Youth and beauty, strength and health, wit and reason, judgment, memory,
or sweet disposition; all these are the gifts of God in the world of
nature, and render persons so far amiable as they are possessed of them.
You that flourish in the vigour and glory of youth, and yet have no
saving acquaintance with God in Christ, no right to eternal life; while
I behold you, I mourn over you with much compassion. What pity it is
that the flower of your age should be employed only to sooth your
vanity! to adorn your guilty passions, and to dress up the scenes of
sin! That flower will wither in old age, and it leaves no perfume
behind, but what arises from virtue and goodness: or, perhaps, you will
give it up to untimely decay: by indulgence of irregular pleasures, you
devote it to be blasted by the breath of Satan, and in the smoke of
hell. But is it not a pity, that a strong and healthy constitution
should be wasted in slavery to your appetites, and in making provision
for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts of it? Why should not the powers of
nature, in their first bloom and glory, adorn the kingdom of grace? Why
should not our sprightly days, and the warmest hours of life, be
employed in some useful activity for the interest of God! What a decency
and honour is added to religion, by its fairest and youngest votaries!
With what peculiar praises does the word of God recommend the character
of youthful piety? How is the young king Josiah celebrated in the sacred
records? that _while he was yet young he began to seek after the God of
David his Father, &c._ 2 Chron. xxiv. 3. How is Timothy commended, _who
had known the holy scriptures from his very childhood_: 2 Tim. iii. 15.
And there are some young in years, to whom the apostle John might
address himself with the same pleasure as he does to the christian
converts, whom he calls young men, strong in grace, who had the love of
God abiding in them, and had overcome the wicked one; 1 John ii. 14. And
he gives them in the next verse a most needful and friendly caution
against the _love of the world, and the things of it_, lest they shut
the love of the Father out of their hearts. What an abuse and waste of
life are ye guilty of, when ye lay out the brightest moments of it upon
the works of darkness? and treasure up to yourselves everlasting
darkness and fire!
I pity the young, the vigorous, the comely figures of human nature, that
neglect to seek after divine grace, that are ruined and made wretched to
all eternity, by their excessive love of the pleasures, or the pomp, or
the riches of this vain world. A thousand such sinners that were once
the hope of their families, and the lovely ornaments of the place they
lived in, are now cursing the day of their birth, and raging with
despair in the midst of the wrath of God.
Let me speak a word to those also that have rich endowments of mind.
Where we behold a sprightly genius, solid reason, and deep judgment, we
cannot forbear loving the possessors of them: We cannot forbear to say,
“It is a pity that so much wit should be abused to ridicule religion,
and do honour to foul iniquity; that it should be enslaved to all the
arts of lewdness, and dress up the shame of nature in the charms of
language.” Or if it be not debased to so exceeding vile purposes, yet at
best, it is a pity it should be all employed in jesting and trifling, in
mirth and raillery, and vain amusement. Might it not have been laid out
infinitely better, to allure sinners to the love of God, to adorn the
truths of our holy profession, and give credit to the gospel of Christ,
even in the eyes of the witty and profane?
I pity the man of lively imagination without sanctifying grace. What a
lovely wilderness of blooming weeds! fair indeed in various colours, but
useless and unsavoury, and it must be burnt up with unquenchable fire.
You are the persons whose happy talents give a relish to the common
comforts of life; you diffuse joy and pleasure through all the company,
and enliven the dullest hours; your presence is coveted by all men, and
you are beloved of all: But how dismal is your state, if you neglect
holiness and are not beloved of God! Can you imagine that your gay fancy
will brighten the gloom of hell? or give airs to yourselves or your
companions, in those hideous regions of sorrow? It is a most melancholy
reflection to consider, that persons of your accomplishments should
increase the number of the damned; and there is no sport or amusement
admitted there, to divert the anguish of the tortured mind, or to
relieve that heavy and everlasting heart-ache.
I pity the man of strong reason and great sagacity of judgment, that
hath traced nature in her most secret recesses; that has sounded the
depths of the sea, and measured the heavens; but has spent no time in
searching the deep things of God, and lets the mysteries of religion lie
unregarded as obscure and useless things. He has never sounded the depth
of his own misery and guilt, as he is a son of Adam: Nor is he
acquainted with the way of climbing to heaven by the cross of the Son of
God. Reason is a faculty of supreme excellence among the gifts of
nature, and it is dreadful to think that it should ever be engaged in
opposition to divine grace. How great and wretched are the men of
reason, who strain the nerves of their soul to overturn the doctrine of
Christ! who labour with all their intellectual powers to shake the
foundations of the gospel, to diminish the authority of the scriptures,
and to unsettle the hope of feeble christians!
There are others who employ the best powers of the soul in pursuing the
interests of this life; they are wise in contriving to gratify their
appetites, to fill their coffers, and to heap up to themselves wealth
and honours; and wise to secure all these to their posterity after
death: _They call their lands by their own names_, and perpetuate their
memory to the latest generation, but make no provision for their own
souls: they are wise to set in order their houses in the day of their
health, and all things prepared for their dying hour, besides the
concerns of their own eternity; these are delayed from day to day, and
left at the utmost hazard; and still they think the next month, or the
next year, it is time enough to prepare for heaven, when perhaps a
summons is sent suddenly from on high; _Thou fool this night is thy soul
required of thee_; Luke xii. 20. What confusion and fear, what hurry and
distress of spirit will seize you in that hour? You that have laid out
all your wisdom upon the little businesses of this life, and trifled
with affairs of everlasting importance; you must go down to the chambers
of death in surprize and anguish; you must leave all the fruits of your
wisdom behind you, and be branded for eternal fools.
I pity those who are blest with a large memory, and would plead with you
this day for the sake of your souls. The memory, it is a noble
repository of the mind, it is made to receive divine truths, to be
stored with the ideas of God and his grace, with the glories of Christ
and heaven; it is given us to furnish and supply the heart and tongue
upon all occasions, for worship, for conference, and for holy joy. What
pity it is so wondrous a capacity should be crowded with vile images,
with wanton scenes, with profane jests, and idle stories! Or, at best,
it is filled with gold and silver, and merchandize; with lands and
houses, ships and insurances; it is all inscribed with stocks,
annuities, and purchases, and turned into a mere book of accounts, a
trading shop, or an everlasting exchange: Night and day, the buyers and
sellers are passing through this temple, which should be consecrated to
God; and there is no room left for the thoughts of heaven there. Shall
these busy swarms of cares and vanities for ever fill up so large a
chamber of the soul? Shall impertinencies be for ever thrust into this
treasury? such as will stand you in no stead, when you are dismissed
from the body, but shall vanish all at once in that hour, and shall
leave your spirits poor and naked; or if they follow you to the world of
spirits, it will be but as so much fuel gathered for your future
burning.
Think a little with yourselves, ye possessors of these rich endowments
of the mind when you have been honoured here on earth, can you bear to
be doomed to eternal shame and punishment in hell? Shall this wit and
this reason be there employed to express your hatred against God, and to
forge perpetual blasphemies against the Majesty of heaven? are you
willing to be joined to the society of devils, and be engaged in their
abominable work? Shall this sprightly fancy, this subtle reason, this
large memory, serve for no purpose, but to aggravate your guilt, and
your damnation? Shall these fine talents sharpen your misery, and give
edge to the keenest reflections of conscience: conscience, that inward
sting of the mind; conscience, that immortal tormentor? Yet this must be
the certain portion of those who spend their life, and lie down in
death, with these talents unsanctified: for the anguish and torture of
sinful souls, must rise, and grow for ever, in proportion to the glory
of their abused endowments.
Though, perhaps I have been tedious already under this head, yet before
I part with it, I must address myself to those who are born with a sweet
disposition, that seem to be cast in a softer mould than the rest of
men. I love and pity those of my acquaintance who are blessed with so
divine a temper; who have tenderness and good-will in their very form
and aspect, and I mourn to think that any of these should perish for
ever. You are the favourites of all men, and beloved by all who enjoy
the pleasure of your acquaintance; do ye not long to be the favourites
of God too! You seem to be made for the delight and comfort of mankind:
but shall this be all your portion? Good-humour is the composition of
your nature, _and the law of kindness is on your lips! when the ear
hears_ you, _then it blesses you; and when the eye sees_ you, _it gives
witness to you_. But is this enough to depend upon for eternal life?
Perhaps you have borrowed part of the valuable qualities of that good
man Job, _you have delivered the poor that cry, and the fatherless that
had none to help him_; you _have caused the widow’s heart to sing for
joy, and the blessing of him that was ready to perish, has come often
upon you_; Job xxix. 11, 12, 13. There is so much natural goodness in
your constitution, that leads you on, by a sweet instinct, to the
practice of many charities: but this is not saving grace. If Jesus
Christ himself were upon earth in this humbled state, he would look upon
you as man, and love you; but the Holy God looks down from heaven, and
beholds you as the object of his just and divine hatred, while you live
in a state of vanity and sin, drunken with sensual pleasures, and at
enmity with God.
This sweetness of temper, that springs from your blood, and the happy
mixture of humours; or, at best, from the mere natural frame of your
spirits, will never pass, upon the great tribunal, for holiness and
inward religion. With all this charming appearance of virtues, these
colours that look like heaven, you will be doomed to hell and perpetual
misery, unless there be found in you some nobler qualities, such as love
to God, mortification to this world, the knowledge and faith of Jesus
Christ. If these be not the springs of your charity and love to men, you
will not be secured from the condemning sentence of the Judge, nor from
the company of devils in the future world.
But, oh! how will your soft and gentle natures bear the insult and rage
of those malicious spirits? How will your temper, that had something so
lovely in it, sustain to be banished for ever from the world of love? to
be for ever excluded from all the regions of peace and concord? How will
your souls endure the madness and contention, the envy and spite of
wicked angels? You that delighted on earth in the works of peace, what
will ye do when your tender dispositions shall be hourly ruffled by the
uproar and confusion of those dark regions? and instead of the society
of God and blessed spirits, ye shall be eternally vexed with the
perverse tempers of your fellow sinners, the sons of darkness? O that I
could speak in melting language, or in the language of effectual terror,
that I might by any means awaken your souls to jealousy and timely fear!
That so many natural excellencies, as God has distributed amongst you,
might not be wasted in sin, abused to dishonour, and aggravate your
everlasting misery.
[This sermon may be divided here.]
2. My next exhortation shall be addressed to those youths who have been
trained up in all the arts of civility, and have acquired a courteous
and becoming carriage. There is something lovely in such an appearance,
and it commands the love even of the rude and uncivil. It so nearly
resembles the sweetness of natural temper, and imitates good humour so
much to the life, that it often passes upon company instead of nature,
and attains many valuable ends in human society. But where both these
are happily joined, how shining is that character, and universally
beloved? We are pleased and charmed with your conversation, whose
manners are polished, and whose language is refined from the rude and
vulgar ways of speech. You know how to speak civil things, without
flattery, upon all occasions; to instruct, without assuming a superior
air, and to reprove without a frown, or forbidding countenance. You have
learned when to speak and when to be silent, and to perform every act of
life with its proper graces; and can ye be content with all this good
breeding to be thrust down to hell? Is it not pity that you should be
taught to pay all your honours to men, and practise none to the living
God? Have you not read those duties in connexion; 1 Pet. ii. 17. _Honour
all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honour the king._ And why
will you divide what God has joined, and give every one their due,
besides God your Maker? how dare you treat the creatures with decency
and ceremony, and treat God the Creator with neglect; salute all men
with their proper titles of distinction, and not learn how to address
God in prayer? pay due visits to all your acquaintance, and yet scarce
ever make a visit to the mercy-seat, or bow your knees before the
Majesty of Heaven.
I pity those who have all the arts of complaisance in perfection, and
practise civility in every form; but are very little acquainted with the
forms of godliness, and never yet felt any thing of the life of
religion, or the powers of the world to come. How mournful a sight is it
to behold a well-accomplished gentleman, yet a vile sinner! A pretty
obliging youth among men, but deaf and obstinate to all the calls of
God, and the intreaties of a dying Saviour! A person of a free and
ingenuous deportment, yet in chains of slavery to corruption and death!
and how unspeakably sorrowful will it be at the last day, to see such as
these, the gay, the affable, the fair-spoken, and the well-bred sinner,
in the utmost agonies of horror and despair, mourning a lost God, a lost
soul, and a lost heaven!
Let me speak once more and try to provoke you to jealousy. Shall the
rugged and clownish part of mankind press forward into that kingdom
which ye despise? Will ye be patient to see some of the unbred and
unpolished set at the right hand of the Judge, and yourselves with
shame, be divided to the left? How will ye endure to see the honours of
heaven put upon those whom you have so often despised in your hearts
upon earth? Can you imagine that that tribunal will be bribed with fair
speeches? or that any thing will be accepted in that court, besides
solid and hearty religion? Suffer this exhortation then, and then
receive this advice, you that are not used to deny any thing to your
friends, you that love to oblige those who ask any reasonable favour at
your hands; nor let me plead this day in vain.
3. To those that have enjoyed the blessing of religious parents, and a
pious education; that have been bred up in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord, in the knowledge and practice of the moral law, and in the
outward performance of religion, according to the appointments of the
gospel. Children, we love you for your fathers’ sakes: we love to look
upon you, for you are the little living images of our dearest friends:
we have loved to ask you the younger questions that your parents have
taught you, and to see the first-fruits of their instruction and holy
care; but we pity you, from our very souls, when we behold you break the
bars of your education, and making haste to ruin: or when, at best, ye
go on and tread the circle of outward duties; as ye are led by custom
and form, with a neglect of inward christianity, and hearty godliness.
Did your parents love God above all earthly things, and will ye prefer
the love of this world above all things heavenly and divine? Have ye had
such shining examples of holiness brought so near you to no purpose? Do
they pray for you daily? Do they daily mourn over you, and hope, and
wish, and exhort you to take care of your souls? And are you resolved
that their counsels, their prayers, and their tears, shall be laid out
upon you in vain? Is this the return you make for all their care and
compassion? They tell you daily that they can have _no greater joy than
to see their children walking in the truth_, and will you cruelly
disappoint their pleasures, and bring down their grey hairs with sorrow
to the grave? Perhaps there are some of you, who already have parted
with your parents, and their spirits are at rest; and has neither their
life, nor their death, made serious and lasting impressions upon you;
have they entreated you in their last dying moments, by all that is dear
and sacred, to make sure of heaven? And will you abandon these
entreaties, and sell your souls to the world, and to death, for a few
perishing temptations? Have they laid a solemn charge upon you at their
last farewell, to travel in the paths of piety, and meet them on mount
Sion in the great day? and have you wandered already from this high road
of holiness, and forgot the solemnity and the charge? Shall your parents
dwell for ever with their God, and shall their children for ever dwell
in fire prepared for the devil and his angels?
You cannot sin at so easy and so cheap a rate as others. You must break
through stronger bonds, and do bolder violence to your consciences,
before you can indulge iniquity, and pursue wickedness. Your temptations
to sin have been less than others, and your advantages for salvation
have been much greater. Our hearts bleed within us, to think of your
double guilt, and your aggravated damnation: to think that you should
not only be separated from your parents, and their God, for ever, but
that your place of torment shall be the hottest also, amongst all your
companions in misery.
What anguish and inward vexation will seize you, when ye shall reflect
how nigh ye were raised in outward privileges, and how near ye were
brought to heaven? and how you quitted your interest, and your hopes
there, for the trifles of this life, for a base lust, or a foolish
vanity: What will ye say, when ye shall see _many coming from the east,
and from the west_, from families of wickedness, from the ends of the
earth, and from the borders of hell, and sit down with your fathers in
the kingdom of heaven; while you _the children of the kingdom, are cast
out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth_;
Mat. viii. 11, 12. I presume thus far with freedom to address you, _if
by any methods I might provoke to emulation them which are of the flesh
of Israel, of the kindred of the saints, and might save some of them_;
Rom. xi. 14.
4. To those who have taken some pains in seeking after eternal life, and
are still enquiring the way thither. Have a care of resting in the mere
practice of moral duties, or in the outward profession of christianity:
never content yourselves with the righteousness of the Pharisee. Were
your virtues more glorious than they are, and your righteousnesses more
perfect, they could never answer for your former guilt, before the
throne of a just and holy God. It is only the atonement of Christ, and
his all-sufficient sacrifice, which can stand you in stead there; and it
is pity that a youth, of so much virtue, should fall short of heaven,
and be but almost a christian. It is pity that you should have gained so
large a share of knowledge, and so honourable a character of sobriety,
and, after all, want _the one thing needful_, an universal change, and
renovation of your hearts, by receiving the gospel. Have you proceeded
thus far, and will you not go on to perfection? _Take heed that ye lose
not the things that ye have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward_;
2 John 8.
It is pity you should enquire the way to heaven, and not walk in it,
when it is marked out before your feet with so much plainness: It is
pity you should indulge the love of this world so far, as to suffer it
to forbid you the pursuit of a better; or at best, when ye receive
instructions about your souls, you let the affairs of this life
overwhelm and bury that good seed, and it never grows up to practice.
What would you say to the folly of a man, who has a long and hazardous
journey to make, to take possession of a large estate, and once a week
he comes to enquire the way, and hears a fair description of all the
road, perhaps he mourns his long neglect, and resolves upon the journey;
but the next six days are filled up with a thousand impertinences; and
when the seventh returns, he has not taken one step forward in the way?
Believe me, sirs, it is not an easy thing to be saved: laziness, and
mere enquiries, will never effect your happiness, nor secure your souls
from perdition; and all the pains you have already taken will be lost,
if you give over the pursuit. Let me call some of you this day to
remember your former labours, the prayers and tears that you have poured
out in secret before God; remember your days of darkness, and your
nights of terror, the groans of conscience, and the inward agonies you
felt, when you were first awakened to behold your guilt and danger;
remember these hours, and these sorrows; and love and pity your own
souls so far, as to pursue the work, and let not your pains be lost:
_Have ye suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain_; Gal.
iii. 4. Ye have wrestled with some sins, and have in part got the
mastery over them; and shall a darling lust overcome you at last, and
slay your souls with eternal death? Ye have resisted the tempter in some
of his assaults and put the powers of hell to flight; will you give up
yourselves at last to be led in triumph by Satan, and become his
everlasting slave? Methinks you look so amiable in those victories ye
have already obtained, that I would fain have you press onward through
the field of battle, fulfil the warfare, and receive the crown.
The ministers of the gospel look upon you with concern and pity: We love
you because you have proceeded thus far in religion; but ye shall not be
the beloved of God, if ye stop here, or go back again to sin and folly.
We had a hopeful prospect of you once, and said to our Lord in prayer,
“Surely these shall be one day the inhabitants, and the supports of
thine house; these young plants shall one day be fruitful trees in thy
vineyard; they shall be pillars in thy holy temple.” But alas! there is
a death upon our hopes, there is a darkness and a lethargy upon your
souls: We look upon you in all these your endowments, we mourn over you
with compassion, and with zeal we express our grief and our love:
“Awake, ye young sinners, who have deserved our love; awake, that ye
sleep not to everlasting death.”
5. To those that are rich in this world, and are furnished with the
former good qualities too. I am well assured, while I address myself to
this assembly, I speak to many persons of this character[22]. Ye are
wealthy and condescending, like the young man in my text: ye are often
uncovered, and ye pay reverence to the ministers of the gospel, as he
did; ye give us honours and civilities beyond our merit or wish; ye come
and ask of us the same question, “What shall we do to inherit eternal
life?” And we tell you from the word of God, “Love not the world, nor
the things of the world; for where the love of the world is, the love of
the Father is not. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.
Mortify your affections that are upon the earth, and deny yourselves,
take up your cross, and follow Christ.” Become his disciples, without
reserve, in faith, and love, and universal holiness. While we propose
these paths to eternal happiness, shall it be said concerning you, they
went away sorrowful, having great possessions?