ll other things
are nothing. This hath overspread the world, (to speak only of that part
which pretends to Christianity,) a strong, pertinacious, and blind fancy
of being in Jesus Christ and having interest in salvation. I call it a
blind and ignorant fancy, for truly ignorance and darkness is the
strongest foundation of such conceits. Papists call it the mother of
devotion. It is true, in this sense it is the mother of a man's groundless
devotion towards himself, that is, of delusion. This, together with
self-love, which always hoodwinks the mind, and will not suffer a serious
impartial examination of a man's self, these, I say, are the bottom of
this vain persuasion, that possesseth the generality of men. Now, what it
wants of knowledge, it hath of wilfulness. It is a conceit altogether void
of reason, but it is so wilful and pertinacious, that it is almost utterly
inconvincible, and so it puts souls in the most desperate forlorn estate
that can be imagined. It makes them, as the apostle speaks, (Eph. v. 6)
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} _children of impersuasion_,--it is rendered commonly,
"children of disobedience." And, indeed, they are joined together. They
are children of disobedience, carrying the manifest characters of wrath
upon them, yet they are withal children of impersuasion, incapable of any
persuasion contrary to these deluding insinuations of their own minds.
Though they be manifest to all men to be sons of disobedience, living in
rebellion against God, yet it is not possible to persuade them of it. They
are as far from conviction of what they are, as reformation to what they
should be. Notwithstanding, if men would but give an impartial and
attentive ear to what the apostle says here, I suppose the very frame of
his argument is so convincing, that he could not but leave some
impression. If any thing will convince a child of impersuasion, the terms
here propounded are finest, "God is light, and in him is no darkness."
Hence it follows, by unavoidable consequence, as clear as the light,