The Truth Held in Unrighteousness, Continued

“THE WRATH OF GOD IS REVEALED FROM HEAVEN AGAINST ALL UNGODLINESS AND UNRIGHTEOUSNESS OF MEN, WHO HOLD THE TRUTH IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.” Rom. 1: 18.

V. I NOW proceed to show how and why the imprisonment of convictions, or holding the truths of God in unrighteousness, so DREADFULLY INCENSES HIS WRATH. And

this it does on several accounts.

1. Knowledge of sin is a choice help to preserve men from falling into it. There are thousands of sins committed in the world, which had never been committed if men had known them to be sins before they committed them. Every sinner durst not make so bold with his conscience as you have done. The apostle tells us, the reason why the princes of this world crucified the Lord of glory was, because they knew him not, 1 Cor. 2: 8; had they known him they would not have dared to do as they did. And so, in multitudes of lesser sins, Satan blinds the eyes of men with ignorance, then uses their hands and tongues in wickedness; he is the ruler of the darkness of this world. Eph. 6:12. But when men know this or that to be sin, and yet venture on it, an excellent antidote against sin is turned into a dreadful aggravation of it, which highly incenses the wrath of G6d.

(2.) Knowledge and conviction going before, add presumption to the sin that follows after it; and presumptuous Bin is the most provoking and daring sin: from this way of sinning David earnestly besought God to keep him: “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.” Psa. 19:13. “When a man sees sin and yet ventures on it, in such sinning there is a despising of the law of God: a man may break the law while he approves, reverences, and honors it in his heart, E.om. 7: 12, 13; but here the commandment is despised, as God told David, 2 Sam. 12:9. It is as if a man should say, I see the command of God armed with threatening in my way, but I will go on for all that.

3. Knowledge and conviction leave the conscience of a sinner wholly without excuse for his sin. In this case there is no plea left to extenuate the offence: “Now they have no cloak for their sin.” John 15: 22. If a man sins ignorantly, his ignorance is some excuse for his sin; it excuses it in a measure, as Paul tells us, 1 Tim. 1: 13, “I did it ignorantly:” here is a cloak or covering, an extenuation of the sin; but knowledge takes away this cloak, and makes the sin appear naked in all its odious deformity.

4. Light or knowledge of the law and will of God, is a very choice and excellent mercy; it is a choice and singular favor, for God to make the light of knowledge shine into a man’s understanding; it is a mercy withheld from multitudes, Psa. 147: 19, and those who enjoy it are under special engagements to bless God for it, and to improve it diligently and thankfully to his service and glory: but for a man to arm such a mercy as this against God, to fight against him with one of his choicest mercies, this must be highly provoking to the Lord; it is therefore mentioned as a high aggravation of Solomon’s sm, that he smned against the Lord, after the Lord had appeared unto him twice. 1 Kings, 11: 9.

5. This way of sinning argues an extraordinary degree of hardness of heart; it is a sign of but little tenderness, or sense of the evil of sin. Some men, when God shows them the evil of sin in the glass of the law, tremble at the sight of it; so did Paul: “When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,” Rom. 7: 9, he sunk down at the sight of it. But God shows thee the evil of sin in the glass of his law, and thou makest nothing of it: 0 obdurate heart I “VYlieii the rod was turned into a serpent Moses fled from it, being afraid to touch it; but though God turn the rod into a serpent, and discover the venomous nature of sin in his word, thou canst handle and play with that serpent, and put it into thy bosom: this shows thy heart to be awfully infatuated.

6. To go against this convincing, warning voice, icounds, a man’s, conscience more than any other way of sinning doth; and when conscience is so wounded, who or what shall then comfort thee? It is a true rule, the more any sin violates a man’s conscience, the greater that sin is. The sin of devils is the most dreadful sin; and what makes it so, but the horrid violation of their consciences, and their malicious rebellion against clear knowledge? They know and sin, they believe and tremble, Jas. 2:19; they roar under the tortures of conscience like the roar of the sea, or the noise of the rocks before a storm.

0 then, if there be any degree of tenderness left in you, if any fear of God or regard for salvation, let go all God’s prisoners which lie bound and imprisoned in the souls of any of you this day. Blessed be God, some have done so, and are at rest in their spirits by so doing; they could have no ease till they unbound and yielded obedience to them. It is said, Acts 16: 38, that when the magistrates at Philippi understood that the men whom they had bound and imprisoned were Romans, they feared; and well they might, for the punishment was great for any man who injured a citizen or freeman of Rome; but every conviction you imprison is a messenger of heaven, a commissioned officer of God, and woe to him that binds or abuses it. Do you know what you do? Are you aware of the danger? Wast thou not afraid, asked David of the Amalekite, to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed? 2 Sam. 1: 14. So say I, Art thou not afraid to destroy the immediate messenger of God, sent to thy soul for good? Conviction is a kind of embryo of conversion; the conversion and salvation of thy soul would be the result, were it obeyed: thy striving with it renders it abortive, and thy life must go for it, except. God revive it again. Loose then every man the Lord’s prisoners — I mean, your restrained, stifled convictions — stifle them no longer; you see what a dreadful aggravation of sin it is, and that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”

Inference 1. This will prove a fruitful doctrine to inform us, first, that knowledge in itself is not enough to secure the soul of any man from hell. No gifts, no knowledge but that only which is influential upon the heart and life, and to which we pay obedience, can secure any man from wrath: “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” John. 13: 17. The greatest sins ma,y be found in conjunction with the greatest knowledge, as you see in the fallen angels: light is then only a blessing when it guides the soul into the way of duty and obedience: there is many a knowing head in hell.- Yet let no man indulge himself in ignorance, or shun the means of knowledge, that he may sin with less danger; for you must account to God for all the knowledge you might have had, as well as for that you possessed — for the means of knowledge he gave you, as well as for the knowledge you actually attained.

2. What a choice mercy is a tender conscience — a conscience yielding obedience to conviction. A drop of such tenderness in the conscience is better than a sea of speculative knowledge in the head. 1 Cor. 12: 31. Many Christians are ashamed to see themselves excelled by others in gifts, and are apt to be discouraged; but if God has blessed thee with a tender heart, obedient to his will, so far as he is pleased to manifest it to thee, thou hast no reason to be discouraged for want of those gifts which others enjoy. You cannot discourse floridly or dispute subtlely, but do you obey conscientiously, and comply with the manifested will of God tenderly? Then happy art thou. 0, it is far better to feel a truth than merely to know it. It was the high commendation of the Romans, that they obeyed from the heart the form of gospel doctrine which was delivered them, Rom. 6: 17, or rather into which they were delivered, as melted metals into moulds. Two learned divines travelling to the council of Constance were affected even to tears at the sight of a shepherd in the fields, mourning and melting at the sight of a toad, and blessmg God that he had not made him such a loathsome creature; whereupon they applied Augustine’s words to themselves: “The unlearned will rise and take heaven from the learned.” Thy little knowledge made effectual by obedience, is more sanctified, more sweet, and more saving than other men’s, and therefore of much greater value. It is more sanctified; for the llessing of God is upon it. Gal. 6:16. It is more sweet; for you relish the goodness, as well as discern the truth of gospel doctrines. Psa. 119: 103. It is not an insipid, dry speculation. And then it is more saving, being one of those better things that accompany salvation. Heb. 6:9.

3. .Learn hence tvhat an uncomfortable life intelligent, but unregenerate men live: they are frequently at war with their own consciences. “There is no peace, saith the Lord, to the wicked.” Isa. 48: 22. They and their consciences are ever and anon at daggers; they have little pleasure in. sin, and none at all in religion: they have none in religion, because they obey not its rules; and little in sin, because their consciences are still galling and terrifying them for imprisoning their convictions.

It is true, some men’s consciences are seared as with a hot iron, 1 Tim. 4:2; but most have grumbling, and some have raging and roaring consciences: they seldom come under the word or rod, but their consciences lash them; and when death approaches, the terrors of the Almighty do shake and terrify them. Altogether to neglect duty they dare not, and how to escape a lash from their consciences they know not. Fain they would have the pleasures of sin, but, like Balaam, they meet a sword in the way; they plunge themselves into diversions like Cain, to be rid of a fury within them; but all will not do. Is this a life for thee, reader, to live? No peace with God nor with thyself? Expect no peace while thy convictions lie bound and imprisoned in thy conscience. Sin for a moment is sweet in thy mouth, but it is presently turned into the gall of asps within thee. Job 20: 14. 0 that you did but know the pleasures of a pure, peaceable conscience, and how much it excels all the delights of sense and sin.

4. Ministers had need often to repeat and incidcate the same truths to their hearers; for the work is not half done, when truth is got into the minds and consciences of men. Our work sticks at the heart more than at the head; the understanding is many times opened, when the heart and will are locked and fast barred against it. To open the passages between the head and heart is the greatest difficulty; this is the work of almighty power. There is knowledge enough in some men’s heads to save them, but it has not its liberty; restrained truth cannot do its office. It is much easier to convince the mind than to change the heart or bow the will. The hardest part of the ministerial work is to preach truth into the hearts and lives of men. This makes the frequent inculcation of the same truths necessary to the people’s souls. “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.” Phil. 3:1.

5. How wonderful is the strength of sin, which can, hold men fast after their eyes are opened to see the misery and danger it has involved them in. One would think if a man’s eyes were but once opened to see the moral evil that is in sin, and the everlasting train of penal evils that follow it, together with a way of escape from both, it would be impossible to hold that simier a day longer in such a state of bondage: the work were then as good as done. But alas, we are mistaken; sin can hold those fast who see all this. They know it is a horrid violation of God’s just and holy laws; they know it brings them under his wrath and curse, and will damn them to all eternity if they continue in it; they know Christ is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, and that he is as willing as he is able; and yet no arguments can prevail with them to part with sin. Show but a beast a flame of fire, and you cannot drive, him into it if he see any way of escape. Tell a man this is rank poison and will kill him, and you cannot make him swallow it though wrapt up in sugar, or put into the most pleasant sweetmeats. But let a sinner see death and destruction before him, and sin can make him rush on, as a horse into the battle. Jer. 8:6, He goes as an ox to the slaughter; his heart is fully set in him to do evil, Eccl. 8:11; as one, when his physician told him if he followed such a course of sin he would in a little time lose his eyes, said, Farewell, then, sweet light: I cannot part with this practice. So with sinners: rather than forego their pleasures and break their customs in sin, farewell heaven, Christ, and all. 0 the bewitching power of sin. “And they said, there is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices.” Jer. 18: 12. “When a man considers what visions of misery and wrath convictions give men, he may wonder that all convinced men are not converted; and on the other hand, when he considers the strong hold sin has upon the hearts of sinners, it may justly seem a wonder that any are converted.

6. How dreadful is the state of ajiostatcs tvlio have had their eyes opened, their consciences aicakened, their resolutions for Christ seemingly fixed; and yet, after’ all this, return to their former course of sin. You see, brethren, sin has not only power to hold men in bondage to its lusts after their eyes have been opened, but it has power to entice back those who seemed to have clean escaped out of its hands. 2 Pet. 2:18, 19. The unclean spirit may depart for a time, and make his reentry into the same soul with seven spirits worse than himself. Matt. 12: 43 — 45. Restraints by conviction and formality do not wholly dispossess Satan, he still keeps his property in the soul, for he calls it “my house;” and that property which he keeps under all these convictions and partial reformations, opens to him and all his hellish retinue a door for his return. But 0 how awful will the end of such men be; and how just is that law of heaven which dooms the apostate to eternal wrath I Heb. 10: 38. Such are twice dead, and will be plucked up by the roots. Jude 12.

7. How sure mid dreadful will be the condemnation of all those, in the day of the Lord, who obstinately continue in sin, under the convictions and co7ideni7iatio7is of their own consciences. Unhappy men, you are condemned already, John 3: 18; condemned by the law of God and by the sentence of your own consciences. What your own conscience says according to God’s law, he will confirm and make good. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” 1 John, 3:20. His sentence will be as clear as it will be terrible; for in the last day the books will be opened — the book of God’s omniscience, and the book of thine own conscience. The book of conscience is as it were a transcript or counterpart of God’s book for thee to keep in thine olai bosom. When God’s book and thy own shall be compared and found exactly to agree, there can be. no further dispute of the equity of the account. Then God shall charge thee, saying, “Thou knewest this and that to be sin, and yet thy lusts hurried thee on to commit it; is it not so? look, sinner, into thine own book, and see if thy conscience has not so charged it to thy account. Thou knewest prayer was thy duty when thou neglectedst it; and over-reaching the ignorant, credulous, and unwary was thy sin when the love of gain tempted thee to it. You knew I had plainly told you that theft, nncleanness, drunkenness, and extortion would bar you out of the kingdom of Christ and of God, 1 Cor. 6:9,10; and yet, putting that to the venture, you have lived in those sins; is it not so? Examine the book in your own bosom, and see.” The Lord make men sensible of coming wrath for the sins they live in under light; for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them.

Is the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all who hold the truth in unrighteousness? Then let me exhort and persuade you by all the regard and love you have for your souls, by all the fears you have of the incensed wrath of the great and terrible God, that you forthwith set your convictions at liberty, and loose all the Lord’s prisoners that lie bound within you: “Because there is wrath, beware.” Job 36: 18. 0 stifle the voice of your conscience no more, slight not the softest whisper or least intimation of conscience; reverence and obey its voice. Motives pressing and persuading this, are many; yet estimate them by weight rather than by number.

Motive 1. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them who hold the truth in unrighteousness; and because there is tcrath, beware. Are you truly informed what the wrath of God is? “Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.” Psalm 90: 11. 0, if the wrath of a king, who in all his glory is but a worm, be as the roaring of a lion, and as the messengers of death, Prov. 20: 2; 16:14; what then is the power of His wrath, at whose frolS the kings of the earth tremble, and the captains and the mighty men shrink away? If the lesser executions of it by providence in this world be so dreadful that even good men have desired a hiding-place in the grave till it be past. Job 14: 13; then what is the full execution thereof upon the ungodly in the place of torment? If the threats and denunciations of it against others made Habakkuk, though assured of personal safety, to quiver with his lips and tremble in his bowels, Hab. 3:16; how much more should those tremble and quiver who are to be the subject of it, and not the mere heralds of it as he was? And, which is more than all, if Jesus Christ, who was to feel it but a few hours, and had the power of the Godhead to support him under it, did, notwithstanding, sweat as it were great drops of blood, and was sore amazed; think with thyself, poor man, how shall thy heart endure, or thy hands be strong, when thou hast to do with an incensed God?

Motive 2. Till you set free ymir co?ivictions, Satan will not let you go; he binds you while you bind them. Here is the command of God and the command of Satan in. competition. Let my truths go free, which thou boldest in unrighteousness, says Jehovah; bind and suppress them, says Satan, or they will deprive thee of the liberty and pleasure of thy life. While thou slightest the voice of God and conscience, dost thou not avowedly declare thyself the bond-slave of Satan? “His servants ye are to whom ye obey.” Rom. 6:16. Dare not to take one step further in the way of known sin, says conscience; continue not at thy peril in such a dangerous state, after I have so clearly convinced and warned thee of it. Fear not, says Satan, if it be ill with thee, it will be as ill with millions. God will wound the heads of such as go on in their trespasses, says the Scripture. Psalm 68: 21. Tush, others do so, and escape as well as the most scrupulous, says Satan. Now, I say, thy obedience to Satan’s commands plainly declares thee, all this while, to be a poor enslaved captive to him, acted on and carried according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.

Motive 3. Until y<ni obey ijour convictions, you are confederates with Satan in a desperate plot against your own

Christ Knocking. 17 souls; you join with Christ’s great and avowed enemy to dishonor him and destroy yourselves. Two things make you confederates with Satan against your own souls. First, your consent to this project for your damnation; for so your own conscience out of the Scriptures informs you it is: consent makes you a party. Second, your concealment of this plot brings you in as a party with him. Confess thy sin, and bewail it, says conscience: not so, says pride and shame; how shall I look men in the face if I do so? Do not you, in all this, believe Satan and make God a liar? Do not you act as men that hate their own souls, and love death? Prov. 8: 36. 0 it is a dreadful thing for men to be accessory to their own eternal ruin, and that after fair warning and notice given them by their own conscience. Satan, be his power what it will, cannot destroy you without your own consent.

Motive 4. While you go on stiflmg co7ivictions, and turning away your ears from calls to repentance, you cannot he ‘pardoned; you are in your sins, and the guilt of them all lies at your door. You see what the terms of remission are: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Isa. ^^: 7. So again, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy.” Prov. 28: 13. You see by these, and many miore plain scripture testimonies, that there can be no hope of remission while you go on in this path of rebellion; concealing, yea, and persisting in your known wickedness. There is a necessary and inseparable connection between repentance and remission. Acts 5:31, and Luke 24: 47; and can you endure to have guilt your companion during life and for ever?

Motive 5. You can never have peace with conscience while you keep convictions prisoners. A man’s conscience is his best friend or his worst enemy; thence are the sweetest comforts, and thence are the bitterest sorrows. It is a dreadful thing for a man to He wdth a cold sweating horror upon his panting bosom. And this, or which is worse, obduracy and stupidity must be the case of them who hold the truth in unrighteousness. There can be no sounding a retreat to these terrors till Sheba’s head be thrown over the walls; I mean, till that sin which your conscience convinces you of, be delivered up. As Israel could have no peace till Achan was destroyed; so thou shalt have no peace while thy sin is covered and hid. Men may cry peace, peace, to themselves while they continue in sin, Deut. 29: 19, but the sharpest troubles of conscience are better than such peace. Deliver up thyself, if thou love peace, into the hands of thy own convictions, and thou art in the true way to peace. Thy rejoicing must be in the testimony of thy conscience, as the apostle speaks, 2 Cor. 1: 12, or thou rejoicest in a dream, in a delusion, in a thing of naught.

Motive 6. What dreadful charges are you likely to meet with on your death-beds on account of the si?ts you have lived in, against knowledge and conviction. Conscience is never more active and vigorous than in the last hours and moments of life. Now it will be stifled and overruled no longer. It whispered before, but now it thunders. If a man has a clear and quiet conscience, his evening is clear and his sun sets without clouds: “The end of that man is peace.” Psalm 37: 37. In contemplation of this felicity, Balaam uttered that wish, “Let my last end be like his.” Num. 23: 10. This peace is the result of a man’s obedience to the voice of conscience, this being the evidence we can most safely rely upon of our interest in Christ; but the result of such violations and abuses of thy conscience cannot be peace to thy soul. It is true, some wicked men die in seeming peace, and some good men in trouble, but both the one and the other are mistaken: the first, as to the good estate he fancies himself in, and the other as to his bad estate; and a few moments will clear up the mistake of each.

Motive 7. Obedience to conviction wall not only produce peace at death, but will give you present ease and refreshment. No sooner did David resolve to obey the voice of conscience in confessing his sin, but he had ease in his spirit, Psa. 32: 5. “The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever.” Isa. 32: 17. On the contrary, you find wicked men have no rest in their conscience, Job 20: 20; for guilt lies working there as a thorn in the flesh. And what is life worth without ease? To live ever in pain, to live upon the rack, is not to live. If, then, you love ease and quietness, obey your conscience; pull out that thorn — I mean, the sin that sticks fast in thy soul, and pains thy conscience. Who would endure so much anguish for all the flattering pleasures of sin?

Motive 8. Convictions obeyed are the inlets to Christ and eternal salvation by him; they are the leading of the Spirit, in order to union with Christ. John 16: 14. Till you obey and yield up yourselves to them, Christ is shut out of your souls; he knocks, but finds no entrance. At your peril, therefore, be obedient to their calls. “While you parley with your convictions, and demur to their demands, Christ stands without, offering himself graciously to you, but is not admitted; so that no less than your eternal happiness or misery depends on your obedience or disobedience to the calls of your convictions.

Motive 9. Obey your convictions, honor their voice, and restrain them not; the?i shall your conscience give a fair testimony for you at the judgment-seat of Christ. You read of the answer of a good conscience toward God, 1 Pet. 3; 21; than which nothing can be more comfortable. This gives a man boldness in the day of judgment. 1 John, 4:17

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Believe it, sirs, it is not your baptism, your church privileges, or the opinion men have of you, but the testimony of your conscience, that must be your comfort. I know men are not justified at God’s bar by their own obedience, nor by any exactness of life; it is only Christ’s righteousness that is the sinner’s plea; but your obedience to the calls of God and conscience is the evidence that you are in Christ.

Motive 10. Consider what a choice tnercy it is, to be under such calls and convictions of conscience as may yet he obeyed: it is not so with convictions after death. Conscience convinces in hell as well as here, but all its convictions there are for torment, not recovery. 0 it is a choice mercy that your convictions are yet remedial, not purely penal — that you are not fixed in the state of sin and misery as the damned are, but yet enjoy the benefit of your convictions; but this you will not enjoy long; therefore I beseech you, by all that is dear and valuable in your eyes, reverence your conscience, and set free the Lord’s prisoners which lie bound within you.

I now come to expostulate the matter with your consciences, and propound a few convictive queries to your souls. I am afraid there are many in this wretched case, who hold the truths of God in unrighteousness, though the wrath of God be revealed from heaven against all them that do so. Let me set before you some of God’s demands.

Demand 1. Do not some of you stand convinced by your own consciences this day, that your hearts and practices are vastly different from those of the people of God among whom you live, and whose character you read in Scripture? Do not your consciences tell you, that you never took the pains for your salvation you see them take; that there are some in your families, nay, possibly in your bosoms, who are serious and heavenly, while you are vain and earthly — who are on their knees wrestling with God, while you are about the things of the world? And does not conscience sometimes whisper thus into thine ear: Soul, thou art not right; something is wanting to make -thee a Christian; thou wantest that which others have; and except something further be done within thee, thou wilt be undone for ever? If it be so, let me advise thee to hearken diligently to this voice of conscience; do not venture to the judgment-seat of God in such a case: ponder that text, Matt. 21: 32, “For John came unto you in the May of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the pubhcans and the harlots believed him; and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him;” and let the disparity your conscience shows you between your ovra. course and that of others, awaken you to more diligence and seriousness about your own salvation. How canst thou come from the tavern, or thy vain recreations, and find a wife or child in prayer, and thy conscience not smite thee? It may be, they have been mourning for thy sins wdiile thou hast been committmg them. Perhaps there lives not far from thee a godly poor man, who out of his hard and pressing labors redeems more time for his soul in a week, than ever thou didst in thy life. 0 hearken to the voice of thy conscience, else thou art he that boldest truth in unrighteousness.

Demand 2. Did thy conscie7tce never meet thee in the icay of sin, as the angel of the Lord met Balaam with a drawn sword, brandishing the threatenings of God against thee? Did it not say to thee, as a captain once said to his soldiers about to retreat, casting himself down in their way, “If you go this way you shall go over your captain, you shall trample him first under your feet?” “Stop, soul, stop 1” said thy conscience; ‘* this and that word of God is against thee; if thou proceed, thou must trample upon the sovereign authority of God, in this or that command.” Yet thy impetuous lusts have hurried thee forward: thou wouldst not fairly debate the case with thy conscience; and then did not thy conscience say to thee, as Heuben did to his brethren, “fcjpake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore behold also his blood is required.” Gen. 42: 22. If this has been your course of sinning, verily you are the persons that have held the truth of God in unrighteousness, and against you the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.

Demand 3. Have you not seen the wrath of God revealed from heaven against other sinners who have gone before you in the same course of sin in which you now go? and yet you persist in it, notwithstanding such dreadful warnings. Thus did Belshazzar, though he saw all that the God of heaven had done to his father. Dan. 5: 20-22, You have seen great estates scattered, and their owners that got them by fraud and oppression reduced to beggary; yet when a temptation is before you, you cannot forbear to take the advantage, as you call it, to get the gain of oppression. You have seen drunkards clothed with rags, and brought to miserable ends — adulterers severely punished, their names and estates, souls and bodies blasted, and wasted by a secret, but just stroke of God. Have you taken warning by these strokes of God, and hearkened to the monitions and cautions your consciences have thereupon given you? If not, thou art the man who boldest the truth of God in unrighteousness.

Demand 4. Do 7iot your hearts rise against necessary and due reproofs given you by tlwse tvho love your souls better than you do? If you hate a faithful reprover, though you know you are guilty of the sin he reproves — if you recriminate or deny in such cases, you are certainly so far confederate with Satan against your own soul, and imprison your own convictions.

Demand 5. Have not some of you apostatized from your first profession, and are not those hopeful blossoms which once appeared upon your souls blighted and gone?

You had lively convictions and melting affections, tenderness in your conscience and zeal for duties; but all is now vanished; your affections are cold and your duties are omitted, though conscience often bids you remember from whence you are fallen, and do your first works. You are the persons guilty of this sin.

Demand 6. Do none of you iweume upon future repenance, and make bold with your conscience for the present, thinking thus to compound with it? This argues thee to be a self- condemned man, and one holding truth in unrighteousness: thy sin is present and certain, thy repentance but a peradventure. 2 Tim. 2: 25. This is a daring way of presumptuous sinning.

Demand 7. Have 7ione of you taken the vows of God wpon you to break off your iniquities by repentance, when you have been in dangerous sickness on shore, or dreadful tempests at sea? Have you not said, Lord, if thou wilt but spare me this once, I will never live in the way I have lived any more: try me, 0 Lord, this once; and yet, when that affliction has vanished, your purposes and promises to God have vanished with it: you are the persons that hold the known truths of God prisoners in your souls. And to all these seven sorts of sinners, this text may justly be as the handwriting upon the wall once was, even a 7nene tekel that may make thy very loins to shake. Dan. 5: 25-31.

This doctrine furnishes important directions for the prevention of such presumptuous sins in men, that truth may have its free course through their souls.

Direction 1. And to this end my first direction is, that you fail not to put every conviction into speedy execution. Do not delay; it is a critical hour, and delays are exceedingly hazardous. Convictions are fixed and secured in men’s souls four ways. First, by deep and serious consideration:” I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimo-THE SIN OF STIFLINa CONYICTION. 393

nies.” Psalm 119: 59. Secondly, by earnest prayer: thus Saul, under his first convictions, fell on his knees: “Behold, he prayeth.” Acts 9:11. The breath of prayer foments and nourishes the sparks of conviction, that they be not extinct. Thirdly, by diligent attendance on the word. The word begets conviction, and the word can through God’s blessing preserve it. Fourthly, by performing, without delay, the duty thou art convinced of. “If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.” James 1: 23, 24. Take the sense thus: a man looks into the glass in the morning, and perhaps he sees a spot on his face, or a disorder in his hair or clothes, and thinks with himself, I will rectify it anon; but being gone from the place, one thing or other diverts his mind, he forgets what he saw, and goes all the day with the spot on his face, never thinking of it more. 0 brethren, delays are dangerous, sin is deceitful, Heb. 3: 13; Satan is subtle, 2 Cor. 11:3, and in this way he gains his point. This motto may be written on the tomb of most that perish: “Here lies one that was destroyed by delays.” Your life is uncertain, so are the strivings of the Spirit. Besides, there is a mighty advantage in the first impulse of the soul. When thy heart is once up in warm affections and resolutions, the work may be easily done; as a bell, if once up, goes easily, but is hard to raise when down. See, in 2 Chron. 29: 36, what advantage there is in a present warm frame. Besides, the nature of these things is too serious and weighty to be postponed and delayed. You cannot get out of the danger of hell, or into Christ too soon. Moreover, every repetition of sin after conviction greatly aggravates it. For it is in sinning as in numbering, if the first be one, the second is ten, the third a hundred, and the fourth a thousand. And to conclude, think what you will, you can never have a fitter season than the present: the same difficulties you have to-day, you will have to-morrow, and it may be greater. Begin at once, therefore, to execute your convictions.

Direction 2. If you would be clear from this great wickedness of holding the truth in unrighteousness, see that you reverence the voice and authority of your conscience; and resolve with Job, “My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.” Job 27: 6. There are two considerations fitted to beget reverence in men to the voice of their consciences.

(1.) Conscience obeyed and kept picre and inviolate, is thy best friend on earth. “Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience.” 2 Cor. 1:12. The very heathen could say, “A good conscience is a wall of brass.” What comforted Hezekiah on his supposed death-bed, but the testimony his conscience gave of his integrity? 2 Kings, 20: 3. Solomon says, “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways; and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.” Prov. 14:14. Mark the opposition; conscience gives the backslider a heart full of sorrow, while the heart of the upright man is full of peace. He is satisfied from himself, that is, from his owti conscience, which though it be not the original spring, yet is the conduit at which he drinks peace, joy, and encouragement.

(2.) Co7iscie7ice ivonnded and abused will be our tcorst enemy; no poniards are so mortal as the wounds of conscience. “A wounded spirit who can bear?” Prov. 18: 14. Could Judas bear it, or could Spira bear it? What is the torment of hell, but the worm that dies not; and what is that worm, but the remorse of conscience? Mark 9: 44. Oh, what is that fearful expectation mentioned by the apostle, Heb. 10: 27; and what sorrows are those described, Deut. 28: Q5, 66. The primitive Christians chose rather to be cast to the lions than into the power of an enraged conscience. Every little trouble will be insupportable to a sick and wounded conscience, as a quart of water would be to your shoulder in a great vessel of lead.

Oh, if men did but fear their own consciences, if they reverenced themselves, as the moralist speaks, if they exercised themselves to have always a conscience void of ofience, as Paul did, Acts 24: 16, then would they be clear of this great sin of holding the truth in unrighteousness.

Direction 3. If you would escape the guilt and danger of holding God’s truth in unrighteousness, keep you?- hearts under the awful sense of the day of judgtnent, when every secret thing must come into judgment, and conscience like a register-book is to be opened and examined. The consideration of that day gives your conscience a seven-fold defence against sin. First, it incites every man to get real, solid grace, and not rest in an empty profession, and this secures us from formal hypocrisy, that we be not found foolish virgins. Matt. 25: 3. Second, it excites us to the diligent improvement of our talents, that we be not found slothlul servants, neglecting any duty to which God and conscience call us. Matt. 25:21. Third, it confirms and establishes us in the ways of God, that we wound not conscience by apostasy. 1 John, 2: 28. Fourth, it is a loud call to every man to repent, and not to lie stupid and senseless, under guilt. Acts 17:30, 31. Fifth, it is a powerful antidote against formality in religion, the general and dangerous disease of professors. Matt. 7: 22, 23. Sixth, it excites holy fear and watchfulness in the whole course of life. 1 Peter, 1: 17. Seventh, it puts us not only on our watch, but on our knees in fervent prayer. 1 Peter, 4:7.

And he who feels such effects as these from the consideration of that day, is fortified against the sin my text warns us of, and dares not hold the truth of God in unrighteousness. It is our indifference as to a judgment to come, and ignorance of the nature of it, which embolden us to neglect known duties and commit known sins. Amos 6:3:2 Pet.

3:3,4. If our thoughts and meditations were engaged more frequently and seriously on such an awful subject, we should rather choose to die than to do violence to our consciences.

Direction 4. Get true aypr el tensions of the moral evil that is in sin, and of the penal evil that follows; then no temptation shall prevail with you to commit sin that you may escape a present trouble, or neglect a known duty to accommodate any earthly interest, and consequently to hold no truth of God in unrighteousness. It is fear of loss and sufferings that so often overbears conscience; but if men were thoroughly sensible that the least sin is worse than the greatest affliction or suffering, the peace of conscience would be well secured. That this is really so, appears thus: first, afflictions do not make a man vile in the sight of God. A man may be under manifold afflictions, and yet very precious in God’s account, Heb. 11: 36 — 38; but sin makes man vile in the sight of God. Dan. 9: 14. Second, afflictions do not put men under the curse of God; blessings and afflictions may go together, Psa. 94: 12, but sin brings the soul under the curse. Gal. 3:10. Third, afflictions make men more like God, Heb. 12: 10; but sin makes us more like Satan.

1 John, 3:8; John 8: 34. Fourth, afflictions for conscience’ sake are but the creature’s wrath inflamed against us; but sin is the inflamer of God’s wrath against us, as in the text. Fifth, afflictions are but outward evils on the body; but sin is an internal evil on the soul. Prov. 8: 36. Sixth, afflictions for duty’s sake have many sweet promises annexed to them. Matt. 5:10; but sin has none. Seventh, the efiects of sufferings for Christ are sweet to the soul,

2 Cor. 7:4, but the fruits of sin are bitter; it yields nothing but shame and fear. Eighth, afflictions for Christ are the way to heaven, but sin is the broad way to hell. Rom. 6: 23. Ninth, sufferings for duty are but for a moment, 2 Cor. 4: 17; but sufferings for sin will be eternal. Mark 9: 44.

If such thoughts might be suffered to dwell with us, how would they guard the conscience against temptations, and secure our peace and purity.

Direction 5. Be thoroughly persuaded of this great truth, that God takes great ‘pleasure in uprightness, and will own and honor integrity amidst all the dangers which befall it. Psa. 11:7; Prov. 11: 20. When he would encourage Abraham to a life of integrity, he engages his almighty power for his protection in that way: “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” Gen. 17: 1. “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Psa. 84: 11. An upright man is the boast of heaven, Job 1:8, because he bears the image of God. “The righteous Lord loveth righteousness.” Psa. 11:7. And if integrity brings men into trouble, they may be sure the Lord will bring them out. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Psa. 34: 19. How safely then may they leave themselves in the hands of his infinite wisdom, power, and fatherly care. Nay, God is not only the protector, but also the rewarder of conscientious mtegrity, Psa. 18: 20; and that in four ways. First, in the inward peace it yields: “The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever.” Isa. 32: 17. But the effect of sinful and carnal policy is shame and sorrow. Second, in the success and issue of it; it not only turns to God’s glory, but it answers and accommodates our own designs and ends far better than our sinful projects can do. Prov, 28: 23. Third, great is the joy resulting from it in the day of death. 2 Kings, 20: 3; Psalm 37: 37. Fourth, in the world to come. Psalm 49: 14. “Were this duly considered and believed, men would choose rather to part with life than with the purity and peace of their consciences. They would suffer all wrongs and injuries rather than do conscience the least injury.

Direction 6. Do not idolize the world, nor overvalue the trifles of this life: it is the love of the world which makes men violate the rules of their own conscience, 2 Tim. 4:10; it is this that makes men strain hard to get loose from the ties of conscience. The young man was convinced, but the world was too hard for his convictions, Luke 18: 23; the degree of his sorrow was according to the degree of his love of the world. It is not having, but overloving the world that ruins us; it is a worldly heart which makes men turn and dissemble at the rate they do, in time of temptation. Could you once dethrone this idol, how safe would your conscience be. The church is described as clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, Rev. 12:1; the most zealous age of the church was the age of poverty. Try then these considerations upon your hearts, to loose them from the inordinate love of the world. First, what good will the world do when you have lost your integrity for its sake, and peace is taken away from the inner man? What joy of the world had Judas, and what comfort had Spira? If you part with your integrity for it, God will blast it and it shall yield you no joy. Second, except you renounce the world, you are renomiced by Christ: disclaim it, or he will disclaim you. Luke 14: 33. No man can be admitted into Christ’s service, but by sealing this covenant with him. Third, whatever loss you shall sustain for Christ and conscience, he stands pledged to repair it to you, and that with an infinite overplus. Mark 10: 29, 30. Fourth, in a word all the riches, pleasures, and honors in the world are not able to give you such joy and heart-refreshing comfort as the acquitting and cheering voice of your own consciences can do. Settle these things in your hearts as defences against this danger.

DiK-ECTioN 7. Beg of God, and labor to get more Christian courage and magnajiimity; for want of this, conscience is often overborne against its own light and conviction: Christian magnanimity is the security of conscience. It is excellent and becoming a Christian to be able to face any thing but the frowns of God and his own conscience. All the famous champions of truth and witnesses for God who came victorious out of the field of temptation, with safe and unwounded consciences, were men of courage and resolution. Dan. 3: 16; Heb. 11: 27; Acts 21: 13. And what is this Christian courage but the fixed resolution of the soul to encounter all dangers, all sufferings, all reproaches, pains, and losses, in the strength of assisting grace, which shall assault us in the way of our duty? and so it stands opposed in Scripture to the spirit of fear, Heb. 1 1: 27; to shame, Mark 8: 38; to apostasy, Heb. 10: 39. He must neither be afraid nor ashamed, nor lose one inch of ground for the sake of whatsoever dangers he meets with, and that because he has embraced Christianity upon those terms, and was told of all this before, John 16:1; because there is no retreating, but to our own ruin, Heb. 10: 38; because he owes all this, and much more than this, to Christ, Phil. 1: 29; because he understands the value of his soul above his body, and of eternal things beyond all temporal concerns. Matt. 10: 28; and, in a word, because he believes the promises of God’s assistance and reward, Heb. 11: 25-27.

0 my friends, were our fears thus subdued, and our faith thus exalted, how free and safe would truth be in our consciences I He who owns any truth for the sake of a living, or to promote worldly interest by it, will disown that truth when it comes to live upon him, let conscience plead what it will; but he that has agreed with Christ upon these terms, and is content to be miserable for ever if there be not enough in Christ to make him happy, this man will be a steady Christian, and will rather lie in the worst prison, than imprison God’s known truths in unrighteousness.

CONCLUSION.

I HAVE now delivered my message. I have set before you the Lord Jesus in the glory of his free-grace and condescending love to sinners. 0 that I had had skill and ability to do it better I I have wooed and expostulated with you on Christ’s behalf; I have labored according to my little measure of strength, to cast up and prepare the way by removing the stumbling-blocks and discouragements out of it. This has been a time of conviction to many of you, some have no longer held their convictions under restraint, but many, I fear, do so; and therefore I have in the close of all handled this awakening scripture, to show you what a horrid evil it is to detain God’s truths in unrighteousness. I have also, in the name and by the authority of God, demanded all the Lord’s prisoners, his suppressed and restrained truths, at your hands: if you will unbind your convictions this day, and cut asunder the bonds of carnal fear and shame with which you restrain them, those truths you make free will make you free indeed; if not, but you will still go on stifling and suppressing them in your own bosoms, remember they are so many witnesses prepared to give evidence against you in the great day. And 0 that while you delay this duty, the sound of this text may never be out of your ears, nor suffer you to rest: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”