Dreadful Consequences
DREADFUL CONSEQUENCES
Necessarily resulting from the ignorance of our depravity and danger.
1. As the tempter caused the fall of our first parents, by inducing them to believe that they “should not surely die,” if they broke the Divine law: so, now we are fallen, he prevents our recovering, by suggesting “the bitterness of death is past,” and “we are in a state of safety.” Hence it is that you sleep on in carnal security, O ye deluded sons of men, and even dream ye are safe and righteous. Nor can ye escape for your lives till the veil of unbelief is taken away, and ye awake to a sight of your corrupt and lost estate; for there is no guarding against, nor flying from, an unseen, unsuspected evil: here, as in a conspiracy, the danger continually increases till it is happily discovered.
2. If we are not sensible of our natural corruption and the justice of the curse entailed upon us on that account, can we help thinking God a tyrant, when he threatens unconverted moralists with the severest of his judgments, or causes the black storms of his providence to overtake us and our dearest relatives?
Answer, ye self-righteous Pharisees, that so bitterly exclaim against the ministers, who declare, by the authority of Scripture, that “except ye repent, ye shall all perish.” Answer, fond mother, whose tears of distraction mix with the cold sweat of the convulsed, dying infant on thy lap. Dost thou not secretly impeach Divine justice, and accuse Heaven of barbarity? Ah! if thou didst but know the evil nature which thou and thy Isaac have brought into the world; if thou sawest the root of bitterness which the hand of a gracious Providence even now extracts from his heart; far from being ready to “curse God, and die” with thy child, thou wouldest patiently acquiesce in the kindly severe dispensation; thou wouldest “clear him when he is judged” by such as thyself, and even “glorify him in the evil day of this painful visitation.”
3. Though man’s heart is hardened as steel, it does not frequently emit the hellish sparks of such murmurings against God, because it can seldom be struck by the flint of such severe afflictions; yet the mischief is there, and will break out, if not by blasphemous despair, at least by its contrary, presumptuous madness. Yes, reader, unless thou art happily made acquainted with the strength of thy inbred depravity, thou wilt rashly venture among the sparks of temptation: with carnal confidence thou wilt ask, “What harm can they do me?” And thou wilt continue the hazardous sport till sin and wrath consume thee together. Nor will this be more surprising than that one, who carries a bag of gunpowder, and knows not the dangerous nature of his load, should fearlessly rush through the midst of flames or sparks, till he is blown up and destroyed.
4. This fatal rashness is generally accompanied with a glaring inconsistency. Do not you make the assertion good, ye saints of the present age, who pretend to have found the secret of loving both God and the world? Do not we hear you deny to men that you are condemned, and yet cry to God to have mercy upon you? But if you are not condemned, what need have you of mercy? And if you are, why do you deny your lost estate? Thou too, reader, wilt fall into this absurdity, unless thou knowest thy just condemnation. But the mischief will not stop here; for,
5. Ignorance of the mystery of iniquity within you must, in the nature of things, cause you to neglect prayer, or to pray out of character. As unhumbled moralists, instead of approaching the throne of grace with the self abasement of the penitent publican, saying, “God be merciful unto me a sinner!” you will provoke the Most High, by the open profaneness of the Sadducee; or insult him by the self-conceited services of the Pharisee, boasting ye “do no harm,” and thanking God, ye “are not as other men.” On these rocks your formal devotion will split, till you know, that as the impenitent and prayerless shall perish, so the Lord accepts no penitential prayer, but that of “the man who knows the plague of his own heart; because he alone prays in his own character, and without hypocrisy,” 1 Peter 5:5; 1 Kings 8:31.
6. And as you cannot approach the throne of grace aright, while you remain insensible of your corruption; so the reading or preaching of God’s word, till it answers the end of conviction, is of no service to you, but rather proves, to use St. Paul’s nervous expression, the “savour of death unto death.” For when the terrors of the law only suit your case, you vainly catch at the comforts of the Gospel; or rather you remain as unaffected under the threatenings of the one as under the promises of the other: you look on Mount Sinai and Mount Sion with equal indifference, and the warmth of the preacher, who invites you to “fly from the wrath to come,” appears to you an instance of religious madness. Nor is it a wonder it should, while you continue unacquainted with your danger: when a mortal disease is neither felt nor suspected, a pathetic address upon its consequences and cure must be received by any reasonable man with the greatest unconcern; and the person that makes it in earnest, must appear exceedingly ridiculous. Again:
7. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” says the Lord. This is true, particularly with regard to the knowledge of our depravity. Reader, if thou remainest a stranger to it, thou wilt look upon slight confessions of outward sins as true repentance; and the “godly sorrow that worketh repentance to salvation” will appear to thee a symptom of melancholy. Taking an external reformation of manners, or a change of ceremonies and opinions, for true conversion, thou wilt think thyself in a safe state, while thy heart continues habitually wandering from God, and under the dominion of a worldly spirit. In a word, some of the branches of the tree of corruption thou mayest possibly lop off, but the root will still remain and gather strength. For it is plain, that a bad root, supposed not to exist, can neither be heartily lamented, nor earnestly struck at with the axe of self denial.
Even a heathen could say,f68 “The knowledge of sin is the first step toward salvation from it; for he who knows not that he sins, will not submit to be set right: thou must find out what thou art before thou canst mend thyself:—therefore, when thou discoverest thy vices, to which thou wast before a stranger, it is a sign that thy soul is in a better state.”
8. It is owing to the want of this discovery, O ye pretended sons of reason, that thinking yourselves born pure, or supposing the disease of your nature to be inconsiderable, you imagine it possible to be your own physicians, when you are only your own destroyers. Hence it is, that while you give to Jesus the titular honour of Saviour, you speak perpetually of being “saved merely by your duties and best endeavours.” Hear him warning you against this common delusion: “O Israel,” says he, “thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help found. The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,” beyond all hope of recovering themselves.
9. The prescriptions of this wise Physician are excessively severe to flesh and blood, and some of his remedies as violent as our disease. Therefore, except we see the greatness of our danger, we shall beg to be excused from taking the bitter potion. Who can have resolution enough to “cut off a right hand, to pluck out a right eye,” to “take up his cross daily, to deny himself, and lose even his own life,” or what is often dearer, his fair reputation? Who, I say, can do this, till a sight of imminent ruin on the one hand, and of redeeming love on the other, makes him submit to the painful injunctions? Thou lovely youth, noted in the Gospel for thy harmlessness, I appeal to thy wretched experience. When the Physician of souls, at whose feet thou wast prostrate, commanded thee to “sell all and follow him,” what made thee “go away sorrowful” and undone? Not barely thy “great possessions,” but the ignorance of thy condition: for “all that a man hath will he give for his life,” when he sees it in immediate danger, Matthew 19:22.
10. If it is a desperate step to turn away from the Prince of Life, it is a daring one to approach him with a mere compliment. Of this, nevertheless, you are guilty, ye unawakened sinners, who daily appear before the throne of grace with thanks and praises to God, “for his inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ.” Alas! When you deny the state of sin and misery in which you are by nature, and yet presume to thank God for redemption from it, do you not mock him as solemnly as you would the king, were you to present him every day an address of thanks for redeeming you from Turkish slavery, when you never knew yourselves slaves in Turkey? O how provoking to God must these unmeaning thanksgivings be! Surely one day they will be ranked among the indignities offered by earthly worms to the Majesty on high.
11. Some, indeed, more consistent than you, openly throw off the mask. Seeing neither the unfathomable depth of their misery by the fall, nor the immense height of their aggravated iniquities, they do not trifle with, but at once “deny, the Lord that bought them.” Yes, far from admiring the established method of a salvation, procured at so immense a price as the incarnation and the crucifixion of the Son of God, they are not afraid to intimate it is irrational: and upon their principles they may well do it; for if our ruin is not immense, what need is there for an immensely glorious Redeemer? And if our guilt reaches not up to heaven, why should the Son of God have come down from thence to “put away sin by the sacrifice of himself?”
12. As we slight or reject the Saviour, till we are truly convinced of the evil and danger of sin; so we worship a false god, a mere idol. For, instead of adoring Jehovah, infinite in his holiness and hatred of sin; inviolable in the truth of his threatenings against it, and impartial in his strict justice; a God in whose presence unhumbled sinners “are not able to stand,” and “with whom evil cannot dwell;” we bow to a “strange god,” whom pious men never knew, a god formed by our own fancy—so unholy as to connive at sin, so unjust as to set aside his most righteous law, and so false as to break his most solemn word, that we must “turn or die,” Ezekiel 33:11. Is not this worshipping a god of our own making; or, as David describes him, a “god altogether such as ourselves?” To adore an idol of paste, made by the baker and the priest, may be indeed more foolish, but cannot be more wicked than to adore one made by our wild imagination, and impious unbelief.
13. We may go one step farther still, and affirm that till we are deeply convinced of sin, far from worshipping the true God, (which implies knowing, loving, and admiring him in all his perfections,) we hate and oppose him in his infinite holiness and justice. The proof is obvious:—Two things diametrically opposite in their nature, can never be approved of at once. If we do not side with Divine holiness and justice, abhor our corruption, and condemn ourselves as hell-deserving sinners; far from approving, we shall arise against the holy and righteous God, who sentences us to eternal death for our sin: we shall at least wish he were less pure and just than he is, which amounts to wishing him to be no God. While proud fiends betray this horrid disposition by loud blasphemies in hell, ye do it, O ye unconvinced sons of men, by your aversion to godliness upon earth. “Haters of God,” is then the proper name, and “enmity against him,” the settled temper of all unhumbled unconverted sinners, Romans 1:30, and 8:7.
14. When the nature of God is mistaken, what wonder if his law is misapprehended? “The law is good, says St. Paul, “if a man use it lawfully;” but if we make an improper use of it, the consequence is fatal. Since the fall, the law of God, as contra-distinguished from the Gospel of Christ, points out to us the spotless holiness, and inflexible justice, of its Divine Author. It teaches us with what ardour and constancy we should love both our Creator and our fellow creatures. As a bank cast against the stream of our iniquity, it accidentally serves to make it rise the higher, and to discover its impetuosity; for “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” It demonstrates man’s weakness, who “consents indeed to the law that it is good, but finds not how to fulfil it,” Romans 7:16, 19. As a battery erected against pride, when it has its due effect, it silences all our self-righteous pleas, and convinces us that a returning sinner “is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Christ.” A broken law, a law which “worketh wrath,” being absolutely unable to absolve its violater. In a word, “it is our school master to bring us to Christ,” and drives us with the rod of threatened punishments, to make us touch the sceptre of mercy, held out to us from the throne of grace.
But while we remain strangers to our helpless and hopeless state by nature, far from making this proper use of the law, we trust in it, and fancy that the merit of our unsprinkled obedience to it is the way of salvation. Thus we “go about to establish our own righteousness, making light of” the atoning blood, which marks “the new and living” way to heaven. This very mistake ruined the Pharisees of old, and destroys their numerous followers in all ages, Romans 9:31.
15. And when we form such wrong apprehensions of the law, is it possible that we should have right views of the Gospel, and receive it with cordial affection? Reason and experience answer in the negative. What says the Gospel to sinners? “You are saved by grace,” through mere favour and mercy, “not” by the covenant “of works, lest any man should boast” like the Pharisee, Ephesians 2:8. Now ye decent formalists, ye fond admirers of your own virtue, are you not utterly disqualified to seek and accept a pardon in a Gospel way? For your seeking it upon the footing of mere mercy, implies an acknowledgment that you deserve the ruin threatened against sinners. And suppose a pardon was granted you, before you had a consciousness of your sad deserts, you could not receive it as an act of mere grace, but only as a reward justly bestowed upon you for the merit of your works. It is plain, then, that according to the Gospel plan, none can be fit subjects of salvation, but those who are truly sensible of their condemnation.
16. But as the grace of God in Christ is the original and properly meritorious cause of our salvation, so the grand instrumental cause of it is faith on our part. “Through faith are ye saved,” says St. Paul. Now, if to have faith in Christ, is habitually to lift up our hearts to him, with an humble and yet cheerful confidence, seeking in him all our “wisdom, righteousness,” and “strength,” as being our instructing “Prophet,” atoning “Priest,” and protecting “King;” it is evident, that till we awake to a sight of our fallen state, we cannot believe, nor consequently be saved. O ye that never were sensible of your spiritual blindness, can you with sincerity take Jesus for your guide, and desire his “Spirit to lead you into all truth?” Does not David’s prayer, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may see the wonderful things of thy law,” appear to you needless, if not fanatical? And is not the Redeemer’s prophetic office thrown away upon such sons of wisdom as you are?
Have you a greater value for Jesus than they, O ye just men, who have no sensible need of heart-felt repentance, and whose breasts were never dilated by one sigh, under a due sense of your guilt and condemnation? Can you, without hypocrisy, apply to him as the High Priest of the guilty, claim him as the Advocate of the condemned, or fly to him as the Saviour of the lost? Impossible! Ye fondly hope ye never were lost, ye were always “good livers, good believers, good Churchmen;” ye “need not make so much ado” about an interest in the blood of the new covenant. And ye who, flushed with the conceit of your native strength, wonder at the weakness of those that continually bow at the sceptre of Jesus’ grace for protection and power; can you without a smile of pity hear him say, “Without me ye can do nothing?” Is it possible that you should sincerely implore the exertion of his royal power for victory over sins which you suppose yourselves able to conquer; and for the restoration of a nature, with the goodness of which you are already so well satisfied? Your reason loudly answers, No: therefore, till you see yourselves corrupt, impotent creatures, you will openly neglect the Redeemer, give to your aggravated sins the name of “human frailties,” and trust to your baffled, and yet boasted endeavours. Self deception! Art thou not of all impostors the most common and dangerous, because the least suspected?
To sum up and close these important remarks: look at those who in mystic Babylon are not truly sensible of their total fall from God, and you will see them setting their own reason above the Holy Scriptures, and their works in competition with the infinitely meritorious sacrifice of Christ. Inquire into their principles, and you will discover that they either openly explode as enthusiastical, or slightly receive as unnecessary, the doctrines of salvation by faith in Christ, and regeneration by the Spirit of God. Examine their conduct, and you will find they all “commit sin,” and “receive the mark of the beast” secretly “in their right hand, or” openly “in their foreheads,” Revelation 13:16. Sort them, and you will have two bands, the one of skeptics, and the other of formalists, who, though at as great “enmity between themselves” as Pilate and Herod, are like them “made friends together,” by jointly “deriding” and “condemning Jesus” in his living members.