Mr. Patterson and Christian friends, it's a great
joy to be with you this afternoon at
the beginning of this Winter Institute here in
Jackson.
We have greatly looked forward to it and
now the moment has actually arrived to which
we have looked.
I'm afraid you'll have to wait until later
in the day to hear a real Scottish
accent.
I may be a true Scot, but I
speak English, but you will hear Welsh, and
you will hear Scot, and I hope you
will hear English.
Now the organisers of the Institute left me
open as to my subject and I therefore,
with three lectures to give to you and
one sermon, I chose to prepare lectures on
the following subjects.
This afternoon I want to speak on Thomas
Hooker and the doctrine of conversion in Puritan
preaching.
And then in the first session tomorrow morning,
I want to speak on the first theological
controversy that ever took place as far as
it is known here in the North American
continent, and that is the controversy over assurance
in Massachusetts in 1636.
And then on a somewhat lighter note tomorrow
afternoon, an address on pioneer Puritan evangelism in
the Southern Pacific in the middle of the
last century.
The outworking of reformed theology in the mission
field of the New Hebrides in the middle
of the 19th century.
And then God willing on Wednesday morning, I
shall speak from a text of scripture.
This afternoon then, Thomas Hooker and the doctrine
of conversion in Puritan preaching.
Now I suppose that the best known Puritan
book must be John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
And I'm sure you have often heard it
said that Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is one of
the most uncontroversial books.
Well it is true that Bunyan had a
fine Catholic spirit, but I'm not sure that
it is true that his Pilgrim's Progress is
an uncontroversial book.
Because at the very beginning of that great
classic, Bunyan has at least two things to
say which are out of line with a
good deal of modern evangelical thought.
It is customary in our day for evangelicals
to think of conversion as necessarily an instantaneous
thing, and also that conversion is not real
unless there is immediate assurance.
And neither of these beliefs is exemplified in
John Bunyan's portrayal of how Christian began his
pilgrimage.
You remember how in the city of destruction,
Christian began to cry what shall I do
to be saved?
And evangelists met him and directed him, and
yet he was not then converted.
He had first, says Bunyan, to cross a
very wide field and to proceed through a
slew of death bonds before he came to
the wicket gate, the straight gate.
And even when he went through that gate,
there was somewhat further to go before he
obtained the joy of his assurance.
We certainly don't have here instantaneous conversion, nor
do we have immediate assurance.
Now you understand of course that John Bunyan
did not mean his Pilgrim to be a
model for all Christian experience.
Bunyan was not asserting that the distance between
the city of destruction and the wicket gate
is the same for everyone.
He was not saying that, nor would he
want to deny that the conversion of some
may be instantaneous and may be followed by
immediate joy.
But the opening of Bunyan's Pilgrim's progress does
reveal the general consensus of Puritan thought on
the subject of conversion.
And it is to this subject that I
want us to turn our attention in this
hour.
Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, two of the
Puritan leaders, wrote a preface in the year
1657.
And the words that they included in that
preface read as follows.
It has been, they say, it has been
one of the glories of the Protestant religion
that it revived the doctrine of saving conversion.
But in a more eminent manner, God has
cast the honor thereof upon the ministers and
preachers of this nation who are renowned abroad
for their more accurate search into and discoveries
hereof.
And these words were written in the preface
to Thomas Hooker's book, The Application of Redemption,
the subtitle, By the Effectual Work of the
Word and Spirit of Christ for the Bringing
Home of Lost Sinners to God.
And I want us to try to make
Thomas Hooker the focal point of our thought
in what follows.
Now Cotton Mather speaks of Hooker as the
light of the western churches.
And by the western churches, of course, he
means the churches on this side of the
Atlantic.
And Mather says that if John Cotton was
the Melanchthon of New England, then Hooker was
the Luther.
He was a man of mighty vigor, says
Mather, and fervor of spirit.
William Ames, one of the great Puritan leaders
of Cambridge, who was then exiled to the
Netherlands and was professor in Franca.
William Ames, who I suppose heard almost all
the leading Puritan preachers, he said that he
never heard the equal of Thomas Hooker.
And John Cotton wrote a poem on Hooker
after Hooker's death.
And in this poem, Cotton recalls the three
great preachers of Geneva, Calvin, of course, Harold,
and Vire, and he speaks of the distribution
of different gifts in these three men.
And his poem, if I can read it,
goes, "'Twas of Geneva's worthies said, with wonder,
those worthies three, Harold was wont to thunder,
Vire like rain, on tender grass to shower,
but Calvin, lively oracles to pour.
All these in Hooker's spirit did remain, a
sun of thunder and a shower of rain,
a pourer forth of lively oracles, in saving
souls the sun of miracle.' Well, you can
read the whole poem.
Hooker was born in 1586 in Leicestershire in
England, and he died in July 1647 at
Hartford, Connecticut.
He went up to the University of Cambridge
in England in the year 1604, and I
think the simplest way to remember the outline
of his life is as follows.
From his entrance to university in 1604, his
life can be divided into approximately three periods,
each of about 15 years.
He stayed at Cambridge for 15 years until
1618, first as a student, during which period
he was converted, then as a fellow, a
lecturer, in Emanuel College.
Emanuel College, which was then the great nursery,
the school of the prophet, from which so
many men went forth to the pastoral ministry.
And in 1618, leaving Cambridge, he commenced a
period of another approximately 15 years, preaching in
England, finally exiled in 1631 to the Netherlands.
But 15 years of widespread preaching, and particularly
in two parishes, one place called Esher near
London, and a second pastoral charge at Chelmsford
in Essex.
If any of you get to England in
future months, and you wonder where you should
go to see the real flavor of Puritan
country, you should of course go to Essex.
C.
H.
Spurgeon spoke of Essex as the Galilee, the
Galilee of England.
Well, in the heart of Essex, at Chelmsford,
Thomas Hooker had his most eminent pastorate.
Cotton Mather says about Hooker's preaching in Chelmsford,
there was a great reformation wrought, not only
in the town, but in the adjacent country.
From all parts whereof, they came to hear
the wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in
his gospel, by this worthy man dispensed.
And Mather says, the Holy Spirit gave wonderful
and unusual success unto the ministry wherein he
breathed so remarkably.
Hooker's preaching was distinguished by many qualities, but
I suppose foremost among them was his boldness
and the authority with which he spoke.
The most noteworthy testimony that was ever given
to Hooker was given in a very incidental
remark by a man called Giles Furman, a
New England minister.
Giles Furman was once speaking on the text
that Moses endured seeing him who is invisible,
and this is what Furman says.
He says, what cares Moses for all the
pleasures and honors in Pharaoh's court?
He slights them.
What cares he for the wrath of the
king?
Though it be as the roaring of a
lion.
Moses makes nothing of him.
He, as one said of Mr. Thomas Hooker,
a man so awed with the majesty and
dread of God, he would put a king
in his pocket.
Well, a king in the 17th century was
a figure of some consequence, and John Thomas
Hooker would put a king in his pocket.
Speaking of Hooker, Thomas Goodwin said, if any
of our late preachers and divines came in
the spirit and power of John the Baptist,
this man did.
And of course, it's not surprising that preaching
of that kind was preaching that stirred up
great enmity in the days of Charles I.
Hooker was first silenced in 1630, and then
he had to flee the country in 1631.
He was the chief instrument, says Mather, in
the founding of Connecticut.
He died, as I told you, in 1647.
Friends standing by his bed at the end
sought to encourage him, saying, sir, you are
going to receive the reward of your labor.
To which Hooker replied, brother, I am going
to receive mercy.
Well, I've said enough to indicate to you
that Hooker was certainly one of the foremost
of the New England Puritans.
As an evangelist, as a preacher, he was
second to none.
It was to his preaching that John Elliot,
the apostle to the Indians, owed his conversion.
It was to him that Thomas Shepherd and
many others owed a great debt.
And it is certainly true that if anyone
wants to know the kind of evangelism that
was first exercised on this side of the
Atlantic, then they need to read Thomas Hooker.
Well, what do we read in Thomas Hooker?
I have to throw in a word at
this point.
There are quite a number of books that
were put out under Hooker's name.
Unhappily, scarcely one in print today.
But his preaching in Chelmsford was taken down
by a number of his hearers, and six
volumes were printed before 1638.
None of which was recognized by Hooker.
They were put out entirely without his authority.
Put out, I hope not significantly, but put
out by a man by the name of
Andrew Crook.
And certainly, certainly this man Crook did not
have the blessing of Hooker in these publications.
These then were the early books.
And of these books, Thomas Goodwin says, having
been taken by an unskillful hand, which upon
his recess into those remoter parts of the
world, that's over here, was bold, was bold
without his knowledge or consent to print and
publish them.
One of the greatest injuries which can be
done to any man.
I wonder what he would say about tapes.
It came to pass his genuine meaning, and
this in points of so higher nature, was
diverted in those printed sermons from the fair,
clear draft of his own thought and intentions.
Well, at least tapes can't do that.
Well, Hooker's sermons then preached on the subject
of conversion were printed in England.
Then he preached over the same field again
in New England.
And these were the sermons which were partly
printed in the volume, The Application of Redemption.
I mention this point because some of you
who read some of the writers on New
England, you will find that a great deal
of play is made of some of Hooker's
early sermons which went out by this Andrew
Crook.
And I've often found that writers who deal
with Hooker scarcely even quote from the one
book that he did put out, and that
was his Application of Redemption.
Turning then to Hooker's thought on conversion, let
us take as our first heading the statement
that men are usually prepared for conversion.
John Bunyan, as we saw, did not treat
Christian's religious experience as beginning when he went
through the straight gate.
The straight gate was not the beginning of
God's dealing with him.
And the Puritans, while they were careful to
stipulate that no given length of time is
to be laid down, nevertheless they asserted that
men are usually prepared before they are converted.
And their reason for thinking that was as
follows.
They argued that no conversion takes place without
a real activity on the part of sinners.
The nature of that activity is well set
down in the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster
Divine.
Question 85.
What does God require of us that we
may escape his wrath and curse due to
us for sin?
And the answer, God requires of us faith
in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life with the
diligent use of all the outward means whereby
Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption.
In other words, the minds and wills of
men are active and not passive in conversion.
Anthony Burgess complained that the antinomian view of
conversion made God to resemble a physician that
doth violently open the sick man's throat and
pours down his medicine whether he will or
no.
And the Puritans rejected that view because it
represents divine grace as simply bypassing man's rational
faculties.
It treats men as less than moral agents.
But the New Testament presents faith as an
intelligent act.
Faith in Christ is the divinely appointed means
of deliverance from the evil and curse of
sin.
We must receive Christ for our justification in
order to escape the sentence of God's holy
law upon our disobedience.
Saving faith then presupposes a knowledge of sin
and a concern to be saved from it.
The degree of such concern will vary.
But unless it exists, believing on Christ for
justification would be an act without a meaning.
In its substance, says John Owen, a previous
conviction of sin is found in all that
sincerely believe.
Now the scriptural evidence that the Puritans advanced
to support this position was both general and
particular.
The general evidence, briefly, was God's own order
in scripture.
Law precedes gospel.
And the reason for it doing so is
that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world may become guilty before God.
By the law is the knowledge of sin.
And they pointed therefore to the priority of
law in the scriptures, in the ministry of
John the Baptist and in the ministry of
Christ himself.
The particular evidence has to do with the
descriptions of those who benefit from the gospel.
The gospel is addressed to all men, but
it does not benefit all.
It benefits the lost, the weary and heavy
laden.
Not the whole who have no need of
a physician, but the sick, the poor, the
brokenhearted, the captives, the blind, the bruised.
Those who are unconscious of sin remain without
Christ, for he said that he came not
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Now these terms which I have just used
are not to be understood as though they
are descriptive of a certain category of person
who is qualified to receive the gospel while
others are not.
I say they are not to be so
understood.
The duty of believing on Christ for salvation
belongs at once to every hearer of the
gospel.
But while the warrant of faith is in
God's word and promise and not in anything
in ourselves, the text just quoted surely indicate
that none obtain good from Christ except those
who are convinced of their need.
And because men by nature are not convinced,
they need to be brought to conviction.
In other words, the Puritans say that as
long as men are spiritually ignorant, as long
as they are self-confident, as long as
they are self-righteous and unconcerned, they cannot
be converted.
How can ye believe, said our Lord, which
receive honour one of another?
When man is in a certain condition of
self-confidence and pride, he cannot be converted.
Listen to Thomas Hooker.
There must, he says, there must be a
true sight of sin before the heart can
be truly broken for it.
A right apprehension goes before thorough contrition.
The judgment must be rightly enlightened to see
the nature of our sins before the heart
can be pierced with a sense and sorrow
that is due.
This is God's way which he takes, in
whose hand it is only to do this
work.
So repenting Ephraim professes, it was the course
that the Lord took with him.
After I was turned, I repented.
That which the eye does not, that which
the eye does not see, the heart feels
not.
That which is not apprehended by the understanding
does not affect the will.
Conviction then, he is saying, begins with the
mind, comes to the heart and will.
It was for the lack of this conviction,
he says, that the woman of Samaria showed
such saucy impudency and boldness in speaking with
our Saviour.
Though she could not be ignorant of those
abominable loose haunts of hers that would call
to heaven for revenge, but when our Saviour
laid his hand upon the saw and let
the light shine in her face and points
to the vileness of her practice, thou hast
had five husbands, but he whom thou now
hast is not thy husband.
She then became sensible of his sovereign wisdom
and of her own wretchedness.
So it was, he says with Paul, when
the Lord met him going to Damascus persecuting
the saints, he saw not the sinfulness of
his course and therefore was unconscious of it.
Saul, Saul, says Christ, why persecutest thou me?
When he understood the evil of his way,
then he stood trembling and astonished saying, Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do?
Now various objections have been raised against the
Puritan's teaching at this point and probably the
most common is something like this.
It is said that if we insist on
conviction of sin before conversion, are we not
endangering the truth that faith in Christ is
the immediate duty of all who hear the
gospel?
Surely preachers are not called to call men
to preparation for conversion, but to call them
to conversion itself.
And so it may be added, if we
say that anything is necessary in men before
conversion, are we not likely to make men
look at themselves and look at their own
hearts instead of to Christ?
Now surely the lessons of church history are
such that we must accept that there is
force in these questions, but I do not
personally believe that they are valid as objections
to the Puritan teaching.
And for these reasons, which are twofold.
Firstly, the Puritans in answering that kind of
objection, they would point out from the New
Testament itself and from their own practice that
there was great variation in God's dealing with
men's souls.
They did not believe that conviction of sin
follows any stereotyped pattern.
The 3,000 at Pentecost were convicted and
converted in one day.
The Philippian jailer was brought through conviction to
conversion in one hour.
In others, the period of time was longer.
Hooker believed we are to expect this kind
of variety.
He says, God deals in divers manners with
divers sinners.
Sometimes he says, the Lord suddenly sets on
the blow and pierces the soul through at
one thrust.
Sometimes at one sermon, maybe in the handling
of one point, nay, some one sentence or
some special truth, the Lord is pleased to
arm it and discharge it with mighty and
uncontrollable evidence that it astonishes and shivers the
heart of the sinner all in pieces.
And speaking in another place of sudden conversion,
he says, how often have we heard it
and known it in our own country?
How often has the loose prodigal been drawn
in to hear beyond his own purpose, against
his own desire and wished himself out of
the place and yet sitting in the congregation,
he has heard that before he departed, which
has been a word of life and peace
unto his soul for which he saw cause
to bless God to all eternity.
Matthew says Hooker, Matthew is sitting at the
receipt of custom, mindful how to take money.
Peter and James are casting a net into
the sea to see how to make provision
for themselves.
Christ calls them to himself and so to
an interest in grace and glory, when they
had not so much as thought of that
way.
Well, I'm illustrating as you see that the
were no proponents of a sort of stereotyped
conversion experience.
They were quite familiar with sudden conversion, though
they didn't treat it as the norm.
Cotton Mather, if you read his account of
Hooker and his Magnalia Americana, he gives several
instances of such conversions under Hooker.
One I remember was this, in Chelmsford once
on a market day, Thomas Hooker was preaching
a so-called lecture and certain men that
had come into the market having had a
few drinks, one profane man says Mather, designing
some ungodly amusement and merriment, said to his
companions, come let us go and hear what
that bawling Hooker will say to us and
so they went to the church.
The man says Mather, the man had not
long been in the church before the quick
and powerful word of God in the mouth
of Hooker pierced the soul of him.
He came out with an awakened and a
distressed soul and by the further blessing of
God upon Mr. Hooker's ministry he arrived at
true conversion.
And Mather goes on to say how he
then followed Hooker across the Atlantic.
So there are these variations, Hooker says similarly
speaking of the conversion of Lydia, that God
melted her heart sweetly and kindly and he
believed that a category of converts who so
enter into the kingdom of God and perhaps
especially those who are brought up in godly
and Christian homes.
So Hooker is concerned that he should not
be misunderstood at this point and he throws
out as every good preacher ought to do
a number of illustrations.
He says, you must know however that this
work of conviction is wrought in all for
the substance of it yet in a different
manner in most.
Two men are pricked, the one with a
pin, the other with a spear.
Two men are cut, the one with a
pen knife, the other with a sword.
So the Lord deals kindly and gently with
one soul and roughly with another.
Or another illustration he has, the illustration of
a locked door, a locked door which has
to be opened.
And he says there is no set pattern
for dealing with the problem of a lock.
A man may pick the lock or break
the lock, open the door and lift up
the latch gently or else unhinge it with
violence and noise so that all the house
and all the town may hear.
But it's opened, he said, both ways.
Well there have been those in the Protestant
tradition who have created a stereotype process of
preparation which has been set up as a
pattern.
Sometimes people were expected to be so long
in the slew of despond and so on.
You're familiar I'm sure with that kind of
thing.
I'm arguing that that was not the Puritan
teaching.
And then another reply from the Puritans to
this point on preparation.
The objection that this idea of preparation puts
something between sinners and Christ.
Now the Puritan reply to that was simply
this.
That it's not a preparatory work that keeps
men from Christ, but it's the absence of
such a work that's what keeps men from
Christ.
It is, says Hooker, incident to all men
naturally to have a slight apprehension of their
sin.
And so long as sin is unseen, Christ
will be unsought.
The reason he says that men did not
receive the invitation to the wedding feast in
Christ's parable, the reason was that they were
not hunger bitten.
They were not conscious of their miserable state
nor of the need they had of the
supply of those rich provisions of a saviour.
Men by nature have no conception of the
worth of Christ.
The reason for the change in the three
thousand on the day of Pentecost was not
that they had not heard of Christ before.
It was because they had not been convicted
before.
They were pricked in their heart and said
unto Peter and to the rest of the
apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?
On this text Hooker says, a true sight
and sense of a man's sinful condition sets
men upon the search, awakens men out of
that senseless security in which they are buried,
makes them look around them, puts them upon
serious consideration of their spiritual condition.
Not long before they scant thought whether they
had souls to be saved or sins to
be pardoned or mercy and grace to be
looked for.
They never put it to the question what
they could say or show for heaven.
But now they begin to think with themselves
what they are.
And so it is Hooker says, with many.
Before they were convicted they never saw need
of reading, hearing, prayer, seeking and inquiry.
But now when they find themselves besieged with
sins and plagues, heaven frowning, hell gaping, their
consciences accusing and themselves dropping down to the
grave and their souls to hell, they think
it is high time and more than time
to stir themselves, to do what they can
and to cry for help and direction in
so desperate distress and danger.
The whole need not the physician, therefore they
do not send for one, nor yet are
they willing to receive, nor care to inquire
or take any medicine.
But when the disease grows fierce and life
is in danger, then post out messengers, send
far and near for a physician and inquire
of every man what may be good.
So here says Hooker in Acts 2, men
and brethren, said those pierced in the heart,
what shall we do?
Men then firstly are usually prepared for conversion.
And secondly, the Holy Spirit is the author
of this conviction.
I am sure that a number of you
must have read some of the recent books
on the New England Puritans and I think
the greatest injustice that has been done to
them and it is almost incredible, is the
argument of men like Norman Pettit and others,
that the Puritans taught that man's will is
the agency by which he comes under conviction.
You may read that in several modern authors.
Pettit says about Hooker that rarely did he
preach to his covenant community without exhorting the
unconverted to prepare for grace.
Now I'm not surprised that people read that
and say well if that's what the Puritans
taught they weren't New Testament.
Well that's right, if they taught that they
certainly weren't New Testament.
But I'm saying they did not teach that.
They did not teach anything remotely like that.
They taught, as I say, that the Holy
Spirit himself is the author of conviction.
Of course they believe that man is convicted
by his conscience.
But man stifles his conscience.
Man holds down the truth in unrighteousness.
He does not like, says the apostle, to
retain God in his knowledge.
And when men come under conviction of sin,
they don't come under it voluntarily.
They come by the power of God's spirit.
On the day of Pentecost the multitude who
at first derided the apostles, calling them men
full of new wine, they came under a
change which was not of their own choice.
Hooker says it was brought on by the
hand of the Almighty.
In the entrance whereof they were patience.
It went against the heart and the hair
and wholly beyond their purposes and their own
expectations.
So the words, he says, are in the
passive form.
They were pricked.
They did not prick themselves.
Nay, certainly.
Could they have known how to stop it
or to remove it?
They would never have cried out, what shall
we do?
It was this conviction from the Holy Spirit
which changed their view of things.
When the Spirit comes to reveal sin to
the soul and a man to himself, things
now begin to be real which seemed formerly
to be unreal.
Sin becomes another thing.
Grace and Godliness, Christ and salvation are other
things than formerly they appeared to the soul.
Well there are a number of texts in
the New Testament which the Puritans quoted on
that subject.
I suppose one of the best known was
Romans 8.15. He hath not received, says
the apostle to the Christians at Rome, he
hath not received the spirit of bondage again
to fear.
They pointed out that those who were brought
to Christ came under the spirit of bondage.
They received it, says Hooker.
And he goes on, if I had time
to read that quotation, to show that although
the word of God and the law of
God is a hammer, it is only as
it is wielded by the spirit that men
come under conviction.
Hence that phrase, he says, I will send
the spirit and he shall convince.
It is his prerogative.
He is appointed.
By him only it is performed.
Now Thomas Hooker and his Puritan contemporaries, they
said a great deal on the work of
the spirit in conviction.
And the reason they did so was that
the subject is not as simple as it
might first appear.
And in this connection they made two observations
which are of great importance.
First, they were careful to assert that people
may be disturbed and distressed by a consciousness
of sin through natural causes.
Ignorant of the terminology of modern psychiatry as
they were, they were nevertheless familiar with the
varieties of mental illness.
And in dealing with conviction of sin, they
took care to distinguish it from such depression
or melancholy as came from organic or psychiatric
causes.
When they came across this kind of depression,
they were very ready to recommend the use
of medical help.
Though of course in our own day the
tendency exists to explain all conviction of sin
in terms of psychiatry.
If a person today was to use the
language which Hooker used when he was under
conviction at Cambridge quoting the psalmist, he said,
when I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.
Remember Job says, terrors are turned upon me.
They pursue my soul as the wind.
Well, I'm afraid in many places if anyone
spoke like that today he would be sent
to a clinic for medical help.
But we need to be careful, lest in
reacting against the abuse of psychiatry we fail
to draw a distinction which the Puritans certainly
drew.
There are some forms of depression which are
certainly organic rather than spiritual.
That's the first point in this regard.
Now secondly, in cases where conviction of sin
is evidently the work of the Spirit, it
is essential not to treat this conviction as
proof of saving conversion.
Let me repeat that.
In cases where conviction of sin is evidently
the work of the Spirit, it is essential
not to treat this conviction as proof of
saving conversion.
A sight and sense of sin brought by
the common operations of the Holy Spirit can
exist without saving grace.
It is possible for men to be pricked
in their heart as the multitude on the
day of Pentecost and yet not to go
on to receive the gospel.
The rich young ruler was sorrowful but he
was not converted.
Felix trembled under the word of God but
he did not become a Christian.
And the New Testament gives many indications that
a person may come under the general operations
of the Spirit of God without being savingly
renewed.
Hebrews chapter 6 teaches us that men may
be made partakers of the Holy Ghost and
taste the good word of God and the
powers of the world to come and yet
not experience the things which accompany salvation.
For as Peter says in 2 Peter 2
verse 20, men may escape the pollutions of
the world through the knowledge of the Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ and yet their latter
end may be worse than the first.
That is to say there is a general
work of conviction of sin and that work
is no proof of saving conversion.
Now this is of great importance and especially
so in times of revival.
You may recall a great mistake which even
the mighty Jonathan Edwards fell into.
In 1735 in the great revival in Northampton
he describes how the whole town was full
of distress and spiritual concern and Edwards spoke
of more than 300 souls who were savingly
brought home to Christ.
But a few years later Edwards had to
reconsider his judgment and he had to reconsider
it for precisely this reason that men may
be under deep conviction of sin and yet
never savingly converted.
So Jonathan Edwards wrote those memorable words in
1746.
He says in times of great reviving of
religion it is as with the fruit trees
in the spring.
There are a multitude of blossoms all of
which appear fair and beautiful and there is
a promising appearance of young fruits but many
of them are of short continuance.
They soon fall off and never come to
maturity.
And John Bunyan in that classic again he
recognized exactly the same phenomenon.
Between the city of destruction and the Wicket
Gate Pilgrim met various people.
He met Pliable, met Mr. Worldly Wise Man.
They were on their way but they never
went through the Wicket Gate.
The Puritans taught that when men come under
conviction of sin there are three possible results.
The first is conviction may be thrown off
as Herod threw it off under the preaching
of John the Baptist.
Thus says Hooker millions of men perish.
They go within a view of Canaan and
they never possess it.
Secondly a person may get the burden of
conviction off his back by a false belief
that he has received Christ.
This is the stony ground hearer of the
gospel of whom Jesus says he heareth the
word and anon with joy receives it yet
hath he not root in himself.
Some from this category will later fall away
from their Christian profession under trials.
Others will remain in the church having the
form of godliness without the power.
In the words of John Owen they become
walking and talking skeletons in religion.
Dry sapless useless worldlings.
For describing the same group Robert Bolton says
these men they hold on in a plodding
course of formal Christianity all their life long
and at last depart this life like the
foolish virgins.
The frequent warnings of scripture and their own
experience led the Puritans to believe that there
is real danger of men making an unsound
profession of faith.
Many says Hooker are stillborn not begotten again
to a lively hope.
They heal themselves before God heals them.
They make application before sound preparation.
Not that they can apply too soon if
they apply truly but they think they do
apply when they neither do nor can.
That's the second group.
People who get rid of the burden of
conviction by a false belief that they have
received Christ and the gospel.
And the third group are those in whom
conviction of sin is accompanied with or followed
by the experience of the saving power of
God.
Now I must hasten on my third point
is this.
The identification of true converts.
You can see from what I've said in
these last few minutes that this was necessarily
a subject of great importance.
The identification of true converts.
How is true conversion to be recognized and
how are we to know that we are
not amongst the foolish virgins.
By way of answer to this question several
things must be said.
First it is false to say that in
being prepared for Christ the person who becomes
a true believer has a stronger degree of
conviction or of godly fear than others.
You see the point.
A true convert is not to be identified
by the strength of his emotion, the depth
of his concern, not at all.
Hooker on one occasion was speaking at a
group of ministers and he said that when
someone came before the session or the church
with an account of their conversion he said
some man may come and speak very plainly
and ordinarily without any emotion.
Another may come with a flood of tears.
He says the man who has no tears
may well be the sounder convert.
The strength of conviction is no indication of
the reality of saving experience.
Giles Furman says he was once in a
shipwreck in the month of December and as
the boat was going down on the rocks
at midnight he heard a seaman cry out
I shall be in hell before the morning.
But he wasn't.
He was saved and three days later says
Furman he was as drunk as ever.
Men can use that kind of language and
be in real genuine fear and yet it
can come to nothing.
The strength of conviction is no indication.
And then secondly it has to be observed
that there's no certain way whereby the professed
conversion of others can be recognized.
That of course should be obvious.
In the New Testament if there was any
certain way of avoiding false converts entering the
church it would have been employed.
But as we know in the New Testament
churches there were those who having made profession
went back.
They went out, Thomas says the Apostle John
that they were not of us.
For if they had been of us they
would have no doubt continued with us.
I mention that simply then to underline that
when we've said all that we can it
has to remain solemnly true that it does
not belong to the prerogatives of any man
to be sure of the conversion of others.
Now that does not mean that we can
assume a laxity in our judgment.
On the contrary, Hooker says, don't quickly give
approbation to professors.
Be not suddenly confident of the cure.
Let men, he says, let men be probationers
in our apprehensions until they have shown more
of the state of their hearts by the
manner in which they live.
Thirdly then on the identification of true converts,
I will try and summarize this I think
in my own words.
The difference between a true and a spurious
convert is of course the difference between the
regenerating power of the Spirit of God and
the absence of that power.
In other words the distinction is to be
made with the conviction that made Felix tremble,
the conviction that may come upon all men
between that and the imparting of a new
principle of life in the soul.
And it is when that new life is
imparted that, as the Puritans would have said,
a divorce takes place between the sinner and
the love of sin.
The terms of discipleship are too high for
the unregenerate man, because Christ says a disciple
has to be satisfied with him so that
he is ready to part with all for
Jesus' sake.
And for the person who has come under
the regenerating power of the Spirit and seen
the glory of Christ, that price is not
too high.
To obtain the pearl of great price he
is willing to sell all.
A true convert has a changed relationship to
sin and to holiness.
The true convert, says Hooker, argues, it's not
necessary I should not be poor, imprisoned, despised.
It's absolutely necessary I should not be sinful.
I have no charge from God that I
should not have and lose my life, my
liberty, but I have a charge without all
exception that I should leave my sin.
And this new relation to sin is not
grievous to a Christian.
Hooker says, should I carry this proud, stubborn,
rebellious heart to heaven with me, heaven would
be hell to me.
The true convert has a new principle of
holiness.
A hundred years after Hooker died, David Braynard,
preaching amongst the Indians at Cross Weeksong in
New Jersey, two Indians professed conversion and they
came to Braynard.
They said that they had comfort from the
gospel, but they wanted more.
And Braynard asked them what more they wanted
God to do for them.
To which they replied, they wanted Christ should
wipe their hearts quite clean.
The love of holiness, the longing to be
like Christ and to be like God.
Now I must hasten to my fourth head,
which is the place of regeneration and of
human responsibility in conversion.
And I must somehow abbreviate myself even with
Mr. Patterson's kindness in giving me these extra
minutes.
I think I will pass over the evidence
that the Puritans taught the usual, the common,
the accepted reformed doctrine of regeneration.
Notwithstanding all that Norman Patterson and these other
men say, if you read Hooker for yourself,
you will find that the doctrine of regeneration
by God's sovereign irresistible power is as clear
as daylight in Thomas Hooker.
They believed that man was active in conversion,
but passive in the moment of regeneration.
Active before regeneration, active about regeneration, but in
the point and the moment of regeneration it
is the sovereign and exclusive work of God's
Holy Spirit.
To which they added these corollaries, that the
new birth regeneration is a profound spiritual mystery.
We don't know the time of it.
It's of our natural birth, Hooker says, that
David says, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Much more may it be said of our
new birth and the Puritans were very emphatic
upon the truth that the moment of regeneration
is not instantly recognizable.
Charles Thurman says that there is no ground
in Scripture for the position that all that
are new born know the time of their
new birth.
What divine, he says, that did deserve the
name of a gospel minister did ever deliver
such a doctrine.
Well, Richard Baxter said on one occasion that
he did not know the day nor the
year of his conversion.
And a number of Puritan ministers spoke similarly.
And Jonathan Edwards said that even when people
believe they are sure of the time of
their regeneration, they may well be wrong.
Edwards says many are doubtless ready to date
their conversion wrong.
Throwing by, throwing aside these lesser degrees of
light that appeared at first and calling some
more remarkable experience they had afterwards their conversion.
Well, what I'm saying now is that the
Puritans taught that the time of a man's
rebirth is of no importance.
What is of importance is the reality of
his conversion.
To which they added that although the new
birth is the sovereign act of God, it
is not caused by our endeavors.
It is man's full responsibility to seek Christ
and to believe the gospel.
We are to strive to enter in at
the straight gate.
We are to pray.
We are to seek labor, says our Lord,
labor for the meat which perisheth not.
And you will find that strong emphasis in
the Puritans.
They preached man's inability, his need of divine
grace at the same time they preached not
simply that men may believe but that they
must believe.
They preached simultaneously these two truths that we
are commanded to repent and to believe the
gospel and also that of ourselves we are
unable to do so.
Listen to Hooker on that.
You will say, he says, after he's been
speaking about inability, what shall I do?
Come, he says, come and bring thy soul
into God's presence and lay thyself down in
his sight and tell the Lord that thou
art a traitor and which is worse thou
canst not but be so.
That this is thy misery, make known the
base abominations of thy heart and life before
the Lord and all that opposition which thou
findest in thy soul to Christ.
Beseech him that he would do for thee
what thou canst not do for thyself.
Tell him that he said he will take
away the heart of stone and that it
is not in thy power to put it
away and therefore leave thy soul there, beseeching
him to make known himself as a God
-hearing prayer.
Look to Jesus Christ and beseech him that
hath the keys of hell and of death
that he would unlock those brazen gates and
doors of thy heart.
And I must follow that quotation with one
almost final one.
Lest you think that Hooker puts prayer in
the place of justification by faith, listen to
him preaching justification.
He says, God does not justify a poor
sinner for anything he has nor for anything
he does.
If a man could weep his eyes in
sorrow, if a man could hunger and thirst
for Christ more than for his daily bread,
God would not justify a sinner for all
these things.
How does God then justify a man?
Why, he justifies a sinner for what Christ
has done for him.
The surety has paid it and he accounts
it ours.
This one doctrine he says, supplies in all
wants courage.
I know, he says, what troubles you.
You say, will this blind mind never be
enlightened?
I think I shall never be able to
conceive of the truths of God aright.
How can the Lord accept me when I
condemn myself?
I have thought sometimes, you say, but God
cannot be just if he does not condemn
me.
Why, I say to you, who are burdened
thus.
Dost thou go out of thyself for the
pardon of thy sin?
Why, go comforted.
The Lord will justify thee, not for thy
works, but for Christ's merit.
Thou hast committed all iniquity.
Christ has performed all righteousness.
Thou hast nothing of thyself.
Christ hath enough for thee.
And thou art not justified for what thou
hast or dost, but for what the Lord
Jesus Christ doth.
Look up to him therefore.
Bring him to God's tribunal to answer for
thee, that when Satan will bring his charges
against thee.
Say, what, and say to you, what do
you hope to go to heaven?
Do you not know that every sinner must
die?
Why, answer Satan again.
That is true.
It is true I can do nothing, but
Christ has done all for me.
And what canst thou say to the Lord
Jesus?
My time is gone, my friends.
You must read Thomas Hooker for yourself, and
I greatly hope that you will.
Shall we close with a word of prayer?
Oh Lord, our gracious God, we pray that
thou wouldst enable us to be still before
thee.
We thank thee for thy saving power.
We thank thee that thou didst come to
us when we sought thee not.
We thank thee that thou art the builder
and the maker of all things.
We pray thy blessing again upon our gathering
together.
May thy Holy Spirit constrain us in minds
and hearts, that we may know thee, that
we may love thee, that thy work in
this place may be further established to thy
glory.
That in our lives and in our churches
and in our homes, we may live to
the praise of the glory of thy grace.
Receive our thanks and praise, and pardon all
our sins, for Jesus' sake.
Amen.