Afountainis ready; that gushes from the Saviour’s side, with a mingled stream of water and blood; to wash away the guilt and filth of sin; of efficacy to purify from all uncleanness; where thousands have bathed their leprous souls, and in which thousands more may wash and be clean as an angel of light. Zech. xiii. 1.
Aprovisionis ready; rich in inexhaustible supplies ofstrengthfor the weak, ofwisdomfor the ignorant, ofmedicinefor the diseased, ofconsolationfor them that mourn, ofbreadof life for the hungry, ofwaterfrom a never-failing spring for thethirsty; and all in Christ, free for his people as the air they breathe, and deep in boundless fulness as the ocean. John, i. 16.
TheSpirit of holinessis ready; to change the desert of the human heart into an Eden, and to make springs of grace arise, where streams of bitterness and pollution flowed before; to take of the things of Christ, and shew them in all their riches to the poor and contrite; to form the new creation, and take away the heart of stone. Isa. xxxv. 1. Ezek. xxxvi. 26.
Thepromisesare ready; to attest the truth of God; to seal the salvation of Christ; to give encouragement to the weary and heavy ladento cast their burdens on him; and to delineate his all-sufficiency: in him they meet: in him they are all yea and amen: from him they derive their preciousness, and every one of them is as unchangeable as the God that spoke them. 2 Pet. i. 4. Mat. v. 18.
TheFatherof mercies is ready; to receive the returning prodigal, to blot out his rebellions, and love him freely. TheSonis ready; to plead the purchase of his blood, and carry the sheep that was lost into the fold of his flock.
Theministers of the gospel areready; to preach deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to instruct the ignorant, and guide their feet into the way of peace; and to rejoice in seeing the fruit of the travail of Christ’s soul in the salvation of sinners.
Angelsare ready; to take up their harps of gold, and tune them to notes of the sweetest harmony; to make the heaven and the heaven of heavens resound with praises to Emmanuel, and with joy over one sinner that repenteth. Oh! that they may repeat that anthem to-day, which they have had occasion to sing, whenever souls have been brought home to Christ! These blessed spirits watch with eagerness the effects of the gospel-message; and when anyone sinner obeys it, they fly with the good news to the realms of light, and diffuse fresh joy through all the spirits that surround the throne. But if angels could weep, surely they would drop a tear, with sorrow and surprise, to see sinners spurn a feast, which their Creator prepared, and to which they themselves would have been proud of an invitation.
Come, then, ye that dread the wrath of God, and wish to escape from those sins that have exposed you to it; ye, who are oppressed with their intolerable load, and can find no relief from all the expedients you have hitherto adopted; O come to this sacred feast of redeeming love! Multitudes, whose case was worse than yours, have been admitted to it; have found the blessings they stood in need of, and are now feasting around the throne of God and of the Lamb. They, like you, were afraid to come; and their unworthiness, which should have driven to Christ, kept them, for a long time, from him; till, having at last seen all resources fail, every creature a broken cistern, and all their works and duties but miserable comforters and physicians of no value; they were obliged to go with all their complaints, and wants, and wounds, to him, who is the sinner’s forlorn hope; and in Jesus they met with a physician and a friend: He bound up their wounds,supplied their wants, removed their burdens, spoke peace to their consciences, and shewed them all the riches of his grace and righteousness to comfort and support. One look by faith to his bleeding sacrifice, dispelled the gloom that covered their desponding minds, and filled them with hope, and joy, and peace. They only wonder now, that they should have so long doubted of his sufficiency and love; and, if any thingcouldinterrupt for a moment the bliss of saints above, it would give them pain, even in heaven, to reflect, that they should have ever entertained a suspicion of Christ’s ability and willingness to save; or have hesitated to come to the gospel feast when God himself invited. But their doubts are now for ever done away; and it magnifies the riches of sovereign grace, that Jesus conquered and pardoned the unbelief, that gave the lie to his promises, and depreciated the great remedy of his atonement. Yet, having “come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” “they hunger no more, neither thirst any more: but the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, doth feed them, and lead them to fountains of living waters; and God hath wiped away all tears from their eyes.” Rev. vii. 14, 16, 17.
As the feast recommended in the text is of a sacred nature, it can of course afford no entertainment, and give no encouragement, to those presumptuous professors, who dare “to sin because grace abounds;” who take occasion, from the sumptuousness of the gospel feast, and the benignity of its Founder, to quote his very favors in justification of the most abominable licentiousness of manners; and sit down to his table only to insult him for the liberality that spread it.Grace, it is true, and grace alone, presides throughout with unrivalled glory, in contriving, accomplishing, and applying the great plan of salvation through the Redeemer. And though that grace confers all its favors gratuitously, and strongly presupposes the guilt and unworthiness of the recipients of them; yet as personal holiness is one of the favors it communicates, and makes a considerable branch of the evidences of a sinner’s salvation; they who leave it out in their pretended systems of evangelical truth, or disregard it in their walk and conversation, are convicted by the very fact of fatal error on the one hand, as well as of practical impiety on the other. For “the grace of God that bringeth salvation, teacheth us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live righteously, soberly, and godly, in this present world.” Tit ii. 12. Whoeversits down to the banquet of redeeming love, is supposed to rise up with a heart overflowing with gratitude to Jesus for the blessings imparted to him, and to go away more wise, more happy, and more holy. To act differently, would be to imitate the outrage of a victorious army rioting on the spoils of the vanquished, and intoxicating themselves with the fruits of their Commander’s conquests. Christ hath conquered for us; and the gospel feast is the consequence of his glorious victory over sin and hell. Believers conquer and feast with him. But their triumph ought to be sober, and their mode of rejoicing suited to the dangers they have escaped, and the sacred service in which they are engaged. But they who make Christ, either in their systems or their practice, “the minister of sin,” bear his name in vain, or expose it to reproach in the face of the world. The gospel, therefore, spreads no feast for the Antinomian; and, where it is abused, the food which it exhibits is turned into poison, and proves a savor of death unto death. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
Ye devotees of pleasure, ye lovers of the world, ye egregious triflers with your immortal interests; ye, who, though hastening to yourgraves, are still sporting on destruction’s brink, and indulge a false and fatal levity, though the precipice is before you, and one single step would determine your doom for ever; ye, who have been pursuing phantoms, and grasping at shadows, while you suck happiness in a world lying in wickedness, and, amidst all your cares and schemes for this world, forget that you are to die, neglect your souls, and never take one solemn anxious thought about eternity; to you also I bring the invitation in my text: “Come; for, all things are ready.” I invite you this day, in the name of my great Lord and Master, to Christ, to happiness, to heaven. Ye have been long toiling for that which is not bread, and spending your strength for what can yield little satisfaction in life, and none at all in the hour of death. Still time flies with its wonted velocity; and the king of terrors is drawing from his quiver the arrow, that shall ere long lay you in the dust. Satan, the world and sin, strongly unite to keep you in their servitude; and spread ten thousand baits to allure you to destruction. But shall their call be obeyed? and God’s invitation disregarded? Shall hell be preferred to heaven? the care of your bodies to that of your souls? Shall time engross all your solicitude, and eternity, dread eternity, none? Shall the adversary of God and man callwith a more attractive voice, than he who bled for sinners? and the biting pleasures of sensuality, be preferred before the joys that are at God’s right hand? God forbid! O sirs, pause a moment! Consider what you are, whither you are going. Your souls are at stake, and you must soon stand before the living God in judgment. Obey the call of the gospel; and all shall yet be well: disobey it; and the call itself shall be more than a thousand witnesses against you: and he who gives it will be clear of your blood. But, embrace the invitation; and my soul shall rejoice over you, even mine; and you shall rejoice with joy unspeakable, when the Judge comes in the clouds of heaven, and time shall be no more. Amen.
THE CONTRAST.
“For the wages of sin is death,but the gift of God is eternal life,through Jesus Christ our Lord.”Romans, vi. 23.
“For the wages of sin is death,but the gift of God is eternal life,through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans, vi. 23.
Itappears, at first view, rather extraordinary, that there should be any opponents of the doctrine of original sin; since, not to say, that it has a voucher for its existence in the heart of every individual son of Adam, and is corroborated by the testimony of melancholy matter of fact; upon the acknowledgment of this doctrine depends every truth of revelation; and more especially that, which relates to the redemption of sinners by the obedience and sufferings of the Son of God. Indeed, the entire system of the gospel stands or falls with it. The truth of man’s apostacy from original righteousness forms a grand and necessary link inthe golden chain of evangelical doctrines. Takethataway, and the coherence between the rest is broken of course; and, by the fatal disruption, the fairest hopes of a sinner are torn up by the root, and all his bright prospects into eternity clouded and obscured. For, it is upon a pre-supposition of man’s depravity, helplessness, and guilt, that a propitiatory sacrifice hath been offered up, and a foundation for peace and pardon laid in the cross of Jesus; that a remedy hath been offered, proportionate to the depth of our malady, and a proclamation of mercy issued out, from the throne of God. Blot out these inestimable benefits, then, and what is man?—an inheritor of sorrow and sin, borne rapidly along by time’s impetuous tide, and, like a ship without a rudder or sails, at the mercy of every storm; liable to be shipwrecked in death, and to sustain an irreparable, an eternal loss; without one cheerful beam of hope to guide him through the gloom of adverse dispensations, or to light his footsteps in the valley of the shadow of death.
A denial of the fall is an absurd effort to dispute a fact the most incontrovertible, to subvert the foundations of Christianity, to bereave sinners of their choicest hope, and virtually to supersede one of the most necessary, and most glorious works of God. For, what is redemption,if we are not “by nature the children of wrath?” Ephes. ii. 3. Would it not, in that case, be an unmeaning and superfluous undertaking? Why did the co-equal Son of the Most High leave the bosom of his Father, to pay a ransom of infinite value, if there were no captives to be redeemed? Or why did he, in unparalleled mercy, quit his throne “to seek and save those that were lost,” if mankind were not in that unhappy predicament? What is it that places the love of God, and the philanthropy of the Friend of sinners, in the most captivating and admirable point of view? It is the helpless and guilty condition of the race of man. This is the foil, that sets off redemption to infinite advantage, and that reflects such unrivalled honor on the gracious Author of it. But deny the fall, and redemption shines no more; and all the glory of him, who contrived and executed the plan, is destroyed at once. Whereas admit that humiliating fact, and you hear all the harps of heaven tuned to the praises of Jesus, and see him adorned with the crown of salvation; while men and angels join their loudest and most grateful tribute of thanksgiving to that condescending Saviour of sinners. The most variegated and lively teints that form the rainbow, are painted by the reflection of the sun’s rays on the body of the darkest cloud. So, it is on thegloom of our apostate nature that the rays of the Sun of Righteousness are reflected with the most conspicuous lustre; and it is even by that dark medium that all the perfections and attributes of Deity shine out with the greatest harmony, and the most wonderful irradiation. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The text exhibits a surprising contrast; and the design of my improvement upon it, is to consider separately, and oppose to each other, the constituent parts of that contrast; to the end that we may enjoy an opportunity of seeing, how low human nature hath been sunk by sin, and to what a height of exaltation it hath been raised by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one view will help to inspire gratitude into the breast of a saved sinner; the other will give him cause for self-humiliation, and afford him an inexhaustible topic for praise and wonder, through everlasting ages. This contrasted representation, like a happy mixture of light and shade in a well-executed piece of painting, will place the great doctrines I am to insist upon, in such an advantageous point of view, as to display the consistency, connexion, wisdom, and beauty, of the whole. From whence we shall see, of course, that, though the text presents a dark side, in which the principal andawful figures in the back ground are “sin and death;” yet, like the pillar of a cloud and fire that followed the camp of Israel, it has a bright side too, sufficiently luminous to guide the Christian pilgrim through the wilderness of this world, and to light him to glory, with safety and triumph.
The first thing to be considered is, that “the wages of sin is death.” But, as death is an event so humiliating and so formidable, let us attend a little to the nature of that great evil that produces it.—According to the definition given by an inspired apostle, “sin is the transgression of the law”—of that moral law, or rule of rectitude, which had been originally written on the heart of man, and which, when the characters of it were obliterated there, by the first act of disobedience, was afterwards inscribed on two tables of stone. A circumstance that wisely suggested the propriety of placing the decalogue in the most conspicuous part of our churches; to the end, that whenever we cast our eyes on these two sacred tables, and reflect on the sanctions and purity of their precepts, we might see our transgressions, and implore that mercy which God hath revealed through that Saviour, who is the “end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” The law is “holy” in its precepts, “just” in its requisitions, and “good”in the end, for which it was originally given. It delineates, as it were, and transcribes the moral image of the Deity. And such is the rigor and extensiveness of its demands, that it not only condemns every the least deviation from the letter of its commandments, but it also takes cognizance of the thoughts of the heart, as well, as the actions of the life. “The law is spiritual.” Rom. vii. 14. And its spirituality extends to the most latent recesses of the mind. Its penetrating light breaks in upon the desires and inclinations of the heart, in their darkest retreat, and condemns sin in embryo, as well as when it “is brought forth” into actual commission. Having originated in the wisdom of the supreme Legislator, and having been appointed as a rule of life and a test of obedience, to protect the interests of the divine government in the world, it stands as unchangeably pure in its nature, and as unalterable in its requirements, as the God, who gave it, is in his own immutable essence.
Behold sin, then, in this pure mirror. How is its deformity exposed, and its malignity enhanced by the purity of that law of which it is the transgression! Every sin, in a greater or less degree, aims at destroying the very existence of the divine law; and at subverting the dominion which Jehovah claims as his own indisputableprerogative amongst his own creatures. Sin implies an effort to set up another in direct opposition to the supremacy of Heaven. It is a direct and gross insult upon the Majesty of God. It pours contempt on his legislative authority to make laws, and virtually impeaches his wisdom and justice in requiring obedience to them. Sin is rebellion against the Most High; and its dreadful concomitants are anarchy and confusion. In its hideous deformity, it bears the impress of hell; and, like that malign spirit that attempted to usurp the sovereignty of the skies, it carries the features of that black apostacy, that would have pushed from his throne the Holy One of Israel.
Such is the nature of sin. But trace it, in its origin, its consequences, and its effects, and you will perceive its aggravations swell in every view. See its fatal effects even in heaven itself. What disorder did it occasion among the armies of the skies! When, after having lifted up an innumerable company of angels with proud rebellion against the throne of God, it plunged them, with Lucifer at their head, from the summit of bliss and honor, down to the inextinguishable flames and bottomless abyss of tophet. Or, go to Eden, and mark there the sad catastrophe of our fall. See our first parents arrested by the hand of justice, and, likea pair of criminals, compeers in guilt and partners in woe, turned out of that delectable spot, where all the rich spontaneous gifts of nature concurred with the light of God’s countenance, to make it a representation, in miniature, of the celestial paradise. See the angry cherub brandishing his flaming sword, placed as a vengeful guardian of the tree of life. Behold shame, sorrow, disease, and death, the melancholy attendants on the unhappy culprits! the earth under their feet, cursed with briers and thorns! and elements around them, armed with the thunder of their Creator’s frown! Ask, what is the cause of this sad reverse of their former state of rest, peace, and fertility? The answer is, this hath sin done.
Consult the history of mankind since the fall, especially those faithful records given us in the inspired writings, and you will see one continued chain of successive dispensations, loudly declarative of the evil of sin. Why were the windows of heaven opened, and the fountains of the great deep broken up, to form that immense inundation of waters, that covered every part of the globe, and topped its highest hills; and, the little family in the ark only excepted, swept away all the inhabitants of the earth at a stroke? It was because “God saw, that thewickednessof man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen. vi. 5. Why was Sodom consumed by fire from heaven, and that sink of sin converted into a lake of the most putrid and pestilential quality? Why did the earth open, and swallow up Korah and his company? or a succession of plagues depopulate and deluge with blood the Land of Egypt? How came Israel to fall by thousands in the wilderness? and in great numbers to be carried away into an enemy’s country, and to wear the galling yoke of long, grievous, and reiterated captivities? What was the cause of their final dispersion? It wasSINthat lay at the root of all these visitations. And the same evil that laid Babylon or Jerusalem in ashes, and annihilated the proudest empires of Greece and Rome, is to this day proclaiming its existence in the judgments that are abroad in the earth. If the pestilence walketh in darkness, or sickness destroyeth at noon-day; if war rages, or famine stalks through the land; if earthquakes make whole continents tremble, and spread devastation and death; it isSIN, that hath awakened these awful visitants of incensed justice, which will, all at once, be let loose upon a guilty world, in the great and terrible day of the Lord, to completeits ruin, and give one final demonstration of the malignity of sin, by the conflagration of heaven and earth.
We have visited the Garden of Eden, to view there the melancholy origin and fatal effects of sin. Let us now go to another garden, where we shall see this great evil still more conspicuously displayed. I mean the garden of Gethsemane. Behold!wholies there prostrate on the ground! drowned in tears! and bathed in blood! What means that agony, which tortures his immaculate soul, and makes him “sorrowful even unto death?” What was the heavy load under which an angel is despatched from heaven to support him? Hark! how he entreats his Father, that, if possible, “the bitter cup might pass from him.” Follow him to Calvary. See him fainting under the load of his cross, as he ascends the hill. Now begins the tragical scene. Behold him extended on the accursed tree! Why, thou blessed Jesus, wert thou brought so low, and covered with such foul ignominy? Why didst thou suffer thy sacred head to be crowned, and lacerated with thorns? and thy hand to be disgraced with a symbol of mock royalty, when it might have been extended to the destruction of thine enemies? Was thy death, with all the circumstances of horror and shame that attended it, the just wages of any personal iniquity? No.Thy nature was immaculate, and thy life unblemished. But it was sin imputed, that constituted the bitter ingredient in thy cup of sorrow; and our guilt transferred, that brought thee down to the chamber of death. They were our transgressions that pointed the thorns, and sharpened the nails that pierced thy bleeding head, and hands, and feet, and opened the current that flowed from thy heart. Thou wast “wounded forourtransgressions, and bruised forouriniquities.” Isa. liii. 5. O teach us to see the bitterness of sin in the depth of thy sufferings, and to stand amazed at the unexampled love that shines through them all! This will embitter sin to our hearts, and endear to us that blessed cross from whence the remedy for it flows, with the current of thy blood.
There is but one leading point of view more, in which the evil of sin is discoverable by the melancholy effects which it produceth; and that is, by the consideration immediately suggested in the text; which is,
That death is the wages of sin. This is a truth so obvious, that it hardly requires any argument, either to illustrate, or confirm it. The fact is, at least, incontrovertible. The notoriety of it hath been established by an intermitted series of mortality, through all the successive generations of men, from the beginning of theworld to the present day. “The fathers, where are they? the prophets, do they live for ever?”
But, though the event itself is indisputable, the cause of it, as well as the nature of that cause, are subjects of sharp controversy, with those, who, when unable to stand against the evidence of facts, transfer their contentious disposition to the revelation of God; and so wrest the scriptures to their destruction. All admit, that death is the inevitable lot of human nature, because the truth addresses our very senses. But some, with strange inconsistency, insinuate, and not only insinuate, but even attempt to give it the form of an argument, that, though all must submit to death, yet the event is not to be considered as the effect of the first transgression; or, at least, that death is no penal evil, or the consequence of any entail of original guilt: since, as they argue, it would be inconsistent with the divine justice to punish a whole race for the sin of an individual; and that, since so many good men die, death ought rather to be accounted a blessing, than a penalty. All this is reason as full of fallacy, as it is of danger, and is overturned to the very foundation, by the express authority of the word of God. St. Paul asserts, that “byoneman,sinentered into the world, anddeathby sin; and so death hathpassed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Rom. v. 12. Death was announced as thethreatened penalty to Adam before his transgression, and it was inflicted after it, agreeably to the decree of God. Why should it be penal to him and not to his descendants? The text says, that death is the wages ofsin. The cause is evil, and so must the effect produced by it. This is penal because that is criminal; unless it can be proved that there is no moral evil in the violation of the divine law, and no natural evil in an event, that tears in sunder, and reduces to dust and ashes, that frame which bears the impress of divine workmanship, and was originally the seat of health, honor, and immortality. If ever death turns out a blessing, it is over-ruled to that end by the grace and providence of God. The cause and nature of it are not, however, altered. And in every instance, it is the wages of sin, and the desert of sinners unexceptionably and universally; even of those “who did not sin after the similitude of Adam’s transgression;” that is, by actual sin. For though all infants are undoubtedly saved, who die in infancy, yet their death evinces previous transgression, though not actually, yet originally and inherently. It is a scripture maxim, that “the body is dead because of sin.” The inherency and imputation of that great moral evil makes the body obnoxious to death. And the seeds of both have an existence together in the nature of every son of Adam; which, in due time, spring up inthat vicious soil, and bring forth actual transgression, and actual death.
If this doctrine, equally corroborated by scripture and facts, be not admitted, the divine justice would stand impeachable for taking off infants, whose death is often the instant successor of their birth, and is accompanied with a train of diseases, and agonizing pains. And, though in the case of them, as of adult believers, death proves a blessing, through the redemption that is by Christ Jesus; yet to those who continue in the practice of sin, and die under the guilt of it, their dissolution is the commencement of eternal woe. For, the wages of sin is death, eternal as well as temporal. The eternal duration of the penalty is, in that respect, proportioned to the infinite demerit of the offence, as being committed against the sacred law of an infinite God, and rising in aggravation according to the dignity and majesty of the Being offended. The perverse reasoning of men of corrupt minds may controvert this awful truth, too, as unjust. But their quarrel is with scripture. For that declares, that the wicked shall “go intoeverlastingpunishment,” Mat., xxv. 46, and shall “suffer the vengeance of eternal fire,” never to be extinguished through ages more numerous than the drops of the ocean, or the countless sands upon the sea-shore.
Here imagination might paint a scene sufficient to harrow up the soul, and make the blood of every mortal run cold; were we to dwell upon the sufferings of those who are lost for ever; and to consummate and perpetuate which, the wrath of God unites with the worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched. I might lead you, in order to behold an exemplification of the truth in our text, not only to beds of sickness, where the pallid countenance, the cold sweat, and throbbing breast, indicate death’s near approach—to the haunts of the debauched, or the chambers of the luxurious, where sin reigns, and death triumphs with a long train of diseases both of body and mind, the sad recompense of a life spent in sin and vanity—to the dungeon’s doleful cells, where criminals drag the galling chain, and expect, with horror and remorse, the hour that is to fix them to the gibbet, and make an ignominious death the wages of their iniquity—to the church-yard, that repository of the promiscuous dead, where the crumbled bodies of the rich and great are not distinguishable from the dust of the earth; or to the charnel-house, crowded with the dry and ghastly relics of thousands, who were once flushed with health, and bloomed with beauty, like their present gay survivors, who hardly ever spend a serious thought on death, and liveas if they had made a covenant with the grave—to the historic pages of the annalist and the poet, recounting the horrors of the tented field, and telling over the tens of thousands that have been cut off in the midst of their sanguinary and ambitious schemes—I say, I might not only lead you to these several scenes, as declarative of the truth before us; but I might urge, as its most tremendous completion, the state of those, who are now receiving the final wages of sin in that lake, which burns, and shall to all eternity burn, with inextinguishable flames. But I would rather wave the description, or rather an attempt to describe, what it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive. Let us throw a veil upon this awful scene, and pass to the consideration of one that is as bright and glorious, as the other is gloomy and terrible; which is, that
“The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We had occasion to observe, in the outset of this discourse, that the text places, in a contrasted view, some of the principal truths of revealed religion; that the one might serve as a foil to the other; and that the love of God to a sinful world might appear the more stupendous, by a consideration of the very abject condition to which sin reduced us, and from which nohand was able to extricate us, but that which made the world.
In this contrasted scene, the things set in opposition to each other—are eternal life, and eternal death—the wages of sin, and the gift of God—the disobedience of Adam, and the righteousness of Christ—with all the calamities springing out of sin and death, and all the rich blessings flowing from that tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. Sin is opposed to obedience; death, to life; the eternal duration of the one, to that of the other; the malignity of sin and the demerit of sinners, to the undeserved and gratuitous mercy of God, and the infinite merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that our hearts may overflow with gratitude, when we reflect, that we have the bright side of our text to contemplate with rapture! when, had Jehovah entered into judgment with us, the sad subject of our meditations for ever might have been like the superscription on Ezekiel’s roll—mourning, lamentation, and woe. But now the voice of the Lord cheers the wilderness of our nature with that reviving word, “Where sin abounded, grace hath much more abounded.” Which, to a burdened sinner, is like clear sun-shining after rain, or the return of a serene and a bright morning after a dark tempestuous night; or like a pardon, unexpectedlybrought, to a criminal under sentence of death. This we shall see in what follows.
In Paradise, the test of man’s obedience was the commandment of God; the reward would have been eternal life. But he sinned, and forfeited that reward in behalf of himself and all his descendants; and the penalty incurred was as infinite as the recompense would have been great, in case of perfect obedience. To take off this forfeiture of life eternal, and recover the inheritance that had been lost, Jesus undertook to become the sinner’s substitute, and to take the penalty upon himself. As sin was the fatal cause of all the misery and disorder introduced into the world, he suffered it to be laid upon himself, and “was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” The awful penalty of a violated law fell upon him, in the day that he was “made a curse for us,” Gal. iii. 13, and bled to death as a propitiatory sacrifice on the cross. It was exacted of him, and he made full payment. Perfect obedience to the law, and full satisfaction to the justice of God, were the two great branches of that righteousness, which constitutes the matter of our justification before him. Death was the consequence of Adam’s transgression; but Jesus died, and by his blood drew the monster’s deadly sting, and “destroyed him that had the powerof death, that is, the devil.” Heb. ii. 14. And, as he was God manifest in the flesh, his divinity communicated an infinite sufficiency to his atonement and righteousness, to deliver from sin and hell, and to render valid and secure the believer’s title to eternal life.
In the business of salvation, as it is God’s most glorious work, he is studious and jealous of having all the glory of it. Accordingly, eternal life is held out in the text as his “gift,” free on his part, and altogether unmerited by those to whom this blessing is communicated. We have no claim upon him even for the crumbs that fall from his table; much less for the glory of his everlasting kingdom; between which, and the obedience of the best, there is an infinite disproportion. All in earth or heaven, necessary to complete our happiness, is a gift. Christ himself, with all his unsearchable riches, is called the gift of God. The knowledge of him by faith, and the grace that calls, justifies, and sanctifies, come under the same denomination. He gives grace and glory. When the apostle takes a view of death, he calls it thewagesof sin. But he wisely and designedly alters his language when he speaks of eternal life. He does not say thatthatis thewagesof human works, or to be earned by the merit of human obedience. No. It is thegiftof Godthrough Jesus Christ our Lord,—through him, because he is the medium of all Jehovah’s gifts, and the purchaser of all the blessings of the new covenant. His atoning blood is the great channel of conveyance for every benefit on earth, and his righteousness the meritorious title to life eternal. The crown of salvation is the unrivalled claim of that adorable Saviour; and well doth he deserve, that it should be placed on his royal head, since
There’s not a gift his hand bestowsBut cost his heart a groan.
There’s not a gift his hand bestowsBut cost his heart a groan.
Let not pride, therefore, presume to dispute the honor with Jesus, or self-righteous sinners arrogate to themselves a meritorious title to favors, of the least of which they are altogether undeserving. God hath an open hand filled with blessings for those who approach the throne of grace as needy beggars, and supplicate mercy through Christ, as condemned criminals. But the proud he beholdeth afar off, and those that are rich in supposed goodness and personal merit, he sendeth empty away. For, he resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Think not that heaven is to be purchased by human merit, or that the eternal reward is to be earned by human obedience. The purchase hath been made by the death andpassion of the Son of God; and it is the merit of his blood alone that can open the kingdom of heaven, or reverse the forfeiture which we have incurred by original and personal transgression. The scripture hath concluded all under sin. And the wages which every transgressor hath earned, is eternal death. This is every man’s desert, and will be the reward of his iniquity, if he is found out of Christ. No future works can make an atonement to God for past transgressions; since, if this were possible, Christ would have died in vain. Gal. ii. 21. Salvation is by grace, “not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephes. ii. 8, 9. And “we are justified freely (δωρεὰν without a cause on our part) by this grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Rom. iii. 24.
The text speaks an awful language to the gay and the dissolute, who may be said to be earning, by a hard drudgery, the worst wages under the worst master. How many, in the full career of dissipation, are so infatuated by the splendid outside of glittering trifles, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and so deluded by the hope of happiness, that phantom which flies from them as fast as it is pursued; that to the pursuit of sensual pleasure every consideration of honor and virtue is sacrificed. Let those, who are running the same fruitless chase,remember, that though their path should be strewed with rose-buds of delight, yet there lurk under them corroding care, remorse, and shame, and anguish, more to be dreaded than the poison of asps. If their minds are unawed by the threatenings of the Lord, and steeled against the remonstrances of truth, and conscience, Oh that they would but look into the house of mourning! and behold the sad spectacle of a youth cut off in his prime, either by a series of debaucheries, that brought rottenness into his bones, and infamy on his reputation, or that had been hurried to an act of desperation, the effect, often, of frequent intoxication, infidel principles, or of disappointed projects at the gaming table! Or, let them look at yonder pale corpse, that has fallen a martyr to the etiquette of dress and all the parade of fashion; that lived such a life of dissipation, that she hardly ever knew there was a God, till she saw him at his tribunal. Do not such instances, while they declare the folly of mankind, loudly preach to you, ye sons and daughters of dissipation? You, who flutter in gaiety, though on the brink of ruin? O listen to the solemn lecture! Fly from the wages of sin. You have sought happiness in the world, but have been disappointed. Pleasure’s gilded bait hath promised you much, and looked fair; but its promiseshave been delusive, and its enjoyment a shadow. Come now, and try what the gifts of God in Christ Jesus can do for you. He gives a peace, which the world cannot, and ascertains happiness, of which earth and hell are not able to deprive. “His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace.”
Thus hath the text set before us life and death: the one, the wages and consequence of sin; the other, the unmerited and glorious gift of God through the Son of his love. Ye who believe the record, and see your ruin, bless the Lord for the gift of a Saviour—for pardon through his blood, and acceptance before the throne through his righteousness and intercession. Love the Lord and trust in him at all times: by telling of his salvation from day to day. You owe to Jesus your life, and happiness; your all in earth and heaven. He has given grace, and he will give glory, and will withhold from his people no good thing. Since he hath given himself, what gift can he keep back? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, will he not also with him freely give us all things? Whilst, therefore, ye highly-favored children of the Most High, ye are reviewing the great, the unnumbered blessings, that crowd in upon you from the streams that issue from the upper andthe nether springs; whilst you enjoy the gifts of Providence, and are tasting the riches of divine grace; and, whilst gratitude springs up in your hearts for favors as distinguishing as they are undeserved; remember him, to whom you are indebted for them all. And, while you are thanking God, for life, health, food, raiment; the light of yonder sun, and the clouds that drop fatness on the earth; for the joyful sound of the gospel, and hearts to relish its salutary doctrines; then look up to the fountain of all, and say, But, above all things, everlasting praise and honor be ascribed to God for the unspeakable gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, and an interest in his blood and righteousness. Amen.
AN ALARMING VIEW OF GOD’S DESOLATING JUDGMENTS.
[Preached on the Fast Day, February 21, 1781.]
“Come,behold the works of the Lord,what desolationshe hath made in the earth.”Psalmxlvi. 8.
“Come,behold the works of the Lord,what desolationshe hath made in the earth.”Psalmxlvi. 8.
Whateverthe heart of the foolin ignorance and infidelity may suggest, or the tongue of the bold blasphemer dare to utter, the voice of unerring wisdom declares,there is a God;
“And that there is, allnaturecries aloud.”
“And that there is, allnaturecries aloud.”
To this great primary truth, every object in creation bears its testimony; from the first-born seraph down to the meanest reptile; and from the great ruler of the day, down to the minutest part of that stupendous system, of which he is, at once, the ornament and the centre. The celestial, the terrestrial, and aquatic worlds, with all their respective inhabitants, are pregnantwith demonstration in favor ofGod’s eternal power and Godhead. Beings rational and irrational, animate and inanimate, possessing either spiritual, sensitive, or vegetative life; whether they walk the earth, swim the ocean, or fly through the ærial expanse; are so many vouchers to the existence of a supremeBeing. Through the various orders of the great scale of beings, from the lowest to the highest, we behold visible traces of divinity; from the flower of the field up to the cedar in Lebanon, from the minutest insect to the lion that roars in the desert, or from the smallest fish that swims in the briny flood, to the huge leviathan that taketh his pastime therein. In the origin of their existence, the formation and contexture of their frame, and the provision adapted to their support, we behold equally the infinite wisdom and profuse beneficence of JEHOVAH. Yea, the very minutiæ of creation proclaim his inimitable perfections. Insomuch, that only a blade of grass, or the wing of a moth, exhibits marks of infinite contrivance, which mock the skill and baffle the comprehension of the most sagacious philosopher; while they read him a loud lecture upon that great truth, “Canst thou, by searching, find out God? canst thou know the Almighty to perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper thanhell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.” Job, xi. 7, 9; and chap. xii. 7, 8.
If, from the parts, we ascend to the great whole; or, from contemplating some of the lower stories, we pass to a comprehensive view of the vast fabric of the universe, what a system of wonders rises to declare the glory and handy-work of the supreme Architect! Who can behold an immense multitude of lucid orbs, each of thema world, suspended in the vast expanse, without any visible support; some of them fixed to their stations, though of prodigious magnitude; while others, with a velocity hardly credible, perform their revolutions, and move in their orbits, with the nicest observance of the space and time allotted to them;—who, I say, can observe this wonderful machinery, without acknowledging a presentDeity? What is the firmament of heaven, but a golden alphabet, that in capital letters, which all the world may read, deciphers the name, and displays the perfections, of the all-wise God? Who can view the sun, in his azure “tabernacle,” that fairest and brightest image of his Creator, “coming forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run his race,” without confessing in him, the most glorious witness to the existence of thatGod who gave him to be the cheerer of this nether world, and appointed his “circuit,” Psal. xix. 6, which he has punctually performed for thousands of years? Or who can contemplate the moon, the silver lamp of night, and all the stars that glitter in her train, and not hear the silent yet emphatic eloquence with which they publish the praises of their great Original?—
“For ever singing as they shine,The hand that made us, is divine!”
“For ever singing as they shine,The hand that made us, is divine!”
But man is to himself a voucher for the truth; since he is in himself a microcosm, a little world, or an epitome of a larger system. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” Psal. cxxxix. 14, was the acknowledgment of an inspired philosopher, when he contemplated himself; when he looked back to his embryo-state, and traced the footsteps of that divine art, by which his “substance, yet imperfect, was curiously wrought,” or, as he considered its perfect formation by the plastic hand of Jehovah, “in whose book all his members were written, which, in continuance, were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” Psal. cxxxix. 15, 16. And, if the sight of even a shapeless skeleton, bereft of that beauty which adorns the human frame in its perfect state, could strike conviction intothe breast of a philosopher,[194]and save him from Atheism; how forcible, how irresistible the evidence, when the same frame is viewed in all the wise arrangement, symmetry, coherence, usefulness, and elegant proportion of its parts! If human nature, even in ruins, can thus speak loudly for the divinity of its Maker; what an emphasis of demonstration must it give, to view the fabric complete, and forming, by the inhabitation of the soul, a rational and immortal being! So that it is as great a reflection upon the head, as upon the heart of that man, who, amidst all the evidence that surrounds and dwells in him, continues an unbelieving sceptic: and it would be difficult, perhaps, to determine, whether there be more folly or blasphemy in genuine Atheism.
But, while all creation echoes the voice, and implicitly demonstrates the existence of God, so as to “leave without excuse those, who worshipped and served the creature more than (μαλλον ’ηrather than, orand not) the Creator;” Rom. i. 25; yet it is to Revelation we are indebted for that information respecting the nature, works, and dispensations of Jehovah, whichthe most refined systems of human wisdom have never been able to give us. In the sacred volume, we receive more instruction from a single page, and often from one short sentence, than from whole volumes of antiquity; and more truth too, than all the elaborate systems of philosophers and speculatists have been able to investigate for thousands of years. What they groped after by the dim light of reason, is here revealed to the full satisfaction of the most illiterate inquirer. And what their schemes attempted to elucidate, and, in elucidating, only made more obscure and absurd, is here unfolded in a manner, that exhibits indubitable marks of divine authenticity, and affords an opportunity to “the wayfaring man, though a fool,” to surpass in genuine knowledge the most renowned philosopher, who either had not, or would not have, the “oracles of God,” for his counsellor and guide. Here we are informed not only that God is, but also, “that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him;” Heb. xi. 6;—that “the worlds were framed by the word of God;” verse 3;—that they did not exist from eternity, as some of the philosophers whimsically maintained, but that “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth;” Gen. i. 1;—that the frame of the universe was not formed from pre-existing materials, for that “the thingswhich are seen, were not made of things which do appear;” Heb. xi. 3;—that, contrary, to the atheistical and stupid hypothesis of the Epicureans, who ascribed the creation of all things to chance, or a fortuitous concourse of atoms; the world and all its inhabitants were the production of an eternal, infinitely intelligent, spiritual, wise, and powerful Being, whom the scriptures call God;—that he, whose almightyfiatfrom darkness educed light, and from the confusion of chaos brought harmony and order, was the very person, who afterwards disrobed himself of his divine splendor, and “was manifest in the flesh, took upon him the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Phil. ii. 7, 8. For, by him, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, and who is the” express “image of the invisible God, were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were createdbyhim,” as the Agent, “andforhim,” as theEnd. Col. ii. 14, 15;—that all the calamities which prevail in the natural and moral world originate in that act of disobedience recorded in Gen. iii. 6,—and that the great remedy provided by infinite Mercy and Wisdom for sin and its bitter effects,is Jesus, the adorable Prince of Peace, who “gave himself for us, anofferingand asacrificeto God, for a sweet-smelling savor.” Ephes. v. 2.
While the sacred writings open to guilty mortals a prospect of life and immortality, through the revelation of a system of truth, peculiar to themselves; they throw light upon the dispensations of Providence, by assuring us, that all things great and minute, are under the control and superintendence of an omniscient Being, who numbers the very hairs of our head, and suffers not even “a sparrow to fall to the ground” without his sovereign permission; that, although the grounds of the divine dispensations are often inscrutable to human penetration, and form a great deep, which finite intelligences cannot fathom; yet that infinite wisdom presides in them all, and will render them subservient to his own glory, and his people’s good; and that, whatever happens, respecting the fate of empires and states, and all other grand revolutions upon the globe, that display either the goodness or the severity of God, fall out according to the positive design ofHim, who “doeth what seemeth him meet among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth; of whom, andthroughwhom, andtowhom, are all things.” Rom. xi. 36.
With the volume of inspiration in our hands, and the concurrence of innumerable facts confirming the evidence which it adduceth to the certainty of the preceding truths; let us, upon the present solemn occasion, First, take a view of some of those tremendous works of Jehovah, which, while they speak his existence and interposition, proclaim his wrath; and then, secondly, consider, in what light, and with what temper, we should contemplate such portentous dealings. “Come, behold the works of the Lord; what desolations he hath made in the earth.”
I. There are some works of Jehovah, which proclaim his benignity and tender mercy. All his dispensations are big with a display of these most attractive and endearing attributes. They crown his providence, and shine forth with brightest lustre in the boundless riches of grace. Every land is witness to his patience, and equally so to the vast profusion of his all-bounteous munificence. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord; and all nature smiles under the tender mercies of our God. And, were this the proper place, or would the reference of our text admit of the digression, we might take a view of that beautiful scene, painted by an inspired hand, and in the most sublime imagery, inPsal. lxv. 8–13. We might meditate, with rapture and with profit, on those works of paternal goodness, which “the outgoings of the morning and the evening rejoice” to publish; when the Father of Mercies makes his “paths to drop fatness on the pastures of the wilderness,” and “crowneth” the opening and closing “year with his goodness;” when pastures clothed with flocks, and valleys covered over with corn, “make the little hills rejoice on every side,” give an universal festivity and gaiety to the face of nature, and “shout for joy” in praise of nature’s God. Or we may pass to a contemplation of a still more enrapturing scene, which the former but faintly pictures; I mean that of the human heart emerging from darkness and from barrenness under the propitious rays of the “Sun of Righteousness,” softened by the dew of divine grace, watered by the divine Spirit, that “river of God which is full of water,” clothed with thatbest robe, the Redeemer’s righteousness, and transformed from a wilderness into a little Eden, flourishing like the garden of God. Or, we might fix our meditations on that most gracious and most stupendous work of infinite mercy, the redemption of sinners throughJesus Christ. A work this, which is the great labor of the skies, and the grandest work of God; on which the believer employs his sweetest meditations,and from which he derives his brightest hopes.
But the subject of the text, as well as the solemnity of the day, calls us, for the present, to considerotherworks, in which, not the olive-branch of peace, but the rod of vindictive justice, is held forth; where not the goodness, but the severity of God, is the chief object; in which the desolation of the earth is his awful purpose; and by which he speaks, not in the still small voice of mercy and benignity, but in accents more awful than the noise of conflicting elements, and more tremendous than the sound of ten thousand thunders. “For, behold the Lord cometh out of his place topunishthe inhabitants of the earth for theiriniquity; therefore let all the earth keep silence before him.” Isa. xxvi. 21. Hab. ii. 20.
Whether we consider the desolatingworksthemselves, or theinstruments, by which they have been accomplished, we shall have abundant cause, in either view, to acknowledge the finger of God, and to confess, that “he ruleth in the kingdoms of the earth, and is very greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints;” that he is “glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders.”
1. As to the works themselves, they reach as far as the utmost extent of the terraqueous globe,and are as numerous as the several countries, kingdoms, or insular districts, into which it is divided by intervening mountains, or intersected by the currents of the ocean. There is not a spot of any considerable extent upon the earth, that has not, in some period or other, experienced the desolating hand of Jehovah; nor can the history of any nation be produced, whose annals do not record some awful visitation, through which he hath “answered” its inhabitants “byTERRIBLE THINGSin righteousness;” Psal. lxv. 5, and forced even pagan nations “that dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth to be afraid at theTOKENS” of his existence and indignation. Indeed, what is the earth, but one vast theatre, on which have been exhibited the successive scenes of mercy and of judgment? bearing, under its various revolutions, visible inscriptions of a divine hand, and visible traces of divine power? and in such phenomena, as might make even an atheist to cry out, “Thou, even thou, art to be feared; and who may stand in thy sight when thou art angry?” Psal. lxxvi. 7.
But, if we consult the sacred writings, those infallible records of God’s works and ways; in them we shall meet with the most numerous and prominent testimonies to the truth before us. There we read of that great work of desolation, produced by an universal deluge; whenthe earth suffered the most dreadful disruption of its parts; when “the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened;” Gen. vii. 11; when descending cataracts from the clouds meeting with ascending torrents from the great abyss, formed that vast congregation of waters, which overspread the earth, and covered the summits of its loftiest hills; when sin received an indelible mark of its abominable nature, the inhabitants of the earth met with the just desert of their accumulated iniquities, and the earth itself was reduced to such a state of desolation, as can only be exceeded by the terrors of that day, when a different element shall be employed to consummate its final and total wreck; when a flood of fire shall finish, what a deluge of water began, and intermediate desolations have been carrying on for thousands of years; and when God shall accomplish all his works of judgment and of mercy, to the eternal ruin of the wicked, and the complete redemption of his own people.
Although Jehovah hath set hisbowin the clouds, as the significant symbol of that covenant, which he made with Noah, for the security of the earth from another general inundation, and of a better covenant established through Christ, whereby the salvation of his people from a deluge of divine wrath is ascertained; yet, ifwe examine the subsequent dispensations of Jehovah, they will evince, that post-diluvian wickedness has received marks of divine displeasure, in a constant succession of desolating judgments. Of this let the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah be a standing proof; whose inhabitants, for their unnatural lust, were visited with a judgment which served as a prelude and a pledge of that “vengeance of eternal fire,” Jude 7, which they were to “suffer” as the reward of their crimes; while all the cities of the plain, converted into a fetid lake, ordead sea, whose foul exhalations spread barrenness and death all around it, exhibit, as long as the earth itself lasteth, an awful memorandum of the effects of sin, and the judgments of a sin-avenging God.
Or, if the truth require further illustration, let us visit Egypt, and see what “signs Jehovah wrought there, and what wonders in the field of Zoan,” Psal. lxxviii. where he “smote all their first-born and the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham;” where a succession of plagues, desolating their country, and depopulating its inhabitants, terminated at last in the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. What a scene must that land exhibit, wherein the nutritive parts of creation were impregnated with poison and death! the most innocent creatures became a dreadful annoyance!the most useful animals were visited with sickness! the very dust of the ground converted into loathsome insects! the light of heaven changed into “darkness that might be felt!” the first-born of man and beast cut off in a night! the survivors trembling for themselves, and shrieking for the dead! while every element was armed with vengeance, and conspired to complete the desolation. Yet such was the scene, when God sent tokens and wonders into thee, O thou land of Egypt!
But the time would fail me to tell of Moab, and of Babylon; of populous Nineveh, or of imperial Rome; and of Jerusalem, the city of the great King; of the various nations, tribes, and people, to which these mighty cities gave names of pomp and distinction,—of the various revolutions which they have severally undergone, in the course of providence;—of the captivities of some, the conquests of others, and the desolation of all. The history of Israel from their Exodus out of Egypt, to their settlement in Canaan, with their journeyings through the wilderness inclusive, principally contains a narrative of their sins and of God’s judgments; nor does the history of the Jews, through their several captivities, and defections from the Lord, diminish, but rather swell, the dreadful account; as we view them, from the revolt and dispersionof ten tribes, down to the final subjection of the residue to the Roman yoke; an event, which, by a judicial chain of providence, rapidly brought on the melancholy catastrophe, which ended in the ruin of their city and temple, and marked that awful æra, in which they ceased to be a people. “How unsearchable are God’s judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Rom. xi. 33.
Admitting that there is a God, who created and now governeth the universal frame of nature, a truth, as we have seen, founded upon the most incontestable evidence both of his word and works—it follows of course, that He can never be at a loss for expedients to assert his sovereignty, and vindicate his injured laws. As the heavens and the earth are his property, he can, with as much equity as ease, summon either or both to act in his controversy with a guilty world. His own creation will, at all times, furnish him with ample materials for conducting his judicial dispensations; insomuch, that every creature might be armed against us, and every element be made the vehicle of destruction; or the divine appointment might make the very food we eat, or the air we breathe, the channels to convey instantaneous death. But our business is not now to consider these ordinary incidents, by which “the King of terrors” is continually peopling the regions of the dead, andto which the constitution of our frame is subject; but rather those awful instruments of divine visitation, which are scourges of the Almighty to a guilty world. And one of the most fatal of these, is
1.War. This, howsoever necessary and inevitable it may often be, is always to be esteemed a great evil; if we advert, either to its origination or its effects; and nothing can justify its exertions, but the laws of self-preservation. The sin of man first gave it an existence; and the same bitter cause continues it to this day. “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even from your lusts?” James, iv. 1. Tyrannical passions predominating in the mind, give birth to those sanguinary schemes, which, when pursued, produce every species of confusion and death. If we examine carefully, from whence all those scenes of devastation have arisen, that have deluged the world with blood, we shall find, that, in general, they have sprung from unbounded ambition, avarice, pride, or resentment. And multitudes of tyrants, as well as factious confederates in usurpation and rebellion, have never been able, in thousands of cases, to assign any other reason for their enterprises in blood and slaughter, but this; that the one could not bear an equal, nor the other a superior; or those hadtoo little, and these not enough. While, to foment the dreadful quarrel, the lust of revenge and rebellion operates like oil poured on the flame. Thus nations begin and carry on war, until they are tired of worrying and killing one another; and when the consequences of this horrid work are weighed in the balance of humanity and reason, many a conqueror may sit down and weep over his victories, when he reflects that they have been purchased at the expense of the blood of thousands of his fellow-creatures. And he who could contemplate such victories with pride or pleasure, unmixed with remorse and compassion for the sorrow, the ruin, the desolation they have caused, is a desperate character, that, one would hope, can meet with a parallel, only in
“Macedonia’s madman and the Swede.”
“Macedonia’s madman and the Swede.”
What desolations have been made in the earth by war, the history of former and latter ages informs us; and, God knoweth,weneed no comment on the awful truth. What we want principally, is to be humbled under the visitation; to “hear the rod, and Him that appointed it.” For, we are sure the matter is not fortuitous. If the sword be drawn, it is because God hath said, “Sword go through this land.” Or, if it continue unsheathed, it is because he hathsaid also, “O thousword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. How can it be quiet, seeing the Lordhath given it a charge?” Jer. xlvii. 6, 7. Or, if wide-extended destruction mark its progress, it is because, “Thus saith the Lord, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished; it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; should we then make mirth? The sword is sharpened, to give it into thehand of the slayer.IJehovah have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their hearts may faint, and theirruins be multiplied.” Ezek. xxi. 9–11, 15.
These awful passages intimate, that it is an act of justice in God, to appoint that evil, into which men’s inordinate passions precipitate them: and it may turn out an act of mercy too, if they see their sin in their punishment, and get sick of both. Otherwise additional expedients may be adopted, and increasing judgments be sent. For, the Lord hath at his command the
2.Pestilence. When David, for his sin in numbering the people of Israel, had proposed to him his choice of three modes of punishment, and he preferred falling into the hand of the Lord, for very great were his mercies, and not into the hand of man, whose tender mercies,often, are cruel; “the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.” 1 Chron. xxi. 12–14. This sore visitation, which sin brought upon David and his people, was often repeated among the other judgments which desolated Israel. See Lev. xxvi. 25. Psal. lxxviii. 50. Jer. xliv. 13. It is mentioned as one of the ominous antecedents of the day of judgment, that “there shall bepestilencein divers places.” Mat. xxiv. 7. And in that inimitable piece of sublime description in Habak. iii. where all nature is represented as convulsed and shrinking to nothing, under impressions of the indignation and grandeur of God, “before him,” it is said, “went thepestilence:” verse 5. Because of the secret manner in which this fearful visitant performs his work, the Psalmist saith, “the pestilence walketh in darkness.” Psal. xci. 6. He enters silently and secretly as the thief, and imperceptibly yet rapidly executes his commission. There is often no security against its approach, since the air we breathe wafts the deadly contagion to all the senses, which, in a moment, convey them to, and, in conveying, contaminate the whole mass of blood. Thousands imbibe the poison, and fall in agonies under the stroke. The bolted door is no barrier against its intrusion; the power of medicine no antidote to thenoisome malady. Thousands and tens of thousands fall on the right hand and on the left; and it has been known that this sweeping scourge has often swelled the bills of mortality more in a few weeks, than the whole train of common diseases have in as many years. Never do death’s arrows fly so thick or so envenomed, as when he fills his quiver with the plague; and never is the grave so crowded with dead, as when the pestilence waiteth at its gates. Though the land before it should resemble the garden of Eden, yet behind it the scene will be like a desolate wilderness. And were it not for that hand, which guides its progress, and limits its commission, nothing but rapid desolation and destruction would ensue; especially if we consider, that there follows close at his heels,
3.Famine. As bread is the staff of life, if the prop be removed, the constitution must necessarily fall. The vitals deprived of their wonted nutriment, must languish and die, under one of the most painful and insatiate sensations of nature. As famine is an evil in effect, the causes which produce it may be various. The spread of war, the want, or excess of rain, parching or vitiating the fruits of the earth, great inundations, blasting and mildew, long sieges, intense heat, a long frost or multitudes of devouring insects, locusts in particular, called byone of the prophets, “God’s army,” may, and often have, in their turns, introduced the plague of famine. But who can describe, or bear a description of such scenes as those which mark the effects of this pale visitant! when, as in Samaria’s siege, those things which the stomach would nauseate the very mention of, in a time of plenty, are coveted as food, when the unhappy sufferers have been driven to the horrid necessity of turning cannibals, and casting lots for each others’ persons, till at last a want of every resource brings death, and closes the ghastly scene. A visitation this, one would think, sufficient to alarm and reform a careless people; and yet it is recorded, as an astonishing instance of stupidity and hardness of heart in Israel, that when God “gave themcleanness of teethin all their cities, and want of bread in all their places, they returned not” unto him that smote them. Amos, iv. 6. So that divine justice was obliged to repeat the stroke, by that, which is of all others the most tremendous visitation of Jehovah, the
4.Earthquake. Of all judicial dispensations, that which appoints the earthquake, is the most terribly vindictive; when the earth, thrown into dreadful concussions, cracks and opens like the gaping grave, or heaves and swells like the agitated ocean. Even the sword,the pestilence, and the famine, are mild in their effects, and slow in their progress, when compared with the earthquake. It often gives no warning, but overwhelms in a moment. Its subterraneous motions tear the bowels of the earth, and make its solid pillars bend, like a reed shaken with the wind; while the sound of thunder from beneath, and the crash of falling structures from above, are often heard at the same instant. A few minutes put a period to the works of ages; to wisdom’s archives; to all the boasted monuments of conquest and of fame; to all the pageantry of the great, and all the hoarded riches of the wealthy; to all the illicit pleasures of the licentious, and all the busy schemes of the proud or factious contending for sway. The loftiest towers, the strongest rocks, afford no hiding-place from its fury, but often increase the ruin. Nor is there any security in flight; since in the open field or spacious plain, a yawning gulf may open and devour multitudes in an instant, or jam them between the closing earth.
“Tremendous issue! to the sable deep,Thousands descend in business, or asleep.”
“Tremendous issue! to the sable deep,Thousands descend in business, or asleep.”
To the desolations which this messenger of Almighty vengeance has spread through the earth, let Lima, Callao, Catania, Jamaica, Lisbon,bear witness. In the last place, soon after the dreadful visitation which, in 1755, disturbed the procession of the cursedAuto de fe, and shook the foundations of that bloody tribunal, which Popish barbarity and superstition had set up; the king of Portugal represented his distresses to the king of Spain in a letter, in which was the following affecting passage:—“I am without a house, living in a tent; without subjects, without servants, without money, and without bread.” How humiliating the stroke, which reduces royalty to the dust, or brings all the dignity of crowned heads to a level with the common beggar! Such, but accompanied with circumstances infinitely more terrible and abasing, will that final catastrophe be, when “the Lord shall arise to shake terribly the earth; when it shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall and not rise again;” Isa. xxiv. 20; when “the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low, and they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty.” Isa. ii. 17, 19.