The right procedure: You begin at the wrong end if you first dispute about your election. Prove your conversion, and then never doubt your election. If you cannot yet prove it, set upon a present and thorough turning. Whatever purposes be, which are secret, I am sure His promises are plain. How desperately do rebels argue! "If I am elected I shall be saved, do what I will. If not, I shall be damned, do what I can." Perverse sinner, will you begin where you should end?

It is one thing to have sin alarmed only by convictions, and another to have it crucified by converting grace. Many, because they have been troubled in conscience for their sins, think well of their case, miserably mistaking conviction for conversion.

Conversion is not a repairing of the old building, but it takes all down and erects a new structure. It is not the sewing on a patch of holiness; but, with the true convert, holiness is woven into all his powers, principles and practice.

A man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteousness and supposed graces, as by gross sins; and that is, when a man doth trust in these as his righteousness before God, for the satisfying His justice, appeasing His wrath, procuring His favor, and obtaining his own pardon.

Converting grace puts God on the throne, and the world at His footstool; Christ in the heart, and the world under Hisfeet.

O miserable man, what a deformed monster has sin made you! God made you "little lower than the angels"; sin has made you little better than the devils

Conversion is a work above man's power... Never think you can convert yourself. If ever you would be savingly converted, you must despair of doing it in your own strength. It is a resurrection from the dead, a new creation, a work of absolute omnipotence... Conversion is a supernatural work.