The Sine of Unbelief

“Unbelief is a sin of so deep a dye that the devils in hell cannot commit the like. Our Saviour never prayed, wept, bled, and died for devils He never said to them, ’Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life.’ They can never be so madly ungrateful as to slight a Saviour Mercy never wooed their stubborn, proud hearts as it does ours They have abused grace, it is true, but they never trampled mercy underfoot. This more than diabolical sin is reserved for thee, careless sinner Now thou hearest Christ compassionately say in the text, ‘Ye will not come unto Me,’ and thou remainest unmoved; but the time cometh when Jesus, who meekly entreats, shall sternly curse; when He who in tender patience says, ‘Ye will not come unto Me,’ shall thunder in righteous vengeance, ’Depart from Me, ye cursed; depart unto the second death—­the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ In vain wilt thou plead then as thou dost now, ’Lord, I am no adulterer; I am no extortioner; I used to eat at Thy table; I was baptised in Thy name; I was a true churchman; there are many worse than I am.’ This will not admit thee into the Kingdom of Christ His answer will be, ‘I know you not; you never came to Me for life.’”

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Reading not Preaching.

“Reading approved sermons is generally supposed to be preaching the Gospel. If this were really so, we need but look out some school-boy of tolerable capacity; and, after instructing him to read, with proper emphasis and gesture, the sermons of Tillotson, Sherlock, or Saurin, we shall have made him an excellent minister of the Word of God. But, if preaching the Gospel is to publish among sinners that repentance and salvation, which we have experienced in ourselves, it is evident that experience and sympathy are more necessary to the due performance of this work than all the accuracy and elocution that can possibly be acquired.

“When this sacred experience and this generous sympathy began to lose their prevalence in the Church, their place was gradually supplied by the trifling substitutes of study and affectation. Carnal prudence has now for many ages solicitously endeavoured to adapt itself to the taste of the wise and the learned But, while ’the offence of the cross’ is avoided, neither the wise nor the ignorant are effectually converted.

“In consequence of the same error, the ornaments of theatrical eloquence have been sought after, with a shameful solicitude. And what has been the fruit of so much useless toil? Preachers, after all, have played their part with much less applause than comedians; and their curious auditories are still running from the pulpit to the stage, for the purpose of hearing fables repeated with a degree of sensibility, which the messengers of truth can neither feel, nor feign.”

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Pride in Apparel

“I cannot pass in silence the detestable, though fashionable, sin, which has brought down the curse of Heaven, and poured desolation and ruin upon the most flourishing kingdoms—­I mean pride in apparel Even in this place, where poverty, hard labour, and drudgery would, one should think, prevent a sin which Christianity cannot tolerate even in kings’ houses, there are not wanting foolish virgins, who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and betray the levity of their hearts by that of their dress Yea, some women, who should be mothers in Israel, and adorn themselves with good works as holy and godly matrons, openly affect the opposite character You may see them offer themselves first to the idol of vanity, and then sacrifice their children upon the same altar As some sons of Belial teach their little ones, to curse, before they can well speak, so these daughters of Jezebel drag their unhappy offspring, before they can walk, to the haunts of vanity and pride They complain of evening lectures, but run to midnight dancings Oh, that such persons would let the prophet’s words sink into their frothy minds, and fasten upon their careless hearts: ’Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, the Lord will smite with a sore the crown of their head, and discover their shame: instead of well-set hair, there shall be baldness, and burning instead of beauty.’”

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What Is Saving Faith?

“What is saving faith? I dare not say that it is ’believing heartily’ my sins are forgiven me for Christ’s sake; for, if I live in sin, that belief is a destructive conceit, and not saving faith Neither dare I say, that ’saving faith is only a sure trust and confidence that Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me;’ for, if I did, I should almost damn all mankind for four thousand years. Such definitiohs of saving faith are, I fear, too narrow to be just, and too unguarded to keep out Solifidianism To avoid such mistakes; to contradict no Scriptures; to put no black mark of damnation upon any man, that in any nation fears God and works righteousness; to leave no room for Solifidianism, and to present the reader with a definition of faith adequate to the everlasting Gospel, I would choose to say, that justifying or saving faith is believing the saving truth with the heart unto internal, and (as we have opportunity) unto external righteousness, according to our light and dispensation To St. Paul’s words (Rom. x. 10), I add the epithets internal and external, in order to exclude, according to I John iii. 7, 8, the filthy imputation, under which fallen believers may, if we credit the Antinomians, commit internal and external adultery, mental and bodily murder, without the least reasonable fear of endangering their faith, their interest in God’s favour, and their inadmissible title to a throne of glory.”

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The Eye of Faith

“Believing is the gift of the God of Grace, as breathing, moving, and eating are the gifts of the God of Nature. He gives me lungs and air, that I may breathe; He gives me life and muscles, that I may move; He bestows upon me food and a mouth, that I may eat; but He neither breathes, moves, nor eats for me Nay, when I think proper, I can accelerate my breathing, motion, and eating: and, if I please, I may fast, lie down, or hang myself, and, by that means, put an end to my eating, moving, and breathing. Faith is the gift of God to believers, as sight is to you The parent of good freely gives you the light of the sun, and organs proper to receive it. Everything around you bids you use your eyes and see; nevertheless, you may not only drop your curtains, but close your eyes also This is exactly the case with regard to faith Free grace removes, in part, the total blindness which Adam’s fall brought upon us; free grace gently sends us some beams of truth, which is the light of the sun of righteousness; it disposes the eye of our understanding to see those beams; it excites us, in various ways, to welcome them; it blesses us with many, perhaps with all the means of faith, such as opportunities to hear, read, enquire, and power to consider, assent, consent, resolve, and re-resolve to believe the truth But, after all, believing is as much our own act as seeing. We may in general do, suspend, or omit the act of faith Nay, we may do by the eye of our faith, what some report Democritus did by his bodily eyes. Being tired of seeing the follies of mankind, to rid himself of that disagreeable sight, he put his eyes out We may be so averse from the light, which enlightens every man that comes into the world; we may so dread it because our works are evil, as to exemplify, like the Pharisees, such awful declarations as these: Their eyes have they closed, lest they should see: wherefore God gave them up to a reprobate mind, and, they were blinded.”

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From Animal Man to Spiritual Man

“What is the state of a soul that is born again; and in what does regeneration consist? In general, we may say, it is that great change by which man passes from a state of nature to a state of grace He was an animal man; in being born again he becomes a spiritual man His natural birth had made him like to fallen Adam—­to the old man, against whom God had pronounced the sentence of death, seeing it is the wages of sin; but his spiritual birth makes him like to Jesus Christ—­to the new man—­which is created according to God in righteousness and true holiness He was before born a child of wrath—­ proud, sensual, and unbelieving, full of the love of the world and of self-love, a lover of money and of earthly glory and pleasure, rather than a lover of God; but, by regeneration, he is become a child and an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ The humility, the purity, the love of Jesus, is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit which is given to him, making him bear the image of the Second Adam. He is in Christ a new creature; old things are passed away, all things are become new All the powers and faculties of his soul are renovated His understanding, heretofore covered with darkness, is illuminated by the experimental knowledge which he has of God and of His Son Jesus Christ His conscience, asleep and insensible, awakes and speaks with a fidelity irreproachable His hard heart is softened and broken His will, stubborn and perverse, yields, and becomes conformable to the will of God His passions, unruly, and earthly, and sensual, submit to the conduct of grace, and turn of themselves to objects invisible and heavenly And the members of his body, servants more or less to iniquity, are now employed in the service of righteousness unto holiness.”

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Tastes that Correspond

“To rejoice in the pleasures that are at God’s right hand, it is needful to have senses and a taste that correspond thereto. The swine trample pearls under their feet The elevated discourse of a philosopher is insupportable to a stupid mechanic; and an ignorant peasant, introduced into a circle of men of learning and taste, is disgusted, sighs after his village, and declares no hour ever appeared to him so long It would be the same to a man who is not regenerated, if we could suppose that God would so far forget His truth as to open to him the gate of Heaven He would be incapable of those transports of love which make the happiness of the glorified saints It would be insupportable for him now to meditate one hour on the perfections of God; what then shall He do among the cherubim and seraphim, and the spirits of just men made perfect, who draw from thence their ravishing delights? He loves the pleasures and comforts of an animal life; but are these the same with the exercises of the spiritual life? His conversations, his readings, his amusements, as void of edification as of usefulness, rarely fatigue him; but an hour of meditation or prayer is insufferable If he be not born again, not only he cannot be in a state to rejoice in the pleasures of Paradise, any more than a deaf man to receive with transport the most exquisite music; but the ravishing delights of angels would cause in him an insupportable distaste Yes, he would banish himself from the presence of God rather than pass an eternity in prostrating himself before the throne, and crying day and night, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, who is, and who was, and who is to come! We conclude that the gate of Heaven must be opened upon earth by regeneration, and by the love of God, or that it will remain shut for ever; and that a local paradise would be only a sorrowful prison to a man not regenerated, because, carrying nothing thither but depraved and earthly appetites and passions, and finding nothing there but spiritual and celestial objects, disgust and dissatisfaction would be the consequence; and, like Satan, his own mind would be his hell.”

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Wise Words to the Sinner

“I conjure you by the majesty of that God before whom angels rejoice with trembling; by the terror of the Lord, who may speak to you in thunder, and this instant require your soul of you; by the tender mercies, the bowels of compassion of your Heavenly Father, which are moved in your favour, all ungrateful as you are! I conjure you by the incarnation of the Eternal Word, by whom you were created; by the humiliation, the pains, the temptations, the tears, the bloody sweat, the agony, the cries of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ! I conjure you by the bonds, the insults, the scourgings, the robes of derision, the crown of thorns, the ponderous cross the nails, the instruments of death which pierced His torn body; by the arrows of the Almighty, the poison of which drank up His spirit; by that mysterious stroke of Divine wrath, and by those unknown terrors which forced Him to exclaim, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!’ I conjure you by the interests of your immortal soul, and by the unseen accidents which may precipitate you into eternity; by the bed of death, upon which you will soon be stretched, and by the useless sighs which you will then pour out, if your peace be not made with God! I conjure you by the sword of Divine justice, and by the sceptre of grace; by the sound of the last trumpet, and by the sudden appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, with ten thousand of His holy angels; by that august tribunal, at which you will appear with me, and which shall decide our lot for ever; by the vain despair of hardened sinners, and by the unknown transports of regenerate souls! I conjure you from this instant work out your salvation with fear and trembling! Enter by the door into the sheepfold Sell all to purchase the pearl of great price Count all things dung and dross in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ Let Him not go till He blesses you with that faith which justifies, and that sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord And, soon transported from this vale of tears into the mansions of the just made perfect, you shall cast your crown of immortal glory at the feet of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and before the Lamb who has redeemed us by His blood: to whom be the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the power for ever and ever! Amen.”