I. Conviction supposed, and grace admired
Conviction Supposed, and Grace Admired REASON and conscience having been shaming men out of their profaneness, free grace invites them to the life of holiness, and thereby to the life of blessedness.
There you see what it is to live like beasts; here you may see what it is to live like Christians.
My charity commands me to suppose, that some readers stand, by this time convicted in their own consciences, both of the extreme wickedness, and the immediate danger of that profane course they have hitherto pursued, and persisted in; and that by this time they begin to interrogate them in the apostle's close and cutting language,
Rom. 6:21. "What fruit had ye then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of these things is death." It is hard to imagine, that so many close debates and reasonings, as you have heard in the former part, should not leave many of you under conviction and trouble of spirit. You see, your own reasons and consciences have condemned you; "And if our heart condemn us,
(saith the apostle) God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things;" 1 John 3:20. It is folly to imagine you shall be acquitted at God's immediate bar, who are already cast and condemned at your own privy sessions.
If this be the happy effect, as I hope it is, of all the former close and solemn debates with your consciences, it will naturally and immediately cast thy soul, reader, into great admiration of, and astonishment at, the patience and long-suffering of God, that hath borne with thee, under a life of prodigious and reiterated
provocations until this day. And his goodness will be as admirable to thee, as his patience; in that he hath not only suffered thee to live till this day, but made it the day of thy conviction, the first necessary step towards thy conversion; and the very first things he entertains thy convinced and troubled soul with, to be the possibility and probability of thy conversion to God.
The greatness of his patience shews his almighty power, Rom 9:22.
Nahum 1:3 but his willingness to pass by all the wrongs you have done him, and to be at peace with you, discovers the immense riches of his grace, Tit. 3:3, 4.
That God should be so quick in the executions of his wrath upon your companions in sin, and so patient and long-suffering towards you, that have out-sinned them all; is such a comparative consideration of his bounty, as should even overwhelm the man that beholds it, Rom.
9:22. "Behold the goodness and severity of God! on them that fell severity; but towards thee, goodness."
If thou be that very man, who in the past course of thy life hast been a profane swearer, a beastly drunkard, a lascivious person, an hater and persecutor of good men; and after all this, the Lord hath brought an offer of mercy to thy soul, and shall convince thee it is not come too late, but that the door of hope stands yet open to thee; my advice to thee is, that thou cast thyself down at the feet of mercy, and after this manner pour forth thy laments and desires before the Lord.
"And is there yet a possibility of mercy, O Lord God, for such a vile wretch as I have been! can the arms of free grace yet open themselves to embrace such a monster of wickedness as I am? Who then is a God like unto thee? And what patience, mercy, and goodness, is like thine? I have far exceeded others in sin; I have lived the life of a beast, yea, of a devil. I have dared thy dreadful, and glorious name,
with thousands of horrid blasphemies; trampled all thy glorious attributes under my feet, challenged thee, to thy very face, to do thy worst, even to damn me to the pit of hell: I have yielded up this soul, with all its noble faculties and powers, as instruments of sin unto the devil; and made this body, which should have been the hallowed temple of thy Spirit, to be the noisome sink (or common sewer) for all unclean and abominable lusts to run and settle in. I have hated, reviled, and persecuted those that lived more strictly, soberly, and godly, than myself; because their convincing examples disquieted, checked, and convinced my conscience, in the eager pursuit of my lusts and pleasures.
"I have lived in the profane neglect of prayer, meditation, selfreflection, and all other spiritual Christian duties; thinking to make an atonement for all, by a few hypocritical, external formalities.
"To accommodate my carnal interest in the world, I have come reeking hot out of an ale-house, or whore-house, to the table of the Lord; where, with unhallowed hands, and a more unhallowed heart, I have crucified again the Lord of glory, and given the vilest affront and despite to that most sacred and precious blood, which now must save me, or I am lost for ever. Thus have I done; and "because thou keepest silent, I thought thee to be altogether such an one as myself: but this day hast thou reproved me, and set mine abominations in order before me."
I have tempted and seduced many others into the same impieties with me, of whom, some are already gone down to the dead, and others so fixed, and fully engaged in the pursuit of their lusts, that there appear no signs of repentance, or recovery in them.
"Thy wrath, Lord, soon brake forth against the angels that sinned in heaven; yet hitherto hast thou forborne and spared me, who have