IV. Without this thy hopes arein vain. ;

First, Zhy hopes of comfort-here are in vain. "Tis not only necessary to the safety, but comfort of your condition, that you be converted. Without this you shall not know peace. Without the fear of God, you cannot have the comfort of the Holy Ghost. ‘If you: have a false peace, continuing in your sins, “tis not of | God’s speaking, and then you may guess the author. Sin is a real sickness, yea, the worst of sickness; it is a leprosy in the head, the plague in the heart: it is brokenness in the bones: it pierceth, it woundeth, it racketh, it tormenteth. A man may as well expect ease when his bones are out of joint, as true comfort while in his sins.
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570 THE NECESSITY OF CONVERSION.
Sin doth naturally breed distempers and distur- we s in the soul: What a continual tempest is there in”a discontented mind! What an eating evil is hordinate care! What is passion, but a very -fever in the mind? What is lust, but a fire in the bones? What is pride, but a deadly tympany? . Or covetous- ness, but an insatiable and unsufferable thirst? Or malice and envy, but venom in the very heart? And how can that soul have true comfort that is under so many diseases? But converting grace cures, and so eases the mind; prepares ‘the soul for a settled, standing, immortal peace: (Great peace have they that love thy commandments, and nothing shall offend them:
Secondly, Zhy hopes of salvation hereafter are in vain, yea, worse than in vain: they are most injurious to God, most pernicious to thyself: there is death, desperation, blasphemy, in the bowels of this hope. 1. There is death in it: thy confidence shall be rooted out of thy tabernacles, (God will up with it root and branch :) i shall bring them to the king of terrors. 2. There is desperation in it: where is the hope of the hypocrite, when God taketh away his soul? Then there is an end for ever of his hope. But'the righteous hath Rope in his death, Prov. xxiv. 32. When na- ture is dying, his hopes are living; when his body i is languishing, fits hopes are flourishing : his hope is a living hope, but the other a dying, yea, a damning, soul- ‘undoing hope. For the eyes of the wicked shall fail; and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost. Wicked men are fixed in their carnal hope,
and will: not be beaten out of it; they’hold it fast, they will not let it go: yea, but death’ will knock off
their fingers; though we cannot undeceive them, death and judgment “will; when death strikes his dart through thy liver, it will out thy soul and thy hopes together. 3. There is blasphemy in it. To hope we shall be saved, though continuing unconverted, it is to hope we shall prove God a liar. He hath told you, that whatever you be or do, nothing shall avail’ you to Ralwation unless you become new creatures, Gal. vi. 15.
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THE NECESSITY OF ,CONVERSION. 571
To say God is merciful, and we hope will save us ne- vertheless, is in effect to say, We hope God will not do as he says
“Why, but we hope in Jesus. Christ, we put our whole trust in God; and therefore doubt not but we shall be saved.” .
Ans. 1. This is not to hope in Christ, but against Christ. To hope to see the kingdom of God, with- out being born again, to hope to find eternal life in the broad way, is to hope Christ will prove a false pro- phet. “Tis David's plea, I hope in thy word; but this hope is against the word. Show me a word of Christ for thy hope, that he will save thee in thy pro- fane neglect of his service, and I will never go to shake thy confidence.
2. God doth with abhorrence reject this hope. God will not endure to be made a prop to men in their sins: the Lord rejecteth those presumptuous sinners tbat went on still in their trespasses, and yet would stay themselves upon Israel's. God, Isa. xlvili. 1, 2. as a man would shake, off the briars that cleave to his garment.
“ But would you have us despair.”
Ans. You must despair of ever coming to hea- ven as you are, that is, while you remain unconvert- ed.—You must despair of ever seeing the face of God without holiness; but you must by no means despair of finding mercy upon your thorough repent- ance and conversion; neither may you despair of attaining to repentance and conversion in the use of God's means. j