Specimens of Earnestness from Various Authors
Familiar as most of the readers of this work are with examples of the kind of manner intended by me, I have thought it would help to illustrate and enforce my meaning, if I introduced a few extracts from different authors by way of specimens. Those which are here presented are not selected as possessing anything very extraordinary, or as being the best of the kind that could be selected from the same authors; but they are sufficient to answer my purpose. Nor are they exhibited as models to be in every particular imitated in modern composition, but as pervaded by that one quality of intense earnestness, which it is the object of this work to recommend.
The first extract which I shall quote is from a sermon of Mr. Doolittle. This eminent minister of Christ was ejected by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, from the church of St. Alphage, London Wall. He was a man of extraordinary courage, power, and success in preaching; and after his expulsion from his living, educated young men for the ministry. The extract which follows is taken from a discourse contained in that valuable series called “The ing Exercises,”* and is entitled, “How we should eye eternity so that it may have its influence on all we do.” It is perhaps the most solemn and awful sermon in the English or any other language; and is overcharged sadly with terminology, which, though it should be sparingly introduced, ought not to be altogether excluded from the modern pulpit, even in this fastidious age. The sickly sentimentalism which would “never mention hell to ears polite,” should be abjured with as much disgust as a gross and almost profane familiarity with these awful realities. It was not only Doolittle’s fault, but it was the vice of the age, to approach somewhat too near to the latter extreme. But then after this admission is made, let us look at the burning and overwhelming earnestness of the sermon.
“Is there an eternal state: such unseen eternal joys and torments? Who then can sufficiently lament the blindness, madness, and folly of this distracted world, and the unreasonableness of those that have rational and eternal souls, to see them busily employed in the matters of time, which are only for time, in present honors, pleasures, and profits, while they do neglect everlasting things: everlasting life and death is before them, everlasting joy or torment is hard at hand; and yet poor sinners take no care how to avoid the one. or obtain the other. Is it not matter of lamentation to see so many thousands bereaved of the sober serious use of their understandings? That while they use their reason to get the riches of this world, they will not act as rational men to get the joys of heaven; and to avoid temporal calamities, yet not to escape eternal misery. Or if they be fallen into present afflictions, they contrive how they may get out of them: if they be sick, reason tells them they must use the means, if they would be well: if they be in pain, nature puts them on to
* A new edition of this work has been lately published by Tegg, and let every young minister be sure to purchase a copy.
seek after a remedy; and yet these same men neglect all duty, and cast away all care concerning everlasting matters: they are for seen pleasures and profits, which are passing from them in the enjoyment of them; but the unseen eternal glory in heaven they pray not for, they think not of. Are they unjustly charged? Let- conscience speak, what thoughts they lie down withal upon their pillow; if they wake or sleep, fly from them in the silent night, what a noise doth the cares of the world make in their souls? With what thoughts do they rise in the morning? Of God, or of the world? Of the things of time, or of eternity? Their thoughts are in their shops before they have been in heaven; and many desires after visible temporal gain, before they have had one desire after the invisible, eternal God, and treasures that are above. What do they do all the day long? What is it that hath their endeavors, all their labor and travel? their most painful industry and unwearied diligence? Alas! their consciences will tell themselves, and their practices tell others, when there is trading, but no praying; buying and selling, but no religious duties performed: the shop-book is often opened, but the sacred book of God is not looked into all the week long.
“O Lord! forgive the hardness of my heart, that I can see such insufferable folly among reasonable creatures, and can lament this folly no more: good Lord, forgive the want of compassion in me, that can stand and see this distraction in the world, as if the most of men had lost their wits, and quite beside themselves, and yet my bowels yearn no more towards immortal souls that are going to unseen miseries in the eternal world. To see distracted men busy in doing things that tend to no account is not such an amazing sight, as to see men that have reason for the world, to use it not for God, and Christ, and their own eternal good: to see them love and embrace a present dunghill world, and cast away all serious, affecting, and effectual thoughts of the life to come: to see them rage against the God of heaven, and cry out against holiness, as foolish preciseness, and serious godliness, as madness, and melancholy.
“Let ns call the whole creation of God to lament and bewail the folly of man. that wr.s made the best oi” nil God’s works; but now by such wickedness is bud beyond them all, being made by God for an. everlasting state, and yet minds nothing less than that for which he was principally made.
“O sun! why is it not thy burden to give light to men to do those works, and walk in those ways that bring them to eternal darkness? O earth! why dost thou not groan to bear such burdensome fools that dig into thy bowels for gold and silver, while they do neglect everlasting treasures in the eternal world? O ye sheep and oxen! fish and fowl! why do ye not cry out against them that take your present life to maintain them in being, that only mind present things, but forget the eternal God that gave them dominion over you, to live upon you while they had time to mind eternal things, but do not? O ye angels of God, and blessed saints in heaven, were ye capable of grief and sorrow, would not ye bitterly lament the sin and folly of poor mortals upon earth? Could ye look down from that blessed place where ye do dwell, and behold the joy and glory which is to us unseen, and see how it is basely slighted by the sons of men, if ye were not above sorrow and mourning, would not ye take this up for a bitter lamentation? O ye saints on earth! whose eyes are open to see what the blind deluded world doth not see, do ye bitterly take on, let your heads be fountains of water, and your eyes send forth rivers of tears, for the great neglect of eternal joys and happiness of heaven? Can you see men going out of time into eternity in their sin, and in their blood, in their guilt, and unconverted state, and your hearts not moved? your bowels not yearn? Have ye spent all your tears in bewailing your own sin, that your eyes are dry when you behold such monstrous madness, and unparallel folly of so many, with whom daily ye converse? Ye sanctified parents, have ye no pity for your ungodly children? Nor sanctified children, for ungodly parents?”
The next extract I give, is from holy Baxter, under whose ministry Doolittle was converted, and from whom he appears to have borrowed his own manner of preaching.
“O sirs, they are no trifles or jesting matters that the gospel speaks of. I must needs profess to you that when I have the most serious thoughts of these things, I am ready to wonder that such amazing matters do not overwhelm the souls of men; that the greatness of the subject doth not so overmatch our understandings and affections, as even to drive men beside themselves, but that God hath always somewhat allayed it by distance; much more do I wonder that men should be so blockish as to make light of such things. O Lord, that men did but know what everlasting glory and everlasting torments are! Would they then hear us as they do? Would they read and think of these things as they do? I profess I have been ready to wonder when I have heard such weighty things delivered, how people can forbear crying out in the congregation; and much more do I wonder how they can rest, till they have gone to their ministers, and learned what they shall do to be saved, that this great business should be put out of doubt. O that heaven and hell should work no more upon men! O that eternity should work no more! O how can you forbear when you are alone, to think with yourselves what it is to be everlastingly in joy or torment! I wonder that such thoughts do not break your sleep, and that they do not crowd into your minds, when you are about your labor! I wonder how you can almost do anything else! How can you have any quietness in your minds? How can you eat, or drink, or rest, till you have got some ground of everlasting consolations? Is that a man or a corpse that is not affected with matters of this moment — that can be readier to sleep than to tremble, when he hears how he must stand at the bar of God? Is that a man or a clod of clay that can rise up and lie down without being deeply affected with his everlasting state — that can follow his worldly business, and make nothing of the great business of salvation or damnation, and that when he knows it is so hard at hand? Truly, sirs, when I think of the weight of the matter, I wonder at the best saints upon earth, that they are no better and do no more, in so weighty a case. I wonder at those whom the world accounts more holy than needs, and scorns for making so much ado, that they can put off Christ and their souls with so little; thai they do not pour out their souls in every prayer; that they are not more taken up with God; that their thoughts are not more serious in preparation for their last account. I wonder that they are not a thousand times more strict in their lives, and more laborious and unwearied for the crown than they are. And for myself, as I am ashamed of my dull and careless heart, and of my slow and unprofitable course of life, so the Lord knows I am ashamed of every sermon that I preach: when I think what I am, and who sent me, and how much the salvation and damnation of men is concerned in it, I am ready to tremble, lest God should judge me a slighter of his truth, and the souls of men, and lest in my best sermon I should be guilty of their blood. Methinks we should not speak a word to men in matters of such consequence without tears, or the greatest earnestness that possibly we can. Were we not too much guilty of the sin which we reprove it would be so. Whether we are alone, or in company, methinks our end, and such an end, should still be in our mind, and as before our eyes; and we should sooner forget anything, or set light by anything, or by all things, than by this.”
The third extract I give, is from the works of that great and serene spirit, John Howe, whose surpassing grandeur of thought and expression places him, in this respect, above all his compeers. His sermon on the “Inquiry whether we love God,” is one of the finest pieces of solemn, heart-searching expostulation, which can be found in the whole range of English theology, from which I give the following pages, the spirit of which should enter into the soul of every minister and student who reads them.
“For further direction take heed of passing a false judgment in this case, a judgment contrary to the truth: for —
“First, That is to no purpose, it will avail thee nothing, you cannot be advantaged by it, for yours is not the supreme judgment. There will be another and superior judgment to yours, that will control and reverse your false judgment, and make it signify nothing; it is, therefore, to no purpose. And,” Secondly, It is a great piece of insolency, for it will be to oppose your judgment to his certain and most authorized one; who, if this be your case, hath already judged it, and tells you ‘I know you that you have not the love of God in you.’ It belongs to him by office to judge: ‘The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son,5 as a little above in this chapter; from which will you depose him? dethrone him? disannul his judgment? condemn him? that you may be righteous? (to borrow that, Job xl. 8.)
“Thirdly, It is most absurd, supposing such characters as you have heard do conclude a man in this case, yet to judge himself a lover of God. If against the evidence of such characters a man should pronounce the wrong judgment, it would be the most unreasonable and absurd thing imaginable; for then let us but suppose, how that wronged judgment must lie related to those fore-mentioned characters, that have been given you. Let me remind you of some of them: he that never put forth the act of love to God, cannot say he hath the principle — he that is not inclined to do good to others, for the sake of God, 1 John iii. 17 — he that indulges himself in the inconsistent love of this world, 1 John ii. 15 — he that lives not in obedience to his known laws, John xiv. 14, 1 John v. 3, with many more. Now if you will pass a judgment of your case, against the evidence of such characters, come forth then, let the matter be brought into clear sight, put your sense into plain words, and this it will be: — ‘I am a lover of God, or I have the love of God in me, though I cannot tell that ever I put forth one act of love towards hiui in all my life; I have the love of God in me, though I never knew what it meant to do good to any for his sake, against the express words of Scripture: How dwelleth the love of God in such a man? I have the love of God in me, though I have constantly indulged myself in that which he maketh an inconsistent love: Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world: if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. I have the love of God in me, though I would never allow him to rule me, though I never kept his commandments with a design to please him, and comply with his will. I have the love of God in me, though I never valued his love. I have the love o( God in me.
though I never cared for his image, for his presence, for his converse, for his interest and honor.’ I beseech you consider how all this will sound! Can anything be more absurdly spoken? and shall it be upon such improbabilities or impossibilities as these, that any man will think it fit to venture his soul! ’ 1 will pawn my soul upon it, I will run the hazard of my soul upon it, I am a lover of God for all this!’ Would you venture anything else so besides your soul? Would you venture a finger so, an eye so? It is to place the name where there is nothing of the thing; it is to place the name of the thing upon its contrary. The soul of man cannot be in an indifferency towards God; but if there be not love and propension, there is aversion, and that is hatred. And what! is hatred to be called love? If you bear that habitual disposition of soul towards God, to go all the day long with no inclination towards him; no thought of him; no design to please him, to serve him, to glorify him; if this be your habitual temper and usual course, will you call this love? Shall this contrariety to the love of God be called love to him? You may as well call wTater fire, or fire water, as so grossly misname things here; and, therefore, again,
“That we may advance somewhat; plainly and positively pass the true judgment. If the characters that you have heard do carry the matter so, come at last plainly and positively to pass the true judgment of your own case, though it be a sad one; and tell your own souls, ‘Oh my soul! though I must sadly say it, I must say it, all things conclude and make against thee: the love of God is not in thee.’ Why, is it not as good this should be the present issue at your own bar, and at the tribunal of your own conscience, as before God’s judgment-seat? Why should you not concur and fall in with Christ the authorized Judge, whose judgment is according to truth? Why this is a thing that must be done, the case requires it, and God’s express word requires it,
1 Cor. xi. 31. Other previous and preparatory duty plainly enjoined, doth by consequence enjoin it, and requires that it follow,
2 Cor. xiii. 5. What is examination for, but in order to judgment? It must, therefore, be done, and I shall show how it must be done, and proceed to some further directions.
“First, You must do it solemnly. Take yourselves aside at some fit season or another, inspect your own souls, review your life, consider what your wonted frame and your ordinary course has been. And if you find by such characters as heretofore were given, this is the truth of your case, then let judgment pass upon deliberation: Oh my soul! thou hast not the love of God in thee, whatsoever thine appearances hitherto have been; and whatsoever thy peace and quiet hath been, thou hast not the love of God in thee. Let it be done with solemnity.
“Secondly, Do it in the sight of God as before him. as under his eye, as under the eye of Christ. That eye that is as a flame of fire, that searches hearts, and tries reins; arraign thyself before him. * Lord, I have here brought before thee a guilty soul, a delinquent soul, wretchedly and horridly delinquent, a soul that was breathed into me by thee, an intelligent, understanding soul, a soul that hath love in its nature, but a soul that never loved thee.’
“Thirdly, Judge thyself before him as to the fact, and as to the fault. As to the fact: ‘I have never yet loved thee, O God, I own it to thee; Lord, I accuse, I charge my soul with this before thee, this is the truth of the fact, I have not the love of God in me.’ And charge thyself with the fault. ‘Oh horrid creature that I am! I was made by thee, and don’t love thee; thou didst breathe into me this reasonable, immortal spirit, and it doth not love thee; it is thine own offspring, and does not love thee. It can never be blessed in anything but thee, and it does not love thee.’ And then hereupon,
“Fourthly, Join to this self-judging and self-loathing. That we are to judge ourselves is a law laid upon us by the supreme Lawgiver, the one Lawgiver, that hath power to save and do destroy. And his word that enjoins it as plainly tells us what must go with it, that this self-judging must be accompanied with self-loathing, Ezek. vi. 9; xx. 43, and xxxvi. 31. Do God that right upon thyself that thou may est tell him, ‘Blessed God! I do even hate myself, because I find I have not loved thee; and 1 cannot but hate myself, and never will be reconciled to myself, till 1 find I am reconciled to thee.’ This is doing justice: doth
SPECIMENS OF
not the Scripture usually and familiarly so represent to us the great turn of the soul to God; when poor sinners become penitents and return, that they are brought to hate themselves, and loathe themselves in their own eyes? And is there anything that can make a soul so loathsome in itself, or ought to make it so loathsome to itself, as not to love God, to be destitute of the love God? And then,
“Fifthly, Hereupon, too, pity thyself, pity thy own soul. There is cause to hate it. to loathe it, and is there no cause to pity it? to lament it? Doth not this look like a lamentable case, ‘Oh! what a soul have I, that can love anything else, that can love trifles, that can love impurities, that can love sin; and cannot love God, Christ, the most desirable good of souls. What a soul have I! What a monster in the creation of God is this soul of mine!’ Me thinks you should set yourselves, if any of you can find this to be the case, to weep over your own souls. Some may see cause to say, ‘Oh my soul, thou hast in thee other valuable things, thou hast understanding in thee, judgment in thee, wit in thee; perhaps learning, considerable acquired endowments, in thee; but thou hast not the love of God in thee. I can do many other commendable or useful things, I can discourse plausibly, argue subtilly, I can manage affairs dexterously, but I cannot love God. Oh my soul, how great an essential dost thou want to all religion, to all duty, to all felicity! The one thing necessary thou wantest, thou hast everything but what thou needest more than anything, more than all things; and oh my soul, what is like at this rate to become of thee? Where art thou to have thy eternal abode? To what regions of horror, and darkness, and woe art thou going? What society can be fit for thee — no lover of God! no lover of God! what, but of infernal, accursed spirits, that are at utmost distance from him, and to whom no beam of holy vital light shall ever shine to all eternity! Thou, oh my soul, art self-abandoned to the blackness of darkness forever. Thy doom is in thy breast, thy own bosom; thy no love to God is thy own doom, thy eternal doom; creates thee a present hell, and shows whither thou belongest.’
“Sixthly, * * * All disobedience and rebellion is summed
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up in this one word, Having been no lover of God; and won’t it make any man’s heart to meditate terror, to think of having such a charge as this likely to lie against him in the judgment of that day; that day, when the secrets of all hearts are to be laid open? Every work must then be brought into judgment, and every secret thing, whether it be good or evil, Eccles. xii. 14. And it will be to the confusion of many a one. It may be your no love of God was heretofore a great secret; you had a heart in which was no love of God, but it was a secret, you took not care to have it writ in your forehead; you conversed with men so plausibly, nobody took you to be no lover of God, to have a heart disaffected to God. But now out comes the secret, that which you kept for a great secret all your days, out comes the secret; and to have such a secret as this disclosed to that vast assembly, before angels and men! Here was a creature, a reasonable creature, an intelligent soul, that lived upon the divine bounty and goodness so many years in the world below, and hid a false disloyal heart by a plausible show, and external profession of great devotedness to God, all the time of his abode in that world: oh what a fearful thing would it be to have this secret so disclosed! And do you think that all the loyal creatures that shall be spectators and auditors in the hearing of that great day, will not all conceive a just and a loyal indignation against such a one when convicted of not loving God; convicted of not loving him that gave him breath, him whose he was, and to whom he belonged, whose name he bore? What a fearful thing will it be to stand convicted so upon such a point as this! And sure in the meantime there is great reason for continual fear, why a man’s heart should meditate terror! One would even think that all the creation should be continually every moment in arms against him! One would be afraid that every wind that blows, should be a deadly blast to destroy me; that when the sun shines upon me, all its beams should be turned into vindictive flames to execute vengeance upon me! I would fear that even the very stones in the streets should fly against me, and everything that meets me be my death! For what? I have not the love of God in me! What, to go about the Streets from day to day with a heart void of the love of God! What a heart have T! Fear ought to be exercised in this case; we are bid to fear if we do evil against a human ruler: ‘If thou do that which is evil be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain.’ Rom. xiii. 4. But if I be such an evil-doer against the supreme Ruler, the Lord of heaven and earth, have I not reason to be afraid, and to think sadly with myself, what will the end of this be?”
The next extract is from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon on “Pressing into the Kingdom of God.” This extraordinary man presents a remarkable proof and illustration that the most acute logician and. the most subtle metaphysician, may be at the same time the most earnest preacher. His sermons are some of the most impressive and alarming in print, but certainly not a little wanting in the tenderness and melting pathos of the gospel of salvation. They may be read with admirable effect to teach us how to expound the nature and enforce the obligations of the moral law, so as to awaken the slumbering conscience of the unconverted sinner. His astonishing usefulness shows the adaptation of his preaching to the age and state of society in which he lived, but his method could not be rigidly followed, except in its earnestness, in the present day.
“1. I would address myself to such as yet remain unawakened. It is an awful thing that there should be any one person remaining secure amongst us at such a time as this; but yet it is to be feared that there are some of this sort. I would here a little expostulate with such persons.
“When do you expect that it will be more likely that you should be awakened and wrought upon than now? You are in a Christless condition, and yet without doubt intend to go to heaven; and therefore intend to be converted some time before you die; but this is not to be expected till you are first awakened, and deeply concerned about the welfare of your soul, and brought earnestly to seek God’s converting grace. And when do you
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intend that this shall be? How do you lay things out in your own mind, or what projection have you about this matter? Is it ever so likely that a person will be awakened, as at such a time as this? How do we see many, who before were secure, now roused out of their sleep, and crying, What shall I do to be saved? But you are yet secure! Do you flatter yourself that it will be more likely you should be awakened when it is a dull and dead time? Do you lay matters out thus in your own mind, that though you are senseless when others are generally awakened, that yet you shall be awakened when others are generally senseless? Or do you hope to see another such time of the pouring out of God’s Spirit hereafter? And do you think it will be more likely that you should be wrought upon then, than now? And why do you think so? Is it because then you shall be so much older than you are now, and so that your heart will be grown softer and more tender with age? or because you will then have stood out so much longer against the calls of the gospel, and all means of grace? Do you think it more likely that God will give you the needed influences of his Spirit then, than now, because then you will have provoked him so much more, and your sin and guilt will be so much greater? And do you think it will be any benefit to you to stand it out through the present season of grace as proof against the extraordinary means of awakening there are? Do you think that this will be a good preparation for a saving work of the Spirit hereafter?
“2. What means do you expect to be awakened by? As to the awakening awful things of the word of God, you have had those set before you times without number, in the most moving manner that the dispensers of the word have been capable of. As to particular solemn warnings, directed to those that are in your circumstances, you have had them frequently, and have them now from time to time. Do you expect to be awakened by awful providences? Those also you have lately had, of the most awakening nature, one after another. Do you expect to be moved by the deaths of others? We have lately had repeated instances of these. There have been deaths of old and young: the year has been remarkable for the deaths of young persons in the bloom of life, and some of them very sudden deaths. Will the conversion of others move yon? There is indeed scarce anything that is found to have so great a tendency to stir persons up as this; and this you have been tried with of late in frequent instances, but are hitherto proof against it. Will a general pouring out of the Spirit, and seeing a concern about salvation amongst all sorts of people, do it? This means you now have, but without effect. Yea, you have all these things together; you have the solemn warnings of God’s word, and awful instances of death, and the conversion of others, and see a general concern about salvation; but all together do not move you to any great concern about your own precious, immortal, and miserable soul. Therefore consider by what means it is that you expect ever to be awakened.
“You have heard that it is probable some who are now awakened, will never obtain salvation; how dark then does it look upon you that remain stupidly unawakened! Those come to adult age, who are not moved at such a time as this, have reason to fear whether they are not given up to judicial hardness. I do not say they have reason to conclude it, but they have reason to fear it. How dark doth it look upon you, that God comes and knocks at so many persons’ doors, and misses yours! that God is giving the strivings of his Spirit so generally amongst us, while you are left senseless!
“3. Do you expect to obtain salvation without ever seeking it? If you are sensible that there is a necessity of your seeking in order to obtaining, and ever intend to seek, one would think you could not avoid it at such a time as this. Inquire therefore whether you intend to go to heaven, living all your days a secure, negligent, careless life. — Or,
“4. Do you think you can bear the damnation of hell? Do you imagine that you can tolerably endure the devouring fire and everlasting burnings? Do you hope that you shall be able to grapple with the vengeance of God Almighty, when he girds himself with strength, and clothes himself with wrath? Do you think to strengthen yourself against God, and to be able to make your part good with him? 1 Cor. x. 22, * Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?’ Do you flatter yourself that you shall find out ways for your ease and support, and to make it out tolerably well, to bear up your spirit in those everlasting burnings that are prepared for the devil and his angels? Ezek. xxii, 14. ‘Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee?’ — It is a difficult thing to conceive what such Christless persons think, that are unconcerned at such a time.”
The following extract is from that first of all preachers, Whitfield; and who that considers the circumstances under which these flaming periods were enunciated, and the feeling and action which accompanied their delivery, can wonder at the effects they produced?
Beseeching Sinners.” O my brethren, my heart is enlarged towards you. I trust I feel something of that hidden but powerful presence of Christ, whilst I am preaching to you. Indeed it is sweet, it is exceedingly comfortable. All the harm I wish you, who without cause are my enemies, is, that you felt the like. Believe me, though it would be hell to my soul to return to a natural state again, yet I would willingly change states with you for a little while, that you might know what it is to have Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith. Do not turn your backs; do not let the devil hurry you away; be not afraid of convictions; do not think worse of the doctrine because preached without the church walls. Our Lord, in the days of his flesh, preached on a mount, in a ship, and in a field; and I am persuaded many have felt his gracious presence here. Indeed, we speak what we know. Do not reject the kingdom of God against yourselves; be so wise as to receive our witness. I cannot, I will not let you go; stay a little, let us reason together. However lightly you may esteem your souls, I know our Lord has set an unspeakable value oii them. He thought them worthy of his most precious blood. I beseech you therefore, O sinners, be ye reconciled to Cio<. hope you do not fear being accepted in the Beloved. Behold, be calleth you; behold, he prevents and follows you with his n, and hath sent forth his servants into the highways and hedges, to compel you to come in. Remember then, that at such an hour of such a day, in such a year, in this place, you were all told what you ought to think concerning Jesus Christ. If you now perish, it will not be for lack of knowledge: I am free from the blood of you all. You cannot say I have, like legal preachers, been requiring you to make brick without straw. I have not bidden you to make yourselves saints, and then come to God; but I have offered you salvation on as cheap terms as you can desire. I have offered you Christ’s whole wisdom, Christ’s whole righteousness, Christ’s whole sanctification and eternal redemption, if you will but believe on him. If you say you cannot believe, you say right; for faith, as well as every other blessing, is the gift of God: but then wait upon God, and who knows but he may have mercy on thee? Why do we not entertain more loving thoughts of Christ? Or do you think he will have mercy on others, and not on you? But are you not sinners? And did not Jesus Christ come into the world to save sinners? If you say you are the chief of sinners, I answer, that will be no hindrance to your salvation; indeed it will not, if you lay hold on him by faith. Read the Evangelists, and see how kindly he behaved to his disciples, who fled from and denied him: ‘Go tell my brethren,5 says he. He did not say, Go tell those traitors; but, ‘Go tell my brethren, and Peter f as though he had said, Go tell my brethren in general, and poor Peter in particular, ’ that I am risen:’ O comfort his poor drooping heart, tell him I am reconciled to him; bid him weep no more so bitterly: for though with oaths and curses he thrice denied me, yet I have died for his sins, I am risen again for his justification: I freely forgive him all. Thus slow to anger and of great kindness, was our all-merciful High Priest. And do you think he has changed his nature, and forgets poor sinners, now he is exalted to the right hand of God? No, he is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and sitteth there only to make intercession for us. Come then, ye harlots; come, ye publicans; come, ye most abandoned of sinners, come and believe on Jesus Christ. Though the whole world despise you and cast you out, yet he will not disdain to take you up. O amazing, O infinitely condescending love! even you he will
not be ashamed to call his brethren. How will you escape, if you neglect such a glorious offer of salvation? What would the damned spirits, now in the prison of hell, give, if Christ was so freely offered to their souls! And why are not we lifting up our eyes in torments? Does any one out of this great multitude dare say, he does not deserve damnation? If not, why are we left, and others taken away by death? What is this but an instance of God’s free grace, and a sign of his good will towards us? Let God’s goodness lead us to repentance! O let there be joy in heaven over some of you repenting! Though we are in a field, I am persuaded the blessed angels are hovering now around us, and do long, ’ as the hart panteth after the water-brooks,’ to sing an anthem at your conversion. Blessed be God, I hope their joy will be fulfilled. An awful silence appears amongst us. I have good hope that the words which the Lord has enabled me to speak in your ears this day, have not altogether fallen to the ground. Your tears and deep attention are an evidence that the Lord God is amongst us of a truth. Come, ye pharisees, come and see, in spite of your fanatical rage and fury, the Lord Jesus is getting himself the victory. And, brethren, I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not: if one soul of you, by the blessing of God, be brought to think savingly of Jesus Christ this day, I care not if my enemies were permitted to carry me to prison, and put my feet fast in the stocks, as soon as I have delivered this sermon. Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God is, that you may be saved. For this cause I follow my Master without the camp. I care not how much of his sacred reproach I bear, so that some of you be converted from the errors of your ways. I rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice. Ye men, ye devils, do your worst: the Lord who sent will support me. And when Christ, who is our life, and whom I have now been preaching, shall appear, I also, together with his despised little ones, shall appear with him in glory. And then what will you think of Christ? I know what you will think of him. You will think him to be the fairest among ten thousand: you will then think him to be a just and sin-avenging Judge. Be ye then persuaded to kiss him lest he be angry, and so you bo banished forever from the presence of the Lord. Behold, I come to you as the angel did to Lot. Flee, flee for your lives; haste, linger no longer in your spiritual Sodom, for otherwise you will be eternally destroyed. Numbers, no doubt, there are amongst you, that may regard me no more than Lot’s sons-in-law regarded him. I am persuaded I seem to some of you as one that mocketh: but I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not; as sure as fire and brimstone was rained from the Lord out of heaven, to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, so surely, at the great day, shall the vials of God’s wrath be poured on you, if you do not think seriously of, and act agreeably to, the gospel of the Lord’s Christ. Behold, I have told you [before; and I pray God, all you that forget him may seriously think of what has been said, before he pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you.”
Not to multiply these extracts unnecessarily, I give one more from a preacher who is perhaps, without any exception, the most impressive living example of earnestness, both in matter and manner, I mean Mr. Parsons, of York.
“O, do not deceive yourselves! I would strive to tear away the veil. I tell you, O ye whose ’ goodness has been as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that goeth away,’ — if unchanged you die, and if unchanged you stand before the dread tribunal, where an account must be rendered of all providences, all immunities, and all feelings, you will be found fatally wanting, and will hear a sentence of condemnation that will consign you to realms of everlasting despair. As true as that Jehovah lives, is it that he will thus execute the fierceness of his indignation. Abodes of sorrow await you, where every past benefit will but be an instrument of torture; where memory and conscience will hold up the mirror of by-gone privilege and promise, of abused mercy, of forsworn and perjured vows, only that remorse may strike upon the soul its more than scorpion sting, and where grace and hope can never alleviate the wailings that will reverberate through the dungeons of outer darkess forever and forever! Your doom will be more tremendous, precisely in proportion to the means you possessed, and the signs you gave, of averting it: can any doom be worse than yours? When these ’ terrors of the Lord ’ are expounded, say if there be not an argument of mighty force why you should now beware, and why you should now hear the voice of God, lest you should be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and lest he should swear in his wrath that you shall not enter into his rest!
“But once more to appeal to those for whom this address has been particularly designed. That such there are, / know. I could turn round, and fix my eye, and rest my hand, on persons by whom, if so arraigned, the accusation of the text could not be denied or evaded. You have been again visited by the instrumentality which is adapted for the impression of the heart. Do not reject it: do not let it have that insufficient influence which is but to be dissipated for the world, and which makes the end worse than the beginning. No — nothing will avail but the entire surrender of the soul to him who gave it — the determination to live to Christ, and to glory only in his cross. In the name of the great God, who is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, I do now abjure you, that you trifle not a moment longer, that you delay not a moment longer, that you resist not a moment longer: ‘Come and return unto the Lord:’ let this be a season of consideration; let this be a season of repentance; let this be a season of prayer; let this be a season of dedication to your God: — Now, my hearers, now!
“— Minister and people must part once more. The book must be closed again; the voice must be silent again; the congregation must retire again. O Spirit of God, perform thy work! ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live!’ Let there not be one here before thee, of whom, when yonder heavens shall be on firep and when this earth shall be burned up, it shall be found — that their ’ goodness was as a morning cloud, and that as the early dew it went away!’”
These extracts will illustrate what I mean by earnestness better than any language which I have employed or could select, and they appear to me to answer well to the apostolic method of beseeching entreaty. I do not of course insist that the pulpit should be restricted to the specific variety of preaching which we designate the hortatory method, under which classification these specimens must all be placed. There should be exegesis, as well as application; exposition, as well as expostulation. The judgment must be enlightened in order that the heart may be impressed, and the conscience awakened, and the believer edified, no less than the sinner converted; and for this a less impassioned strain of preaching will not only suffice, but indeed be more appropriate. Yet with regard to that portion of our public ministrations, and it should be no small portion of it, which has reference to the conversion of the impenitent, wrhere shall we find better models on which to construct our sermons than the Doolittles, the Howes, the Baxters, and the Whitfields of former times, so far at least as their intense earnestness is concerned? It is true the moderns have improved upon these men in matters of taste, in reference to which we cannot of course hold them up for imitation. In their numerous and complicated divisions and subdivisions, through which, as so many little rills and channels, they poured the current of their thought, instead of causing it to roll onward in the channel of their sermon with the majestic flow of a noble river; in their quaintnesses and quirks; in their fantastic imagery and uncouth diction; in their occasional grossness and vulgarity, in which some of them were but too prone to indulge — they are to be studiously avoided. Yet even in reference to some of these things, it may be afiirmed, that though in their free and reckless resort to every mode of stimulating attention, they were very often betrayed into great violations of taste, the very same audacity of genius often produced felicities of imagery and diction, with which, neither for beauty nor effect, will the blameless common place and the accurate insipidity of many modern discourses, bear any comparison. For pregnancy of thought, for knowledge of the word of God, for raciness of style, for evangelical sentiment, for anatomy of the human heart, for closeness of application, and especially for intensity of feeling, where shall we find their equals? They preached to their congregations, and not merely before them: they felt that the objects of their addresses were immortal souls in danger of being lost, and knew their business in the pulpit was to save those souls from perdition: they preached as if they expected there and then to achieve the great work of conversion; and felt as if the eternal destinies of their hearers were suspended on the manner in which they discharged their duties, and as if they were to ascend the next moment, after they had finished their sermons, to give an account of them at the bar of God. Do not the extracts given, and which are but a sample of their works, bear out these assertions? This is what we want more of in modern preaching. There may be, and should be, more of classic elegance, more of logical arrangement, philosophic precision, of vigorous and clear argumentation; but still at the same time, combined with this, there should also be the pointed interrogation, the pungent appeal, the bold apostrophe, the gush of feeling, the forcible expostulation, and the tender invitation: now the gentle flow of deep and solemn and placid thought, and then the torrent rush of impassioned sentiment: the beautiful and harmonious combination of reason, imagination, and affection: and all this employed to carry out the purpose for which the gospel is to be preached, and to win souls to Christ. Those who were privileged to hear Mr. 0’v
Hall, in his best days, deliver some of his most popular and powerful discourses, will not fail to recollect how strikingly he combined the intense earnestness of the passages just quoted, with the chaste and classic elegance of our best writers; and thus, considering the evangelical strain of his preaching, may be said to have poured forth a torrent of the water of life, clear as crystal. He reminded you of one who, in his yearnings for the salvation of sinners, seemed to feel that language was too feeble an instrument for such a purpose, and who, notwithstanding his sovereign command and exquisite selection of terminology, was struggling to burst the barrier by which words limit the communication of thought, that he might by a still more direct and facile method, reach and grasp the soul of his hearers-There is, however, hope that our old theological writers will not be quite forgotten or neglected, while such men as Professor Stowell, of Rotherham College, shall employ their talents in writing prefaces to reprints of such works as those of Thomas Adams, and shall lend their authority to recommend the perusal of these monuments of sacred genius. Beautifully and no less correctly has he said, “As Edwards constrains to closeness of thought; as Howe inspires sublimity of sentiment; as Bates lights up the soul with a soft and silvery light; as Owen lades the mind with a harvest of rich knowledge; as Taylor cheers the imagination with a vintage of delicious grapes; as Baxter fires the soul with longings for salvation, first of ourselves and then of others; — even so does Adams lead to those springs of graphic power, of dramatic grandeur, and of subduing pathos, of which it is the fear of many that they are dried up. We believe they are not. We cannot but think there are minds now opening on the awful solemnities of the Christian ministrv to whom this example will be inciting: let them look at things with their own eyes, ponder them in silent and lonely thought, pray over the fruits of such meditations, till they kindle into living pictures; and so let them pour out their feelings in the best words they can find; there will then be no just complaint of the want of power and originality in the English pulpit.”