we not then wish that we had paid more attention to the Saviour, and lived under the influence of his blessed Spirit ? Still more, when standing at the judgment-seat of Christ, will it be any joy to us, that, whilst in this world, we took so little pains to obtain mercy of the Lord, and to secure his favour ?
Alas ! alas ! How will a carnal or worldly life then
appear ? Would to God, that we would view things now, as we shall surely view them in that day /]
Instructed by these lessons of experience, let us proceed to contemplate,
II. The folly of sin, as taught us by grace —
The very first effect of grace is to humble us before God. The more enlarged our views are of our past transgressions, the more shall we blush and be con- founded in the remembrance of them. Of every true Christian it may with certainty be affirmed, that, like Job, he " abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes." He is " ashamed,"
1. That he has so requited the goodness of his God—
[In an unconverted state, men can receive innumerable blessings at the Lord's hand, and never consider from whence they flow. Even the great work of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ is not regarded as any sufficient incentive to love and serve him. But no sooner does grace enter into the soul, than all the wonders of God's love and mercy are seen in their proper colours ; and the man is amazed at his more than brutish ingratitude. How wonderful does it appear, that God should so love him as to give his only dear Son to die for him ; and yet that he should live all his days in an utter contempt of that stupendous mystery, trampling on that precious blood that was shed to cleanse him from sin, and doing despite to that blessed Spirit, who strove to bring him to repentance ! Verily, that expression of Agur is adopted by him, not as an hyperbole, but as a just representation of his case; "I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man6." The circumstance of his being forgiven is so far from obliterating this sense of his baseness, that it renders the feeling of it incomparably more poignant ; according as the Prophet Ezekiel hath said, " Then shall ye lothe yourselves for all your iniquities, and for all your abominations, after that I am pacified towards you, saith the Lord."]
e Prov. xxx. 2.