2. Let us examine the weight of earthly possessions, comprehending under that head the greatest accumulation of wealth, and the most unlimited extent of empire, accompanied with the most distinguished titles of dignityand honor. Now, the very height of these saith, “Happiness is not in me.” Having a tendency to deprave the appetite, and sensualize the affections, the things of earth, in ten thousand instances, have so much of the alloy of misery mixed with them, that it is with great reason God in his word saith, “This is not thy rest, for it is polluted.” Terrestrial good is of too gross a nature to satisfy the vast desires of an immortal spirit; and every portion of it is held by a most precarious tenure. Vexation in the pursuit, and disappointment in the fruition, attend those, who seek for a heaven in earth. All the acquisitions of the world cannot fill the vacuity in a mind, destitute of the “true riches.” Put, therefore, the whole globe in one scale, with all the pomp and opulence of which it boasts; and only lay in the other, the interests of a never-dying soul, and the vast concerns of an awful eternity; then say, what is the world, but a dream; and its enjoyments, but vanity?
Ye that dote on earth, and are building tabernacles in this wilderness, consider ye not, that the place of your residence will ere long know you no more for ever; and that this terrestrial ball, were you possessors of all the riches that are buried in it, could not make you truly rich or happy, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ. You have had experience of its insufficiency inthese respects; and yet continue the fruitless chase in the very same track, where disappointment and vexation have often strewed briers and thorns before. Your mind is still upon the wing; your hopes, still big with expectation. The world has teased you with solicitations, flattered you with promises, and deceived you in the moment of anticipation. Yet you trust the flatterer, and live still upon her smiles. Though you have smarted under her rod, yet you continue still a drudge to her maxims; sometimes determined to throw off her yoke, and yet anon enamored with her service, in hope of better days. She has given you riches, perhaps, or worldly prosperity, but has denied you peace. All this time, death is hastening on apace. Sickness visits as his forerunner. “Grey hairs are here and there upon you, and you know it not.” You and the world are weighed together in the balance, and are found wanting. The world cannot make you happy; and you want discernment to see it. You want, perhaps, neither assiduity nor wisdom in the management of temporal things; but in those which are spiritual and invisible, all your ingenuity deserts you. You are deficient in great matters; in little and unimportant ones, you are sedulous, to excess. You want to know, what you are least of all anxious to learn; and thatis,that to know Jesus Christ,and him crucified,is the very centre of happiness and the summit of wisdom. Without this knowledge, all human science is imperfect; and all earthly opulence abject penury. You have few wants, or none, perhaps, for your body; but, while opulence pours her favors around you with a luxurious hand, you may be an utter stranger to the more substantial blessings of the grace of God. O sirs, consider this seriously before it be too late. Though your lives should glide along with ever so smooth and placid a stream, yet remember, the boundless ocean of eternity is just before you; and you may findthat, a more turbid sea than you expect. And I am certain you will, if the love of the world be not previously expelled your hearts, to make room for the love of Jesus. After you have passed the limits of time and the confines of death, it will be too late to say, the world is a cheat, I thought so once, but now I know it. Experience then will be hell.
3. But may not the votary of pleasure put in his claim to happiness, without having his principles examined, or his dissipation interrupted by rigid inquiries? No. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” It is an act of charity to arrest levity in a career that deprives of all seriousness, and unfits for anotherworld; and though a solemn admonition may be unwelcome at first, it may be admitted as a salutary visitant in the end.
I will suppose you then possessed of every advantage, which youth, health, and fortune, can give; while, perhaps, your education and natural temper render you an object of envy to all around you. Your time flies imperceptibly along in the gay world; and diversified scenes of amusement, in concurrence with constitutional vivacity, give you the appearance of felicity in the very abstract. Happiness is the object of your pursuit, and pleasure the way, which you think must lead to it. But are you what you seem? Or have you attained what you have been seeking? Is there not an emptiness in your enjoyments, which you are made sometimes deeply to feel? Nay, do they not often leave a sting in the heart, which the constant succession of them, so far from extracting, only makes more impoisoned? Is there no solemn moment, wherein conscience doth loudly cry, “You are not happy?” And can all your dissipation keep you from low spirits, when death stares you in the face, and secret misgivings make you dread his approach? You want something still, and that cruel something unpossessed, mars all your gaiety. You want Christ. You lack the knowledge and love ofthat divine personage; and in wanting him, you want every thing—wisdom, righteousness, holiness, heaven. You must be born from above by the spirit of God. Your heart must be renewed, and the corruptions of pride and discontent, of formality and self-righteousness, which are lodged in it, must be conquered by the grace of God. And, until that great change takes place, you must and would be miserable upon a throne, and discontented even in an Eden.
And now, men and brethren, suffer the word of exhortation.—Yet a little while, and this present scene of things shall come to an awful close; when rolling years shall cease to move, and the great Angel shall lift his hand to heaven, and swear by him that liveth for ever and ever, thattime shall be no more. Then the veil that hath parted the visible and invisible world shall be thrown back; and all the mysteries of eternity shall burst upon our astonished view. Methinks I see the Judge enthroned, the judgment set, and the books opened. Imagination anticipates the circumstances of that decisive period, while faith almost realizes the appearance of Messiah. The trumpet sounds, and he is coming. Go ye forth to meet him. Are you ready? Are your lamps burning? See eternal justice once more lifts her balance, and weighs in herimpartial scale, the world and its inhabitants. Methinks I hear theJudgepronounce the awful words, “Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting;” and reiterate them, as often as souls, unwashed in the blood of the Lamb, and unrenewed by his spirit, pass from his tribunal. O sirs, take care how you slight the way of salvation, lest your ears should be forced to hear that tremendous sentence. Mercy’s door is now open. Enter by it, and live for ever. Neglect it, and you will find the judgment-day will shut it to eternity. Beware how you trifle with the gospel, that directs you toJesus. It is God’s message of mercy and peace to a lost world. It requires credit and demands obedience. It isourmessage, because the Head of the church hath committed to our trust this word of reconciliation. I have this day endeavoured to be faithful in the delivery of it. See that you contemn it not. If you do, remember, you must answer for it at the judgment-seat of Christ. O fly, fly to the throne of his grace, before you are summoned to his bar! To-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts. To-morrow you may be in eternity!
THE PREPARATION REQUISITE FOR THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
“Prepare to meet thy GOD,O Israel.”Amos, iv. 12.
“Prepare to meet thy GOD,O Israel.”Amos, iv. 12.
Thisconcise but comprehensive address contains one of the most solemn warnings, that can possibly sound in the ears of sinful mortals.Prepare to meet thy God! Awful sentence! Every word in it is fraught with meaning, is big with importance; and rings an alarm, louder than the voice of ten thousand thunders. Who can read it with inattention? Who can hear it with irreverence? Who can preach upon it, without deeply feeling, himself, the weighty truths he enforceth? And yet the most nervous language must be inexpressive, and the warmest sentiment flat, when compared with a subject,which, for majesty and importance, rises infinitely above all the powers of description or the utmost stretch of conception itself. To whose heart is it not sufficient to carry, at least, a transient impression of seriousness? Methinks when the solemn sentence,Prepare to meet thy God, is repeated, the votary of pleasure, even in the giddy whirl of dissipation, is made to think, and levity itself, for a moment, looks solid; an irresistible awe seizes the mind of the licentiate, that imbitters his gratifications, and disturbs his sensual repose; that extorts a sigh from the unrelenting breast of impenitence, draws a tear from the eye of the prodigal, and forces a blush into the hardened cheek of immodesty itself:—even the daringinfidelhimself cannot stand the shock of the solemn warning; he starts—turns pale—looks aghast—and all the guilt of his conscience, all the misgivings of his heart, and all the horrors of his mind, fly into his pallid countenance, as so many witnesses against his atheistical principles, as so many vouchers for the truth of revelation; so that, methinks, even infidelity itself for a moment believes, and trembles.
In the context, (i.e. the passage immediately connected with the text,) we shall behold an additional evidence to the solemnity and importance of the warning before us. There theprophet is reciting the various judgments with which God had visited Israel; the end he had in these severe visitations; and the strange incorrigibleness of the people under them, and after their removal. The judgments were, famine, drought, blasting, and mildew, the pestilence, the sword, and an overthrow of some of their cities, judicial and final, like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Dreadful and numerous as those public, those national calamities were; yet Israel was not humbled, did not repent.Yet have not ye returned unto me,saith the Lord, is the complaint of God himself, as annexed by the prophet to every verse, that recites their visitations. Jehovah spoke to them repeatedly, and awfully, by therod; but they would not hear it, nor did they regardHimwho had appointed it. Hemetthem in his judgments. All of them were hismessengers; each had avoice, that spake loudly for God and vehemently against sin; and all, in accents thundering through their land, solicited the dutiful attention of the inhabitants. But in vain. Though they were obliged to give those dreadful visitants the meeting, yet they would not give them an humble audience. They were too busy to hear; too proud to submit; too stubborn to obey. Well, since the embassadors are despised, the king will resent the affront:since they would not regard the harbingers, all theMajestyof God shall summon them to an interview. One meeting more is therefore determined upon; in which the holy and eternal God himself shall be one of the parties, and an incorrigible and rebellious people, the other.Prepare to meet thy God.
From the words thus stated, I propose, with a view to our personal improvement, considering,
I. That there will be a certain, an awful, a swiftly-approaching, and an inevitableinterviewbetween God and sinners.
II. What kind ofpreparationit is incumbent upon sinners to make in the prospect of that interview.
III. After which, I shall, in an applicatory way, consider,to whomthe warning is directed.
I. The interview;—1. at death; 2. in the day of judgment.
1.It is appointed unto all men once to die, agreeably to the original sentence delivered to our first parents,Dust thou art,and unto dust shall thou return.For,as by one man sin entered into the world,and death by sin;so death passed upon all men,for that all have sinned. Rom. v. 12.The wages of sin is death. Rom. vi. 23. That we might be impressed with a due sense of thecauseof that awful change which passeth uponman at his dissolution; the scriptures uniformly ascribe it to the first man’s disobedience, in which was involved the sin of his posterity, and death, as one portion of the entailed penalty. The scriptural account of the origin of death, as very precisely and satisfactorily traced in the 5th chapter of the epistle to the Romans, is, that Adam sinned; thatin him, as a public person, ἐφ’ ᾦ,allsinned; and that, because allsinned inhim as their representative, therefore all die through him, or are obnoxious to death, the very moment they are born, and areby nature the children of wrath. Ephes. ii. 3.
After the scriptures of truth have instructed us in the origin of sin, they then proceed to a description of that calamity of universal influence—death, with which are connected innumerable woes. This is done, with a view to impress man with a solemn truth, which every trifle tends to obliterate from his mind, viz.that he must die; to humble him under a sense of that guilt, from whence his mortality originated, and to solemnize and prepare him for an event as inevitable, as uncertain, in the time of its arrival.
Hence death is represented as a king of mighty power, extensive dominion, and universal sway; before whose unconquerable arm, even conquering kings themselves fall; and towhom, as to a superior potentate, they must resign those very trophies that marked their own conquests, together with all the glittering regalia of sceptres, diadems, and thrones, which lie as spoils at death’s footstool.—As a king ofterrors; whose train is composed of the terrific attendants of the pestilence, the famine, the sword, the earthquake; and all the numerous maladies which attack the body, or torture the mind; by which, as by a great army, death invades thismicrocosmman, and converts the globe into anaceldamaor field of blood, filled with promiscuous heaps of slain. As a monster, armed with asting, 1 Cor. xv. 56, sopointedas to strike through the liver of the stoutest transgressor; so impoisoned, as to communicate a venom, which mocks all the powers of medicine; and sodeadly, as, by its baneful influence, to blast health in its highest vigor, and youth in perfect prime; and to reduce the outward fabric of man to a state, humble as the dust, and vile as the crawling reptile.
This king of terrors, this deadly monster, all must meet. He is a messenger of the Almighty. He bears a warrant signed in the court of heaven. He has executed his commission already upon millions; and millions more shall fall before his invincible arm. Even now he is knocking at the door of thousands of our fellow-mortals,and God only knows, who next may be accosted by this awful visitant. In the midst of fancied security, and boasted health, this invisible foe may be this very moment whetting his scythe, and meditating a blow at the healthy and the strong; while the pampered miser, who says to his soul,Soul take thine ease,thou hast much goods laid up in store,eat,drink,and be merry, may be instantly the first to be surprised with the unexpected call,Thou fool,this night shall thy soul be required of thee.
If death call, we must hear. If he summon, we must obey. If he enter our doors, we must give him the meeting. Who can stay his hand? Who can reverse or even retard the execution of his summons? Is he to be bribed bywealth? Is he to be repelled byforce? Cantitlesorhonorsdemand his partiality? Will he compliment the dignified, or the opulent? Can entreaties move him? Or,
“Canflatt’rysooth the dull, cold ear of death?”
“Canflatt’rysooth the dull, cold ear of death?”
No. He is as impartial, as he is relentless and inexorable. He pays no respect to age, sex, rank, or fortune. He visits equally the palace and the cottage. The king and peasant are alike indiscriminate objects of his summons. Crowns and sceptres are no more in his estimation,weigh no more in death’s balance, than rags or pebbles. The prince and the subject, the wise and the foolish, the healthy and invalid, the beautiful and deformed,shall lie down alike in the grave,and the worms shall cover them. Job, xxi. 26.The small and the great are there; Job, iii. 19;in that land of darkness,as darkness itself,and of the shadow of death,without any order,where the light is as darkness. Job, x. 22.
Sin makes man meet death; and death brings him to a meeting with God. Those, who would not meet him, in his ordinances, byprayeror throughfaith, in a Mediator, shall beforcedto an interview with the holy and eternal Jehovah at his tribunal, togive an account for all the deeds done in the body. To those, whohave washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, Rev. vii. 14, this meeting will be the commencement of perfect, perpetual, and uninterrupted bliss: but to the unrighteous it will be, beyond description, horrible. Tothese, death comes as an executioner; lays his axe to the root of the trees; and gives the fatal blow. If rotten and fruitless, down they fall, and so they lie as fuel fit foreverlasting burnings. Isa. xxxiii. 14. Then the wicked launch into eternity; are consigned over to the bar of God; and receive their eternal doom. The instant life’s silken cord is broken, and thesoul dislodged from the body, the sinner is either transported on the wings of cherubs to Abraham’s bosom, or lifts up his eyes withthat rich man, in endless torments: if he meet God in his sins, unpardoned and unconverted; God meets him as aconsuming fire, Heb. xii. 29, clad in all his vengeance and terrors.
O sirs, it is this consideration, that strips death of all that unimportance, with which, from the frequency of its arrival, it is viewed, in general, by a thoughtless world.To die, sounds common, and appears trivial; but not so,to die and be damned,or to die and be saved. When we consider, that either eternal damnation, or eternal salvation, is the instant and inseparable consequence of death; how wicked, how diabolically absurd, are the jests of the infidel and the wit, when affecting to smile at that solemn event! However, with all the affected gaiety of the proud and the profane, when they come to lie on a death-bed, their mirth will forsake them, and all the boasted heroism of infidelity sink in a dreadful succession of horror and dismay. And no wonder; since
“’Tis notthe dying, but ’tisthisthey fear,To be—they know notwhat, they know notwhere!”
“’Tis notthe dying, but ’tisthisthey fear,To be—they know notwhat, they know notwhere!”
The prospect of meeting the Lord God Almighty, constitutes the bitterest drug in thecup of the wicked, and is the most tormenting thought, in the view of their dissolution, that racks them on the verge of eternity. How would they court death, and solicit his arrival; were it not, thatafter death is the judgment! How gladly would they meet and embrace the messenger, could they but be excused from meeting that God; the light of whose countenance makes heaven, but in whose frown, is hell! From a reluctance to do this, arise dismal apprehensions, dreadful impatience, torturing doubts, and a tormenting anxiety to live. All which conflict of raging and tumultuous passions, in a soul, at the article of dissolution, and upon the point of meeting God, is most beautifully described in the following striking imagery of the poet:
“In that dread moment, how the frantic soulRaves round the walls of her clay tenement!Runs to each avenue; and shrieks for help!But shrieks in vain! How wishfully she looksOn all she’s leaving, now no longer her’s!A little longer, yet a little longer,O might she stay, to wash away her crimes,And fit her for her passage! Mournful sight!Her very eyes weep blood; and every groanShe heaves, is big with horror! But the Foe,Like a staunch murd’rer, steady to his purpose,Pursues her close through ev’ry lane of life,Nor misses once the track; but presses on;Till forced at last to the tremendous verge,At once she sinks,”—sinks into the bottomless and gloomy gulf of everlasting darkness and death!
“In that dread moment, how the frantic soulRaves round the walls of her clay tenement!Runs to each avenue; and shrieks for help!But shrieks in vain! How wishfully she looksOn all she’s leaving, now no longer her’s!A little longer, yet a little longer,O might she stay, to wash away her crimes,And fit her for her passage! Mournful sight!Her very eyes weep blood; and every groanShe heaves, is big with horror! But the Foe,Like a staunch murd’rer, steady to his purpose,Pursues her close through ev’ry lane of life,Nor misses once the track; but presses on;Till forced at last to the tremendous verge,At once she sinks,”—sinks into the bottomless and gloomy gulf of everlasting darkness and death!
Awful plunge! Dreadful exit! What heart can conceive, or tongue describe, the state of an immortal soul, trembling on the brink of fate; arrested by death; the prisoner of guilt and fear; reluctant to depart, yet viewing dissolution inevitable; looking forward to eternity with painful dread, and backward, upon the world, with sorrow and regret; unwilling to go, yet unable to stay; soliciting a reprieve for a year, another month only, or even a week, but denied one moment’s delay; putting off in imagination or in wish, what is present to sense; quitting the world, and bidding an everlasting farewell to all its enjoyments, with nothing in prospect to compensate for the loss; at length, forced to launch, though sure of shipwreck; and nothing in view, but a black abyss, a forfeited heaven, and an angry God! This is the end that awaits the wicked. This is the fate of those who die without Christ! Oh that the consideration might awaken the fears of the careless, and prompt the people of God,to give diligence to make their calling and election sure! 2 Pet. i. 10. And yet this is not all. For,
2. We must meet God at the judgment-day; whenhe will judge the world in righteousness bythat man,whom he hath appointed.Our God shall come,and shall not keep silence:a fire shall devour before him,and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.He shall call to the heavens from above,and to the earth that he may judge the people. Psal. l. 3, 4.The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven,with his mighty angels in flaming fire,taking vengeance on them that know not God,and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thes. i. 7, 8.I beheld, says Daniel,till the thrones were cast down,and the Ancient of days did sit,whose garment was white as snow,and the hair of his head like the pure wool:his throne was like the fiery flame,and his wheels as burning fire.A fiery stream issued,and came forth from before him:thousand thousands ministered unto him,and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him:the judgment was set,and the books were opened. Dan. vii. 9, 10.
These are some of those sublime descriptions, which the inspired writers give us of that period, in which every circumstance that is grand, terrible, and august, shall conspire to render itthe great and terrible day of the Lord, Joel, ii. 31,the great day of his wrath, Rev. vi. 17, the general assize. If we contemplate the dignity of the Judge, the splendor and multitude of his retinue, the majesty of his throne, the process and issue of the judgment, together with all thecircumstances that shall precede, attend, and follow, his glorious appearing;—if we take into consideration either the goodness or the severity, the wrath or the mercy, the destruction or the redemption, the felicity or the woes, which shall be respectively dispensed in this important period, have we not reason to cry out,who shall be able to stand before this Holy Lord God?
Consider, what aJudgewe have to meet!—one of infinite dignity; for he is theKing of glory, Psal. xxiv. 7;the great God our Saviour, Tit. ii. 13;the mighty God the everlasting Father, Isa. ix. 6;King of kings and Lord of lords, Rev. xix. 16;the Lord of hosts himself, Isa. viii. 13, 14; compared with 1 Pet. ii. 8.The true God. 1 John, v. 20.—A Judge as much transcending in dignity all earthly judges, as the heavens surpass in glory the earth, or the sun in the firmament, the twinkling stars, which all disappear, when he riseth.—A Judge, at whose footstool the kings of the earth shall prostrate themselves in either cheerful or compelled adoration; and, before whose tribunal, judges themselves shall stand, and be judged. A Judge, whose eye is so keen, as with one glance to survey the universe; to pervade the thickest darkness; to penetrate the depths of hell; and to search the heart; whose arm is irresistible; and whose power neither men nordevils can control. He shall be seated on agreat white throne;whitein unspotted, unbribed, uncorrupted administration of justice, from whence nothing can issue but purity, equity, wisdom, and truth; andgreat, as being reared on the ruins of all earthly thrones, and as forming the magnificent seat of him, who isthe Most High God,possessorand arbiterof heaven and earth. Gen. xiv. 19.Thy throne,O God!is for ever and ever. Heb. i. 8.
Whatattendantsshall grace his advent! Countless myriads, a multitude, which no man can number, of saints and angels bearing theharps of God, and decorated with crowns of gold; all ambitious to be of his train; all vying with sacred emulation, who shall tune their harps to the sweetest notes, and exert their voices in loudest harmony, to the praise of Emmanuel; and all joining, without a single discordant string, in one grand and unanimous hallelujah,To him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood,and hath made us kings and priests unto God,to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen. Rev. i. 5, 6.Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,to receive power,and riches,and wisdom,and strength,and honor,and glory,and blessing. Rev. v. xii.
Whatsignsshall announce his arrival! On earth distress of nations, with perplexity; men’shearts failing them for fear—wars and rumours of wars—earthquakes in divers countries—pestilence and famine—all nature thrown into universal convulsions, dreadful pangs that presage her approaching dissolution—the earth shaken to its centre, and sea horribly agitated—the heavens wrapped together like a parchment scroll, and passing away with a great noise—the elements melting with fervent heat; while the heavens and the earth are in one general flame—the sun turned into darkness, being utterly eclipsed by the overpowering lustre of the Sun of Righteousness; and the moon into blood—the stars falling, as when the untimely fruit of a fig-tree are thrown down by the wind—the tremendous blast of the trump of God, so loud as to pierce the caverns of the earth and the depths of the sea, to sound an alarm in the abyss of hell, and carry an awakening summons through the regions of the dead—the grave andhadesresigning their respective charge—gaping tombs, and parting seas giving up their dead—bodies that slept for thousands of years in a bed of dust, roused at the Archangel’s voice, to sleep no more; and re-united to immortal souls, their ancient mates, all thronging to the tribunal ofGod.
See theJudgehimself enthroned! a mixture of majesty and mercy, of vengeance and love,seated on his brow;—the clouds his chariot, and the heavens his canopy; while rocks and mountains flee before his face!
“His lightnings flash, his thunders roll,How welcome to the faithful soul!”
“His lightnings flash, his thunders roll,How welcome to the faithful soul!”
Millions attend his bar. Men, angels, devils, all receive the summons, to await his decisive sentence. Adam and his numerous posterity, Lucifer and his apostate train, and all the angels who kept not their first estate, compose the awful levee. The righteous fly swifter than the wind or the rapid lightning, to meet their Lord in the air; devils and the wicked, like criminals in chains dragged from their cells, are compelled, though reluctant, to appear at his tribunal.Small and great stand before God;the books are opened; Rev. xx. 12; the judgment begins; the grand transaction that is to decide the fate of the world goes on, till at last sentence is passed,Come ye blessed, orDepart ye cursed; and then, upon the one hand, are heard doleful cries, tumultuous lamentations, bitter weepings, that bespeak guilt and despair; but upon the other, the triumphant songs of elect angels and redeemed sinners, rending the heavens with applausive shouts and acclamations in honor of the Judge; and with a voice, louder than the noise of many waters, and more harmonious,than that which celebrated the creation of all things, shoutingSalvationto ourGodwho sitteth upon the throne,and unto the LAMB!
And must wemeetthis glorious, this tremendous Judge of heaven and earth? We must.Every eye shall see him; every knee shall bow to him; every ear shall be witness to his decisive sentence; and every tongue confess, either with cheerful and voluntary acknowledgment, or with forced and irresistible conviction, that he is God. The people of his grace shall see him, and kindle into rapture at the sight; shall meet him, and find their heaven of heavens in the interview.Theyshall meet him, to grace his triumphs, and adorn his mediatorial crown, as jewels, of an immense purchase, of infinite value, of unfading lustre. The day of Messiah’s second appearing will be his grand coronation day; whereon, in the presence of admiring and applauding millions, thecrown of salvation, that crown of crowns, shall be unanimously, publicly, and solemnly placed on the head of KingJesus; and every voice shall shout,Worthy is the Lamb. Oh! that each ofusmay bear some humble part in that immortal song! some humble office in that great solemnity!
Butwho, among the wicked,may abide the day of his coming;and who shall stand,when heappeareth? Mal. iii. 2.For behold the day cometh,that shall burn as an oven; and all thePROUD, yea, andall thatDO WICKEDLY,shall be stubble,and the day that cometh shall burn them up,saith the lord of Hosts,that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. Mal. iv. 1. O what a meeting will take place between the Judge, and those, who once refused to acknowledge him as their Saviour and their King! Hewill meet them as a bear bereaved of her whelps,and devour them as a lion; Hos. xiii. 8; and they shall meet him, as the briers and thorns, the flame that consumeth them.It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living GOD. In the character of theLion of the tribe of Judah, his advent will be tremendous: but it isthe wrath of theLamb, of the once-wounded, rejected, persecuted, blasphemed, and injuredLamb, that will be most insufferably dreadful; and it is fromthat, they will earnestly solicitmountains and rocks to hide them, as a shelter from his indignation. Rev. vi. 16. But, rocks and mountains will be no veil from his all-seeing eye; no covert from his Almighty arm; no obstruction to the shafts of his vengeance. He will find them out though they make their bed in hell; will pursue and overtake them, though they take the wings of the morning, and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth or sea; andbring them down, though they make their nest in the stars. And who can conceive how fearful that meeting must be, when the parties are, rebellious mortals and a holy God;—potsherds of the earth, and the Creator of all worlds! worms, and Omnipotence!
Since, then, there will be a certain and swiftly approaching interview between God and sinners, at the solemn hour of death; and a more awful and decisive one, at the general assize: O how deeply incumbent it is upon all, to prepare for both! But, are you ready? Should death call, or God-Messiah descend to judgment; would you be found in circumstances of security and preparation? Ask yourhearts. Are there no guilty misgivings there? Ask yourlives. Are they such as correspond with the temper of persons, looking out for, and hastening unto, the coming of the day of God? Askconscience. Sprinkled from the evil of guilt by the blood of Christ, does it witness to your salvation? or loaded with sin, and fraught with pollution, does it proclaim you the subject of misery, and the heir of hell, and bear a loud testimony to your condemnation? Ask theword of God. Will your hearts and lives bear to be tried by that touchstone of truth? If you profess Christianity; are youBibleChristians? If you think you are soundin the truth; will you bear to be probed? If you shrink from this examination; is there not cause to fear, that there is some latent sore you wish to conceal? some morbid part, you are unwilling to be touched even with a gentle hand, though it is festering deep, and spreading wide, and threatens death everlasting? You maythinkyouare prepared, when youare not. The thought, in such a case, arises from a spiritual mortification, that deadens the conscience, and deprives it of feeling. And a supposition of safety, where there is no scriptural ground to warrant it, is only the reverie of a sick man, or the chimera of one that dreameth. That you may not be deceived, or flattered, in a point of such vast moment; let us now consider,
2. What kind ofpreparationit is incumbent upon sinners to make, in the prospect of an interview with God at death, and in the day of judgment.
I. Agraciouspreparation; or, a preparation through the inherent efficacy, and transforming influence ofdivine grace. The nature of man is so depraved, and all the faculties of the soul are so alienated from the life of God, that a divine and supernatural power is absolutely requisite to the restoration of that image, which sin effaced; to the recovery of that happiness,which man, as a transgressor, has forfeited; to the implantation of those fruits of righteousness, which were eradicated by the fall; and to the possession ofthatdivine and gracious “thing,whichBY NATUREmanCANNOT HAVE.”[353]For, “the condition of man, after the fall ofAdam, is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by hisown natural strengthand good works, to faith, and calling upon God: wherefore we haveno powerto do good works pleasant andacceptableto God, without theGRACEof God by Christpreventingus,that we may havea good will, andworking withus,whenwe have that good will.” Thus speaks Article X. “Of free will.” And the XIIIth is equally strong and express. “Works donebeforethe grace of Christ, and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith.”
It may be urged, that “these are the words of fallible men.” A poor evasive plea this. For though thewordsbe the composition of fallible men, yet the sentiments are the truths of the infallible God: for the scriptures declare thatthe preparation of the heart in man isof the Lord; Prov. xvi. 1. See also I Chron. xxix. 18;that wemust be born again, John, iii. 7; that beingdead in trespasses and sins, we must bequickened by God, Ephes. ii. 1; thatno man can come unto Christ,except the FatherDRAWhim, John, vi. 44; that,if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his, Rom. viii. 9;that it is God who worketh in us,to will and to do of his good pleasure, Phil. xxii. 13; and that,without(or χωρις severed from)Christ we can do nothing, but sin, and err. John, xv. 5. The nature of man, since the fall, isdepraved: nothing but grace can rectify and renew it. It isdisordered: grace alone provides a remedy. It ispolluted: its innate defilement is cleansed by grace. It isunholy:the grace of God,which bringethpresentsalvation,teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Titus, iii. 12. It isdebasedby sin: nothing can ennoble or exalt it, but all-sufficient grace. It isweakandimpotent: grace alone can strengthen and fortify it against temptation. It isrebellious: grace controls and captivates its most stubborn opposition, and makes its powers passive, and flexible. Human nature isbarren: and nothing but all-conquering grace can subdue its sterility. It is grace thatbreaks up the fallow ground; softens the soil; sows the seed; cherishes it, when sown; makes it spring; brings it to maturity; blesses it with sunshines and showers; defends it from nipping frostsand scorching heat; and crowns the once-barren and stubborn soil with a rich harvest of fruit. It is grace that makes that wonderful change, so beautifully described in Isa. xxxv. 1–9.The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them:and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose:it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing.—For in the wilderness shall waters break out,and streams in the desert.And the parched ground shall become a pool,and the thirsty land,springs of water: in thehabitation of dragons(fierce, untamed, impoisoning lusts, that make a carnal mind to resemble the haunt of venomous beasts)where each lay,shall be grass with reeds and rushes.And an highway shall be there,and a way,and it shall be called the way of Holiness.
Such is that gracious work which renews the soul, and makes it meet for a meeting with God; which makes allold things pass away and every thing become new; 2 Cor. v. 7; and without which, man is indisposed to the ways of righteousness, and unfit to perform any thing acceptable to God. O that you may be enabled to determine whether or not this work has been wrought in you! Trust not to poor, naked morality; that meagre, superficial thing, which unsanctified immoral Pharisees make their all. Morality only skins over the wound; but graceeffects a radical cure. Morality strikes at outward branches; but grace alone can lay the axe to the root of corruption. Morality may give a specious white-washing to a sepulchre, or a gilded varnish to a statue; but grace alone can cleanse from inward foulness, turn rottenness and death into life and purity, and convert dead men’s bones into living members of Christ. Morality confines its attention only to the cleansing of thestreams: but grace, likeElisha’swonder-workingcruse of salt, goes up to thesprings of water, and pours its primary, its salutary, influencethere. 2 Kings, ii. 20, 21. Morality gives theappearanceonly of that, of which grace makes the reality. Morality assumes the name of religion; but grace forms its nature. Morality may make an useful member of society, but grace alone can make a faithful member of Christ. Human power can accomplish a doctrinal speculatist, or constitute a pharisaical formalist; but God that made the world, must make aChristian.
2. The preparation requisite, is such, as demands the solemn and unreserved dedication of the heart and life to the service and honor of God; or such a devotion of all we have and are, to his glory, as bespeaks the purity of the principles by which we are to be governed; the power and sincerity of the motives, by whichwe are to be actuated; and the great importance of theendwe are to have in view.
God has an indisputable right to all we possess; because all we have is the effect of his power, and the result of his unmerited bounty. Theheartis more especially his claim; because he first made it himself, and, when fallen, redeemed it with the blood of his Son.My Son give me thy heart, Prov. xxiii. 26, is therefore his most reasonable and gracious demand. To give it to any thing else, save to its original Proprietor and Redeemer, is black ingratitude, is palpable idolatry: and to pretend devotion, when the heart is withheld, is hypocrisy and dissimulation. Give God any thing, and keep back the heart, and you virtually give him nothing, or present him with an abomination.He is a Spirit,and they who worship him,must worship him in spirit and in truth. John, iv. 24. The most tedious round of duties, the most punctual and ceremonious attendance upon forms, are but so many elaborate modes of affronting Jehovah, ifthe heart be not right with God; and so many delusive methods to conceal a latent malady, which is open to the eye of omniscience, as the foulest insincerity, and the rankest pride. They who honor the Lord with lip-service, or draw nigh to him inmere formality, are they whotrust in lying wordsand espouse a delusion; especially when crying out,The temple of the Lord,the temple of the Lord,are these. Jer. vii. 4.
But how few consider this with becoming seriousness and attention! Hurried on in the circle of dissipation, and driven impetuously forward by the torrent of popular example, multitudes possess neither leisure nor inclination, to examine the grounds of their profession, or to compare their hearts and lives with the word of God. As if religion had nothing to do with theheart, they only profess with their lips, what, alas! is strongly reprobated by the current of their affections and the tenor of their lives. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, are their favorite idols: and to sacrifice to these, not to the Lord of Hosts, is the wish, the desire, the ultimate resolution of their hearts. To such, an inspired Apostle says,Ye adulterers and adulteresses,know ye not,that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. James, iv. 4. They attend public worship; but while they are visible in their pews to the eye of man, their real selves, their hearts, appear to omniscience to be pursuing their vanities, and wandering immeasurably far from God, when theyshould be approaching him in the most solemn and intimate communion: so that in the very act of pretending to worship him, they mock him most. Their “week’s preparation” is hurried over with the rapidity of a school-boy repeating his task; only with not so much attention, nor with equal fear; and, while they feel religion to be perfect bondage, and go through it as a drudgery, they nevertheless depend upon their lame performances for acceptance, and so make their very sin and abomination their Saviour.
And is this the preparation the scriptures require? Is this giving the heart to God? Are such persons consistent worshippers of that God, who is aSpirit? Can these be said to be preparing to meet the Lord? Are they at all ready to go forth at the coming of the bridegroom? No. A spiritual infirmity, deeper than that lameness, which preventedMephiboshethfrom going out to meet King David, incapacitates, and indisposes them totally for the advent of the King of kings. Their preparation, like the ceremony of a funeral, is nothing but the pageantry ofthe dead; and the decorations of a breathless corpse carried in pompous procession to be food for worms in the grave, exhibit too striking a representation of that unanimatedand lifeless formality, which, with all its gaudy trappings, is but thecorpseof religion, and leads to the chambers of everlasting death.
3. An habitualwatchfulnessof spirit, that implies diligence, solicitude, fidelity, prayer, holiness, is absolutely required of those, who would wish to meet God with joy. This watchfulness, in scripture, is contrasted to sloth, inaction, unfaithfulness, inordinate care, worldly-mindedness, and carnal security. It is compared to that circumspection and fidelity which should mark the conduct of a servant, entrusted with the care of a household, and obliged by the nature of his office, as well as the injunctions of his master, to manage every thing in his absence with wisdom, and to prepare for his return; and to that wakeful diligence, by which a house is guarded against the depredations of nightly robbers.Let your loins be girded about,and your lights burning,and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord,when he will return from the wedding.Blessed are those servants,whom the Lord,when he cometh,shall find watching.And this know,that if the good man of the house had known what hour the thief would come,he would have watched,and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Luke, xii. 35–39. The contrary temper of unwatchfulness is describedin the character of an unfaithful, quarrelsome, disobedient, and drunken servant, who takes occasion to riot and revel, from the delay of his master’s returning home.But,and if that servant say in his heart,my Lord delayeth his coming,and shall begin to beat the men-servants and maidens,and to eat and drink,and to be drunken,the Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him,and at an hour when he is not aware,and will cut him in sunder,and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. Luke, xii. 45, 46. And in all those instances, the principal argument to urge the necessity of watching, is founded on the uncertainty of the time of our Lord’s arrival.Be ye therefore ready,for the Son of man cometh at an hour,when ye think not. Luke, xii. 40.The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. 2 Pet. iii. 10.
The watchfulness, therefore, recommended by our Lord, and implied in the text, comprehends an habitual spirit of prayer; hence the exhortation,Watch and pray—habitual sobriety;Watch and be sober; Thes. v. 6;—holiness in conversation;Set a watch before my mouth; Psal. cxli. 3;—a patient, yet ardent expectation of the Lord’s arrival; and a cautious avoidance of every care, of every pleasure, andof every entanglement, which might ensnare the heart, captivate the senses, and immerse the affections in sloth and self-indulgence. All which is enjoined in that concise but most solemn and comprehensive exhortation of the Son of God,What I say unto you,I say unto all.Watch! Mark, xiii. 37.
ON THE DEATH OF MR. I. A.
“He shall enter into peace.”Isaiah, lvii. 2.
“He shall enter into peace.”Isaiah, lvii. 2.
Thegreat and irreversible decree of Heaven, respecting the whole human race, is, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” This sentence, originally pronounced upon the transgression of the first man, evidently included also his whole posterity to the end of time. It has already received its solemn execution upon the generations that are past: we see with our eyes, its effects in the multitudes, that are daily passing from time to eternity: nor shall its influence cease, until the wide-extended dominion of death be destroyed, and mortality swallowed up of life.
The divine appointment, through which the grave becomes the common receptacle of allmen, is not more awful, than it isjust: for, “thewagesof sin isdeath.” Mandeservesto die, because he hathsinned. Hence, there ariseth a necessary and inevitable connexion between our origin and our end. So that, if we wish to trace the innumerable calamities attendant upon death, to their source; we shall soon find, that they all originate fromSIN. “As by one manSINentered into the world, anddeathby sin, and so death passed uponallmen, for that all havesinned.” Rom. v. 12. It is sin that hath brought universal disorder into the natural and spiritual world. It hath sown the seeds of mortality in the human frame; hath filled the heart with alienation from God; and rendered body and soul obnoxious to the sentence of everlasting separation from the kingdom of heaven. Sin hath given death his sting; and furnished that king of terrors with his formidable message and tremendous appearance. It hath opened the horrors of the tomb, and expanded wide the mouth of hell. It hath armed the law with a curse, more to be dreaded than death; hath given the sword of justice its sharpest edge; and hath awakened the indignation of that God, who is as a consuming fire. It is the great bar of separation between the creature and the Creator; and is that moral evil, which, when finished, brings forth death,temporal and eternal. It brought a flood of waters upon the old world; was the cause of Sodom’s destruction; and will, at last, bring a deluge of fire upon the world that now is.
In a review of those innumerable evils, of which, even death is not the greatest, it will be incumbent upon us, therefore, to keep our eye fixed on the origin of them all,SIN. Hereby we shall be able to vindicate the righteous procedure of God, even when we behold him sending death to pull down the beautiful fabric, which his own hands had made; and opening the grave, as the sad and silent repository of his own curious workmanship. When we reflect, that it issin, that hath produced this melancholy change, and that this evil is found upon us; the reflection will help to restrain the extravagance of grief, and to suppress that predominancy of discontented repining, which often makes sinners fly in the face of God, and charge him foolishly. For, if death be not duly considered and acknowledged as the desert and wages of sin, I can easily conceive that, for want of such humble consideration, sinners may be led to arraign the dispensations of the Most High; to charge unerring wisdom with foolishness; infinite justice with unrighteousness; and mercy itself with cruelty. But, when once sin is viewed, in itsdamning nature, itsdreadfuleffects, andjust deserts; the discovery will produce submission to the divine will, under the most severe dispensations. It will make us “put our mouths in the dust,” in silent acquiescence in the wise and sovereign disposals of Heaven. Or, if we open them, it will only be to confess, that “the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” By attentively considering the nature of sin and the manner of its introduction, in order to account for the origin of all the evils that prevail in the natural and spiritual world, and to vindicate eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God with men; we shall hereby also possess the consequent advantage of beholding, in its most glorious point of view, the inestimableREMEDYfor sin, by the death and resurrection of theLord Jesus Christ. And, if the former considerations may be deemed sufficient to work in the heart patient submission, and unrepining acquiescence in the dispensations of Jehovah;thiswill inspire it with a hope blooming, and full of immortality. If reflections on the demerit of sin can stop the mouth in silence in the dust;thiswill open it in bursts of praise, and glowing effusions of gratitude and admiration.Sinis redemption’s advantageousfoil. And as the variegated colors of the rainbow shine with greatest beauty on the blackest cloud:so, the malignity of sin, and the gloom of death, tend proportionably to set off the glory of the Saviour, and to give additional lustre to that bright manifestation of life and immortality, which are brought to light by the gospel.
This chain of thought, if pursued, will necessarily lead us, not only to behold the riches of divine grace and the out beaming of all the divine attributes, rendered eventually more glorious even by the intrusion of the most horrid evil; but also to consider death itself as the portal to eternal life. This consideration will immediately fix the heart in delightful meditation on the great work ofHIM, who came “to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and through death to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil.” Heb. ii. 14. And here such a bright scene will present itself to the eye of contemplative faith, as shall dispel the horrors of the tomb; gild with joy and triumph the shadow of death; and enable us to derive wisdom and consolation, even from the solemn apparatus of a funeral. Here we shall be led to meditate on the great and glorious end of the Redeemer’s incarnation, and the wonderful effects of his mediatorial undertaking. We shall behold him triumphing over sin in his cross, and leading captivity captive by his glorious resurrection. Bereaving death of itssting, and embalming the regions of the dead by his own burial;—shutting the mouth of Tophet, and opening to his people the gates of everlasting bliss; and still going forth conquering and to conquer, till sin, Satan, the world, and death, are made his footstool.
These contemplations will suggest the grand preservative against immoderate grief; and administer that healing balm for woe, which the heavy calamities of this mortal life require; and without which, the pressure of them would be insupportable. Whoever is acquainted with the great doctrines of the gospel, and the saving influence of them upon the heart, is the only person duly prepared for the arrival of those alarming incidents, which often give such a vehement shock to the feelings of human nature. And, as no event whatever more sensibly touches the heart, than that which bereaves us of our earthly friends; consequently nothing can bear up the mind under such losses, but that which administers a ground of consolation, adequate to the cause of our sorrow. This, divine revelation can do. It assures us, that “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:” that, though “one event happeneth to the righteous and the wicked,” yet that the souls of the former are “taken away from the evils” of time, and made possessors of the glories of eternity: that,therefore, “we should not sorrow” immoderately, as others which have no hope, but, “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” 1 Thes. iv. 14.
Truths these, which brighten the prospect of even a dread eternity, and strip death of every thing really terrifying. Under a firm persuasion of their credibility, we may give up our friends, without any reluctance, into the icy arms of death: and when depositing their precious remains in the cold and gloomy recess of the tomb, may rejoice in lively hope of that happy resurrection-morn, when the sound of the last trumpet shall awaken them from their slumber in the dust, and call them from their long confinement into life and glorious immortality. So that, while a disconsolate parent is bedewing the corpse of a beloved child with his tears, or one friend is bemoaning the loss of another, crying, “Ah, my brother!” it is sufficient at any time to repress the impetuous current of grief, and admit the soothing remonstrances ofhopeandresignation, to reflect, that deceased friends are not lost, but gone before; and, that if they have died in the Lord, our loss is their everlasting gain. But here let us
I. Examine the character of those, who shall be thus favored: and
II. Consider the nature and extent of their happiness implied in the termsentering into peace.—After I have gone through these two heads, I shall, then,
III. Endeavour to suggest some serious reflections, particularly adapted to the consideration of young persons, and not unworthy the solemn attention of the aged.
I. We are to examine the character of those who shall be so favored, as, after death, to be translated to glory.
They are described, in the very first verse of the chapter, from whence I have selected the text, under the general character of “the righteous.” A denomination this, which comprehends their manner of acceptance before God, and the nature of their walk before men. But, as mistakes respecting these two points are not more frequent, than they are fatal, permit me to state this part of the subject, under the following scriptural observations.
1. We can only determine what is righteous or unrighteous by the test of God’s holy law. Every thing that is repugnant to this perfect rule, is unrighteousness; and that which is commensurate with its sacred requisitions, is righteousness. In the former branch of the definition, there is implied everykindand everydegreeof contrariety to the law: as the lattercomprehends universality and perfection of obedience. From hence it must, at first view, appear, that although there is, allowedly, a deepermalignityin some sins than in others, yet thateverytransgression of the law is sin, and merits death: and that, therefore, nomediumcan be found between righteousness and unrighteousness: for the scripture asserts, that “allunrighteousness is sin:” so that, before the popish distinction between sinsvenialand sinsmortalcan be admitted, it must first be demonstrated that there is a middle something between righteousness and unrighteousness, which neither keeps the law nor breaks it; that there are some sins, which in their nature are not damning; and are pardonable,merelybecause they arelittlein point of aggravation. But, that absurdities of this nature are as contrary to sound divinity, as they are repugnant to right reason, it is evident, because, “thewagesofsin,” of every sin, “is death;” and the holy law of God, without leaving vain man to judge for himself in a matter of so great importance, stamps acurseupon every failure in obedience, whether great or small; saying, “Cursedis every one that continueth not inALLthings written in the book of the law to do them.”
2. As every transgression of the law is sin, consequently, that can only be denominatedrighteousness, which implies a full conformity to all its precepts. Under this term, therefore, are comprehendedpurity of principle,perfection,universality,and spiritualityof obedience. 1. That any single act of an external nature can possess no claim to righteousness, unless theprinciplebe intrinsically good, is evident; because, St. Paul supposes it possible to “give one’s goods to feed the poor,” and to suffer martyrdom, and yet to do both from a false principle. The nature of fruits is determinable, not by theirappearance, but by the state of the tree: and fruits of righteousness can only grow upon a righteous stock. As theheartis the seat of principle,thatmust consequently possess “truth in the inward parts,” in order to communicate purity to its desires, purposes, and aims. If the streams are pure, they must issue from a pure fountain. So that there must be spotless purity of heart to give existence to a righteous act. 2. There is included in the termrighteousness, not only immaculate purity in principle, but likewise perfection anduniversalityin the act. As every branch of the law is equally holy, just, and good; therefore every precept of it hath an equal demand of obedience, “For, he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressorof the law.” James, ii. 11. Man is not left to pick and choose, according to his own option, which of the commandments he may think proper to keep, but is required, on pain of death, to observe thewholelaw: for, if anyoneprecept could be dispensed with, so of course might all. But “whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend inONEpoint, he is guilty ofALL.” James, ii. 10. 3. The righteousness which the law demands, must not only respect theletter, but also thespiritof it; for “the law isspiritual.” Rom. vii. 14. By the spirituality of the law, thethoughtsof theheartcome as much under its strict cognizance, as the outward actions of thelife. Thus the same precept, which prohibits the act of adultery, equally condemns thelustful thoughtandlascivious glance, as violations of the seventh commandment. “Whosoeverlookethon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Mat. v. 28. And the same prohibition which, in its letter, condemns the worshipping of images; gives, by its spirituality, the name ofidolatryto the inordinate love of any thing that robs God of his right. Thuscovetousnessin the heart, or the inordinate love of pleasure, will as effectually constituteidolatry, in the eye of the law, as the most formal prostration to graven images. So that therighteousness, whichthe law requires, includes a conformity to its sanctions, as fully, in thespirit, as in theletterof them; and as much to thewhole, as to asingle precept.
3. From the foregoing considerations, it is plain, that as righteousness consists in a fulfilment of the whole law, according to the perfection, purity, and deep spirituality of its commands; consequently he alone can be denominated arighteousman, whose conduct is a literal transcript of the above definition of righteousness. Or, in other words, he is righteouslegally, whose thoughts, words and actions, can bear the rigorous examination of God’s law; whose heart is perfectly free from every wrong principle, and every corrupt inclination; whose life exemplifies the whole obedience of the law in its fullest extent; and who can therefore challenge either the law or the law-giver to findany sinin him. And, there is one ingredient more indispensably requisite in the character of a man righteous, according to thelaw; which is,incessancyof obedience. In order to be justified by it, man must not only obey, butperseverein obeying. Perfect obedience will not be sufficient unless it be continued, and that to the end of life. The righteousness of the law saith, “The man that doeth those things shall live by them.” Rom. x. 5. And its penal sanctioncrieth, “Cursed is every one thatcontinuethnot in all things,” &c.
4. And now, where is such a righteous character to be found? The heart and life of Adam, indeed, previous to his fall, literally exemplified it in its greatest perfection. But since that melancholy event, there is an end of all human righteousness. For “the scripture concluding all under sin,” declareth that “there is nonerighteous,no not one.” Rom. iii. 10. A declaration, which equally affects Gentiles as well as Jews, and places the fallen children of Adam upon an equal footing, in point of justifying righteousness. “Every mouth must now be stopped, andALL THE WORLDbecomeGUILTYbefore God.” Rom. iii. 19. Man cannot justifyhimself: for an attempt to do so would only “prove him perverse,” and be an additional manifestation of his unrighteousness. Thelawcannot justify him, because “it is weak through theflesh,” or the inherent corruption of human nature. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.” Rom. iii. 20. For, “if righteousness come by the law”—if a sinner could be justified by his obedience to it—“then Christ is dead in vain.” Gal. ii. 21. This inability to justify, is not the effect of any absolute weakness in the law itself, but is eventually occasioned through the dreadful degeneracy ofhuman nature, styled in scripture, “the flesh.” The law still retains as intrinsic a power in itself to constitute righteous, as it ever did; and if any man could be found capable of fulfilling its condition of perfect obedience, it would not only justify him, but also entitle him to glory, independent of the Son of God: for its condition and promise are connected, when it says on this wise, “Dothis, andlive.” But man’s original guilt and practical disobedience, incurring a double forfeiture of the promised reward, the law possesseth an eventual incapacity ofmaking righteous: and this is, what the apostle says, “the law could not do,” Rom. viii. 3, or το αδυνατον του νομου is, theimpossibility of the law. So that, whoever seeks justification by it, seeks animpossibility; and by having recourse to its obligation of perfect obedience, and failing notwithstanding in a fulfilment of that obligation, he lays himself open to the full force of its condemning sentence, its penal sanctions, and tremendous curse. “As many as are of the works of the law, are under theCURSE.” Gal. iii., 10.
5. But, since, according to numerous testimonies of scripture; agreeably to the purity, spirituality, and indispensable requirements of the law; and consistently with the universal depravity of human nature; man cannot, withoutthe highest arrogance, and even blasphemy, lay any claim to personal merit: how then is he to becomerighteous? This is an inquiry of infinite importance; since it is declared, that “theunrighteousshall not inherit the kingdom of God;” and since, without an exemption from guilt and an interest in a positive righteousness, man can have no scriptural ground to hope for a deliverance from death or a title to life; to expect the favor of God here, or to claim his kingdom hereafter. In illustrating this point, it will be necessary to consider, how a man’s person may be righteous towards God, and how his works may so justify his religious profession before the world, as to vindicate his character from the imputation of hypocrisy, and demonstrate the genuineness of his faith.
6. As to the manner, in which a sinner is to be made righteous before God; since it has already been demonstrated, by irrefragable proof from the scriptures of truth, as well as by arguments deduced from the corruption of human nature, and the sanctions and sentence of the law, that all obedience of the sinner is insufficient towards his justification before the majesty of heaven; nothing farther in a negative way need be added, to corroborate, what is, indeed, in itself, so evident, and incontrovertible. It may, however, be necessary to quote a few scriptures,in which two of the most illustrious saints, in language of the deepest self-renunciation, disclaim any the least pretensions to justification before the most High and Holy God, howsoever they might esteem their conduct justifiable before fallible creatures, like themselves. “Behold I am vile!” says he, who was a mirror of patience, “what shall I answer thee?” Job, xl. 4. “How can man beJUSTIFIED WITH GOD?” says the same person, “or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold even to the moon and it shineth not: yea the stars are not pure in his sight; how much less man that is a worm!” Job, xxv. 4, 5. Hear how the man after God’s own heart trembleth at the thought of Jehovah’s entering into judgment with him, or any other creature. “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities; O Lord, who shall stand?” Psal. cxxx. 3. “Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for, inTHYsight shall no man living be justified.” Psal. cxliii. 2.—Passages these, which are but few out of the multitudes that might be produced, to demonstrate the impossibility of being justified in ourselves before a heart-searching God, as well as the dreadful peril of abiding the sentence and scrutiny of his righteous law.
7. But how, then, can man stand before this holy Lord God, and be constituted righteous inhis sight? This question cannot better be answered than in the words of the XIth article of the Church of England. “We are accounted righteous before Godonlyfor the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, andnotfor ourownworks or deservings.” I quote this excellent article of our church, not with any design of establishing its authority as infallible and decisive, but merely because it affords a plain and scriptural definition of the point in question, as well as exhibits a striking proof, that our sentiments, on the mode of a sinner’s justification before God, are supported by the venerable sanction of the Church of England: and I believe it will satisfactorily appear, that it is not without scriptural ground, that she requires of all her ministers, an unequivocal and solemn subscription to this, as well as every other article in thethirty-nine.
8. According to our church, therefore, and the word of God, with which, on this head, she perfectly accords, our justifying righteousness is the meritorious work of Christ; which consisteth in a perfect obedience to the law, and a full satisfaction to divine justice; the one including what hedid, the other what hesuffered; and both, in inseparable connexion, constituting that glorious and “everlasting righteousness,” which the Mediator hath brought in, by his entireobedience to the death of the cross. This is called by our church, “themerit” of Christ, because when the dignity of his person is taken into consideration, it appears that an infinite sufficiency is thereby communicated to his obedience, and every part thereof; and that he possesseth an inherent power of meriting for others, or ofconstitutingothers righteous, as well as being righteous himself. This he can only do, as being “God over all, blessed for evermore.” For, if he had been a mere creature, though his righteousness might be sufficient to justify himself, yet it could never have transferred a power of justifying others: because, it is repugnant both to reason and scripture, thatany createdbeing, even the first-born seraph round the throne of God, should not only merit for himself, but also possess a redundancy of merits transferable to others. But that the Redeemer is possessed of such a power, is evident from the words of the apostle, “By the obedience of one shall manybe made righteous.” Rom. v. 19. This argument proves, therefore, that Christ isvery God, as well as very man: that there is a translation of merit infinitely sufficient in a sinner’s justification: and that the active and passive obedience of the Mediator, is, through the infinite dignity of his person, adivinerighteousness. Hence it is written, “This is his namewhereby he shall be called,Jehovah our righteousness.” Jer. xxiii. 6. And again, “We are madethe righteousness of Godin him.” 1 Cor. v. 21.