God will have little to do at the day of judgment with most men in the church, to condemn them ; for, alas ! their own consciences will condemn them, the consciences of all will condemn them that their courses were naught.
And that makes wicked men so cruel, especially if they get into place of authority. They know they are not allowed, they are not acknowledged in the consciences of those that are judicious, they know they are con- demned there, and they fret and fume, and think to force another opinion of themselves upon others, but it will not be ; and that makes them that they cannot endure the sight of them that are of a contrary judgment ; they think themselves condemned in the hearts of such men, and that makes them cruel. Especially those that have some illumination. They cannot abide their own conscience to take its com'se, they cannot abide to see themselves. They think themselves condemned in the judgment of others ; and those that think they have the prejudice f of others that their courses are naught, they carry an implacable hati'ed. It is a desperate case. Hast thou knowledge that they think thy courses naught, and on good * Qu. ' increase ? ' — Ed. f That is, = pre-judgment. — G.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER, 13. 313
gi'ound, and dost thou hate them ? And hate to be reformed thyself ? Will this alway hold out ? No ! As I said before, truth is eternal ! That which thou acknowledgest must continue. It will be acknowledged. It will get the victory at the day of judgment by men and angels. Truth will have the ^^ctory. It is eternal. Take that course for the present, that thou mayest be good for the present, and hold out to the end, as we see the Corinthians here, ' You do acknowledge me, and you shall acknowledge me to the end,' and testify to the world that you acknowledge the best things, and the best persons, that you may be one with them by love here, and in heaven for ever hereafter.
' I trast you shall acknowledge to the end.' To shut up this point. Let me seal it up with this, make this query'^ to yourselves. What estate you are in when you come to the communion, whether it be well with you or no ? If not, why will you live any whit at all, in the uncertainty of our lives, and the shortness of them, and the danger of the wrath of God, when there is so little between you and eternal damnation, in a doubtful, in a dangerous, estate ? Ai-e you resolved to be naught then ? No ! If you be not atheists you will not say so. Do you intend to be good, and come and make your covenant with God ? Yes ! Why, then, resolve to be so.
A good conscience looks not only back to sins past, to repent of them ; but for the time to come it resolves to please God in all things, and to hold out to the end.
Some make a mockery of the holy things of God. One part of the year they will be holy ; a rotten, foolish aflection of people that are popish. In Lent they will use a little austerity, oh ! they will please God wondrously ! but before and after they are devils incarnate. So they make that part of the year as a good parenthesis, in an imlearned and unwitty speech. A good parenthesis is unseemly in a wicked speech, and a good piece is un- seemly in a ragged garment ; so their lives that make a good show then (and there are few that do so, they are scarce among us ; men are such atheists that there is not outward reformation, but if there be), if they give them- selves leave to be civil, and to respect holy things a little time, afterward they retm-n to their looseness again. Doth this patching out of a holy life please God ? No, no ! 'I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous statutes,' saith David, Ps. cxix. 106. And St Paul, ' I have resolved to be so to the end ;' I will be myself still. So where grace is, there is a resolution against all sin for the time to come. If you enter- tain not this resolution, to walk ' in holiness and righteousness all the days of 3^our life,' Luke i. 75, acknowledge no benefit by Christ's redemption, and come not near the holy things of God.
This is the honest heart that the Scripture speaks of, that receives the seed deep into it ; that hates sin above all miseries and ills, and that loves grace above all other good things. Therefore if any infirmity come, he can say it is against his resolution. I purposed not this, I plotted it not, I do not allow myself in it. Here is an honest heart. The word is fixed deeply in such a heart. It comes with an honest resolution. If you come to the sacrament, and purpose to live in sin, you profane the holy things of God. The word of God will do you no good. It will never take deep root to save you. So much for St Paul's resolution for the time to come, ' I trust you shall acknowledge to the end.'