APPLICATION.
Use of exhortation.
1. Suffer us to discharge our duty in this kind : Ileb. xiii. 22, ' I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exJiortation.' It is but a small request we have to you, that you will but suffer us to take pains to save your souls. It is irksome to carnal men to have their sluggishness stirred up ; but what is there that should make it grievous and distasteful ? Many can endure us when we treat of the joys of heaven, but when we
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come to flash hell terrors in the face of obstinate sinners, and tell them of damnation and wrath to come, they think us harsh and severe, and say, as Ahab of Micaiah, ' He prophesieth nothing but evil to me/ Ay ! but we must set both before you both life and death ; and it is better to hear of hell than to feel it. That is a cowardly confidence that can- not endure the mention of our danger. There are others tliat like the offer of heaven, but would sever those things that are so aptly joined,— life and good, death and evil ; that cannot endure this doctrine in this sense. They say, with those carnal hearers, ' Evermore give us the bread of life,' Jolm vi. 34. But they mistake the terms upon which it may be had. Oh ! but we are not in the place of God, and cannot make the way to heaven easier than it is ; but we propound God's covenant as we find it, life and good, the conditions as well as the offer. Would you have us compound with you, and deceive your souls with a false hope, which will leave you ashamed when you most need the comfort of it ? Men would live with the carnal, die with the sincere ; therefore suffer us to be earnest with you.
2. The next thing that we exhort you to is to believe the certainty, consider the weight and importance of these truths, that there is a dif- ference between good and evil, that the fruit of the one is death, of the other life ; and consider how irrational it is for a man to love death and refuse life. No man in his right wits can make a doubt which to choose : ' In vain is the snare laid in the sight of any bird,' Prov. i. 17. You cannot drive a dull ass into the fire that is kindled before his eyes. It is true you hate death, and yet it is proper to say you choose it : Prov. viii. 36, ' All they that hate me, love death.' Why, refusing the good, do you so eagerly pursue the evil ? How can ye hate the wages, and yet love the work by which the wages is to be earned, and in requital of which it will be certainly paid ? If you detest hell, why not sin ? If you love heaven, why do you not do good ? There is an inseparable connection between these. Who can pity the torment of that man that thrusts his hand into the fire ? What should be the cause of this but incredulity and inconsideration ?
[1.] Unbelief and atheism ; they do not think God will recompense men according to their works. Now, till men believe it, tell them of hell or heaven never so much, it will not work upon them. Who would lose that which is certain and present, for the hope or fear of that which is to come and doubtful, when they suspect or believe it not fully ? No wonder they go on still in the paths that lead down to the chambers of death, and are prejudiced against the ways of life. But why are men such infidels as to future things ?
(1.) You cannot disprove what is declared in scripture, or by any sound argument evince that there is no heaven or hell ; for all you say or know, there are both really existing ; and if there were no more but that, it were good to take the surer side, especially when you part with nothing but a few base pleasures and carnal satisfactions. Keason should make us very careful. In a lottery, where there is but a possi- bility of gaining, men will venture a shilling or a small matter for a prize. If there be eitlier no hell or heaven, you part with no more than the vain pleasures of a fading, perishing life; but if this doctrine prove true, you run the hazard of eternal torments, and lose the comfort of eter-
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nal jovs ; therefore it is ])etter to trust this doctrine than try it. It is priulence to make provision for tlie worst.
(•2.) But dotli not natural reason and conscience, and the presages of our hearts, shrewdly evidence that there is a world to come, as be- fore was proved— a heaven for the good, and a hell for the wicked ? At present the wicked flourish, and the good many times suffer ; what shall we conclude thence ? Mai. ii. 17, ' Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in him ; or where is the G-od of judgment ? '