So As to Convert Nobody
1826
1/11/2003
The design of this article is to propound several rules, by a steady conformity to any one of which a man may pass on Truth so as not to convert anybody. It is generally conceded at the present day that the Holy Spirit converts souls to Christ by means of truth adapted to that end.
It follows that a selfish man or woman will not skillfully adapt means to convert souls to Christ, for this is not his end.
Rule 1st. Let your supreme motive be to secure your own popularity; then, of course, your relationships and conversation will be adapted to that end, and not to convert souls to Christ.
2nd. Aim at pleasing, rather than at converting your hearers.
3nd. Aim at securing for yourself the reputation of a beautiful person, and a spiritual man or woman, but with none effect on others.
4th. Let your discussions be with a high degree of literary finish, and your elocution but passionless logic or pointless philosophy.
5th. Let all discussions be short, occupying no one for more than twenty to twenty-five minutes.
6th. Let your speech be religious, philosophical, flowery, ornate, and quite unchallenging and innocuous, as if it truly means nothing more than hobby to you or to them.
7th. Be sparing of penetrating thought in conversation, lest your challenge contain truth enough to convert a soul.
8th. So that you may “discharge your duty” and get on to merry-making without making any saving impression, let there be no specifics, no ordinances that must be obeyed or distinct practical change of life or habit or belief required or reiterated. There must be no conditions to fellowship, or consequences for a soul denying the Lamb by his life. This way the conversation will not be remembered, or disturb the consciences of your hearers.
9th. Make no distinct points, and take no disturbing issues with the consciences of your hearers, lest they remember these issues, and become alarmed about their souls.
10th. Avoid clarity and illustrated instance for change of your subject, lest you should too thoroughly challenge your friends or relatives.
11th. Give your declaration of Truth the form and substance of a flowing, beautifully written, but never-to-be-remembered essay; so that your hearers will say “it was a beautiful speech,” but can give no further account of the discussion.
12th. Avoid discussing Truths that are offensive to the carnal mind, lest they should say of you, as they did of Christ, “This is a hard saying. Who can hear it?” and that you are injuring your influence.
13th. Denounce sin in the abstract, but make no allusion to the sins of your present company. Never point out specifics in their personal lives, lest they be offended unto salvation.
14th. Keep the spirituality of God’s holy law, by which is the knowledge of sin, out of sight—lest the sinner should see his lost condition, and flee from the wrath to come.
15th. Teach the Gospel as a remedy alone, but conceal or ignore the fatal disease of the sinner.
16th. Declare salvation by grace; but ignore the condemned and lost condition of the sinner, lest he should understand what you mean by grace, and feel his need of it.
17th. Submit a Christ as an infinitely amiable and good-natured being; but ignore those scathing rebukes of sinners and hypocrites which so often made his hearers tremble.
18th. Avoid especially discussing the lives of those who are present. Postulate about sinners, and not to them. “Some say,” and not you, lest anyone should make a personal and saving application of your subject, or abide in less than total comfort with your presence in merry-making and daily life.
19th. Aim to make your relatives and neighbors pleased with themselves and pleased with you, and be careful not to wound the feelings of anyone.
20th. Speak of nothing searching or revealing, lest you convict and convert the worldly members of your family or church.
21st. Avoid awakening uncomfortable memories by reminding your hearers of their past sins.
22nd. Do not make the impression that God commands your hearers now and here to obey the truth.
23d. Do not make the impression that you expect your hearers to commit themselves upon the spot and give their hearts to God. You must of course excuse your sincerity and urgency by hiding upon the shallow grave of “friendship evangelism.”
24th. Leave the impression that they are expected to go away in their sins, and to consider the matter at their convenience.
25th. Dwell much upon their inability to obey, and leave the impression that they must wait for God to change their natures.
26th. Make no appeals to the fears of sinners; but leave the impression that they have no reason to fear.
27th. Say so little of Hell that your people will infer that you do not believe in its existence. Though Jesus spoke of Hell often, you love others more than Jesus loved, so you will not speak of it.
28th. Make the impression that, if God is as good as you are, He will send no one to Hell. Oppose no “funeral lies” of “the better place” of those dead in their transgressions, since that would not be culturally appropriate.
29th. Proclaim ever the love of God, but ignore the holiness of His love, that will by no means clear the impenitent sinner.
30th. Often present God in His parental love and relations; but ignore His governmental and legal relations to His subjects, lest the sinner should find himself condemned already, and the wrath of God abiding on him.
31st. Speak and sing of God as all mercy, lest a fuller representation of His character should alarm the consciences of your hearers.
32nd. Try to convert sinners to Christ without producing any uncomfortable convictions of sin.
33rd. Flatter the rich, so as to repel the poor, and you will convert none of either class.
34th. Make no disagreeable allusions to the doctrines of self-denial, cross-bearing, and crucifixion to the world, lest you should convict and convert some members of family and of religion.
35th. Admit, either expressly or impliedly, that all men have some moral goodness in them; lest sinners should understand that they need a radical change of heart, from sin to holiness.
36th. Avoid pressing the nature of sins’ depravity in the unconverted; lest you should offend, or even convict and convert, the moralist.
37th. Do not rebuke the worldly tendencies of the church, lest you should hurt their feelings, and finally convert some of them.
38th. Should any express anxiety about their souls, do not probe them by any uncomfortable allusion to their sin and ill-desert; but encourage them to “join the church” at once, and exhort them to assume their perfect safety within the fold of the worldly church.
39th. Discuss the love of Christ not as enlightened benevolence, that is holy, just, and sin-hating; but as a sentiment, an involuntary and undiscriminating fondness.
40th. Be sure not to represent Christianity and “church membership” as a state of loving self-sacrifice for God and soul; but rather as a free and easy state of self-indulgence. By thus doing, you will prevent sound conversions to Christ, and convert your hearers to yourself and your domain.
41st. In public assembly, so select your themes, and so present them, as to attract and flatter the wealthy, aristocratic, self-indulgent extravagant, pleasure-seeking classes, and you will not convert any of them to the cross-bearing religion of Christ. Flatter the talented and influential, with no opposition to their sin so as to build for yourself and nothing for the Christ of God.
42nd. Be time-serving, or you will endanger your reputation and benefits and, besides, if you speak out and are faithful, you may convert somebody.
43rd. Do not speak of Jesus and repentance with a divine unction, lest your words make a saving impression, or cause someone loss of comfort.
44th. To avoid this, do not maintain a close walk with God, but rely upon your learning and study.
45th. Lest you should pray too much, engage in light reading and worldly amusements.
46th. Encourage religious social outings as an invigorating substitute for conviction and challenge and change, that family and acquaintances may not think you in earnest to save their souls, and, as a consequence, heed your words,.
47th. If you do not approve of worldliness, make no public mention of your disapprobation, lest your church should give them up, and turn their attention to saving souls and be saved themselves.
48th. Do not rebuke extravagance in dress or travel or hobby, lest you should uncomfortably impress your vain and worldly church-members.
49th. Lest you should be troubled with revival scenes and labors, encourage parties, picnics, excursions, and worldly amusements, so as to divert attention from the serious work of saving souls.
50th. Ridicule solemn earnestness in pulling sinners out of the fire, and recommend, by precept and example, it jovial, fun-loving religion, and sinners will have little respect for your serious discussions.
51st. Cultivate a fastidious taste in your friends, by avoiding all disagreeable allusions to the last judgment and final retribution.
52nd. Treat such uncomfortable truths as obsolete and out of place in these days of Christian refinement. These truths are not practicable for our day and age.
53rd. Do not commit yourself to much-needed reforms, lest you should compromise your popularity and injure your influence. Or you may make some branch of outward reform a hobby, and dwell so much upon it as to divert attention from the great work of converting souls to Christ.
54th. So exhibit religion as to encourage the selfish pursuit of it. Make the impression upon sinners that their own safety and happiness is the supreme motive for being religious.
55th. Do not lay much stress upon the efficacy and necessity of prayer, lest the Holy Spirit should be poured out upon you and the congregation, and sinners and compromising religious family members should be converted.
56th. Make little or no impression upon your hearers, so that you can repeat your old truths of ten without its being noticed.
57th. If your text of discussion suggests any alarming thought, pass lightly over it, and by no means dwell upon and enforce it.
58th. Avoid all illustrations, repetitions, and emphatic sentences that may compel your people to remember what you say.
59th. Avoid all heat and earnestness in your dialogue, lest you make the impression that you really believe what you say.
60th. Address the imagination, and not the conscience, of your hearers.
61st. Make it your great aim to be personally popular with all classes of your relatives and laborers.
62nd. Be tame and timid in presenting the claims of God, as would become you in presenting your own claims. “It is but my belief that....”
63rd. Be careful not to testify from your own personal experience of the power of the Gospel, lest you should produce the conviction upon your hearers that you have something which they need.
64th. See that you say nothing that will appear to any of your hearers to mean him or her, unless it be something flattering.
65th. Encourage church sociables, and attend them yourself, because they tend so strongly to levity as to compromise Christian dignity and sobriety, and thus paralyze the power of your effect. These reinforce the notion that truths are nothing more than words blowing by in the breeze, without substance or consequence.
66th. Encourage the cultivation of the social in so many ways as to divert the attention of yourself and your church-members from the infinite guilt and danger of the unconverted among you. If one attends your protestant mass, it is sufficient. If they claim Christ, it is sufficient. All else would endanger the social liveliness and subject all to unpleasant heaviness which must be much-avoided.
67th. In those sociables talk a little about any penetrating or convicting Truth, but avoid any serious appeal to the heart and conscience of those who attend, lest you should discourage their attendance, always remembering that they do not go to socials to be earnestly dealt with in regard to their relations to God. In this way you will effectually so employ yourself and church-members as that your relationships will not convert anybody. Reserve your religious talk for the meeting hall where all such ideas must stay.
The experience of Christ-professors who have steadily adhered to any of the above rules, will attest the soul-destroying efficacy of such a course, and churches whose members and leaders have steadily conformed to any of these rules can testify that such action may increase attendance, but does not convert souls to Christ.