for the obtaining the knowledge of those things immediately belonging
to their peace, and of whatsoever is besides necessary thereunto. I
say nothing what opportunities they have who never lived under the
gospel, who yet no doubt might generally know more than they do, and
know better what they do know. It suffices who enjoy the gospel to
understand our own advantages thereby. Nor, as to those who do enjoy
it, is every one's day of equal clearness. How few, in comparison,
have ever seen such a day as Jerusalem at this time did I made by
the immediate beams of the Sun of Righteousness! our Lord Himself
vouchsafing to be their Instructor, so speaking as never man did, and
with such authority as far outdid their other teachers, and astonished
the hearers. In what transports did He use to leave those that heard
Him, wheresoever He came, wondering at the gracious words that came
out of His mouth! And with what mighty and beneficial works was He
went to recommend His doctrine, shining in the glorious power and
savoring of the abundant mercy of Heaven, so that every apprehensive
mind might see the Deity was incarnate. God was come down to entreat
with men, and allure them into the knowledge and love of Himself. The
Word was made flesh. What unprejudiced mind might not perceive it to
be so? He was there manifested and vailed at once; both expressions
are made concerning the same matter. The divine beams were somewhat
obscured, but did yet ray through that vail; so that His glory was
beheld of the only-begotten Son of His Father, full of grace and
truth.
This Sun shone with a mild and benign, but with a powerful, vivifying
light. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. Such a
light created unto the Jews this their day. Happy Jews, if they had
understood their own happiness! And the days that followed to them
(for a while) and the Gentile world were not inferior, in some
respects brighter and more glorious (the more copious gift of the
Holy Ghost being reserved unto the crowning and enthroning of the
victorious Redeemer), when the everlasting gospel flew like lightning
to the uttermost ends of the earth, and the word which began to be
spoken by the Lord Himself was confirmed by them that heard Him, God
also Himself bearing them witness with signs, and wonders, and gifts
of the Holy Ghost. No such day hath been seen this many an age. Yet
whithersoever this same gospel, for substance, comes, it also makes a
day of the same kind, and affords always true tho diminished light,
whereby, however, the things of our peace might be understood and
known. The written gospel varies not, and if it be but simply and
plainly proposed tho to some it be proposed with more advantage, to
some with less, still we have the same things immediately relating to
our peace extant before our eyes ...
This day hath its bounds and limits, so that when it is over and lost
with such, the things of their peace are forever hid from their eyes.
And that this day is not infinite and endless, we see in the present
instance. Jerusalem had her day; but that day had its period, we see
it comes to this at last, that now the things of her peace are hid
from her eyes. We generally see the same thing, in that sinners are so
earnestly prest to make use of the present time. To-day if you will
hear His voice, harden not your hearts. They are admonished to seek
the Lord while He may be found, to call upon Him when He is nigh. It
seems some time He will not be found, and will be far off. They are
told this is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation ... As it
is certain death ends the day of grace with every unconverted person,
soit is very possible that it may end with divers before they die; by
their total loss of all external means, or by the departure of the
blest Spirit of God from them; so as to return and visit them no more.
How the day of grace may end with a person, is to be understood by
considering what it is that makes up and constitutes such a day. There
must become measure and proportion of time to make up this (or any)
day, which is as the substratum and ground fore-laid. Then there must
be light superadded, otherwise it differs not from night, which may
have the same measure of mere time. The gospel revelation some way or
other, must be had, as being the light of such a day. And again there
must be some degree of liveliness, and vital influence, the more usual
concomitant of light; the night doth more dispose men to drowsiness.
The same sun that enlightens the world disseminates also an
invigorating influence. If the Spirit of the living God do no way
animate the gospel revelation, and breathe in it, we have no day of
grace. It is not only a day of light, but a day of power, wherein
souls can be wrought upon, and a people made willing to become the
Lord's. As the Redeemer revealed in the gospel, is the light of the
world, so He is life to it too, tho neither are planted or do take
root everywhere. In Him was life and that life was the light of men.
That light that rays from Him is vital light in itself, and in its
tendency and design, tho it be disliked and not entertained by the
most. Whereas therefore these things must concur to make up such a
day; if either a man's time, his life on earth, expire, or if light
quite fail him, or if all gracious influence be withheld, so as to be
communicated no more, his day is done, the season of grace is over
with him. Now it is plain that many a one may lose the gospel before
his life end; and possible that all gracious influence may be
restrained, while as yet the external dispensation of the gospel
remains. A sinner may have hardened his heart to that degree that God
will attempt him no more, in any kind, with any design of kindness to
him, not in that more inward, immediate way at all--_i.e._, by the
motions of His Spirit, which peculiarly can impart nothing but
friendly inclination, as whereby men are personally applied unto,
so that can not be meant; nor by the voice of the gospel, which may
either be continued for the sake of others, or they contained under
it, but for their heavier doom at length. Which, tho it may seem
severe, is not to be thought strange, much less unrighteous.
It is not to be thought strange to them that read the Bible, which so
often speaks this sense; as when it warns and threatens men with so
much terror. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
but a fearful looking for judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall
devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses's law died without
mercy, under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the
Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith He
was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit
of grace? And when It tells us, after many overtures made to men in
vain, of His having given them up. "But my people would not hearken to
my voice; and Israel would none of me; so I gave them up unto their
own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels;" and
pronounces, "Let him that is unjust be unjust still, and let him which
is filthy be filthy still," and says, "In thy filthiness is lewdness,
because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged; thou shalt not
be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to
rest upon thee." Which passages seem to imply a total desertion of
them, and retraction of all gracious influence. And when it speaks of
letting them be under the gospel, and the ordinary means of salvation,
for the most direful purpose: as that, "This child (Jesus) was set
for the fall, as well as for the rising, of many in Israel"; as that,
"Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling, and a rock of offense"; and, "The
stone which the builders refused, is made a stone of stumbling, and
a rock of offense, even to them which, stumble at the word, being
disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed"; with that of our
Savior Himself, "For judgment I am come into this world, that they
which see not might see; and that they which see, might be made
blind." And most agreeable to those former places is that of the
prophet, "But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept,
line upon line, here a little and there a little; that they might go,
and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." And we may
add, that our God hath put us out of doubt that there is such a sin as
that which is eminently called the sin against the Holy Ghost; that
a man in such circumstances, and to such a degree, sin against that
Spirit, that He will never move or breathe upon him more, but leave
him to a hopeless ruin; tho I shall not in this discourse determine
or discuss the nature of it. But I doubt not it is somewhat else than
final impenitency and infidelity; and that every one that dies, not
having sincerely repented and believed, is not guilty of it, tho every
one that is guilty of it dies impenitent and unbelieving, but was
guilty of it before; so it is not the mere want of time that makes
him guilty. Whereupon, therefore, that such may outlive their day of
grace, is out of the question ...
Wherefore, no man can certainly know, or ought to conclude, concerning
himself or others, as long as they live, that the season of grace
is quite over with them. As we can conceive no rule God hath set to
Himself to proceed by, in ordinary cases of this nature; so nor is
there any He hath set unto us to judge by, in this case. It were to no
purpose, and could be of no use to men to know so much; therefore it
were unreasonable to expect God should have settled and declared any
rule, by which they might come to the knowledge of it. As the case is
then, viz.: there being no such rule, no such thing can be concluded;
for who can tell what an arbitrary, sovereign, free agent will do, if
he declare not his own purpose himself? How should it be known, when
the Spirit of God hath been often working upon the soul of man, that
this or that shall be the last act, and that he will never put forth
another? And why should God make it known? To the person himself whose
case it is, 'tis manifest it could be of no benefit. Nor is it to
be thought the Holy God will ever so alter the course of His own
proceedings but that it shall be finally seen to all the world that
every man's destruction was entirely, and to the last, of himself. If
God had made it evident to a man that he were finally rejected, he
were obliged to believe it. But shall it ever be said, God hath made
anything a man's duty which were inconsistent with his felicity. The
having sinned himself into such a condition wherein he is forsaken
of God is indeed inconsistent with it. And so the case is to
stand--_i.e._, that his perdition be in immediate connection with
his sin, not with his duty; as it would be in immediate, necessary
connection with his duty, if he were bound to believe himself finally
forsaken and a lost creature. For that belief makes him hopeless, and
a very devil, justifies his unbelief in the gospel, toward himself, by
removing and shutting up, toward himself, the object of such a faith,
and consequently brings the matter to this state that he perishes, not
because he doth not believe God reconcilable to man, but because, with
particular application to himself, he ought not so to believe. And it
were most unfit, and of very pernicious consequence, that such a thing
should be generally known concerning others....
But tho none ought to conclude that their day or season of grace is
quite expired, yet they ought to deeply apprehend the danger, lest
it should expire before their necessary work be done and their peace
made. For tho it can be of no use for them to know the former, and
therefore they have no means appointed them by which to know it, 'tis
of great use to apprehend the latter; and they have sufficient ground
for the apprehension. All the cautions and warnings wherewith the Holy
Spirit abounds, of the kind with those already mentioned, have that
manifest design. And nothing can be more important, or opposite to
this purpose, than that solemn charge of the great apostle: "Work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling"; considered together with
the subjoined ground of it; "For it is God that worketh in you to will
and to do of his own good pleasure." How correspondent is the one with
the other; work for He works: there were no working at all to any
purpose, or with any hope, if He did not work. And work with fear and
trembling, for He works of His own good pleasure, q.d., "'Twere the
greatest folly imaginable to trifle with One that works at so perfect
liberty, under no obligation, that may desist when He will; to impose
upon so absolutely sovereign and arbitrary an Agent, that owes you
nothing; and from whose former gracious operations not complied with
you can draw no argument, unto any following ones, that because He
doth, therefore He will. As there is no certain connection between
present time and future, but all time is made up of undepending, not
strictly coherent, moments, so as no man can be sure, because one
now exists, another shall; there is also no more certain connection
between the arbitrary acts of a free agent within such time; so that
I can not be sure, because He now darts in light upon me, is now
convincing me, now awakening me, therefore He will still do so, again
and again." Upon this ground then, what exhortation could be more
proper than this? "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
What could be more awfully monitory and enforcing of it than that He
works only of mere good will and pleasured How should I tremble to
think, if I should be negligent, or undutiful, He may give out the
next moment, may let the work fall, and me perish? And there is more
especial cause for such an apprehension upon the concurrence of such
things as these:
1. If the workings of God's Spirit upon the soul of a man have been
more than ordinarily strong and urgent, and do not now cease: if
there have been more powerful convictions, deeper humiliations, more
awakened fears, more formed purposes of a new life, more fervent
desires that are now vanished, and the sinner returns to his dead and
dull temper.
2. If there be no disposition to reflect and consider the difference,
no sense of his loss, but he apprehends such workings of spirit in him
unnecessary troubles to him, and thinks it well he is delivered and
eased of them.
3. If in the time when he was under such workings of the Spirit he
had made known his case to his minister, or any godly friend, whose
company he now shuns, as not willing to be put in mind, or hear any
more of such matters.
4. If, hereupon he hath more indulged sensual inclination, taken more
liberty, gone against the check of his own conscience, broken former
good resolutions, involved himself in the guilt of any grosser sins.
5. If conscience, so baffled, be now silent, lets him alone, grows
more sluggish and weaker, which it must as his lusts grow stronger.
6. If the same lively, powerful ministry which before affected him
much, now moves him not.
7. If especially he is grown into a dislike of such preaching--if
serious godliness, and what tends to it, are become distasteful to
him--if discourses of God, and of Christ, of death and judgment, and
of a holy life, are reckoned superflous and needless, are unsavory and
disrelished--if he have learned to put disgraceful names upon
things of this import, and the persons that most value them live
accordingly--if he hath taken the seat of the scorner, and makes it
his business to deride what he had once a reverence for, or took some
complacency in.
8. If, upon all this, God withdraw such a ministry, so that he is now
warned, admonished, exhorted and striven with, as formerly, no more.
Oh, the fearful danger of that man's case! Hath he no cause to fear
lest the things of his peace should be forever hid from his eyes?
Surely he hath much cause of fear, but mot of despair. Fear in this
case would be his great duty, and might yet prove the means of saving
him--despair would be his very heinous and destroying sin. If yet he
would be stirred up to consider his case, whence he is fallen, and
whither he is falling, and set himself to serious seekings of God,
cast down himself before Him, abase himself, cry for mercy as for his
life, there is yet hope in his case. God may make here an instance
what He can obtain of Himself to do for a perishing wretch. But if
with any that have lived under the gospel, their day is quite expired,
and the things of their peace now forever hid from their eyes, this is
in itself a most deplorable case, and much lamented by our Lord Jesus
Himself. That the case is in itself most deplorable, who sees not? A
soul lost! a creature capable of God! upon its way to Him! near to the
kingdom of God! shipwrecked in the port! Oh, sinner, from how high a
hope art thou fallen! into what depths of misery and we! And that it
was lamented by our Lord is in the text. He beheld the city (very
generally, we have reason to apprehend, inhabited by such wretched
creatures) and wept over it. This was a very affectionate lamentation.
We lament often, very heartily, many a sad case for which we do not
shed tears. But tears, such tears, falling from such eyes! the issues
of the purest and best-governed passion that ever was, showed the true
greatness of the cause. Here could be no exorbitancy or unjust excess,
nothing more than was proportional to the occasion. There needs no
other proof that this is a sad case than that our Lord lamented it
with tears, which that He did we are plainly told, so that, touching
that, there is no place for doubt. All that is liable to question is,
whether we are to conceive in Him any like resentments of such cases,
in His present glorified state? Indeed, we can not think heaven a
place or state of sadness or lamentation, and must take heed of
conceiving anything there, especially on the throne of glory,
unsuitable to the most perfect nature, and the most glorious state. We
are not to imagine tears there, which, in that happy region are wiped
away from inferior eyes--no grief, sorrow, or sighing, which are all
fled away, and shall be no more, as there can be no other turbid
passion of any kind. But when expressions that import anger or grief
are used, even concerning God Himself, we must sever in our conception
everything of imperfection, and ascribe everything of real perfection.
We are not to think such expressions signify nothing, that they have
no meaning, or that nothing at all is to be attributed to Him under
them. Nor are we again to think they signify the same thing with what
we find in ourselves, and are wont to express by those names. In the
divine nature there may be real, and yet most serene, complacency and
displacency--viz., that, unaccompanied by the least commotion, that
impart nothing of imperfection, but perfection rather, as it is a
perfection to apprehend things suitably to what in themselves they
are. The holy Scriptures frequently speak of God as angry, and grieved
for the sins of men, and their miseries which ensue therefrom. And
a real aversion and dislike is signified thereby, and by many other
expressions, which in us would signify vehement agitations of
affection, that we are sure can have no place in Him. We ought,
therefore, in our own thoughts to ascribe to Him that calm aversion of
will, in reference to the sins and miseries of men in general; and in
our own apprehensions to remove to the utmost distance from Him all
such agitations of passion or affection, even tho some expressions
that occur carry a great appearance thereof, should they be understood
according to human measures, as they are human forms of speech. As, to
instance in what is said by the glorious God Himself, and very near in
sense to what we have in the text, what can be more pathetic than that
lamenting wish, "Oh, that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel
had walked in my ways!" But we must take heed lest, under the pretense
that we can not ascribe everything to God that such expressions seem
to import, we therefore ascribe nothing. We ascribe nothing, if we do
not ascribe a real unwillingness that men should sin on, and perish,
and consequently a real willingness that they should turn to Him,
and live, which so many plain texts assert. And therefore it is
unavoidably imposed upon us to believe that God is truly unwilling of
some things which He doth not think fit to interpose His omnipotency
to hinder, and is truly willing of some things which He doth not put
forth His omnipotency to effect.
We can not, therefore, doubt but that,
1. He distinctly comprehends the truth of any such case. He beholds,
from the throne of His glory above, all the treaties which are held
and managed with sinners in His name, and what their deportments are
therein. His eyes are as a flame of fire, wherewith He searcheth
hearts and trieth reins. He hath seen therefore, sinner, all along
every time an offer of grace hath been made to thee, and been
rejected; when thou hast slighted counsels and warnings that have been
given thee, exhortations and treaties that have been prest upon thee
for many years together, and how thou hast hardened thy heart against
reproofs and threatenings, against promises and allurements, and
beholds the tendency of all this, what is like to come to it, and
that, if thou persist, it will be bitterness in the end.
2. That He hath a real dislike of the sinfulness of thy course. It is
not indifferent to Him whether thou obeyest or disobeyest the gospel,
whether thou turn and repent or no; that He is truly displeased at thy
trifling, sloth, negligence, impenitency, hardness of heart, stubborn
obstinacy, and contempt of His grace, and takes real offense at them.
3. He hath real kind propensions toward thee, and is ready to receive
thy returning soul, and effectually to mediate with the offended
majesty of Heaven for thee, as long as there is any hope in thy case.
4. When He sees there is no hope, He pities thee, while thou seest it
not, and dost not pity thyself. Pity and mercy above are not names
only; 'tis a great reality that is signified by them, and that hath
place here in far higher excellency and perfection than it can with us
poor mortals here below. Ours is but borrowed and participated
from that first fountain and original above. Thou dost not perish
unlamented even with the purest heavenly pity, tho thou hast made thy
case incapable of remedy; as the well tempered judge bewails the sad
end of the malefactor, whom justice obliges him not to spare or save.
And that thou mayst not throw away thy soul and so great a hope,
through mere sloth and loathness to be at some pains for thy life, let
the text, which hath been thy directory about the things that belong
to thy peace, be also thy motive, as it gives thee to behold the Son
of God weeping over such as would not know those things. Shall not the
Redeemer's tears move thee? O hard heart! Consider what these tears
import to this purpose.
1. They signify the real depth and greatness of the misery into
which thou are falling. They drop from an intellectual and most
comprehensive eye, that sees far and pierces deep into things, hath a
wide and large prospect; takes the comfort of that forlorn state into
which unreconcilable sinners are hastening, in all the horror of it.
The Son of God did not weep vain and causeless tears, or for a light
matter; nor did He for Himself either spend His own or desire
the profusion of others' tears. "Weep not for me, O daughters of
Jerusalem," etc. He knows the value of souls, the weight of guilt, and
how low it will press and sink them; the severity of God's justice and
the power of His anger, and what the fearful effects of them will
be when they finally fall. If thou understandest not these things
thyself, believe Him that did; at least believe His tears.
2. They signify the sincerity of His love and pity, the truth and
tenderness of His compassion. Canst thou think His deceitful tears?
His, who never knew guile? Was this like the rest of His course? And
remember that He who shed tears did, from the same fountain of love
and mercy, shed blood too! Was that also done to deceive? Thou makest
thyself a very considerable thing indeed, if thou thinkest the Son of
God counted it worth His while to weep, and bleed, and die, to deceive
thee into a false esteem of Him and His love. But if it be the
greatest madness imaginable to entertain any such thought but that His
tears were sincere and unartificial, the natural, genuine expression
of undissembled benignity and pity, thou art then to consider what
love and compassion thou art now sinning against; what bowels thou
spurnest; and that if thou perishest, 'tis under such guilt as the
devils themselves are not liable to, who never had a Redeemer bleeding
for them, nor, that we ever find, weeping over them.