64. “But by talking thus you encourage sinners.” I do encourage them――to repent: and do not you? Do not you know how many heap sin upon sin, purely for want of such encouragement? Because they think, “they can never be forgiven: there is no place for repentance left?” Does not your heart also bleed for them? What would you think too dear to part with? What would you not do? What would you not suffer, to bring one such sinner to repentance? Could not your love _endure all things_ for them? “Yes――if you believed it would do them good; if you had any hope that they would be better.” Why do you not believe it would do them good? Why have you not a hope that they will be better? Plainly, because you do not love them enough; because you have not that charity, which not only endureth, but at the same time believeth and hopeth all things.
65. But that you may see the whole strength of this objection, I will shew you without any disguise or reserve, how I encourage the chief of sinners: my usual language to them runs thus:
O ye that deny the Lord that bought you, yet hear the word of the Lord. You seek rest, but find none. Even in laughter your heart is in heaviness. How long spend ye your labour for that which is not bread, and your strength for that which satisfieth not? You know, your soul is not satisfied. It is still an aking void. Sometimes you find (in spite of your principles) a sense ♦of guilt, an awakened conscience. That grisly phantom, religion, (so you describe her) will now and then haunt you still. Righteousness looking down from heaven, is indeed to us no unpleasing sight. But how does it appear to you?
_Horribili super aspectu mortalibus astans?_
How often are you in fear of the very things you deny? How often in racking suspense? “What if there be an hereafter? A judgment to come? An unhappy eternity?” Do you not start at the thoughts? Can you be content to be always thus? Shall it be said of you also,
“Here lies a dicer, long in doubt If death could kill the soul, or not? Here ends his doubtfulness; at last Convinc’d.――――But, O the die is cast!”
Or, are you already convinced, there is no hereafter? What a poor state then are you in now? Taking a few more dull turns upon earth, and then dropping into nothing! What kind of spirit must you be of, if you can sustain yourself under the thought! Under the expectation of being in a few moments swept away by the stream of time, and then for ever
“swallow’d up, and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night!”
But neither indeed are you certain of this; nor of any thing else. “It may be so; it may not. A vast scene is behind. But clouds and darkness rest upon it.” All is doubt and uncertainty. You are continually tossed to and fro, and have no firm ground for the sole of your foot. O let not the poor wisdom of man any longer exalt itself against the wisdom of God. You have fled from him long enough: at length suffer your eyes to be opened by him that made them. You want rest to your soul. Ask it of him, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not! You are now a mere riddle to yourself, and your condition full of darkness and perplexity. You are one among many restless inhabitants of a miserable, disordered world, _walking in a vain shadow, and disquieting yourself in vain_. But the light of God will speedily disperse the anxiety of your vain conjectures. By adding heaven to earth, and eternity to time; it will open such a glorious view of things, as will lead you, even in the present world, to a peace which passeth all understanding.
♦ duplicate word “of” removed
66. O ye gross, vile, scandalous sinners, hear ye the word of the Lord. _Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn and live._ O make haste; delay not the time. _Come, and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.――――Who is this that cometh from |Edom|, with dyed garments, red in his apparel?_ It is he on whom the Lord _hath laid the iniquities of us all_! Behold, behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away thy sins! See the only begotten Son of the Father, _full of grace and truth_! He loveth _thee_. He gave himself for _thee_. Now, his bowels of compassion yearn over thee! O believe in the Lord Jesus, and _thou_ shalt be saved! _Go in peace, sin no more!_