Well, sirs, there can be no harm in knowing the truth. And therefore will you but try yourselves, whether you are unsanctified or not? You were baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost as your Sanctifier; and if now you neglect or mock at sanctification, what do you but deride your baptism, or neglect that which is its sense and end? It doth not so much concern you to know that you live the life of nature, as to know whether sanctification have made you spiritually alive to God.
And let me tell you this to your encouragement, that we do not call you to know that you are unconverted, and unpardoned, and miserable, as men that have no remedy, but must sit down in despair, and be tormented with the fore-knowledge of your endless pains before the time. No; it is but that you may speedily and thankfully accept of Christ, the full remedy, and turn to God, and quickly get out of your sin and terror, and enter into a life of safety and of peace. We desire not your continuance in that life which tendeth to despair and horror: we would have you out of it, if it were in our power, before to-morrow; and therefore it is that we would have you understand what danger you are in, that you may go no further, but speedily turn back, and seek for help. And I hope there is no hurt, though there be some present trouble, in such a discovery of your danger as this is.
Well, if you are but willing to know, I shall help you a little to know what you are.
Marks of an unconverted state.
1. If you are persecutors, or haters, deriders of men, for being serious and diligent in the service of God, and fearful of sinning, and because they go not with the multitude to do evil, it is a certain sign that you are in a state of death: yea, if you love not such men, and desire not rather to be such yourselves, than to be the greatest of the ungodly. See Gal. iv. 29; Acts xxvi. 11; 1 Tim. i. 13; 1 Pet. iv. 2-5; Psal. xv. 4; 1 John iii. 8-15; John xiii. 35; Psal. lxxxiv. 10.
2. If you love the world best, and set your affections most on things below, and mind most earthly things; nay, if you seek not first God's kingdom, and the righteousness thereof; and if your hearts be not in heaven, and your affections set on the things that are above; and you prefer not your hopes of life eternal before all the pleasures and prosperity of this world, it is a certain sign that you are but worldly and ungodly men. See this in Matt. vi. 19-21, 33; Phil. iii. 18-20; Col. iii. 1-4; Psal. lxxiii. 25; 1 John ii. 15-17; James i. 27; Luke xii. 20, 21; xvi. 25.
3. If your estimation, belief, and hopes, of everlasting life through Christ, be not such, as will prevail with you to deny yourselves, and forsake father, and mother, and the nearest friends; and house, and land, and life, and all that you have, for Christ, and for these hopes of a happiness hereafter, you are no true christians, nor in a state of saving grace. See Luke xiv. 26, 33; Matt. x. 37-39; xiii. 21, 22.
4. If you have not been converted, regenerated, and sanctified by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, making you spiritual, and causing you to mind the things of the Spirit above the things of the flesh. If this Spirit be not in you, and you walk not after it, but after the flesh; making provision for the flesh, to satisfy its desires, and preferring the pleasing of the flesh before the pleasing of God, it is certain that you are in a state of death. See Matt. xviii. 3; John iii. 3, 5, 6; Heb. xii. 14; Rom. viii. 1, 5-13; xiii. 13, 14; Luke xvi. 19, 25; xii. 20, 21; Heb. xi. 25, 26; 2 Cor. iv. 16-18; v. 7; Rom. viii. 17, 18.
5. If you have any known sin which you do not hate, and had not rather leave it than keep it, and do not pray, and strive, and watch against it, as far as you know and observe it; but rather excuse it, plead for it, desire it, and are loth to part with it, so that your will is habitually more for it than against it, it is a sign of an impenitent, unrenewed heart. 1 John iii. 3-10, 24; Gal. v. 16, 19-25; Rom. vii. 22, 24; viii. 13; Luke xiii. 3, 5; Matt. v. 19, 20; 2 Tim. ii. 19; Psal. v. 5; Luke xiii. 27.
6. If you love not the word, as it is a light discovering your sin and duty, but only as it is a general truth, or as it reproveth others: if you love not the most searching preaching, and would not know how bad you are, and come not to the light, that your deeds may be manifest, it is a sign that you are not children of the light, but of the darkness, John iii. 19-21.