mit sin with security, in the midst of all your displeasing of God; though you may eat and drink, and rise up to play, take heed lest at length you cry out, ' I have sinned, and my sin is greater than I can bear ; ' for Judas came at last to this, ' I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood,' Mat. xxvii. 4. Sins, till they are committed, are hidden from the eye of conscience, but then guilt flasheth in the face. Before the commission, the devil will not let us see it, lest we should prevent it ; and afterwards he represents it in a terrible glass that we may despair. After the act sin usually appears in its own colours ; ' he despaired and hanged himself.' God's wrath and sin are exceeding terrible when they are charged on the conscience. Life is sweet, and man's nature is afraid of death ; it must be some great matter that must cause a man to make an end of himself ; and yet so great was his despair, that he was his own destroyer. Usually, it is thus with grievous sinners ; they dream of nothing but mercy while they live, and when they come to die have nothing but wrath and hell. Their presumption of mercy doth but provide matter for despair. He re- pented, confessed his sin, restored the thirty pieces of silver. Convic- tion, confession, restitution are good, yet do not always lead to God : John xvi. 8, ' When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment' This is as water out of a still, that is forced by fire, not as water out of a fountain.
2. We now come to his punishment. His temporal judgment you have recorded : Mat. xxvii. 5, ' He cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself The plea- sures of sin are very short ; in the midnight he receiveth the money, and in the morning hangeth himself : ' The pleasures of sin are but for a season,' Heb. xi. 26. Till we sin, Satan is a parasite ; but when once we are in the devil's hands, he turns tyrant ; as an angler, when the fish hath swallowed the bait, discovers himself ; or as a hunter lies out of sight till the beast is gotten into the toil, then he shouts and triumphs over the prey : Prov. xx. 17, ' Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shatl be filled with gravel.' 'He went and hanged himself.' A man will endure the greatest evils rather than the gripes of an awakened conscience ; it is worse than all the racks and strapados in the world. A man may make shift with other calamities : Prov. xviii. 14, ' The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity ; but a wounded spirit who can bear ?' When once he hath broken his peace, and run into God's displeasure, oh ! then, who can stand under it ? Job vii. 15, ' My soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than life.' Death, the most violent and most disgraceful, is more welcome to them than life in such a case, when a man's thoughts become his hell, and wherever he goeth he carrieth his hell about with him. ' He hanged himself.' The event of sin is always deadly to the sinner. Judas becometh his own exe- cutioner. N on 10011011 iDej ore manuperire qitam sua, 7ion dehuit tamen. He could not die by a worser hand. God cannot want instruments to punish sinners ; he can arm our own hands and thoughts against ourselves. Judas was his own judge and his own executioner.
There is another circumstance in his death : Acts i. 18, * And falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels
346 SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. [Ser. XX.
j^iished out.' The rope breaking, he fell down, and then that accident hefell him. God suiteth punishments to sins, to show his detestation of hypocrisy. He turns the traitor in and out ; he was outwardly an apostle, inwardly a traitor ; therefore his bowels and inwards are now poured forth. And then follows the infamy of it : Acts i. 19, ' And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their ])roper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood." Thus God will do, pour shame and contempt upon them that are false to him : Prov. xxvi. 25, 26, ' When he speaketh fair, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart : whose hatred is covered with deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation.' First or last the mask shall fall off, and a man shall be betrayed to shame and infamy. Of the woman whom Judas envied, Christ saith, Mat. xxvi. 13, ' Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her.' As the memorial of the just doth not go into the grave with him, so neither the infamy of the wicked ; here is an everlasting infamy upon Judas. Judas is remembered in the Lord's supper : ' The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread,' 1 Cor. xi. 23 ; as Pilate is remembered in the creed. But all this is nothing to hell ; he is gone to his own place, where we must leave him as the jSrst-fruits of reprobates.