Iv.

IV.

1. Surely ye are without excuse, all who do not yet know the day of your visitation! the day wherein the great God, who hath been forgotten among us days without number, is arising at once to be avenged of his adversaries, and to visit and redeem his people. Are not his judgments and mercies both abroad? and still will ye not learn righteousness? Is not the Lord passing by? Doth not a great and strong wind already begin “to rend the mountains and to break in pieces the rocks before the Lord?” Is not the earthquake also felt already? and a fire hath begun to burn in his anger. Who knoweth what will be the end thereof? But at the same time, he is speaking to many in “a still, small voice.” He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, lest he be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy!

2. What excuse can possibly be made for those who are regardless of such a season as this? who are, at such a crisis, stupid, senseless, unapprehensive? caring for none of these things; who do not give themselves the pains to think about them, but are still easy and unconcerned? What! can there ever be a point on which it more behooves you to think; and that with the coolest and deepest attention? As long as the heaven and the earth remain, can there be anything of so vast importance, as God’s last call to a guilty land, just perishing in its iniquity?

You, with those round about you, deserved long ago to have “drank the dregs of the cup of trembling;” yea, to have been “punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” But he hath not dealt with you according to your sins, neither rewarded you after your iniquities. And once more he is mixing mercy with judgment. Once more he is crying aloud, “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” And will you not deign to give him the hearing? If you are not careful to answer him in this matter, do not still shut your eyes, and stop your ears, and harden your stubborn heart. O beware, lest God laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh!

3. Will you plead that you have other concerns to mind; that other business engages your thoughts? It does so indeed? But this is your foolishness; this is the very thing that leaves you without excuse. For what business can be of equal moment: The mariner may have many concerns to mind, and many businesses to engage his thoughts; but not when the ship is sinking. In such a circumstance (it is your own) you have but one thing to think of, — save the ship and your own life together! And the higher post you are in, the more deeply intent should you be on this one point. Is this a time for diversions; for eating and drinking, and rising up to play? Keep the ship above water. Let all else go, and mind this one thing!

4. Perhaps you will say, “So I do: I do mind this one thing, — how to save the sinking nation. And therefore now I must think of arms and provisions. I have no time now to think of religion.” This is exactly as if the mariner should say, “Now I must think of my guns and stores. I have no time now to think of the hold.” Why, man, you must think of this, or perish. It is there the leak is sprung. Stop that, or you and all your stores will go together to the bottom of the sea.

Is not this your very case? Then, whatever you do, stop the leak; else you go to the bottom! I do not speak against your stores: They are good in their kind; and it may be well they are laid in. But all your stores will not save the sinking ship, unless you can stop the leak. Unless you can some way keep out these floods of ungodliness, that are still continually pouring in, you must soon be swallowed up in the great deep, in the abyss of God’s judgments. This, this is the destruction of the English nation. It is vice, bursting in on every side, that is just ready to sink us into slavery first, and then into the nethermost hell. “Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you?” Let him think of this. Think of this, all that love your country, or that care for your own souls. If now especially you do not think of this one thing, you have no excuse before God or man.

5. Little more excuse have you who are still in doubt concerning this day of your visitation. For you have all the proof that you can reasonably expect or desire, all that the nature of the thing requires. That in many places, abundance of notorious sinners are totally reformed, is declared by a thousand eye and ear witnesses both of their present and past behavior. And you are sensible, the proof of such a point as this must, in the nature of things, rest upon testimony. And that God alone is able to work such are formation, you know all the Scriptures testify. What would you have more? What pretense can you have for doubting any longer? You have not the least room to expect or desire any other or any stronger evidence. I trust you are not of those who fortify themselves against conviction; who are resolved they will never believe this. They ask, “Who are these men?” We tell them plainly; but they credit us not. Another and another of their own friends is convinced, and tells them the same thing. But their answer is ready, “Are you turned Methodist too?” So their testimony likewise goes for nothing. Now, how is it possible these should ever be convinced? for they will believe none but those who speak on one side.

6. Do you delay fixing your judgment till you see a work of God, without any stumbling-block attending it? That never was yet, nor ever will. “It must needs be that offenses will come.” And scarce ever was there such a work of God before, with so few as have attended this.

When the Reformation began, what mountainous offenses lay in the way of even the sincere members of the Church of Rome! They saw such failings in those great men, Luther and Calvin! Their vehement tenaciousness of their own opinions; their bitterness toward all who differed from them; their impatience of contradiction, and utter want of forbearance, even with their own brethren.

But the grand stumbling-block of all was their open, avowed separation from the Church; their rejecting so many of the doctrines and practices, which the others accounted the most sacred; and their continual invectives against the Church they separated from, so much sharper than Michael’s reproof of Satan. Were there fewer stumbling-blocks attending the Reformation in England? Surely no: For what was Henry the Eighth? Consider either his character, his motives to the work, or his manner of pursuing it! And even King Edward’s ministry we cannot clear of persecuting in their turns, yea, and burning heretics. The main stumbling-block also still remained, viz., open separation from the Church.

7. Full as many were the offenses that lay in the way of even the sincere members of the Church of England, when the people called Quakers first professed that they were sent of God to reform the land. Whether they were or no is beside our question; it suffices for the present purpose to observe, that over and above their open, avowed, total separation from the Church, and their vehement invectives against many of her doctrines, and the whole frame of her discipline, they spent their main strength in disputing about opinions and externals, rather than in preaching faith, mercy, and the love of God.

In these respects the case was nearly the same when the Baptists first appeared in England. They immediately commenced a warm dispute, not concerning the vitals of Christianity, but concerning the manner and time of administering one of the external ordinances of it. And as their opinion hereof totally differed from that of all the other members of the Church of England, so they soon openly declared their separation from it, not without sharp censures of those that continued therein.

8. The same occasion of offense was, in a smaller degree, given by the Presbyterians and Independents; for they also spent great part of their time and strength in opposing the commonly-received opinions concerning some of the circumstantials of religion; and, for the sake of these, separated from the Church.

But I do not include that venerable man, Mr. Philip Henry, nor any that were of his spirit, in this number. I know they abhorred contending about externals. Neither did they separate themselves from the Church. They continued therein till they were driven out, whether they would or no. I cannot but tenderly sympathize with these; and the more, because this is in part our own case. Warm men spare no pains, at this very day, to drive us out of the Church. They cry out to the people, wherever one of us comes, “A mad dog, a mad dog!” if haply we might fly for our lives, as many have done before us. And sure it is, we should have complied with their desire, we should merely for peace and quietness have left the Church long before now, but that we could not in conscience do it. And it is on this single motive, it is for conscience’ sake, that we still continue therein; and shall continue, (God being our helper,) unless they by violence thrust us out.

9. But to return: What are the stumbling-blocks in the present case, compared to those in any of the preceding?

We do not dispute concerning any of the externals or circumstantials of religion. There is no room; for we agree with you therein. We approve of, and adhere to, them all; all that we learned together when we were children, in our Catechism and Common-Prayer Book. We were born and bred up in your own Church, and desire to die therein. We always were, and are now, zealous for the Church; only not with a blind, angry zeal. We hold, and ever have done, the same opinions which you and we received from our forefathers. But we do not lay the main stress of our religion on any opinions, right or wrong; neither do we ever begin, or willingly join in, any dispute concerning them. The weight of all religion, we apprehend, rests on holiness of heart and life. And consequently, wherever we come, we press this with all our might. How wide then is the difference between our case and the case of any of those that are above mentioned! They avowedly separated from the Church: We utterly disavow any such design. They severely, and almost continually, inveighed against the doctrines and discipline of the Church they left: We approve both the doctrines and discipline of our Church, and inveigh only against ungodliness and unrighteousness. They spent great part of their time and strength in contending about externals and circumstantials: We agree with you in both; so that having no room to spend any time in such vain contention, we have our desire of spending and being spent, in promoting plain, practical religion. How many stumbling-blocks are removed out of your way! Why do not you acknowledge the work of God?

10. If you say, “Because you hold opinions which I cannot believe are true:” I answer, Believe them true or false; I will not quarrel with you about any opinion. Only see that your heart be right toward God, that you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ; that you love your neighbor, and walk as your Master walked; and I desire no more. I am sick of opinions: I am weary to hear them. My soul loathes this frothy food. Give me solid and substantial religion; give me an humble, gentle lover of God and man; a man full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy; a man laying himself out in the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labor of love. Let my soul be with these Christians, wheresoever they are, and whatsoever opinion they are of. “Whosoever” thus “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

11. Inexcusably infatuated must you be, if you can even doubt whether the propagation of this religion be of God! Only more inexcusable are those unhappy men who oppose, contradict, and blaspheme it.

How long will you stop your ears against Him that still crieth, “Why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks;” for a man to “contend with his Maker.” How long will you despise the well-known advice of a great and learned man? — “Refrain from these men, and let them alone. If this work be of man, it will come to nought. But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it.” And why should you “be found even to fight against God?” If a man fight with God, shall he prevail? “Canst thou thunder with a voice like him?” Make haste! Fall down! Humble thyself before him, lest he put forth his hand, and thou perish!

12. How long will you fight under the banner of the great enemy of God and man? You are now in his service; you are “taking part with the devil” against God. Even supposing there were no other proof, this would undeniably appear from the goodly company among whom you are enlisted, and who war one and the same warfare. I have heard some affirm, that the most bitter enemies to the present work of God were Pharisees. They meant, men who had the form of godliness, but denied the power of it. But I cannot say so. The sharpest adversaries thereof whom I have hitherto known (unless one might except a few honorable men whom I may be excused from naming) were the scum of Cornwall, the rabble of Bilston and Darlaston, the wild beasts of Walsal, and the turnkeys of Newgate.

13. Might not the sight of these troops show any reasonable man to what General they belonged; as well as the weapons they never fail to use? — the most horrid oaths and execrations, and lawless violence, carrying away as a flood whatsoever it is which stands before it; having no eyes, nor ears, no regard to the loudest cries of reason, justice, or humanity. Can you join heart or hands with these any longer? with such an infamous, scandalous rabble-rout, roaring and raging as if they were just broke loose, with their captain Apollyon, from the bottomless pit? Does it not rather concern you, and that in the highest degree, as well as every friend to his King and country, every lover of peace, justice, and mercy, immediately to join and stop any such godless crew, as they would join to stop a fire just beginning to spread, or an inundation of the sea?

14. If, on the contrary, you join with that godless crew, and strengthen their hands in their wickedness, must not you, in all reason, be accounted (like them) a public enemy of mankind? And indeed such must every one appear, in the eye of unprejudiced reason, who opposes, directly or indirectly, the reformation of mankind. By reformation, I mean the bringing them back (not to this or that system of opinions, or this or that set of rites and ceremonies, how decent and significant soever; but) to the calm love of God and one another, to an uniform practice of justice, mercy, and truth. With what color can you lay any claim to humanity, to benevolence, to public spirit, if you can once open your mouth, or stir one finger, against such a reformation as this?

It is a poor excuse to say, “O, but the people are brought into several erroneous opinions!” It matters not a straw, whether they are or no; (I speak of such opinions as do not touch the foundation;) it is scarce worth while to spend ten words about it. Whether they embrace this religious opinion or that, is no more concern to me, than whether they embrace this or that system of astronomy. Are they brought to holy tempers and holy lives? This is mine, and should be your, inquiry; since on this, both social and personal happiness depend, happiness temporal and eternal. Are they brought to the love of God and the love of their neighbor? Pure religion and undefiled is this. How long then will you “darken counsel by words without knowledge?” The plain religion now propagated is Love. And can you oppose this without being an enemy to mankind?

15. No, nor without being an enemy to your King and country; especially at such a time as this. For, however men of no thought may not see or regard it, or hectoring cowards may brave it out, it is evident to every man of calm reflection, that our nation stands on the very brink of destruction. And why are we thus, but because “the cry of our wickedness is gone up to heaven?” because we have so exceedingly, abundantly, beyond measure, “corrupted our ways before the Lord?” and because to all our other abominations we have added the open fighting against God; the not only rejecting, but even denying, yea, blaspheming his last offers of mercy; the hindering others who were desirous to close therewith; the despitefully using his messengers, and the variously troubling and oppressing those who did accept of his grace, break off their sins, and turn to him with their whole heart.

16. I cannot but believe, it is chiefly on this account that God hath now “a controversy with our land.” And must not any considerate man be inclined to form the same judgment, if he reviews the state of public affairs for only a few year a last past? I will not enter into particulars; but, in general, can you possibly help observing, that, whenever there has been any thing like a public attempt to suppress this new sect, (for so it was artfully represented,) another and another public trouble arose? This has been repeated so often, that it is surprising any man of sense can avoid taking notice of it. May we “turn” at length “to Him that smiteth us, hearing the rod and Him that appointeth it!” May we “humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God,” before the great deep swallow us up!

17. Just now, viz., on the 4th of this instant December, the Reverend Mr. Henry Wickham, one of His Majesty’s Justices of Peace for the West-riding of Yorkshire, writes an order —

To the Constable of Keighley, commanding him, “to convey the body of Jonathan Reeves” (whose real crime is, the calling sinners to repentance) “to His Majesty’s gaol and castle of York; suspected,” said the precept, “of being a spy among us, and a dangerous man to the person and government of His Majesty King George.”

God avert the omen! I fear this is no presage either of the repentance or deliverance of our poor nation!

18. If we will not turn and repent, if we will harden our hearts, and acknowledge neither his judgments nor mercies; what remains, but the fulfilling of that dreadful word, which God spake by the Prophet Ezekiel: “Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch forth my hand upon it, and break the staff of the bread thereof. — Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls. Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land: Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood: — Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.” (Ezekiel 14:13 14:13, 14, 17, 19, 20.)

“Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant, that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters. — And ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem. — And ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God.” (Verses 22, 23.)

LONDON, December 18, 1745.