Chapter 19. The Second Inference drawn from the Proposition.
they are very rich, for they are heirs of the kingdom! God has not only laid out some parcels of land, or divided heaven to them, as Canaan was divided to Israel by lot: the tribe of Judah to inhabit in one country, the tribe of Reuben in another, etc. God, I say, does not parcel out heaven thus to the saints. No! heaven is theirs, with all its privileges, blessings, and royalties. There are no enclosures or fences in heaven; there can be no confinement where everything is infinite.
Oh what a high value and estimate then should be put upon the saints! they are heirs of God! How does the world respect great heirs!
What honor then should we give to the godly! They are adopted into all the stately privileges of heaven. How rich is he when possessed of the inheritance! How rich shall the saints be, when God shall pour out of his love, and shall empty all the treasures of glory into them!
The saints are jewels—but their worth and riches are not known; therefore they are trampled upon by the world. "It does not yet appear what they shall be!" All things are theirs!
Chapter 19.
The Second Inference drawn from the Proposition.
It shows us a main difference between the godly and the wicked. he godly man has all his best things to come. The wicked man has all his worst things to come. As their way is different, so their end. "You in your lifetime received your good things." The wicked have all their good things here on earth; their worst things are to come. Why—what is to come? The apostle answers, 1 Thes.
1:10, "Wrath to come!" And here I shall briefly show you the wicked man's charter—which consists in five things.
Section 1. The first thing to come, is the awakening of conscience. Conscience is God's deputy in the soul, his viceroy. A wicked man does what he can to unthrone conscience, and put it out of office. Conscience is God's echo, and sometimes it is so shrill and
clamorous, that the sinner cannot endure the noise—but silences conscience. By frequent sinning, conscience begins to be sleepy and seared; "having their conscience seared with a hot iron," 1 Tim. 4:2.
This conscience is quiet—but not good; for the silence of conscience proceeds from the numbness of it. It is with him as with a sick patient, who having a confluence of diseases upon him—yet being asleep, is insensible of his diseases.
Time was when conscience was tender—but by often sinning, he is like the ostrich which can digest iron; or as it is said of Mithridates, that by often accustoming his body to poison, it never hurt him—but he could live upon it as his food. That sin which was before as the wounding of the sensitive eye; now is no more painful than the cutting of the finger nail.
Well, there is a time coming when this sleepy conscience shall be awakened! Belshazzar was drinking wine in bowls, when "the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king's palace. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote, and his face turned pale with fear! Such terror gripped him that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way beneath him!" There conscience began to be awakened.
Conscience is like a looking-glass; if it is foul and dusty, you can see nothing in it; but wipe away the dust, and you may see your face in it clearly. There is a time coming, when God will wipe off the dust from the looking-glass of a man's conscience, and he shall see his sins clearly represented! Conscience is like a sleeping lion; when he awakes—he roars and tears his prey. When conscience awakes, then it roars upon a sinner, and tears him!—as the devil did the man into which he entered; he "rent him, and threw him into the fire." When
Moses' rod was turned into a serpent, he was afraid and fled from it.
Oh what is it when conscience is turned into a serpent!
Conscience is like the bee, if a man does well—then conscience gives honey, it speaks comfort; if he does evil—it puts forth a sting.
Conscience is called a worm, Mark 9:44, "where the worm never dies." It is like Prometheus' vulture, it is ever gnawing. Conscience is God's bloodhound, which pursues a man. When the jailor saw the prison doors open, and, as he thought, the prisoners were missing, he drew his sword and would have killed himself. Just so, when the eye of conscience is opened, and the sinner begins to look about him for his evidences, faith, repentance, etc. and sees they are missing, he will be ready to kill himself! A troubled conscience is the first-fruits of hell; indeed it is a lesser hell. That it is so, appears two ways:
1. By the testimony of scripture. Proverbs 18:14, "A wounded spirit who can bear?" a wound in the name, in the estate, in the body, is sad; but a wound in the conscience, who can bear? especially when the wound can never be healed—I speak of such as awake in the night of death.
2. By the experience both of good and bad.
A. By the experience of good men; when the storm has risen in their conscience (though afterwards it has been allayed) yet for the present, they have been in the suburbs of hell. David complains of his broken bones, he was like a man that had all his bones out of joint.
What is the matter? You may see where his pain lay, Psalm 51:3, "My sin is ever before me!" He was in a spiritual agony: it was not the sword which threatened; it was not the death of the child—but it was the roarings of his conscience! Some of God's arrows fast stuck there!
Though God will not damn his children—yet he may send them to hell in this life!
B. By the experience of bad men, who have been in the perpetual convulsions of conscience. "I have sinned!" says Judas. Before, he was nibbling at the silver bait—the thirty pieces. But now the hook troubles him, conscience wounds him. Such was Judas' horror, being now like a man upon the rack, that he hangs himself to quiet his conscience. This shows what the hell of conscience is; that men account death easy—to get rid of conscience; but in vain. It is
with them as with a sick man, he moves out of one room into another, and changes the air—but still he carries his disease with him. O sinner, what will you do when conscience will begin to fly upon you, and shall probe you with scourgings? It is a mercy when conscience is awakened in time; but the misery is when the wound is too late, there being then, no balm in Gilead.
Section 2. The second thing to come is, his appearing before the judge. "For we must all appear before the judgmentseat of Christ." Hierome thought he ever heard that sounding in his ears, "Arise you dead, and come to judgment!" What solemnity is there at court, when the judge comes to the bench, and the trumpets are sounded! Thus Christ the Judge shall be accompanied with angels and archangels, and the trumpets shall be blown; 1 Thess.
4:16, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God!" This is the great and general judgement. Then shall Christ sit down upon the throne of judgement, holding his sword in his hand, and a flame coming out of his mouth. Now the sinner being summoned before him as a prisoner at bar, he has his guilt written in his forehead; he is condemned before he comes, I mean in his conscience, which is the petty judgement; and appearing before Christ, he begins to tremble and be amazed with horror! And not being covered with Christ's righteousness, for lack of a better covering, he cries to the mountains to cover him! "And the kings and the great men said to the mountains and rocks—fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb!" Nothing so dreadful as the sight of mercy abused. Now the Lamb will be turned into a Lion; and he who was once a Savior will be a Judge!
Section 3. The third thing to come is, his charge read. "I will reprove you, and set your sins in order before you," Psalm 50:21. As God has a bottle for the tears of his people; so he has a book to register men's sins, Rev. 20:12, "the books were opened." Oh what a black charge will be read against a sinner! not only the sins which have damnation written in their forehead—such as drunkenness,
swearing, blasphemy, shall be brought into the charge—but those sins which he slighted, as, 1. Secret sins, such as the world never took notice of. Many a man does not forsake his sins—but grows more cunning in concealing them. His heart gives as much vent to sin as ever. His care is rather that sin should be concealed, than cured. He is like him who shuts up his shop windows—but follows his trade within doors; he sits brooding upon sin. He does with his sins, as Rachel did with her father's idols, she put them under her that he might not find them; so does he put his sins in a secret place. But all these sins shall be set in order before him! Luke 12:2, "For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed!" God has a key for the heart!
2. Little sins, as the world calls them. The majesty of God—against which it is committed, does accent and enhance the sin. Besides, little sins (suppose them so) yet multiplied, become great! What is less than a grain of sand? Yet when multiplied, what is heavier than the sands of the sea? A little sum multiplied, is great. A little sin, unrepented of, will damn! Just as one leak in the ship, if it be not looked to, will sink it. You would think it is no great matter to merely forget God—yet it has a heavy doom, "Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue!"
Psalm 50:22. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." Psalms 9:17. The non-improvement of talents, the world looks upon as a small thing; yet we read of him who "hid his talent in the earth," Matt. 25:25. He had not wasted it.
Only not trading it, is sentenced. "You wicked and lazy servant!"
"Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!"
3. Sins that in the eye of the world were looked upon as virtues; sins that were colored and masked over with zeal of God, and good intentions, etc. Men put fine glosses upon their sins, that they may obtain credit, and be the more commendable. It is said of Alcibiades, that he embroidered a curtain with lions and eagles, that
he might hide the picture underneath, full of witches and satyrs. So does Satan embroider the curtain with the image of virtue, that he may hide the foul picture of sin underneath. The devil is like the spider—first she weaves her web, and then hangs the fly in it. Just so, the devil helps men to weave the web of sin with religious pretenses, and then he hangs them in the snare! All these sins shall be read in the sinner's charge, and set in order before him!
SECTION 4. The next thing is, the passing of the sentence. Matt. 25:41, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!" At the hearing of this sentence, the heart of a sinner will be rent through with horror; that heart which before would not break with sorrow for sin, shall now break with despair. At the pronouncing of this dreadful sentence, "depart from me," the sinner would be glad if he could depart from himself, and be annihilated. O it will be a sad departing!
We use to say, when a man is dead, he is departed. But this will be a departing without a deceasing. As soon as Christ has pronounced the curse, the sinner will begin to curse himself. "Oh what have I been doing! I have lain in wait for my own blood! I have twisted the noose of my own damnation!" While he lived, he blessed himself; "oh how happy am I, how does providence smile upon me!" Psalm 49:18,
"Though while he lived he blessed his soul," yet when this sentence is passed, he is the first who will curse himself.
SECTION 5. The pouring out of the vial. Psalm 75:8, "For the Lord holds a cup in his hand; it is full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours the wine out in judgment, and all the wicked must drink it, draining it to the dregs!" This is the sad execution. Hell is pictured out by Tophet, Isaiah 30:33, which was a place situated near
Jerusalem, where they offered their children in the fire to Moloch.
This is a fit metaphor to picture out the infinite torments of hell—the sinner shall lie in the furnace of God's wrath, and the breath of the Lord, as a pair of bellows, shall blow the fire!