take occasion from our text to set before you in a
more enlarged view,
I. The sinner's retrospect —
That we may bring home the subject to every man's bosom, we shall consider men under two dis- tinct classes ;
1. Those who already feel some painful conse- quences of their past conduct —
[Amongst these we must first notice the persons more immediately referred to in our text, namely, those who have wasted their property, and injured their constitution, in habits of criminal indulgence^ What reason for regret have they! How glad would they now be, if they had restrained their appetites, and not purchased a momentary gratification at so high a price ! Next to these we may mention the spend- thrift, and the gamester, who through covetousness or the love of pleasure have dissipated their fortune, and involved them- selves in ruin. How common is it for persons so circum- stanced to destroy their own lives, and to seek in suicide a
remedyfor the evils they have entailed upon themselves!
To these we may add the persons who by any disgraceful act have blasted their reputation, and rendered themselves ob- noxious to just rejDroach : to such the seasons of reflection are bitter. They attempt perhaps to divert their thoughts by business or pleasure ; but they can never cease to rue the day in which they brought upon themselves so heavy a calamity. There are times when all who have entailed misery on them- selves will bring to mind the instructions given them in early youth ; and then they will, inwardly at least, complain, " How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof!"]
2. Those who, though they feel no present pain arising from their sins, are yet sensible that they have not answered the great ends of life —
[The necessity of turning unto God, and the means of acceptance with God through the atonement of Christ, have been distinctly set forth from time to time ; so that, supposing persons to have diligently attended to the word that has been preached to them, and to have " mixed faith with it," it would have been impossible for them to have continued in the ways of sin and death. But how many are at this moment as far from God as they were years ago ! How many have reason to regret that they have ever heard the Gospel, which, instead of being a savour of life to them, has, through their neglect of it, been made a savour of death unto death ! Our blessed Lord told his
a ver. 9—11.
765.1 sinner's retrospect. 61
hearers, that " if he had never come to instruct them, they would not, comparatively, have had sin ; but that now they had no cloak for their sin." So must it be said to many amongst us; " that having been exalted to heaven" in their privileges, they have reason to expect that they shall, with Capernaum, " be cast the deeper into hell" for their abuse of them. It is a small matter that their sins have not been such as to expose them to shame and reproach among men : their neglect of Christ, their want of love to his name, and of zeal in his service, must be reckoned for at the last day, when he will say, " Bring hither those that were mine enemies, who would not that 1 should reign over them, and slay them before me." O painful retro- spect ! O afflictive prospect ! Brethren, take a review of your past lives; and seek " the things belonging to your peace, before they be for ever hid from your eyes."]
What then remains to be done by these distinct, but perishing, classes ? To both the one and the other we would say. Consider,
II. The sinner's alternative —
There is but one alternative for any child of man : we must either attend to the voice of instruction given us in the Gospel, or we must carry with us un- changing and unavailing remorse into the eternal world.