As if they were seeking it, and He was so hard-hearted that He

would not let them have it!

6. “Lord, have mercy on these penitent souls”; calling anxious sinners

“penitent souls”! If they are truly penitent, they are Christians. To make

the impression on an unconverted sinner that he is penitent, is to make

him believe a lie. But it is very comforting to the sinner, and he likes to

take it up, and pray it over again: “O Lord, I am a poor penitent soul, I am

very penitent, I am so distressed, Lord, have mercy on a poor penitent.”

Dreadful delusion, to lead an impenitent sinner to pray as a penitent!

7. Sometimes people pray for anxious sinners as “humble souls.” “O Lord,

these sinners have humbled themselves.” But that is not true, they have

not humbled themselves; if they had, the Lord would have raised them up

and comforted them, as He has promised. There is a hymn of this

character that has done much mischief. It begins:

Come, HUMBLE sinner, in whose breast

A thousand thoughts revolve.

This hymn was once given by a minister to an awakened sinner, as one

applicable to his case. He began to read: “Come, humble sinner.” He

stopped: “Humble sinner: that is not applicable to me, I am not a humble

sinner.” Ah, how well was it for him that the Holy Ghost had taught him

better than the hymn! If the hymn had said: “Come, anxious sinner,” or

“guilty sinner,” or “trembling sinner,” it would have been well enough, but

to call him a “humble” sinner would not do. There are vast numbers of

hymns of the same character. It is very common to find sinners quoting

the false sentiments of some hymn, to excuse themselves in rebellion

against God.

A minister told me he heard a prayer, quite lately, in these words: “O

Lord, these sinners have humbled themselves, and come to Thee as well as

they know how; if they knew any better, they would do better; but, O

Lord, as they have come to Thee in the best manner they can, we pray

Thee to accept them and show mercy.” Horrible!

8. Many pray: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”

(Luke 23:34). This is the prayer which Christ made for His murderers;

and, in their case, it was true; they did not know what they were doing, for

they did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. But it cannot be

said of sinners under the Gospel that they do not know what they are

doing. They do know what they are doing. They do not see the full extent

of it; but they do know that they are sinning against God, and rejecting

Christ; and the difficulty is that they are unwilling to submit to God. But

such a prayer is calculated to make the sinner feel relieved, and make him

say: “Lord, how canst Thou blame me so? I am a poor ignorant creature, I

do not know how to do what is required of me; if I knew how, I would do

it.”

9. Another expression is: “Lord, direct these sinners, who are inquiring the

way to Zion with their faces thitherward.” But this language is only

applicable to Christians. Sinners have not their faces towards Zion; their

faces are set towards hell! And how can a sinner be said to be “inquiring

the way” to Zion, when he has no disposition to go there? The real

difficulty is that he is unwilling to WALK in the way in which he knows

he ought to go.

10. People pray that sinners “may have more conviction.” Or, they pray

that sinners may “go home solemn and tender, and take the subject into

consideration,” instead of praying that they may repent now. Or, they

pray as if they supposed the sinner to be willing to do what is required.

All such prayers are just such prayers as the devil wants; he wishes to

have such prayers, and I dare say he does not care how many such are

offered.

Sometimes, in an anxious meeting, or when sinners have been called to the

anxious seats, after the minister has made plain the way of salvation, and

taken away all stumbling blocks out of the path, just when the sinners are

ready to YIELD some one will be called on to pray, and instead of praying

that they may repent now, he begins: “O’ Lord, we pray that these

sinners may be solemn, that they may have a deep sense of their

sinfulness, that they may go home impressed with their lost condition,

that they may attempt nothing in their own strength, that they may not

lose their convictions, and that, in Thine own time and way, they may be

brought into the glorious light and liberty of the sons of God.”

Instead of bringing them right up to the point of immediate submission, on

the spot, it gives them time to breathe, it lessens the pressure of

conviction, so that a sinner breathes freely again, and feels relieved, and

sits down at his ease. Thus, when the sinner is brought up, as it were, and

stands at the gate of the Kingdom, such a prayer, instead of pushing him

in, sets him back again: “There, poor thing, sit there till God helps you.”

11. Christians sometimes pray in such a manner as to make the impression

that CHRIST IS THE SINNER’S FRIEND in a different sense from that

in which God the Father is his Friend. They pray to Christ: “O Thou

Friend of sinners,” as if God were full of vengeance, just going to crush the

poor wretch, till Jesus Christ comes in and takes his part, and delivers

him. Now, this is all wrong. The Father and the Son are perfectly agreed,

their feelings are all the same, and both are equally disposed to have

sinners saved. And to make such an impression deceives the sinner, and

leads to wrong feelings towards God. To represent God the Father as

standing over him, with the sword of justice in His hand, eager to strike

the blow, till Christ interposes, is not right. The Father is as much the

sinner’s Friend as the Son. His compassion is equal. But if the sinner get

this unfavorable idea of God the Father, how is he ever to love Him with

all his heart, so as to say: “Abba, Father”?

12. The impression is often made, by the manner of praying, that you do

not expect sinners to repent now, or that you expect God to fulfill what is

their duty, or that you wish to encourage them to trust in your prayers.

And so, sinners are ruined. Never pray so as to make the impression on

sinners, that you secretly hope they are Christians already, or that you

feel strong confidence they will be, by and by, or that you half believe

they are converted now. This is always unhappy. In this way, multitudes

are deceived with false comfort, and prevented, just at the critical point,

from making the final surrender of themselves to God.

REMARKS.

1. Many persons who deal in this way with anxious sinners, do so from

false pity. They feel so much sympathy and compassion, that they cannot

bear to tell sinners the truth which is necessary to save them. As well

might a surgeon, when he sees that a man’s arm must be amputated, or

death must result, indulge this feeling of false pity, and just put on a

plaster, and give him an opiate. There is no benevolence in that. True

benevolence would lead the surgeon to be cool and calm, and, with a keen

knife, cut the limb off, and save the life. It is false tenderness to do

anything short of that. I once saw a woman under distress of mind, who

for months had been driven well nigh to despair. Her friends had tried all

the false comforts without effect, and they brought her to see a minister.

She was emaciated, and worn out with agony. The minister set his eye

upon her, and poured in the truth upon her mind, and rebuked her in a

most pointed manner. The woman who was with her interfered: she

thought it cruel, and said: “Oh, do comfort her, she is so distressed, do not

trouble her any more, she cannot bear it.” Whereupon the minister turned,

and rebuked her, and sent her away, and then poured in the truth upon the

anxious sinner like fire, so that in five minutes she was converted, and

went home full of joy. The plain truth swept all her false notions away,

and in a few moments she was joyful in God.

2. The treatment of anxious sinners, which ministers such false comforts

is, in fact, cruelty. It is cruel as the grave, as cruel as hell, for it is

calculated to send the sinner down to the burning abyss. Christians feel

compassion for the anxious, and so they ought. But the last thing they

ought to do is to flinch just at the point where it comes to a crisis. They

should feel compassion, but they should show it just as the surgeon does,

when he deliberately goes to work, in the right and best way, and cuts off

the man’s arm, and thus cures him and saves his life. Just so Christians

should let the sinner see their compassion and tenderness, but they should

take God’s part, fully and decidedly. They should lay open to the sinner

the worst of his case, expose his guilt and danger, and then lead him right

up to the cross, and insist on instant submission. They must have

firmness enough to do this work thoroughly; and, if they see the sinner

distressed and in agony, still they must press him right on, and not give

way in the least till he yields.

To do this often requires nerve. I have often been placed in circumstances

where I have realized this. I have found myself surrounded with anxious

sinners, in such distress as to make every nerve tremble; some overcome

with emotion and lying on the floor; some applying camphor to prevent

their fainting; others shrieking out as if they were just going to hell. Now,

suppose any one should give false comfort in such a case as this? Suppose

he had not nerve enough to bring them right up to the point of instant and

absolute submission? How unfit would such a man be, to be trusted in

such a case!

3. Sometimes sinners become deranged through despair and anguish of

mind. Whenever this is the case, it is almost always because those who

deal with them try to encourage them with false comfort, and thus lead

them to such a conflict with the Holy Ghost. They try to hold them up,

while God is trying to break them down. And, by and by, the sinner’s

mind gets confused with this contrariety of influences, and he either goes

deranged, or is driven to despair.

4. If you are going to deal with sinners, remember that you are soon to

meet them in Judgment, therefore be sure to treat them in such a way that

if they are lost, it will be their own fault. Do not try to comfort them with

false notions now, and have them reproach you with it then. Better to

suppress your false sympathy, and let the naked truth “pierce even to the

dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow”

(Hebrews 4:12), than to soothe them with false comfort, and beguile them

away from God!

5. Sinner, if you converse with any Christians, and they tell you to do

anything, first ask: “If I do that, shall I be saved?” You may be anxious,

and not be saved. You may pray, and not be saved. You may read your

Bible, and not be saved. You may use means, in your own way, and not be

saved. Whatever they tell you to do, if you can do it and not be saved, do

not attend to such instructions. They are calculated to give you false

comfort, and divert your attention from the main thing to be done, and

beguile you down to hell. Do not follow any such directions, lest you

should die while doing so, for then there is no retrievement.

Finally; let a Christian never tell a sinner anything, or give him any

direction, that will lead him to stop short of, or that does not include,

submission to God. To let him stop at any point short of this, is infinitely

dangerous. Suppose you are at an anxious meeting, or a prayer meeting,

and you tell a sinner to pray, or to read, or to do anything that comes

short of saving repentance, and he should fall and break his neck that night,

of whom would his blood be required? A youth in New England once met

a minister in the street, and asked him “what he should do to be saved?”

The minister told him to go home, and go into his room, and kneel down

and give his heart to God. “Sir,” said the boy, “I feel so bad, I am afraid I

shall not live to get home.” The minister saw his error, felt the rebuke thus

unconsciously given by a youth, and then told him: “Well, then, give your

heart to God here, and then go home to your room and tell Him of it.”

It is enough to make one’s heart bleed to see so many miserable comforters

for anxious sinners “in whose answers there remaineth falsehood.” What a

vast amount of spiritual quackery there is in the world, and how many

“forgers of lies” there are, “physicians of no value” (Job 13:4) who know

no better than to comfort sinners with false hopes, and delude them with

their “old wives’ fables” (1 Timothy 4:7) and nonsense, or who give way to

false tenderness and sympathy, till they have not firmness enough to see

the sword of the Spirit applied, cutting men to the soul, and laying open

the sinner’s naked heart. Alas, that so many are ever put into the ministry,

who have not skill enough to stand by and see the Spirit of God to do His

work, in breaking up the old foundations, and crushing all the rotten hopes

of a sinner, and breaking him down at the feet of Jesus.

LECTURE XVIII

DIRECTIONS TO SINNERS

What must I do to be saved? – Acts 16:30.

These are the words of the jailer at Philippi – the question which he put

to Paul and Silas, who were then under his care as prisoners. Satan had, in

many ways, opposed these servants of God in their work of preaching the

Gospel, and had been as often defeated and disgraced. But here he devised

a new and peculiar project for frustrating their labors. There was a certain

woman at Philippi, who was possessed with a spirit of divination, or, in

other words, the spirit of the devil, and brought her masters much gain by

her soothsaying. The devil set this woman to follow Paul and Silas about

the streets, and as soon as they had begun to gain the attention of the

people, she would come in and cry: “These men are the servants of the

most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation” (v. 17). That is,

she undertook to second the exhortations of the preachers, and added her

testimony, as if to give additional weight to their instructions.

The effect of it was just what Satan desired. The people all knew that this

was a wicked, base woman; and when they heard her attempting to

recommend this new preaching, they were disgusted, and concluded that it

was all of a piece. The devil knew that it would not do him any good to set

such a person to oppose the preaching of the apostles, or to speak against

it. The time had gone by for that to succeed. And, therefore, he takes the

opposite ground, and by setting her to praise them as the servants of God,

and to bear her polluted testimony in favor of their instructions, he led

people to suppose the apostles were of the same character with her, and

had the same spirit that she had. Paul saw that if things went on so, he

would be totally baffled, and could never succeed in establishing a Church

at Philippi. So he turns round upon her, and commands the foul spirit, in

the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her. “When her masters saw that

the hope of their gains was gone” they raised a great persecution, and

“caught Paul and Silas,” and made a great ado, and brought them before the

magistrates, and raised such a clamor that the magistrates shut up the

messengers of the Gospel in prison, and the jailer “made their feet fast in

the stocks.”

Thus, the enemy thought they had put down the excitement. But “at

midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the

prisoners heard them” (v. 25). This old prison, that had so long echoed to

the voice of blasphemy and oaths, now resounded with the praises of

God; and these walls, that had stood so firm, now trembled under the

power of prayer. The stocks were unloosed, the gates thrown open, and

every one’s bands broken. The jailer was aroused from his sleep, and when

he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword, knowing that if the

prisoners had escaped he must pay for it with his life, and was about to

kill himself. But Paul, who had no notion of escaping clandestinely, cried

out to him instantly: “Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.” And the

jailer “called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down

before his prisoners, Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs,

what must I do to be saved?”

In my last Lecture, I dwelt at some length on the false instructions given to

sinners under conviction, and the false comforts too often administered,

and the erroneous instructions which such persons receive. It is my design

now, to show what are the instructions that should be given to anxious

sinners in order to their speedy and effectual conversion; or, in other

words, to explain to you, what answer should be given to those who make

the inquiry: “What must I do to be saved?” I propose:

I. To show what is not a proper direction to be given to sinners, when

they make the inquiry in the text.

II. To show what is a proper answer to the inquiry.

III. To specify several errors into which anxious sinners are apt to fall.

I. WHAT ARE NOT PROPER DIRECTIONS.

No more important inquiry was ever made than this: “What must I do to

be saved?” Mankind are apt enough to inquire: “What shall I eat, and what

shall I drink?” and the question may be answered in various ways, with

little danger. But when a sinner asks in earnest: “What must I do to be

saved?” it is of infinite importance that he should receive the right answer.

1. No direction should be given to a sinner that will leave him still “in the

gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23). No answer is

proper to be given, by complying with which he would not go to heaven,

if he should die the next moment.

2. No direction should be given that does not include a change of heart, or a

right heart, or hearty obedience to Christ. In other words, nothing is

proper which does not imply actually becoming a Christian. Any other

direction that falls short of this, is of no use. It will not bring him any

nearer to the Kingdom, it will do no good, but will lead him to defer the

very thing which he must do in order to be saved. The sinner should be

told plainly, at once, what he must do if he would not be lost; and he

should be told nothing that does not include a right state of heart.

Whatever you may do, sinner, that does not include a right heart, is sin.

Whether you read the Bible or not, you are in sin, so long as you remain in

rebellion. Whether you go to religious services or stay away; whether you

pray or not, it is nothing but rebellion, every moment. It is surprising that

a sinner should suppose himself to be doing service to God when he

prays, and reads his Bible. Should a rebel against the Government read the

statute-book while he continues in rebellion, and has no design to obey;

should he ask for pardon while he holds on to his weapons of resistance

and warfare; would you think him doing his country a service, and lay it

under obligation to show him favor? No; you would say that all his reading

and praying were only an insult to the majesty both of the lawgiver and

the law. So you, sinner, while you remain in impenitence, are insulting

God, and setting him at defiance, whether you read His Word, and pray, or

let it alone. No matter what place or what attitude your body is in, on

your knees or in the house of God; so long as your heart is not right, so

long as you resist the Holy Ghost, and reject Christ, you are a rebel

against your Maker.

II. WHAT IS A PROPER ANSWER.

Generally, you may give the sinner any direction, or tell him to do

anything, that includes a right heart; and if you make him understand, and

he follows the directions, he will be saved. The Spirit of God, in striving

with sinners, suits His strivings to the state of mind in which He finds

them. His great object in striving with them is, to dislodge them from their

hiding-places, and bring them to submit to God at once. These objections,

difficulties, and states of mind, are as various as the circumstances of

mankind – as many as there are individuals. The characters of individuals

afford an endless diversity. What is to be done with each one, and how he

is to be converted, depends on his particular errors. It is necessary to

ascertain his errors; to find out what he understands, and what he needs to

be taught more perfectly; to see what points the Spirit of God is pressing

upon his conscience, and to press the same things, and thus bring him to

Christ.

The most common directions are the following:

1. It is generally in point, and a safe and suitable direction, to tell a

sinner to repent. I say, generally. For sometimes the Spirit of God seems not

so much to direct the sinner’s attention to his own sins as to some other

thing. In the days of the apostles, the minds of the people seem to have

been agitated mainly on the question, whether Jesus was the true Messiah.

And so the apostles directed much of their instruction to this point, to

prove that he was the Christ. And whenever anxious sinners asked them

what they must do, they most commonly exhorted them to “believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ.” They bore down on this point, because here was

where the Spirit of God was striving, and this was the subject that

especially agitated the minds of the people, and, consequently, this would

probably be the first thing a person would do on submitting to God. It

was the grand point at issue between God and the Jew and Gentile of

those days, whether Jesus Christ was the Son of God. It was the point in

dispute. To bring the sinner to yield this controverted question was the

way the most effectually to humble him.

At other times, it will be found that the Spirit of God is dealing with

sinners chiefly in reference to their own sins. Sometimes He deals with

them in regard to a particular duty, as prayer – perhaps family prayer.

The sinner will be found to be contesting that point with God, whether it

is right for him to pray, or whether he ought to pray in his family. I have

known striking cases of this kind, where the individual was struggling on

this point, and as soon as he fell on his knees to pray, he yielded his heart,

showing that this was the very point which the Spirit of God was

contesting, and the hinge on which his controversy with God all turned.

That was conversion.

The direction to repent is always proper, but will not always be effectual,

for there may be some other thing that the sinner needs to be told also.

And where it is the pertinent direction, sinners need not only to be told to

repent, but to have it explained to them what repentance is. Since there has

been so much mysticism, and false philosophy, and false theology, thrown

round the subject, it has become necessary to tell sinners not only what

you mean by repentance, but also to tell them what you do not mean.

Words that used to be plain, and easily understood, have now become so

perverted that they need to be explained to sinners, or they will often

convey a wrong impression to their minds. This is the case with the word

“repentance.” Many suppose that remorse, or a sense of guilt, is

repentance. Then, hell is full of repentance, for it is full of remorse,

unutterable and eternal. Others feel regret that they have done such a thing,

and they call that repenting. But they only regret that they have sinned,

because of the consequences, and not because they abhor sin. This is not

repentance. Others suppose that convictions of sin and strong fears of hell

are repentance. Others consider the remonstrances of conscience as

repentance; they say: “I never do anything wrong without repenting and

feeling sorry I did it.” Sinners must be shown that all these things are not

repentance. They are not only consistent with the utmost wickedness, but

the devil might have them all and yet remain a devil. Repentance is a

change of mind, as regards God and towards sin. It is not only a change of

views, but a change of the ultimate preference or choice of the soul. It is a

voluntary change, and by consequence involves a change of feeling and of

action toward God and toward sin. It is what is naturally understood by a

change of mind on any subject of interest and importance. We hear that a

man has changed his mind in politics; everybody understands that he has

undergone a change in his views, his feelings, and his conduct. This is

repentance, on that subject: it is a change of mind, but not toward God.

Evangelical repentance is a change of willing, of feeling, and of life, in

respect to God.

Repentance always implies abhorrence of sin. It of course involves the

love of God and the forsaking of sin. The sinner who truly repents does

not feel as impenitent sinners think they should feel at giving up their sins,

if they should become religious. Impenitent sinners look upon religion in

this way: that if they become pious, they should be obliged to stay away

from balls and parties, and obliged to give up theatres, or gambling, or

other things that they now take delight in. And they see not however they

could enjoy themselves, if they should break off from all those things. But

this is very far from being a correct view of the matter, Religion does not

make them unhappy, by shutting them out from things in which they

delight, because the first step in it, is, to repent, to change their mind in

regard to all these things. They do not seem to realize, that the person who

has repented has no disposition for these things; he has given them up, and

turned his mind away from them. Sinners feel as if they should want to go

to such places, and want to mingle in such scenes, just as much as they do

now, and that it will be such a continual sacrifice as to make them

unhappy. This is a great mistake.

I know there are some professors, who would be very glad to betake

themselves to their former practices, were it not that they feel constrained,

by fear of losing their character, or the like. But, mark me: if they feel so,

it is because they have no religion; they do not hate sin. If they desire

their former ways, they have no religion, they have never repented; for

repentance always consists in a change of views and feelings. If they were

really converted, instead of choosing such things, they would turn away

from them with loathing. Instead of lusting after the flesh-pots of Egypt,

and desiring to go into their former circles, parties, balls, and the like,

they would find their highest pleasure in obeying God.

2. Sinners should be told to believe the Gospel. Here, also, they need to

have it explained to them, and to be told what is not faith, and what is.

Nothing is more common, than for a sinner, when told to believe the

Gospel, to say: “I do believe it.” The fact is, he has been brought up to

admit the fact that the Gospel is true, but he does not believe it: he knows

nothing about the evidence of it, and all his faith is a mere admission

without evidence. He holds it to be true, in a kind of loose, indefinite

sense, so that he is always ready to say: “I do believe the Bible.” It is

strange that they do not see that they are deceived in thinking that they

believe, for they must see that they have never acted upon these truths, as

they do upon those things which they do believe. Yet it is often quite

difficult to convince them that they do not believe.

But the fact is, that the careless sinner does not believe the Gospel at all.

The idea that the careless sinner is an intellectual believer, is absurd. The

devil is an intellectual believer, and that is what makes him tremble. What

makes a sinner anxious is, that he begins to be an intellectual believer, and

that makes him feel. No being in heaven, earth, or hell, can intellectually

believe the truths of the Gospel, and not feel on the subject. The anxious

sinner has faith of the same kind with devils, but he has not so much of it,

and, therefore, he does not feel so much. The man who does not feel or act

at all, on the subject of religion, is an infidel, let his professions be what

they may. He who feels nothing, and does nothing, believes nothing. This

is a philosophical fact.

Faith does not consist in an intellectual conviction that Christ died for you

in particular, or in a belief that you are a Christian, or that you ever shall

be, or that your sins are forgiven. But faith is that trust or confidence in

God, and in Christ, which commits the whole soul to Him in all His

relations to us. It is a voluntary trust in His person, His veracity, His

word. This was the faith of Abraham: he had that confidence in what God

said, which led him to act as accepting its truth. This is the way the

apostle illustrates it in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. “Faith is the

substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (v. 1). And

he goes on to illustrate it by various examples. “Through faith we

understand that the worlds were framed” (v. 3); that is, we believe this,

and act accordingly.

Take the case of Noah. Noah was warned of God of things not seen as yet,

that is, he was assured that God was going to drown the world, and he

believed it, and acted accordingly; he prepared an ark to save his family,

and by so doing, he condemned the world that would not believe; his

actions gave evidence that he was sincere. Abraham, too, was called of

God to leave his country, with the promise that he should be the gainer by

it; and he obeyed and went out, without knowing whither he went. Read

the whole chapter, and you will find many instances of the same kind. The

whole design of the chapter is to illustrate the nature of faith, and to show

that it invariably results in action. The sinner should have it explained to

him, and be made to see that the faith which the Gospel requires, is just

that confidence in Christ which leads him to act on what He say as being a

certain fact. This is believing in Christ.

3. Another direction, proper to be given to the sinner, is, that he should

give his heart to God. God says: “My son, give Me thine heart” (Proverbs

23:26). But here also there needs to be explanation, to make him

understand what it is. It is amazing that there should be any darkness here.

It is the language of common life, in everybody’s mouth, and everybody

understands just what it means, when we use it in regard to anything else.

But when it comes to religion, they seem to be all in the dark. Ask a

sinner, no matter what may be his age, or education, what it means to give

the heart to God, and, strange as it may appear, he is at a loss for an

answer. Ask a woman, what it is to give her heart to her husband; or a

man, what it is to give his heart to his wife; and they understand it. But

then they are totally blind as to giving their hearts to God. I suppose I

have asked more than a thousand anxious sinners this question. When I

have told them, they must give their hearts to God, they have always said

that they were willing to do it, and sometimes, that they were anxious to

do it, and they have even seemed to be in an agony of desire about it. Then

I have asked them, what they understood to be meant by giving their

hearts to God, since they were so willing to do it. And very seldom have I

received a correct or rational answer from a sinner of any age. I have

sometimes had the strangest answers that could be imagined.

Now, to give your heart to God is the same thing as to give your heart to

anybody else; the same as for a woman to give her heart to her husband.

Ask that woman if she understands this. “Oh, yes, that is plain enough; it

is to place my affections with him, and strive to please him in everything.”

Very well, place your affections on God, and strive to please Him in

everything. But when they come to the subject of religion, people suppose

there is some wonderful mystery about it. Some talk as if they suppose it

means taking out this bundle of muscles, or fleshy organ, in their bosom,

and giving it to God. Sinner, what God asks of you, is, that you should

love Him supremely.

4. “Submit to God,” is also a proper direction to anxious sinners. And oh,

how dark sinners are here, too! Scarcely a sinner can be found who will not

tell you that he is willing to submit to God. But they do not understand.

They need to be told what true submission is. Sometimes they think it

means that they should be willing to be sent to perdition. Sometimes they

place themselves in this attitude, and call it submission; they say that, if

they are elected they will be saved; and if not, they will be lost. This is not

submission. True submission is yielding obedience to God. Suppose a

rebel, in arms against the Government, is called on to submit, what would

he understand by it? Why, that he should yield the point, and lay down

his arms, and obey the laws. That is just what it means for a sinner to

submit to God. He must cease his strife and conflict against his Maker, and

take the attitude of a willing and obedient child, willing to be and do whatever

God requires. “Here am I” (1 Samuel 3:8); “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to

do?” (Acts 9:6.)

Suppose a company of soldiers had rebelled, and the Government had

raised an army to put them down, and had driven them into a stronghold,

where they were out of provisions, and had no way to escape. Suppose

the rebels to have met, in this extremity, to consider what should be done;

and one rises up, saying: “Well, comrades, I am convinced we are all wrong

from the beginning, and now the reward of our deeds is likely to overtake

us, and we cannot escape; and as for remaining here to die, I am resolved

not to do it; I am going to throw myself on the mercy of the commander in

chief.” That man submits. He ceases from that moment to be a rebel in his

heart, just as soon as he comes to this conclusion. So it is with the sinner

when he yields the point, and consents in his heart to do, and be, whatever

God shall require. The sinner may be in doubt what to do, and may feel

afraid to put himself in God’s hands, thinking that if he does, perhaps God

will send him down to hell, as he deserves. But it is his business to leave

all that question with God, to resist his Maker no longer, to make no

conditions, but to trust wholly to God’s benevolence and wisdom to

appoint his future condition. Until he has done this, he has done nothing

to the purpose.

5. Another proper direction to be given to sinners, is to confess and

forsake their sins. They must confess to God their sins against God, and

confess to men their sins against men; and forsake them all. A man does

not forsake his sins till he has made all the reparation in his power. If he

has stolen money, or defrauded his neighbor out of property, he does not

forsake his sins by merely resolving not to steal any more, not to cheat

again; he must make reparation to the extent of his power. 73 So, if he has

slandered any one, he does not forsake his sin by merely saying he will not

do so again; he must make reparation. So, in like manner, if he has robbed

God, as all sinners have, he must make reparation, as far as he has power.

Suppose a man has made money in rebellion against God, and has withheld

from Him his time, talents, and service, has lived and rioted upon the

bounties of His providence, and refused to lay himself out for the

salvation of the world; he has robbed God. Now, if he should die, feeling

this money to be his own, and should he leave it to his heirs without

consulting the will of God – why, he is just as certain to go to hell as a

highway robber. He has never made any satisfaction to God. With all his

whining and pious talk, he has never confessed HIS SIN to God, nor

forsaken his sin, for he has neither felt nor acknowledged himself to be the

steward of God. If he refuses to hold the property in his possession as the

steward of God; if he accounts it his own, and as such gives it to his

children, he says in effect, to God: “That property is not Thine, it is mine,

and I will give it to my children.” He has continued to persevere in his sin,

for he does not relinquish the ownership of that of which he has robbed

God.

What would a merchant think if his clerk should take all the capital and set

up a store of his own, and die with it in his hands? Will such a man go to

heaven? “No,” you say. God would prove Himself unjust, to let such a

character go unpunished. What, then, shall we say of the man who has

robbed God all his life? God sent him to be His clerk, to manage some of

His affairs, but he has stolen all the money, and says it is his: he keeps it,

and, dying, leaves it to his children, as if it were all his own lawful

property. Has that man forsaken sin? I tell you, No. If he has not

surrendered himself and all he has to God, he has not taken the first step in

the way to heaven.

6. Another proper direction to be given to sinners is: “Choose you this

day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Under the Old Testament

dispensation, this, or something equivalent to it, was the most common

direction given. It was not common to call on men to believe in Christ until

the days of John the Baptist. He baptized those who came to him, with

the baptism of repentance, and directed them to believe on Him who

should come after him. Under Joshua, the text was something which the

people all understood more easily than they would a call to believe on the

distant Messiah; it was: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” On

another occasion, Moses said to them: “I call heaven and earth to record

this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and

cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live”

(Deuteronomy 30:19). The direction was accommodated to the people’s

knowledge. And it is as good now as it was then. Sinners are called upon

to choose – what? Whether they will serve God or the world; whether

they will follow holiness or sin. Let them be made to understand what is

meant by choosing, and what is to be chosen, and then if the thing be done

from the heart, they will be saved.

Any of these directions, if complied with, will constitute true conversion.

The particular exercises may vary in different cases. Sometimes the first

exercise in conversion is submission to God, sometimes repentance,

sometimes faith, sometimes the choice of God and His service; in short,

whatever their thoughts are taken up with at the time. If their thoughts are

directed to Christ at the moment, the first exercise will be faith. If to sin,

the first exercise will be repentance. If to their future course of life, it is

choosing the service of God. If to the Divine government, it is submission.

It is important to find out just where the Holy Spirit is pressing the sinner

at the time, and then take care to push that point. If it is in regard to

Christ, press that; if it is in regard to his future course of life, push him

right up to an immediate choice of obedience to God.

It is a great error to suppose that any one particular exercise is always

foremost in conversion, or that every sinner must have faith first, or

submission first. It is not true, either in philosophy or in fact. There is a

great variety in people’s exercises. Whatever point is taken hold of

between God and the sinner, when the sinner YIELDS that, he is

converted. Whatever the particular exercise may be, if it includes obedience

of heart to God on any point, it is true conversion. When he yields one

point to God’s authority, he is ready to yield all. When he changes his

mind, and obeys in one thing, because it is God’s will, he will obey in

other things, so far as he sees it to be God’s will. Where there is right

choice, then, whenever the mind is directed to any one point of duty, he is

ready to follow. It matters very little which of these directions be given, if

it is only made plain, and if it is to the point, so as to serve as a test of

obedience to God. If it is to the point that the Spirit of God is debating

with the sinner’s mind, so as to fall in with the Spirit’s work, and not to

divert the sinner’s attention from the very point in controversy, let it be

made perfectly clear, and then pressed till the sinner yields, and he will be

saved.

III. ERRORS INTO WHICH ANXIOUS SINNERS ARE APT TO FALL.

1. The first error is, in supposing that they must make themselves better,

or prepare themselves, so as in some way to recommend themselves to the

mercy of God. It is marvelous that sinners will not understand that all

they have to do is to accept salvation, all prepared to their hands, from

God. But they all, learned or unlearned, at first betake themselves to a legal

course to get relief. This is one principal reason why they will not become

Christians at once. They imagine that they must be, in some way or other,

prepared to come. They must change their dress, and make themselves

look a little better; they are not willing to come just as they are, in their

rags and poverty. They must have something more on, before they can

approach God. They should be shown, at once, that it is impossible they

should be any better until they do what God requires. Every pulse that

beats, every breath they draw, they are growing worse, because they are

standing out in rebellion against God, so long as they do not do the very

thing which God requires of them as the first thing to be done.

2. Another error is, in supposing that they must suffer a considerable time

under conviction, as a kind of punishment, before they are properly ready

to come to Christ. So they will pray for conviction; and they think that if

they are ground down to the earth with distress, for a sufficient time, then

God will pity them, and be more ready to help them when He sees them

so very miserable! They should be made to understand clearly that they

are thus unhappy and miserable, merely because they refuse to accept the

relief which God offers.

3. Sometimes sinners imagine they must wait for different feelings before

they submit to God. They say: “I do not think I feel right yet, to accept

Christ; I do not think I am prepared to be converted yet.” They ought to

be made to see that what God requires of them is to will right. If they

obey and submit with the will, the feelings will adjust themselves in due

time. It is not a question of feeling, but of willing and acting.

The feelings are involuntary, and have no moral character except what they

derive from the action of the will, with which action they sympathize.

Before the will is right, the feelings will not be, of course. The sinner

should come to Christ by accepting Him at once; and this he must do, not

in obedience to his feelings, but in obedience to his conscience. Obey,

submit, trust. Give up all instantly, and your feelings will come right. Do

not wait for better feelings, but commit your whole being to God at once,

and this will soon result in the feelings for which you are waiting. What

God requires of you is the present act of your mind, in turning from sin to

holiness, and from the service of Satan to the service of the living God.

4. Another error of sinners is to suppose that they must wait till their

hearts are changed. “What?” say they, “am I to believe in Christ before my

heart is changed? Do you mean that I am to repent before my heart is

changed?” Now, the simple answer to all this is that the change of heart is

the very thing in question. God requires sinners to love Him: that is to

change their hearts. God requires the sinner to believe the Gospel. That is

to change his heart. God requires him to repent. That is to change his

heart. God does not tell him to wait till his heart is changed, and then

repent and believe, and love God. The very word itself, repent, signifies a

change of mind or heart. To do either of these things is to change your

heart, and to “make you a new heart” (Ezekiel 18:31), just as God

requires.

5. Sinners often get the idea that they are perfectly willing to do what God

requires. Tell them to do this thing, or that, to repent, or believe, or give

God their hearts, and they say: “Oh, yes, I am perfectly willing to do that;

I wish I could do it, I would give anything if I could do it.” They ought to

understand that being truly willing is doing it, but there is a difference

between willing and desiring. People often desire to be Christians, when

they are wholly unwilling to be so. When we see anything which appears

to be a good, we are so constituted that we desire it. We necessarily desire

it when it is before our minds. We cannot help desiring it in proportion as

its goodness is presented to our minds. But yet we may not be willing to

have it, under all the circumstances. A man may desire on many accounts

to go to Philadelphia, while, for still more weighty reasons, he chooses not

to go there. So the sinner may desire to be a Christian. He may see that if

he were a Christian he would be a deal more happy, and that he should go

to heaven when he dies; but yet he is not willing to be a Christian.

WILLING to obey Christ is to be a Christian. When an individual actually

chooses to obey God, he is a Christian. But all such desires as do not

terminate in actual choice, are nothing.

6. The sinner will sometimes say that he offers to give God his heart, but

he intimates that God is unwilling. But this is absurd. What does God ask?

Why, that you should love Him. Now for you to say that you are willing

to give God your heart, but that God is unwilling, is the same as saying

that you are willing to love God, but God is not willing to be loved by

you, and will not suffer you to love Him. It is important to clear up all

these points in the sinner’s mind, that he may have no dark and

mysterious corner to rest in, where the truth will not reach him.

7. Sinners sometimes get the idea that they repent, when they are only

convicted. Whenever the sinner is found resting in any LIE let the truth

sweep it away, however much it may pain and distress him. If he has any

error of this kind, you must tear it away from him.

8. Sinners are often wholly taken up with looking at themselves, to see if

they cannot find something there, some kind of feeling or other, that will

recommend them to God. Evidently for want of proper instruction, David

Brainerd was a long time taken up with his state of mind, looking for some

feelings that would recommend him to God. Sometimes he imagined that

he had such feelings, and would tell God, in prayer, that now he felt as he

should, in order to receive His mercy; and then he would see that he had

been all wrong. Thus the poor man, for want of correct instruction, was 74

driven almost to despair, and it is easy to see that his Christian exercises

through life were greatly modified, and his comfort and usefulness much

impaired, by the false philosophy he had adopted on this point. 75 You

must turn the sinner away from himself.

REMARKS.

1. The labor of ministers is greatly increased, and the difficulties in the

way of salvation are greatly multiplied, by the false instructions that have

been given to sinners. The consequence has been that directions which

used to be plain are now obscure. People have been taught so long that

there is something awfully mysterious and unintelligible about conversion,

that they do not try to understand it.

It was once sufficient, as we learn from the Bible, to tell sinners to repent,

or to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; but now, faith has been talked

about as a principle, instead of an act; and repentance as some thing put

into the mind, instead of an exercise of the mind; and sinners are perplexed.

Ministers are charged with preaching heresy, because they presume to

teach that faith is an exercise, and not a principle; and that sin is an act,

and not a part of the constitution of man. And sinners have become so

sophisticated, that you have to be at great pains in explaining, not only

what you do mean, but what you do not mean, otherwise they will be

almost sure to misunderstand you, and either gain a false relief from their

anxiety, by throwing their duty off upon God, or else run into despair

from the supposed impracticability of doing what is requisite for their

salvation. It is often a matter of the greatest difficulty to lead sinners out

of the theological labyrinths and mazes into which they have been deluded,

and to lead them along the straight and simple way of the Gospel. It seems

as if the greatest ingenuity had been employed to mystify the minds of the

people, and to weave a most subtle web of false philosophy, calculated to

involve a sinner in endless darkness. It is necessary to be as plain as A B

C, and the best educated have to be talked to like children. Tell a sinner to

believe, and he stares, saying: “Why, how you talk! Is not faith a

principle? And how am I to believe till I get this principle?” So, if a

minister tells a sinner, in the very words that the apostle used in the great

revival on the Day of Pentecost: “Repent, every one of you” (Acts 2:38),

he is answered: “Oh, I guess you are an Arminian; I do not want any of

your Arminian teaching; do you not deny the Spirit’s influences?” It is

enough to make humanity weep, to see the fog and darkness that have

been thrown around the plain directions of the Gospel.

2. These false instructions to sinners are infinitely worse than none. The

Lord Jesus Christ found it more difficult to get the people to yield up their

false notions of theology than anything else. This has been the great

difficulty with the Jews to this day, that they have received false notions

in theology, have perverted the truth on certain points, and you cannot

make them understand the plainest points in the Gospel. So it is with

sinners: the most difficult thing to be done is to get them away from these

“refuges of lies,” which they have found in false theology. They are so

fond of holding on to these refuges (because they excuse the sinner, and

condemn God), that it is found to be the most perplexing, and difficult,

and discouraging part of a minister’s labor, to drive them out.

3. No wonder the Gospel has taken so little effect, encumbered as it has

been with these strange dogmas. The truth is, that very little of the Gospel

has come out upon the world, for these hundreds of years, without being

clogged and obscured by false theology. People have been told that they

must repent, and, in the same breath, told that they could not repent, until

the truth itself has been all mixed up with error, so as to produce the same

practical effect with error. The Gospel that was preached has been another

gospel, or no gospel at all.

4. You can understand what is meant by “healing slightly the hurt of the

daughter of God’s people” (Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11), and the danger of doing

it. It is very easy, when sinners are under conviction, to say something

that shall smooth over the case, and relieve their anxiety, so that they will

either get a false hope, or will be converted with their views so obscure,

that they will always be poor, feeble, wavering, doubting, inefficient

Christians.

5. Much depends on the manner in which a person is dealt with, when

under conviction. Much of his future comfort and usefulness depends on

the clearness, strength, and firmness with which the directions of the

Gospel are given, when he is under conviction. If those who deal with him

are afraid to use the probe thoroughly, he will always be a poor, sickly,

doubting Christian. The true mode is to deal thoroughly and plainly with

the sinner, to tear away every excuse he can offer, and to show him plainly

what he is and what he ought to be; then he will bless God to all eternity

that he fell in with those who would be so faithful with his soul. For the

want of this thorough and searching management, many are converted who

seem to be stillborn; and the reason is, they never were faithfully dealt

with. We may charitably hope they are Christians, but still it is uncertain

and doubtful: their conversion seems rather a change of opinion than a

change of heart. But if, when sinners are under conviction, you pour in the

truth, put in the probe, break up the old foundations, sweep away their

“refuges of lies,” and use the Word of God like fire and like a hammer, you

will find that they will come out with clear views, and strong faith, and

firm principles – not doubting, halting, irresolute Christians, but such as

follow the Lord wholly. That is the way to make strong Christians. This

has been eminently the case in many revivals of modern days.

I have heard old Christians say of the converts: “These converts have, at

the very outset, all the clearness of view, and strength of faith, of old

Christians. They seem to understand the doctrines of religion, and to know

what to do, and how to promote revivals, better than one in a hundred of

the old members in the Church.”

I once knew a young man who was converted away from home. The place

where he lived had no minister, and no preaching, and no religion. He went

home three days after he was converted, and immediately set himself to

work to labor for a revival. He set up meetings in his neighborhood, and

prayed and labored, and a revival broke out – of which he had the

principal management throughout a powerful work, in which most of the

principal men of the place were converted. The truth was, he had been so

dealt with that he knew what he was about. He understood the subject and

knew where he stood himself. He was not all the while troubled with

doubts, whether he was himself a Christian. He knew that he was serving

God, and that God was with him, and so he went boldly and resolutely

forward to his object. But if you undertake to make converts, without

clearing up all their errors and tearing away their false hopes, you may

make a host of hypocrites, or of puny, dwarfish Christians, always

doubting and easily turned back from a revival spirit, and worth nothing.

The way is, to bring them right out to the light. When a man is converted

in this way, you can depend on him, and will know where to find him.

6. Protracted seasons of conviction are generally owing to defective

instruction. Wherever clear and faithful instructions are given to sinners,

there you will generally find that convictions are deep and pungent, but

short.

7. Where clear and discriminating instructions are given to convicted

sinners, if they do not soon submit, their convictions will generally leave

them. Convictions in such cases are generally short. Where the truth is

brought to bear upon the sinner’s mind, and he directly resists the very

truth that must convert him, there is nothing more to be done. The Spirit

will soon leave him, for the very weapons He uses are resisted. Where

instructions are not clear, but are mixed up with errors, the Spirit may

strive, even for years, in great mercy, to get sinners through the fog of false

instruction; but not so where their duty is clearly explained to them, and

they are brought right up to the single point of immediate submission, all

their false pretenses being exposed, and the path of duty made perfectly

plain. Then, if they do not submit, the Spirit of God forsakes them, and

their state is well-nigh hopeless.

If there be sinners in this house, and you see your duty clearly, TAKE

CARE how you delay. If you do not submit, you may expect the Spirit of

God will forsake you, and you are LOST.

8. A vast deal of the direction given to anxious sinners amounts to little

less than the popish doctrine of indulgences. The Pope used to sell

indulgences to sin, and this led to the Reformation under Luther.

Sometimes people would purchase an indulgence to sin for a certain time,

or to commit some particular sin, or a number of sins. Now, there is a vast

deal in Protestant Churches which is little less than the same thing. What

does it differ from this, to tell a sinner to wait? It amounts to telling him to

continue in sin for a while longer, while he is waiting for God to convert

him. And what is that but an indulgence to commit sin? Any direction

given to sinners that does not require them immediately to obey God is an

indulgence to sin. It is in effect giving them liberty to continue in sin

against God. Such directions are not only wicked, but ruinous and cruel. If

they do not destroy the soul, as no doubt they often do, they defer, at all

events, the sinner’s enjoyment of God and of Christ, and he stands a great

chance of being lost for ever, while listening to such instructions. Oh, how

dangerous it is to give a sinner reason to think he may wait a moment,

before giving his heart to God!

9. So far as I have had opportunity to observe, those persons with whom

conversion was most sudden have commonly turned out to be the best

Christians. I know the reverse of this has often been held and maintained.

But I am satisfied there is no reason for it, although multitudes, even now,

regard it as a suspicious circumstance, if a man has been converted very

suddenly. But the Bible gives no warrant for this supposition. There is not

a case of protracted conviction recorded in the whole Bible. All the

conversions recorded there are sudden conversions. And I am persuaded

there never would be such multitudes of tedious convictions which often

end in nothing, after all, if it were not for those theological perversions

which have filled the world with Cannot-ism. In Bible days, sinners were

told to repent, and they did it then. Cannot-ism had not been broached in

that day. It is this speculation about the inability of sinners to obey God,

that lays the foundation for all the protracted anguish and distress, and

perhaps ruin, into which so many are led. Where a sinner is brought to see

what he has to do, and he takes his stand at once, AND DOES IT, you

generally find that such a person proves a decided character. You will not

find him one of those that you always have to warp up to duty, like a

ship, against wind and tide. Look at those professors who always have to

be dragged forward in duty, and you will generally find that they had not

clear and consistent directions when they were converted. Most likely,

too, they will be very much “afraid of these sudden conversions.”

Afraid of sudden conversions! Some of the best Christians of my

acquaintance were convicted and converted in the space of a few minutes.

In one-quarter of the time that I have been speaking, many of them were

awakened, and came right out on the Lord’s side, and have been shining

lights in the Church ever since, and have generally manifested the same

decision of character in religion that they did when they first came out and

took a stand on His side.

LECTURE XIX

INSTRUCTIONS TO CONVERTS

Feed My lambs. – John 2:15.

Those who read their Bibles will recollect the connection in which these

words occur, and by whom they were spoken. They were addressed by

the Lord Jesus Christ to Peter, after he had denied his Lord, and had

subsequently professed repentance. Our Lord asked him this question, to

remind him, in an affecting manner, at once of his sin and of the love of

Christ: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these?” –

strongly implying a doubt whether he did love Him. Peter answers: “Yea,

Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” Then Christ said unto Him: “Feed

My lambs”; and repeated the question, as if He would read his inmost

soul: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?” Peter was still firm, and

promptly answered again: “Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.”

Jesus still asked him the question again, the third time, emphatically. He

seemed to urge the point, as if He would search his inmost thoughts, to see

whether Peter would ever deny Him again. Peter was touched; he was

“grieved,” it is said; he did not fly into a passion, nor did he boast, as

formerly: “Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee”

(Matthew 26:35); but he was grieved; he was subdued; he spoke tenderly;

he appealed to the Savior Himself, as if he would implore Him not to

doubt his sincerity any longer: “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou

knowest that I love Thee.” Christ then gave him his final charge: “Feed

My sheep” (v. 17).

By the terms “sheep” and “lambs” the Savior undoubtedly designated

Christians, members of His Church; the lambs probably represent young

converts, those that have but little experience and but little knowledge of

religion, and therefore need to have special attention and pains taken with

them, to guard them from harm, and to train them for future usefulness.

And when our Savior told Peter to feed His sheep, He doubtless referred

to the important part which Peter was to perform in watching over the

newly-formed Churches in different parts of the world, and in training the

young converts, and leading them along to usefulness and happiness.

My last Lecture was on the subject of giving right instruction to anxious

sinners; this naturally brings me to consider the manner in which young

converts should be treated, and the instructions that should be given to

them.

In speaking on this subject it is my design to state:

I. Several things that ought to be considered, in regard to the hopes of

young converts.

II. Several things respecting their making a profession of religion, and

joining the Church.

III. The importance of having correct instruction given to young converts.

IV. What should not be taught to young converts.

V. What particular things are specially necessary to be taught to young

converts.

VI. How young converts should be treated by Church members.

I. THE HOPES OF YOUNG CONVERTS.

1. Nothing should be said to create a hope. That is to say, nothing should

ordinarily be intimated to persons under conviction calculated to make

them think they have experienced religion, till they find it out themselves.

I do not like this term, “experienced religion,” and I use it only because it

is a phrase in common use. It is an absurdity in itself What is religion?

Obedience to God. Suppose you should hear a good citizen say he had

experienced obedience to the Government of the country! You see that it

is nonsense. Or suppose a child should talk about experiencing obedience

to his father. If he knew what he was saying, he would say he had obeyed

his father; just as the apostle Paul says to the Roman believers: “Ye have

obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you”

(Romans. 6:17).

What I mean to say is that ordinarily it is best to let their hope or belief

that they are converted spring up spontaneously in their own minds.

Sometimes it will happen that persons may be really converted, but,

owing to some notions which they have been taught about religion, they

do not realize it. Their views of what religion is, and its effect upon the

mind, are so entirely wide of the truth that they do not think they have it.

I will give you an illustration on this point.

Some years since, I labored in a place where a revival was in progress, and

there was in the place a young lady from Boston. She had been brought up

a Unitarian. She was a person of considerable education, and was

intelligent on many subjects; but on the subject of religion she was very

ignorant. At length she was convicted of sin. She became awfully

convinced of her horrible enmity against God. She had been so educated as

to have a sense of propriety; but her enmity against God became so great,

and broke out so frightfully, that it was horrible to hear her talk. She used

to come to the anxious meetings, where we conversed with each person

separately; and her feelings of opposition to God were such that she used

to create disturbance. By the time I came within two or three seats of her,

where she could hear what I said in a low voice to the others, she would

begin to make remarks in reply, so that they could be heard. And she

would say the most bitter things against God, against His providence, and

His method of dealing with mankind, as if God were an infinite tyrant. I

would try to hush her, and make her keep still, because she distracted the

attention of others. Sometimes she would stop and command her temper

for a time, and sometimes she would rise and go out. I have seldom seen a

case where the enmity of the heart rose so high against God. One night, at

the anxious meeting, after she had been very restless, as I went towards

her, she began as usual to reply, but I hushed her, and told her I could not

converse with her there. I invited her to see me the next morning, when I

told her I would talk with her. She promised to come; but, said she: “God

is unjust – He is infinitely unjust. Is He not almighty? Why, then, has He

never shown me my enmity before? Why has He let me run on so long?

Why does He let my friends at Boston remain in this ignorance? They are

the enemies of God as much as I am, and they are going to hell. Why does

He not show them the truth in regard to their condition?” And in this

temper she left the room.

The next morning she came to see me, as she had promised. I saw, as soon

as she came in, that her countenance was changed, but I said nothing about

it. “Oh,” said she, “I have changed my mind, as to what I said last night

about God; I do not think He has done me any wrong, and I think I shall

‘get religion’ some time, for now I love to think about God. I have been all

wrong; the reason why I had never known my enmity before was that I

would not. I used to read the Bible, but I always passed over the passages

that would make me feel as if I were a lost sinner; and those passages that

spoke of Jesus Christ as God I passed over without consideration; but

now I see that it was my fault, not God’s fault, that I did not know any

more about myself; I have changed my mind now.” She had no idea that

this was religion, but she was encouraged now to expect religion at some

future time, because she loved God so much. I said nothing to make her

imagine that I thought her a Christian, but left her to find it out. And, for a

time, her mind was so entirely occupied with thinking about God that she

never seemed to ask whether she “had religion” or not.

It is a great evil, ordinarily, to encourage persons to hope they are

Christians. Very likely you may judge prematurely. Or if not, it is better,

in any case, that they should find it out for themselves – that is,

supposing they do not see it at once.

2. When persons express a hope, and yet express doubts, too, it is

generally because the work is not thorough. If they are converted, they

need breaking up. They are still lingering around the world, or they have

not broken off effectually from their sins, and they need to be pushed

back, rather than urged forward. If you see reason to doubt, or if you find

that they have doubts, most probably there is some good reason to doubt.

Sometimes persons express a hope in Christ, and afterwards remember

some sin that needs to be confessed to men; or some case where they have

slandered, or defrauded, where it is necessary to make satisfaction, and

where either their character, or their purse, is so deeply implicated that

they hesitate, and refuse to perform their duty. This grieves the Spirit,

brings darkness over their minds, and justly leads them to doubt whether

they are truly converted. If a soul is truly converted, it will generally be

found that, where there are doubts, there is on some point a neglect of

duty. They should be searched as with a lighted candle, and brought up to

the performance of duty, and not suffered to hope until they do it.

Ordinarily, it is proper just there to throw in some plain and searching

truth, that will go through them, something that will wither their false

hopes. Do it while the Spirit of God is dealing with them, and do it in a

right way, and there is no danger of its doing harm.

To illustrate this: I knew a person who was a member of the Church, but

an abominable hypocrite – proved to be so by her conduct, and

afterwards fully confessed to be so. In a revival of religion she was

awakened and deeply convicted, and after a while she got a hope. She went

to a minister to talk with him about her hope, and he poured the truth into

her mind in such a manner as to annihilate all her hopes. She then remained

under conviction many days, and at last she broke out in hope again. The

minister knew her temperament, and knew what she needed, and he tore

away her hope again. Then she broke down. So deeply did the Spirit of

God PROBE her heart that, for a time, it took away all her bodily

strength. Then she came out subdued. Before, she had been one of the

proudest of rebels against God’s government, but now she became

humbled, and was one of the most modest, tender, and lovely of

Christians. No doubt that was just the way to deal with her. It was just

the treatment that her case required.

It is often useful to deal with individuals in this way. Some persons are

naturally unamiable in their temper, and unlovely in their deportment. And

it is particularly important that such persons should be dealt with most

thoroughly whenever they first begin to express hope in Christ. Unless the

work with them is, in the first place, uncommonly deep and thorough,

they will be vastly less useful, and interesting, and happy, than they

would have been had the probe been thoroughly and skillfully applied to

their hearts. If they are encouraged at first, without being thoroughly dealt

with; if they are left to go on as though all were well; if they are not

sufficiently probed and broken down, these unlovely traits of character

will remain unsubdued, and will be always breaking out, to the great injury

both of their personal peace and their general influence and usefulness as

Christians.

It is important to take advantage of such characters while they are just in

these peculiar circumstances, so that they can be molded into proper form.

Do not spare, though it should be a child, or a brother, or a husband, or a

wife. Let it be a thorough work. If they express a hope, and you find they

bear the image of Christ, they are Christians. But if it should appear

doubtful – if they do not appear to be fully changed, just tear away their

hope, by searching them with discriminating truth, and leave the Spirit to

do the work more deeply. If still the image is not perfect, do it again –

break them down into a childlike spirit, and then let them hope. They will

then be clear and thorough Christians. By such a mode of treatment I have

often known people of the crookedest and most hateful natural character

so transformed, in the course of a few days, that they appeared like

different beings. You would think the work of a whole life of Christian

cultivation had been done at once. Doubtless this was the intent of our

Savior’s dealing with Peter. He had been converted, but became puffed up

with spiritual pride and self confidence, and then he fell. After that, Christ

broke him down again by three times searching him with the inquiry:

“Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?” After which he seems to have

been a stable and devoted saint the rest of his days.

3. There is no need of young converts having or expressing doubts as to

their conversion. There is no more need of a person doubting whether he is

now in favor of God’s government than there is for a man to doubt

whether he is in favor of our Government or another. It is, in fact, on the

face of it, absurd for a person to talk of doubting on such a point, if he is

intelligent and understands what he is talking about. It has long been

supposed to be a virtue, and a mark of humility, for a person to doubt

whether he is a Christian, but this notion that there is virtue in doubting is

a device of the devil. “I say, neighbor, are you in favor of our Government,

or do you prefer that of Russia?” “Why, I have some hopes that I love our

own Government, but I have many doubts.” Wonderful! “Woman, do you

love your children?” “Why, sir, I sometimes have a trembling hope that I

love them, but you know the best have doubts.” “Wife, do you love your

husband?” “I do not know – I sometimes think I do, but you know the

heart is deceitful, and we ought to be careful and not be too confident.”

Who would have such a wife? “Man, do you love your wife, do you love

your family?” “Ah, you know we are poor creatures, we do not know our

own hearts. I think I do love them, but perhaps I am deceived.”

Ridiculous!

Ordinarily, the very idea of a person expressing doubts renders his piety

truly doubtful. A real Christian has no need to doubt; and when one is full

of doubts, ordinarily you ought to doubt for him and help him doubt.

Affection to God is as much a matter of consciousness as any other

affection. A woman knows she loves her child. How? By consciousness.

She is conscious of the exercise of this affection. And she sees it carried

into action every day. In the same way a Christian may know that he

loves God; by his consciousness of this affection, and by seeing that it

influences his daily conduct.

In the case of young converts, truly such, these doubts generally arise

from their having been wrongly dealt with, and not sufficiently taught, or

not thoroughly humbled. In any case they should never be left in such a

state, but should be brought to such a thorough change that they will

doubt no longer.

It is inconsistent with usefulness for a Christian to be always entertaining

doubts; it not only makes him gloomy, but it makes his religion a

stumbling block to sinners. What do sinners think of such a religion? They

say: “These converts are afraid to think they have got anything real; they

are always doubting whether it is a reality, and they ought to know

whether there is anything in it or not. If it is anything, these people seem

to have it, but I am inclined to think it rather doubtful. At any rate, I will

let it pass for the present; I do not believe God will condemn me for not

attending to that which appears so uncertain.” No, a settled hope in Christ

is indispensable to usefulness; and therefore you should deal so with

young converts, as to lead them to a consistent, well-grounded, stable

hope. Ordinarily, this may be done, if pursued wisely, at the proper time,

and that is at the commencement of their religious life. They should not be

left till it is done.

I know there are exceptions; there are cases where the best instructions

will be ineffectual; but these depend on the state of the health, and the

condition of the nervous system. Sometimes you find a person incapable

of reasoning on a certain topic, and so his errors will not yield to

instruction. But most commonly they mistake the state of their own

hearts, because they judge under the influence of a physical disease.

Sometimes persons under a nervous depression will go almost into

despair. Persons who are acquainted with physiology would easily explain

the matter. The only way to deal with such cases is first to recruit their

health, and get their nervous system into a proper tone, and thus remove

the physical cause of their gloom and depression; then they will be able to

receive and apply your instructions. But if you cannot remove their gloom

and doubts and fears in this way, you can at least avoid doing the positive

harm that is wrought by giving wrong instructions.

I have known even experienced Christians to have fastened upon them the

error of thinking it was necessary, or was virtuous, or a mark of humility,

to be always in doubt; and Satan would take advantage of it, and of the

state of their health, and drive them almost to despair. You ought to guard

against this, by avoiding the error when teaching young converts. Teach

them that instead of there being any virtue in doubting, it is a sin to have

any reason to doubt, and a sin if they doubt without any reason, and a sin

to be gloomy and to disgust sinners with their despondency. And if you

teach them thoroughly what religion is, and make them SEE CLEARLY

what God wishes to have them do, and lead them to do it promptly and

decidedly, ordinarily they will not be harassed with doubts and fears, but

will be clear, openhearted, cheerful, and growing Christians – an honor to

the religion they profess, and a blessing to the Church and the world.

II. MAKING A PROFESSION OF RELIGION.

I proceed to mention some things worthy of consideration in regard to

young converts making a profession of religion, or joining the Church.

1. Young converts should, ordinarily, offer themselves for admission to

some Church of Christ immediately. By “immediately,” I mean that they

should do it the first opportunity they have. They should not wait. If

they set out in religion by waiting, most likely they will always be

waiting, and never do anything to much purpose. If they are taught to wait

under conviction, before they give themselves to Christ; or if they are

taught to wait after conversion, before, by joining the Church, they give

themselves publicly to God, they will probably go halting and stumbling

through life. The first thing they should be taught, always is: NEVER

WAIT, WHERE GOD HAS POINTED OUT YOUR DUTY. We profess

to have given up the waiting system; let us carry it through and be

consistent.

2. While I say it is the duty of young converts to offer themselves to the

Church immediately, I do not say that, in all cases, they should be received

immediately. The Church has an undoubted right to assume the

responsibility of receiving them immediately or not. If the Church is not

satisfied in the case, it has the power to bid candidates wait till inquiries

can be made as to their character and their sincerity. This is more

necessary in large cities than it is in the country, because so many

applications are received from persons who are entire strangers. But if the

Church thinks it necessary to postpone an applicant, the responsibility is

not his. He has not postponed obedience to the dying command of Christ,

and so he has not grieved the Spirit, and so he may not be essentially

injured if he is faithful in other respects. Whereas, if he had neglected the

duty voluntarily, he would soon have got into the dark, and would very

likely have backslidden.

If there is no particular reason for delay, ordinarily the Church ought to

receive them when they apply. If they are sufficiently instructed on the

subject of religion to know what they are doing, and if their general

character is such that they can be trusted as to their sincerity and honesty

in making a profession, I see no reason why they should be delayed. But if

there are sufficient reasons, in the view of the Church, for making them

wait a reasonable time, let the Church so decide, on its responsibility to

Jesus Christ. It should be remembered, however, what is the responsibility

which the Church thereby assumes, and that if those are kept out of the

Church who ought to be in it, the Holy Spirit is grieved.

It is impossible to lay down particular rules on this subject, applicable to

all cases. There is so great a variety of reasons which may warrant keeping

persons back, that no general rules can reach them all. Our practice, in this

Church, is to propound persons for a month after they make application,

before they are received into full communion. The reason of this is, that

the Session may have opportunity to inquire respecting individuals who

offer themselves, as so many of them are strangers. But in the country,

where there are regular congregations, and all the people have been

instructed from their youth in the doctrines of religion, and where

everybody is perfectly known, the case is different, and ordinarily I see no

reason why persons of good character should not be admitted

immediately. If a person has not been a drunkard, or otherwise of bad

character, let him be admitted at once, as soon as he can give a rational and

satisfactory account of the hope that is in him.

That is evidently the way the apostles did. There is not the least evidence

in the New Testament that they ever put off a person who wanted to be

baptized and to join the Church. I know this does not satisfy some

people, because they think the case is different. But I do not see it so.

They say the apostles were inspired. That is true; but it does not follow

that they were so inspired to read the characters of men, as to be

prevented from making mistakes in this matter. On the other hand, we

know they were not inspired in this way, for we know they did make

mistakes, just as ministers may do now; and, therefore, it is not true that

their being inspired men alters the case on this point. Simon Magus was

supposed to be a Christian, and was baptized and admitted into

communion, remaining in good standing until he undertook to purchase the

Holy Ghost with money.

The apostles used to admit converts from heathenism immediately, and

without delay. If they could receive persons who, perhaps, never heard

more than one Gospel sermon, and who never had a Bible, nor ever

attended a Sabbath School or Bible Class in their lives, surely it is not

necessary to create an outcry and alarm, if a Church should think proper

to receive persons of good character, who have had the Bible all their lives,

and have been trained in the Sabbath School, and have sat under the

preaching of the Gospel, and who, therefore, may be supposed to

understand what they are about, and not to profess what they do not feel.

I know it may be said that persons who make a profession of religion now,

are not obliged to make such sacrifices for their religion as the early

believers were, and, consequently, people may be more ready to play the

hypocrite. And, to some extent, that is true. But then, on the other hand, it

should be remembered that, with the instructions which they have on the

subject of religion, they are not so easily led to deceive themselves, as

those who were converted without the precious advantages of a religious

education. They may be strongly tempted to deceive others, but I insist

that, with the instructions which they have received, the converts of these

great revivals are not half so liable to deceive themselves, and take up with

a false hope, as were those in the days of the apostles. And on this ground

I believe that those Churches that are faithful in dealing with young

converts, and that exhibit habitually the power of religion, are not likely to

receive so many unconverted persons as the apostles did.

It is important that the Churches should act wisely on this point. Great

evil has been done by this practice of keeping persons out of the Church a

long time in order to see if they were Christians. This is almost as absurd

as it would be to throw a young child out into the street, to see whether it

will live; to say: “If it lives, and promises to be a healthy child, we will

take care of it,” when that is the very time it wants nursing and taking care

of, the moment when the scale is turning whether it shall live or die. Is that

the way to deal with young converts? Should the Church throw her

new-born children out to the winds, and say: “If they live there, let them

be taken care of; but if they die there, then they ought to die”? I have not a

doubt that thousands of converts, in consequence of this treatment, have

gone through life without joining any Church, but have lingered along, full

of doubts and fears, and darkness, and in this way have spent their days,

and gone to the grave without the comforts and usefulness which they

might have enjoyed, simply because the Church, in her folly, has suffered

them to wait outside the pale, to see whether they would grow and thrive,

without those ordinances which Jesus Christ established particularly for

their benefit.

Jesus Christ says to His Church: “Here, take these lambs, and feed them,

and shelter them, and watch over them, and protect them”: and what does

the Church do? Why, turn them out alone upon the cold mountains, among

the wild beasts, to starve or perish, to see whether they are alive or not!

The whole system is as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. Did Jesus

Christ tell His Churches to do so? Did the God of Abraham teach any

such doctrine as this, in regard to the children of Abraham? Never. He

never taught us to treat young converts in such a barbarous manner. The

very way to lead them into doubts and darkness, is to keep them away

from the Church, from its fellowship, and its ordinances.

I have understood there is a Church which has passed a resolution that no

young converts shall be admitted till they have “had a hope” for at least

six months. Where did they get any such rule? Not from the Bible, nor

from the example of the early Churches.

3. In examining young converts for admission their consciences should not

be ensnared by examining them too extensively or minutely on doctrinal

points. From the manner in which examinations are conducted in some

Churches, it would seem as if they expected that young converts would be

all at once acquainted with the whole system of divinity, and able to

answer every puzzling question in theology. The effect of it is that young

converts are perplexed and confused, and give their assent to things they

do not understand, and thus their conscience is ensnared, and consequently

weakened. Why, one great design of receiving young converts into the

Church is to teach them doctrines; but if they are to be kept out of the

Church until they understand the whole system of doctrines, this end is

defeated. Will you keep them out till one main design of receiving them is

accomplished by other means? It is absurd. There are certain cardinal

doctrines of Christianity, which are embraced in the experience of every

true convert; and these young converts will testify to them, on

examination, if questioned in such a way as to draw out knowledge, and

not in such a way as to puzzle and confound. The questions should be

such as are calculated to draw out from them what they have learned by

experience, and not what they may have got in theory before or since their

conversion. The object is, not to find out how much they know, or how

good scholars they are in divinity, as you would examine a school; it is to

find out whether they have a change of heart, to learn whether they have

experienced the great truths of religion by their power in their own

souls. 76 You see therefore how absurd, and injurious too, it must be, to

examine, as is sometimes done, like a lawyer at the bar cross-examining a

suspicious witness. It should rather be like a faithful physician anxious to

find out his patient’s true condition, and therefore leading him, by

inquiries and hints, to disclose the real symptoms of the case.

You will always find, if you put your questions rightly, that real converts

will see clearly those great fundamental points – the Divine authority of

the Scriptures, the necessity of the influences of the Holy Spirit, the Deity

of Christ, the doctrines of total depravity and regeneration, the necessity

of the atonement, justification by faith, and the justice of the eternal

punishment of the wicked. By a proper course of inquiries you will find

all these points come out, if you put your questions in such a way that

they are understood.

A Church Session in this city has, as we are informed, passed a vote, that

no person shall join that Church till he will give his assent to the whole

Presbyterian Confession of Faith, and adopt it as his “rule of faith and

practice and Christian obedience.” That is, they must read the book

through, which is about three times as large as this hymn-book which I

hold, and must understand it, and agree to it all, before they can be

admitted to the Church, before they can make a profession of religion, or

obey the command of Christ. By what authority does a Church say that

no one shall join their communion till he understands all the points and

technicalities of this long Confession of Faith? Is that their charity, to

cram this whole Confession of Faith down the throat of a young convert,

before they let him so much as come to the Communion? He says: “I love

the Lord Jesus Christ, and wish to obey His command.” “Very well, but

do you understand and adopt the Confession of Faith?” He says: “I do not

know, for I never read that, but I have read the Bible, and I love that, and

wish to follow the directions in it, and to come to the table of the Lord.”

“Do you love the Confession of Faith? If not, you SHALL NOT COME,”

is the reply of this charitable Session; “you shall not sit down at the

Lord’s table till you have adopted all this Confession of Faith.” Did Jesus

Christ ever authorize a Church Session to say this – to tell that child of

God, who stands there with tears, and asks permission to obey his Lord,

and who understands the grounds of his faith, and can give a satisfactory

reason of his hope – to tell him he cannot join the Church till he

understands the Confession of Faith? Shut the door against young

converts till they swallow the Confession of Faith! Will such a Church

prosper? Never!

No Church on earth has a right to impose its extended Confession of Faith

on a young convert who admits the fundamentals of religion. They may let

the young convert know their own faith on ever so many points, and they

may examine him, if they think it necessary, as to his belief; but suppose

he has doubts on some points not essential to Christian experience, – the

doctrine of Infant Baptism, or of Election, or the Perseverance of the

Saints; and suppose he honestly and frankly tells you he has not made up

his mind concerning these points? Has any minister or Church a right to

say, he shall not come to the Lord’s table till he has finished all his

researches into these subjects, that he shall not obey Christ till he has fully

made up his mind on such points, on which Christians, and devoted ones

too, differ among themselves? I would sooner cut off my right hand than

debar a convert under such circumstances. I would teach a young convert

as well as I could in the time before he made his application, and I would

examine him candidly as to his views, and after he was in the Church I

would endeavor to make him grow in knowledge as he grows in grace. And

by just as much confidence as I have that my own doctrines are the

doctrines of God, I should expect to make him adopt them, if I could have

a fair hearing before his mind. But I never would bid one whom I

charitably believed to be a child of God, to stay away from his Father’s

table, because he did not see all I see, or believe all I believe, through the

whole system of divinity. The thing is utterly irrational, ridiculous, and

wicked.

4. Sometimes persons who are known to entertain a hope dare not make a

profession of religion for fear they should be deceived. I would always

deal decidedly with such cases. A hope that will not warrant a profession

of religion is manifestly worse than no hope, and the sooner it is torn

away the better. Shall a man hope he loves God, and yet not obey Jesus

Christ? Preposterous! Such a hope had better be given up at once.

5. Sometimes persons professing to be converts will make an excuse for

not joining the Church, that they can enjoy religion just as well without it.

This is always suspicious. I should look out for such characters. It is

almost certain they have no religion. Ordinarily, if a person does not desire

to be associated with the people of God, he is rotten at the foundation. It

is because he wants to keep out of the responsibilities of a public

profession. He has a feeling within him that he had rather be free, so that

he can, by and by, go back to the world again, if he likes, without the

reproach of instability or hypocrisy. Enjoy religion just as well without

obeying Jesus Christ! It is false on the face of it. He overlooks the fact

that religion consists in obeying Jesus Christ.

III. THE IMPORTANCE OF GIVING RIGHT INSTRUCTION.

Ordinarily, the Christian character of converts throughout life is molded

and fashioned according to the manner in which they are dealt with when

first converted. There are many who have been poorly taught at first, but

have been afterwards re-converted, and if they are then properly dealt

with, they may be made something of. But the proper time to do this is

when they are first brought in, when their minds are soft and tender, and

easily yield to the truth. Then they may be led with a hair, if they think it

is the truth of God. And whatever notions in religion they then get, they

are apt to cleave to forever afterwards. It is almost impossible to get a man

away from the notions he acquires when he is a young convert. You may

reason him down, but he cleaves to them. How often is it the case where

persons have been taught certain things when first converted, that if they

afterwards get a new minister who teaches somewhat differently, they will

rise up against him as if he were going to subvert the faith, carry away the

Church into error, and throw everything into confusion. Thus you see that

young converts are thrown into the hands of the Church, and it devolves

upon the Church to mold them, and form them into Christians of the right

stamp. To a large extent, their future comfort and usefulness depend on

the manner in which they are instructed at the outset. The future character

of the Church, the progress of revivals, the coming of the millennium,

depend on right instruction being imparted, and a right direction of thought

and life given, to those who are young converts.

IV. THINGS WHICH SHOULD NOT BE TAUGHT.

1. “You will not always feel as you do now.” When the young convert is

rejoicing in his Savior, and calculating to live for the glory of God and the

good of mankind, how often is he met with this reply: “You will not

always feel so.” Thus, his mind is prepared to expect that he shall

backslide, and not to be much surprised when he does. This is just the

way the devil wants young converts dealt with, to have old Christians tell

them: “Your feelings will not last, but, by and by, you will be as cold as

we are.” It has made my heart bleed to see it. When the young convert has

been pouring out his warm heart to some old professor, and expecting the

warm burstings of a kindred spirit responding to his own, what does he

meet with? This cold answer, coming like a northern blast over his soul:

“You will not always feel so.” SHAME! Just preparing the young convert

to expect that he shall backslide as a matter of course; so that when he

begins to decline, as under the very influences of this instruction it is most

likely he will, it produces no surprise or alarm in his mind, but he looks at

it just as a thing of course, doing as everybody else does.

I have heard it preached as well as expressed in prayer, that seasons of

backsliding are “necessary to test the Church.” They say: “When it rains,

you can find water anywhere: it is only in seasons of drought that you can

tell where the deep springs are.” Wonderful logic! And so you would teach

that Christians must get cold and stupid, and backslide from God – and

for what reason? Why, forsooth, to show that they are not hypocrites.

Amazing! You would prove that they are hypocrites in order to show that

they are not.

Such doctrine as this is the very last that should be taught to young

converts. They should be told that they have only begun the Christian life,

and that their religion is to consist in going on in it. They should be taught

to go forward all the time, and “grow in grace” continually. Do not teach

them to taper off their religion – to let it grow smaller and smaller till it

comes to a point. God says: “The path of the just is as the shining light,

that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). 77 Now,

whose path is that which grows dimmer and dimmer into the perfect

night? They should be brought to such a state of mind that the first

indications of decay in spirituality or zeal will alarm them and spur them

up to duty. There is no need that young converts should backslide as they

do. Paul did not backslide. And I do not doubt that this very doctrine:

“You will not always feel so,” is one of the grand devices of Satan to bring

about the result which it predicts.

2. “Learn to walk by faith and not by sight.” This is sometimes said to

young converts in reference to their continuing to exhibit the power of

religion, and is a manifest perversion of Scripture. If they begin to lose

their faith and zeal, and get into darkness, some old professor will tell

them: “Ah, you cannot expect to have the Savior always with you, you

have been walking by sight; you must learn to walk by faith and not by

sight.” That is, you must learn to get as cold as death, and then hang on to

the doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance, as your only ground of hope that

you shall be saved. And that is walking by faith! Cease to persevere, and

then hold on to the doctrine of Perseverance! “One of guilt’s blunders, and

the loudest laugh of hell.” Living in the enjoyment of God’s favor and the

comforts of the Holy Ghost is what they call “walking by sight”! Do you

suppose young converts see the Savior at the time they believe on Him?

When they are so full of the enjoyments of heaven, do you suppose they

see heaven, and so walk by sight? It is absurd on the face of it. It is not

faith, it is presumption, that makes the backslider hold on to the doctrine

of Perseverance, as if that would save him, without any sensible exercises

of godliness in his soul. Those who attempt to walk by faith in this way

had better take care, or they will walk into hell with their “faith.” Faith

indeed! “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). Can dead faith make

the soul live?

3. “Wait till you see whether you can hold out.” When a young convert

feels zealous and warm-hearted, and wants to lay himself out for God,

some prudent old professor will caution him not to go too fast. “You had

better not be too forward in religion, till you see whether you can hold out;

for if you take this high ground and then fall, you will disgrace religion.”

That is, in plain English: “Do not do anything that constitutes religion, till

you see whether you have religion.” Religion consists in obeying God.

Now, these wise teachers tell a young convert: “Do not obey God till you

see” – what? – till you see whether you have obeyed Him – or, till you

see whether you have obtained that substance, that mysterious thing

which they imagine is created and put into man, like a lump of new flesh,

and called “religion.” This waiting system is all wrong. There is no

Scripture warrant for telling a person to wait, when the command of God

is upon him, and the path of duty is before him. Let him go ahead.

Young converts should be fully taught that this is the only consistent way

to find out whether they have any religion, to find that they are heartily

engaged in doing the will of God. To tell the convert to wait, therefore,

before he does these things, till he first gets his evidence, is reversing the

matter, and is absurd.

4. “Wait till you get strength, before you take up the cross.” This is

applied to various religious duties. Sometimes it is applied to prayer: just

as if prayer were a cross. I have known young converts advised not to

attempt to pray in their families, or “not to attempt quite yet” to pray in

meetings and social circles. “Wait till you get strength.” Just as if they

could get strength without exercise. Strength comes by exercise. You

cannot get strength by lying still. Let a child lie in a cradle continually, and

he would never have any strength; he might grow in size, but he never

could be anything more than a great baby. This is a law of nature. There is

no substitute for exercise in producing strength. It is so in the body; and it

is just so with the mind. It is so with the affections; so with the judgment;

so with conscience. All the powers of the soul are strengthened by

exercise. I need not now enter into the philosophy of this. Everybody

knows it is so. If the mind is not exercised, the brain will not grow, and the

man will become an idiot. If the affections are not exercised, he will

become a stoic. To talk to a convert about neglecting Christian action till

he gets strength, is absurd. If he wants to gain strength, let him go to work.

5. Young converts should not be made sectarian in their feelings. They

should not be taught to dwell upon sectarian distinctions, or to be sticklish

about sectarian points. They ought to examine these points, according to

their importance, at a proper time, and in a proper way, and make up their

minds for themselves. But they should not be taught to dwell upon them,

or to make much of them at the outset of their religious life. Otherwise

there is great danger that their whole religion will run into sectarianism. I

have seen most sad and melancholy exhibitions of the effects of this upon

young converts. And whenever I see professed converts taking a strong

hold of sectarian peculiarities, no matter of what denomination of

Christians,

I always feel in doubt about them. When I hear them asking: “Do you

believe in the doctrine of Election?” or: “Do you believe in sprinkling?” or:

“Do you believe in immersing?” I feel sad. I never knew such converts to

be worth much. Their sectarian zeal soon sours their feelings, eats out all

the heart of their religion, and molds their whole character into sinful,

sectarian bigotry. They generally become mighty zealous for the traditions

of the elders, and very little concerned for the salvation of souls.

V. THINGS WHICH IT IS IMPORTANT SHOULD BE TAUGHT.

1. One of the first things young converts should be taught is to distinguish

between emotion and principle in religion. I want you to get hold of the

words, and have them fixed in your mind; to have you distinguish between

emotion and principle.

By emotion, I mean that state of mind of which we are conscious, and

which we call feeling – an involuntary state of mind, that arises, of

course, when we are in certain circumstances or under certain influences.

There may be high-wrought feelings, or they may subside into tranquillity,

or disappear entirely. But these emotions should be carefully distinguished

from religious principle. By principle, I do not mean any substance or root

or seed or sprout implanted in the soul. But I mean the voluntary decision

of the mind, the firm determination to fulfill duty and to obey the will of

God, by which a Christian should always be governed.

When a man is fully determined to obey God, because it is RIGHT that he

should obey God, I call that principle. Whether he feels any lively

religious emotion at the time or not, he will do his duty cheerfully, readily,

and heartily, whatever may be the state of his feelings. This is acting upon

principle, and not from emotion. Many young converts hold mistaken

views upon this subject, and depend almost entirely on the state of their

feelings to go forward in duty. Some will not lead a prayer meeting, unless

they feel as if they could make an eloquent prayer. Multitudes are

influenced almost entirely by their emotions, and they give way to this, as

if they thought themselves under no obligation to duty, unless urged on by

some strong emotion. They will be very zealous in religion when they feel

like it, when their emotions are warm and lively, but they will not act out

religion consistently, and carry it into all the concerns of life. They are

religious only as they are impelled by a gush of feeling. But this is not true

religion.

Young converts should be carefully taught that when duty is before them

they are to do it. However dull their feelings may be, if duty calls, DO IT.

Do not wait for feeling, but DO IT. Most likely the very emotions for

which you would wait will be called into exercise when you begin to do

your duty. If the duty be prayer, for instance, and you have not the

feelings you would wish, do not wait for emotions before you pray, but

pray, and “open thy mouth wide” (Psalm 81:10); and in doing it, you are

most likely to have the emotions for which you were inclined to wait, and

which constitute the conscious happiness of religion.

2. Young converts should be taught that they have renounced the

ownership of all their possessions, and of themselves, and that if they

have not done this they are not Christians. They should not be left to

think that anything is their own; their time, property, influence, faculties,

body or soul. “Ye are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19); they belong to

God; and when they submitted to God they made a free surrender of all to

Him, to be ruled and disposed of at His pleasure. They have no right to

spend one hour as if their time were their own; no right to go anywhere, or

do anything, for themselves, but should hold all at the disposal of God,

and employ all for the glory of God. If they do not, they ought not to call

themselves Christians, for the very idea of being a Christian is to renounce

self and become entirely consecrated to God. A man has no more right to

withhold anything from God than he has to rob or steal. It is robbery in

the highest sense of the term. It is an infinitely higher crime than it would

be for a clerk in a store to go and take the money of his employer, and

spend it on his own lusts and pleasures. I mean, that for a man to withhold

from God is a higher crime against HIM than a man can commit against his

fellow-man, inasmuch as God is the Owner of all things in an infinitely

higher sense than man can be the owner of anything. If God calls on them

to employ anything they have, their money, or their time, or to give their

children, or to dedicate themselves in advancing His Kingdom, and they

refuse, because they want to use them in their own way, or prefer to do

something else, it is vastly more blamable than for a clerk or an agent to go

and embezzle the money that is entrusted him by his employer.

God is, in an infinitely higher sense, the Owner of all, than any employer

can be said to be the owner of what he has. And the Church of Christ

never will take high ground, never will be disentangled from the world,

never will be able to go forward without these continual declensions and

backslidings, until Christians, and the Churches generally, take the ground,

and hold to it, that it is just as much a matter of discipline for a Church

member practically to deny his stewardship as to deny the Deity of

Christ; and that covetousness, fairly proved, shall just as soon exclude a

man from the Communion as adultery.

The Church is mighty orthodox in notions, but very heretical in practice;

but the time must come when the Church will be just as vigilant in

guarding orthodoxy in practice as orthodoxy in doctrine, and just as

prompt to turn out heretics in practice, as heretics that corrupt the

doctrines of the Gospel. In fact, it is vastly more important. The only

design of doctrine is to produce practice, and it does not seem to be

understood by the Church that true faith “works by love and purifies the

heart,” that heresy in practice is proof conclusive of heresy in sentiment.

The Church is very sticklish for correct doctrine, but very careless about

correct living. This is preposterous. Has it come to this, that the Church of

Jesus Christ is to be satisfied with correct notions on some abstract

points, and never reduce her orthodoxy to practice? Let it be so no longer.

It is high time these matters were set right. And the only way to set them

right is to begin with those who are just entering upon religion. Young

converts must be told that they are just as worthy of condemnation (and

that the Church can hold no fellowship with them), if they show a

covetous spirit, and turn a deaf ear when the whole world is calling for

help, as if they were living in adultery, or in the daily worship of idols.

3. Teach them how to cultivate a tender conscience. I am often amazed to

find how little conscience there is even among those whom we hope are

Christians. And here we see the reason of it. Their consciences were never

cultivated. They never were taught how to cultivate a tender conscience.

They have not even a natural conscience. They have dealt so rudely with

their conscience, and resisted it so often, that it has got blunted, and does

not act. The usefulness of a Christian greatly depends on his knowing how

to cultivate his conscience. Young converts should be taught to keep their

conscience just as tender as the apple of the eye. They should watch their

conduct and their motives, and let their motives be so pure and their

conduct so disinterested as not to offend, or injure, or stifle conscience.

They should maintain such a habit of listening to conscience, that it will

always be ready to give forth a stern verdict on all occasions.

It is astonishing to see how much the conscience may be cultivated by a

proper course. If rightly attended to, it may be made so pure, and so

powerful, that it will always respond exactly to the Word of God. Present

any duty to such a Christian, or any self-denial, or suffering, and only

show him the Word of God, and he will do it without a word of objection.

In a few months, if properly taught, young converts may have a

conscience so delicately poised that the weight of a feather will turn them.

Only bring a “Thus saith the Lord,” and they will be always ready to do

that, be it what it may.

4. Young converts should be taught to pray without ceasing. That is, they

should always keep a watch over their minds, and be all the time in a

prayerful spirit. They should be taught to pray always, whatever may

take place. For the want of right instruction on this point many young

converts suffer loss and get far away from God. For instance, sometimes it

happens that a young convert will fall into some sin, and then he feels as if

he could not pray, and instead of overcoming this he feels so distressed

that he waits for the keen edge of his distress to pass away. Instead of

going right to Jesus Christ in the midst of his agony, and confessing his sin

out of the fullness of his heart, and getting a renewed pardon, and peace

restored, he waits till all the keenness of his feelings has subsided; and then

his repentance, if he does repent, is cold and half-hearted. Let me tell you,

beloved, never to do this; but when your conscience presses you, go then

to Christ, confess your sin fully, and pour out your heart to God.

Sometimes people will neglect to pray because they are in the dark, and

feel no desire to pray. But that is the very time when they need prayer.

That is the very reason why they ought to pray. You should go right to

God and confess your coldness and darkness of mind. Tell Him just how

you feel. Tell Him: “O Lord, I have no desire to pray, but I know I ought

to pray.” And immediately the Spirit may come and lead your heart out in

prayer, and all the dark clouds will pass away.

5. Young converts should be faithfully warned against adopting a false

standard in religion. They should not be left to fall in behind old

professors, or keep such before their minds as a standard of holy living.

They should always look at Christ as their model. Not aim at being as

good Christians as the old Church members, and not think they are doing

pretty well because they are as much awake as the old members of the

Church; but they should aim at being holy. The Church has been greatly

injured for the want of attention to this matter. Young converts have come

forward, and their hearts were warm, and their zeal ardent enough to aim at

a high standard, but they were not directed properly, and so they soon

settled down into the notion that what was good enough for others was

good enough for them, and therefore they ceased to aim higher than those

who were before them. And in this way the Church, instead of rising, with

every revival, higher and higher in holiness, is kept nearly stationary.

6. Young converts should be taught to do all their duty. They should never

make a compromise with duty, nor think of saying: “I will do this as an

offset for neglecting that.” They should never rest satisfied till they have

done their duties of every kind, in relation to their families, the Church,

Sabbath Schools, the impenitent around them, the disposal of their

property, and the conversion of the world. Let them do their duty, as they

feel it when their hearts are warm; and never attempt to pick and choose

among the commandments of God.

7. They should be made to feel that they have no separate interest. It is

time Christians were made actually to feel that they have no interest

whatever, separate from the interests of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.

They should understand that they are incorporated into the family of

Jesus Christ, as members in full, so that their whole interest is identified

with His. They are embarked with Him, they have gone on board, and

taken their all; and henceforth they have nothing to do, nor anything to

say, except as it is connected with this interest, and bearing on the cause

and Kingdom of Christ.

8. They should be taught to maintain singleness of motive. Young converts

should not begin to have a double mind on any subject, nor let selfish

motives mingle with good motives in anything they do. But this can never

be so long as Christians are allowed to hold a separate interest of their

own, distinct from the interest of Jesus Christ. If they feel that they have

a separate interest, it is impossible to keep them from regarding it, and

having an eye to it as well as to Christ’s interest, in many things that they

do. It is only by becoming entirely consecrated to God, and giving up all to

His service, that they can ever keep their eye single and their motives

pure.

9. They should set out with a determination to aim at being useful in the

highest degree possible. They should not rest satisfied merely with being

useful, or remaining in a situation where they can do some good. But if

they see an opportunity where they can do more good, they must embrace

it, whatever may be the sacrifice to themselves. No matter what it may

cost them; no matter what danger or what suffering may be involved; no

matter what change in their outward circumstances, or habits, or

employments, it may lead to; if they are satisfied that they will on the

whole do more good, they should not even hesitate. How else can they be

like God? How can they think to bear the image of Jesus Christ, if they are

not prepared to do all the good that is in their power? When a man is

converted he comes into a new world, and should consider himself as a

new man. If he finds he can do most good by remaining in his old

employment, let it be so; but if he can do more good in some other way, he

is bound to change. It is for the want of attention to this subject, at the

outset, that Christians have got such low ideas on the subject of duty; and

that is the reason why there are so many useless members in our

Churches.

10. They must be taught, not to aim at comfort but usefulness, in religion.

There are a great many spiritual epicures in the Churches, who are all the

while seeking to be happy in religion, white they are taking very little

pains to be useful. They had much rather spend their time in singing joyful

hymns, and pouring out their happy feelings in a gushing tide of exultation

and triumph, than in an agonizing prayer for sinners, or in going about

pulling dying men out of the fire. They seem to feel as if they were born to

enjoy themselves. But I do not think such Christians show such fruits as

to make their example one to be imitated. Such was not the temper of the

apostles; they travailed for souls; they labored in weariness and

painfulness, and were “in deaths oft,” to save sinners (2 Corinthians

11:23). Ordinarily, Christians are not qualified to drink deep at the

fountain of joy. In ordinary cases, a deep agony of prayer for souls is

more profitable than high flights of joy. Let young converts be taught

plainly not to calculate upon a life of joy and triumph. They may be called

to go through fiery trials; Satan may sift them like wheat. But they must

go forward, not calculating so much to be happy as to be useful; not

talking about comfort but duty; not desiring flights of joy and triumph, but

hungering and thirsting after righteousness; not studying how to create

new flights of rapture, but how to know the will of God and do it. They

will be happy enough in heaven. There they may sing the song of Moses

and the Lamb. And they will in fact enjoy a more solid and rational

happiness here, by thinking nothing about it, but patiently devoting

themselves to do the will of God.

11. They should be taught to have moral courage, and not to be afraid of

going forward in duty. The Bible insists fully on Christian boldness and

courage in action, as a duty. I do not mean that they should indulge in

bravado, like Peter, telling what they will do, and boasting of their courage.

The boaster is generally a coward at heart. But I mean moral courage – a

humble and fixed decision of purpose, that will go forward in any duty,

unangered and unawed, with the meekness and firmness of the Son of God.

12. They should be so instructed as to be sound in the faith. That is, they

should be early made, as far as possible, complete and correct in regard to

their doctrinal belief. As soon as may be, without turning their minds off

from their practical duties in promoting the glory of God and the salvation

of men, they should be taught fully and plainly all the leading doctrines of

the Bible. Doctrinal knowledge is indispensable to growth in grace.

Knowledge is the food of the mind. “That the soul be without knowledge,”

says the wise man, “it is not good” (Proverbs 19:2). The mind cannot

grow without knowledge any more than the body without food. And

therefore it is important that young converts should be thoroughly

indoctrinated, and made to understand the Bible. By “indoctrinating,” I do

not mean teaching them the catechism, but teaching them to draw

knowledge from the fountain-head. Create in their minds such an appetite for

knowledge that they will eat the Bible up – will devour it – will love it, and

love it all. “All Scripture… is profitable,… that the man of God may be

perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17).

13. Great pains should be taken to guard young converts against

censoriousness. Young converts, when they first come out on the Lord’s

side, and are all warm and zealous, sometimes find old professors so cold

and dead, that they are strongly tempted to be censorious. This should be

corrected immediately, otherwise the habit will poison their minds and

destroy their religion.

14. They must learn to say “NO.” This is a very difficult lesson to many.

See that young woman. Formerly she loved the gay circle, and took delight

in its pleasures; she joined the Church, and then found herself aloof from

all her old associates. They do not ask her now to their balls and parties,

because they know she will not join them; and perhaps they keep entirely

away for a time, for fear she should converse with them about their souls.

But, by and by, they grow a little bold, and some of them venture to ask

her just to take a ride with a few friends. She does not like to say “No.”

They are her old friends, only a few of them are going, and surely a ride is

so innocent a recreation that she may accept the invitation. But, now she

has begun to comply, the ice is broken, and they have her again as one of

them. It goes on, and she begins to attend their social visits – “only a few

friends, you know,” – till, by and by, the carpet is taken up for a dance;

and the next thing, perhaps, she has gone for a sleigh ride on Saturday

night, coming home after midnight, and then sleeping all the forenoon on

the Sabbath to make up for it – perhaps Communion Sabbath, too. All

for the want of learning to say “No.”

See that young man. For a time he was always in his place in the Sabbath

School and in the prayer meeting. But, by and by, his old friends begin to

treat him with attention again, and they draw him along, step by step.

He reasons that if he refuses to go with them in things that are innocent, he

will lose his influence with them. And so he goes on, till prayer meeting,

Bible class, and even private Bible reading and prayer are neglected. Ah,

young man, stop there! If you do not wish to expose the cause of Christ

to scorn and contempt, learn to resist the beginnings of temptation.

15. They should be taught, what is, and what is not, Christian experience.

It is necessary, both for their comfort and their usefulness, that they

should understand this, so that they need not run themselves into needless

distress for the want of that which is by no means essential to Christian

experience, nor flatter themselves that they have more religion than they

really exercise.

16. Teach them not to count anything a sacrifice which they do for God.

Some persons are always telling about the sacrifices they make in religion.

I have no confidence in such piety. Why keep telling about their sacrifices,

as if everything they do for God is a sacrifice? If they loved God they

would not talk so. If they considered their own interests and the interest

of Christ identical, they would not talk of making sacrifices for Christ: it

would be like talking of making sacrifices for themselves.

17. It is of great importance that young converts should be taught to be

strictly honest. I mean more by this than perhaps you would think. It is a

great thing to be strictly honest. It is being very different from the world at

large, and different even from the great body of professors of religion. The

holiest man I ever knew, and one who had been many years a Christian

and a minister, once made the remark to me: “Brother, it is a great thing to

be strictly honest and straight in everything, so that God’s pure eye can

see that the mind is perfectly upright.”

It is of great importance that young converts should understand what it is

to be strictly honest in everything, so that they can maintain “a conscience

void of offense toward God, and toward men” (Acts 24:16). Alas, alas,

how little conscience there is! How little of that real honesty, that pure,

simple uprightness, which ought to mark the life of a child of God. 78 How

little do many regard even an express promise. I heard the other day that

of a number of individuals who subscribed to the Anti-Slavery Society,

not half will pay their subscriptions. The plea is, that they signed when

they were under excitement, and do not choose to pay. Just as if their

being excited released them from the obligation to keep their promise.

Why, it is just as dishonest as it would be to refuse payment of a note of

hand. They promised, signed their names, and now will not pay? And

they call that honesty!

I have heard that a number of men signed for hundreds of dollars for the

Oneida Institute, promising to pay the money when called on; and when

they were called on, they refused to pay the money. And the reason is

that all in the Institute have turned Abolitionists! Very well. Suppose they

have. Does that alter your promise? Did you sign on the condition that if

abolitionism were introduced you should be clear? If you did, then you are

clear. But if you gave your promise without any condition, it is just as

dishonest to refuse as if you had given a note of hand. And yet some of

you might be almost angry if anybody were to charge you with refusing to

pay money that you had promised.

Look at this seriously. Who does God say will go to heaven? Read the

fifteenth psalm, and see. “He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth

not.” What do you think of that? If a man has promised anything, except it

be to commit sin, let him keep his promise, if he means to be honest and to

go to heaven. But these people will make promises, and because they

cannot be prosecuted, will break them as if they were nothing. They

would not let a cheque of theirs be returned from the bank. Why? Because

they would lose credit, and would be sued. But the Oneida Institute, and

the Anti-Slavery Society, and other societies, will not sue for the money,

and therefore these people take offense at something, and refuse to pay. Is

this honest? Will such honesty as this get them admitted to heaven? What?

Break your promises, and go up and carry a lie in your hand before God?

If you refuse or neglect to fulfill your promises, and go up and carry a lie

in your hand before God? If you refuse or neglect to fulfill your promise

you are a liar; and if you persist in this, you shall have your part in the

lake that burns with fire and brimstone. I would not for ten thousand

worlds die with money in my hands that I had unrighteously withheld

from any object to which I had promised it. Such money will “eat as doth

a canker” (2 Timothy 2:17).

If you are not able to pay the money, that is a good excuse. But then, say

so. But if you refuse to pay what you have promised, because you have

altered your mind, rely upon it, you are guilty. You cannot pray till you

pay that money. Will you pray: “O Lord, I promised to give that money,

but I altered my mind, and broke my promise; but still, O Lord, I pray

Thee to bless me, and forgive my sin, although I keep my money, and

make me happy in Thy love”? Will such prayers be heard? Never.

LECTURE XX

INSTRUCTIONS TO CONVERTS

• (continued)

Feed My lambs. – John 21.15.

I Propose to continue the subject by:

I. Noticing several other points upon which young converts ought to be

instructed.

II. Showing the manner in which young converts should be treated by the

Church.

III. Mentioning some of the evils which naturally result from defective

instructions given in that stage of Christian experience.

I. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS TO YOUNG CONVERTS.

1. It is of great importance that young converts should early be made to

understand what religion consists in. Perhaps you will be surprised at my

mentioning this. “What! Are they converts, and do not know what religion

consists in?” I answer: “They would know, if they had had no instruction

but such as was drawn from the Bible.” But multitudes of people have

imbibed such notions about religion, that not only young converts, but a

great part of the Church members do not know what religion consists in,

so as to have a clear and distinct idea of it. There are many ministers who

do not. I do not mean to say that they have no religion, for it may be

charitably believed they have; but what I mean is, that they cannot give 79

a correct statement of what does, and what does not, constitute real

religion.

It is important that young converts should be taught: Negatively, what

religion does not consist in.

(a) Not in doctrinal knowledge. Knowledge is essential to religion, but it is

not religion. The devil has doctrinal knowledge, but he has no religion. A

man may have doctrinal knowledge to any extent, without a particle of

religion. Yet some people have very strange ideas on this subject, as

though an increase of doctrinal knowledge indicated an increase of piety. In

a certain instance, where some young converts had made rapid progress in

doctrinal knowledge, a person who saw it remarked: “How these young

converts grow in grace!” Here he confounded improvement in knowledge

with improvement in piety. The truth was, that he had no means of

judging of their growth in grace, and it was no evidence of it because they

were making progress in doctrinal knowledge.

(b) They should be taught that religion is not a substance. It is not any

root, or sprout, or seed, or anything else, in the mind, as a part of the mind

itself. Persons often speak of religion as if it were something which is

covered up in the mind, just as a spark of fire may be covered up in the

ashes, which does not show itself, and which produces no effects, but yet

lives, and is ready to act as soon as it is uncovered. And in like manner

they think they may have religion, as something remaining in them,

although they do not manifest it by obeying God. But they should be

taught that this is not of the nature of religion. It is not part of the mind

itself, nor of the body; nor is it a root, or seed, or spark, that can exist,

and yet be hid and produce no effects.

Teach them that religion does not consist in raptures, or ecstasies, or

high flights of feeling. There may be a great deal of these where there is

religion. But it ought to be understood that they are all involuntary

emotions, and may exist in full power where there is no religion. They

may be the mere workings of the imagination, without any truly religious

affection at all. Persons may have them to such a degree as actually to

swoon away with ecstasy, even on the subject of religion, without having

any religion. I have known a person almost carried away with rapture, by

a mere view of the natural attributes of God, His power and wisdom, as

displayed in the starry heavens, and yet the person had no religion.

Religion is obedience to God, the voluntary submission of the soul to His

will.

(d) Neither does religion consist in going to services, or reading the Bible,

or praying, or any other of what are commonly called religious duties. The

very phrase, “religious duties,” ought to be struck out of the vocabulary of

young converts. They should be made to know that these acts are not

religion. Many become very strict in performing certain things, which they

call “religious duties,” and suppose that is being religious; while they are

careless about the ordinary duties of life, which, in fact, constitute A LIFE

OF PIETY. Prayer may be an expression and an act of piety, or it may not

be. Going to church or to a prayer meeting, may be considered either as a

means, an act, or an expression of pious sentiment; but the performance of

these does not constitute a man a Christian; and there may be great

strictness and zeal in these, without a particle of religion. If young

converts are not taught to discriminate, they may be led to think there is

something peculiar in what are called religious duties, and to imagine they

have a great deal of religion because they abound in certain actions that are

commonly called “religious duties,” although they may at the same time be

very deficient in honesty, or faithfulness, or punctuality, or temperance,

or any other of what they choose to call their common duties. They may

be very punctilious in some things, may “pay tithe of mint and anise and

cummin” (Matthew 23:23), and yet neglect “the weightier matters of the

law”; justice and the love of God.

(e) Religion does not consist in desires to do good actions. Desires that do

not result in choice and action are not virtuous. Nor are such desires

necessarily vicious. They may arise involuntarily in the mind, in view of

certain objects; but while they produce no voluntary act, they are no more

virtuous or vicious than the beating of the pulse, except in cases where we

have indirectly willed them into existence, by voluntarily putting ourselves

under circumstances calculated to excite them. The wickedest man on earth

may have strong desires after holiness. Did you ever think of that? He

may see clearly that holiness is the only and indispensable means of

happiness. And the moment he apprehends holiness as a means of

happiness, he naturally desires it. It is to be feared that multitudes are

deceiving themselves with the supposition that a desire for holiness, as a

means of happiness, is religion. Many, doubtless, give themselves great

credit for desires that never result in choosing right. They feel desires to do

their duty, but do not choose to do it, because, upon the whole, they have

still stronger desires not to do it. In such desires there is no virtue. An

action or desire, to be virtuous in the sight of God, must be an act of the

will. People often talk most absurdly on this subject, as though their

desires had anything good, while they remain mere desires. “I think I

desire to do so-and-so.” But do you do it? “Oh, no, but I often feel a

desire to do it.” This is practical atheism.

Whatever desires a person may have, if they are not carried out into actual

choice and action, they are not virtuous. And no degree of desire is itself

virtuous. If this idea could be made prominent, and fully riveted in the

minds of men, it would probably annihilate the hopes of half the members

of the Churches, who are living on their good desires, while doing nothing

for God.

(f) They should be made to understand that nothing which is selfish, is

religion. Whatever desires they may have, and whatever choices and

actions they may put forth, if, after all, the reason of them is selfish, there

is no religion in them. A man may just as much commit sin in praying, or

reading the Bible, or going to a religious service, as in anything else, if his

motive is selfish. Suppose a man prays simply with a view to promote his

own happiness. Is that religion? What is it but attempting to make God his

Almighty Servant? It is nothing else but to attempt a great speculation,

and to put the universe, God and all, under contribution to make him

happy. It is the sublime degree of wickedness. It is so far from being piety

that it is in fact superlative wickedness.

(g) Nothing is acceptable to God, as religion, unless it is performed

heartily, to please God. No outward action has anything good, or anything

that God approves, unless it is performed from right motives and from the

heart. Young converts should be taught fully and positively that all religion

consists in obeying God from the heart. All religion consists in voluntary

action. All that is holy, all that is lovely, in the sight of God, all that is

properly called religion, consists in voluntary action, in voluntarily

obeying the will of God from the heart.

2. Young converts should be taught that the duty of self-denial is one of

the leading features of the Gospel. They should understand that they are

not pious at all, any further than they are willing to take up their cross

daily, and deny themselves for Christ. There is but little self-denial in the

Church, and the reason is that the duty is so much lost sight of, in giving

instruction to young converts. How seldom are they told that self-denial is

the leading feature in Christianity! In pleading for benevolent objects, how

often will you find that ministers and agents do not even ask Christians to

deny themselves for the sake of promoting the object! They only ask them

to give what they can spare as well as not; in other words, to offer unto

the Lord that which costs them nothing. What an abomination! They only

ask for the surplus, for what is not wanted, for what can just as well be

given as not.

There is no religion in this kind of giving. A man might give a very large

sum to a benevolent object, and there would be no religion in his doing so,

if he could give the money as well as not; nor would there be any

self-denial in it. Jesus Christ exercised self-denial to save sinners. So has

God the Father exercised self-denial in giving His Son to die for us, and in

sparing us, and in bearing with our perverseness. The Holy Ghost

exercises self-denial, in condescending to strive with such unholy beings to

bring them to God. The angels exercise self-denial, in watching over this

world. The apostles planted the Christian religion among the nations by

the exercise of self-denial. And are we to think of being religious without

any self-denial? Are we to call ourselves Christians, the followers of

Christ, the “temples of the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 6:19), and to claim

fellowship with the apostles, when we have never deprived ourselves of

anything that would promote our personal enjoyment for the sake of

promoting Christ’s kingdom? Young converts should be made to see that

unless they are willing to lay themselves out for God, and ready to

sacrifice life and everything else for Christ, they “have not the Spirit of

Christ, and are none of His” (Romans 8:9).

3. They must be taught what sanctification is. “What!” you will say, “do

not all who are Christians know what sanctification is?” No, many do not.

Multitudes would be as much at a loss to tell intelligibly what

sanctification is, as they would be to tell what religion is. If the question

were asked of every professor of religion in this city: “What is

sanctification?” I doubt if one in ten would give a right answer. They

would blunder just as they do when they undertake to tell what religion is,

and speak of it as something dormant in the soul, something that is put in,

and lies there, something that may be practiced or not, and still be in them.

So they speak of sanctification as if it were a sort of washing off of some

defilement, or a purging out of some physical impurity. Or they will speak

of it as if the faculties were steeped in sin, and sanctification is taking out

the stains. This is the reason why some people will pray for

sanctification, and practice sin, evidently supposing the sanctification is

something that precedes obedience. They should be taught that

sanctification is not something that precedes obedience, some change in the

nature or the constitution of the soul. But sanctification is obedience, and

as a progressive thing consists in obeying God more and more perfectly.

4. Young converts should be taught so as to understand what perseverance

is. It is astonishing how people talk about perseverance. As if the doctrine

of perseverance is: “Once in grace, always in grace”; or, “Once converted,

sure to go to heaven.” This is not the idea of perseverance. The true idea

is, that if a man is truly converted, he will CONTINUE to obey God; and

as a consequence, he will surely go to heaven. But if a person gets the idea

that because he is “converted,” therefore he will assuredly go to heaven,

that man will almost assuredly go to hell.

5. Young converts should be taught to be religious in everything. They

should aim to be religious in every department of life, and in all that they

do. If they do not aim at this, they should understand that they have no

religion at all. If they do not intend and aim to keep all the commandments

of God, what pretense can they make to piety? “Whosoever shall keep the

whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).

He is justly subject to the whole penalty. If he disobeys God habitually in

one particular, he does not, in fact, obey Him in any particular. Obedience

to God consists in the state of the heart. It is being willing to obey God;

willing that God should rule in all things. But if a man habitually disobeys

God, in any one particular, he is in a state of mind that renders obedience

in anything else impossible. To say that in some things a man obeys God,

out of respect to His authority, and that in some other things he refuses

obedience, is absurd. The fact is, that obedience to God consists in an

obedient state of heart, a preference of God’s authority and

commandments to everything else. If, therefore, an individual appears to

obey in some things, and yet perseveringly and knowingly disobeys in any

one thing, he is deceived. He offends in one point, and this proves that he

is guilty of all; in other words, that he does not, from the heart, obey at all.

A man may pray half of his time and have no religion; if he does not keep

the commandments of God, his very prayer will be hateful to God. “He

that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be

abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). Do you hear that? If a man refuses to obey

God’s law, if he refuses to comply with any one duty, he cannot pray, he

has no religion, his very devotions are hateful.

6. Young converts, by proper instructions, are easily brought to be

“temperate in all things” (1 Corinthians 9:25). Yet this is a subject greatly

neglected in regard to young converts, and almost lost sight of in the

Churches. There is a vast deal of intemperance in the Churches. I do not

mean intemperate drinking, in particular, but intemperance in eating and in

living generally. There is, in fact, but little conscience about it in the

Churches, and, therefore, the progress of reform in the matter is so slow.

Nothing but an enlightened conscience can carry forward a permanent

reform. Ten years ago, most ministers used ardent spirit, and kept it in

their houses to treat their friends and their ministering brethren with. And

the great body of the members in the Churches did the same. Now, there

are but few, of either, who are not actual drunkards, that will do so. But

still there are many that indulge, without scruple, in the use of wine.

Chewing and smoking tobacco, too, are acts of intemperance. If they use

these mere stimulants when there is no necessity for them, what is that

but intemperance? That is not being “temperate in all things.” Until

Christians shall have a conscience on this subject, and be made to feel that

they have no right to be intemperate in anything, they will make but little

progress in religion. It is well known, or ought to be, that tea and coffee

have no nutrients in them. They are mere stimulants. They go through the

system without being digested. The milk and sugar you put in them are

nourishing; and so they would be, just as much so, if you mixed them with

rum, and made milk punch; but the tea and coffee afford no nourishment;

and yet I dare say, that a majority of the families in this city give more in a

year for their tea and coffee than they do to save the world from hell.

Probably this is true respecting entire Churches. Even agents of benevolent

societies will dare to go through the Churches soliciting funds, for the

support of missionary and other institutions, and yet use tea, coffee, and,

in some cases, tobacco. Strange! No doubt many are giving five times as

much for mere intemperance as they give for every effort to save the

world.

If professing Christians could be made to realize how much they spend for

what are mere poisons, and nothing else, they would be amazed. Many

persons will strenuously maintain that they cannot get along without these

stimulants, these poisons, and they cannot give them up, no, not to

redeem the world from eternal damnation. And very often they will

absolutely show anger, if argued with, just as soon as the argument begins

to pinch their consciences. Oh, how long shall the Church show her

hypocritical face at the missionary meeting, and pray God to save the

world, while she is actually throwing away five times as much for sheer

intemperance, as she will give to save the world! Some of you may think

these are little things, and that it is quite beneath the dignity of the pulpit

to lecture against tea and coffee. But I tell you it is a great mistake of

yours if you think these are little things, when they make the Church

odious in the sight of God, by exposing her hypocrisy and lust. Here is an

individual who pretends he has given himself up to serve Jesus Christ, and

yet he refuses to deny himself any darling lust, and then he will go and

pray: “O Lord, save the world; O Lord, Thy Kingdom come!” I tell you it

is hypocrisy. Shall such prayers be heard? Unless men are willing to deny

themselves, I would not give a groat for the prayers of as many such

professors as would cover the whole of the United States.

These things must be taught to young converts. It must come to this point

in the Church, that men shall not be called Christians, unless they will cut

off the right hand, and pluck out the right eye, and deny themselves for

Christ’s sake. A little thing? See it poison the spirit of prayer! See it

debase and sensualize the soul! Is that a trifle beneath the dignity of the

pulpit, when these intemperate indulgences, of one kind and another, cost

the Church five times, if not fifty times, more than all she gives for the

salvation of the world?

An estimate has recently been made, showing that in the United States

seven millions of dollars’ worth of coffee is consumed yearly; and who

does not know, that a great part of this is consumed by the Church. And

yet grave ministers and members of Christian Churches are not ashamed to

be seen countenancing this enormous waste of money; while at the same

time the poor heathens are sending upon every wind of heaven their

agonizing wail for help. Heaven calls from above: “Go… preach the Gospel

to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Hell groans from beneath, and ten

thousand voices cry out from heaven, earth, and hell: “Do something to

save the world!” Do it now Oh, NOW, or millions more are in hell through

your neglect. And oh, tell it not in Gath, the Church, the ministry, will not

deny even their lusts to save a world. Is this Christianity? What business

have you to use Christ’s money for such a purpose? Are you a steward?

Who gave you this liberty? Look to it, lest it should be found at last, that

you have preferred self-gratification to obedience, and made a “God of

your belly” (Phillippians 3:19).

The time to teach these things with effect is, when the converts are young.

If converts are not properly taught then, if they get a wrong habit, and

begin with an easy, self-indulgent mode of living, it rarely happens that

they become thoroughly reformed. I have conversed with old professors

on these subjects, and have been astonished at their pertinacious obstinacy

in indulging their lusts. And I am satisfied that the Church never can rise

out of this sloth until young converts are faithfully taught, at the outset of

their religious course, to be temperate in all things.

7. They should be taught to have just as much religion in all their business

as they have in prayer, or in going to a religious service. They should be

just as holy, just as watchful, aim just as singly at the glory of God, be

just as sincere and solemn in all their daily employments, as when they

come to the Throne of Grace. If they are not, their Sabbath performances

will be an abomination.

8. They should be taught that it is necessary for them to be just as holy as

they think ministers ought to be. There has for a long time been an idea

that ministers are bound to be holy and practice self-denial. And so they

are. But it is strange they should suppose that ministers are bound to be

any more holy than other people. They would be shocked to see a

minister showing levity, or running after the fashions, or getting out of

temper, or living in a fine house, or riding in a coach. Oh, that is dreadful!

It does not look well in a minister. Indeed! For a minister’s wife to wear

such a fine bonnet, or such a silk shawl – oh no, it will never do! But

they think nothing of these things in a layman, or a layman’s wife! That is

no offense at all! I am not saying that these things do look well in a

minister; I know they do not. But they look, in God’s eyes, just as well in

a minister as they do in a layman. You have no more right to indulge in

vanity, and folly, and pride, than a minister. Can you go to heaven without

being sanctified? Can you be holy without living for God, and doing all

that you do to His glory? I have heard professedly good men speak against

ministers having large salaries, and living in an expensive style, when they

themselves were actually spending a great deal more money for the

support of their families than any minister. What would be thought of a

minister living in the style in which many professors of religion and elders

of Churches are living in this city? Why, everybody would say they were

hypocrites. But it is just as much an evidence of hypocrisy in a layman to

spend God’s money to gratify his lusts, or to please the world, or his

family, as it is for a minister to do so.

It is distressing to hear some of our foremost laymen talk of its being

dishonorable to religion, to give ministers a large salary, and let them live in

an expensive style, when it is a fact that their own expenses are, for the

number of their families, and the company they have to receive, far above

those of almost any minister. All this arises out of fundamentally wrong

notions imbibed while they were young converts. Young converts have

been taught to expect that ministers will have all the religion – especially

all the self-denial. So long as this continues there can be no hope that the

Church will ever do much for the glory of God, or for the conversion of

the world. There is nothing of all this in the Bible. Where has God said:

“You ministers, love God with all your heart, and soul, and mind, and

strength”? Or, “You ministers, do all to the glory of God”? No, these

things are said to all alike, and he who attempts to excuse himself from any

duty or self-denial, from any watchfulness or sobriety, by putting it off

upon ministers, or who ventures to adopt a lower scale of holy living for

himself than he thinks is proper for a minister, is in great danger of proving

himself a hypocrite, and paying in hell the forfeit of his foolishness.

Much depends on the instructions given to young converts. If they once

get into the habit of supposing that they may indulge in things which they

would condemn in a minister, it is extremely unlikely that they will ever

get out of it.

9. They should aim at being perfect. Every young convert should be taught

that if it is not his purpose to live without sin, he has not yet begun to be

religious. What is religion but a supreme love to God and a supreme

purpose of heart or disposition to obey God? If there is not this, there is

no religion at all. It is one thing to profess to be perfect, and another thing

to profess and feel you ought to be perfect. It is one thing to say that men

ought to be perfect, and can be, if they are so disposed, and another thing

to say that they are perfect. If any are prepared to say that they are

perfect, all I have to say is: “Let them prove it.” If they are so I hope they

will show it by their actions, otherwise we can never believe they are

perfect.

But it is the duty of all to be perfect, and to purpose entire, perpetual, and

universal obedience to God. It should be their constant purpose to live

wholly to God, and obey all His commandments. They should live so that

if they should sin it would be an inconsistency, an exception, an individual

case, in which they act contrary to the fixed and general purpose and tenor

of their lives. They ought not to sin at all; they are bound to be as holy as

God is; and young converts should be taught to set out in the right course,

or they will never be right.

10. They should be taught to exhibit their light. If the young convert does

not exhibit his light, and hold it up to the world, it will go out. If he does

not bestir himself, and go forth and try to enlighten those around him, his

light will go out, and his own soul will soon be in darkness. Sometimes

young converts seem disposed to sit still and not do anything in public till

they get a great deal of light, or a great deal of religion. But this is not the

way. Let the convert use what he has; let him hold up his little twinkling

rushlight, boldly and honestly, and then God will make it like a blazing

torch. But God will not take the trouble to keep a light burning that is hid.

Why should He? Where is the use?

This is the reason why so many people have so little enjoyment in

religion. They do not exert themselves to honor God. They keep what

little they do enjoy so entirely to themselves, that there is no good reason

why God should bestow blessings and benefits on them.

11. They should be taught how to win souls to Christ. Young converts

should be taught particularly what to do to accomplish this, and how to do

it; and then taught to live for this end as the great leading object of life.

How strange has been the course sometimes pursued! These persons have

been converted, and – there they are. They get into the Church, and then

they are left to go along just as they did before; they do nothing, and are

taught to do nothing, for Christ; and the only change is that they go more

regularly to church on the Sabbath, and let the minister feed them, as it is

called. But suppose he does feed them, they do not grow strong, for they

cannot digest it, because they take no exercise. They become spiritual

dyspeptics. Now, the great object for which Christians are converted and

left in this world is, to pull sinners out of the fire. If they do not effect

this, they had better be dead. And young converts should be taught this as

soon as they are born into the Kingdom. The first thing they do should be

to go to work for this end – to save sinners.

II. HOW THE CHURCH SHOULD TREAT YOUNG CONVERTS.

1. Old professors ought to be able to give young converts a great deal of

instruction, and they ought to give it. The truth is, however, that the great

body of professors in the Churches do not know how to give good

instruction to young converts; and, if they attempt to do so, they give

only that which is false. The Church ought to be able to teach her children;

and when she receives them she ought to be as busy in training them to

act, as mothers are in teaching their little children such things as they will

need to know and do hereafter. But this is far enough from being the case

generally. And we can never expect to see young converts habitually

taking right hold of duty, and going straight forward without declension

and backsliding, until the time comes when all young converts are

intelligently trained by the Church.

2. Young converts should not be kept back behind the rest of the Church.

How often is it found that the old professors will keep the young converts

back behind the rest of the Church, and prevent them from taking any

active part in religion, for fear they should become spiritually proud.

Young converts in such Churches are rarely or never called on to take a

part in meetings, or set to any active duty, or the like, for fear they should

become lifted up with spiritual pride. Thus the Church becomes the

modest keeper of their humility, and teaches them to file in behind the old,

stiff, dry, cold members and elders, for fear that if they should be allowed

to do anything for Christ, it will make them proud. Whereas, the very way

to make young converts humble and keep them so, is to put them to their

work and keep them there. That is the way to keep God with them, and as

long as God is with them, He will take care of their humility. Keep them

constantly engaged in religion, and then the Spirit of God will dwell in

them, and so they will be kept humble by the most effectual process. But

if young converts are left to fall in behind the old professors, where they

can never do anything, they will never know what spirit they are of, and

this is the very way to run them into the danger of falling into the worst

species of spiritual pride.

3. They should be watched over by the Church, and warned of their

dangers, just as a tender mother watches over her young children. Young

converts do not know at all the dangers by which they are surrounded.

The devices of the devil, the temptations of the world, the power of their

own passions and habits, and the thousand forms of danger, they do not

know; and if not properly watched and warned, they will run right into

such dangers. The Church should watch over and care for her young

children – just as mothers watch their little children in this great city, lest

the carts run over them, or they stray away; or as they watch over them

while growing up, for fear they may be drawn into the whirlpools of

iniquity. The Church should watch over all the interests of her young

members, know where they are, and what are their habits, temptations,

dangers, privileges – the state of religion in their hearts, and their spirit of

prayer. Look at that anxious mother, when she sees paleness gather round

the brow of her little child. “What is the matter with you, my child? Have

you eaten something improper? Have you taken cold? What ails you?”

Oh, how different it is with the children of the Church, the lambs that the

Savior has committed to the care of His Church! Alas! instead of

restraining her children, and taking care of them, the Church lets them go

anywhere, and look out for themselves. What should we say of a mother

who should knowingly let her children totter along to the edge of a

precipice? Should we not say she was horribly guilty for doing so, and

that if the child should fall and be killed, its blood would rest on the

mother’s head? What, then, is the guilt of the Church, in knowingly

neglecting her young converts? I have known Churches where young

converts were totally neglected, and regarded with suspicion and jealousy;

nobody went near them to strengthen or encourage or counsel them;

nothing was done to lead them to usefulness, to teach them what to do or

how to do it, or to open to them a field of labor. And then – what then?

Why, when they find that young converts cannot stand everything, when

they find them growing cold and backward under such treatment, they just

turn round and abuse them, for not holding out!

4. Be tender in reproving them. When Christians find it necessary to

reprove young converts, they should be exceedingly careful in their manner

of doing it. Young converts should be faithfully watched over by the elder

members of the Church, and when they begin to lose ground, or to turn

aside, they should be promptly admonished, and, if necessary, reproved.

But to do it in a wrong manner is worse than not to do it at all. It is

sometimes done in a manner which is abrupt, harsh, and apparently

censorious, more like scolding than like brotherly admonition. Such a

manner, instead of inspiring confidence, or leading to reformation, is just

calculated to harden the heart of the young convert, and confirm him in his

wrong courses, while, at the same time, it closes his mind against the

influence of such censorious guardians. The heart of a young convert is

tender, and easily grieved, and sometimes a single unkind look will set him

into such a state of mind as will fasten his errors upon him, and make him

grow worse and worse.

You who are parents know how important it is when you reprove your

children, that they should see that you do it from the best of motives, for

their benefit, because you wish them to be good, and not because you are

angry. Otherwise they will soon come to regard you as a tyrant, rather

than a friend. Just so with young converts. Kindness and tenderness, even

in reproof, will win their confidence, and attach them to you, and give an

influence to your brotherly instructions and counsels, so that you can

mold them into finished Christians. Instead of this, if you are severe and

critical in your manner, that is the way to make them think you wish to

Lord it over them. Many persons, under pretense of being faithful, as they

call it, often hurt young converts by such a severe and overbearing manner,

as to drive them away, or perhaps crush them into despondency and

apathy. Young converts have but little experience, and are easily thrown

down. They are just like a little child when it first begins to walk. You see

it tottering along, and it stumbles over a straw. You see the mother take

everything out of the way, when her little one is going to try to walk. Just

so with young converts. The Church ought to take up every stumbling

block, and treat converts in such a way as to make them see that if they

are reproved, Christ is in it. Then they will receive it as it is meant, and it

will do them good.

5. Kindly point out things that are fault in the young convert, which he

does not see. He is but a child, and knows so little about religion, so that

there will be many things that he needs to learn, and a great many that he

ought to mend. Whatever there is that is wrong in spirit, unlovely in his

deportment, or uncultivated in manner, that will impede his usefulness or

impair his influence as a Christian, ought to be kindly pointed out and

corrected. To do this in the right way, however, requires great wisdom.

Christians ought to make it a subject of much prayer and reflection, that

they may do it in such a way as not to do more hurt than good. If you

rebuke him merely for the things that he did not see, or did not know to be

improper, it will grieve and disgust him. Such instruction should be

carefully timed. Often, it is well to take the opportunity after you have

been praying together, or after a kind conversation on religious subjects

which has been calculated to make him feel that you love him, seek his

good, and earnestly desire to promote his sanctification, his usefulness,

and his happiness. Then, a mere hint will often do the work. Just suggest

that “Such a thing in your prayer,” or “your conduct in so-and-so, did not

strike me pleasantly; had you not better think of it, and perhaps you will

judge it better to avoid a recurrence of it?” Do it rightly, and you will help

him and do him good. Do it in the wrong way, and you will do ten times

more hurt than good. Often, young converts will err through ignorance;

their judgment is unripe, and they need time to think and make up an

enlightened judgment on some point that at first appears to them doubtful.

In such cases the older members should treat them with great kindness and

forbearance; should kindly instruct them, and not denounce them at once

for not seeing, at first, what perhaps they themselves did not understand

until years after they were converted.

6. Do not speak of the faults of young converts behind their backs. This is

too common among old professors; and, by and by, the converts hear of it;

and what an influence it must exercise to destroy the confidence of young

converts in their elder brethren, to grieve their hearts and discourage them,

and perhaps to drive them away from the good influence of the Church.

III. SOME OF THE EVILS OF DEFECTIVE INSTRUCTION.

1. If not fully instructed, they will never be fully grounded in right

principles. If they have right fundamental principles, this will lead them to

adopt a right course of conduct in all particular cases. In forming a

Christian character a great deal depends on establishing those fundamental

principles which are correct on all subjects. If you look at the Bible, you

will see there that God teaches right principles which we can carry out, in

detail, in right conduct. If the education of young converts is defective,

either in kind or degree, you will see the result in their character all their

lives. This is the philosophical result – just what might be expected, and

just what will always follow. It could be shown that almost all the

practical errors that have prevailed in the Church are the natural results of

certain false dogmas which have been taught to young converts, and which

they have been made to swallow, as the truth of God, at a time when they

were so ignorant as not to know any better.

2. If the instruction given to young converts is not correct and full, they

will not grow in grace, but their religion will dwindle away and decay.

Their course, instead of being like the path of the just, growing brighter

and brighter unto the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18), will grow dimmer and

dimmer, and finally, perhaps, go out in darkness. Wherever you see young

converts let their religion taper off till it comes to nothing, you may

understand that it is the natural result of defective instruction. The

philosophical result of teaching young converts the truth, and the whole

truth, is that they grow stronger and stronger. Truth is the food of the

mind – it is what gives the mind strength. And where religious character

grows feeble, rely upon it, in nine cases out of ten it is owing to their being

neglected, or falsely instructed, when they were young converts.

3. They will be left in doubt, justly, as to whether they are Christians. If

their early instruction is false, or defective, there will be so much

inconsistency in their lives, and so little evidence of real piety, that they

themselves will finally doubt whether they have any. Probably they will

live and die in doubt. You cannot make a little evidence go a great way. If

they do not see clearly, they will not live consistently; if they do not live

consistently, they can have but little evidence; and if they have not

evidence, they must doubt, or live in presumption.

4. If young converts are rightly instructed and trained, it will generally be

seen that they will take the right side on all great subjects that come before

the Church. Subjects are continually coming up before the Churches, on

which they have to take ground, and on many matters there is often no

little difficulty in making the members take right ground. Take the subject

of tracts, or missions, or Sabbath Schools, or temperance, for instance –

what cavils, and objections, and resistance, and opposition, have been

encountered from members of the Churches in different places. Go through

the Churches, and where you find young converts have been well taught,

you never find them making difficulty, or raising objections, or putting

forth cavils. I do not hesitate to charge it upon pastors and older members

of Churches, that there are so many who have to be dragged up to the right

ground on all such subjects. If they had been well grounded in the

principles of the Gospel at the outset, when they were first converted,

they would have seen the application of their principles to all these things.

It is curious to see how ready young converts are to take right ground on

any subject that may be proposed. See what they are willing to do for the

education of ministers, for missions, moral reform, or for the slaves! If the

great body of young converts from the late revivals had been well

grounded in Gospel principles, you would have found in them, throughout

the Church, but one heart and one soul in regard to every question of duty.

Let their early education be right, and you have got a body of Christians

that you can depend on. If it had been general in the Church, how much

more strength there would have been in all her great movements for the

salvation of the world!

5. If young converts are not well instructed, they will inevitably backslide.

If their instruction is defective, they will probably live in such a way as to

disgrace religion. The truth, kept steadily before the mind of a young

convert, in proper proportions, has a natural tendency to make him grow

“unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of

Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). If any one point is made too prominent in the

instruction given, there will probably be just that disproportion in his

character. If he is fully instructed on some points and not on others, you

will find a corresponding defect in his life and character.

If the instruction of young converts is greatly defective, they will press on

in religion no farther than they are strongly propelled by the first emotions

of their conversion. As soon as that is spent they will come to a stand, and

then they will decline and backslide. And ever after you will find that they

will go forward only when aroused by some powerful excitement. These

are your “periodical” Christians, who are so apt to wake up in a time of

revival, and bluster about as if they had the zeal of angels, for a few days,

and then die away as dead and cold as a northern winter. Oh, how

desirable, how infinitely important it is, that young converts should be so

taught that their religion will not depend on impulses and excitements, but

that they will go steadily onward in the Christian course, advancing from.

strength to strength, and giving forth a clear and safe and steady light all

around.

REMARKS.

1. The Church is verily guilty for her past neglect, in regard to the

instruction of young converts.

Instead of bringing up their young converts to be working Christians, the

Churches have generally acted as if they did not know how to employ

young converts, or what use to make of them. They have acted like a

mother who has a great family of daughters, but knows not how to set

them to work, and so suffers them to grow up idle and untaught, useless

and despised, and to be the easy prey of every designing villain.

If the Church had only done her duty in training up young converts to

work and labor for Christ, the world would have been converted long ago.

But instead of this, how many Churches actually oppose young converts

who attempt to set themselves to work for Christ. Multitudes of old

professors look with suspicion upon every movement of young converts,

and talk against them, saying: “They are too forward, they ought not to

put themselves forward, but wait for those who are older.” There is

waiting again! Instead of bidding young converts “Godspeed,” and

cheering them on, very often they hinder them, and perhaps put them

down. How often have young converts been stopped from going forward,

and turned into rank behind a formal, lazy, inefficient Church, till their

spirit has been crushed, and their zeal extinguished; so that after a few

ineffectual struggles to throw off the cords, they have concluded to sit

down with the rest, and WAIT. In many places young converts cannot

even attempt to hold a prayer meeting by themselves, without being

rebuked by the pastor, or by some deacon, for being so forward, and

upbraided with spiritual pride. “Oho,” it is said, “you are young converts,

are you? And so you want to get together, and call all the neighbors

together to look at you, because you are young converts. You had better

turn preachers at once!” A celebrated Doctor of Divinity in New England

boasted, at a public table, of his success in keeping all his converts still. He

had great difficulty, he said, for they were in a terrible fever to do

something, to talk, or pray, or get up meetings, but by the greatest

vigilance he had kept it all down, and now his Church was just as quiet as

it was before the revival. Wonderful achievement for a minister of Jesus

Christ! Was that what the blessed Savior meant when he told Peter: “Feed

My lambs”?

2. Young converts should be trained to labor just as carefully as young

recruits in an army are trained for war. Suppose a captain in the army

should get his company enlisted, and then take no more pains to teach and

train, and discipline them, than are taken by many pastors to train and lead

forward their young converts. Why, the enemy would laugh at such an

army. Call them soldiers! Why, as to any effective service, they would not

know what to do nor how to do it, and if you brought them up to the

CHARGE, how would they fare? Such an army would resemble the

Church that does not train her young converts. Instead of being trained to

stand shoulder to shoulder in the onset, they feel no practical confidence in

their leaders, no confidence in their neighbors, and no confidence in

themselves; hence they scatter at the first shock of battle. Look at the

Church now. Ministers are not agreed as to what shall be done, and many

of them will fight against their brethren, quarreling about “new measures,”

or something. As to the members, they cannot feel confidence when they

see the leaders so divided. And then if they attempt to do anything –

alas! what ignorance, what awkwardness, what discord, what weakness we

see, and what miserable work they make of it! And so it must continue,

until the Church shall train up young converts to be intelligent,

single-hearted, self-denying, working Christians. Here is an enterprise now

going on in this city, which I rejoice to see. I mean the tract enterprise – a

blessed work. And the plan is to train up a body of devoted Christians to

do – what? Why, to do what all the Church ought to have been trained to

do long ago: to know how to pray, and how to converse with people about

salvation, and how to act in anxious meetings, and how to deal with

inquirers, and how to SAVE SOULS.

3. The Church has entirely mistaken the manner in which she is to be

sanctified. The experiment has been carried on long enough, of trying to

sanctify the Church, without finding anything for the members to do. But

holiness consists in obeying God, and sanctification, as a process, means

obeying Him more and more perfectly. And the way to promote it in the

Church, is to give every one something to do. Look at these great

Churches, where they have five hundred or seven hundred members, and

have a minister to feed them from Sabbath to Sabbath, while there are so

many of them together that the greater part have nothing at all to do, and

are never trained to make any direct efforts for the salvation of souls. And

in that way they are expecting to be sanctified and prepared for heaven!

They never will be sanctified so. That is not the way God has appointed.

Jesus Christ has made His people co-workers with Him in saving sinners,

for this very reason, because sanctification consists in doing those things

which are required to promote this work. This is one reason why He has

not employed angels in the work, or carried it on by direct revelation of

truth to the minds of men. It is because it is necessary as a means of

sanctification, that the Church should sympathize with Christ in His

feelings and His labors for the conversion of sinners. And in this way the

entire Church must move, before the world will be converted. When the

day comes that the whole body of professing Christians shall realize that

they are here on earth as a body of missionaries, and when they shall live

and labor accordingly, then will the day of man’s redemption draw nigh.

Christian, if you cannot go abroad to labor, why are you not a missionary

in your own family? If you are too feeble even to leave your room, be a

missionary there in your bedchamber. How many unconverted servants

have you in your house? Call in your unconverted servants, and your

unconverted children, and be a missionary to them. Think of your

physician, who, perhaps, is laying himself out to save your body; think

that you receive his kindness and never make him the greatest return in

your power.

It is necessary that the Church should take hold of her young converts at

the outset, and set them to work in the right way. The hope of the Church

is in the young converts.

4. We see what a responsibility rests on ministers and elders, and on all

who have opportunity to assist in training young converts. How

distressing is the picture which often forces itself upon the mind, where

multitudes are converted, and yet so little pains are taken with young

converts, that in a single year you cannot tell the young converts from the

rest of the Church. And then we see the old Church members turn round

and complain of these young converts, and perhaps slander them, when in

truth these old professors themselves are most to blame – oh, it is too

bad! This reaction that people talk so much about after a revival, as if

reaction was the necessary effect of a revival, would never come, and

young converts never would backslide as they do, if the Church would be

prompt and faithful in attending to their instruction. If they are truly

converted, they can be made thorough and energetic Christians. And if

they are not made such, Jesus Christ will require it at the hands of the

Church.

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