The Narrated Puritan

The Work of the Holy Spirit Volume 3 of Owen's collected works, book three. Chapter 1

Many of them wish to be converted from sin to God. They think that they should be ready to give almost all that they have in the world to be converted, and they pray to God to convert them, and seek for conversion, and take advice to that end, and use a great deal of labor for it. But yet if it be considered what conversion is, or what is meant by conversion, viz. the being turned from all their sins to God. They have no desire to be converted, they will not have conversion when it is offered them, when it comes to them they are not willing to be saved from sin, for they are not willing to part with their sins. When they think of the thing in the general, they wish that they were turned from sin. But when it comes to particulars, they cannot comply with it, they love their sins too well. When a particular lust comes and pleads to be indulged and gratified, then in this instance they have no wish to be converted, they are not willing to be turned from their sin altogether, they cannot bear entirely and forever to renounce and reject it. They have a wish to be converted, but not from enjoying their right hands, and right eyes. They pray that they may be thoroughly and savingly converted, and seem to wish and pray for it. But yet when it comes to them, they are not willing for any more than a partial conversion. They cannot comply with a thorough conversion, for a thorough conversion is a turning from every one of their sins. And that proves that they would be willing to be converted from their sins for a little while, but to part with them finally is what they cannot find it in their hearts to comply with.

The Puritan Fast Day Sermons preached between 1640 and 1660. This podcast is an overview and content of two Puritan Fast Day Sermons, 1 by Stephen Marshall preached December of 1641 called Reformation and Desolation, and a 2nd, The Saints' Hiding-Place in the Time of God's Anger by William Bridge, William Bridge preached this sermon on October 28, 1646 , to the House of Lords at Westminster Abbey. Finally an overview and some content by the sermon, The Goodness and Severity of God in Judging Sinful Churches and Nations. How does their counself apply to us in our day?