Come, then, ye that dread the wrath of God, and wish to escape from those sins that have exposed you to it; ye, who are oppressed with their intolerable load, and can find no relief from all the expedients you have hitherto adopted; O come to this sacred feast of redeeming love! Multitudes, whose case was worse than yours, have been admitted to it; have found the blessings they stood in need of, and are now feasting around the throne of God and of the Lamb. They, like you, were afraid to come; and their unworthiness, which should have driven to Christ, kept them, for a long time, from him; till, having at last seen all resources fail, every creature a broken cistern, and all their works and duties but miserable comforters and physicians of no value; they were obliged to go with all their complaints, and wants, and wounds, to him, who is the sinner’s forlorn hope; and in Jesus they met with a physician and a friend: He bound up their wounds, supplied their wants, removed their burdens, spoke peace to their consciences, and shewed them all the riches of his grace and righteousness to comfort and support. One look by faith to his bleeding sacrifice, dispelled the gloom that covered their desponding minds, and filled them with hope, and joy, and peace. They only wonder now, that they should have so long doubted of his sufficiency and love; and, if any thing could interrupt for a moment the bliss of saints above, it would give them pain, even in heaven, to reflect, that they should have ever entertained a suspicion of Christ’s ability and willingness to save; or have hesitated to come to the gospel feast when God himself invited. But their doubts are now for ever done away; and it magnifies the riches of sovereign grace, that Jesus conquered and pardoned the unbelief, that gave the lie to his promises, and depreciated the great remedy of his atonement. Yet, having “come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” “they hunger no more, neither thirst any more: but the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, doth feed them, and lead them to fountains of living waters; and God hath wiped away all tears from their eyes.” Rev. vii. 14, 16, 17.
As the feast recommended in the text is of a sacred nature, it can of course afford no entertainment, and give no encouragement, to those presumptuous professors, who dare “to sin because grace abounds;” who take occasion, from the sumptuousness of the gospel feast, and the benignity of its Founder, to quote his very favors in justification of the most abominable licentiousness of manners; and sit down to his table only to insult him for the liberality that spread it. Grace, it is true, and grace alone, presides throughout with unrivalled glory, in contriving, accomplishing, and applying the great plan of salvation through the Redeemer. And though that grace confers all its favors gratuitously, and strongly presupposes the guilt and unworthiness of the recipients of them; yet as personal holiness is one of the favors it communicates, and makes a considerable branch of the evidences of a sinner’s salvation; they who leave it out in their pretended systems of evangelical truth, or disregard it in their walk and conversation, are convicted by the very fact of fatal error on the one hand, as well as of practical impiety on the other. For “the grace of God that bringeth salvation, teacheth us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live righteously, soberly, and godly, in this present world.” Tit ii. 12. Whoever sits down to the banquet of redeeming love, is supposed to rise up with a heart overflowing with gratitude to Jesus for the blessings imparted to him, and to go away more wise, more happy, and more holy. To act differently, would be to imitate the outrage of a victorious army rioting on the spoils of the vanquished, and intoxicating themselves with the fruits of their Commander’s conquests. Christ hath conquered for us; and the gospel feast is the consequence of his glorious victory over sin and hell. Believers conquer and feast with him. But their triumph ought to be sober, and their mode of rejoicing suited to the dangers they have escaped, and the sacred service in which they are engaged. But they who make Christ, either in their systems or their practice, “the minister of sin,” bear his name in vain, or expose it to reproach in the face of the world. The gospel, therefore, spreads no feast for the Antinomian; and, where it is abused, the food which it exhibits is turned into poison, and proves a savor of death unto death. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
Ye devotees of pleasure, ye lovers of the world, ye egregious triflers with your immortal interests; ye, who, though hastening to your graves, are still sporting on destruction’s brink, and indulge a false and fatal levity, though the precipice is before you, and one single step would determine your doom for ever; ye, who have been pursuing phantoms, and grasping at shadows, while you suck happiness in a world lying in wickedness, and, amidst all your cares and schemes for this world, forget that you are to die, neglect your souls, and never take one solemn anxious thought about eternity; to you also I bring the invitation in my text: “Come; for, all things are ready.” I invite you this day, in the name of my great Lord and Master, to Christ, to happiness, to heaven. Ye have been long toiling for that which is not bread, and spending your strength for what can yield little satisfaction in life, and none at all in the hour of death. Still time flies with its wonted velocity; and the king of terrors is drawing from his quiver the arrow, that shall ere long lay you in the dust. Satan, the world and sin, strongly unite to keep you in their servitude; and spread ten thousand baits to allure you to destruction. But shall their call be obeyed? and God’s invitation disregarded? Shall hell be preferred to heaven? the care of your bodies to that of your souls? Shall time engross all your solicitude, and eternity, dread eternity, none? Shall the adversary of God and man call with a more attractive voice, than he who bled for sinners? and the biting pleasures of sensuality, be preferred before the joys that are at God’s right hand? God forbid! O sirs, pause a moment! Consider what you are, whither you are going. Your souls are at stake, and you must soon stand before the living God in judgment. Obey the call of the gospel; and all shall yet be well: disobey it; and the call itself shall be more than a thousand witnesses against you: and he who gives it will be clear of your blood. But, embrace the invitation; and my soul shall rejoice over you, even mine; and you shall rejoice with joy unspeakable, when the Judge comes in the clouds of heaven, and time shall be no more. Amen.
SERMON IV.
THE CONTRAST.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans, vi. 23.
It appears, at first view, rather extraordinary, that there should be any opponents of the doctrine of original sin; since, not to say, that it has a voucher for its existence in the heart of every individual son of Adam, and is corroborated by the testimony of melancholy matter of fact; upon the acknowledgment of this doctrine depends every truth of revelation; and more especially that, which relates to the redemption of sinners by the obedience and sufferings of the Son of God. Indeed, the entire system of the gospel stands or falls with it. The truth of man’s apostacy from original righteousness forms a grand and necessary link in the golden chain of evangelical doctrines. Take that away, and the coherence between the rest is broken of course; and, by the fatal disruption, the fairest hopes of a sinner are torn up by the root, and all his bright prospects into eternity clouded and obscured. For, it is upon a pre-supposition of man’s depravity, helplessness, and guilt, that a propitiatory sacrifice hath been offered up, and a foundation for peace and pardon laid in the cross of Jesus; that a remedy hath been offered, proportionate to the depth of our malady, and a proclamation of mercy issued out, from the throne of God. Blot out these inestimable benefits, then, and what is man?—an inheritor of sorrow and sin, borne rapidly along by time’s impetuous tide, and, like a ship without a rudder or sails, at the mercy of every storm; liable to be shipwrecked in death, and to sustain an irreparable, an eternal loss; without one cheerful beam of hope to guide him through the gloom of adverse dispensations, or to light his footsteps in the valley of the shadow of death.
A denial of the fall is an absurd effort to dispute a fact the most incontrovertible, to subvert the foundations of Christianity, to bereave sinners of their choicest hope, and virtually to supersede one of the most necessary, and most glorious works of God. For, what is redemption, if we are not “by nature the children of wrath?” Ephes. ii. 3. Would it not, in that case, be an unmeaning and superfluous undertaking? Why did the co-equal Son of the Most High leave the bosom of his Father, to pay a ransom of infinite value, if there were no captives to be redeemed? Or why did he, in unparalleled mercy, quit his throne “to seek and save those that were lost,” if mankind were not in that unhappy predicament? What is it that places the love of God, and the philanthropy of the Friend of sinners, in the most captivating and admirable point of view? It is the helpless and guilty condition of the race of man. This is the foil, that sets off redemption to infinite advantage, and that reflects such unrivalled honor on the gracious Author of it. But deny the fall, and redemption shines no more; and all the glory of him, who contrived and executed the plan, is destroyed at once. Whereas admit that humiliating fact, and you hear all the harps of heaven tuned to the praises of Jesus, and see him adorned with the crown of salvation; while men and angels join their loudest and most grateful tribute of thanksgiving to that condescending Saviour of sinners. The most variegated and lively teints that form the rainbow, are painted by the reflection of the sun’s rays on the body of the darkest cloud. So, it is on the gloom of our apostate nature that the rays of the Sun of Righteousness are reflected with the most conspicuous lustre; and it is even by that dark medium that all the perfections and attributes of Deity shine out with the greatest harmony, and the most wonderful irradiation. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The text exhibits a surprising contrast; and the design of my improvement upon it, is to consider separately, and oppose to each other, the constituent parts of that contrast; to the end that we may enjoy an opportunity of seeing, how low human nature hath been sunk by sin, and to what a height of exaltation it hath been raised by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one view will help to inspire gratitude into the breast of a saved sinner; the other will give him cause for self-humiliation, and afford him an inexhaustible topic for praise and wonder, through everlasting ages. This contrasted representation, like a happy mixture of light and shade in a well-executed piece of painting, will place the great doctrines I am to insist upon, in such an advantageous point of view, as to display the consistency, connexion, wisdom, and beauty, of the whole. From whence we shall see, of course, that, though the text presents a dark side, in which the principal and awful figures in the back ground are “sin and death;” yet, like the pillar of a cloud and fire that followed the camp of Israel, it has a bright side too, sufficiently luminous to guide the Christian pilgrim through the wilderness of this world, and to light him to glory, with safety and triumph.
The first thing to be considered is, that “the wages of sin is death.” But, as death is an event so humiliating and so formidable, let us attend a little to the nature of that great evil that produces it.—According to the definition given by an inspired apostle, “sin is the transgression of the law”—of that moral law, or rule of rectitude, which had been originally written on the heart of man, and which, when the characters of it were obliterated there, by the first act of disobedience, was afterwards inscribed on two tables of stone. A circumstance that wisely suggested the propriety of placing the decalogue in the most conspicuous part of our churches; to the end, that whenever we cast our eyes on these two sacred tables, and reflect on the sanctions and purity of their precepts, we might see our transgressions, and implore that mercy which God hath revealed through that Saviour, who is the “end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” The law is “holy” in its precepts, “just” in its requisitions, and “good” in the end, for which it was originally given. It delineates, as it were, and transcribes the moral image of the Deity. And such is the rigor and extensiveness of its demands, that it not only condemns every the least deviation from the letter of its commandments, but it also takes cognizance of the thoughts of the heart, as well, as the actions of the life. “The law is spiritual.” Rom. vii. 14. And its spirituality extends to the most latent recesses of the mind. Its penetrating light breaks in upon the desires and inclinations of the heart, in their darkest retreat, and condemns sin in embryo, as well as when it “is brought forth” into actual commission. Having originated in the wisdom of the supreme Legislator, and having been appointed as a rule of life and a test of obedience, to protect the interests of the divine government in the world, it stands as unchangeably pure in its nature, and as unalterable in its requirements, as the God, who gave it, is in his own immutable essence.