A Serious Dissuasive from the Horrid and Detestable Sins of Drunkenness, Swearing, Impurity, Forgetfulness of Mercies, Violation of Promises, and Atheistic Contempt of Death

John Flavel, 1628-1691

 

Much honored and esteemed men,
ALTHOUGH dedications are too often abused to a vain flattery, yet there is an excellent use and advantage to be made of them: partly to encourage persons of worth and eminency to espouse the interest of religion themselves; and partly to oblige those readers, for whom such books are principally intended, to a diligent perusal of them, by interesting such persons in them, for whom they have great respects, or on whom they have any dependence.

Upon the first account, a dedication would be needless to you: for I am persuaded, you do not only in your judgment approve the design I here manage, namely, The reformation of the profane and looser sort of our seamen; but are also heartily willing to improve your interest to the uttermost for the promotion of it. I cannot look upon you as persons acted by that low and common spirit that the most of your profession are acted by, who little regard, if they be good servants to them, whether God have any service from them or not; and if they pay them the wages due for their work, never think of the wages they are to receive for their sin. You are judged to be persons of another spirit, who do not only mind, but advance Christ's interest above your own, and negotiate for his glory, as well as for your own gain: and yet herein you consult your own interest as well as God's: Subordinata non pugnant. Your interest is never more prosperously managed, or abundantly secured, than when it is carried on in a due subordination to God's. Their reformation will apparently tend to your advantage. Those sins of theirs, against which I have here engaged, are the Jonahs in your ships; it is sin that sinks them, and drives them against the rocks. "One sinner destroys much good," Ecclesiastes 8:11. How much more a lewd crew of them conspiring to provoke God! the death of their lusts, is the more probable means to give life to your trade. And as these counsels prosper in their hearts, so will your business thrive in your hands. Piety and prosperity are married together in that promise, Psalm 1:3. Onesimus was never so profitable a servant to Philemon, as when he became his brother in a spiritual, as well as his servant in a civil capacity, Philippians verse 11. and 16. compared. And yet if your interest were forced to step back, to give way to Christ's, I hope you would (notwithstanding) rejoice therein. So that my present business is, not so much to persuade you, whose hearts I hope, God has already persuaded to so good a work; as to make your fame and respects, which are great among them, an innocent bait to tempt them to their duty. And if either your names or interest may be useful to such an end, I presume I may use them freely, and welcome; for, sure I am, they can never be put to a better use.

Well then, I will make bold to send this small adventure in your ships; and if the return of it be but the conversion of one soul to God, I shall reckon that I have made a better voyage than you, let your returns be never so rich.

How these things will affect them I know not. I do suppose it will produce different effects upon them, according to the different tempers of their spirits, and according as God shall command or suspend the blessing. Possibly some will storm at the close and cutting rebukes of the word, (for most men's lusts are a great deal more sensible and tender than their consciences) and will fondly imagine that this necessary plainness tends to their reproach. But if none but the guilty can be supposed to be angry at them, they will thereby reproach themselves a great deal more than ever I intended to do.

I confess it is a bitter pill and compounded of many operative and strong ingredients, which do acute it; but not a jot more than is necessary. I shall beg the assistance of your prayers to God for them, and of your grave admonitions and exhortations to them for God; which will much help its operation, and facilitate my design, to do their souls a piece of everlasting service; with which design I can truly say, I even travail in pain for them. Your assistance therefore in this good work, will put the highest obligation upon

Your most affectionate friend and servant,
JOHN FLAVEL

 

 

A Sober Consideration of the Sin of DRUNKENNESS

IN the former treatise I have endeavored to spiritualize earthly objects, and elevate your thoughts to more sublime and excellent contemplations; that earthly things may rather be a step, than a stop to heavenly. You have therein my best advice to guide you in your course to that port of your eternal rest and happiness.

In this I have given warning of some dangerous rocks and quicksands that lie upon your left hand; upon which millions of souls have perished, and others are willfully running to their own perdition. Such are the horrid sins of drunkenness, impurity, profane swearing, violation of promises, engagements made to God, and atheistic slighting and contempt of death and eternity. All which I have here given warning of, and held forth a light to discover where your danger is. If after this you obstinately prosecute your lusts, and will not be reclaimed; you perish without apology, I have freed my own soul.

Let none interpret this necessary plainness as a reproach to seamen, as if I represented them to the world worse than they are. If, upon that account, any of them be offended, methinks these three or four considerations should remove that offence.

FIRST, That if this close and plain dealing be necessary, in order to your cure, and you will be offended thereat, it is better you should be offended than God. Ministers are often put upon lamentable straits, they sail between Scylla and Charybdis; the wrath of God upon one side, if we do not speak plain and home, as the necessity of the case requires; and man's wrath if we do: what shall we do in this strait? Either God or you, it seems, must be offended; and if it cannot be avoided, I shall rather hazard your anger than God's, and think it far more tolerable.

SECONDLY, If you did but see the necessity and end of this manner of dealing with your souls, you would not be offended. But put it into a more sensible case, and you will see and acknowledge it presently. If I should see an high-built wall giving way, and ready to fall upon you, would you be angry with me, if by plucking you out of the danger, I should pluck your arm out of joint; certainly you would not. Why, this is the case here: See Isaiah 30:13. "Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly, at an instant."

THIRDLY, What a madness is it to abide in a condition over which all woes and curses hang, and yet not be able to endure to hear of it! Why, what will it profit you to have your misery hidden from your eyes, and kept from your ears a little while? You must see this wrath, and hear louder volleys of woes from your own consciences, if you remain in this condition. You cannot bear that from us, which your conscience will one of these days preach themselves to you, and that in a more dreadful dialect than I have used here.

FOURTHLY, I do not charge these sins indifferently upon all seamen. No, I know there are some choice and good men among your men, that fear an oath, and hate even the garments spotted with the flesh, who are (I question not) the credit and glory of our English nation, in the eyes of strangers that converse with them. Nor yet do I think that all that are wicked among them are equally guilty of all these evils; for though all that are graceless be equally under the dominion of original corruption, yet it follows not from thence, that therefore actual sins must reign alike in them: there is a great difference, even among ungodly men themselves in this respect; which difference arises from their various customs, constitutions, abilities, educations, and the different administrations of the Spirit, in enlightening, convincing, and putting checks upon conscience: for though God be not the author, yet he is the orderer of sin. And this makes a great disparity, even among wicked men themselves. Some are persons of good morals, though not gracious principles, which produce a civil and sober, though not a holy and religious life. And others, though they live in someone of these lusts, yet are not guilty of some others of them. For it is with original corruption, just as it is with the sap of the earth, which though it be the matter of all kind of fruits, yet in some ground it sorts better with one grain than with another: and so in plants, in one tree it becomes an apple, in another a cherry; even so it is with this original corruption, in one man it runs most into swearing, in another into impurity, in a third into drunkenness. Lust is nothing else but the corrupt appetite of the creature to some sinful object; and therefore look as it is with the appetite with respect to food, so it is with the vitiated appetites of souls to sin. One man loves this food best, and another that; there is endless variety in that, and so in this.

Having spoken thus much to remove offence, I shall now beg you to peruse the following discourse. Consider what evidence these things carry with them. Search the alleged scriptures, see if they be truly recited and applied to the case in hand: And if so, O tremble at the truth you read! bring forth your lusts, that they may die the death. Will you not part with these abominable practices until death and Hell make the separation? Ah! how much better is it for you that grace should do it? And because many of you see not the danger, and therefore prize not the remedy, I do here request all those that have the affections of pity in them, for their poor relations, who are sinking, drowning, perishing, to spread these following cautions before the Lord for a blessing, and then put them into their hands. And O that all pious masters would persuade all those that are under their charge to buy this ensuing treatise, and diligently peruse it. And the first caution I shall give them is this:
 

CAUTION!

TAKE heed, and beware of the detestable sin of drunkenness, which is a beastly sin, a voluntary madness, a sin that unmans you, and makes you like the beasts that perish; yes, sets you below the beasts, which will not drink to excess; or, if they do, yet it is not their sin. One of the ancients calls it, 'A distemper of the head, a subversion of the senses, a tempest in the tongue, a storm of the body, the shipwreck of virtue, the loss of time, a willful madness, a pleasant devil, a sugared poison, a sweet sin, which he who has, has not himself, and he who commits it, does not only commit sin, but he himself is altogether sin.' It is a sin at which the most sober heathens blushed. The Spartans brought their children to loath it, by showing them a drunkard, whom they gazed at as a monster: Even Epicurus himself, who esteemed happiness to consist in pleasure, yet was temperate, as Cicero observes. Among the heathens he was accounted the best man, that spent more oil in the lamp, than wine in the bottle. Christianity could once glory in its professors: Tertullian says of the primitive Christians, they sat not down before they prayed; they eat no more than might suffice hunger, they drank no more than was sufficient for temperate men; they did so eat and drink, as those that remembered they must pray afterward. But now we may blush to behold such beastly sensualists adorning themselves with its name, and sheltering themselves under its wings.

And among those that profess Christianity, how ordinarily is this sin committed by seamen? This insatiable dropsy is a disease that reigns, especially among the inferior and ruder sort of them. Some of them have gone aboard drunk, and laid the foundation of their voyage in sin. O what a preparation is this! They know not whether ever they shall see the land of their nativity any more: the next storm may send them into eternity: Yet this is the farewell they take, this is their preparation to meet the Lord. And so in their returns, notwithstanding the terrible and astonishing works of the Lord, which they have beheld with their eyes, and their marvelous preservation in so great and terrible extremities; yet thus do they requite the Lord, as soon as their dangers are over, as if they had been delivered to commit all these abominations. But a few hours or days since, they were reeling to and fro upon a stormy ocean, and staggering like drunken men, as it is said, Psalm 107:27. and now you may see them reeling and staggering in the streets, drowning the sense of all those precious mercies and deliverances in their drunken cups.

Reader, if you be one that is guilty of this sin, for the Lord's sake bethink yourself speedily, and weigh, with the reason of a man, what I shall now say, in order to your conviction, humiliation, and reformation. I need not spend many words, to open the nature of this sin to you; we all grant, that there is a lawful use of wine and strong drink to support nature, not to clog it; to cure infirmities, not to cause them. "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine, for your stomach's sake, and your often infirmity," says Paul to Timothy, 1 Timothy 5:23. Mark, drink not water, but wine says Ambrose; that is, use it modestly, namely, medicinally, not for pleasure, but for remedy. Yes, God allows it, not only for bare necessity, but for cheerfulness and alacrity, that the body may be more fit and more expedite for duty, Proverbs 31:7. but further no man proceeds, without the violation of sobriety. When men sit until wine have inflamed them, and reason be disturbed, (for drunkenness is the privation of reason, caused by immoderate drinking,) then do they come under the guilt of this horrid and abominable sin. To the satisfaction and refreshment of nature, you may drink; for it is a part of the curse to drink, and not be satisfied; but take heed and go no further; "For wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whoever is deceived thereby, is not wise," Proverbs 20:1. The throat is a slippery place; how easily may a sin slip through it into the soul? These sensual pleasures have a kind of enchanting power upon the soul, and by custom gain upon it, until they have enslaved it, and brought it under their power. Now, this is the sin against which God has delivered so many precepts, and denounced so many woes, in his word. Ephesians 5:18. "Be not drunken with wine, wherein is excess." Romans 13:13. "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness," Isaiah 5:11. "Woe to them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night, until wine inflame them:" with many other of dreadful importance. Now, to startle you forever from this abominable and filthy lust, I shall here propound to your consideration these ten ensuing arguments; and oh that they might stand in the way, as the angel did in Balaam's, when you are in the prosecution of your sensual pleasures! And the first is this:

ARGUMENTS

Argument 1. It should exceedingly dissuade from this sin, to consider that it is an high abuse of the bounty and goodness of God in affording us those sweet refreshments, to make our lives comfortable to us upon earth. In Adam we forfeited all right to all earthly as well as heavenly mercies: God might have taken you from the womb, when you were a sinner but of a span long, and immediately have sent you to your own place; you had no right to a drop of water more than what the bounty of God gave you: And whereas he might have thrust you out of the world as soon as you came into it, and so all those days of mercy you have had on earth might have been spent in howling and unspeakable misery in Hell: Behold the bounty and goodness of God to you; I say, behold it, and wonder: He has allowed you for so many years to live upon the earth, which he has prepared and furnished with all things fit for your necessity and delight: Out of the earth, on which you tread, "he brings forth your food, and [wine] to make glad your heart," Psalm 104:14, 15. And do you thus requite the Lord? Has mercy armed an enemy to fight against it with its own weapons? Ah! that ever the riches of his goodness, bounty, and long-suffering, all which are arguments to lead you to repentance, should be thus abused! If God had not been so bountiful, you could not have been so sinful.

Argument 2. It degrades a man from the honor of his creation, and equalizeth him to the beast that perishes: Wine is said to take away the heart, Hosea 4:11. that is the wisdom and ingenuity of a man, and so brutifies him, as Nebuchadnezzar, who lost the heart of a man, and had the heart of a beast given him, Daniel 4:32. The heart of a man has its generosity and sprightliness, brave, vigorous spirits in it, capable of, and fitted for noble and worthy actions and employments; but his lust effeminates, quenches, and drowns that masculine vigor in the puddle of excess and sensuality: For no sooner is a man brought under the dominion of this lust, but the government of reason is renounced, which should exercise a coercive power over the affections, and all is delivered up into the hands of lust and appetite: and so they act not by discretion and reason, but by lust and will, as the beasts do by instinct. The spirit of man entertains itself with intellectual and chaste delights; the soul of a beast is only fitted for such low, sensitive, and dreggy pleasures. You have something of the angel, and something of the beast in you; your soul partakes of the nature of angels, your body of the nature of beasts. Oh! how many pamper the beast while they starve the angel? God, in the first chapter, put all the creatures in subjection to you; by this lust you put yourself in subjection to the creature, and are brought under its power, 1 Corinthians 6:12. If God had given you the head or feet of a beast, oh! what a misery would you have esteemed it? and is it nothing to have the heart of a beast? Oh! consider it sadly.

Argument 3. It is a sin by which you greatly wrong and abuse your own body. The body is the soul's instrument; it is as the tools are to a skillful artificer; this lust both dulls and spoils it, so that it is utterly unfit for any service of him that made it. Your body is a curious piece, not made by a word of command, as other creatures, but by a word of counsel; "I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and curiously wrought," says the Psalmist, Psalm 139:14 or as the vulgar, Acupictus sum, Painted as with needle-work of divers colors, like a garment richly embroidered. Look how many members, so many wonders! There are miracles enough, says one, between head and foot to fill a volume. There is, says another, such curious workmanship in the eye, that upon the first sight of it, some Atheists have been forced to acknowledge a God; especially that fifth muscle in the eye is wonderful, whereby, (as a learned author observes) man differs from all other creatures, who have but four; one to turn the eye downward, a second to hold it forward, a third to move it to the right-hand, a fourth to the left; but none to turn it upward as a man has. Now, judge in yourself; Did God frame such a curious piece, and enliven it with a soul, which is a spark, a ray of his own light, whose motions are so quick, various, and indefatigable, whose flights of reason are so transcendent; did God, think you, send down this curious peace, the top and glory of the creation, the index and epitome of the whole world, Ecclesiastes 12:2 did God, I say, send down this picture of his own perfection, to be but as a strainer for meats and drinks, a sponge to suck in wine and beer? Or can you answer for the abuse and destruction of it? By this excess you fill it with innumerable diseases, under which it languishes; and at last your life, like a lamp, is extinguished, being drowned with too much oil. 'Infinite diseases are begotten by it, (says Zanchius); hence comes Seizures, gouts, palsies, sudden death, trembling of the hands and legs;' herein they bring Cain's curse upon themselves, says Ambrose: Drunkenness slays more than a sword. Oh! what a terrible thing will it be to consider upon a death-bed, that these pangs and aches are the fruits of your intemperance and excess! "Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has babbling? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine," Proverbs 23:29, 30. By this enumeration and manner of interrogation, he seems to make it a difficult thing to recount the miseries that drunkenness loads the outward man with; for look as vermin abound where there is store of corn, so do diseases in the bodies of drunkards, where crudities do so abound. Now, methinks, if you have no regard to your poor soul, or the glory of God, yet such a sensible argument as this, from your body, should move you.

Argument 4. Drunkenness wastes and scatters your estate, poverty attends excess; the drunkard shall be clothed with rags, and brought to a morsel of bread. Solomon has read your fortune, Proverbs 21:17. "He who loves wine and oil shall not be rich;" luxury and beggary are seldom far asunder. When Diogenes heard a drunkard's house cried to be sold; 'I thought (says he) it would not be long before he vomited up his house also.' The Hebrew word éåøù and the Greek word áóùôéá, which signifies luxury; the former is compounded of two words, which signify, You shall be poor; and the latter signifies the losing of the possession of that good which is in our hand. "The drunkard and the glutton shall surely come to poverty," Proverbs 23:21. In the Hebrew it is, he shall be disinherited or dispossessed. It does not only dispossess a man of his reason, which is a rich and fair inheritance given to him by God, but it also dispossesses him of his estate: It wastes all that either the provident care of your progenitors, or the blessing of God upon your own industry, has obtained for you. And how will this sting like an adder, when you shall consider it? Apicus the Roman, hearing that there were seven hundred crowns only remaining of a fair estate that his father had left him, fell into a deep melancholy, and fearing want, hanged himself, says Seneca. And not to mention the miseries and sorrows they bring hereby upon their families, drinking the tears, yes, the blood of their wives and children: Oh! what an account will they give to God, when the reckoning day comes! Believe it, sirs, there is not a shilling of your estates, but God will reckon with you for the expense thereof. If you have spent it upon your lusts, while the necessity of your families, or the poor, called upon you for it; I should be reluctant to have your account to make, for a thousand times more than ever you possessed. O woeful expense, that is followed with such dreadful reckonings!

Argument 5. Consider what vile and ignominious characters the Spirit of God has put upon the subjects of this sin. The scripture everywhere notes them for infamous, and most abominable persons. When Eli supposed Hannah to be drunken, "Count not your handmaid a daughter of Belial," said she, 1 Samuel 1:16. Now, a son or daughter of Belial is, in scripture-language, the vilest of men or women. So Psalm 69:12. "They that sit in the gate, speak against me, and I am the song of drunkards," that is of the basest and vilest of men, as the opposition plainly shows; for they are opposed to them that sit in the gate, that is honorable persons. The Lord would have his people shun the society of such as a pest, not to eat with them, 1 Corinthians 5:11. Yes, the scripture brands them with atheism; they are such as have lost the sense and expectation of the day of judgment; mind not another world, nor do they look for the coming of the Lord, Matthew 24:27, 28. He says the Lord delays his coming, and then falls a drinking with the drunkard. The thoughts of that day will make them leave their cups, or their cups will drown the thoughts of such a day. And will not all the contempt, shame and infamy which the Spirit of God has poured on the head of this sin cause you to abhor it? Do not all godly, yes, moral persons, abhor the drunkard? Oh! methinks the shame that attends it, should be as a fence to keep you from it.

Argument 6. Sadly consider, there can be nothing of the sanctifying Spirit in a soul that is under the dominion of this lust; for upon the first discovery of the grace of God, the soul renounces the government of sensuality: "The grace of God that brings salvation, teaches men to live soberly," Titus 2:11, 12. That is one of its first effects. Drunkenness indeed may be found among heathens, that are lost in the darkness of ignorance; but it may not be once named among the children of the day. "They that be drunken, are drunken in the night; but let us that are of the day, be sober," 1 Thessalonians 5:7, 8. And the apostles often oppose wine and the Spirit as things incompatible, Ephesians 5:18. "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." So Jude 19. "Sensual, not having the Spirit." Now what a dreadful consideration is this? "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his," Romans 8:9. Sensual persons have not the Spirit of Christ, and so can be none of his. It is true, Noah, a godly man, once fell into this sin; but, as Theodoret says, and that truly, it proceeded as from lack of experience of the force and power of the grape, not from intemperance; and, besides, we find not that ever he was again overtaken with that sin; but you know it, and yet persist, O wretched creature! the Spirit of Christ cannot dwell in you. The Lord help you to lay it to heart sadly!

Argument 7. It is a sin over which many direful woes and threats hang in the word, like so many low'ring clouds, ready to pour down vengeance upon the heads of such sinners. Look, as the condition of the saints is compassed round with promises, so is yours with threatenings, Isaiah 5:11. "Woe to them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, and continue until night, until wine inflame them." So Isaiah 28:1, 2. "Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim," etc. with many others, too long to be enumerated here. Now, consider what a fearful thing it is to be under these woes of God! Sinner, I beseech you, do not make light of them, for they will fall heavy; assure yourself not one of them shall fall to the ground; they will all take place upon you, except you repent.

There are woes of men, and woes of God: God's woes are true woes, and make their condition woeful, to purpose, on whom they fall. Other woes, as one says, do but touch the skin, but these strike the soul; other woes are but temporal, these are eternal; others do only part between us and our outward comforts, these between God and us forever.

Argument 8. Drunkenness is a leading sin, which has a great retinue and attendance of other sins waiting on it; it is like a sudden land-flood, which brings a great deal of dirt with it. So that look as faith excels among the graces, because it enlivens, actuates, and gives strength to them, so is this among sins. It is not so much a special sin against a single precept of God, as a general violation of the whole law, says accurate Amesius. It does not only call off the guard, but warms and quickens all other lusts, and so exposes the soul to be prostituted by them. (1.) It gives occasion, yes, is the real cause of many contentions, and fatal quarrels, Proverbs 23:29. "Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has [contentions,] babbling, wounds without cause? They that tarry long at the wine," etc. Contentions and wounds are the ordinary effects of drunken meetings: When reason is deposed, and lust heated, what will not men attempt? (2.) Scoffs and reproaches of the ways and people of God, Psalm 69:12. "David was the song of the drunkards." (3.) It is the great incendiary of lust: You shall find rioting and drunkenness joined with chambering and wantonness, Romans 13:13. Says Hierom, I will never think a drunkard to be chaste. Solomon plainly tells us what the issue will be, Proverbs 23:33. "Your eyes shall behold a strange woman, and your heart shall utter perverse things," speaking of the drunkard. It may be called Gad, for a troop follows it. Hence one aptly calls it, The devil's bridle, by which he turns the sinner which way he pleases; he who is overcome by it, can overcome no other sin.

Argument 9. But if none of the former considerations can prevail, I hope these two last may, unless all sense and tenderness be lost. Consider, therefore, in the 9th place, that drunkards are in scripture marked out for Hell; the characters of death are upon them. You shall find them pinioned with other sons of death, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10. "Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Oh dreadful thunder-bolt! He is not asleep but dead, that is not startled at it. Lord, how are guilty sinners able to face such a text as this is! Oh soul! dare you for a superfluous cup, adventure to drink a cup of pure unmixed wrath? O think when the wine sparkles in the glass, and gives its color, think, I say, what a cup of trembling is in the hand of the Lord for you. You will not now believe this. Oh! but the day is coming, when you shall know the price of these brutish pleasures. Oh! it will then sting like an addder. Ah! this short-lived beastly pleasure is the price for which you sell Heaven, and rivers of pleasure that are at God's right hand.

Objection But I hope I shall repent, and then this text can be no bar to my salvation.

Sol. True; if God shall give you repentance, it could not. But, in the last place, to awaken you thoroughly, and startle your secure conscience, which sensuality has brawned and cauterized, let me tell you,

Argument 10. That it is a sin out of whose power few, or none are ever rescued and reclaimed. On this account it was that St. Augustine called it the pit of Hell. He who is addicted to this sin becomes incurable, says a reverend divine; for seldom or never have I known a drunkard reclaimed. And its power to hold the soul in subjection to it, lies in two things especially: (1.) As it becomes habitual; and habits are not easily broken. Be pleased to view an example in the case, Proverbs 23:35. "They have stricken me, shall you say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again." (2.) As it "takes away the heart," Hosea 4:11. that is, the understanding, reason, and ingenuity of a man, and so makes him incapable of being reclaimed by counsel. Upon this account it was that Abigail would not speak less or more to Nabal, until the wine was gone out of him, 1 Samuel 25:36, 37. Plainly intimating, that no wholesome counsel can get in until the wine be gone out. When one asked Cleostratus, whether he were not ashamed to be drunken, he tartly replied, 'And are not you ashamed to admonish a drunkard?' Intimating that no wise man would cast away an admonition upon such an one. And it not only renders them incapable of counsel for the time, but by degrees it besots and infatuates them; which is a very grievous stroke from God upon them, making way to their eternal ruin. So then you see upon the whole what a dangerous gulf the sin of drunkenness is. I beg you, for the Lord's sake, and by all the regard you have to your souls, bodies, and estates, beware of it. O consider these ten arguments I have here produced against it. I should have proceeded to answer the several pleas and excuses you have for it; but I mind brevity.

 

 

A Sober Consideration of the Sin of EVIL SPEAKING

THE second evil I shall deal with is the evil of the tongue, which as St. James says, is full of deadly poison, oaths, curses, blasphemies; and this poison it scatters up and down the world in all places; an untamed member that none can rule, James 3:7, 8. The fiercest of beasts have been tamed by man, as the apostle there observes, which is a relic of his old superiority and dominion over them; but this is an unruly member that none can tame but he who made it; no beast so fierce and crabbed as this is. It may be, I may be bitten by it for my labor and endeavors to put a restraint upon it: but I shall adventure it. My design is not to dishonor, or exasperate you; but if my faithfulness to God and you should accidentally do so, I cannot help that.

Friends, Providence oftentimes confines many of you together within the narrow limits of a ship, where you have time enough, and if your hearts were sanctified, many choice advantages of edifying one another. O what transcendent subjects does Providence daily present you with, to take up your discourses! How many experiences of extraordinary mercies and preservations have you to relate to one another, and bless the Lord for! Also, how many works of wonder do you daily behold, who go down into the deeps? O what heavenly employment is here for your tongues! how should they be talking of all his wonders? How should you call upon each other, as David did, Psalm 66:16. "Come hither, and I will tell you what God has done for my soul," at such a time, in such an extremity? How should you call upon one another to pay "the vows your lips have uttered in your distress?" Thus should one provoke another in this angelic work, as one lively bird sets the whole flock a chirping.

But tell me, Sirs, should a man come aboard you at sea, and ask of you as Christ did of those two disciples going to Emmaus, Luke 24:17. "What manner of communication is this that you have by the way?" O what a sad account would he have from most of you! It may be he should find one jesting, and another swearing, a third reviling godliness, and the professors of it; so that it would be a little Hell for a serious Christian to be confined to your society. This is not, I am confident, the manner of all. We have a company of more sober seamen, and blessed be God for them; but surely thus stands the case with most of you. O what stuff is here from persons professing Christianity, and bordering close upon the confines of eternity as you do?

It is not my purpose to write of all the diseases of the tongue; that would fill a volume, and is inconsistent with my intended brevity. Who can recount the evils of the tongue? The apostle says, "It is a world of iniquity," James 3:6. And if there be a world of sin in one member, who can number the sins of all the members? Laurentius reckons as many sins of the tongue as there are letters in the alphabet. And it is an observable note that one has upon Romans 3:13, 14. That when Paul anatomizes the natural man there, he insists longer upon the organs of speech, than all the other members; "Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used deceit: the poison of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness."

But, to be short, we find the Spirit of God in scripture comparing the tongue to a tree, Proverbs 15:4. "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life." And words are the fruit of the tree, Isaiah 57:12. "I create the fruit of the lips." Some of these trees bear precious fruits, and it is a lovely sight to behold them laden with them in their seasons, Proverbs 25:11. "A word fitly spoken, is like apples of gold in pictures of silver" Such a tongue is a tree of life. Others of these trees bear evil fruit, grapes of Sodom, and clusters of Gomorrah. I shall only insist upon two sorts of these fruits, namely, (1.) Withered, sapless fruit; I mean idle and unprofitable words. (2.) Rotten and corrupt fruit; I mean, profane oaths, and profanations of the sacred name of God. No fruit in the world so apt to corrupt and taint as the fruit of the lips. When it is so, the scripture calls it corrupt or rotten communication, Ephesians 4:29. To prevent this the Spirit of God prescribes an excellent way to season our words, and keep them sweet and sound, that they may neither wither nor become idle and sapless, or putrefy and become rotten, as profane words are, Colossians 4:6. "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer every man." Oh! if the salt of grace were once cast into the fountain, the heart-streams must needs become more savory and pleasant, as the waters of Marah when they were healed. My present work is to attempt the cure of this double evil of idle words and profane oaths, whereof thousands among you are deeply guilty. I shall begin with the first, namely,

I. IDLE WORDS. That is, useless chat, unprofitable talk, that is not referred any way to the glory of God. This is a common evil, and little regarded by most men; but yet a sin of severer aggravations than the most imagine: light words weigh heavy in God's balance.

ARGUMENTS

Argument 1. For, first, The evil of them is exceedingly aggravated by this: they abuse and pervert the tongue, that noble member, from that employment and use which God by the law of creation designed it to. God gave not to man the organs and power of speech, (which is his excellency above the beasts) to serve a passion or vain humor, to vent the froth and vanity of his spirit; but to extol the Creator, and render him the praise of all his admirable and glorious works. For though the creation be a curious well-tuned instrument, yet man is the musician that must touch it, and make the melody. This was the end of God in forming those instruments and organs: but now hereby they are subject to Satan and lust, and employed to the dishonor of God who made them. God is pleased to suspend the power of speech (as we see in children) until reason begins to bud in them: they have not the liberty of one, until they have the use of the other; which plainly shows, that God is not willing to have our words run waste.

Argument 2. It is a sinful wasting of our precious time; and that puts a further aggravation upon it. Consider, sirs, the time of life is but a little spot between two eternities. The long-suffering God wheels about those glorious celestial bodies over your heads in a constant revolution to beget time for you; and the preciousness of every minute thereof results from its use and end: it is intended and afforded as a space to you to repent in, Revelation 2:21. And therefore great things depend upon it: no less than your eternal happiness or misery hangs upon those precious opportunities. Every minute of it has an influence into eternity. How would the damned value one hour of it if they might enjoy it! The business you have to do in it is of unspeakable weight and concernment: this great work, this soul-work, and eternity-work, lies upon your hands; you are cast into straits of time about it: and, if so, O what an evil is it in you to waste it away thus to no purpose!

Argument 3. It is a sin that few are sensible of as they are of other sins, and therefore the more dangerous. It is commonly committed, and that without checks of conscience. Other sins, as murder and adultery, though they be horrid sins, yet are but seldom committed, and when they are, conscience is startled at the horridness of them; few, except they be prodigious wretches indeed, dare make light of them. But now for idle and vain words, there are innumerable swarms of these every day, and few regard them. The fellowship between the heart and tongue is quick; they are quickly committed, and as easily forgotten.

Argument 4. And then, 4thly, They have mischievous effects upon others. How long does an idle word, or foolish jest, stick in men's minds, and become an occasion of much sin to them? The froth and vanity of your spirit, which your tongue so freely vents among your vain companions, may be working in their minds when you are in the dust, and so be transmitted from one to another; for unto that no more is requisite than an objective existence of those vain words in their memories. And thus may you be sinning in the persons of your companions, when you are turned into dust. And this is one reason that Suarez gives for a general judgment, after men have passed their particular judgment immediately after their death, 'Because (says he) after this, multitudes of sins by their means will be committed in the world, for which they must yet be judged to a fuller measure of wrath." So that look as many of the precious servants of God, now in glory, have left many weighty and holy sayings behind them, by which many thousands of souls have been benefitted, and God glorified on earth, after they had left it: so you leave that vanity upon the minds of others behind you, by which he may be dishonored to many generations. And then,

II. For PROFANE OATHS, the corrupt fruit of a graceless heart; oh! how common are these among you? Yes, the habit of swearing is so strengthened in some, that they have lost all sense and conscience of the sin. Now, oh! that I might prevail with you to repent of this wickedness, and break the force of this customary evil among you! will you but give me the reading of a few pages more, and weigh with the reason of men, what you read? If you will not hearken to counsel, it is a fatal sign, 2 Corinthians 2:15, 16. and you shall mourn for this obstinacy hereafter, Proverbs 5:12, 13. Desperate is that evil that scorns the remedy. And if you have patience to read it, the Lord give you an heart to consider what you read, and obey the counsels of God; or else it were better your eyes had never seen these lines. Well, then, I beseech you consider,

ARGUMENTS

Argument 1. That profane oaths are an high abuse of the dreadful and sacred name of God, which should neither be spoken or thought of without the deepest awe and reverence. It is the taking of that sacred name in vain, Exodus 20:7. Now God is exceeding tender and jealous over his name; it is dear to him; his name is dreadful and glorious; Malachi 1:14. "I am a great king, and my name is dreadful among the Heathen." The heathens would not ordinarily mention the names of such as they reverenced. Suetonius says, that Augustus prohibited the common use of his name: he thought it an indignity to have his name tossed up and down in every one's mouth. Yes, says Dr. Willet on Exodus 20 it was an use among them to keep secret such names as they would have in reverence. They dared not mention the name of Demogorgon, whom they held to be the first God: they thought when he was named, the earth would tremble. Also the name of Mercurius Tresmegistus, was very sparingly used, because of that reverence the people had for him. Now, consider, shall poor worms be so tender of preserving the reverence of their names! Shall not heathens dare to use the names of their idols; and shall the sacred and dreadful name of the true God be thus bandied up and down by tongues of his own creatures? Will not God be avenged for these abuses of his name? Be confident, it shall one day be sanctified upon you in judgment, because you did not sanctify it according to your duty.

Argument 2. Swearing is a part of the worship of God; and therefore profane swearing can be no less than the profanation of his worship, and robbing him of all the glory he has thereby; Deuteronomy 6:13. "You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve him, and shall swear by his name." So Jeremiah 4:2. "You shall swear the Lord lives, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness." If a man swear by God after this manner, God is exceedingly glorified thereby. Now, that you may see what revenue of glory God has from this part of his worship, and how it becomes a part of Divine worship, you must know then an oath is nothing else but the asking or desiring a Divine testimony, for the confirmation of the truth of our testimony: Hebrews 6:16. "For men truly swear by the greater; and an oath for [confirmation] is to them an end of all strife." The corruption of human nature by the fall has made man such a false and fickle creature, that his single testimony cannot be sufficient security for another especially in weighty cases, to rest upon; and therefore in swearing, he calls God for a witness of the truth of what he affirms, or promises: I say, calls God to be a witness of the truth of what he says, because he is truth itself, and cannot lie, Hebrews 6:18. Now this calling for, or asking of a testimony from God, makes an oath become a part of God's worship, and gives him a great deal of glory and honor; for hereby he who swears acknowledges his omnisciency and infallible truth and righteousness. His omnisciency is acknowledged: for by this appeal to him, we imply and acknowledge him to be the Searcher of the heart and reins; that he knows the secret intents and meaning of our spirits. His supreme and infallible truth is also acknowledged; for this is manifestly carried in an oath, that though I am a false and deceitful creature, and my affirmation cannot obtain universal and full credence, yet he who is greater than I, by whose name I swear, cannot deceive. And, lastly, his righteousness is acknowledged in an oath: for he who swears does, either expressly or implicitly, put himself under the curse and wrath of God, if he swear falsely. Every oath has an execration or imprecation in it, Nehemiah 10:29. "They entered into a curse, and an oath, to walk in God's law." And so 2 Corinthians 1:23. "I call God for a record upon my soul." And the usual form in the Old Testament was, "The Lord do so to me, and more also." Now hereby God has the glory of his righteousness and justice given him by the creature, and therefore it is a choice part of the Divine worship, or of that homage which a creature owes to his God. And if this be so, then how easily may the sin of rash and profane oaths be hence argued and aggravated? The more excellent anything is by an institution of God, by so much more horrid and abominable is the abuse thereof. O how often is the dreadful Majesty of Heaven and earth called to witness to frivolous things! and oft to be a witness of our rage and fury! as 1 Samuel 14:39. Is it a light thing to rob him of his peculiar glory, and subject poor souls to his curse and wrath, who has said, "He will be a swift witness against you?" Malachi 3:5. Your tongues are nimble in committing this sin, and God will be swift in punishing it.

Argument 3. It is a sin which God has severely threatened to punish and that with temporal and corporal plagues: "For by reason of oaths, the land mourns," Hosea 4:2, 3. That is, it brings the heavy judgment of God upon whole nations, under which they shall mourn. And in Zechariah 5:2, 3, 4. You have there a roll of curses; that is a catalogue of judgments and woes, the length thereof twenty cubits; (that is ten yards) to set out the multitude of woes contained in it: it is a long catalogue, and a flying roll, to denote the swiftness of it: it flies towards the house of the swearer; it makes haste. The judgments that are written in it linger not, but are even in pain to be delivered. And this flying roll, full of dreadful woes, flies and enters into the house of the swearer; and it shall therein remain, says the Lord; it shall cleave to his family; none shall claw off these woes from him: and it shall consume the timber thereof, and the stones thereof, that is bring utter subversion, ruin, and desolation to his house. O dreadful sin! what a desolation does it make! your mouths are full of oaths, and your houses shall be full of curses. Woe to that wretched family, into which this flying roll shall enter! Woe, I say, to the wretched inhabitants thereof! "The curse of the Lord (says Solomon) is in the house of the wicked; but he blesses the habitation of the just," Proverbs 3:33. Tuguriolum, that is (says Mercer) his poor little tenement or cottage. There is a blessing, the promises, like clouds of blessing, dwell over it, and drop mercies on it; but a curse in the house of the wicked. Ah! how many stately mansions are there, in which little other language but oaths and curses are heard! and these are as so much gun-powder laid under the foundation of them, which, when justice shall set fire to, O what work will it make! woe to the inhabitants thereof! Well then, break off this sin by repentance, unless you intend to ruin your families, and bring all the curses of God into your houses. If you have no pity for yourselves, yet pity your posterity; have mercy for your wives and children; do not ruin all for the indulgence of a lust.

Argument 4. But that is not all; it brings soul-judgments and spiritual plagues upon you: it brings Hell along with it. And if you be not afraid to sin, yet methinks, you should be afraid to burn: if the love of God can work nothing upon your brawny heart, yet, methinks, the terrors of the Lord should startle and affright it. To this purpose, I beseech you to weigh these scriptures; and methinks, unless God has lost all his authority with you, and Hell all its terrors, it should startle you. The first is that dreadful scripture, James 5:12. "But above all things, my brethren, swear not; neither by Heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yes, be yes; and your nay, nay; lest you fall into[condemnation."] O view this text seriously! methinks it should be like the fingers that came forth and wrote upon the wall that dreadful sentence that changed the countenance of a king, and that in the height of a frolic humor, and made his knees smite together. Mark, [above all things] a form of vehemency and earnestness, like that, Ephesians 6:16. "But above all, taking the shield of faith." As faith has a prelation before all the graces, so swearing here before all other vices. [Swear not,] that is vainly, rashly, profanely; for otherwise it is a lawful thing, and a part of God's worship, as I have showed: but swear not vain oaths, by the creatures, Heaven, or earth, etc. which is to advance the creature into the room of God: a sin to which the Jews were much addicted. But, "let your yes, be yes; and your nay, nay;" that is accustom yourselves to short and plain affirmations and negations, to a simple and candid expression of your minds. And the thundering argument that backs it, is this, [lest you fall into condemnation;] that is lest for these things the Judge of Heaven and earth passa sentence of condemnation to Hell upon you. O sirs! dare you touch with this hot iron? Dare you from henceforth commit that sin, that you know will bring you under the condemnation and judgment of God? Do you know what it is for a soul to be cast at God's bar? Did you never see a poor malefactor tried at the assizes, and observe how his face gathers paleness, how his legs tremble, and death displays its colors in his cheeks, when sentence is given upon him? But what is that to God's condemnation? What is a gallows to Hell? Another text I would recommend to your consideration is that, Exodus 20:7. "The Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain;" where vain oaths are especially included. Now, what does God mean, when he says, he will not hold him guiltless? The meaning is plain, his sins shall be reckoned and imputed to him; they shall lie upon his soul; he shall be bound over to answer to God for them. O terrible sentence! what soul can bear it, or stand before it! "Blessed is the man (says David) to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity:" Surely then, cursed is that man to whom God will impute them: and to the swearer they shall all be imputed, if he break not off his sin by repentance, and get a Christ the sooner. Oh, how dare you think of going before the Lord with the guilt of all your sins upon you? When Christ would administer the very spirit of joy into one sentence to a poor sinner, Matthew 9:2. He said, "Son, be of good cheer, your sins be forgiven." And when God would contract the sum of all misery into one word, he says, "His sins shall lie down with him in the dust," Job 20:11. Ah, soul! one of these days you shall be laid on your death-bed, or see the waves that shall entomb you, leaping and roaring upon every side; and then you will surely have other thoughts of the happiness that lies in remission of sin than you have now. Observe the most incorrigible sinner then; hark, how he sighs and groans, and cries, Ah, Lord! and must I die? And then see how the tears trickle down his cheeks, and his heart ready to burst within him. Why, what is the matter? Oh! the Lord will not pardon him, he holds him guilty! If he were sure his sins were forgiven, then he could die: but, oh! to appear before the Lord in them, appals him, daunts him, kills the very heart of him! he would gladly cry for mercy, but conscience stops his mouth. O, says conscience, how can you move that tongue to God in prayer for mercy, that has so often rent and torn his glorious name, by oaths and curses? Sirs, I pray you do not make light of these things; they will look wishfully upon you one of these days, except you prevent it by sound conversion.

Argument 5. And then, lastly, to name no more, I pray you consider, that a custom of vain words and profane oaths, is as plain an indication and discovery of an unregenerate soul, as any in the world: this is a sure sign you are none of Christ's, nor have anything to do with the promises and privileges of his people; for by this the scripture distinguishes! the state of saints and sinners, Ecclesiastes 9:2. "There is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrifices, and to him that sacrifices not: as is the good, so is the sinner: and he who swears, as he who fears an oath." Mark, he who swears, and he who fears an oath, do as manifestly distinguish the children of God from wicked men, as clean and unclean, righteous and wicked, sacrificing and not sacrificing. The fruit of the tongue plainly shows what the tree is that bears it; Isaiah 2:6. "The vile person will speak villainy; and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Loquere, ut videam, said one; Speak, that I may see what you are. Look, what is in the heart, that is vented by the tongue; where the treasures of grace are in the heart, words ministering grace will be in the lips; Psalm 37:30. "The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongue talks of judgment; for the law of the Lord is in his heart." To this sense we must understand that scripture, Matthew 12:37. "By your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." Certainly justification and condemnation, in the day of judgment shall not pass upon us merely for the good or bad words we have spoken; but according to the state of the person and frame of the heart. But the meaning is, that our words shall justify or condemn us in that day, as evidence of the state and frame of the soul. We use to say, such witnesses hanged a man; the meaning is, the evidence they gave cast and condemned him. O think seriously of this; if words evidence the state of the soul, what a woeful state must your soul needs be in, whose mouth overflows with oaths and curses! How many witnesses will be brought in, to cast you in the great day? "Your own tongue shall then fall upon you," as the expression is, Psalm 64:8. And out of your own mouth God will fetch abundant evidence to condemn you. And thus I have opened unto you the evil of vain words and profane oaths; and presented to your view their several aggravations. If by these things there be a relenting pang upon your heart, and a serious resolution of reformation, then I shall recommend these few helps or means to your perusal, and conclude this head: And the first help is this,

Helps

Help 1. Seriously fix in your thoughts that scripture, Matthew 12:36. "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment." O let it sound in your ears day and night! O ponder them in your heart! [I say unto you] I that have always been in the Father's bosom, and do fully know his mind, that I am constituted the Judge of quick and dead, and do fully understand the rule of judgment, and the whole process thereof, I say, and do assure you, that [every idle word that men shall speak,] that is every word that has not a tendency and reference to the glory of God, though there be no other obliquity of evil in them than this, that they want a good end: how much more then, scurrilous words, bloody oaths, and blasphemies? [Men shall give an account thereof;] that is, shall be cast and condemned to suffer the wrath of God for them; as appears by that parallel scripture, 1 Peter 4:4, 5. For as the learned observe, there is plainly a metalepsis in these words; the antecedent to give an account, is put for the consequent, punishment, and condemnation to hell-fire: the certainty whereof admits but of this one exception, namely, intervenient repentance, or pardon obtained through the blood of Christ here before you be presented at that judgment-seat. O then, what a bridle should this text be to your extravagant tongue! I remember Hierom was accustomed to say, 'Whether I eat or drink, or whatever I do, methinks I still hear the sound of these words in mine ear, Arise, you dead, and come to judgment.' O that the sound of these words may be always in your ears!

Help 2. Consider before you speak, and be not rash to utter words without knowledge. He who speaks what he thinks not, speaks hypocritically; and he who thinks not what to speak, speaks inconsiderately. You have cause to weigh your words before you deliver them by your tongue; for whether you do, or do not, the Lord ponders them: records are kept of them, else you could not be called to an account for them, as I showed you, you must.

Help 3. Resign up your tongue to God every day, and beg him to guide and keep it. So did David, Psalm 141:3. "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and keep you the door of my lips." Beg him to keep you from provocations and temptations; or, if you fall into them, entreat him for strength to rule your spirits in them, that you may not be conquered by temptations.

Help 4. But above all, labor to get your souls cleansed and purified by faith, possessed with saving and gracious principles: all other means will be ineffectual without this. O see the vileness of your nature, and the necessity of a change to pass upon it! FIRST make the tree good, and then his fruit good: a new nature will produce new words and actions. To bind your souls with vows and resolutions, while you are strangers to a regenerate work, is to bind Samson with green withes, while his locks remain upon his head.

 

 

A Sober Consideration of the Sin of IMPURITY

THE next danger I shall give you warning of, is the sin of impurity; with which I fear too many of the rude and looser sort of seamen defile themselves; and possibly, the temptations to this sin are advantaged, and strengthened upon them more than others, by their condition and employments. Let no man be offended that I here give warning of this evil: I intend to asperse no man's person, or raise up jealousy against any; but would faithfully discharge my duty to all, and that in all things. It was the complaint of Salvian many hundred years ago, that he could not speak against the vices of men, but one or other would thus object; 'There he meant me; he hit me: and so storm and fret. Alas (as he replies) it is not we that speak to you, but your own conscience; we speak to the order, but conscience speaks to the person.' I shall use no other apology in this case. That this sin is a dreadful gulf, a quick-sand that has sucked in, and destroyed thousands, is truly apparent both from scripture and experience. Solomon tells us, Proverbs 22:14. that it is a "deep ditch, into which such as are abhorred of the Lord shall fall." Oh! the multitudes of dead that are there! and if so, I cannot in duty to God, or in love to you, be silent, where the danger is so great. It is both needless, and besides my intention here is to insist largely upon the explication of the particulars in which impurity is distributed: the more ordinary and common sins of this kind are known by the names of adultery and fornication. The latter is when single persons come together out of the state of marriage. The former is, when at least one of the persons committing impurity is contracted in marriage. This now is the evil I shall warn you of. And, that you may never fall into this pit, I shall endeavor to hedge and fence up the way to it by these ensuing arguments: and, oh! that the light of every argument may be powerfully reflected upon your conscience! Many men are wise in generals, but very vain in the reasonings or imaginations, as the apostle calls them, Romans 1:21. that is in their practical inferences. They are good at speculation, but bunglers at application: but it is truth in the particulars, that, like an hot iron, pierces; and, oh! that you may find these to be such in your soul! To that end consider,

ARGUMENTS

Argument 1. The names and titles by which this sin is known in scripture are very vile and base. The Spirit of God, doubtless, has put such odious names upon it, on purpose to deter and affright men from it. In general it is called lust; and so (as one notes) it bears the name of its mother; it is impurity in the abstract, Numbers 5:19. filthiness itself; an abomination, Ezekiel 22:11. And they that commit it are called abominable, Revelation 21:8. Varro says, the word imports that which is not lawful to mention; or rather, abominable persons, such as are not fit for the society of men, such as should be hissed out of all men's company: they are rather to be reckoned to beasts than men. Yes, the scripture compares them to the filthiest of beasts, even to dogs. When Ishbosheth charged this sin upon Abner, 2 Samuel 3:8. "Am I a dog's head (says he) that you charge me with a fault concerning this woman?" And in Deuteronomy 23:18. the hire of a whore, and the "price of a dog," are put together. The expression of this lust in words or gesture, is called neighing, Jeremiah 5:8. Even as fed horses do, that scatter their lust promiscuously. Or, if the scripture speaks of them as men, yet it allows them but the external shape of men, not the understanding of men. Among the Jews they were called fools in Israel, 2 Samuel 13:13. and so Proverbs 6:32. "Whoever commits adultery with a woman, lacks understanding." And sinners, Luke 7:37. "And behold a woman that was a [sinner,]" that is, an eminent notorious sinner: by which term the scripture deciphers an unclean person, as if, among sinners, there were none of such a prodigious stature in sin as they. And we find, that when the Spirit of God would set forth any sin by an odious name, he calls it adultery; so idolatry is called adultery, Ezekiel 16:32. And indeed this spiritual and corporeal adultery oftentimes are found in the same persons. They that give themselves up to the one, are, by the righteous hand of God given up to the other, as it is too manifestly and frequently exemplified in the world. So earthly-mindedness has this name put upon it on purpose to affright men from it, James 4:4. Now certainly God would never borrow the name of this sin to set out the evil of other sins. If it were not most vile and abominable. It is called the sin of the Gentiles, or heathens, 1 Thessalonians 4:5. And, oh! that we could say, it were only among them that know not God? How then are you able to look these scriptures in the face, and not blush? O what a sin is this! Are you willing to be ranked with fools, dogs, sinners, heathens, and take your lot with them? God has planted that affection of shame in your nature to be as a guard against such filthy lusts; it is a sin that has filthiness enough in it to defile the tongue that mentions it, Ephesians 5:3.

Argument 2. It is a sin that the God of Heaven has often prohibited and severely condemned in the word, which abundantly declares his abhorrence of it. You have prohibition upon prohibition, and threatening upon threatening in the word against it; Exodus 20:14. "You shall not commit adultery." This was delivered upon mount Sinai with the greatest solemnity and terror by the mouth of God himself. Turn to, and ponder the following scriptures among many others, Proverbs 5:2, 3, 4. Acts 5:29. Romans 1:24, 29. Romans 13:13. 1 Corinthians 6:13–18. 2 Corinthians 12:21. Galatians 5:19. Ephesians 5:3. Colossians 3:5. 1 Thessalonians 4:2, 3, 4, 5. Hebrews 12:16. Hebrews 13:4. All these, with many others, are the true sayings of God: by them you shall be tried in the last day. Now, consider how terrible it will be to have so many words of God, and such terrible ones too as most of those are, to be brought in and pleaded against your soul in that day! Mountains and hills may depart, but these words shall not depart: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one tittle of the word shall pass away. Believe it, sinner, as sure as the heavens are over your head, and the earth under your feet, they shall one day take hold of you, though we poor worms who plead them with you, die and perish: Zechariah 1:5, 6. The Lord tells us it shall not fall to the ground. Which is a borrowed speech from a dart that is flung with a weak hand; it goes not home to the mark, but falls to the ground by the way. None of these words shall so fall to the ground.

Argument 3. It is a sin that defiles and destroys the body; 1 Corinthians 6:18. "He who commits adultery, sins against his own body." In most other sins the body is the instrument, here it is the object against which the sin is committed: that body of your, which should be the temple of the Holy Spirit, is turned into a sty of filthiness; yes, it not only defiles, but destroys it. Job calls it a "fire that burns to destruction," Job 31:12. or as the Septuagint reads it, a fire that burns in all the members. It is a sin that God has plagued with strange and terrible diseases; whereof you may read in Bolton's four last things, page 30. and Sclater on Romans 1:30. These were judgments sent immediately by God's own hand, to correct the new sins and enormities of the world; for they seem to put the best physicians besides their books. O how terrible is it to lie groaning under the sad effects of this sin! As Solomon tells us, Proverbs 5:11. "And you mourn at the last, when your flesh and your body are consumed." To this sense some expound that terrible text, Hebrews 13:4 "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;" that is with some remarkable judgment inflicted on them in this world: if it escape the punishment of men, it shall not escape the vengeance of God. Ah! with what comfort may a man lie down upon a sick-bed, when the sickness can be looked upon as a fatherly visitation coming in mercy? But you that shorten your life, and brings sickness on yourself by such a sin, are the devil's martyr; and to whom can you turn in such a day for comfort?

Argument 4. Consider what an indelible blot it is to your nature, which can never be wiped away; though you escape with your life, yet, as one says, you shall be burnt in the hand, yes, branded in the forehead. What a foul scare is that upon the face of David himself, which abides to this day? "He was upright in all things, save in the matter of Uriah." And how was he slighted by his own children and servants after he had committed this sin! compare 1 Samuel 2:30. with 2 Samuel 11:10, 11. "A wound and dishonor shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. This is to give your honor to another," Proverbs 5:9. The shame and reproach attending it should be a preservative from it. Indeed the devil tempts to it by hopes of secrecy and concealment; but though many other sins lie hid, and possibly shall never come to light until that day of manifestation of all hidden things, yet this is a sin that is most usually discovered. Under the law, God appointed an extraordinary way for the discovery of it, Numbers 5:13. And to this day the providence of God does often very strangely bring it to light, though it be a deed of darkness: the Lord has many times brought such persons, either by terror of conscience, frenzy, or some other means, to be the publishers and proclaimers of their own shame. Yes, observe this, said the reverend Mr. Hildersham on the fourth of John, even those that are most cunning to conceal and hide it from the eyes of the world, yet through the just judgment of God, every one suspects and condemns them for it: this dashes in pieces, at one stroke, that vessel in which the precious ointment of a good name is carried. A fool in Israel shall be your title; and even children shall point at you.

Argument 5. It scatters your substance, and roots up the foundation of your estate; Job 31:12. "It roots up all your increase, Strangers shall be filled with your wealth, and your labors shall be in the house of a stranger," Proverbs 5:10. "For by means of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a morsel of bread," Proverbs 6:26. It gives rags for its livery (says one) and though it be furthered by the fullness, yet it is followed with a morsel of bread. This is one of those temporal judgments with which God punishes the unclean person in this life. The word Delilah, which is the name of a harlot, is conceived to come from a root that signifies to exhaust, drain, or draw dry. This sin will quickly exhaust the fullest estate; and, oh! what a dreadful thing will this be, when God shall require an account of your stewardship in the great day! how righteous is it, that that man should be fuel to the wrath of God, whose health and wealth have been so much fuel to maintain the flame of lust! O how lavish of their estates are sinners to satisfy their lusts! if the members of Christ be sick or in prison, they may there perish and starve before they will relieve them; but to obtain their lusts, O how expensive! "Ask me never so much, and I will give it," says Shechem, Genesis 34:12. "Ask what you will, and it shall be given you," said Herod to the daughter of Herodias. Well, you are liberal in spending treasures upon your lusts; and believe it, God will spend treasures of wrath to punish you for your lusts. It had been a thousand times better for you you had never had an estate, that you had begged your bread from door to door, than to have such a sad reckoning as you shall shortly have for it.

Argument 6. O stand off from this sin, because it is a pit, out of which very few have been recovered that have fallen therein. Few are the footsteps of returners from this den. The longer a man lives in it, the less power he has to leave it. It is not only a damning, but an infatuating sin. The danger of falling this way must needs be great, and the fall very desperate; because few that fall into it do ever rise again. I shall lay two very terrible scriptures before you to this purpose, either of them enough to drive you speedily to Christ, or to drive you out of your wits; the one is that, Ecclesiastes 7:26. "And I find more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: Whoever pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her." The argument which the Spirit of God uses here to dissuade from this sin, is taken from the subject; they that fall into it, for the most part, are persons in whom God has no delight, and so in judgment are delivered up to it, and never recovered by grace from it. The other is that in Proverbs 22:14. "The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein." O terrible word! able to daunt the heart of the securest sinner. Your whores embrace you, yes, but God abhors you! You have their love, Oh but you are under God's hatred! What say you to these two scriptures? If you are not atheists, methinks such a word from the mouth of God, should strike like a dart through your soul. And upon this account it is, that they never are recovered, because God has no delight in them. If this be not enough, view one scripture more, Proverbs 2:18, 19. "For her house inclines unto death, and her paths unto the dead: None that go to her, return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life." Reader, if you be a person addicted to this sin, go your way, and think seriously what a case you are in. None return again, that is a very few of many: The examples of such as have been recovered are very rare. Pliny tells us, the mermaids are commonly seen in green meadows, and have enchanting voices; but there are always found heaps of dead men's bones lying by them. This may be but a fabulous story: But I am sure, it is true of the harlot, whose syren songs have allured thousands to their inevitable destruction. It is a captivating sin that leads away the sinner in triumph; they cannot deliver their souls; Proverbs 7:22. "He goes after her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a [fool] to the correction of the stocks." Mark, a fool; it dements and befools men, takes away their understanding; the Septuagint renders it, as a dog to the collar; or, like as we use to say, a dog in a string. I have read of one, that having by this sin wasted his body, was told by physicians, that except he left it, he would quickly lose his eyes: He answered, if it be so, then valley lumen amicum, farewell sweet light. And I remember, Luther writes of a certain nobleman in his country, who was so besotted with the sin of whoredom, that he was not ashamed to say, that if he might live here forever, and be carried from one stew to another, he would never desire any other Heaven. The greatest conquerors, that have subdued kingdoms, and scorned to be commanded by any, have been miserably enslaved and captivated by this lust. O think sadly upon this argument! God often gives them up to impertinency, and will not spend a rod upon them to reclaim them. See Hosea 4:14. Revelation 22:11.

Argument 7. And then in the 7th place, those few that have been recovered by repentance out of it, O how bitter has God made it to their souls! "I find it (says Solomon) more bitter than death," Ecclesiastes 7:26. Death is a very bitter thing; O what a struggling and reluctance is there in nature against it; but this is more bitter. Poor David found it so, when he roared under those bloody lashes of conscience for it, in Psalm 51. Ah! when the Lord shall open the poor sinner's eyes, to see the horror and guilt he has hereby contracted upon his own poor soul, it will haunt him as a Spirit, day and night, and terrify his soul with dreadful forms and representations! O dear bought pleasure, if this were all it should cost! What is now become of the pleasure of sin? O what gall and wormwood will you taste, when once the Lord shall bring you to a sight of it! The Hebrew word for repentance (Nacham,) and the Greek word (Metamelia,) the one signifies, an irking of the soul, and the other signifies, after-grief: Yes, it is called, a renting of the heart, as if it were torn in pieces in a man's breast. Ask such a poor soul, what it thinks of such courses now? Oh! now it loathes, abhors itself for them. Ask him, if he dare sin in that kind again? You may as well ask me (will he answer) whether I will thrust my hand into the fire. Oh! it breeds an indignation in him against himself. That word, áãáíáêôçóéí, 2 Corinthians 7:11. signifies the rising of the stomach with very rage, and being sick with anger. Religious wrath is the fiercest wrath. O what a furnace is the breast of a poor penitent! what fumes, what heats do abound in it, while the sin is even before him, and the sense of the guilt upon him? One night of carnal pleasure will keep you many days and nights upon the rack of horror, if ever God give you repentance unto life.

Argument 8. And if you never repent, as indeed but few do that fall into this sin, then consider how God will follow you with eternal vengeance: You shall have flaming fire for burning lust. This is a sin that has the scent of fire and brimstone with it, wherever you meet with it in scripture. The harlot's guests are lodged in the depths of Hell, Proverbs 9:18. No more perfumed beds; they must now lie down in flames. Whoremongers shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death, Revelation 21:8. Such shall not inherit the kingdom of God and Christ, 1 Corinthians 6:9. No dog shall come into the New Jerusalem; there shall never enter in anything that defiles, or that works abomination. You have spent your strength upon sin, and now God sets himself a work to show the glory of his power in punishing, Romans 9:22. The wrath of God is transacted upon them in Hell by his own immediate hand, Hebrews 10:30. Because no creature is strong enough to convey all his wrath, and it must all be poured put upon them, therefore he himself will torment them forever with his own immediate power: Now he will stir up all his wrath, and sinners shall know the price of their pleasures. The punishment of Sodom is a little map of Hell, as I may say. O how terrible a day was that upon those unclean wretches! But that fire was not of many days continuance: When it had consumed them, and their houses, it went out for want of matter: but here, the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it. The pleasure was quickly gone, but the sting and torment abide forever. "Who knows the power of his anger? Even according to his fear, so is his wrath," Psalm 90:11. Oh consider, how will his almighty power rack and torment you! Think on this when sin comes with a smiling face towards you in the temptation. O think! If the human nature of Christ recoiled, when his cup of wrath was given him to drink; if he were sore amazed at it, how shall you, a poor worm, bear and grapple with it forever?

Argument 9. Consider further, however closely you carry your wickedness in this world, though it should never be discovered here, yet there is a day coming when all will out, and that before angels and men. God will rip up your secret sins in the face of that great congregation at the day of judgment: Then that which was done in secret shall be proclaimed as upon the house-top, Luke 12:3. "Then God will judge the secrets of men," Romans 2:16. "the hidden things of darkness will be brought into the open light." Sinner, there will be no sculking for you in the grave, no declining this bar; you refused, indeed, to come to the throne of grace, when God invited you, but there will be no refusing to appear before the bar of justice, when Christ shall summon you. And as you can not decline appearing, so neither can you then palliate and hide your wickedness any longer; for then shall the books be opened; the book of God's omniscience, and the book of your own conscience, wherein all your secret villainy is recorded: for though it ceased to speak to you, yet it ceased not to write and record your actions. If your shameful sins should be divulged now, it would make you tear off your hair with indignation; but then all will be discovered: Angels and men shall point at you, and say, lo, this is the man, this is he who carried it so smoothly in the world. Mr. Thomas Fuller relates a story of Ottocar king of Bohemia, 'who refusing to do his homage to Rodulphus the first emperor, being at last sorely chastised with war, condescended to do him homage privately in a tent; but the tent was so contrived by the emperor's servants, (says the historian) that, by drawing one cord, it was taken all away, and so Ottocar presented on his knees, doing homage to the emperor in the view of three armies.' O sirs, you think to carry it closely, you wait for the twilight, that none may see you; but, alas! it will be to no end, this day will discover it; and then what confusion and everlasting shame will cover you! Will not this work then?

Argument 10. Lastly, consider but one thing more, and I have done. By this sin you do not only damn your own soul, but draws another to Hell with you. This sin is not as a single bullet that kills but one, but as a chain-shot, it kills many, two at least, unless God give repentance. And if he should give you repentance, yet the other party may never repent, and so perish forever through your wickedness; and oh! what a sad consideration will that be to you, that such a poor soul is in Hell, or likely to go thither by your means? You have made fast a snare upon a soul, which you can not untie; you have done that which may be matter of sorrow to you as long as you live; but though you can grieve for it, you can not remedy it. In other sins it is not so: If you had stolen another's goods, restitution might be made to the injured party, but here can be none: if you had murdered another, your sin was your own, not his that was murdered by you: but this is a complicated sin, defiling both at once; and if neither repent, then, oh! what a sad greeting will these poor wretches have in Hell! how will they curse the day that ever they saw each other's face! O what an aggravation of their misery will this be! For look, as it will be matter of joy in Heaven, to behold such there as we have been instrumental to save, so must it needs be a stinging aggravation of the misery of the damned to look upon those who have been the instruments and means of their damnation. Oh, methinks if there be any tenderness at all in your conscience, if this sin have not totally brawned and stupefied you, these arguments should pierce like a sword through your guilty soul. Reader, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, if you have defiled your soul by this abominable sin, speedily to repent. O get the blood of sprinkling upon you; there is yet mercy for such a wretch as you are, if you will accept the terms of it. "Such were some of you, but you are washed," 1 Corinthians 6:11. Publicans and harlots may enter into the kingdom of God, Matthew 21:31. Though but few such are recovered, yet how know you but the hand of mercy may pull you as a brand out of the fire, if now you will return and seek it with tears? Though it be a fire that consumes unto destruction, as Job calls it, Job 31:12. yet it is not an unquenchable fire, the blood of Christ can quench it.

And for you, whom God has kept hitherto from the contagion of it, O bless the Lord, and use all God's means for the prevention of it. The seeds of this sin are in your nature; no thanks to you, but to restraining grace, that you are not delivered up to it also. And that you may be kept out of this pit, conscionably practice these few directions.

Directions

Direction 1. Beg of God a clean heart, renewed and sanctified by saving grace; all other endeavors do but palliate a cure: the root of this is deep in your nature; O get that mortified, Matthew 15:19. "Out of the heart proceed fornication, adulteries." 1 Peter 2:11, 12. "Abstain from fleshly lusts—having your conversation honest." The lust must first be subdued, before the conversation can be honest.

Direction 2. Walk in the fear of God all the day long, and in the sense of his omniscient eye that is ever upon you. This kept Joseph from this sin, Genesis 39:9. "How can I do this wickedness and sin against God?" Consider, the darkness hides not from him, but shines as the light. If you could find a place where the eye of God should not discover you, it were somewhat: you dare not to act this wickedness in the presence of a child, and will you adventure to commit it before the face of God? see that argument, Proverbs 5:20, 21. "And why will you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his goings."

Direction 3. Avoid lewd company, and the society of unclean persons; they are but panders for lust. Evil communication corrupts good manners. The tongues of sinners do cast fire-balls into the hearts of each other, which the corruption within is easily kindled and inflamed by.

Direction 4. Exercise yourself in your calling diligently; it will be an excellent means of preventing this sin. It is a good observation that one has, That Israel was safer in the brick-kilns in Egypt, than in the plains of Moab, 2 Samuel 11:2. "And it came to pass in the eventide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked on the roof of the king's house;" and this was the occasion of his fall. See 1 Timothy 5:11, 13.

Direction 5. Put a restraint upon your appetite: feed not to excess. Fullness of bread and idleness were the sins of Sodom, that occasioned such an exuberance of lust. "They are like fed horses, every one neighing after his neighbor's wife. When I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses," Jeremiah 5:7, 8. This is a sad requital of the bounty of God, in giving us the enjoyment of the creatures, to make them fuel to lust, and instruments of sin.

Direction 6. Make choice of a meet yoke-fellow, and delight in her you have chosen. This is a lawful remedy: See 1 Corinthians 7:9. God ordained it, Genesis 2:21. But herein appears the corruption of nature, that men delight to tread by-paths, and forsake the way which God has appointed.

Stolen waters are sweeter to them than those waters they might lawfully drink at their own fountain: But withal know, it is not the having, but the delighting in a lawful wife, as God requires you to do, that you must be a fence against this sin. So Solomon, Proverbs 5:19. "Let her be as the loving hind, and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy you at all times, and be ravished always with her love."

Direction 7. Take heed of running on in a course of sin (especially superstition and idolatry: in which cases, and as a punishment of which evils God often gives up men to these vile affections, Romans 1:25, 16. "Who changed the truth of God into a lie; [worshiped] and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen. [For this cause] God gave them up to vile affections," etc. They that defile their souls by idolatrous practices, God suffers, as a just recompense, their bodies also to be defiled with impurity, so that their ruin may be hastened. Let the admirers of traditions beware of such a judicial tradition as this is. Woe to him that is thus delivered by the hand of an angry God! No punishment in the world like this, when God punishes sin with sin: when he shall suffer those êïéíáò åííïéáò, those common notices of conscience to be quenched, and all restraints to be moved out of the way of sin, it will not be long before that sinner come to his own place.

 

 

 

A Sober Consideration of the Sin of UNTHANKFULNESS

IN the next place I shall make bold to expostulate a little with your consciences concerning the precious mercies you have received, and the solemn promises you have bound yourselves withal for the obtaining of those mercies. I fear God has many bankrupt debtors among you, that have dealt slipperily and unfaithfully with him; that have not rendered to the Lord according to the great things he has done for them, nor according to those good things they have vowed to the mighty God of Jacob. But truly if you be a despiser of mercy, you shall be a pattern of wrath. God will remember them in fury who forget him in his favors. I will tell you what a grave and eminent minister once told his people (dealing with them about this sin of unthankfulness for mercy); and I pray God it may affect you duly. 'Let us all mourn (says he) and take on; we are all behind hand with God. The Christian world is become bankrupt, quite broke, makes no return to God for his love. He is issuing out process to seize upon body, goods, and life, and will be put off no longer. Bloody bailiffs are abroad for bad debtors all the world over Christians are broke, and make no return, and God is breaking all. He cannot have what he would have, what he should have, he will take what he can get: for money he will take goods, limbs, arms, legs; he will have his own out of your skin, out of your blood, out of your bodies and souls. He is setting the Christian world as light and as low as they have set his love. Ah, Lord, what a time do we live in! long-suffering is at an end, mercy will be righted in justice, justice will have all behind, it will be paid to the utmost farthing; it will set abroach your blood, but it will have all behind,' etc.

Do you hear, souls? Is not this sad news to some of you, who have received vast sums of mercy, and given God your bond for the repayment of him in praise and answerable fruit, and yet forfeited all and lost your credit with God? O how can you look God in the face, with whom you have dealt so perfidiously! I am now come in the name of God to demand his due of you; to call to remembrance the former receipts of mercy which you mind not, but God does, and there is a witness in your bosom that does, and will one day witness to your faces, that you have dealt perfidiously with your God. Your souls have been the graves of mercy, which should have been as so many gardens where they should have lived and flourished. I am come now to open those graves, and view those mercies that your unthankfulness has killed and buried, to lay them before your eyes, and see whether your ungrateful hearts will bleed upon them. Buried mercies are not lost forever; they shall as certainly have a day of resurrection as yourself: it were better for you they should have a resurrection now in your heart, than to rise as witnesses against you, when you shall rise out of the dust: that will be a terrible resurrection indeed, when they shall come to plead against your soul. Nothing pleads more dreadfully against a soul than abused mercy does. But I shall come to the particulars upon which I interrogate your consciences; and I pray deal truly and ingenuously in answering these queries.

Queries

Query 1. And, first, I shall demand of you, whether you never had experience of the power and goodness of God, in restoring you to health from dangerous sickness and diseases? Have you not sometimes had the sentence of death in yourselves? And that possibly when you have been in remote parts, far from your friends and relations, and destitute of all means and accommodations. Did you not say in that condition, as Hezekiah did in a like case? Isaiah 38:10, 11, 12. "I said, in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world:" Remember yourself, Man; can not you call to mind the day when the arrows of death came whisking by you, and it may be, hit those next you; took away those that were as lively and lusty as yourself, when you began your voyage, and yet they were cast for death, you for life, and that when there was but an hair's breadth between you and the grave? Tell me, soul, what friend was that who stood by you then, when you were forsaken of all your friends? When it may be your companions stood ready to throw you over-board, who was it that pitied and remembered you in your low estate? Who was it that rebuked your disease! or, (as one very aptly expresses it) 'restrained the humours of your body from overflowing and drowning your life? For, when they are let out in a sickness, they would overflow and drown it, as the waters would the earth, if God should not say to them, stay, you proud waves.' Who was it, man, that when your body was brought low and weak, and like a crazy rotten ship in a storm, took in water on all sides, so that all the physicians in the world could not have stopped those leaks? Consider what hand that was which quieted and calmed the tempestuous sea, careened and mended your crazy body, and launched you into the world again, as whole, as sound, as strong as ever? Was it not the Lord that has done all this for you? Did he not keep back your soul from the pit, and your life from perishing? Yes, when you were chastened with pain upon your bed, (as Elihu speaks) Job 33:19, 20, 21. and the multitude of your bones with strong pains, so that your life abhorred bread, and your soul dainty meat; your flesh consumed away, that it could not be seen, and your bones that were not seen, stuck out: Yet then, as it is verse 28. he delivered your soul from going down into the pit, and caused your life to see the light. Had the lamp of life been then extinguished, you had gone down into endless darkness; Hell had shut her mouth upon you. Now tell me soul, what have you done with this precious mercy? Have you walked before the Lord in a deep sense thereof, and answered his end therein, which was to lead you to repentance? Or has your stupid or disingenuous heart forgotten it, and lost all sense of it, so that God's end is frustrated, and your salvation not a jot furthered thereby? Oh! if it be so, woe to you! for the blood of this mercy, which your ingratitude has murdered, like the blood of Abel cries to God against you. What a wretch are you thus to requite the Lord for such a mercy! He saw your tears, and heard your groans, and said within himself, he shall not die, but live. Alas, poor creature! if I cut him off now, he is eternally lost: I will send him back a few years more into the world. I will try him, once more, it may be he will bear some fruits to me from this deliverance; and if so, well; if not, I will cut him down hereafter: He shall be set at liberty upon his good behavior a little longer. And is all this nothing in your eyes? Wretch that you are, do you forget and slight such a favor as this? is it worth no more in your eyes? Well, it would be worth something in the eyes of the poor damned souls, if they might have so many years cut out of their eternity, for a mere intermission of their torments, much more as a time of patience and mercy. O consider what pity and goodness you have abused!

Query 2. Were you never cast upon miserable straits and extremities, wherein the good providence of God relieved and supplied you? How many of you have been beaten so long at sea, by reason of contrary winds and other accidents, until your provisions have been exhausted and spent. To how short allowance have you been kept. And what a mercy would you have esteemed it, if you could but have satisfied nature with a full draught of water. Certainly, this has beEn the case with many of you. O what a price and value did you then set upon these common mercies, which at other times have been slightly overlooked! And when you have seen no hopes of relief, have you not looked sadly one upon another? and, it may be, said, as that widow of Sarepta did to the prophet, 1 Kings 17:12. "And she said, as the Lord your God lives, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die." Even such has been your case; yet has that God, whose mercies are over all his works, heard your sorrows, and provided relief for you, either by some ship, which providence sent to relieve you in that distress, or by altering the winds, and sending you safe to the land before all your provisions have been spent. And have you kept no records of these gracious providences? Yes, do you abuse the creature, when you are brought again to the full enjoyment of it; and possibly receive the creatures, (whose worth you have lately seen in the want of them) without thanksgiving, or a sensible acknowledgment of the goodness of God in them? I say, do you thus answer the expectations of God? Well, beware lest God teach such an unworthy creature, by woeful experience, that the opening of his hand to give you a mercy, is worth the opening your lips to bless him for it. Beware lest that unthankful mouth that will not bless the Lord for bread and water, have neither the one nor the other to bless him for. I can give you a sad instance in the case, and I have found it it in the writing of an eminent divine, who said he had it from an eye and ear-witness of the truth of it. A young man lying upon his sickbed, was always calling for meat; but when the meat he called for was brought unto him, he shook and trembled dreadfully at the sight of it, and that in every part of his body, and so continued until his food was carried away. And thus he did as often as any food was brought into his presence; and not being able to eat one bit, pined away; but before his death he freely acknowledged the justice of God in his punishment: For, said he, in the time of my health, I ordinarily received my meat without thanksgiving. O let the abusers and despisers of such mercies fear and tremble!

Query 3. Have you not been eminently protected and saved by the Lord, in the greatest dangers and hazards of life; in fights at sea, when men have dropped down at your right hand, and at your left, and yet the Lord has covered your heads in the day of battle? And though you have been equally obnoxious to death and danger with others, yet your name was not found among theirs in the list of the dead. Or, in shipwrecks, ah, how narrowly have some of you escaped! a plank has been cast in, you know not how, to save you, when your companions, for want of it, have gone down to the bottom; or you have been enabled to swim to the shore, when others have fainted in the way, and perished? In what variety of strange and astonishing providences has God worked towards some of you, and what returns have you made to God for it? Oh, sirs! I beseech you, consider but these two or three things that I shall now lay before you to consider of.

Considerations

Consideration 1. An heathen will do more for a dung-hill deity than you, that call yourself a Christian, will do for the true God, that made Heaven and earth, Daniel 5:4. They praised the gods of silver, and of gold, and of brass, of iron, wood, and stone. When the Philistines were delivered from the hand of Samson, the text says, Judges 16:24. "They praised their God," etc. Then Dagon must be extolled. O let shame cover your face!

Consideration 2. That the abuse of mercy and love is a sin that goes near to the heart of God. Oh! he cannot bear it. It is not the giving out of mercy that troubles him, for that he does with delight; but the recoiling of his mercies upon him by the creatures' ingratitude, this wounds. "Be astonished, O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid." And again, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth," Isaiah 1:2. q. d. O you innocent creatures, which inviolably observe the law of your creation, be all astonished and clothed in black, to see nature cast by sin so far below itself, and that in a creature so much superior to you as man, who in the very womb was crowned a king, and admitted into the highest order of creatures, and set as lord and master over you; yet does he act not only below himself, but below the very beasts. "The ox knows his owner; (that is) there is a kind of gratitude in the beasts, by which they acknowledge their benefactors that feed and preserve them. Oh! what a pathetical exclamation is that, Deuteronomy 32:6. "Do you thus requite the Lord, O foolish people, and unwise."

Consideration 3. It is a sin that kindles the wrath of God, and will make it burn dreadfully against you, unthankful sinner: It stirs up the anger of God, in whoever it be found, though in the person of a saint, 2 Chronicles. 32:25. "But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him: for his heart was lifted up, therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Jerusalem." And so you read, Romans 1. that the heathens, because they were not thankful, were given up to vile affections; the sorest plague in the world. It is a sin that the God of mercy scarce knows how to pardon, Jeremiah 5:7. "How shall I pardon you for this?" This forgetting of the God that saves us in our extremities is a sin that brings desolation and ruin, the effects of God's high displeasure upon all our temporal enjoyments. See that remarkable scripture, Isaiah 17:10, 11. "Because you have [forgotten] the God of [your salvation,] and have not been [mindful] of the rock of [your strength:] Therefore shall you plant pleasant plants, and shall set it with strange slips: In the day shall you make your plant to grow, and in the morning shall you make your seed to flourish; but the harvest shall be an heap in the day of grief, and desperate sorrow." The meaning is, that God will blast and curse all your employments, and you shall be under desperate sorrow. The meaning is, that God will blast and curse all your employments, and you shall be under desperate sorrow, by reason of the disappointment of your hopes.

Consideration 4. It is a sin that cuts off mercy from you in future straits: If you thus requite the Lord for former mercies, never expect the like in future distresses. God is not weary of his blessings, to cast them away upon such souls as are but graves to them. Mark what a reply God made to the Israelites, when they cried unto him for help, being invaded by the Amorites, Judges 10:11, 12, 13. "Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines? The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and you cried unto me, and I delivered you out of their hand. Yet you have forsaken me, and served other gods, wherefore I will deliver you no more." O sad world! it is as if the Lord had said, I have tried what mercy and deliverance will do with you, and I see you are never the better for it: Deliverance is but seed sown upon the rocks. I will cast away no more favors upon you; now look to yourselves, shift for yourselves for time to come; wade through your troubles as well as you can. O brethren! there is nothing more quickly works the ruin of a people than the abuse of mercy. O, methinks, this text should strike terror into your hearts? How often has God delivered you? Remember your eminent deliverance at such a time, in such a country, out of such a deep distress: God was gracious to your cry then, you have forgotten and abused his mercy: what now, if God should say as in the text, therefore I will deliver you no more? Ah, poor soul! what would you do then, or to whom will you turn? It may be that you will cry to the creatures for help and pity; but, alas! to what purpose! They will give as cold and as comfortless an answer as Samuel gave unto Saul, 1 Samuel 28:15, 16. "And Samuel said unto Saul," Wherefore have you disquieted me to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answers me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore have I called you, etc. Then said Samuel, wherefore then do you ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from you, and is become your enemy?" Oh! you will be a poor shiftless creature, if once by abusing mercy you make it your enemy!

Consideration 5. It is breach of vows made in distress to obtain these mercies; they have been easily forgotten and violated by you when you have obtained your desire: A word or two to convince you what a further evil lies in this, and how by this consideration your sins come to be buoyed up to a greater height and aggravation of sinfulness; and then I have done with this head.

A vow is a promise made to God, in the things of God. The obligation of it is, by casuists, judged to be as great as that of an oath. It is a sacred and solemn bond, wherein a soul binds to God in lawful things; and being once bound by it, it is a most heinous evil to violate it. It is an high piece of dishonesty to fail in what we have promised to men, says Dr. Hall; but to disappoint God in our vows, is no less than sacrilege. The act is free and voluntary; but if once a just and lawful vow or promise has past your lips, says he, you may not be false to God in keeping it. It is with us for our vows, as it was with Ananias and Sapphira, for their substance: "While it remained (says Peter) was it not your own?" He needed not to sell and give it; but if he will give, he may not reserve: it is death to save some; he lies to the Holy Spirit, that defalks from that which he engaged himself to bestow. If you have vowed to the mighty God of Jacob, look to it that you be faithful in your performance; for he is a great and jealous God, and will not be mocked.

Now I am confident there be many among you, that, in your former distresses, have solemnly engaged your souls thus to God; that if he would deliver you out of those dangers, and spare your lives, you would walk more strictly, and live more holy lives than ever you did. You have, it may be, engaged your souls to the Lord against those sins, as drunkenness, lying, swearing, impurity, or whatever evil it was that your conscience then smote you for; the vows of God (I say) are upon many of you. But have you performed those vows that your lips have uttered? Have you dealt truly with God? or have you mocked him, and lied unto him with your lips, and omitted those very duties you promised to perform, and returned to the self-same evils you have promised to forsake? I only put the question, let your consciences answer it. But if it be so, indeed, that you are a person that make light of your engagements to God, as indeed seamen's vows and sick men's promises are, for the most part, deceitful and slippery things, being extorted from them by fear of death, and not from any deep resentment of the necessity, and weight of those duties to which they bind their souls: I say, if this sin lie upon any of your souls, I advise you to go to God speedily, and bewail it; humble yourself greatly before him, admire his patience in forbearing you, and pay unto him what your lips have promised. And to move you thereunto, let these considerations among many others, be laid to heart.

Consideration 1. Think seriously upon the greatness of that majesty whom you have wronged by lying to him, and falsifying your engagements. O think sadly on this! it is not man whom you have abused, but God; even that God in whose hand your life and breath is. For although (as one truly observes) there be not in every vow a formal invocation of God, (God being the proper correlate, and, as it were, a party to every vow, and therefore not formally to be invoked for the contestation of it;) yet, there is in every vow an implicit calling God to witness; so that certainly the obligation of a vow is not one jot beneath that of an oath. Now if God be as a party to whom you have past your promise, and that obligation on that ground be so great; Oh what have you done! for a poor worm to mock the most glorious Majesty of Heaven, and break faith with God; what a dreadful thing is that? if it were but to your fellow-creature, though the sin would be great; yet not like unto this. Let me say to you as the prophet Isaiah, chapter 7:13. "Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?" If you dare to deceive and abuse men, dare you do so by God also? Oh! if the exceeding vileness of the sin do not affect you, yet methinks the danger of provoking so dreadful a Majesty against you should! And therefore consider,

Consideration 2. That the Lord will most certainly be avenged upon you for these things, except you repent. O read, and tremble at the word of God! Ecclesiastes 5:4, 5, 6. "When you vow a vow unto God, defer not to pay it: for he has no pleasure in fools; pay that which you have vowed. Better is it that you should not vow, than that you should vow, and not pay. Suffer not your mouth to cause your flesh to sin, neither say you, before the angel, that it was an error; wherefore [should God be angry] at your voice, and [destroy] the works of your hands?" Mark, God will be angry, and in that anger he will destroy the work of your hands, that is says Deodate, 'bring you and all your actions to nothing, by reason of your perjury.' Now, the anger of God, which your breach of promise kindles, as appears by this text, is a dreadful fire. O, what creature can stand before it! as Asaph speaks, Psalm 76:7. "You, even you are to be feared; and who may stand in your sight, when once you are angry?"

Consideration 3. Consider, that all this while you sin against knowledge and conviction; for did not your conscience plainly convince you, when imminent danger opened its mouth, that the matter of your neglected vow was a most necessary duty? If not, why did you bind your soul to forsake such practices, and to perform such duties? You did so look upon them then; by which it appears your conscience is convinced of your duty, but lust does master and overrule: and if so, poor sinner, what a case are you in, to go on from day to day sinning against light and knowledge? Is not this a fearful way of sinning? and will not such sinners be plunged deeper into Hell than the poor Indians, that never saw the evil of their ways, as you do? Ponder but two or three scriptures in your thoughts, and see what a dreadful way of sinning this is: Romans 2:9. "Tribulation, anguish, and wrath, to every soul of man that does evil, to the [Jew first], and also to the Gentile." To the Jew first, that is to the Jew especially and principally; he had a precedence in means and light, and so let him have in punishment. So James 4:17. "To him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin;" that is Sin with a witness, horrid sin, that surpasses the deeds of the wicked. So Luke 12:47. "And that servant that knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." Which is a plain allusion to the custom of the Jews in punishing an offender, who being convicted, the judge was to see him bound fast to a pillar, his clothes stripped off, and an executioner with a scourge to beat him with so many stripes: but now those stripes came but from the arm of a creature; these that the text speaks of are set on by the omnipotent arm of God. Of the former there was a determinate number set down in their law, as forty stripes; and sometimes they would remit one of that number too, in mercy to the offender, as you see in the example of Paul, 2 Corinthians 11:24. "Of the Jews I received forty stripes, save one;" but in Hell no mitigation at all, nor allay of mercy. The arm of his power supports the creature in its being; while the arm of his justice lays on eternally. Soul, consider these things; do you not persist any longer then in such a desperate way of sinning against the clear conviction of your own conscience, which in this case must needs give testimony against you.

Well then, go to God with the words of David, Psalm 66:13, 14. and say unto him, "I will pay you my vows which my lips have uttered, and my tongue has spoken when I was in trouble." Pay it, soul, and pay it speedily unto God, else he will recover it by justice, and fetch it out of your bones in Hell. O trifle not any longer with God, and that in such serious matters as these are?

And now I have done my endeavor to give your former mercies and promises a resurrection in your consciences. O that you would sit down and pause a while upon these things, and then reflect upon the past mercies of your lives, and on what has passed between God and your souls in your former straits and troubles? Let not these plain words work upon your spleen, and make you say as the widow of Sarepta did to the prophet Elijah, 1 Kings 17:18. "What have I to do with you, O you man of God? Are you come to call my sin to remembrance?" But rather let it work kindly on your heart, and make you say as David to Abigail, 1 Samuel 25:32, 33. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent you this day to meet me; and blessed be your advice."

 

 

A Sober Consideration of the Sin of slighting DEATH

THE fifth and last danger I shall warn you of, is your contempt and slighting of death. Ah! how little a matter do many of you, at least in words, make of it? It seems you have light reverential fear of this king of terrors, not only that you speak slightly of it, but also because you make no more preparations for it, and are no more sensible of your preservations and deliverances from it. Indeed the heathen philosophers did many of them profess a contempt of death upon the account of wisdom and fortitude; and they were accounted the bravest men that most despised and slighted it: But, alas, poor souls! they saw not their enemy against whom they fought, but skirmished with their eyes shut; they saw indeed its pale face, but not its sting and dart. There is also a lawful contempt of death. We freely grant that in two cases a believer may despise it. FIRST, When it is propounded to them a temptation on purpose to scare them from Christ and duty, then they should slight it; as Revelation 12:11. "They loved not their lives unto the death." SECONDLY, When the natural evil of death is set in competition with the enjoyment of God in glory, then a believer should despise it, as Christ is said to do, Hebrews 12:2 though his was a shameful death. But upon all other accounts and considerations, it is the height of stupidity and security to despise it.

Now, to the end that you might have right thoughts and apprehensions of death, which may put you upon serious preparation for it; and that whenever your turn comes to conflict with this king of terrors, under whose hand the Pompeys, Caesars, and Alexanders of the world, who have been the terrors of nations, have bowed down themselves; I say, that when your turn and time comes, as the Lord only knows how soon it may be, you may escape the stroke of its dart and sting, and taste no other bitterness in death, than the natural evil of it: To this end I have drawn the following questions and answers, which, if you please, may be called The Seaman's Catechism. And, oh! that you might not dare to launch forth into the deeps, until you have seriously interrogated and examined your hearts upon those particulars. Oh! that you would resolve, before you go forth, to withdraw yourselves a while from all clamors and distractions, and calmly and seriously Catechize your own selves in this manner.

Questions

QUESTION 1. What may the issue of this voyage be?

Answer. Death, Proverbs 27:1. "Boast not yourself of tomorrow, for you know not what a day may bring forth." James 4:13, 14. "Go to now, you that say, Today, or tomorrow, we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow: for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away."

Quest 2. What is death?

Answer. Death is a separation of soul and body until the resurrection, 2 Corinthians 5:1. "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved." Job 14:10, 11, 12. Read the words.

QUESTION 3. Is death to be despised and slighted if it be so?

Answer. O no! it is one of the most weighty and serious things that ever a creature went about: so dreadful does it appear to some, that the fear of it subjects them to bondage all their lives, Hebrews 2:15. "And to deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage." And in scripture it is called, The king of terrors, Job 18:14. Or the black prince, as some translate. Never had any prince such a title before. To some it has been so terrible, that none might mention its name before them.

QUESTION 4. What makes it so terrible and affrighting to men?

Answer. Several things concur to make it terrible to the most of men; as, first, Its harbingers and antecedents, which are strong pains, conflicts, and agonies. SECONDLY, Its office and work it comes about, which is to transfer us into the other world. Hence, Revelation 6:8 it is set forth by a pale horse: an horse for its use and office to carry you away from hence into the upper, or lower region of eternity; and a pale horse, for its ghastliness and terror. THIRDLY, But above all, it is terrible in regard of its consequence; for it is the door of eternity, the parting point between the present world and that to come; the utmost line and boundary of all temporal things, Hence, Hebrews 9:27. "It is appointed unto men once to die; but after this the judgment." Revelation 6:8. "And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed him." Ah! it makes a sudden and strange alteration upon men's conditions, to be plucked out of house, and from among friends and honors, and so many delights, and hurried in a moment into the land of darkness, to be clothed with flames, and drink the pure wrath of the Almighty forever. This is it that makes it terrible.

Quest 5. If death be so weighty a matter, am I prepared to die?

Answer. I doubt not; I am afraid I want many things that are necessary to a due preparation for it.

Quest 6. What are those things wherein a due preparation for death consists?

Answer. Many things are necessary. FIRST, Special and saving union with Jesus Christ. This is that which disarms it of its sting: "O death, where is your sting? Thanks be to God who has given [us] the victory, through [our] Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Corinthians 15:55, 57. So John 11:26. "Whoever [lives,] and [believes] in me shall never die." Whoever lives, that is is quickened with a new spiritual life and principle, and so puts forth the principal act. of that life, namely, faith, he shall never die, I e. eternally. This hornet, death, shall never leave its sting in his sides. SECONDLY, To entertain death comfortably, the evidence and knowledge of this union is necessary, 2 Corinthians 5:1. "For [we know,] that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God," etc. And then he cannot only be content, but groan to be unclothed, verse 2. A mistake in the former will cost me my soul; and a mistake here will lose me my peace and comfort. THIRDLY, In order to this evidence it is necessary that I keep a good conscience in all things both towards God and man, 2 Corinthians 1:12. "This is our rejoicing, even the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world." This good conscience respects all and every part of our work and duty to be done, and all and every sin to be renounced and denied: so that he who is early united unto Christ by faith, has the clear evidence of that union; and the evidence fairly gathered from the testimony of a good conscience, witnessing his faithfulness, as to all duties to be done, and sins to be avoided, he is fit to die; death can do him no harm; but, alas! these things are not to be found in me.

QUESTION 7. But what if I die without such a preparation as this is? What will the consequence of that be?

Answer. Very terrible, even the separation of my soul and body from the Lord to all eternity; John 3:36. "He who believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he who believes not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him." He shall not see life; there is the privative part of his misery, separation from the blessed God. And the [wrath,] mark it, not anger, but wrath, not the wrath of man, but of [God,] at whose rebukes the mountains skip like frighted men, and the hills tremble: the wrath of God not only flashes out upon him, as a transient flash of lightning, but [abides,] dwells, sticks fast; there is no power in the world can loose the soul from it. [Upon him,] not the body only, nor the soul only, but on [him,] (that is) the whole person, the whole man. Here is the principal positive part of that man's misery.

QUESTION 8. Can I bear this misery?

Answer. No: my heart cannot endure, nor my hands be strong, when God shall have to do with me upon this account. I cannot bear his wrath; angels could not bear it; it has sunk them into the depths of misery. Those that feel but a few sparks of it in their consciences here, are even distracted by it, Psalm 88:15. Christ himself had never borne up under it, had it not been supported by the infinite power of the divine nature, Isaiah 43:1. "Behold my Servant whom I uphold." How then shall I live, when God does this? what will be done in the dry tree? Oh! there is no abiding of it, it is insufferable! "The sinners in Zion are afraid: trembling surprises the hypocrite: who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who can endure the everlasting burning?" Isaiah 33:14.

QUESTION 9. If it cannot be borne, is there any way to prevent it?

Answer. Yes, there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. And herein I am in better case than the damned; I have the [may be's] of mercy, and they have not. Oh! what would they give for a possibility of salvation? Isaiah 1:16, 17, 18. "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do well," etc. "Come now, let us reason together: and though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as snow." Isaiah 55:7. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Though my disease be dangerous, it is not desperate, it does not scorn a remedy. Oh! there is balm in Gilead, and a physician there. There is yet a possibility, not only of recovering my primitive glory, but to be set in a better case than ever Adam was.

QUESTION 10. How may that be?

Answer. By going to the Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 8:1. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:33, 34. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies, Who is he who condemns? It is Christ that died, yes, rather, that is risen again."

QUESTION 11. But what is it to go to Christ?

Answer. To go to Christ, is to embrace him in his person and offices, and to rest entirely and closely upon him for pardon of sin, and eternal life: being deeply sensible of the want and worth of him. John 1:12. "To as many as [received] him, he gave power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on his name." John 3:36. "He who believes [on the Son] has life." 1 Corinthians 1:30. "And of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption." Acts 4:12. "Neither is there salvation in any other," etc. Acts 13:39. "And by him all that believe are [justified from all things,] from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." Isaiah 45:22. "Look unto me and be saved." Acts 2:37. "Now when they heard this they were pricked to the heart," etc.

QUESTION 12. But will Christ receive me, if I go to him?

Answer. Yes, yes; he is more ready to receive you, than you are to come to him; Luke 15:20. "And he arose, and came to his father: but, when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion on him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." The son does but go, the father ran; if he had but received him into the house, it had been much; but he fell on his neck, and kissed him. He bespeaks him, much after that rate he expressed himself to returning Ephraim: "My affections are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy on him," Jeremiah 31:20. There is not the least parenthesis in all the pages of free-grace, to exclude a soul that is sincerely willing to come to Christ.

QUESTION 13. But how may it appear that he is willing to receive me?

Answer. Make trial of him yourself. If you did but know his heart to poor sinners, you would not question it. Believe what he says in the gospel; there you shall find that he is a willing Savior; for therein you have, first, his most serious invitations, Matthew 11:28. "Come unto me, you that are weary and heavy laden." Isaiah 55:1. "Ho! every one that thirsts come you to the waters." These serious invitations are, secondly, backed and confirmed with an oath, Ezekiel 35:11. "As I live, I desire not the death of a sinner." THIRDLY, Amplified with pathetical wishes, sighs and groans, Luke 19:42. "Oh! that you had known, even you, at least, in this your day." FOURTHLY, Yes, delivered unto them in sincere tears, Matthew 23:37, 38. "He wept over it, and said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" FIFTHLY, Nay, he has shed not only tears, but blood, to convince you of his willingness. View him in his dying posture upon the cross, stretching out his dying arms to gather you, hanging down his blessed head to kiss you; every one of his wounds was a mouth opened to convince you of the abundant willingness of Christ to receive you.

QUESTION 14. But my sins are dyed in grain: I am a sinner of the blackest hue: will he receive and pardon such an one?

Answer. Yes, soul, if you be willing to commit yourself to him: Isaiah 1:18. "Come now, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them as snow; though they be red like crimson, I will make them as wool."

QUESTION 15. This is comfortable news; but may I not delay my closing with him for a while, and yet not hazard my eternal happiness, seeing I resolve to come to him at last?

Answer. No; there must be no delays in this case: Psalm 119:60. "I made haste, and delayed not to keep your commandments."

QUESTION 16. Why may I not defer it, at least for a little while?

Answer. For many weighty reasons this work can bear no delays. FIRST, The offers of grace are made to the present time, Hebrews 3:15. "While it is said today, harden not your hearts." There may be a few more days of God's patience, but that is unknown to you. 2. Your life is immediate uncertain; how many thousands are gone into eternity since the last night? If you can say to sickness when it comes, Go, and come again another time, it were somewhat. 3. Sin is not a thing to be dallied with. Oh, who would be willing to lie down one night under the guilt of all his sins? 4. Delays increase the difficulty of conversion; sin still roots itself deeper; habits are the more strengthened, and the heart still more hardened. 5. There be thousands now in Hell, that perished through delays; their consciences often urged and pressed hard upon them, and many-resolutions they had, as you have now; but they were never perfected by answerable executions, and so they perished. 6. Your way of sinning now is desperate; for every moment you are acting against clear light and conviction; and that is a dreadful way of sinning. 7. There can be no solid reason for one hour's delay; for you can not be happy too soon; and be sure of it, if ever you come to taste of the sweetness of a Christian life, nothing will more pierce and grieve you than this, that you enjoyed it no sooner.

QUESTION 17. Oh, but the pleasures of sin engage me to it; how shall I break these cords and snares?

Answer. That snare may be broken by considering solemnly these five things. 1. That to take pleasure in sin, is an argument of a most deplorable and wretched state of soul. What a poisonous nature does it argue in a toad, that is sucking in nothing but poison and filth where-ever it crawls! O what an heart have you! Have you nothing to find pleasure in but that which makes the Spirit of Christ sad, and the hearts of saints ache and groan, which dug Hell, and let in endless miseries upon the world? 2. Think that the misery it involves you in is infinitely beyond the delights it tempts you by: it does but delight the sensual part, and that but with a brutish pleasure, but will torment your immortal soul, and that forever. The pleasure will quickly go off, but the sting will remain behind. "I tasted but a little honey on the top of my rod, (said "Jonathan) and I must die," 1 Samuel 14:43. 3. Nay, that is not all; but the Lord proportions wrath according to the pleasures souls have had in sin, Revelation 18:7. "How much she has lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give unto her." 4. What do you pay, or at least pawn for this pleasure? Your soul, your precious soul is laid to stake for it; and, in effect, thus you say when you defer the closing with Christ upon the account of enjoying the pleasures of sin a little longer: Here, devil, take my soul into your possession and power: if I repent, I will have it again; if not, it is your forever. O dear-bought pleasures!

Lastly, It is your gross mistake to think you shall be bereaved of all delights and pleasures by coming under the government of Christ: for one of those things in which his kingdom consists, is joy in the Holy Spirit, Romans 14:17. Indeed it allows no sinful pleasures to the subjects of it, nor do they need it; but from the day you closest in with Christ, all your pure, real, and eternal pleasures and delights begin to bear date. When the prodigal was returned to his father, then, says the text, "They began to be merry," Luke 15:24. See Acts 8:5, 6. No, soul, you shall want no joy, for the scripture says, "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house, and you shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures; for with you is the fountain of life," etc. Psalm 36:8, 9.

QUESTION 18. But how shall I be able to undergo the severities of religion? There are difficult duties to be done, and an heavy cross to be taken up; these be the things that daunt me.

Answer. If pain and suffering daunt you, how is it you are not more out of love with sin than with religion? For it is most certain, that the sufferings for Christ are nothing to Hell, the just reward and certain issue of sin; the pains of mortification are nothing to the pains of damnation: there is no comparison between suffering for Christ, and suffering from Christ; Matthew 5:29. "If your right hand or eye offend you, cut it off, and pluck it out; it is profitable for you that one member suffer, than that the whole body be cast into Hell." SECONDLY, You see the worst, but not the best of Christ. There be joys and comforts in those difficult duties and sufferings, that you see not; Colossians 1:24. "Who now rejoice in my sufferings." James 1:2. "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations," etc. THIRDLY, Great shall be your assistance from Christ, Philippians 4:13. "I can do all things through him that strengthens me The Spirit helps our infirmities," takes the other end of the burden, Romans 8:26. What do you mean who stand upon such terms, when it is Heaven or Hell, eternal life or death that lie before you?

QUESTION 19. But to what purpose will my endeavors to come to Christ be, unless I be elected? All will be to no purpose.

Answer. True; If you be not elected, you can not obtain him, or happiness by him: but yet that is no discouragement to strive; for in your unconverted state, your election or non-election is a secret to you: the only way to make it sure is by striving and giving all diligence in the way of duty, 2 Peter 1:10. And if you ponder the text well, you will find, that election is not only made sure in the way of diligence and striving, but calling is put before it, and lies in order to it: first secure your effectual calling; and then your election.

QUESTION 20. But I have no strength of my own to come to Christ by: and is it not absurd to urge me upon impossibilities in order to my salvation?

Answer. FIRST, Certainly you are most absurd in pleading and pretending your impotence against your duty; for you do think you have a power to come to Christ, else how do you quiet your conscience with promises and resolves of conversion hereafter? SECONDLY, Though it be true, that no saving act can be done without the concurrence of special grace; yet this is as true, that your inability to do what is above your power, does not excuse you from doing what is in your power to do. Can you not forbear, at least, many external acts of sin? And can you not perform, at least, the external acts of duty? Oh! if you can not come to Christ, yet, as the blind man, lie in the way of Christ: do what you can do, and confess and bewail your impotency, that you can do no more. Can you not take your soul aside in secret, and thus bemoan it; my poor soul! what will you do? O what will become of you, you are christless, covenantless, hopeless, and, which is most sad, senseless and bowelless? oh! you can not bear the infinite wrath of the eternal God, whose Almighty power will be set on work to torment such as you are; and yet you take no course to prevent it! You see the busy diligence of all others, and how the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence by them: and are not you as deeply engaged to look to your own happiness as any in the world? Will Hell be more tolerable to you than others? O what a composition of stupidity and sloth are you: You live after such a rate, as if there were neither fire in Hell to torment you, nor glory in Heaven to reward you. If God and Christ, Heaven and Hell, were but dreams and fables, you could not be less affected with them. Ah, my soul! my soul! my precious soul! Is it easy to perish? Will you die as a fool dies? O that men would but do this if they can do no more!

And now, soul, you see what death that is you have made so light of; and what is the only way that we poor sons of death have to escape its sting. You have here seen the vanity of all your pleas and pretenses against conversion, and the way to Christ prepared and cast up for you. Now sirs, I beg you, in the name of God that made you, and as if I made this request upon my bended knees to you, that you will now, without any more delays, yield yourselves to the Lord, Soul, I beseech you, haste you into your chamber, shut your door, and bespeak the Lord after some such manner as this before you dare to launch out into the deeps again.

O dreadful and glorious Majesty! you have affections of mercy, as well as beams of glory: I have heard the sounding of these affections for me this day. Lord, I have now heard a representation of the grim and ghastly face of death: ah, I have now seen it as the king of terrors, as the door of eternity, as the parting point where sinners take their eternal farewell of all their delights: I have seen this black prince mounted on his pale horse, and Hell following him: I have been convinced this day, that if he should come and fetch away my soul in that condition it is, Hell would follow him indeed. Lord, I have now heard of the Prince of life also, in whose bleeding side death has left and lost its envenomed sting; so that though it may kill, yet it cannot hurt any of his members. To this glorious Redeemer I have now been invited; all my pretenses against him have been confuted, and my soul, in his name, assured of welcome, if I come unto him, and cast myself upon him. And now, Lord, I come, I come, upon your call and invitation; I am sincerely willing to avouch you this day to be my God, and to take you for my portion. Lord Jesus! I come unto you; your clay, your creature moves towards the Fountain of pity: look hitherto, behold a spectacle of misery. Affections of mercy, hear! behold my naked soul, not a rag of righteousness to cover it; behold my starving soul, not a bit of bread for it to eat: ah! it has fed upon wind and vanity hitherto. Behold my wounded soul bleeding at your foot; every part, head and heart, will and affections, all wounded by sin. O you compassionate Samaritan! turn aside, and pour your sovereign blood into these bleeding wounds, which, like so many opened mouths, plead for pity. Behold a returning, submitting rebel, willing to lay down the weapons of unrighteousness, and to come upon the knee for a pardon. Oh, I am weary of the service of sin, I can endure it no longer! Lord Jesus, you were anointed to preach glad tidings to the meek, and to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; come now, and knock off those fetters of unbelief: O set my soul at liberty that it may praise you! For so many years Satan has cruelly tyrannized over me. O that this might be the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of the salvation of my God! Lord, you were lifted up to draw men unto you; and indeed you are a drawing Savior, a lovely Jesus! I have hitherto slighted you, but it was because I did not know you: mine eyes have been held by unbelief, when you were opened in the gospel; but now I see you as the chief of ten thousands. You are the glory of Heaven, the glory of earth, the glory of Zion; and, oh! that you would be the glory of my soul! I confess I am not worthy you should look upon me; I may much rather expect to be trampled under the feet of justice, than to be embraced in your arms of mercy: and that you should rather shed my polluted blood, than sprinkle your own upon me. But, Lord, what profit is there in my blood? Will you pursue a dried leaf; Shall it ever be said that the merciful King of Heaven hanged up a poor soul that put the rope about his own neck, and so came self-condemningly to him for mercy! O, my Lord, I am willing to submit to any terms, be they never so hard and ungrateful to the flesh: I am sure whatever I shall suffer in your service cannot be like to what I have suffered, or am like to suffer by sin; henceforth be my Lord and Master; your service is perfect freedom; be my priest and prophet, my wisdom and righteousness. I resign up myself unto you; my poor soul with all its faculties, my body with all its members, to be living instruments of your glory. Let holiness to the Lord be now written upon them all, let my tongue henceforth plead for you, my hands be lifted up unto your testimonies, my feet walk in your ways: O let all my affections, as willing servants, wait upon you, and be active for you. Whatever I am, let me be for you; whatever I have, let it be your; whatever I can do, let me do for you; whatever I can suffer, let me suffer for you. O that I might say, before I go hence, my beloved is mine, and I am his! O that what I have begged on earth might be ratified in Heaven! my spirit within me, says, Amen. Lord Jesus, say you, Amen.