I would advise you to keep
up as great a strife and earnestness in religion in all aspects of it, as you would do if you knew yourself to be in a state
of nature and you were seeking conversion. We advise persons under convictions to be extremely earnest for the kingdom of heaven, but when they
have attained conversion they ought not to be the less watchful, laborious,
and earnest in the whole work of religion, but the more; for they are under
infinitely greater obligations. For lack of this, many persons in a few months after their conversion have begun to lose the sweet and lively sense
of spiritual things, and to grow cold and flat and dark. They have pierced themselves through with many sorrows, whereas if they had done as the Apostle did in Philippians 3:12-14, their path would have been as the shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day.
Not that I have already all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers,
I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:12-14)
- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)
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