An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners

There are two principal modes of persuading men to repent and believe the Gospel. The one consists in representing to them the “love of God,” in setting before them all the blessinfjs which that love is ready to bestow, and in winning them over by its alluring influence, to a cordial and practical submission to the divine will. The other consists in giving them a plain and honest exhibition of the “terror of the Lord,” in pointing out to them the wrath of the Almighty against those who commit sin, in pressing upon their attention the dreadful consequences of continuing to be “enemies to him in their minds and by wicked works;” and thus creating such alarm in them as to make them abandon their evil ways, and “flee for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before them” in the Gospel.

To this latter mode of persuasion there are some who have such a strong aversion, that every person who employs it is proscribed by them, as one by whom the nature of religion is misrepresented and its influence impaired. He is a gloomy fanatic, whose imagination delights to brood over the images of misery and despair. Or he is a merciless bigot, who has no regard to the comfort of his fellow-men,

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but takes pleasure in torturing them with unnecessary alarm, respecting their present condition and future prospects. Or he is a candidate for lowpopularity — appealing to the coarsest feelings and the most stupid prejudices of the vulgar, that he may excite their astonishment, and attract their admiration. Or he is an enemy to good taste — sacrificing all that is gracious in sentiment, and gentle in language, to a passion for the dark and liorrific. In short, there is scarcely an epithet of ridicule, or of reprobation, which is not applied to the minister who employs the terror of the Lord to persuade men. And while the objection to this particular mode of addressing sinners is chiefly insisted on by those who have no faith in Christianity, or no serious regard for what Christianity teaches, it is also countenanced and urged by not a few who have experienced the power of genuine godliness, and are evidently walking in the ways of salvation.

We are willing enough to concede, that it is wrong to be always, or too frequently, dwelling on the terror of the Lord. We concede, also, that there are terms which it is neither scriptural nor proper to make use of in discussing this subject. We concede, moreover, that there may be a danger of hurting weak and delicate minds, if care be not taken to unfold it with prudence, and to place it in its proper connexion. But these concessions will apply to any other subject as well as to that which is now before us. It is not right to be perpetually insisting on any single topic, however interesting in itself, or however important in its influence. There is no doctrine within the compass of religion which may not be spoken of, and enforced in language, as pernicious as it is inappropriate and incorrect. And great indiscretion may be committed, and very injurious effects may be produced, by certain modes of explaining even the most pleasing and acceptable discoveries of the Gospel. Granting, however, that the exceptions I have alluded to were peculiar to the more awful of its statements, that forms no sufficient reason for inducing those who are concerned in expounding Christianity, either to withhold these statements altogether, or to present them with a tame and compromising aspect, or to introduce them to notice in such a way as to indicate that they are of inferior moment, and should command little respect. We hold that they are of unspeakable consequence; that they deserve the most serious consideration; that they should not merely be brought forward, but brought forward unmodified and undisguised; that they should be made to bear, with as much as possible of their native character and tendency, on the minds of those to whom they are delivered; that the persons to whom they are offensive in this shape may trace that dislike to them which they are so ready to manifest, in some cases to infidelity, and in other cases to ignorance; that those who fly from the preaching of such ministers, and neglect the writings of such authors, as give them a distinct and prominent place in their discussions, show neither faith, nor wisdom, nor consistency; and that to persuade men by the terror of the Lord is at once a rational, a scriptural, a useful, and a necessary method of inculcating the Gospel, and of procuring for it its true converts, and its legitimate triumphs. We hold all this, and we shall endeavour to maintain it in the sequel of this Essay.

In xhejirst place, the terror of the Lord constitutes an obvious and essential part of divine truth.

Were the doctrine which asserts it a mere fiction, the creature of an extravagant fancy, or the invention of an interested priesthood, we should deem it both foolish and criminal, to give it any place in a serious discourse which was intended to influence either the creed or the conduct of mankind. Were it nothing more than a probable conjecture, we might mention it, indeed, and leave it to its own weifrht: but we should not consider ourselves entitled to speak of it, and to press it, at the risk of giving offence to those whom we were attempting to edify. Were it only the result of a process of speculative reasoning, though we might take advantage of it in perfect consistency with what is uniformly done in other matters of far less importance, still, even in that case, we should not assert it with any dogmatism, or insist upon it with much pertinacity. But it falls under none of these descriptions. It possesses, in the estimation of every one who believes the Bible, the character of unquestionable truth. No man can deny it, without being prepared to deny every other statement which revelation contains: for no language can be plainer, or more explicit, than the language in which it is affirmed and proclaimed. It is as clearly and indubitably the doctrine of Scripture, that God is holy and just, as that he is good and compassionate — that he hates the workers of iniquity, as that he loves those who fear and serve him — that he has ordained a hell, as that he has prepared a heaven — that, on the day of judgment, he will pronounce a sentence of condemnation on the wicked, as that he will pronounce a sentence of acquittal on the righteous — that the former shall go away into everlasting punishment, as that the latter shall go away into life eternal — that the anguish of the condemned sinner is absolutely certain and inconceivably great, as that the felicity of the glorified saint rests upon the promise of unchangeable faithfulness, and mocks at all our efforts to describe or imafjine it.

There are some things in Scripture which are not very plainly unfolded; and there are other things which seem to be incidentally noticed, and to be placed in rather a detached and isolated station. But this doctrine of the terror of the Lord is none of them. It stands forth in most distinct and intelligible statement. It meets us at every step of our progress through the sacred record. We have not gone beyond the third chapter of the book of Genesis, till we see it embodied in the fact of our first parents being driven out of Paradise, and of the very “ground being cursed for their sake.” When we come to the conclusion of the Apocalypse, we are required to carry it along with us in that awful warning, that if we” take away from the word of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away our part out of the book of life.’* And from the beffinninf]^ to the end of this inspired Volume, it is held out to us in every variety A3

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