CHAPTER I.
_A short account of his birth and life, till ten years of age._
1. MR. _Thomas Haliburton_, was born at _Duplin_, in the parish of Aberdalgy, (of which his father was sometime minister) on _December 25, 1674_. The three former parts of the following account were wrote by himself: the last is partly extracted from his diary, and partly taken from eye and ear-witnesses.
2. The common occurrences of the life of one in all respects so inconsiderable, are not worth recording; and if recorded, could be of little use either to my self or others. But if I can recount what has past between God and my soul, so as to discover not only the parts of this work, the several advances it made, the opposition of the world, the devil and my own heart; if I can represent this work in its order, it may be of great use to my own establishment; and, should it fall into the hands of any other Christian, it might not be unuseful: for the work of God in all is, as to the substance, the same and uniform; and as face answers to face in a glass, so does one Christian’s experience answer to another’s; and both to the word of God.
3. I came into the world with a nature wholly corrupted, and a heart fully set in me to do evil: and from the morning of my days, though I was under the great light of the gospel, and the inspection of pious parents, and not yet corrupted by custom; yet the imaginations of my heart, and the whole tenor of my life were only evil continually.
4. Indeed, in this period of my life, I had unusual advantages: my parents were eminently religious; I continually heard the sound of divine truth in their instructions, and had the beauty of holiness set before my eyes in their example. They kept me from ill company, and habituated me early to such outwards duties as I was capable of. But this care of my father during his life, (which ended October, 1682,) and of my mother after his death, did not change, but only hide nature. And, though I cannot remember all the particulars, from the fourth or fifth year of my life; yet I do remember the general bent of my mind, which was even then wholly set against God: insomuch, that when I now survey the decalogue, and review this portion of my time, notwithstanding the great distance, I still distinctly remember, and could easily enumerate many instances of the opposition of my heart unto every one of its precepts.
*5. For many years it is true, the sins of this part of my life were entirely out of my thoughts. But when God began to convince me of sin, even those I had long since forgotten, those that were of an older date than any thing else I could remember, and not attended with any such remarkable circumstances, as could be supposed to make a deep impression on my memory, were brought on my mind with unusual distinctness. Whence I cannot but observe: 1. What exact notice the holy God takes of what men pass over as pardonable follies. 2. How just reason we have to fear, that in the strokes we feel in riper years, God is “making us to possess the iniquities of our youth.” 3. What an exact register, conscience, God’s deputy, keeps; how early it begins; how accurate it is (even when it seems to sleep) and how it will justify his severity against sinners at the last day. O how far up will it fetch its accounts of those evils which we mind nothing of! When God shall open our eyes to discern those _prints which he setteth upon the heels of our feet; when the books shall be opened, and the dead, small and great, judged out of the things that are written therein_!
*6. When I review this first period of my life, what reason have I to be ashamed, and even confounded, to think I have spent ten years of a short life, without almost a rational thought, undoubtedly without any that was not sinful. And this being matter of undoubted experience, I have herein a strong confirmation of my faith, as to the guilt of _Adam_’s sin, and its imputation to his posterity: for, 1. From a child the bent of my soul was “enmity against God.” Nor was this the effect of custom or education, no; there was a sweet conspiracy of precept, discipline and example, to carry me the contrary way. Nor can I charge the fault of this on my constitution of body, or any thing that might in a natural way proceed from my parents. Yet was this enmity so strong as not to be supprest, much less subdued, by the utmost care, and the best outward means. This is undoubted fact. 2. To say, I was thus originally framed without respect to any sin chargeable on me, is a position so full of flat contrariety to all the notions I can entertain of God, to his wisdom, his equity, and his goodness, that I cannot think of it without horror. 3. Penal then this corruption must be, as death and diseases are. And whereof can it be a punishment, if not of _Adam_’s sin? While then these things are so plain in fact, and the deduction so easy from them, whatever subtle arguments any use against this great truth, I have no reason to be moved thereby.
7. Hence, lastly, I am taught what estimate to make of those good inclinations with which some are said to be born. Either they are the early effects of preventing grace; or, of education, custom, occasional restraints, and freedom from temptation. A natural temper may be easily influenced by some of these, and by the constitution of the body, to a distaste of those grosser sins which makes the most noise in the world. Yet all this is but sin under a disguise: and the odds is not great. The one sort of sinners promise good fruit, but deceive; whereas the openly profane forbid expectation. And yet of this last sort more receive the gospel than of the former. _Verily I say unto you, the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you._