Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

the bond-woman shall not be heir." Compare ver. 24. Heirs of wrath must not be heirs of glory. Whom the first covenant hath power to exclude out of heaven, the sccond covenant cannot bring into it.

Objection. Then it is impossible for us to be saved.— Answer, It is so, while you are in that state. But if you would be out of that dreadful condition, hasten out of that state. If a murderer be under sentence of death, so long as he lives within the kingdom, the laws will reach his life; but, if he can make his escape, and get over the sea, into the dominions of another prince, our laws cannot reach him there. This is what we would have you to do, fice out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son; out of the dominion of the law, into the dominion of grace; then all the curses of the law, or covenant of works, shall never be able to reach you.

Motive 2. O ye children of wrath, your state is wretched, for ye have lost God; and that is an unspeakable loss. Ye are without God in the world, Eph. ii. 12. Whatever you may call yours, you cannot call God yours. If we look to the earth, perhaps you can tell us, that land, that house, or that herd of cattle is yours. But let us look upward to heaven, is that God, that grace, that glory yours? Truly, you have neither part nor lot in that matter. When Ne

buchadnezzar talks of cities and kingdoms, O how big does he speak! Great Babylon that I have built, my power-my. majesty! But he tells a poor tale when he comes to speak of God, saying, Your God, Dan. ii. 47. and iv. 30. Alas! sinner, whatever thou hast, God is gone from thee. O the misery of a godless soul! Hast thou lost God? Then, (1.) The sap and substance of all that thou hast in the world is gone. The godless man, have what he will, is one that hath not, Matth. xxv. 29. I defy the unregenerate man to attain to soul-satisfaction, whatever he possesseth, since God is not his God. All his days he eateth in darkness; in every condition, there is a secret dissatisfaction haunts his heart like a ghost; the soul wants something, though perhaps it knoweth not what it is; and so it will be always, till the soul return to God, the fountain of satisfaction. (2.) Thou canst do nothing to purpose for thyself, for God is gone; his soul is departed from thee, Jer. vi. 8. like a leg out of joint, hanging by, whereof a man hath no use, as

the word there used doth bear. Losing God, thou hast lost the fountain of good; and so all grace, all goodness, all the saving influences of the Spirit. What canst thou do then? What fruit canst thou bring forth, more than a branch cut off from the stock? John xv. 5. Thou art become unprofitable, Rom. iii. 12. as a filthy rotten thing, fit only for the dunghill. (3.) Death has come up into thy windows, yea, and has settled on thy face; for God, in whose favour is life, (Psal. xxx. 5.) is gone from thee, and so the soul of thy soul is departed. What a loathsome lump is the body, when the soul is gone? Far more loathsome is thy soul in this case. Thou art dead whilst thou livest. Do not deny it, seeing thy speech is laid, thine eyes closed, and all spiritual motion in thee ceaseth. Thy true friends, who see thy case, do lament, because thou art gone into the land of silence. (4.) Thou hast not a steady friend among all the creatures of God; fornow that thou hast lost the Master's favour, all the family is set against thee. Conscience is thine enemy; the word never speaks good of thee: God's people loathe thee, so far as they see what thou art, Psal. The beasts and stones of the field are banded together against thee, Job v. 23. Hos. ii. 18. Thy meat, drink, clothes, grudge to be serviceable to the wretch that has lost God, and abuseth them to his dishonour. The earth gróaneth under thee; yea, the whole creation groan€th, and travaileth in pain together, because of thee, and such as thou art, Rom. viii. 22. Heaven will have nothing to do with thee; "For there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth," Rev. xxi. 22. Only "hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming," Isa. xiv. 9.-Lastly, Thy hell is begun already. What makes hell, but exclusion from the presence of God? Depart from me ye cursed. Now ye are gone from God already, with the curse upon you. That shall be your

XV. 22.

punishment at length (if ye return not) which is now your choice. As a gracious state is a state of glory in the bud, so a graceless state is hell in the bud; which, if it continue, will come to perfection at length.

Motive 3. Consider the dreadful instances of the wrath of God; and let them serve to awaken thee to flee out of this state. Consider, (1.) How, it has fallen on men. Even in this world, many have been set up as monuments

of divine vengeance; that others might fear. Wrath has swept away multitudes, who have fallen together by the hand of an angry God. Consider how the Lord spared not the old world, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly, 2 Pet. ii. 5, 6. But it is yet more dreadful to think of that weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, amongst those, who, in hell, lift up their eyes, but cannot get a drop of water to cool their tongues. Believe these things, and be warned by them; lest destruction come upon thee, for a warning to others. (2.) Consider how wrath fell upon the fallen angels, whose case is absolutely hopeless. They were the first that ventured to break the hedge of the divine law; and God set them up for monuments of his wrath against sin. They once left their own habitation, and were never allowed to look in again at the hole of the door, but they are reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day, Jude 6. -Lastly, Behold how an angry God dealt with his own Son, standing in the room of elect sinners, Rom. viii. 32, God spared not his own Son Sparing-mercy might have been expected, if any at all. If any person could have obtained it, surely his own Son would have got it, but he spared him not. The Father's delight is made a man of sorrows; he who is the wisdom of God becomes sore ama-ized, ready to faint away with a fit of horror. The weighor of this wrath makes him sweat great drops of blood., one the fierceness of this fire, his heart was like wax melteth us the midst of his bowels. Behold here how severe Gof him against sin! The sun was struck blind with this ter; and sight; rocks were rent, graves opened; death, as it ife, by in the excess of astonishment, letting its prisonerch that away. What is a deluge, a shower of fire and brine white on Sodomites, the terrible noise of a dissolving wce; for no whole fabric of heaven and earth falling down : angels cast down from heaven into the bottom' What are all these, I say, in comparison with thy, when ye suffering! Groaning, dying upon a cross! InfinitChrist, haydid it, to make sin look like itself, viz. infinitrid. Call to And will men live at ease, while exposed to this review the

Lastly, Consider what a God he is, with whom thou hast to do, whose wrath thou art liable unto: He is a God of infinite knowledge and wisdom; so that none of thy sins, however secret, can be hid from him. He infallibly finds out all means whereby wrath may be executed, toward the satisfying of justice. He is of infinite power, and so can do what he will against the sinner. How heavy must the strokes of wrath be, which are laid on by an omnipotent hand! Infinite power can make the sinner prisoner, even when he is in his greatest rage against heaven. It can bring again the several parcels of dust out of the grave; put them together again, reunite the soul ane the body, sist them before the tribunal, hurry them away to the pit, and hold them up with the one hand, through eternity, while they are lashed with the other. He is infinitely just; and, therefore, must punish : It were acting contrary to his nature to suffer the sinner to escape wrath. Hence the executing of this wrath is pleasing to him; for though the Lord hath no delight in the death of the sinner, as it is the destruction of his own creature; yet he delights in it, as it is the execution of justice. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest."-Mark the reason, "For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness," Psal. xi. 6,7. "I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted," Ezek. v. 13. "I also will laugh at your calamity," Prov. i. 26.-Finally, He lives for ever, to ursue the quarrel Let us therefore conclude, It is a rful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! frore awakened then, O young sinner; be awakened, O in sinner, who art yet in the state thou wast born in. Wh tr security is none of God's allowance; it is the sleep Death: Rise out of it ere the pit close its mouth on you. alre true, you may put on a breast-plate of iron; make pun snow brass, and your hearts as an adamant; who can choice. But God will break that brazen bow, and make so a gracemantine heart, at last, to fly into a thousand pieces. tinue, wil if ye will, labour to put these things out of your Motive at ye may yet sleep in a sound skin, though in a of God; arath. Ye may run away with the arrows stickr consciences to your work, to work them away; Even in this beds, to sleep them out; or to company, to sport

this state.

and laugh them away; but convictions so stifled, will have a fearful resurrection; and the day is coming, when the arrows of wrath shall so stick in thy soul, as thou shalt never be able to pluck them out through the ages of eternity, unless thou take warning in time.

But if any desire to flee from the wrath to come, and, for that end, to know what course to take, I offer them these few advices, and obtest and beseech them, as they love their own souls, to fall in with them. (1.) Retire yourselves into some secret place, and there meditate on this your misery. Believe it, and fix your thoughts on it. Let each put the question to himself, How can I live in this state? How can I die in it? How will I rise again, and stand before the tribunal of God in it? (2.) Consider seriously the sin of your nature, heart, and life. A kindly sight of wrath flows from a deep sense of sin. They who see themselves exceeding sinful, will find no great difficulty to perceive themselves to be heirs of wrath. (3.) Labour to justify God in this matter. To quarrel with God about it, and to rage like a wild bull in a net, will but fix you the more in it. Humiliation of soul, before the Lord, is necessary for an escape. God will not sell deliverance, but freely gives it to those who sce themselves altogether unworthy of his favour. Lastly, Turn your eyes, O prisoners of hope, towards the Lord Jesus Christ; and embrace him as he offereth himselfin the gospel. There is no salvation in any other, Acts iv. 12. God is a consuming fire; ye are children of wrath; if the Mediator interpose not betwixt him and you, ye are undore for ever. If ye would be safe, come under his shadow; one drop of that wrath cannot fall there, for he delivereth us from the wrath to come, 1 Thess. i. 10. Accept of him in his covenant, wherein he offereth himself to thee; and so thou shalt, as the captive woman, redeem thy life, by marrying the Conqueror. His blood will quench that fire of wrath, which burns against thee; in the white raiment of his righteousness thou shalt be safe; for no storm of wrath can pierce it.

II. I shall drop a few words to the saints.

First, Remember, that, at that time, (namely, when ye were in your natural state,) ye were without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world. Call to mind that state you were in formerly, and review the N

« ForrigeFortsett »