The Miseries of the Unconverted
So unspeakably dreadful is the case of every unconverted soul, that I have sometimes thought, if I could but convince men that they are yet unregenerate, the work were done.
But I sadly experience, that such a spirit of sloth and slumber possesseth the unsanctified, that, though they be convinced that they are yet unconverted, yet they oft-times carelessly sit still; and what through the indulgence of sensual pleasure, or hurry of worldly business, or earthly cares and affections, the voice of conscience is drowned, and men go no farther than some cold wishes, and general purposes of repenting and amending.
It is therefore of high necessity that I do not only convince men that they are unconverted, but that I also endeavour to bring them to a sense of the fearful misery of this state.
But here I find myself a-ground at first putting forth. What tongue can tell the heirs of hell sufficiently of their misery, unless it were Dives’ in that flame? Where is the ready writer, whose pen can decipher their misery that are “without God in the world?” This cannot fully be done, unless we know the infinite ocean of that bliss of perfection which is in that God, from which a state of sin doth exclude men. “Who knoweth,” saith Moses, “the power of thine anger?” And how shall I tell men that which I do not know? Yet so much we know as, one would think, would shake the heart of that man that had the least degree of spiritual life and sense.
But this is yet the greatest difficulty, that I am to speak to them that are without sense. Alas! this is not the least part of man’s misery, that he is dead — “dead, in trespasses and sins.”
Could I bring paradise into view, or represent the kingdom of heaven to as much advantage as the tempter did the kingdoms of the world, and all the glory thereof, to our Saviour; or could I uncover the face of the deep and devouring gulf of Tophet, in all its terrors, and open the gates of the eternal prison; alas! he hath no eyes to see it. Could I paint out the beauties of holiness, or glory of the gospel, to the life; or could I bring above-board the more than diabolical deformity of sin; he can no more judge of the loveliness and beauty of the one, and the hatefulness of the other, than the blind man of colours. He is “alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him,” because of the blindness of his heart. He neither doth nor can know “the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned.” His eyes cannot be savingly opened but by converting grace. He is a child of darkness, “and walks in darkness:” yea, the light in him is darkness.
Shall I read his sentence, or sound in his ear the terrible trump of God’s judgments, that one would think should make both his ears to tingle, and strike him into Belshazzar’s fit, even to appal his countenance, and loose his joints, and make his knees smite one against another? Yet, alas! he perceives me not; he hath no ears to hear. Or shall I call up the daughters of music, and sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb? Yet he will not be stirred. Shall I allure him with the joyful sound, and glad tidings of the gospel? with the most sweet and inviting calls, comforts, cordials, of the divine promises, so exceedingly great and precious? It will not affect him savingly, unless I could find him ears, as well as tell him the news.
What then shall I do? Alas! dead sinners are like the dumb idols; “they have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; they have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not; neither speak they through their throat” — they are destitute of spiritual sense and motion.
But let me try the sense that doth last leave us, and draw the sword of the word; yea, lay at him while I will; yea, though I choose mine arrows out of God’s quiver, and direct them to the heart, nevertheless he feeleth it not: for how should he, being past feeling? So that, though “the wrath of God abideth on him,” and the mountainous weight of so many thousand sins, yet he goes up and down as light as if nothing ailed him. In a word, he carries a dead soul in a living body.
Which way, then, shall I come at the miserable
objects that I have to deal with? Who shall make
the heart of stone to relent? or the lifeless carcase H3 to feel and move? That God that is able of “stone to raise up children unto Abraham;” that “raiseth the dead,” and “melteth the mountains,” and “strikes water out of the flints;” that loves to work like himself, beyond the hopes and belief of man; that peopleth his church with dry bones — he is able to do this. Therefore, “I bow my knee to the Most High God,” and as our Saviour prayed at the sepulchre of Lazarus, and the Shunamite ran to the man of God for her dead child, so doth your mourning minister carry you in the arms of prayer to that God in whom your help is found.
“O thou all-powerful Jehovah, that worketh and none can let thee! that hast the keys of death and hell; pity thou the dead souls that lie here entombed, and roll away the grave-stone, and say, as to Lazarus when already dead. Come forth. Lighten thou this darkness, O inaccessible light! and let the day spring from on high visit the dark regions of the dead, to whom I speak; for thou canst open the eye that death itself hath closed; thou, that formedst the ear, canst restore the hearing: say thou to these ears, Ephphatha, and they shall be opened. Give thou eyes to see thine excellencies, a taste that may relish thy sweetness, a scent that may savour thy ointment, a feeling that may discern the privilege of thy favour, the burden of thy wrath, the intolerable weight of unpardoned sin, and give thy servants order to prophesy on the dry bones, and let the effects of this prophesy be as of thy prophet, when he prophesied the valley of dry bones into a living army exceeding great.” “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. He said to me, Prophesy on these bones, and say to them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord unto these bones, Behold I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh on you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise and a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And, when I beheld, lo! the sinews and flesh came up on them, and the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me. Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and’ the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” But I must proceed, as I am able, to unfold that mystery, which, I confess, no tongue can unfold, no heart can sufficiently comprehend. Know therefore that, while thou art unconverted,
I. The Infinite God is engaged against thee. It is no small part of thy misery that thou art “without God.” How doth Micah run crying after the Danites,” You have taken away my gods, and what have I more?’ O what a mourning then must thou lift up, that art without God, that canst lay no claim to him without daring usurpation!
Thou mayest say of God, as Sheba of David, “we have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse.” How pitiful and piercing a moan is that of Saul in his extremity! “The Philistines are upon me, and God is departed from me!” Sinners, but what will you do in the day of your visitation? Whither will you flee for help? Where will you leave your glory? What will you do when the Philistines are upon you; when the world shall take its eternal leave of you; when you must bid your friends, houses, and lands, farewell for evermore? What will you do then, I say, that have never a God to go to? Will you call on him? Will you cry to him? Alas, he will not own you, he will not take any notice of you, but send you packing with an “I never knew you.” They that know what it is to have a God to go to, a God to live upon, they know a little what a fearful misery it is to be without God. This made that holy man cry out, “Let me have a God, or nothing; let me know him, and his will, and what will please him, and how I may come to enjoy him, or would I had never had an understanding to know any thing!”
But thou art not only without God, but God is “against thee.” O! if God would but stand neuter, though he did not own nor help the poor sinner, his case were not so deeply miserable, though God should give up the poor creature to the will of his enemies, to do their worst with him: though he should deliver him over to the tormentors, yet this were not half so fearful. But God will set himself against the sinner; and, believe it, it is a fearful “thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” There is no friend like him, no enemy like him. As much as heaven is above the earth, omnipotence above impotence, so much more terrible it is to fall into the hands of the living God, than into the power of devils. God himself will be thy tormentor; thy destruction shall come “from the presence of the Lord.” Tophet is deep and large, and the wrath of the Lord, like a river of brimstone, doth kindle it. “If God be against thee, who shall be for thee? If one man sin against another, they judge him: but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?” “Thou, even thou, art to be feared; and who shall stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?” “Who is that god that shall deliver you out of his hands?” Can mammon? “riches profit not in the day of wrath.” Can kings or warriors? No: “They shall cry to the mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?”
Sinner! I think this should go like a dagger to thy heart, to know that God is thine enemy. O! whither wilt thou go? where wilt thou shelter thee? There is no hope for thee, unless thou lay down thy weapons, and sue out thy pardon, and get Christ to stand thy friend, and make thy peace. If it were not for this, thou mightest pine in sorrow and horrible despair; but in Christ there is a possibility of mercy for thee, yea, a proffer of mercy to thee, that thou mayest have God more for thee than he is now against thee: but if thou wilt not forsake thy sins, nor turn thoroughly and to some purpose to God, by a sound conversion, the wrath of God abideth on thee, and he proclaimeth himself to be against thee, as in the prophet. “Therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold I, even I, am against thee!”
1. His face is against thee, “The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them.” Woe unto them whom God shall set his face ajrainst! When he did but look on the host of the Egyptians, how terrible was the consequence! “I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and will cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
2. His heart is against thee. He hateth all
the workers of iniquity. Man, doth not thy heart
tremble to think of thy being an object of God’s
hatred? Though Moses and Samuel” stood bees
fore me, yet my mind could not be towards this people: cast them out of my sight.” “My soul loathed them, and their souls also abhorred me.”
3. His hand is against thee. All his attributes are against thee.
First, His justice is like a Jlaming sword un sheathed against thee: “If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine adversaries, and will reward them that hate me; and I will make mine arrows drunk with blood.”
So exact is justice, that it “will by no means clear the guilty.” God will not discharge thee, “he will not hold thee guiltless,” but will require the whole debt in person of thee, unless thou canst make a scripture claim to Christ, and his satisfaction. When the enlightened sinner looks on justice, and sees the balance in which he must be weighed, and the sword by which he must be executed, he feels an earthquake in his breast: but Satan keeps this out of sight, and persuades the soul, while he can, that the Lord is all made up of mercy, and so lulls it asleep in sin. Divine justice is very strict; it must have satisfaction to the utmost farthinfj; it denounceth “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, to every soul that doeth evil.” It curseth “every one that continueth not in every thing that is written in the law, to do it.” The justice of God to the unpardoned sinner, that hath a sense of his guilt, is more terrible than the sight of the judge and bench to the robber, or of the irons and gibbet to the guilty murderer. When justice sits upon life and death, O what dreadful work doth it make to the wretched sinner! “Bind him hand and foot; cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” This is the terrible sentence that justice pronounceth. Why, sinner, by this severe justice must thou be tried; and as God liveth, this killinfj sentence shalt thou hear, unless thou repent and be converted.”
Secondly, The holiness of God is full of antipathy against thee. He is not only angry with thee, (so he may be with his own children,) but he hath a fixed, rooted, habitual, displeasure against thee; God’s nature is infinitely contrary to sin, and so he cannot but hate a sinner out of Christ.
O what misery is this, to be out of the favour, yea, under the hatred of God! that God, who can as easily lay aside his nature, and cease to be God, as not be contrary to thee and detest thee, except thou be changed and renewed by grace. O sinner, how darest thou to think of the bright and radiant sun of purity, or the beauties, the glory, of holiness, that is in God? “The stars are not pure in his sight.” “He humbles himself to behold things that are done in heaven.” And hast thou no interest in Christ neither, that he should plead for thee; I think he should hear thee crying out, astonished, with the Bethshemites, “Who shall stand before this Lord God?”
Thirdly, The power of God is against thee. The glory of God’s power is to be displayed in the wonderful confusion and destruction of them “that obey not the gospel.” He will “make his power known in them;” how mightily he can torment them: for this end he raiseth them up, “that he might make his power known.” O man, art thou able to make thy party good with thy Maker?
Sinner, the “power of God’s anger” is against thee, and power and anger together make fearful work; it were better thou hadst all the world in arms against thee, than to have the power of God against thee. There is no escaping his hands, no breaking his prison. “The thunder of his power who can withstand?” Unhappy man, that shall understand it by feeling it! “If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength; who hath hardened himself against him, and prospered? which removeth the mountains, and they know it not; which overturneth them in his anger; which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremhle; which commanded the sun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars! Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? Who will say unto him. What doest thou? If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him.” And art thou a fit match for such an antagonist? “Oh! consider this, you that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you.” Submit to mercy; let not dust and stubble stand out against the Almighty; set not briers and thorns in battle, lest he go through them, and consume them together; but lay hold on his strength that you may “make peace with him.” “Woe to him that striveth with his Maker!”
Fourthly, The “wisdom of God is set to rmn thee. He hath ordained his arrows, and prepared instruments of death, and made all things ready. His counsels are against thee to contrive thy destruction. “The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that the day is coming.” He sees how thou wilt come down mightily in a moment; how thou wilt gnash thy teeth, for anguish and astonishment of heart, when thou seest thou art fallen remedilessly into the pit of destruction.
Fifthly, The truth of God is s’woni against thee. If he be true and faithful, thou must perish if thou goest on. Unless he be false of his word, thou must die except thou repent. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. That is, he is faithful to his threatenings, as well as promises, and will show his faithfulness in our confusion, if we believe not. God hath told thee, as plain as it can be spoken, that “if he wash thee not, thou hast no part in him” — that, “if thou livest after the flesh, thou shalt die” — that, “except thou be converted, thou shalt in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven:” and he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself. Beloved, as the immutable faithfulness of God in his promise and oath aflPords believers strong consolation, so they are to unbelievers for strong consternation and confusion. O sinner, tell me, what shift dost thou make to think of all the threatenings of God’s word, that stand upon record against thee? Dost thou believe they are truth or not? if not, thou art a wretched infidel, and not a Christian; and therefore, give over the name and hopes of a Christian. But, if thou dost believe them, O heart of adamant that thou hast, that canst walk up and down in quiet, when the truth and faithfulness of God are enfjaffed to destroy thee! so that, if the Almighty can do it, thou shalt surely perish. Why, man, the whole “book of God” doth testify against thee, while thou remainest unsanctified: it condemns thee in every leaf, and is to thee like Ezekiel’s roll, written within and without with “lamentation, and mourning, and woe.” And all this shall surely come upon thee and overtake thee, except thou repent. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but one jot or tittle of this word shall never pass away.”
Now, put all this together, and tell me if the case of the unconverted be not deplorably miserable. As we read of some persons, that had bound themselves in an oath, and in a curse, to kill Paul, so thou must know, O sinner, to thy terror, that all the attributes of an infinite God are bound in an oath to destroy thee. O man, what wilt thou do? whither wilt thou flee? If God’s omniscience can find thee, thou shalt not escape: if the true and faithful God will save his oath, perish thou must, except thou believe and repent: if the Almighty hath power to torment thee, thou shalt be perfectly miserable in soul and body to all eternity, unless it be prevented by speedy conversion.
II. The ‘ischole creation of God is against thee. “The whole creation,” saith Paul, “groaneth and travaileth in pain.” But what is it that the creation groaneth under? why, the fearful abuse that it is subject to, in serving the lust of unsanctified men. And what is it that the creation groaneth for? why, for freedom and liberty from this abuse, for th “creature is very unwillingly subject to this bondage.” If the unreasonable and inanimate creatures had speech and reason, they would cry out under it as a bondage unsufferable, to be abused by the ungodly, contrary to their natures and the ends that the great Creator made them for. It is a passage of an eminent divine, “The liquor that the drunkard drinketh, if it had reason as well as a man to know how shamefully it is abused and spoiled, it would groan in the cup against him, groan in his throat, in his belly, against him. And, if God should open the mouths of his creatures, as he did the mouth of Balaam’s ass, the proud man’s garment on his back would groan against him. There is never a creature, but, if it had reason to know how it is abused till a man be converted, would groan against him; the land would groan to bear him; the air would groan to give him breathing; their houses would groan to lodge them; their beds would groan to ease them, their food to nourish them, their clothes to cover them, and the creature would groan to give them any help and comfort, so long as they live in sin against God.” Thus far he.
I think this should be a terror to an unconverted soul, to think he is a burden to the creation: “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground!” If the poor inanimate creatures could but speak, they would say to the ungodly, as Moses to Israel, “Must we fetch you water out of the rock, ye rebels?” “Thy food would say. Lord, must I nourish such a wretch as this, and yield forth my strength for him to dishonour thee withal? The very air would say. Lord, must I give this man breath to set his tongue against heaven, and scorn thy people, and vent out oaths and blasphemy against thee? His poor beast would say. Lord, must I carry him upon his wicked design?” A wicked man! the earth groans under him, and hell groans for him, till death satisfies both. While the Lord of Hosts is against thee, be sure the Host of the Lord is against thee, and all the creatures, as it were, up in arms, till, upon a man’s conversion, the controversy being taken up between God and him, he makes a covenant of peace with the creature for him.
III. The roaring lion hath his full poxver iqxm thee. Thou art fast to the paw of the lion that is greedy to devour; in “the snare of the devil, led captive by him at his will.” This is the “spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience.” He is the “ruler of the darkness of this world,” that is, of ignorant sinners that live in darkness. You pity the poor Indians that worship the devil for their God, but little think it is your own case. Why, it is the common misery of all the unsanctified, that the devil is their God. Not that they do intend to do him homage and worship; they will be ready to defy him, and him that should say so by them; but all this while they serve him, and come and go at his will, and live under his government: “His servants you are to whom ye yield yourselves to obey.” O, how many then will be found the real servants of the devil, that take themselves for no other than the children of God! He can no sooner offer a sinful delight or opportunity for your unlawful advantage, than you embrace it. If he suggest a lie or prompt you to revenge, you readily obey: if he forbid you to read or pray, you hearken to him, and therefore his servants you are. Indeed, he acts in the dark, and sinners see not who setteth them on work, but all the while he leads them. Doubtless the liar intends not a service to Satan, but his own advantage; yet it is he that stands unobserved, and putteth the thing in his heart. Questionless, Judas when lie sold his Master for money, and the Chaldeans and Sabeans when they plundered Job, intended not to do the devil a pleasure, but to satisfy their own covetous thirst; yet it was he that actuated them in their wickedness. Men may be very slaves of the devil, and not know it: nay, they may please themselves in the thoughts of happy liberty.
Art thou yet in ignorance, and not turned from darkness to light? Why thou art under the power of Satan. Dost thou live in the ordinary and wilful practice of any known sin? know that thou art of the devil. Dost thou live in strife, or envy, or malice? Verily he is thy father. O dreadful case! However Satan may provide his slaves with divers pleasures, yet it is but to deceive them into endless perdition. The serpent comes with the apple in his mouth, O! but, with Eve, thou seest not the deadly sting in his tail. He that is now thy tempter will one day be thy tormentor. O, that I could but give thee to see how bad a master thou servest, how merciless a tyrant thou gratifiest, all whose pleasure is to set thee on work to make thy perdition and damnation sure, and to heat the furnace hotter and hotter in which thou must burn for millions and millions of ages.
IV. The guilt of all thy sins lies like a mountain upon thee. Poor soul! thou feelest it not; but this is that which seals thy misery upon thee. While unconverted, none of thy sins are blotted out, they are all upon record against thee. Regeneration and remission are never separated; the unsanctified arc unquestionably unjustified and unpardoned. Look upon an enlightened sinner, who feels the weight of his own guilt: O, how frightful are his looks, how fearful are his complaints! his comforts are turned into wormwood, and his moisture into drought, and his sleep is departed from his eyes. He is a terror to himself and all that are about him; and is ready to envy the very stones that lie in the street, because they are senseless, and feel not his misery: and wisheth he had been a dog, rather than a man, because then death had put an end to his misery; whereas now it will be but the beginning of that which will know no ending.
How light soever you may make of it now, you will one day find the guilt of an unpardoned sin to be a heavy burden. This is a mill-stone, that “whosoever falleth upon it, shall be broken: but upon whomsoever it shall fall it shall grind him to powder.” What work did it make with our blessed Saviour! It pressed the very blood, to a wonder, out of his veins, and broke all his bones: and, if it did this in the green tree, what will it do in the dry.
O! think of thy case in time. Canst thou think of that threat without trembling, “Ye shall die in your sins.” O! better were it for thee to die in a dungeon, than die in thy sins. If death, as it will take away all thy other comforts, would take away thy sins too, it were some mitigation; but thy sins will follow thee when thy friends leave thee, and all worldly enjoyments shake hands with thee. Thy sins will not die with thee, as a prisoner’s other debts will; but they will to judgment with thee, there to be thy accusers; and they will to hell with thee, there to be thy tormentors. O, the work that these will make thee! O, look over thy debts in time — how is every one of God’s commandmentsready to arrest thee, and take thee by the throat, for the innumerable bonds it hath upon thee! What wilt thou do then, when they shall all together come in against thee? Hold open the eyes of conscience to consider this, that thou mayest despair of thyself, and be driven to Christ and fly for refuge, to “lay hold on the hope that is set before thee.”
V. Thij raging lusts do miserahlij enslave thee. While unconverted, thou art a very servant to sin; it reigns over thee, and holds thee under its dominion till thou art brought within the bonds of God’s covenant. Now, there is no such another tyrant as sin: O the vile and fearful v»^ork that it doth engage its servants in! Would it not pierce a man’s heart to see a company of poor creatures drudging and toiling, and ail to carry together faggots and fuel for their own burning? Why this is the employment of sin’s drudges: even while they bless themselves in their unrighteous gains, while they sing and swim in pleasure, they are but treasuring up wrath and vengeance for their eternal burning. Who would serve such a master, whose wages are death?
What a woeful spectacle was the poor wretch that was possessed with the legion! Would it not have grieved thy heart to have seen him among the tombs cutting and wounding himself? This is thy case; such is thy work; every stroke is a thrust at thy heart. Conscience indeed is now asleep; but when death and judgment shall bring thee to thy senses, then wilt thou feel the raging smart and anguish in every wound. The convinced sinner is a sensible instance of the miserable bondage of sin: conscience flies upon him, and tells him what the end of these things will be; and yet such a slave he is to his lust, that on he must, though he sees it will be his endless perdition; and, when the temptation comes, it breaks the cords of all his vows and promises, and carries him headlong to his own destruction.
VI. The furnace of eternal vengeance is heated ready fur thee. Hell and destruction open their mouths upon thee; waiting, as it were, as thou standest upon the brink, when thou wilt drop in. If the wrath of men be “as the roaring of a lion,” “more heavy than the sand,” what is the wrath of the infinite God! if the burning furnace heated in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery rage, when he commanded it to be made yet seven times hotter, was so fierce as to burn up even those that drew near it to throw the children in, how hot is that burning furnace of the Almighty’s fury! surely this is seventy times seven more fierce. “Can thy heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the day that I will deal with thee, saith the Lord of hosts?” “Canst thou abide the everlasting burnings? Canst thou dwell with consuming fire?” The most patient man that ever was, did curse the day that ever he was born, and even wish death to come and end his misery, when God did but let out one little drop of his wrath; how then wilt thou endure when God shall pour out all Ins vials, and set himself against thee, to torraent thee? when immortality shall be thy misery; and to die the death of a brute, and be swallowed in the gulph of annihilation, shall be such a felicity as the whole eternity of wishes, and an ocean of tears, shall never purchase? Now thou canst “put off the evil day,” and canst “laugh and be merry, and forget the terror of the Lord,” but how wilt thou hold out, or hold up, when God will cast thee into a “bed of torments,” and make thee “to lie down in sorrow?” when “the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation,” shall be thy only drink? In a word, when the smoke of thy torment shall ascend for ever and ever, and thou shalt have no rest night nor day, no rest in thy conscience; but thou shalt be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach, for evermore?
O sinner! stop here and consider: if thou art a man, and not a senseless block, consider! Bethink thyself where thou standest! why, upon the very brink of destruction. “As the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth,” there is but a step between thee and this. Thou knowest not, when thou liest down, but thou mayest be in it before the morning: thou knowest not, when thou risest, but thou mayest drop in before night. Darest thou make light of this? Wilt thou go on in such a dreadful condition, as if nothing ailed thee? If thou puttest it off, and sayest, “This doth not belong to thee,” look again over the foregoing chapter, and tell me the truth: are none of those marks found upon thee? Do not blind thine eyes; do not deceive thyself; see thy misery while thou mayest prevent it: think what it is to be a vile outcast, a vessel of wrath, fitted for destruction.
Divine wrath is a fierce, devouring, everlasting, unquenchable fire, and this must be thy portion, unless thou consider thy ways, and speedily turn to the Lord by a sound conversion. Whose heart would not have melted to have heard Spira’s outcries? To have seen Chaloncr, that monument of justice, worn to skin and bone, blaspheming the God of heaven, cursing himself, and continually crying out “O torture, torture, torture! O tort are, torture,” as if the flames of wrath had already taken hold on him? To have heard Rogers crying out, “I have a little pleasure, but now 1 must have hell for evermore:” wishing but for this mitigation, that God would but let him lie burning for ever behind the back of that fire, on the earth, and bringing in his sad conclusion still, at the end of whatever was spoken to him to afibrd him some hope, “I must to hell, I must to the furnace of hell, for millions and millions of ages!” O! if the fears and forethoughts of the wrath to come be so terrible, so intolerable, what is the feeling of it!
Sinner, it is but in vain to flatter you: this would be but to delude you into the unquenchable fire. Know ye, from the living God, that here you must lie; wuth these burnings you must dwell till immortality die, and immutability change; till eternity run out and omnipotence is no longer able to torment, except you be in good earnest renewed throughout by sanctifying grace.
VII. The IWiSo discharges all its threats and curses at thee. O how dreadfully doth it thunder! its words are as drawn swords, and as the sharp arrows of the mighty: it demands satisfaction to the utmost, and cries, Justice! Justice! It speaks blood, and war, and wounds, and death, against thee. O man, away to thy strong-hold, away from thy sins; haste to the sanctuary, the city of refuge, even the Lord Jesus Christ — hide thee in him, or else thou art lost, without any hope of recovery.
VIII. The gospel itself bindeth the sentence of eternal damnation upon thee. If thou continuest in thine impenitent and unconverted state, know that the gospel denounceth a much sorer condemnation than ever would have been for the transgression only of the first covenant. Is it not a dreadful case to have the gospel itself fill its mouth with threats? “To have the Lord to roar from mount Sion against thee?” “Hear the terror of the Lord: he that believeth not shall be damned. Except ye repent, ye shall all perish.” ‘* This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light.” “He that believeth not, the wrath of God abideth on him.” “If the word spoken by angels was steadfast; and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation.” “He that despised Moses’ law, died without mercy: of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, that hath trampled under foot the Son of God!”
Application, And is this true indeed? Is this thy misery? Yea, it is as true as God is. Better open thine eyes and see it now, while thou mayest remedy it, than blind and harden thyself, till, to thy eternal sorrow, thou shalt feel what thou wouldst not believe: and, if it be true, what dost thou mean, to loiter and linger in such a case as this?
Alas, for thee, poor man! how effectually hath sin undone thee, and deprived and despoiled thee even of thy reason to look after thine own everlasting good! What stupidity and senselessness have surprised thee! O! let me awake this sleeper! Art thou a reasonable soul, and yet so far brutalized as to forget thyself immortal, and to think thyself to be as the beasts that perish? Having reason to understand the eternity of the future state, dost thou yet make light of being everlastingly miserable, which is to be so much below the brute, as it is worse to act against reason than to act without it? O unhappy soul, that wast the glory of man, the fellow of angels, and the image of God! that wast God’s representative in the world, and had the supremacy amongst the creatures, and the dominion over thy Maker’s works! art thou now become a slave to sense, or art heaping together a little refined earth, so unsuitable to thy spiritual immortal nature? O, why dost thou not bethink thee where thou shalt be for ever? Death is at hand: “the Judcre is even at the door.” Yet a little while, and “time shall be no longer.” And wilt thou run the hazard of continuing in such a state, in which, if thou be overtaken, thou art irrecoverably miserable?
Come then, arise, and attend thy nearest concerns! Tell me whither art thou going? What! wilt thou live in such a course, wherein every act is a step to perdition; and dost thou not know but the next night thou mayest make thy bed in hell? O! if thou hadst a spark of reason, consider, and turn and hearken to thy very friend, who would therefore show thee thy present misery, that thou mightest in time make thine escape, and be eternally happy.
Hear what the Lord saith: “Fear ye not me, saith the Lord? will ye not tremble at my presence?” O sinners, do you make light of “the wrath to come?” I am sure there is a time coming when you will not make light of it. Why, the very “devils do believe and tremble.’* What! you more hardened than they? Will you run upon the edge of the rock? Will you play at the hole of the asp? Will you put your hand upon the cockatrice’s den? Will you trifle with devouring wrath, as if you were at a point of indifference whether you did escape or endure it? O madness of felly! Solomon’s madman, that casteth fire-brands, and arrows, and death, and saith, “Am I not in jest?” There is nothing so distracted as the wilful sinner, that gopth on in his unconverted state without sense, as if nothing ailed him. The man that runs into the cannon’s mouth, or lets out his life in a frolic, is sensible, sober, and serious to him that goeth on still in his trespasses, for he “stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengthens himself against the Almighty. He runneth upon the thick bosses of his buckler.” Is it wisdom to trifle with the second death, or to venture into “the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone?” What shall I say? I can find out no expression, no comparison, whereby to set forth the dreadful distraction of that soul that shall go on in
sin.
Awake, awake, O sinner! arise and take thy flicrht. There is but one door that thou mayest flee by, and that is the strait door of conversion and the new birth. Unless thou turn unfeignedly from all thy sins, and come to Jesus Christ, and take him for the Lord thy righteousness, and walk in him in holiness and newness of life, as the Lord liveth, it is not more certain that thou art now out of hell, than that thou shalt without fail be in it but a few days or nights hence. O, set thy heart to think of thy case. Is not thy everlasting misery or welfare that which doth deserve a little consideration? Look a train over the miseries of the unconverted. If the Lord hath not spoken by me, regard me not; but if it be the very word of God that all this misery lies upon thee, what a case art thou in? Is it for one that hath his senses, to live in such a condition, and not to make all possible expedition for preventing his utter ruin? O man, “who hath bewitched thee,” that in the matters of this present life thou shalt be wise enough to forecast thy business, foresee thy danger, and prevent thy mischief, but in matters of everlasting consequence shall be slight and careless, as if they little concerned thee? Why, is it nothing to thee to have all the attributes of God engaged against thee? Canst thou do well without his favour? Canst thou escape his hands, or endure his vengeance? Dost thou hear the creation groaning under thee, and hell groaning for thee, and yet think thy case “good enough?” Wilt thou make light of all the terrors of the law, of all its curses and thunders? Dost thou laugh at hell and destruction, or canst thou drink the envenomed cup of the Almighty’s fury, as if it were but a common potion?”
‘’ Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me,” Art thou such a Leviathan, as that the scales of thy pride should keep thee from thy Maker’s coming at thee? Wilt thou esteem his arrows as straw, and the instruments of death as rotten wood? Art thou chief of all the children of pride, even that thou shouldst count his darts as stubble, and laugh at the shaking of his spear? Art thou like the horse that paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength, who goeth out to meet the armed men? Dost thou mock at fear, and art not affrighted, neither turnest back from God’s sword when his quiver rattleth against thee, the glittering spear, and the shield? Well, if the threats and calls of the word will not fright thee nor awaken thee, I am sure death and judgment will. O, what wilt thou do when the Lord cometh forth against thee, and in his fury falleth upon thee, and thou shalt feel what thou readest? If, when Daniel’s enemies were cast into the den of lions, both they and their wives and their children, the lions had the mastery of them, and broke all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den, what shall be done with thee when thou fallcst into the hands of the livincj God?
O! do not then contend with God. “Repent and be converted,” so none of this shall come upon thee. “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”