one opposing or complaining, disputing or murmuring word is heard among all the celestial regions, when the intimations of his will are published to them. And who art thou, oh wretched man? who art thou, that thou shouldst oppose and provoke a God of infinite power and terror, who needs but exert one single act of his sovereign will, and thou art in a moment stripped of every possession; cut off from every hope; destroyed and rooted up from existence, if that were his pleasure; or, what is inconceivably worse, consigned over to the severest and most lasting agonies? Yet, this is the God, whom thou hast offended; whom thou hast affronted to his face, presuming to violate his express laws in his very presence: this is the God, before whom thou standest as a convicted criminal; convicted not of one or two particular offences, but of thousands and ten thousands; of a course and series of rebellions and provocations, in which thou hast persisted, more or less, ever since thou wast born ; and the particulars of which have been attended with almost every conceivable circumstance of aggravation. Reflect on particulars; and deny the charge if you can. §. 7. If knowledge be an aggravation of guilt, thy guilt 0, sinner, is greatly aggravated! For thou wast born in Emmanuel's land, and God hath written to thee the great things of his law, yet thou hast accounted them as a strange thing*. Thou hast known to do good and hast not done it†; and therefore to thee the omission of it has been sin indeed. Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? Wast thou not early taught the will of God, in thine infant years? Hast thou not since received repeated lessons, by which it has been inculcated again and again, in public and in private, by preaching and reading the word of God? Nay, hath not thy duty been in some instances so plain, that even without any instruction at all, thine own reason might easily have inferred it? And hast thou not also been warned of the consequences of disobedience? Hast thou not known the righteous judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death? Yet thou hast, perhaps, not only done the same, but hast taken pleasure in those that do them; hast chosen them for thy most intimate friends and companions; so as thereby to strengthen, by the force of example and converse, the hands of each other in your iniquities. §. 8. Nay more, if divine love and mercy be any aggravation of the sins committed against it, thy crimes, O sinner, are heinously aggravated. Must thou not acknowledge it, O foolish Hos. viii. 12. + Jam. iv. 17. Isai. xl. 28. Rom. i. 32. creature and unwise? hast thou not been nourished and brought up by him as his child, and yet hast rebelled against him*? Did not God take you out of the womb+? Did he not watch over you in your infant days, and guard you from a multitude of dangers, which the most careful parent or nurse could not have observed, or warded off? Has he not given you your rational powers? and is it not by him you have been favoured with every opportunity of improving them? Has he not every day supplied your wants, with an unwearied liberality; and added, with respect to many who will read this, the delicacies of life to its necessary supports? Has he not heard your cry when trouble came upon yout; and frequently appeared for your deliverance, when in the distresses of nature you have called upon him for help? Has he not rescued you from ruin, when it seemed just ready to swallow you up; and healed your diseases, when it seemed to all about you, that the residue of your days was cut off in the midst||? Or, if it had not been so, is not this long continued and uninterrupted health, which you have enjoyed for so many years, to be acknowledged as an equivalent obligation? Look round upon all your possessions, and say, what one thing have you in the world, which his goodness did not give you, and which it hath not thus far preserved to you? Add to all this, the kind notices of his will, which he hath sent you; the tender expostulations which he hath used with you, to bring you to a wiser and a better temper; and the discoveries and gracious invitations of his gospel. which you have heard, and which you have despised: and then say, whether your rebellion has not been aggravated by the vilest ingratitude, and whether that aggravation can be accounted small? §. 9. Again, if it be any aggravation of sin to be committed against conscience, thy crimes, O sinner, have been so aggravated. Consult the records of it; and then dispute the fact if you can. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding¶; and that understanding will act, and a secret conviction of being accountable to its Maker and Preserver, is inseparable from the actings of it. It is easy to object to human remonstrances, and to give things false colourings before men; but the heart often condemns, while the tongue excuses. Have you not often found it so? Has not conscience remonstrated against your past Isai. i. 2. Psal. xxii. 9. Job xxvii. 9. Psal. cii. 24. Isai. xxxviii. 10. conduct, and have not these remonstrances been very painful too? I have been assured by a gentleman of undoubted credit, that when he was in the pursuit of all the gayest sensualities of life, and was reckoned one of the happiest of mankind, he has seen a dog come into the room where he was among his merry companions, and has groaned inwardly, and said, Oh that I had been that dog! And hast thou, sinner, felt nothing like this? has thy conscience been so stupified, so seared with a hot iron that it has never cried out of any of the violences which have been done it? Has it never warned thee of the fatal consequences of what thou hast done in opposition to it? These warnings are, in effect, the voice of God; they are the admonitions which he gave thee by his vicegerent in thy breast. And when his sentence for thy evil works is executed upon thee in everlasting death, thou shalt hear that voice speaking to thee again, in a louder tone, and a severer accent than before and thou shalt be tormented with its upbraidings through eternity, because thou wouldst not, in time, hearken to its admonitions. §. 10. Let me add further, if it be any aggravation, that sin has been committed after God has been moving by his spirit on the mind, surely your sin has been attended with that aggravation too. Under the mosaic dispensation, dark and imperfect as it was, the spirit strove with the jews; else Stephen could not have charged it upon them, that through all their generations, they had always resisted him. Now surely we may much more reasonably apprehend, that he strives with sinners under the gospel. And have you never experienced any thing of this kind, even when there has been no external circumstance to awaken you, nor any pious teacher near you? Have you never perceived some secret impulse upon your mind, leading you to think of religion, urging you to an immediate consideration of it, sweetly inviting you to make trial of it, and warning you, that you would lament this stupid neglect? O sinner, why were not these happy motions attended to? Why did you not, as it were, spread out all the sails of your soul, to catch that heavenly that favourable breeze? But you have carelessly neglected it: you have overborne these kind influences: how reasonable then might the sentence have gone forth in righteous displeasure, my spirit shall no more strive. And indeed, who can say, that it is not already gone forth? If you feel no secret agitation of mind, no remorse, no awakening, while you read such a remonstrance as this, there will be room, great room to suspect it. §. 11. There is indeed one aggravation more, which may not attend your guilt; I mean, that of being committed against solemn covenant engagements: a circumstance, which has lain heavy on the consciences of many, who, perhaps in the main series of their lives, have served God with great integrity. But let me call you to think, to what is this owing? Is it not, that you have never personally made any solemn profession of devoting yourself to God at all have never done any thing, which has appeared to your own apprehension an action by which you made a covenant with him; though you have heard so much of his covenant, though you have been so solemnly and so tenderly invited into it? And in this view, how monstrous must this circumstance appear, which at first was mentioned as some alleviation of guilt? Yet I must add, that you are not perhaps altogether so free from guilt on this head, as you may at first imagine. I will not insist on the covenant, which your parents made in your name, when they devoted you to God in baptism; though it is really a weighty matter, and by calling yourself a christian you have professed to own and avow what they then did. But I would remind you, of what may have been more personal and express. Has your heart been, even from your youth, hardened to so uncommon a degree, that you have never cried to God in any season of danger and difficulty? And did you never mingle vows with those cries? Did you never promise, that if God would hear and help you in that hour of extremity, you would forsake your sins, and serve him as long as you lived? He heard and helped you, or you had not been reading these lines; and, by such deliverance, did, as it were, bind down your vows upon you; and therefore your guilt in the violation of them remains before him, though you are stupid enough to forget them. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is overlooked by him; and the day will come, when the record shall be laid before you too. §. 12. And now, ( sinner, think seriously with thyself, what defence thou wilt make to all this! Prepare thine apology; call thy witnesses; make thine appeal from him whom thou hast thus offended, to some superior judge, if such there be. Alas, those apologies are so weak and vain, that one of thy fellow worms may easily detect and confound them; as I will endeavour presently to shew thee. But thy foreboding conscience already knows the issue. Thou art convicted; convicted of the most aggravated offences. Thou hast not humbled thine heart, but lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven.* * Dan. v. 22, 23. and thy sentence shall come forth from his presence.* Thou hast violated his known law; thou hast despised and abused his numberless mercies; thou hast affronted conscience, his vicegerent in thy soul; thou hast resisted and grieved his spirit; thou hast trifled with him in all thy pretended submissions; and in one word, and that his own, thou hast done evil things as thou couldst.† Thousands are, no doubt, already in hell, whose guilt never equalled thine; and it is astonishing, that God has spared thee to read this representation of thy case, or to make any pause upon it. Oh waste not so precious a moment, but enter, as attentively, and as humbly as thou canst, into those reflections, which suit a case so lamentable, and so terrible as thine! The Confession of a Sinner, convinced in general of his Guilt. "O GOD! thou injured sovereign, thou all penetrating and almighty judge! What shall I say to this charge? Shall I pretend I am wronged by it, and stand on the defence in thy presence? I dare not do it ; for thou knowest my foolishness, and none of my sins are hid from thee. My conscience tells me that a denial of my crimes would only increase them, and add new fuel to the fire of thy deserved wrath. If I justify myself, my own mouth will condemn me; if I say, I am perfect, it will also prove me perverse. For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: they are, as I have been told in thy name, more than the hairs of my head, and therefore my heart faileth I am more guilty, than it is possible for another to declare or represent. My heart speaks more than any other accuser. And thou, O Lord, art much greater than my heart, and knowest all things**. "What has my life been but a course of rebellion against thee? It is not this or that particular action alone, I have to lament. Nothing has been right in its principles, and views, and ends. My whole soul has been disordered. All my thoughts, my affections, my desires, my pursuits, have been wretchedly alienated from thee. I have acted, as if I had hated thee, who art infinitely the loveliest of all beings; as if I had been contriving, how I might tempt thee to the uttermost, and weary out thy patience, marvellous as it is. My actions have been evil; my words yet more evil than they; and, O blessed God, my * Psal. xvii. 2. VOL. I. † Jer. iii. 5, Psal. xl. 12. Psal. Ixix. 5. ** 1 John iii. 20. |