What advantage will these be to me when the Lord shall separate soul and body asunder, and send one to the grave, the other to h.e.l.l, and at the judgment-day, the final sentence of eternal ruin must be pa.s.sed upon me?
1. Consider, that the profits, pleasures, and vanities of this world will not last for ever, but the time is coming, yea, just at the doors, when they will give thee the slip, and leave thee in the suds,[32] and in the brambles of all that thou hast done. And therefore to prevent this,
2. Consider thy dismal state, think thus with thyself, It is true, I do love my sins, my l.u.s.ts and pleasures; but what good will they do me at the day of death and of judgment? Will my sins do me good then? Will they be able to help me when I come to fetch my last breath? What good will my profits do me? And what good will my vanities do, when death says he will have no nay? What good will all my companions, fellow-jesters, jeerers, liars, drunkards, and all my wantons do me? Will they help to ease the pains of h.e.l.l?
Will these help to turn the hand of G.o.d from inflicting his fierce anger upon me? Nay, will not they rather cause G.o.d to show me no mercy, to give me no comfort; but rather to thrust me down in the hottest place of h.e.l.l, where I may swim in fire and brimstone.
3. Consider thus with thyself, Would I be glad to have all, every one of my sins to come in against me, to inflame the justice of G.o.d against me? Would I be glad to be bound up in them as the three children were bound in their clothes, and to be as really thrown into the fiery furnace of the wrath of Almighty G.o.d as they were into Nebuchadnezzar"s fiery furnace?
4. Consider thus, Would I be glad to have all, and every one of the ten commandments, to discharge themselves against my soul? The first saying, d.a.m.n him, for he hath broken me; the second saying, d.a.m.n him, for he hath broken me, &c. Consider how terrible this will be, yea, more terrible than if thou shouldest have ten of the biggest pieces of ordnance in England to be discharged against thy body, thunder, thunder, one after another! Nay, this would not be comparable to the reports that the law, for the breach thereof, will give against thy soul; for those can but kill the body, but these will kill both body and soul; and that not for an hour, a day, a month, or a year, but they will condemn thee for ever.
Mark, it is for ever, for ever. It is into everlasting d.a.m.nation, eternal destruction, eternal wrath and displeasure from G.o.d, eternal gnawings of conscience, eternal continuance with devils.
O consider, it may be the thought of seeing the devil doth now make thine hair to stand right up on thine head. O but this, to be d.a.m.ned, to be among all the devils, and that not only for a time, as I said before, but for ever, to all eternity! This is wonderfully miserable, ever miserable; that no tongue of man, no, nor of angels, is able to express it.
5. Consider much with thyself, Not only my sins against the law will be laid to my charge, but also the sins I have committed in slighting the gospel, the glorious gospel. These also must come with a voice against me. As thus, Nay, he is worthy to be d.a.m.ned, for he rejected the gospel, he slighted the free grace of G.o.d tendered in the gospel; how many times was thou, d.a.m.ned wretch, invited, intreated, beseeched to come to Christ, to accept of mercy, that thou mightest have heaven, thy sins pardoned, thy soul saved, and body and soul glorified, and all this for nothing but the acceptance, and through faith forsaking those imps of Satan, which by their embracements have drawn thee downward toward the gulf of G.o.d"s eternal displeasure? How often didst thou read the promises, yea, the free promises of the common salvation! How oft didst thou read the sweet counsels and admonitions of the gospel, to accept of the grace of G.o.d! But thou wouldst not, thou regardest it not, thou didst slight all.
Second. As I would have thee to consider the sad and woeful state of those that die out of Christ, and are past all recovery, so would I have thee consider the many mercies and privileges thou enjoyest above some, peradventure, of thy companions that are departed to their proper place. As,
1. Consider, thou hast still the thread of thy life lengthened, which for thy sins might seven years ago, or more, have been cut asunder, and thou have dropped down amongst the flames.
2. Consider the terms of reconciliation by faith in Christ are still proffered unto thee, and thou invited, yea, entreated to accept of them.
3. Consider the terms of reconciliation are but--bear with me though I say but--only to believe in Jesus Christ, with that faith that purifies the heart, and enables thy soul to feed on him effectually, and be saved from this sad state.
4. Consider the time of thy departure is at hand, and the time is uncertain, and also that for ought thou knowest the day of grace may be past to thee before thou diest, not lasting so long as thy uncertain life in this world. And if so, then know for certain that thou art as sure to be d.a.m.ned as if thou wast in h.e.l.l already; if thou convert not in the meanwhile.
5. Consider it may be some of thy friends are giving all diligence to make their calling and election sure, being resolved for heaven, and thou thyself endeavourest as fast to make sure of h.e.l.l, as if resolved to have it; and together with this, consider how it will grieve thee that while thou wast making sure of h.e.l.l thy friends were making sure of heaven; but more of this by and by.
6. Consider what a sad reflection this will have on thy soul, to see thy friends in heaven, and thyself in h.e.l.l; thy father in heaven, and thou in h.e.l.l; thy mother in heaven, and thou in h.e.l.l; thy brother, thy sister, thy children in heaven, and thou in h.e.l.l. As Christ said to the Jews of their relations according to the flesh, so may I say to thee concerning thy friends, "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," when you shall see your fathers and mothers, brethren and sisters, husbands and wives, children and kinsfolk, with your friends and neighbours in the kingdom of heaven, and thou thyself thrust out (Luke 13:27-29).
But again, because I would not only tell thee of the d.a.m.nable state of those that die out of Christ, but also persuade thee to take hold of life, and go to heaven, take notice of these following things.
(1.) Consider that whatever thou canst do, as to thy acceptance with G.o.d, is not worth the dirt of thy shoes, but is all "as filthy rags" (Isa 54:6).
(2.) Consider that all the conditions of the new covenant, as to salvation, are and have been completely fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ, and that for sinners.
(3.) Consider that the Lord calls to thee, for to receive whatsoever Christ hath done, and that on free cost (Rev 22:17).
(4.) Consider that thou canst not honour G.o.d more than to close in with his proffers of grace, mercy, and pardon of sin (Rom 4).
Again, that which will add to all the rest, thou shalt have the very mercy of G.o.d, the blood of Christ, the preachers of the word, together with every sermon, all the promises, invitations, exhortations, and all the counsels and threatenings of the blessed word of G.o.d. Thou shalt have all thy thoughts, words, and actions, together with all thy food, thy raiment, thy sleep, thy goods, and also all hours, days, weeks, months and years, together with whatsoever else G.o.d hath given thee. I say, thy abuse of all these shall come up in judgment against thy soul; for G.o.d will reckon with thee for everything, whether it be good or bad (Eccl 12:14).
(5.) Nay further, it is so unreasonable a thing for a sinner to refuse the gospel, that the very devils themselves will come in against thee, as well as Sodom, that d.a.m.ned crew. May not they, I say, come in against thee, and say, O thou simple[33] man! O vile wretch! That had not so much care of thy soul, thy precious soul, as the beast hath of its young, or the dog of the very bone that lieth before him. Was thy soul worth so much, and didst thou so little regard it? Were the thunder-claps of the law so terrible, and didst thou so slight them? Besides, was the gospel so freely, so frequently, so fully tendered to thee, and yet hast thou rejected all these things? Hast thou valued sin at a higher rate than thy soul, than G.o.d, Christ, angels, saints, and communion with them in eternal blessedness and glory? Wast thou not told of h.e.l.l-fire, those intolerable flames? Didst thou never hear of the intolerable roarings of the d.a.m.ned ones that are therein? Didst thou never hear or read that doleful saying in Luke 16, how the sinful man cries out among the flames, "One drop of water to cool my tongue?"
Thus, I say, may the very devils, being ready to go with thee into the burning furnace of fire and brimstone, though not for sins of so high a nature as thine, trembling say, O that Christ had died for devils, as he died for man! And, O that the gospel had been preached to us as it hath been to thee! How would we have laboured to have closed in with it! But woe be to us, for we might never have it proffered; no, not in the least, though we would have been glad of it. But you, you have it proffered, preached, and proclaimed unto you (Prov 8:4). Besides, you have been intreated, and beseeched to accept of it, but you would not. O simple fools!
that might have escaped wrath, vengeance, h.e.l.l-fire, and that to all eternity, and had no heart at all to do it.
(6.) May not the messengers of Jesus Christ also come in with a shrill and terrible note against thy soul, when thou standest at the bar of G.o.d"s justice, saying, Nay, thou unG.o.dly one, how often hast thou been forewarned of this day? Did we not sound an alarm in thine ears, by the trumpet of G.o.d"s word day after day? How often didst thou hear us tell thee of these things? Did we not tell thee sin would d.a.m.n thy soul? Did we not tell thee that without conversion there was no salvation? Did we not tell thee that they who loved their sins should be d.a.m.ned at this dark and gloomy day, as thou art like to be? Yea, did we not tell thee that G.o.d, out of his love to sinners, sent Christ to die for them, that they might, by coming to him, be saved? Did not we tell thee of these things? Did we not run, ride, labour, and strive abundantly, if it might have been, for the good of thy soul, though now a d.a.m.ned soul? Did we not venture our goods, our names, our lives? Yea, did we not even kill ourselves with our earnest intreaties of thee to consider of thine estate, and by Christ to escape this dreadful day? O sad doom! When thou shalt be forced full sore against thy will to fall under the truth of this judgment, saying, O "How have I hated instruction, and how hath my heart despised reproof!" for, indeed, "I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me" (Prov 5:12,13).
(7.) May not thy father, thy mother, thy brother, thy sister, thy friend, &c., appear with gladness against thee at the terrible day, saying, O thou silly wretch! how rightly hath G.o.d met with thee! O how righteously doth his sentence pa.s.s upon thee! Remember thou wouldst not be ruled nor persuaded in thy lifetime. As thou didst not care for us and our admonitions then, so neither do we care for thy ruin, terror, and d.a.m.nation now. No, but we will stand on G.o.d"s side in sentencing of thee to that portion which the devils must be partakers of. "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked" (Psa 58:10). O sad! It is enough to make mountains tremble, and the rocks rend in pieces, to hear this doleful sound.
Consider these things, and if thou wouldst be loth to be in this condition, then have a care of living in sin now. How loth wilt thou be to be thrust away from the gates of heaven! And how loth wilt thou be to be deprived of the mercy of G.o.d! How unwillingly wilt thou set foot forward towards the lake of fire! Never did malefactor so unwillingly turn off the ladder when the halter was about his neck, as thou will turn from G.o.d to the devil, from heaven to h.e.l.l, when the sentence is pa.s.sed upon thy soul.
O how wilt thou sigh and groan! How willingly wouldst thou hide thyself, and run away from justice! But alas! as it is with them that are on the ladder ready to be executed, so it will be with thee. They would fain run away, but there are many halbert-men[34]
to stay them. And so the angels of G.o.d will beset thee round, I say round on every side; so that thou mayest indeed look, but run thou canst not. Thou mayest wish thyself under some rock, or mountain (Rev 6:15,16), but how to get under, thou knowest not.
O how unwilling wilt thou be to let thy father go to heaven without thee! thy mother or friends, &c., go to heaven without thee! How willingly wouldst thou hang on them, and not let them go! O father!
cannot you help me? Mother, cannot you do me some good? O how loth am I to burn and fry in h.e.l.l, while you are singing in heaven!
But alas! the father, mother, or friends reject them, slight them, and turn their backs upon them, saying, You would have none of heaven in your lifetime, therefore you shall have none of it now.
You slighted our counsels then, and we slight your tears, cries, and condition now. What sayest thou, sinner? Will not this persuade thine heart, nor make thee bethink thyself? This is now before thou fall into that dreadful place, that fiery furnace. But O consider how dreadful the place itself, the devils themselves, the fire itself will be! And this at the end of all, Here thou must lie for ever! Here thou must fry for ever, and for ever! This will be more to thee than any man with tongue can express, or with pen can write. There is none that can, I say, by the ten thousandth part, discover the state and condition of such a soul.
I shall conclude this, then, with A FEW CONSIDERATIONS OF ENCOURAGEMENT.
[First Encouragement.] Consider, for I would fain have thee come in, sinner, that there is way made by Jesus Christ for them that are under the curse of G.o.d, to come to this comfortable and blessed state of Lazarus I was speaking of. See Ephesians 2.
[Second Encouragement.] Consider what pains Christ Jesus took for the ransoming of thy soul from all the curses, thunder-claps, and tempests of the law; from all the intolerable flames of h.e.l.l; from that soul-sinking appearance of thy person, on the left hand, before the judgment-seat of Christ Jesus, from everlasting fellowship, with innumerable companies of yelling and soul-amazing devils, I say, consider what pains the Lord Jesus Christ took in bringing in redemption for sinners from these things.
"In that though he was rich, yet he became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be" made "rich" (2 Cor 8:9). He laid aside his glory (John 17), and became a servant (Phil 2:7). He left the company of angels, and encountered with the devil (Luke 4; Matt 4). He left heaven"s ease for a time, to lie upon hard mountains (Luke 6:12; John 8:1). In a word, he became poorer than they that go with flail and rake; yea, than the very birds or foxes, and all to do thee good. Besides, consider a little of these unspeakable and intolerable slightings and rejections, and the manifold abuses that came from men upon him. How he was falsely accused, being a sweet, harmless, and undefiled lamb. How he was undervalued, so that a murderer was counted less worthy of condemnation than he.
Besides, how they mocked him, spit on him, beat him over the head with staves, had the hair plucked from his cheeks. "I gave my back to the smiters," saith he, "and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting" (Isa 50:6).
His head crowned with thorns, his hands pierced with nails, and his side with a spear; together with how they used him, scourged him, and so miserably misusing him, that they had even spent him in a great measure before they did crucify him; insomuch that there was another fain to carry his cross. Again,
[Third Encouragement.] Not only this, but lay to heart a little what he received from G.o.d, his dear Father, though he were his dear and tender Son.
1. In that he did reckon[35] him the greatest sinner and rebel in the world. For he laid the sins of thousands, and ten thousands, and thousands of thousands of sinners to his charge (Isa 53). And caused him to drink the terrible cup that was due to them all; and not only so, but did delight in so doing. "For it pleased the LORD to bruise him." G.o.d dealt indeed with his son, as Abraham would have deal with Isaac; ay, and more terribly by ten thousand parts. For he did not only tear his body like a lion, but made his soul an offering for sin. And this was not done feignedly, but really--for justice called for it, he standing in the room of sinners. Witness that horrible and unspeakable agony that fell on him suddenly in the garden, as if all the vials of G.o.d"s unspeakable scalding vengeance had been cast upon him all at once, and all the devils in h.e.l.l had broken loose from thence at once to destroy him, and that for ever; insomuch that the very pangs of death seized upon him in the same hour. For, saith he, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful" and "sore amazed," even "unto death" (Mark 14:34).
2. Witness also that strange kind of sweat that trickled down his most blessed face, where it is said: "And he sweat, as it were, great drops" or clodders "of blood," trickling "down to the ground."
O Lord Jesus! what a load didst thou carry! What a burden didst thou bear of the sins of the world, and the wrath of G.o.d! O thou didst not only bleed at nose and mouth with the pressure that lay upon thee, but thou wast so pressed, so loaden, that the pure blood gushed through the flesh and skin, and so ran trickling down to the ground. "And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood," trickling or "falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
Canst thou read this, O thou wicked sinner, and yet go on in sin?
Canst thou think of this, and defer repentance one hour longer?
O heart of flint! yea, harder. O miserable wretch! What place in h.e.l.l will be hot enough for thee to have thy soul put into, if thou shalt persist or go on still to add iniquity to iniquity.
3. Besides, his soul went down to h.e.l.l, and his body to the bars of the grave (Psa 16:10; Acts 2:31). And had h.e.l.l, death, or the grave, been strong enough to hold him, then he had suffered the vengeance of eternal fire to all eternity. But, O blessed Jesus!
how didst thou discover thy love to man in thy thus suffering!
And, O G.o.d the Father! how didst thou also declare thy purity and exactness of thy justice, in that, though it was thine only, holy, innocent, harmless, and undefiled Son Jesus, that did take on him our nature, and represent our persons, answering for our sins, instead of ourselves! Thou didst so wonderfully pour out thy wrath upon him, to the making of him cry out, "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why hast thou forsaken me?" And, O Lord Jesus! what a glorious conquest hast thou made over the enemies of our souls, even wrath, sin, death, h.e.l.l, and devils, in that thou didst wring thyself from under the power of them all! And not only so, but hast led them captive which would have led us captive; and also hast received for us that glorious and unspeakable inheritance that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man" to conceive; and also hast given thine some discovery thereof through thy Spirit.
And now, sinner, together with this consider,
4. That though Jesus Christ hath done all these things for sinners, yet the devils make it their whole work, and continually study how they may keep thee and others from enjoying of these blessed privileges that have been thus obtained for sinners by this sweet Jesus. He labours, I say, (1.) To keep thee ignorant of thy state by nature. (2.) To harden thy heart against the ways of G.o.d. (3.) To inflame they heart with love to sin and the ways of darkness.
And, (4.) To get thee to continue herein. For that is the way, he knows, to get thee to be a partaker with him of flaming h.e.l.l-fire, even the same that he himself is fallen into, together with the rest of the wicked world, by reason of sin. Look to it therefore.
[Fourth Encouragement.] But now, in the next place, a word of encouragement to you that are the saints of the Lord.
1. Consider what a happy state thou art in that hast gotten the faith of the Lord Jesus into thy soul; but be sure thou have it, I say, how safe, how sure, how happy art thou! For when others go to h.e.l.l, thou must go to heaven; when others go to the devil, thou must go to G.o.d; when as others go to prison, thou must be set at liberty, at ease, and at freedom; when others must roar for sorrow of heart, then thou shalt also sing for the joy of heart.
2. Consider thou must have all thy well-spent life to follow thee instead of all thy sins and the glorious blessings of the gospel instead of the dreadful curses and condemnations of the law; the blessing of the father, instead of a fiery sentence from the judge.
3. Let dissolution come when it will, it can do thee no harm; for it will be but only a pa.s.sage out of a prison into a palace; out of a sea of troubles into a haven of rest; out of a crowd of enemies, to an innumerable company of true, loving, and faithful friends; out of shame, reproach, and contempt, into exceeding great and eternal glory. For death shall not hurt thee with his sting, nor bite thee with his soul-murdering teeth; but shall be a welcome guest to thee, even to thy soul, in that it is sent to free thee from thy troubles which thou art in whilst here in this world dwelling in the tabernacle of clay.
4. Consider however it goes with friends and relations, yet it will go well with thee (Eccl 8:12). However it goes with the wicked, yet "surely I know"; mark, "yet surely I know," saith he, "that it shall be well with them that fear G.o.d, which fear before him."
And therefore let this,
(1.) In the first place, cause thee cheerfully to exercise thy patience under all the calamities, crosses, troubles, and afflictions that may come upon thee; and, by patient continuance in well-doing, to commit both thyself and thine affairs and actions into the hands of G.o.d, through Jesus Christ, as to a faithful Creator, who is true in his word, and loveth to give unto thee whatsoever he hath promised to thee.