Necessity of Being Slain by the Law
“For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, «in revived, and died.” Rom. 7:9.
Tue scope of the apostle in this epistle, and more particularly in this chapter, is to state the due use and excellency of the law: which he does, first, by denying to it a power to justify us, which is the peculiar honor of Christ; and secondly, by ascribing to it a power to convince us, and so prepare us for Christ, by showing us our need of him.
Neither attributing to it more honor than belongs to it, nor detracting from it that honor and usefulness which God has given it. It cannot make us righteous, but it can convince us that we are unrighteous; it cannot heal, but it can discover the wounds that sin has given us; which he proves in this place by an argument drawn from his own experience, confirmed also by the general experience of believers, in whose names we must here understand him to speak: ‘For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” Wherein three particulars are observable:
1. The opinion Paul had, and all unregenerate men have of themselves before conversion: J was alwe one.
By life, understand here cheerfulness and confidence of his good state. He was full of vain hope, false joy, and presumptuous confidence.
2. The opinion he had, and all others will have of themselves, if ever they come under the regenerating work of the spirit: Z died. The death he here speaks of stands opposed to the life before mentioned, and signifies the fears and tremblings that seized upon his soul when his state was on the change: the apprehensions he then had of his condition struck him home to the heart, and damped all his carnal mirth.
3. The ground and reason of this wonderful change of his judgment and apprehension of his own condition: the commandment came, and sin revived; it came home to my conscience, it was fixed with a divine and mighty efficacy upon my heart. The commandment came before by promulgation and the literal knowledge of it, but it never came till now in its spiritual and convincing power to his soul; though he had often read the law before, he never clearly understood its meaning and extent, he never felt its efficacy upon his heart: it so came at this time as it never came before. Hence we learn:
Docrrine 1. That wnregenerate persons are generally full of groundless confidence and cheerfulness, though their condition be sad and miserable.
Docrrine 2. That there 1s a mighty efficacy in the law of God to kill vain confidence and quench carnal marth in the hearts of men, when God sets it home wpon their consciences.
Doctrine 1. Unregenerate persons are generally full of groundless confidence and cheerfulness, though their condition be sad and miserable. ‘Because thou sayest I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Rev. 3:17. has is the life that unregenerate men live. In illustrating this point, I shall show what is the life of the unregenerate; what maintains that life; how it appears that this is the life men generally. live; and the danger of living such a life,
I. Wuat Is THE LIFE OF THE UNREGENERATE. There are three things in which the life of the unregenerate principally consists.
1. There is in unregenerate men a great deal of carnal security; they dread no danger. ‘‘When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.” Luke 11; 21. There is generally a great silence in the consciences of such men: when others, in a better state, are watching and trembling, they sleep securely; so they live, and so ofttimes they die. They have no bands in their death. Psa. 73:4. It is true, the consciences of few men are so perfectly stupefied that they do not sometimes make them uneasy; but their anxiety seldom rises to such a height, or continues so long as to cause any considerable interruption to their carnal peace and quietness.
2. The life of the unregenerate consists in presumptuous hope: this is the foundation of their carnal security. So Christ tells the Jews: “Of whom ye say that he is your God; yet ye have not known him.” John 8:54, 55. The world is full of hope without a promise, which is but as a spider’s web. Unregenerate men are said indeed to be without hope, Ephes. 2:12; but the meaning is, they are without any solid, well-grounded hope; for in Scripture account, hope is no hope except it be a lively hope, 1 Pet. 1:3; a hope flowing from union with Christ, Col. 1:27; a hope nourished by experience, Rom. 5:4; a hope for which a man can give a reason, 1 Pet. 3:15; a hope that excites men to heart-purifying endeavors, 1 John 3 -3 — it is in the account of God a cypher, not deserving the name of hope; and yet such a groundless, dead, christless, irrational hope is that on which the unregenerate live.
3. The life of the unregenerate consists in false joy, the immediate offspring of ungrounded hope. The stony-ground hearers received the word with joy. Matt. 13:20.
They rejoice in corn, wine, and oil; in their estates and children; in the pleasant things of this world; yea, perchance they rejoice also in Christ and the promises; in heaven and glory: with all which they have just such a kind of communion as a man has in a dream with a full feast and enchanting music; and just so their joy will vanish when they awake.
II. Wuat MAINTAINS AND SUPPORTS THIS SECURITY, HOPE, AND Joy in the hearts of unregenerate men.
l. Church privileges lay the foundation of this strong delusion in many. Thus the Jews deceived themselves, saying in their hearts, ‘We have Abraham for our father.” Matt.3:9. It propped up this vain hope, that Abraham’s blood ran in their veins, though Abraham’: faith and obedience never wrought in their hearts.
2. Natural ignorance; this keeps all in peace: they that see not, fear not. There are but two ways to quiet the hearts of men about their spiritual and eternal concerns: the way of assurance and faith, or the way of ignorance and self-deceit; by the one we are put beyond danger, by the other beyond fear, though the danger be greater. Satan could never quiet men, if he did not first blind them.
3. False evidences of the love of God is another spring feeding this security and vain hope and false joy in the hearts of men. ‘Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” Matt.’7:22. The things upon which they build their confidence were external things in religion; yet they had a quieting power upon them, as if they had been the best of evidences.
4. Slight influences of the gospel: such are transient affections under the word, Heb. 6:5; feeble and inconstant desire about spiritual objects, John 6:34; Matt. 25:8; and the external reformation of their ways, Matt. 12:43; all which serve to nourish the vain hopes of the unregenerate.
5. Self-love is an apparent ground of security and false hope. Matt. 7:3. It makes a man overlook great evils in himself, while he is sharp-sighted to discover and censure lesser evils in others. Self-love takes away the sight of sin, by bringing it too near the eye.
6. Men’s comparing themselves with the more profane andgrossly wicked serves to hush the conscience asleep: “God, I thank thee,” said the Pharisee, “that I am not as other men, or as this publican.” Oh, what a saint did he seem to himself when he stood by those externally more wicked.
1. The policy of Satan to manage all these things to the blinding and ruining of the souls of men, is another great reason that they live securely as they do ina state of so much danger and misery. “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not.” 2 Cor. 4:4,
Ill. Twat vais Is THE LIFE MEN GENERALLY LIVE will appear, if we consider,
1. The activity and liveliness of men’s spirits in pursuit of the world. O how lively and vigorous are their hearts in the management of earthly designs! ‘‘ Who will show us any good?” Psa. 4:6. The world eats up their hearts, time, and strength. This could not be if their eyes were open to see the danger and misery of their souls. How few designs for the world run in the thoughts of a condemned man. O, if God had ever made the light of conviction shine into their consciences, the temptation would lie the contrary way, even in too great a neglect of things of this life. But this briskness and liveliness plainly show the great security of most men.
2. The marvellous guwietness in the consciences of men about their everlasting concerns, plainly shows this to be the life of the unregenerate. How few doubts or fears do you hear from then! How many years may a man live in a worldly family before he shall hear the question seriously propounded, ‘What shall I do to be saved?” There are no questions in their lips, because there is no fear or sense of danger in their hearts.
3. The professed willingness of carnal men to die gives clear evidence that they live such a life of security and vain hope. ‘Like sheep they are laid in the grave.” Psa. 49:14. O, how quiet are their consciences when there are but a few breaths more between them and everlasting burnings! Had God opened their eyes to apprehend the consequences of death, and what follows the pale horse, Rev. 6:8, it were impossible but that every unregenerate man should make the bed on which he dies tremble under him.:
4. The low esteem men have of Christ, and the trifling with those duties in which he is to be found, discover this to be the life that the generality of the world live; for were men sensible of the disease of sin, there could be no quieting them without Christ the Physician. Phil. 3:8. All the business they have to do in this world could never keep them from their knees, or make them strangers to their closets.
IV. THE DANGER OF SUCH A LIFE as has been described.
1. Souls are thus inevitably betrayed into eternal ruin. “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not.” 2 Cor. 4:38, 4. Those that are given over to eternal death are generally thus blinded. “And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” Isa. 6: 9, 10.
2. Nothing makes hell a more terrible surprise to the soul: by this means the wrath of God is felt before its danger is apprehended; a man is past all hope before he begins to have any fear; his eternal ruin, ‘“‘as a breach ‘ready to fall, cometh suddenly at an instant.” Isaiah 30: 18.
3. Nothing mere aggravates a man’s damnation than to sink suddenly into it from amid so many hopes and such high confidence of safety. For a man to find himself in hell when he thought himself within a step of heaven, O what a hell will it be! The higher vain hopes lifted men up, the more dreadful must their fall be. Matthew Teg222203.
4, This life of security and vain hope frustrates all the means of recovery and salvation in the only season in which they can be beneficial to us. By reason of these things the word has no power to convince men’s consciences, nothing can bring them to a sense of their condition. Therefore Christ told the self-confident and blind Jews that the publicans and harlots would go into the kingdom of God before them. Matt. 21: 31. And the reason is, because their hearts l’e more open to conviction and compunction for sin than those do who are blinded by vain hope and confidence.
InrerENCE 1. Is this the life that the unregenerate world live? then it 2s not to be wondered at that the preaching of the gospel has so little swecess: ‘“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Isaiah 58:1. Ministers study for truths to awaken and convince the consciences of those that hear, but their words return again to them. They turn to God and mourn, “We have labored in vain, and spent our strength for naught.” And this security is the cause of all; vain hopes bar fast the doors of men’s hearts against all the persuasions of the word. The greater cause have they to admire the grace of God, who have found the convictions of the word sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit; to whose hearts God brings home the commandment by an effectual application.
2. If this be the life of the unregenerate world, what deadly enemies are they that nourish and strengthen in men the vain hopes of salvation! This the Scripture calls healing the hurt of souls slightly, by crying, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” Jer. 6:14; the sewing of pillows under their arm-holes, Ezek. 13:18, that they may lie soft and easy under the ministry. And this is the doctrine which the people love; but O, what will the end of these things be? and what an account have those men to give to God for the blood .of souls by them betrayed to the everlasting burnings! Such flattery is the greatest cruelty. Those whom you bless upon earth will curse you in hell, and curse the day in which they trusted their souls to your care.
3. How great a mercy is ut to be awakened out of the general security which is fallen wpon the world! You cannot estimate the value of this peculiar mercy. O that the Spirit of the Lord should have touched thy soul under the ministry of the word, and roused thy conscience while others were left in security round about thee; when the Lord dealt with thy soul much after the same manner he did with Paul in the way to Damascus, who not only saw a light shining from heaven, which those that travelled with him saw as well as he, but heard that voice from heaven which did the work upon his heart, though his companions heard it not. Besides, it is a mercy leading to all other spiritual mercies that follow it to all eternity. If God had not done this for thee, thou hadst never been brought to faith, to Christ, or heaven. From this act of the Spirit all other saving acts take their rise; so that you have cause for ever to admire the goodness of God in such a favor as this.
4. Hence it follows that men generally are im the direct way to eternal ruin; whatever their vain confidences are, they cannot be saved. Narrow is the way and strait is the gate that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Hear me, all you that live this dangerous life of carnal security, whatever your persuasions and confidences are, except you give them up, and get better grounds for your hope, you cannot be saved. Such hopes are directly contradictory to the established order of the gospel, which requires repentance, Acts 5:31; faith, Acts 13:39; and regeneration, John 3:3, in all that shall be saved. If such as you are saved, all the threatenings in Scripture must be reversed, which lie in full opposition to your vain hopes. Mark 16:16; John 3:16; Rom.3:8, 9. New conditions must be set to all the promises; for there is no condition of any special promise found in any unregenerate person. Compare your hearts with these scriptures, Matt. 5:3-6; Psa. 24:4; 84:11; Gen. 17:1. If such a hope as yours bring you to heaven, the saving hope of God’s elect is not rightly described to us in the Scriptures. Scripture hope is the effect of regeneration. 1 Pet. 1:3. And purity of heart is the effect of that hope. 1 John 3:3. Nay, the very nature of heaven is mistaken in Scripture if such as you are subjects qualified for its enjoyment; for assimilation, or the conformity of the soul to God in holiness, is, in the Scripture account, a principal ingredient of that blessedness. By all these things it appears that the hopes of most men are vain, and will never bring them to heaven.