The Nature and Danger of Making 2
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But are there not some of you whom conscience does not accuse of this crime of too much carelessness about the gospel, not because you are innocent—but because you make so very light of it, that you will make no thorough search into it? and does not this alone prove you guilty? I beseech such to consider the folly of your conduct. Do you then think to excuse your crime, by being careless whether you are guilty of it or not? Can you avoid the precipice—by shutting your eyes? If you discover your sin now, it may be of unspeakable service to you—but if you now shut your eyes—you must see it hereafter, when it will be too late—when your conviction will be your punishment!
I beseech you also to consider the dreadful evil of your conduct in making light of a Saviour. And here I shall offer such arguments to expose its aggravations, as I am sure I cannot fail to convince and astonish you—if you act like men of reason and understanding.
1. Consider that you make light of Christ—who did not make light of you—when you deserved only His wrath! You were worthy of nothing but contempt and abhorrence from him. As a man—you are but a worm to God; and as a sinner—you are viler than a toad or a serpent! Yet Christ was so far from making light of you—that he left his native heaven, became a man of sorrows, and died in the most exquisite agonies—that a way might be opened for the salvation of your miserable soul!
And can you make light of him after all his regard to you? What miracles of love and mercy has he shown towards you! and can you neglect him after all? Angels, who are less concerned in these things than we are—cannot but pry into them with delightful wonder, 1 Peter 1:12, and shall sinners who have the most intimate personal concern in them, make light of them? This is a crime more than devilish; for the devils never had a Saviour offered to them, and consequently never could despise him. And can you live in a carelessness of Christ all your days—and yet feel no remorse?
2. Consider you make light of matters of the greatest excellency and importance in all the world! Oh, sirs, you know not what it is that you slight! Had you known these things—you would not have ventured to make light of them for ten thousand worlds! As Christ said to the woman of Samaria, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is, that says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water!" John 4:13. Had the Jews known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory! 1 Corinthians 2:8. Just so, had you known who Jesus is—you would not have made light of him; he would have been to you the most important being in the universe!
Oh! had you been but one day in heaven, and seen and felt the happiness there! or had you been but one hour under the agonies of hell—you could never more trifle with salvation!
Here I find my thoughts run so naturally into the same channel with those of the excellent Richard Baxter, about a hundred years ago, that you will allow me to give a long quotation from him, that you may see in what light this great and godly man viewed the neglected things which the gospel brings to your ears. His words are these, and I am that they are very weighty:
"Oh, sirs, they are no trifles or jesting matters, which the gospel speaks of. I must needs profess to you, that when I have the most serious thoughts of these things, I am ready to wonder that such amazing matters do not overwhelm the souls of men! that the greatness of the subject—does not so over match our understandings and affections, as even to drive men beside themselves! Much more am I amazed, that men should be so blockish as to make light of such wondrous things! Oh, Lord, that men did but know what everlasting glory—and everlasting torments are! Would they then hear us as they do? Would they read and think of these things as they do? I profess I have been ready to wonder when I have heard such weighty things delivered, how people can forbear crying out in the congregation; and much more do I wonder how they can rest—until they have gone to their ministers and learned what they shall do to be saved, that this great business of their eternal salvation should be put out of doubt.
Oh, thatheaven and hell should work no more upon men! Oh, that eternity should work no more! Oh, how can you forbear when you are alone—to think with yourselves, what it is to be everlastingly in joy—or torment! I wonder that such thoughts do not break your sleep, and that they do not crowd into your minds when you are about your labour! I wonder how you can almost do anything else! How can you have any quietness in your minds? How can you eat or drink, or rest—until you have got some ground of everlasting consolations? Is that a man, or a corpse—who is not affected with matters of such great consequence? who can be readier to sleep—than to tremble, when he hears how he must stand at the bar of God? Is that a man, or a clod of clay—who can rise up and lie down without being deeply affected with his everlasting state? who can follow his worldly business, and make nothing of the great business of salvation or damnation; and that when he knows it is so close at hand! Truly, sirs, when I think of the weight of the matter, I wonder at the best saints upon earth, that they are no better, and do no more in so weighty a case.
I wonder at those whom the world accounts more holy than needs be, and scorns for making too much ado—that they can put off Christ and their souls with so little; that they do not pour out their souls in every prayer; that they are not more taken up with God; that their thoughts are not more serious in preparation for their last account! I wonder that they are not a thousand times more strict in their lives, and more laborious and unwearied for the eternal crown than they are. And for myself, (says that zealous, flaming, and indefatigable preacher,) as I am ashamed of my dull and careless heart, and of my slow and unprofitable course of life; the Lord knows I am ashamed of every sermon that I preach! When I think what I am, and who sent me, and how much the salvation and damnation of men is concerned in it—I am ready to tremble, lest God should judge me as a slighter of his truth and the souls of men; and lest, in my best sermon, I should be guilty of their blood! Methinks we should not speak a word to men in matters of such consequence, without tears, or the greatest earnestness!"
And now, my brethren, if such a man as this viewed these things in this light, oh what shall we—we languishing, careless creatures, what shall we think of ourselves? Into what a dead sleep are we fallen! Oh let the most active and zealous among us—awake, and be a thousand times more earnest! And you frozen-hearted, careless sinners, for God's sake—awake, and exert yourselves to good purpose in the pursuit of salvation—or you are lost to all eternity!
3. Consider whose salvation it is, that you make light of.
It is your own!
And do you not care what becomes of your own eternal souls?
Is it nothing to you—whether you are saved or damned forever?
Is the natural principle of self-love extinct in you?
Have you no concern for your own preservation?
Are you your own worst enemies?
If you slight Christ and love sin—you virtually love death and damnation! And you may as well say this in words—as by your practice!
4. Consider, your sin is aggravated—by professing to believe that gospel, which you make light of. For a professed infidel who does not believe the Scripture revelation concerning Christ and a future state of rewards and punishments, for such a one to becareless about these things would not be so strange.
But many of you profess to believe the gospel—but make light of it in your thoughts and practice!
How astonishing is this!
How utterly inexcusable!
What! You believe that you shall live forever in the most perfect happiness or exquisite misery—and yet take no more pains to obtain the one, and escape the other!
What! You believe that the great and awesome God will shortly be your judge—and yet make no more preparation for it? Either say plainly, "I am no Christian, I do not believe these things!" or else let your hearts be affected with your belief, and let it influence and govern your lives!
5. Consider what those things are, which engross your affections, and which tempt you to neglect Christ and your salvation.Have you found a better friend than Christ, or a more substantial and lasting happiness than His salvation?
Oh! what trifles and vanities, what dreams and shadows are men pursuing—while they neglect the important realities of the eternal world!
If crowns and kingdoms, if all the riches, glories, and pleasures of the world were ensured to you—as a reward for making light of Christ, you would even then make the most foolish bargain possible; for what are these in the grand scale—if compared to eternal joy or eternal misery! "What is a man profited, if he shall gain even the whole world, and lose his own soul!"
But you cannot realistically hope for the ten thousandth part of these worldly trifles! And will you cast away your souls for such a pittance?
You who think it such a great thing to live in riches, pleasures, and honours; consider, is it such a mighty happiness to die rich? to die after a life of pleasure and honour? Will it be such a great happiness to give an account at the judgement day, for the life of a rich sensualist, rather than of a poor humble Christian? Will Dives then be so much happier than Lazarus?
Alas! what does the richest, the highest, the most voluptuous sinner do—but lay up treasures of wrath against the day of wrath! Oh how will the unhappy creatures torture themselves forever with the most cutting reflections, for selling their Saviour and their souls for such trifles! Let your sins and earthly enjoyments save you then, if they can! Then go and cry to the gods you have chosen; let them deliver you in the day of your damnation!
6. Your making light of Christ and salvation, is a certain evidence that you have no saving interest in them. Christ will not throw himself and his blessings away upon those who do not value them. "Those who honour him—he will honour; but those who despise him—shall be lightly esteemed," 1 Sam. 2:30. There is a day coming, when you will feel you cannot do without him; when you will feel yourselves perishing for lack of a Saviour; and then you may go and look for a Saviour where you will; then may you shift for yourselves as best you can—he will have nothing to do with you! The Saviour of sinners will cast you off forever!
I tell you, sirs, whatever estimate you may form of all these things—that God thinks very highly of the blood of his Son, and the blessings of his purchase; and if ever you obtain them, he will have you think highly of them too. If you continue to make light of them—all the world cannot save you. And can you find fault with God for denying you that which was so little in your account?
7. And lastly, the time is hastening when you will not think so lightly of Christ and salvation. Oh, sirs, when God shall commission death to tear your guilty souls out of your bodies, when devils shall drag you away to the place of torment, when you find yourselves condemned to everlasting fire by that Saviour whom you now neglect—what would you then give for a Saviour?
When divine justice brings in its heavy charges against you, and you have nothing to answer, how will you then cry, "Oh if I had sincerely received Jesus for my Saviour—He would have answered all!" When you see that the world has deserted you, that yourcompanions in sin have deceived both themselves and you, and all your merry days are over forever—would you not then give ten thousand worlds for Christ?
And will you not now think him worthy of your esteem and earnest pursuit? Why will you judge of things now—quite the reverse of what you will do then—when you will be more capable of judging rightly?
And now, dear immortal souls! I have revealed the nature and danger of this common but unsuspected and unlamented sin,making light of Christ. I have delivered my message—and now I must leave it with you, imploring the blessing of God upon it!
I cannot follow you home to your houses to see what effect it has upon you, or to make application of it to each of you in particular; but oh, may your consciences undertake this office! Whenever you spend another prayer-less, thoughtless day, whenever you give yourselves up to sinful pleasures, or an over-eager pursuit of the world, may your conscience become your preacher, and sting you with this expostulation: "Alas! is this the effect of all I have heard? Do I still make light of Christ and the concerns of true religion? Oh what will be the end of such conduct!"
I cannot but fear, after all, that some of you, as usual, will continue careless and impenitent. Well, when you are suffering the punishment of this sin in hell, remember that you were warned, and acquit me from being accessory to your eternal ruin! And when we all appear before the supreme Judge, and I am called to give an account of my ministry: when I am asked, "Did you warn these creatures of their danger? Did you lay before them their guilt in making light of these things?" You will hear me answer, "Yes, Lord, I warned them in the best manner I could—but they would not believe me; they would not regard what I said, though enforced by the authority of your awesome name, and confirmed by your own Word!" Oh sirs, must I give in this accusation against any of you? No, rather have mercy on yourselves, and have mercy upon me, that I may give an account of you with joy, and not with grief!
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