Twenty-Seventh Argument.

TWENTY-SEVENTH ARGUMENT.

When the Lord, by the rod of affliction, “the sword of the Spirit,” and the power of his grace, attacks the hard heart of a sinner, how obstinately does he resist the sharp, though gracious operation! To make an honourable and vigorous defence, he puts on the shining robes of his formality; he stands firm in the boasted armour of his moral powers; he “daubs with untempered mortar” the ruinous “wall” of his conduct; with self-righteous resolutions and Pharisaic professions of virtue, he builds, as he thinks, an impregnable tower; he musters and draws up in battle array his poor works, artfully putting in the front those that make the finest appearance, and carefully concealing the vices which he can neither disguise, nor dress up in the regimentals of virtue.

In the meantime he prepares “the carnal weapons of” his “warfare,” and raises the battery of a multitude of objections to silence the truth that begins to gall him. He affirms, “The preachers of it are deceivers and madmen,” till he sees the Jews and heathens fixed, even upon Christ and St. Paul, the very same opprobrious names: he calls it “a new doctrine,” till he is obliged to acknowledge that it is as old as the reformers, the apostles, and the prophets. He says, “It is fancy, delusion, enthusiasm,” till the blessed effects of it, on true believers, constrain him to drop the trite and slanderous assertion. He declares that it “drives people out of their senses, or makes them melancholy,” till he is compelled to confess that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and that none are so happy and joyful as those who truly love, and zealously serve God: he urges, that “it destroys good works,” till a sight of the readiness of believers, and of his own backwardness to perform them, makes him ashamed of the groundless accusation. He will tell you twenty times over, “Where is no need of so much ado,” till he discovers the folly of being careless on the brink of eternal ruin, and observes, that the nearness of temporal danger puts him upon the utmost exertion of his powers: perhaps to get himself a name among his profane companions, he lampoons the Scriptures, or “casts out firebrands and arrows” against the despised disciples of Jesus: “They are all poor and illiterate,” says he, “fools or knaves, cheats and hypocrites,” &c, &c, till the word of God stops his mouth, and he sees himself the greatest hypocrite with whom he is acquainted.

When by such heavy charges he has long kept off the truth from his heart, and the servants of God from his company, this kind of ammunition begins to fail; and he barricades himself with the fear of being undone in his circumstances, till experience convinces him that “no good thing shall God withhold from them that live a godly life,” and that “all things shall be added to them who seek first the kingdom of God.” He then hides himself in the crowd of the ungodly, and says, “If he perishes, many will share the same fate,” till he sees the glaring absurdity of going to hell for the sake of company. He shelters at last under the protection of the rich, the great, the learned despisers of Christ and the cross, till the mines of their wickedness, springing on all sides around him, make him fly “to the sanctuary of the Lord;” and there he sees the ways, and “understands the ends of these men.”

When all his batteries are silenced, and a breach is made in his conscience, he looks out for some secret way to leave Sodom, without being taken notice of and derided by those who fight under Satan’s banner; and the fear of being taken for one of them that “fly from the wrath to come,” and openly take the part of a holy God against a sinful world, “pierces him through with many sorrows.”

Are the outworks taken? has he been forced to part with his gross immoralities? he has generally recourse to a variety of stratagems: sometimes he publicly dismisses Satan’s garrison, “fleshly lusts which war against the” godly, and keep under the ungodly “soul;” but it is only to let them in again secretly, either one by one, or with forces seven times greater, “so that his last state is worse than the first.” At other times he hoists up the white flag of truth, apparently yields to conviction, favours the ministers of the Gospel, admits the language of Canaan, and warmly contends for evangelical doctrines; but, alas! the place has not surrendered, his heart is not given up to God; spiritual wickedness, under fair shows of zeal, still keeps possession for “the god of this world;” and the shrewd hypocrite artfuly imitates the behaviour of a true Israelite, just as “Satan transforms himself into an angel of light.”

Is he at last deeply convinced that the only means of escaping destruction, and capitulating to advantage, is to deliver up the traitor, sin? Yet what a long parley does he hold about it! What a multitude of plausible reasons does he advance to put it off from day to day! “He is yet young: the Lord is merciful: all have their foibles: we are here in an imperfect state: it is a little sin: it may be consistent with loyalty to God: it hurts nobody but himself: many pious men were once guilty of it: by and by he will repent as