by Samuel Rutherford
"Nor are we ashamed to say with the Scripture, it's as impossible to storm heaven, or make purchase of Christ, by the strength of nature, as for the dead man to take his grave in his two arms, and rise and lay death by him and walk. Nor does this impossibility free the sinner from guiltiness and rebukes. 1. Because it is a sinfully contracted inability, except we would deny original sin. 2. It's voluntary in us, and the bondage that we love. 3. The Scripture both calls it impossibility, and also rebukes it as sinful. John 6:44, Rom. 8:3 and 7-8, Eph. 2:1-3 and 11-13, 4:17-19, 5:8."
"All preparations, even wrought in us by the common and general restraining grace of God, can have no effective influence to produce our conversion, from the Scriptures alleged..."
"All these foregoing endeavors and sweatings, being void of faith, cannot please God, Heb. 11:6. These who act in the strength of them are yet in the flesh, and not in the Spirit, and so can do nothing acceptable to God, being yet out of Christ, Rom. 8:8, John 15:4-6. And the tree being corrupt, the fruit must be sour, and naught; humiliation, sorrow for sin, displeasure with ourselves, that go before conversion, can be no formal parts of conversion..."
"Those are not moral preparations which we perform before conversion, nor have they any promise of Christ annexed to them, as, He that is humbled under sin shall be drawn to Christ, or He that wisheth the Physician, shall be cured and called to repentance. We read of no such promise in the word..."
"Many have storms of conscience, as Cain and Judas, who go never one step further. When, therefore, Antinomians impute to us that we teach, That to desire to believe is faith, or desire to pray is prayer, they foully mistake. For raw desires, and wishes after conversion and Christ, are to us no more conversion, and the soul's being drawn to Christ, than Esau's weeping for the blessing was the blessing, or Balaam's wish to die the death of the righteous was the happy end of such as die in the Lord..."
"The humiliation and sorrow for sin, and desire of the Physician, by way of merit, or having the favor of a gospel promise, do no more render a soul nearer to Christ and saving grace, than the want of these dispositions..."
This is certainly in contradistinction to today’s Hardshells. The first Baptists of the Old Confessions, as Rutherford (Presbyterian), did not believe that conviction of sin was a fruit of regeneration. They and he believed that the unregenerate, though awakened and quickened (spurred or excited), was still not yet born again or converted, but yet in the flesh, yet without faith, and not yet come to Christ for life and salvation. The view of the Hardshells does not reflect what Baptists believed till the "rise of the Hardshells" in the early 19th century.
If simply desiring salvation were a proof and guarantee of salvation, then Balaam, the false prophet, is elect and regenerated! Yet, no one but Hardshell heretics espouse the salvation of such individuals as Cain, Judas, Baalim, Simon Magus, etc., all of whom show forth the Hardshell "evidences" of "regeneration"!
Rutherford also did not confuse the "work of the law" with the "work of grace" as do the so-called Primitive Baptists. Conviction of sin was a preparation for regeneration, not a result of it. In the mind of Rutherford and the first Particular Baptists, it is not till an awakened and law terrified soul came to Christ, helpless, that he received the life of the Christian.
Rutherford continues:
"And the humbled soul, for ought he knows (I speak of legal humiliation), hath no more any gospel title or promise that saving grace shall be given to him, even of mere grace, upon condition of his humiliation, or external hearing, or desire of the Physician, than the proud Pharisee. Yet as the body framed and organized is in a nearer disposition to be a house to receive the soul, than a stone or a block, so is an humbled and dejected soul, such as cast-down Saul, and the bowed-down jailer, and those that were pricked in their hearts, Acts 2, in the moment before their conversion, nearer to conversion, and, in regard of passive and material dispositions made by the law-work, readier to receive the impression and new life of Christ formed in them, than the blaspheming Jews, Acts 13, and the proud Pharisees who despised the counsel of God and would not be baptized, Luke 7:30. There be some preparatory colors in dying of cloth, as blue, that dispose the cloth for other colors more easily; so it is here. And a fish that hath swallowed the bait, and is in the bosom of the net, is nearer being taken, than a fish free and swimming in the ocean. Yet a fish may break the net, and cut the angle, and not be taken. A legally fitted man may be not far from the kingdom of God, Mark 12:34, and yet never enter in. And those same dispositions, in relation to God's end in saving the elect, are often means and disposing occasions, fitting souls for conversion. Though some be like a piece of gold lying in the dirt, yet it is both true metal, and hath the king's stamp on it, and is of equal worth with that which goeth current in the market. So, in regard of God's eternal election, many are in the way of sin, and not converted as yet, notwithstanding all the luster of foregoing preparations, though they be as truly the elect of God as either those that are converted, yea or glorified in heaven; yet their preparations do lead them, in regard of an higher power (that they see not) to saving grace.""And for anything revealed to us, God ordinarily prepares men by the law, and some previous dispositions, before they be drawn to Christ."
Again, this just goes contrary to what I have cited from the Hardshells about conviction of sin. Certainly Rutherford did not believe that the jailer, simply by being convicted, was regenerated. Not till he believed and trusted in Christ did that occur. So too with reference to those in Acts 2 who were "pricked" in their "hearts." Rutherford saw this pricking as opening up the way to the new birth, to repentance and faith, being a work of the law, a preparation, and not the actual regeneration.
But, Hardshells look at an unregenerate sinner’s "dispositions" and call them part of the "work of grace"!Rutherford continues:
"Objection. Despair of salvation in myself is a part of faith, so you exhort the troubled in mind at first to believe."
"Answer. Not so: Judas and Cain both despaired of salvation in themselves, yet had they no part of saving faith. It's impossible that any can rely on Christ while they continue resting on false bottoms. Faith is a sailing and a swimming; ships cannot sail on mountains, it's impossible to swim on dry land. As it is impossible to have a soul and not to have a love, so we cannot have a love to lie by us as useless, but a lover we must have. And Christ's work of conversion is orderly, as first to plow and pluck up, so then to sow and plant, and first to take the soul off of old lovers."
"Desires going before conversion are not such as can calm a storming conscience. He knows not Christ who dreams that a wakened conscience can be calmed with anything less than the blood of Jesus Christ, that speaks better things than the blood of Abel. Never Protestant divines promise soul rest in preparations that are wrought by the law. If Antinomians can give soul rest to troubled consciences by all the promises of the gospel, and raise up the spirits of Judas or Cain to sound comfort, let them be doing. Sure there is a lock on a troubled conscience that the gospel letter, or the tongue of man or angel can be no key to open. Christ hath reserved a way of his own to give satisfaction to afflicted spirits. But the question is now, supposing ye deal with unconverted men, whether or no ye are not first to convince them of the curses of the law to come on them, to humble them, and so to chase them to Christ. And if to bid them be humbled, and know their dangerous condition, the state of damnation, and set to these preparatory duties, be to teach them to seek righteousness in themselves, we answer no."
Rutherford says:
"So the Antinomian way of conversion is that every soul troubled for sin, elect or reprobate, is immediately, without any foregoing preparations, or humiliation, or work of the law, to believe that God loved him with an everlasting love. A manifest lie, for so reprobates are to believe a lie, as the first gospel truth. This is I confess a honey-way, and so evangelic that all the damned are to believe that God did bear to them the same everlasting good will and love he had in heart toward Jacob."
He writes further:
"The gospel we teach saith eternal election is that secret in the heart of the Lamb, called his book, so as really God first loves and chooses the sinner to salvation. We are blacked with hell, lying amongst the pots, till Christ take us up, and wash and lick the leopard spots off us. But to our sense and apprehension, we first love and choose him as our only liking, and then by our faith and his love on us we know he hath first loved us, with an everlasting love. But there be many turnings, windings, ups and downs, ere it come to this. I have not heard of such an experience, that at the first, without any more ado, forthwith, the Lord saith, Come up hither, I will cause thee read thy name in the Lamb's book of life. Shall the believing of the love of election to glory be the first medicine that you give to all troubled consciences, elect and reprobate?"
"Antinomian objection. I seldom desired pardon of sin, till I were fitted for mercies, but now I see we are pardoned freely. O rest not in your own duties."
"Now Peter, Acts 2, poured vinegar and wine at first on the wounds of his hearers when he said, Ye murdered the Lord of glory, and they were pricked in their heart. This is the law's work, Rom. 3, to condemn and stop the sinner's mouth. And you cannot say that Peter failed in curing too suddenly, because he preached first the law to wound and prick them, for that they crucified the Lord of glory, before he preached the gospel of belief and baptism. And the Lord rebuking Saul from heaven, convincing him of persecution, casting him down to the ground, striking him blind while he trembled, and the Lord's dealing with the jailer, was more sour work than proposing and pouring the gospel oil and honey of freely imputed righteousness in their wounds at the first, and a close unbottoming them of their own righteousness. And the Lord's way of justifying Jews and Gentiles is a law-way as touching the order, Rom. 3; having proved all to be under sin, verses 9-18, he saith, verse 19, Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. Indeed, if they be convinced of sin by the Spirit, and so converted, and yet under trouble of mind, a pound of the gospel for one ounce weight of the law is fit for them."
Here he mentions again the case of the penitents in Acts 2. This wounding of the consciences and pricking of the hearts of those who heard Peter and cried, from conviction of sin and guilt, "men and brethren, what shall we do?" - is a pre-regenerative work, a work of the law.
He says further:
"It is true, Peter never preached the law to Cornelius, nor Philip to the eunuch, nor Ananias to Paul, but these were all converted aforehand. We think the unconverted man knows neither contrition nor confession aright."
"There be more vehement stirrings and wrestlings in a natural spirit under the law, as the bullock is most unruly at the first yoking, and green wood casts most smoke. Paul, Rom. 7, was slain by the law, but this makes more way for Christ, and though it do not morally soften and facilitate the new birth, yet it ripeneth the out-breaking. Preparations are penal, to subdue, not moral, to deserve or merit, nor conditional, to engage Christ to convert or to facilitate conversion."
"There be no preparations at all required before redemption, I Tim. 1:15, Rom. 5:8. But there is a far other order in the working of conversion. Those who confound the one with the other speak ignorantly of the ways of grace, for though both be of mere grace, without wages or merit, yet we are mere patients in the one, not in the other. Saltmarsh and Antinomians argue from the one to the other, most ignorantly." (Part Two)
"That the promises of the gospel are holden forth to sinners as sinners, hath a twofold sense. 1. As that they be sinners and all in a sinful condition to whom the promises are holden forth. This is most true and sound. The kingdom of grace is an hospital and guest house of sick ones, fit for the art and mercy of the Physician Christ. 2. So as they are all immediately to believe and apply Christ and the promises, who are sinners, and there be nothing required of sinners but that they may all immediately challenge interest in Christ, after their own way and order, without humiliation or any law-work. In this sense it is most false that the promises are holden forth to sinners as sinners, because then Christ should be holden forth to all sinners, Americans, Indians, and sinners who never by the least rumor heard one word of Christ. Peter desires not Simon Magus to believe that God had loved him in Christ Jesus with an everlasting love, nor doth the gospel promise offer immediately soul rest to the hardened and proud sinner wallowing in his lusts, as he is a hardened sinner. Nor is the acceptable year of the Lord proclaimed, nor beauty and the oil of joy offered immediately, to any but to those who are weary and laden, and who mourn in Sion, and wallow in ashes, Matt. 11:28-30, Isa. 61:1-3. It's true, to all within the visible church Christ is offered without price or money, but to be received after Christ's fashion and order, not after our order; that is, after the soul is under self-despair of salvation, and in the sinner's month, when he hath been with child of hell."
Again, all this is a complete denial of what Hardshells believe and teach about conviction of sin and of preparations for regeneration and conversion. Recall the parable of the sower and the seed that I dealt with in an earlier chapter. The Hardshells argue that the "good soil" is made good by regeneration, and so regeneration occurs before the sowing of the gospel seed. I showed that there are preparations going before regeneration, just as there was action in the bones coming together in the story of Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones, before the bones were quickened to life. Hardshells mistake these preparations for regeneration itself, rather than as means or stages to it.
Also, from the above citations, it is clear that Rutherford believed in "offering" Christ and salvation to those who were under the work of the law and under Sinai’s mountain.
It is also clear that he did not believe that Americans or Indians (1600's), who had never head the gospel, much less the law of God, had any possibility of coming to saving faith.
Rutherford continues:
"I desire I be not mistaken. None can be thoroughly fitted for Christ before he come to Christ; but it is as true, some would buy the pearl before they sell all they have, which is not the wise merchant's part. And they err foully who argue thus, If I were not a sinner, or if my sins were less heinous, and so I were less unworthy, I would come to Christ and believe; but ah, I am so grievous an offender, and so unworthy, that I cannot go. Their antecedent is true, but the consequence is naught and wicked. It is true, I am sick, and it's good that I both say and feel that I am sick. But, ergo, I cannot, I will not, go to the Physician, that is wicked logic, and the contrary consequence is good, whereas the other consequence is a seeking of righteousness in ourselves. Another false ground is here laid by Libertines, That we place worth and righteousness in preparations, or that preparations make us less unworthy, and less sinners. But preparations are not in any sort to us money nor hire. We value them as dung, and sin; yet such sin, as sickness is in relation to physic. Preparations remove not one dram, or twentieth part of an ounce, of guiltiness or sin. Christ, in practice of free grace, not by law, yea not by promise, gives grace to the thus prepared, and often he denies it also."
From this latter citation it is clear that Rutherford believed that many who experienced conviction of sin, by the law or the gospel, may "not go to the Physician" and thus not be saved. Again, that is not Hardshell Baptist teaching. How then can they claim to be the "Original" or "Primitive Bapist"?
Abraham Booth wrote:
One would imagine that the gospel of reigning grace, that the tidings of a free Saviour and a full salvation, would be embraced with the utmost readiness by a sin-her thus convinced. One would suppose that, so soon as he heard the divine report, he could not forbear exclaiming, in a transport of joy, "This is the Saviour I want! This salvation is every way suitable to my condition. Perfect in itself, and free for the unworthy sinner. Wonderful truth! Astonishing grace! What could I have, what can I desire more? Here I would rest; in this I will glory." But alas! this is not always the case. Observation and experience prove, that the awakened sinner is frequently backward, exceedingly backward, to receive comfort from the glorious gospel. This arises, not from any defect in the grace it reveals, or in the salvation it brings; not because the sinner is under any necessity, or in any distress, for which it has not provided complete relief; but because he does not behold the glory of that grace which reigns triumphant in it, and the design of God, in making such a provision. He wants to find himself some way distinguished, as a proper object of mercy, by holy tempers and sanctified affections. This is a bar to his comfort, this is his grand embarrassment, In other words, he is ready to fear that he is not sufficiently humbled under a sense of sin; that he has not a suitable abhorrence of it; or, that he has not those fervent breathings after Christ and holiness which he ought to have, before he can be warranted to look for salvation with a well-grounded hope of success. Here it should be well observed, that deep distress, arising from the fear of hell, is not required of any, in order to peace with God; for such distress does not belong to the precepts of the law, but to its curse. Terrifying apprehensions of eternal punishment are no part of that which is required of sinners, but of what is inflicted on them. There is indeed an evangelical sorrow for sin, that is our duty; which is commanded, and has promises annexed to it: but legal terrors, proceeding from the curse of the law, not from its precept; expressing a sense of danger from the law, rather than of having done evil against the law; are no marks of love to God, or of an holy temper. An awakened sinner, therefore, wishing for distresses of this kind, is a person seeking the misery of unbelief, that he may obtain a permission to believe. See Dr. Owen on the Holy Spirit, p. 306."
Booth, like Richardson, condemns all that Beebe, Trott, Wilson Thompson, Cayce, Daily, or any other Hardshell, has written on the nature of conviction of sin. Their model of "regeneration" makes any and all conviction of sin, any and all conscience trouble over sin, an "evidence" of "regeneration" and is shockingly new and novel among Baptists and foreign to the scriptures. Booth does not confuse preparations for regeneration with regeneration itself. Booth does not confuse the work of the law with the work of grace. Only the Hardshells confuse these things.
He says further:"Thus the sinner, even when his conscience is oppressed with guilt, and earnestly desirous of salvation, opposes the true grace of God, by desiring some worthiness of his own. Whence it appears, that the genuine self-denial of the gospel is the hardest sacrifice to human pride."
The Hardshell would say that this person who is under conviction, and who is yet opposing the grace of God, is nevertheless regenerated, already drawn to Christ, already cleansed in heart and conscience!
He says further:"But grace reigns. The Spirit of truth, a principal part of whose business it is, in the economy of salvation, to testify of Christ and of sovereign mercy by him; still calls the poor alarmed wretch by the gospel. Evidencing to his conscience, not only the all-sufficiency, but also the absolute freeness of the glorious Redeemer. Manifesting that there are no good qualities to be obtained; no righteous acts to be performed, either to gain an interest in him, or to qualify for him. Showing, yet further, that convictions of sin, and a sense of want, are not to be accounted conditions of our acceptance with Christ and salvation by him; nor ought they to be esteemed previously necessary to our believing in him, on any other account, than as a sensibility of our spiritual poverty and wretchedness, renders relief in a way of grace truly welcome. This is needful, not as inclining God to give, but as disposing us to receive. A sinner will neither seek nor accept the great atonement, till sensible that Divine wrath and the damnation of hell are what he deserves; and what, without the propitiation of the adorable Jesus, he must unavoidably suffer."
"I take it for granted we must come to Christ under that character by which he calls us. Now, it is evident, he invites us by the name of sinners. As sinners, therefore, miserable, ruined sinners, we must come to him for life and salvation. The gospel of peace is preached to such, and them the gospel calls; even those who are not conscious that they are the objects of any good disposition. Yes, disconsolate sinner, be it known to you, be it never forgotten by you, that the gospel with all its blessings, that Christ with all his fulness, are a glorious provision made by the great Sovereign, and by grace as reigning, for the guilty and the wretched–for such as have nothing of their own on which to rely, and utterly despair of ever being able to do anything for that purpose. The undertaking of Jesus Christ was intended for the relief of such as are ungodly, altogether miserable, and without hope in themselves. Such was the beneficent design of God, and such is the salutary genius of his gospel. Delightful, ravishing truth! enough, one would think, to make the brow of melancholy wear a smile. Let me indulge the pleasing thought, and once more express the charming idea. The blessings of grace were never designed to distinguish the worthy, or to reward merit; but to relieve the wretched and save the desperate."
(http://www.jude3.net/brg04.htm)
Thus he clearly puts regeneration after conviction, and not before, as do the Hardshells.
"Elenctics, in Christianity, is adivision of practical theology concerned with persuading people of other faiths (or no faith) of the truth of the Gospel message, with an end to producing in them: an awareness of, and sense of guilt for, their sins; a recognition of their need for God's forgiveness; repentance i.e. the disposition to turn away from their sin; and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord."A writer on Jonathan Edwards, in relation to his views respecting conviction of sin and its relation to regeneration, wrote:
"As the following examples show the doctrine of sin received thorough and practical treatment by the Puritan pulpit and it was the intention of the pastor to utilize it chiefly for conviction. Richard Sibbes (1577-1665) of Cambridge was of a spiritually sensitive mind and gracious temperament. In Sibbes's writings the doctrine of the Holy Spirit with respect to His work of conviction in the soul is presented with a minimum of concern for the rigidity of strict dogma. Yet Sibbes was emphatic that it was through granting a sense of sin that the Spirit encouraged an eager reception of the Biblical gospel. In his famous The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax he represented a considerable portion of mainstream Puritanism when he made clear that by bruising a person's heart before conversion, "the Spirit may make way for itself into the heart by levelling all proud, high thoughts, and that we may understand ourselves to be what indeed we are by nature." The heart would take on a posture of surrender to God and to the salvation that is by grace alone. Sibbes itemizes several other advantages of a sense of sin. For one thing, the gospel is appreciated for the first time and the discovery is made that the "fig-leaves of morality will do us no good." This bruising "maketh us set a high price upon Christ" as the only refuge from God's just wrath. Moreover, it produces thankfulness and thankfulness engenders fruits of grace. The lack of conviction of sin at the outset of conversion was, for Sibbes, often the reason for "relapses and apostasies" later on. Therefore, this part of the Spirit's work is "necessary BEFORE conversion."
"Not all Puritans supposed a stage of conviction of sin to be chronologically prior to conversion, however. John Howe (1630-1705), for example, sometime chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and leader of the Dissenters after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in outlining the requisite elements of a true conversion acknowledged that "God's method may vary, or not in every respect be the same, with everyone he savingly works upon." Nevertheless, the absence of a sense of sin signified for Howe a heart unchanged. The process of reconciliation between God and man must be seen to include "a thorough conviction, with deep and inward sense, wrought into your hearts, of your former enmity." This was in fact one of the great hindrances to conversion. Men by nature "feel not an enmity boiling in their hearts against God, therefore they will not yield there is any such thing." While Howe was not concerned with chronology in the process of conversion conviction of sin nevertheless played a vital part.
Thomas Shepard (1605-1649), an influential New England divine, affirmed the great advantage of a thorough persuasion of depravity. Sinners never "come to be affected or awakened... because men consider not of God's wrath daily, nor the horrible nature of sin." Conviction of sin was a means to gaining the happiness that accompanies salvation. "Awaken therefore," he exclaims, "all you secure creatures; feel your misery, that so you may get out of it" for then "...the Lord may pity thee." Shepard believed conviction preceded regeneration. Saving faith grew only on the soil of felt transgression. Without it a sinner would go lost: "thou must mourn here or in hell."
"The Puritan pastor operated under one of two assumptions. On the one hand conviction of sin was an indispensable first stage in the conversion experience, a stage that must be undergone before the application of God's saving grace. On the other hand, as John Howe would have it, and he seems to have been in the majority on this point, conviction is but one of several strands running concurrently through the conversion experience itself. In either case however, conversion displays a turning from sin to God, from disobedience to surrender. And, for the Puritan no such surrender could take place without the person being convinced that he is a sinner. In the eighteenth century the Puritan era was dead and gone. But mid-century saw a renewed interest in many of the tenets held by the Puritans. With respect to the doctrine of sin the evangelists of the Evangelical Revival stood on the heritage passed from their Puritan forebears and the preaching of Jonathan Edwards was but one case in point. It can be argued with respect to Edwards and others that this doctrine received heavier emphasis during the Revival than it had during the previous century when Puritanism was at its most influential. Indeed, fostering conviction of sin became one of the hallmarks of eighteenth century revival preaching."
"The doctrine of the new birth was central in the theology of the evangelicals and the congregational pastor or itinerant evangelist stood up to preach assuming some or many auditors to be in an unregenerate state. And while the seventeenth century Puritan sermonic diet was periodically sprinkled with references to the need for conviction of sin, the focus of the eighteenth century evangelist was much sharper. Often used as a homiletic device to foster a spiritual need for salvation it had a profound effect on slumbering congregations. "Law preaching," as it was called, usually received its due before Christ was offered in the gospel. Itinerant preachers were known to enter an area to hold services for several successive days. Two or three of the first sermons preached would invariably contain a weighty emphasis on the guilt and corruption of the audience."
"In Scotland the Erskine brothers were typical. Ebenezer (1680-1754)maintained in a sermon entitled God's Regard to Worthless Man that the "hammer of the law must be applied, in order to break the rocky heart in pieces; the fallow ground must be plowed up, to prepare it for the reception of the incorruptible seed of gospel truth." The obstinacy of the will must be "bended by the almighty power of God, and he persuaded and enabled to embrace Christ and salvation through him, as he is freely offered in the gospel."
"John Wesley (1703-1791), lightyears away from agreement with contemporaries on several points, acquiesced here. Preaching on the topic The Way to the Kingdom he not only delineated the conversion process but made urgent appeals to his audience: "awake, then, thou that sleepest. Know thyself to be a sinner, and what manner of sinner thou art. Know that corruption of thy inmost nature, whereby thou art very far gone from original righteousness... Know that thou art corrupted in every faculty of thy soul." Wesley's Calvinistic friend George Whitefield (1714-1770) wrote, "before ye can speak peace to your hearts, ye must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail your actual transgressions against the law of God.""
"On the Continent pietist Philipp Spener (1635-1705) had advised ministers to strive to convince their hearers of moral failure: "...A minister not only instructs his Hearers what they must do, and how they ought to act, but he labours fully to apprise and to convince them, by the Evidence of Scripture, of their own native Weakness and Impotency for all that is Spiritually good." Fellow leader August Francke (1663-1727), himself a "miserable worm," staunch advocate of "Busskampf" (German for penitential struggle) prior to conversion, exhorted preachers to demand of their people whether they had experienced "a lively Sense of the Corruption of their own Hearts, and of the Misery of the Natural State.""
"In America the preaching of Samuel Davies (1724-1761), a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards and successor to him as president of Princeton after Edwards died, embraced similar themes. Challenging his congregation on one occasion to take note of the incomparable nature of Christ in His saving work he drives home the point that none will look to Jesus except they possess a felt need of Him: "When a guilty creature is effectually alarmed with just apprehensions of his danger; when he sees his numberless transgressions in all their horrid aggravations..., with what importunate cries will he betake himself to Him for relief!" Grandson of Edwards, Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), president of Yale for several years, wrote extensively on the new birth and assigned to conviction of sin the place of antecedent of regeneration. In his distress the sinner searches for means of deliverance, turns finally to the gospel and discovers peace in the atoning work of Christ. He "entirely needs thus to understand and feel his condition; his guilt, his danger, his hopelessness, and his absolute necessity of being renewed by the Spirit of grace." Conviction, promoted by the preaching of the law, is therefore a "natural and necessary prerequisite to conversion.""
"In considering the question of conviction of sin in the history of the Evangelical Revival we turn to Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the most lucid exponent of revival theology of the period. Fostering an awareness of innate depravity was one of the more conspicuous strands in his preaching. For him, and he was fairly typical in this respect, it was simply being true to Scripture and true to what he knew to be genuine religious experience. Edwards was not merely following blindly in the footsteps of earlier preachers. He provided for himself and for his contemporaries both in America and the British Isles a theoretical base. It has been called the theology of revival. And one of the first principles of this theology with respect to preaching was the promotion of a sense of sin."
"That being the case, what must a man do? Must he continue in blindness until such time as the Spirit of God chooses to convert him? This in fact was the opinion of the few Hyper-Calvinists amongst New England clergy to be sure. They lay emphasis on man's inability and seemed to downplay his unwillingness. Since salvation is of the Lord man need not begin a hopeless attempt to procure grace. Ministers advised he remain passive and await the Lord's effectual call from darkness to light. But this was not the inclination of Edwards and other leaders of the Evangelical Revival. It was his conviction that all people needed the forgiveness that Christ had purchased desperately, immediately, and could receive Him as their saviour. From the perspective of God nothing stood in the way of the salvation of sinners. The great, debilitating dilemma however, was an absence of native attraction to Christ in their minds and will. They were blind and refractory. Hence there was an urgent necessity of awakening men to this desperate impasse. They must be stirred up to a sense of sin. "Until the sinner is convinced of his sin and misery," explains Edwards, "he is not prepared to receive the redeeming mercy and grace of God, as through a Mediator; because he does not see his need of a Mediator till he sees his sin and misery." He therefore exhorted his people to "seek those convictions.""
"God is compassionate. He determined to come to the aid of heedless sinners and has a prescribed way of bringing them into the light of His mercy. He first brings a man to reflect upon himself and be "sensible" of his sin. It is "God's manner to make men sensible of their misery and unworthiness, before he appears in his mercy and love to them.""
"In a most helpful statement Edwards sheds light on a psychological aspect employed in this process: "We see in temporal things, that the worth and value of any enjoyment is learned by the want of it." He who is sick values health the more. People at war value peace. He who is a captive or in a state of forced subjection learns to prize freedom. In the spiritual realm it is no different:
A sense of pardon of sin, and the favour of God, and a hope of eternal life, do not afford comfort and joy to the soul any farther than they are valued and prized. So that the trouble and darkness which go before comfort, serve to render the joy and comfort the greater when obtained, and so are in mercy to those for whom God intends comfort. There was more involved however, than simply recognizing the spiritual-psychological method whereby God draws a sinner to Christ. Edwards also saw that it was one of simple logic.
He argues:
"...they who are not sensible of their misery cannot truly look to God for mercy, for it is the very notion of divine mercy, that it is the goodness and grace of God to the miserable. Without misery in the object there can be no exercise of mercy. To suppose mercy without supposing misery, or pity without calamity is a contradiction: therefore men cannot look upon themselves as proper objects of mercy unless they first know themselves to be miserable."
"Conviction of sin, according to Edwards, does not result from the Spirit infusing special grace. Rather, it consists "only in assisting natural principles..." in order that the sinner can clearly see his state by nature. In a key sermon on this point Edwards states that "common grace differs from special in that it influences only by assisting of nature; and not by imparting grace, or bestowing anything above nature."
"In Edwards' view however more is needed than conviction of sin...indeed, one might sink into despair unless conviction issues into the peace of believing. In a sermon in which he distinguishes between convictions that result in saving faith and convictions which are experienced by the very devils he says that a sense of sin "is no certain sign that persons have true faith..." even though it is a necessary element of Christian experience."
"When an acute sense of guilt brings one to the feet of Christ and when he finds acceptance with the Lord, then the great end and purpose of this whole process has been achieved."
"The marvellous consolation for Edwards was that when the sinner comes to Christ the guilt is "at once taken away, the soul is left free, it is lighted of its burden, it is delivered of its bondage, and it is like the bird escaped from the fowler."
"In terms of preaching Edwards did not believe the minister ought to burden the sermon with an undue emphasis on the terror of damnation in order to effect conviction of sin in unbelievers. To him it was possible that a preacher concentrate on this aspect of the truth excessively, thereby neglecting the gospel. An imbalance here would have profound effects upon the congregation over time."
"For the unregenerate then, a sense of sin was a necessity. For the believer it was a blessing. Edwards therefore encouraged the preaching of the law. The preaching of the "gospel is like to be in vain without it." He was convinced that gaining a sense of sin, worked in the heart by the Spirit of God, was preparatory to a sound, evangelical conversion. Edwards declared that conviction was "preparatory to grace." It was the time of "legal striving" between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of fallen man. Edwards ascribes also this stage to the work of the Spirit of God. His emphasis on religion as a transforming, individual experience was spearheaded by his painstaking effort to instill conviction in the careless, and lasting humility in believers. For Edwards, as for the many other leaders of the Revival, on both sides of the Atlantic, saving faith was born of need and grew on the soil of meekness."
"In his description of the 1734-35 revival Edwards reports a three-stage conversion process. Sinners were awakened to their guilt; secondly, they surrendered to sovereign grace, and then they emerged into the light and freedom of the knowledge of Christ. Let us look at these three strands or stages a little more closely."
"A remarkable effect of a sense of sin can be noted here. Edwards observed that persons under great awakenings were concerned because they thought they were not awakened. People who were sensitive to sin and soft in heart believed themselves to be hardhearted, senseless, still asleep. This is that mysterious paradox in the conversion process recorded in so many spiritual biographies when sinners are truly awakened and find in themselves a bad heart. They were most sensitive to their failings and misery, and yet felt themselves to be callous and unyielding. To Edwards their hearts had obviously been softened. Yet, if someone had asked them if they were now convinced of sin and its consequence for themselves their response likely would have been negative. Edwards noticed that "the sense of need they have to be awakened, and of their comparative hardness, grows upon them with their awakenings; so that they seem to themselves to be very senseless, when indeed most sensible."
"Edwards sometimes could recognize Satan's hand in their struggles. Threatened with dismissal from his throne the "old inhabitant" of the heart seemed to "exert himself, like a serpent disturbed and enraged." Several people, thus attacked, began to harbour a sharp spirit of envy toward those already converted, especially to relatives and companions, erstwhile as careless and indifferent as they themselves. There were "murmurings" against God as to why there were such discrepancies in his dealings with man. People thought it unfair that others were being converted. Edwards strongly warned his people against such thoughts, which, if allowed "tend exceedingly to quench the Spirit of God, if not to provoke him finally to forsake them." He saw progress a great deal hindered by such temptations but often saw God bringing "good to them out of evil and made it a means of convincing them of their own desperate sinfulness, and bringing them off from all self-confidence."
"...became convinced of their absolute dependence on God's sovereign grace. They felt they could not approach a holy God while in a sinful condition. A mediator was utterly necessary. And yet it seems that this persuasion was often mixed with thoughts that signified they were still trusting somewhat in self. For, a view of past sins made them try to live strict lives now and resolve to do so in the future. And, while good in itself, it was a feeble attempt by some to appease God's anger, as if personal reform in moral conduct would mitigate God's just wrath. And, some made much of this, says Edwards, thinking their efforts represented a sort of atonement to God. But this was short-lived and they felt worse than before and were convicted, not so much now about actual sins, but heart sins, personal tendencies and wicked thoughts. Still, several people began again to rise up in heart against God for not having more sympathy for them in their distress. No sooner were they aware of these thoughts however and they were worried for having them at all. Many feared they had committed the unpardonable sin, or that God would never show them mercy now. At times such as these Edwards would counsel them regarding the sovereignty of God in his dealings with man on the one hand and the great sufficiency of Christ to save and heal on the other."
"Edwards declared that conviction was "preparatory to grace." It was the time of "legal striving" between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of fallen man. Edwards ascribes also this stage to the work of the Spirit of God. Accordingly Edwards cannot be ranked with the preparationist school of evangelical theology in the sense that a sinner must prepare himself, in his strength, to come to God in a fit manner. He never preached that kind of preparationism."
"Nevertheless, he believed, with them, that there was a work of conviction or quickening in a person before regeneration. This work was "preparatory to grace." It was the time of "seeking". Sinners prayed to God, struggled, and wept. The purpose was to produce a knowledge of self in terms of personal ineptitude to gain peace with God, of innate depravity and of guilt. Sinners who were seeking salvation were divested of reliance upon false hopes and self-righteousness by sermons that discriminated clearly between what was genuine piety and what was not. It was therefore a stage rife with intense introspection. Afraid of the tiniest suggestion of self-deception the seeker would examine himself for sensible evidences of the Spirit's work, often with depressing results, and he would frequently find himself in a state more doleful and heavy-hearted than before this process began. And yet, convinced of his sinful condition before a holy God, he would not have wished a return to senseless ignorance of the great issues introduced to his heart. For, now he knew that without a thorough and supernatural work, he would remain without God in the world and would miss the peace of God in Jesus Christ forever. So he battled on, hurting, often confused, always hoping that he would achieve that one goal that would now make life livable and death acceptable. The free offer of the gospel was extended unreservedly to these seekers by Edwards and his circle, especially when it was known that several were labouring under such deep conviction. But it was done carefully, nevertheless. Edwards knew that welcoming sinners to Christ without having plowed up the hard ground of the natural heart was an exercise in futility. No blind sinner would receive the salvation that Christ offered unless convicted of his need of it."
"Generally speaking then, a stage in which the sense of sin prevailed came before rest and peace and joy. To avoid this element in the process of conversion could be fatal. Edwards suggests it would have promoted "self-flattery and carelessness" and would have served "utterly to undo them" had he withheld the truth that God is under no obligation to show mercy. Had he counselled troubled souls that God might take pity upon them because of their sense of sin or because of efforts to reform themselves he would have placed the foundation of salvation where it does not belong and would seriously have hindered them from going further on the way to heaven."
"At some time during the period of legal conviction came the critical turn. Here was the crisis point. People would either fall away from conviction, into an unseeing callousness and in a few cases even total despair, or, on the other hand, acquire a calm surrendering spirit. There was no neutral ground, especially when the Spirit was moving so powerfully amongst many people in one place. One was either drawn irresistibly onward and learned to bow to sovereign grace, or he hardened himself against the gospel. In the case of a few, life became desperate indeed."
"Edwards reports an unsuccessful suicide attempt by one whose family had a record of emotional weaknesses and who was himself spiritually troubled in May 1735. This man was rescued, counselled and subsequently experienced the liberating power of the gospel. But a little later, Joseph Hawley, an uncle of Edwards and a leader in the town, "durst entertain no hope concerning his good estate" and became, "much discouraged, and melancholy grew again upon him, till he was overpowered by it." He cut his own throat, dying in despair. This event struck the people of Northampton with "astonishment". After this, says Edwards, many people of various dispositions were tempted to take their own life. It was as if someone said to them, "Cut your throat, now is a good opportunity. Now! Now! So that they were obliged to fight with all their might to resist it, and yet no reason suggested to them why they should do it." Others, not subject to these temptations, still hardened themselves against conviction and became impervious to the attraction of the gospel, apparently never coming to saving faith."
"However, many there were, Edwards reported, whose hearts were changed for the better. They emerged from the raging battle of "legal striving" to position themselves meekly before their God, in frank recognition of what they had always owed him. Edwards says, as to those in whom awakenings seem to have a saving issue, commonly the first thing that appears after their legal troubles, is a conviction of the justice of God in their condemnation, appearing in a sense of their own exceeding sinfulness, and the vileness of all their performances. They surrendered themselves to God to do with them as he saw fit. Some felt that God might justly give mercy to everyone in Northampton, or in the whole world, and yet damn themselves to all eternity. So profound was their sense of sin! And yet the terror with which they earlier laboured seemed to have dissipated somewhat. Now, having a clear sight of God's justice and their own culpability they were simply quiet and submissive "with great humblings in the dust before God."
"Often, during this second stage, people would lie, as it were, at God's feet to await his time of blessing. Their attitude was one of quiet contrition. They had come to an end of selfconfidence and optimism. No longer could they pin their hopes for salvation on their own sanctity, inherent or earned. They found they had no virtue and no merit before God and they felt effectively bankrupt in the moral sense. If they would be saved at all they would be saved by the righteousness of Another who had already paid the redemption price. They felt their need of the great Mediator that Jonathan Edwards had spoken to them about. They stood in a posture of holy concurrence with the way of salvation as prescribed by the Sovereign of the universe. For, the natural inclination to reject free grace and work one's own salvation instead, had become an alien ambition. God was being glorified, as Edwards would have said, in man's dependence upon Him for the whole of redemption. A sense of sin had done its work."
"The heart had been prepared. People were fitted for the application of mercy. Humility was not forced upon them, says Edwards, by "legal terrors and convictions." Rather, a "high exercise of grace, in saving repentance and evangelical humiliation" brought them to the feet of Christ. This period of calmness often continued for some time before any "special and delightful manifestation is made to the soul of the grace of God as revealed in the gospel." Still, some of them experienced a discovery of the all-sufficiency of divine grace to save at this juncture already. Convinced now of deserving utter hell, they would have had to agree with God's sovereign will had he left them in their sins. But at the same time they knew it would be equally just of God to show them mercy. Christ had already satisfied the demands of justice. Here lay their hope and expectation. That was the third stage. It was with the pleasant shock of new discovery that sinners were overwhelmed with the great love of God. And new desires filled their souls. The redeeming love of Christ showed itself in converted sinners first of all in their longings of heart. They longed after God and Christ. They wished to know God and be joined in communion with Him. Their desire was to love Christ and be instructed by Him in the ways of His law. All the benefits of Christ's work became very clear and they longed for his gracious presence. Divine things became beautiful."
"Here lay decisive evidence of the great change. A sense of sin had produced humility and surrender, and then a looking to Christ in faith. Moreover, the sinner was turned away from the morbid kind of self-examination linked with the first stage. And, this was observable. New desires viewed a new object. Selfish exertion in an effort to obtain righteousness, self-centered wrangling to appease God, and all other forms of "legal striving" were a thing of the past. The new heart possessed a "sense of the superlative excellency of divine things..." and was drawn out to them. The Triune God was worshipped and adored. Infused with divine light the regenerated soul was courted by a new lover and there was no resistance. To love God, to know Christ, to commune with Him in His benefits, and to serve Him; these desires were the evidence that to Edwards confirmed the genuineness of their conversion."
http://www.frcna.org/Data/StudentSocietySpeeches/Jonathan%20Edwards%20on%20Conviction%20of%20Sin%20-%20John%20Schuit.pdf
All this from Edwards reflects what Calvinists have always believed about the relationship of the law's work of conviction with the gospel's work in regeneration. Even the first Hardshells, as I have shown, spoke of the work of grace as a complete going, in experience, from Sinai (conviction) by the law to Mt. Zion (regeneration and conversion) by the gospel. Hardshells will affirm the regeneration and new birth of many who did not go from conviction to faith in Christ, yet the first Old Baptists did not. Rutherford and the Old Baptists of the London Confession did not see conviction as a sure sign of the new birth, but as that which was a preparation of the heart for regeneration.
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