*5. For many years it is true, the sins of this part of my life were entirely out of my thoughts. But when God began to convince me of sin, even those I had long since forgotten, those that were of an older date than any thing else I could remember, and not attended with any such remarkable circumstances, as could be supposed to make a deep impression on my memory, were brought on my mind with unusual distinctness. Whence I cannot but observe: 1. What exact notice the holy God takes of what men pass over as pardonable follies. 2. How just reason we have to fear, that in the strokes we feel in riper years, God is “making us to possess the iniquities of our youth.” 3. What an exact register, conscience, God’s deputy, keeps; how early it begins; how accurate it is (even when it seems to sleep) and how it will justify his severity against sinners at the last day. O how far up will it fetch its accounts of those evils which we mind nothing of! When God shall open our eyes to discern those prints which he setteth upon the heels of our feet; when the books shall be opened, and the dead, small and great, judged out of the things that are written therein!
*6. When I review this first period of my life, what reason have I to be ashamed, and even confounded, to think I have spent ten years of a short life, without almost a rational thought, undoubtedly without any that was not sinful. And this being matter of undoubted experience, I have herein a strong confirmation of my faith, as to the guilt of Adam’s sin, and its imputation to his posterity: for, 1. From a child the bent of my soul was “enmity against God.” Nor was this the effect of custom or education, no; there was a sweet conspiracy of precept, discipline and example, to carry me the contrary way. Nor can I charge the fault of this on my constitution of body, or any thing that might in a natural way proceed from my parents. Yet was this enmity so strong as not to be supprest, much less subdued, by the utmost care, and the best outward means. This is undoubted fact. 2. To say, I was thus originally framed without respect to any sin chargeable on me, is a position so full of flat contrariety to all the notions I can entertain of God, to his wisdom, his equity, and his goodness, that I cannot think of it without horror. 3. Penal then this corruption must be, as death and diseases are. And whereof can it be a punishment, if not of Adam’s sin? While then these things are so plain in fact, and the deduction so easy from them, whatever subtle arguments any use against this great truth, I have no reason to be moved thereby.
7. Hence, lastly, I am taught what estimate to make of those good inclinations with which some are said to be born. Either they are the early effects of preventing grace; or, of education, custom, occasional restraints, and freedom from temptation. A natural temper may be easily influenced by some of these, and by the constitution of the body, to a distaste of those grosser sins which makes the most noise in the world. Yet all this is but sin under a disguise: and the odds is not great. The one sort of sinners promise good fruit, but deceive; whereas the openly profane forbid expectation. And yet of this last sort more receive the gospel than of the former. Verily I say unto you, the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
CHAPTER II.
An account of the next two years of his life.
1.IN May 1685, I went with my mother into Holland, and being in some danger while we were at sea, my conscience, till then asleep, began to awaken, and to be terrified with apprehensions of death. But all this concern was nothing more than natural fear, and a selfish desire of preservation. I was unwilling to die, and afraid of hell: it was not sin, but the consequence of it I wanted to escape. The glory of God I was not concerned for at all; and accordingly was the event. I promised, that were I at land, I would keep all his commands. My mother told me, it would not hold. But I was too ignorant of my own heart to believe her: I multiplied engagements, and doubted not but I should perform them. But no sooner was I fixed at Rotterdam, than I forgot all my promises and resolutions. The unrenewed heart being free from the force put upon it, fell again into its old course. Nay, I grew still worse: the corruption that stopped for awhile, now ran with greater violence. It is true, my awe for my mother, and the power of education, still restrained me from open sins. But to many secret things I was strongly inclined, and in many instances followed my inclinations: being a ready and easy prey to every temptation, notwithstanding all my engagements.
2. My sins here had this grievous aggravation, they were committed against greater light, and more of the means of grace, than I had ever before enjoyed. We had sermons almost every day, and were catechized every Saturday. My mother took care I should attend most of these, and at the same time, private duties, praying with me, and for me, and obliging me to read the scripture, and other useful books. But so far was all this from having its due effect, that I was weary of it, and went on in sin: though not without frequent convictions, occasioned sometimes by the remains of my education. Yet all these were only as the starts of a sleeping man, disturbed by some sudden noise: he stirs a little but soon sinks down again, faster asleep than before. I easily freed myself from them, either by promising to hear, or comply with them afterward, by withdrawing from the means of conviction, by extenuating my sins; or by turning my eye to some thing I thought good in myself, though God knows I had little which had even the appearance of it. At other times I looked to the tendency of these convictions, viz. the engaging me to be holy; and then I pored upon the difficulties of that course, till I had frighted myself from a compliance with them. If all these shifts failed, I then betook myself to diversions, which soon choaked the word, and all convictions from it.
3. In December 1686, upon the earnest desire of my father’s sister, married to the provost of Perth, I was sent home. While I stayed in this family, I saw nothing of religion; and I easily took the liberty they gave, and made fair advances towards rejecting the very form of it. My aversion to those sins, which through the influence of education I abominated before, sensibly weakened. My hate to learning increased, which I looked on as a burthen and a drudgery, worse than the basest employment. And many a sinful shift did I betake myself to, that I might get the time shuffled over. In spring my mother came to me. I was then so rooted in ill, that in spite of natural affection, I was grieved at her return; and when I first heard her voice, it damped me. I cared not to see her; nor was there any thing I disliked more than her conversation. I feared to be questioned as to what was past, or to be restrained from my sinful liberty. However, in the beginning of summer, my mother took me again to Rotterdam, and put me to Erasmus’s school there. Here, though I stayed not long, the method of teaching took with me, so that I began to delight in learning. But otherwise I was still worse and worse, under all the means God made use of to bring me to myself.