Ingratitude to God 2
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Alas! are there not many of you who do not return to God—the gratitude of a dog to his master? That brute animal who receives but crumbs and blows from you, will welcome you home with a thousand fond and obliging motions. The very dull ox you fodder, knows his owner. But oh! the more than brutal ingratitude of reasonable creatures! Some of you, perhaps, do not so much as acknowledge the agency of Divine Providence in these enjoyments; but, affecting a very foolish infidelity under the name ofphilosophy, you make natural causes the authors of all good to you, without the agency of the first Mover of all the springs of nature!
Others of you, who may be orthodox in your faith as to this point—yet are practical infidels, the most absurd and inconsistent sort in the world! That is, while you certainly acknowledge, and speculatively believe the agency of Divine Providence in these things—yet you live as if there were no such thing! You live thoughtless of the divine Benefactor, and disobedient to him for days and years together. The very mercies he bestows upon you—you abuse to his dishonour, by making them occasions of sin! Do not your consciences now convict you of that monster sin, ingratitude, the most base, unnatural—and yet indulged ingratitude? How do you resent it, if one whom you have deeply obliged should prove ungrateful, and abuse you? But it is impossible any one of your fellow-creatures should be guilty of such enormous ingratitude towards you—as you are guilty of towards God; because it is impossible that any one of them should be as strongly obliged to you—as you are to him!
You children of God, his peculiar favourites, whose hearts are capable of, and do actually feel some generous sensations of gratitude; what do you think of your conduct towards such a Benefactor? I speak particularly to you, because you are most likely to feel what I say. Have you rendered back to your God, according to the divine benefits done to you? Oh! are you not mortified and shocked—to reflect upon your ingratitude, your sordid, monstrous ingratitude! Do you not abhor yourselves because you were capable of such base conduct? From you I expect such a generous response. But, as to others, they are dead in transgressions and sins, dead toward God—and therefore it is no wonder if they are dead to all penitential sincere relentings for their ingratitude.
But if all this does not suffice to make you sensible of your enormous guilt in this particular, let me lay before you an inventory of still richer blessings! At the head of this stands Jesus Christ, the unspeakable gift of God. "God so loved the world, (hear it, men and angels, with grateful wonder!) that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish—but have everlasting life." John 3:16. "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world—but that the world through him, might be saved." John 3:17. The comforts of this life alone would be a very inadequate provision for creatures who are to exist forever in another world; for what are sixty or seventy years—in comparison to the long duration of an immortal being! But in the unsearchable riches of Christ, are contained the most ample provisions for your immortal state. Jesus Christ is such a gift as draws all other gifts after it; for so the apostle argues, "He who spared not his own Son—but delivered him up for us all—how shall he not with him also freely give us all things!" Romans 8:32.
And the purposes for which he gave this gift, render it the more astonishing. He gave him not only to rule us by his power—but topurchase us with the blood of his heart! He gave him up to death, even the death of the cross! In consequence of which an economy of grace, a ministry of reconciliation, is set up in our guilty world. Various means are appointed, and various endeavours are used—to save you, perishing sinners. For your salvation Jesus now intercedes in his native heaven, at the right hand of God. For your salvation the Holy Spirit strives with you; conscience admonishes you; Providence draws you by blessings, and drives you by chastisements; angels minister to you; Bibles are put into your hands; ministers persuade you; friends advise you; and thousands of saints pray for you. For this end, prayer, preaching, and a great variety of means of grace, are instituted.
For this end, heaven is prepared and furnished with many mansions; the pearly gates open, and dart their splendours from afar to attract our eyes; and things which the eye—which has seen so many things, had never seen; which the ear—which has had still more extensive intelligence, had never heard; nor the heart of man—which is even unbounded in its conceptions, had never conceived; are all brought to light by the gospel. Nay, for this purpose, your salvation— Sinai thunders, hell roars and throws its devouring flames, even to warn a stupid world not to plunge themselves into that place of eternal torment! In short, the kind designs of redeeming love run through the whole economy of Providence towards our guilty world. Heaven and earth, and, in the sense mentioned, hell itself, are trying to save you. The strongholds of sin and Satan, in which you are held prisoners, are attacked in kindness to you, from all quarters.
What beneficent efforts, what heroic exploits of divine goodness are these! And, blessed be God, these efforts are not in vain. The celestial regions are fast peopling, though, alas! not so fast as the land of darkness, with numerous colonies from our guilty globe! Even in these dregs of time, when iniquity abounds, and the love of many waxes cold—Jesus is gaining many hearts and saving many souls, in the various regions of his church. Though you and thousands more should be left, and continue to neglect Him—yet such excellencies shall not lack admirers, such a Physician shall not lack employment in our dying world. No, "he shall see of the travail of his soul—and shall be satisfied; and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Isaiah 53:11.
And I doubt not, but there are some among you who are the trophies of his victorious love—of his victorious love, I say; for it is by the force of love—that he sweetly conquers. Now you, my brethren, are the subjects of this administration of grace; with you, these means are used for your salvation; to you Jesus is offered as a Saviour; and heaven and earth are striving to lodge you safe in his arms.
You should not rejoice in the needs of others; but certainly it may make you the more sensible of your peculiar obligations, to reflect that your lot, in this respect, is singular. It is but a very small part of mankind, who enjoy these great advantages for a happy immortality. You live under the gospel, while the most of the nations of the earth are sunk in heathen idolatry, groaning under Popish tyranny, seduced by Mohammedan imposture, or hardened in Jewish infidelity. And what peculiar obligations of gratitude, result from such peculiar, distinguishing favours to you?
If mere men have obliged you, and you feel the obligation. But can men, can angels, can the whole created universe bestow such gifts upon you, and make such provisions for you—as those which have been mentioned? Gifts of infinite value, dear to the Giver; provisions for an everlasting state; an everlasting state of as complete happiness as your nature, in its highest improvements, is capable of! These are favours worthy of God! favours that bespeak him God! And must he not, then, be the object of your supreme gratitude? Can anything in the world be more reasonable?
And yet—hear, oh earth, with horror; be astonished, O heavens, at this: How little gratitude does God receive from our world after all! How little gratitude from you—on whom these favours are showered down with distinguished profusion! Do not many of you neglect the unspeakable gift of God, Jesus Christ, as well as that salvation which he bought with his blood? Do you not ungratefully neglect the means of your salvation, and resist the generous efforts that are used, from all quarters, to save you! Oh! the mountainous load of ingratitude that lies upon you! It is enough to sink the whole world into the depth of hell!
But I must now address such of you, who are still more deeply obliged to your divine Benefactor, and whose ingratitude therefore is black and horrid; I mean such of you who have not only shared in the blessings and deliverances of life, and lived under the advantages of a dispensation of grace—but have experimentally known the love of God to your souls in a manner peculiar to yourselves, and are actually entitled to all the unknown blessings prepared for those that love him. If I am so happy as to belong to your number, I am sure I am so unhappy as to share deeply with you in the guilt, the black guilt of ingratitude!
When you were dead in transgressions and sins, God quickened you, out of his great love with which he loved you! When you were rushing on towards destruction, in the enchanting paths of sin—he checked your mad career, and turned your faces heavenward! When you were sunk into sorrows, borne down with a sense of guilt, and trembling every moment with the fears of immediate execution—he relieved you, led you to Jesus, and, as it were, lodged you safe in his arms! When dismal glooms have again gathered upon your minds, and overwhelming fears rushed again upon you like a deluge—he has relieved you again by leading you to the same almighty and ever-constant Savior! When your graces and virtues have withered in the absence of the Sun of righteousness, he has again risen upon you with healing in his wings, and revived your languishing souls. He has shed abroad his love in your hearts, which has made this wretched wilderness a paradise to you.
He has, at times, afforded you, as you humbly hoped, joy and peace in believing; yes, even caused you to rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. He has met you in your retirements, and allowed you to converse with him in his ordinances, with the heart of a friend. He has, as it were, unlocked his peculiar treasures to enrich you, and given you an unshaken title to the most glorious inheritance of the saints in light. He has made you his own, his own in a peculiar sense: his people, his friends, his very own children! You are indeed his favourites: you were even so, long before time began. He loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness has he drawn you! And having loved you once, he will love you always, and he will continue in his love to all eternity. Neither life, nor death; neither things present, nor things to come—shall ever be able to separate you from his love! Romans 8:38, 39.
His love to you is an unbounded ocean, that spreads over eternity, and makes it, as it were, the channel of the ocean of your happiness. In you, he intends to show to all worlds what glorious creatures he can form of the dust, and of the polluted fragments of degenerate human nature. What is all the profession of kings to their favourites, what are all the benefactions of creatures, nay, what are all the bounties of the divine hand itself within the compass of time—when compared to these astonishing, unparalleled, immortal, infinite, God-like favours? They all dwindle into obscurity, like the stars of night in the blaze of noon!
And now I am almost afraid to turn your thoughts to inquire—what return you have made for all these favours, lest you should not be able to bear the shock. You know that you have a thousand times repeated Hezekiah's offence. I need not be particular. Your conscience accuses you, and points out the particulars; and I shall only join the cry of conscience against you. Oh! the ingratitude! Oh! the base, vile, unnatural, horrid, unprecedented ingratitude!
From you—your God might have expected better things! From you, whom he has so peculiarly, so infinitely obliged, and whose hearts he has made capable of generous sensations. But oh! the shocking, horrid ingratitude! Let our hearts burst into a flood of sorrows at the thought! They may be justly too full to allow us to speak much upon it; but, oh! they can never be too full of shame, confusion, and tender relentings for the crime. Methinks the thought must break the hardest heart among us!
Let me now add a consideration, that gives an astonishing emphasis to all that has been said. All this profusion of mercy, personal and relative, temporal and spiritual—is bestowed upon creatures that deserve not the least mercy! Upon creatures that deserve to be stripped naked of every mercy; nay, that deserve to be made miserable in time and eternity! Upon creatures that deserve not to breathe this vital air, to tread the ground, or drink the stream that runs through the wilderness; much less to enjoy all the blessings which the infinite merit of Jesus could purchase, or the infinite goodness of God can bestow! Upon creatures that are so far from deserving to be delivered from the calamities of life—that they deserve to have them all heightened and multiplied, until they convey them to the more intolerable punishments of hell! Upon creatures that are so far from making adequate returns, that they are perpetually offending their God to his face; and every day receiving blessings from him, and every day sinning against him!
Oh! astonishing! most astonishing! This wonder is pointed out by Jesus Christ himself, who best knows what is truly marvellous. The Most High God, says he, "is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." Luke 6:35. "Your heavenly Father makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:45. It need afford you no surprise, if my subject so overwhelms me, as to disable me from making a formal application of it. I leave you to your own thoughts upon it. And I am apt to think they will constrain you to cry out in a consternation with me, "Oh! the amazing, horrid, base, unprecedentedingratitude of man! And oh! the amazing, free, rich, overflowing, infinite, unprecedented goodness of God! Let these two miracles be the wonder of the whole universe!"
One prayer, and I am done. May our divine Benefactor, among his other blessings, bestow upon us that of a thankful heart, and enable us to give sincere, fervent, and perpetual praise to his name, through Jesus Christ, his unspeakable gift! Amen.
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