Use. All this is spoken that you may not grow weary of a sound and searching ministry. Many think they trouble the world, and drive men to despair. Indeed God's witnesses do torment the dwellers upon
Ver. 37.] SERMONS upo]sr acts II. 37, 38. 241
earth, Kev. xi. 10 ; they trouble their carnal rest, and will not let men sleep in their sins ; but is it not better you should be troubled in your sleep of sin than awake in flames ? Is it not a good despair that driveth you to God, and maketh way for a hope that Avill never leave you ashamed ? And if we go to heaven by the gates of hell, can you be angry for leading you aright ? I speak the rather, because the world cannot endure masculine, sound preaching. Ahab hated Micaiah: 1 Kings xxii. 8, ' He dolli not prophesy good of me, but evil.' Men are displeased with them that deal faithfully with their souls: Isa. xxx. 10, ' They say unto the seers. See not ; and the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things ; speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.' They would have the prophets sleek their tongues, and come with loose, garish strains ; a sound practical sermon is loathed. They are cut at heart when they hear it, Acts vii. 54 ; they were unwilling to be searched at the bottom. It is one of the great sins of the age. Men preach in jest, and the people love to have it soj and speak of heaven and hell as things made to play withal, rather than propound them to their serious belief.
Thirdly, It was closely applied. The apostle doth not hover in generals, shoot at rovers ; he holdeth the jwint of the sword at their breasts, and dischargeth in their faces : ' This Jesus, whom ye have crucified, is both Lord and Christ. When they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts.' Applicative and close preaching is the best way to wound the heart, or to bring men to a sight and sense of their miserable condition. ' Thou art the man,' saith Nathan to David, 2 Sam. xii. 6, 7 ; Acts vii. 51, 52, ' Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ear, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ; as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted ? and they have slain them which showed before the coming of the just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.' A clap of thunder at a distance doth not startle me so much as when it is in my zenith : 'The man is convinced of all, and judged of all, when the secrets of his own heart are discovered,' 1 Cor. xiv. 25. We make little account of those things we have not a real interest in ; therefore this is a warrant to fly in the face of sinners, and charge them home, You are the men. Souls that are rocked asleep in a sinful course will else throw off all. An indictment without a name signifieth nothing. It prevents that captious cavil, The minister meant me, will they say, when their corruptions are met with ; not by an humble application of the word to their consciences, but by way of cavil and calumny, judg- ing it some sinister intention or reproachful reflection upon them : Jer. vi. 10, ' The word of the Lord is to them a reproach, they have no delight in it.' They make reproof railing. If thy heart misgive thee that thou art guilty, he did mean thee, and should mean thee. The minister did no more than he ought, no more than he ought in point of conscience ; and it is just that every man should bear liis own blame. But that he intended to shame thee before men, that is the false surmise of a galled conscience, when it beginneth to be stricken in its comforts. Apply it so as to humble tliee, not to hate thy reprover.
Fourthly, It was a close application of a grievous sin. That was it
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2i2 SERMONS UPON ACTS II. 37, 38. [SeR. I.
touched them so nearly, that they had crucified the Messiali, whom tliey had so long expected, and whom by .their profession they were bound to receive : * Now when they heard this.' Usually in awakening a sinner there is some remarkable and special sin that God sets home upon the conscience ; as here, that they had crucified him who was appointed to be Christ and Lord, Christ convinceth the woman of Samaria of adultery : John iv. 18, ' He whom thou now hast is not thy husband.' Nothing that Christ had said before could work upon her conscience till he took this course with her. There is some special sin we are guilty of, which, when it is touched in the word, maketh guilt fly in the face of a sinner most insensible ; as a blunt iron, that toucheth many points at once, maketh a bruise, but a needle, that toucheth but one point, entereth to the quick. Loose discourses about sin in general do not affect the heart so much as the sound discovery of sin ; and when that one sin is discovered, it bringeth others into the view of conscience. As a man that is asleep is not awakened but by some great sound, but when once he is awake, he easily heareth lesser sounds ; so there is some gross or secret sin God sets home upon the conscience, some special sin that bringeth all the rest to remembrance ; usually the most shameful sin that ever we committed. Now it is our duty to lay these convictions to heart, and to consider our estate before God, when we find the word falling with light and power on any one sin of ours.