Required reading
Sure Guide to Heaven (Puritan Paperbacks) by Joseph Alleine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Chapter 4 (Marks of the unconverted - please read the whole chapter)
My notes and thoughts
Alleine now seeks in this chapter to convict the reader that they are numbered among the sons of death. He gives some Biblical lists (Eph 5:5-6; Rev 21:8; 1 Cor 6:9-10) and then provides two lists of his own with proof texts. The first list are sins that are observed outwardly and the second list are sins that are inward/hidden sins. Both types equal death: 'A man may be free from open pollutions, and yet die at last by the hand of some unobserved iniquity.'
Interestingly the second list is dominated by sins that are related to religion: 'formality in religion'; 'wrong motives in holy duties'; 'enmity against the strictness of religion'; 'resting in a certain degree of religion'. I think Alleine is so right - many 'Christians' in our churches are part of our mission field and need to have their religious sins exposed.
I love Alleine's appeal to the reader's conscience at the end of the chapter, as though it was a separate person that is going to assist him in convicting the reader: 'And now, conscience, do your work. Speak out, and speak home to him that hears or reads these lines.'
No comments:
Post a Comment