THE SINNER SENTENCED.
1,2.The sinner called upon to hear his sentence.--3. God's law does now in general pronounce a curse.--4. It pronounces death.--5. And being turned into hell.--6. The judgement day shall come.--7.8. The solemnity of that grand process described according to scriptural representations of it.--9. With a particular illustration of the sentence, "Depart, accursed," &c.--10. The execution wilt certainly and immediately follow.--11. The sinner warned to prepare for enduring it. The reflection of a sinner struck with the terror of his sentence.
1. HEAR, O sinner! and I will speak (Job 42:4.) yet once more, as in the
name of God, of God thine Almighty Judge, who, if thou dost not attend to his
servants, will, ere long, speak unto thee in a more immediate manner, with an
energy and terror which thou shalt not be able to resist.
2. Thou hast been convicted, as in his
presence. Thy pleas have been overruled, or rather they have been silenced. It
appears before God, it appears to thine own conscience that thou hast nothing
more to offer in arrest of judgment; therefore hear thy sentence, and summon
up, if thou canst, all the powers of thy soul to bear the execution of it. "It
is," indeed, a very small thing "to be judged of man's judgment;" but "he who
now judgeth thee is the Lord." (1 Cor. 4:3,4) Hear, therefore, and tremble,
while I tell thee how he will speak to thee; or rather, while I show thee, from
express Scripture, how he doth even now speak, and what is the authentic and
recorded sentence of his word, even of his word who hath said, "Heaven and
earth shall pass away, but not one tittle of my word shall ever pass away."
(Matt. 5:18)
3. The law of God speaks not to thee alone, O
sinner! nor to thee by any particular address; but in a most universal language
it speaks to all transgressors, and levels its terrors against all offences,
great or small, without any exception. And this is its language: "Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the
law to do them." (Gal. 3:10) This is its voice to the whole world; and this it
speaks to thee. Its awful contents are thy personal concern, O reader! and thy
conscience knows it. Far from continuing in all things that are written therein
to do them, thou canst not but be sensible that "innumerable evils have
encompassed thee about." (Psa. 40:12) It is then manifest thou art the man whom
it condemns: thou art even now "cursed with a curse," as God emphatically
speaks, (Mal 3:9.) with the curse of the Most High God; yea, "all the curses
which are written in the book of the law" are pointed against thee. (Deut.
29:20) God may righteously execute any of them upon thee in a moment; and
though thou at present feelest none of them, yet, if infinite mercy do not
prevent, it is but a little while and they will "come into thy bowels like
water," till thou art burst asunder with them, and shall penetrate "like oil
into thy bones." (Psa. 109:18)
4. Thus saith the Lord, "The soul that sinneth,
it shall die." (Ezek. 18:4) But thou hast sinned, and therefore thou art under
a sentence of death. And, O unhappy creature, of what a death! What will the
end of these things be? That the agonies of dissolving nature shall seize thee,
and thy soul shall be torn away from thy languishing body, and thou "return to
the dust from whence thou wast taken." (Psal. 104:29) This is indeed one awful
effect of sin. In these affecting characters has God, through all nations and
all ages of men, written the awful register and memorial of his holy abhorrence
of it, and righteous displeasure against it. But, alas! all this solemn pomp
and horror of dying is but the opening of the dreadful scene. It is a rough
kind of stroke, by which the fetters are knocked off when the criminal is led
out to torture and execution.
5. Thus saith the Lord, "The wicked shall be
turned into hell, even all the nations that forget God." (Psal. 9:17) Though
there be whole nations of them, their multitudes and their power shall be no
defence to them. They shall be driven into hell together--into that flaming
prison which divine vengeance hath prepared-into "Tophet, which is ordained of
old, even for royal sinners" as well as for others; so little can any human
distinction protect! "He hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire
and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle
it;" (Isa. 30:33) and the flaming torrent shall flow in upon it so fast, that
it shall be turned into a sea of liquid fire; or, as the Scripture also
expresses it, "a lake burning with fire and brimstone" for ever. (Rev. 21:8)
"This is the second death," and the death to which thou, O sinner! by the word
of God art doomed;
6. And shall this sentence stand upon record in
vain! Shall the law speak it, and the Gospel speak it? and shall it never be
pronounced more audibly? and will God never require and execute the punishment?
He will O sinner! require it; and he will execute it, though he may seem for a
while to delay. For well dost thou know that "he hath appointed a day in which
he will judge the" whole "world in righteousness, by that Man whom he hath
ordained, of which he hath given assurance in having raised him from the dead."
(Acts 17.31) And when God judgeth the world, O reader! whoever thou aft, he
will judge thee. And while I remind thee of it, I would also remember that he
will judge me. And "knowing the terror of the Lord," (2 Cor 5:11) that I may
"deliver my own soul," (Ezek. 33:9) I would, with all plainness and sincerity,
labor to deliver thine.
7. I therefore repeat the solemn warning: Then, O
sinner! shalt "stand before the judgment-seat of Christ." (2 Cor. 5:10) Thou
shalt see that pompous appearance, the description of which is grown so
familiar to thee that the repetition of it makes no impression on thy mind. But
surely, stupid as thou now art, the shrill trumpet of the archangel shall shake
thy very soul: and if nothing else can awaken and alarm thee, the convulsions
and flames of a dissolving world shall do it.
8. Dost thou really think that the intent of
Christ's final appearance is only to recover his people from the grave, and to
raise them to glory and happiness? Whatever assurance thou hast that there
shall be "a resurrection of the just," thou hast the same that there shall also
be "a resurrection or the unjust;" (Acts, 24:15) that "he shall separate" the
rising dead "one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the
goats," (Matt. 25:32) with equal certainty, and with infinitely greater ease.
Or can you imagine that he will only make an example of some flagrant and
notorious sinners, when it is said that "all the dead," both "small and great,"
shall "stand before God;" (Rev. 20:12) and that even "he who knew not his
Master's will," and consequently seems of all others to have had the fairest
excuse for his omission to obey it, yet even "he," for that very omission,
"shall be beaten," though "with fewer stripes?" (Luke 12:48) Or can you think
that a sentence, to be delivered with so much pomp and majesty, a sentence by
which the righteous judgment of God is to be revealed, and to have its most
conspicuous and final triumph, will be inconsiderable, or the punishment to
which it shall consign the sinner be slight or tolerable? There would have been
little reason to apprehend that, even if we had been left barely to our own
conjectures what that sentence should be. But this is far from being the case:
our Lard Jesus Christ, in his infinite condescension and compassion, has been
pleased to give us a copy of the sentence, and no doubt a most exact copy; and
the words which contain it are worthy of being inscribed on every heart. "The
King," amidst all the splendor and dignity in which he shall them appear,
"shall say unto those on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!" (Matt. 25:34)
And "where the word of a king is, there is power" indeed. (Eccles. 8:4) And
these words have a power which may justly animate the heart of the humble
Christian under the most overwhelming sorrow, and may fill him "with joy
unspeakable and fall of glory." (1 Pet. 1:8) To be pronounced the blessed of
the Lord! to be called to a kingdom! to the immediate, the everlasting
inheritance of it; and of such a kingdom! so well prepared, so glorious, so
complete, so exquisitely fitted for the delight and entertainment of such
creatures, so formed and so renewed that it shall appear worthy the eternal
counsels of God to have contrived it, worthy his eternal love to have prepared
it, and to have delighted himself with the views of bestowing it upon his
people: behold a blessed hope indeed! a lively, glorious hope, to which we are
"begotten again by the resurrection of Christ from the dead," (I Pet.1:3) and
formed by the sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God upon our minds. But it
is a hope from which thou, O sinner! art at present excluded; and methinks that
it might be grievous to reflect, "These gracious words shall Christ speak to
some, to multitudes--but not to me; on me there is no blessedness pronounced;
for me there is no kingdom prepared." But is that all? Alas! sinner, our Lord
hath given thee a dreadful counterpart to this. He has told us what he will say
to thee, if thou continuest what thou art--to thee, and all the nations of the
impenitent and unbelieving world, be they ever so numerous, be the rank of
particular criminals ever so great. He shall say to the "kings of the earth"
who have been rebels against him, to "the great and rich men, and the chief
captains and the mighty men," as well as to "every bondman and every freeman"
or inferior rank, (Rev. 9:15) "Depart front me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt. 25:41) Oh! pause upon
these weighty words, that thou mayest enter into something of the importance of
them
9. He will say, "Depart:" you shall be driven
from his presence with disgrace and infamy: "from him," the source of life and
blessedness, in a nearness to whom all the inhabitants of heaven continually
rejoice; you shall "depart," accursed: you have broken God's law, and its curse
falls upon you; and you are and shall he under that curse, that abiding curse;
from that day forward you shall be regarded by God and all his creatures as an
accursed and abominable thing, as the most detestable and the most miserable
part of the creation. You shall go "into fire;" and, oh! consider into what
fire! Is it merely into one fierce blaze which shall consume you in a moment,
though with exquisite pain? That were terrible. But, oh! such terrors are not
to be named with these. Thine, sinner, "is everlasting fire." It is that which
our Lord hath in such awful terms described as prevailing there, "where their
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;" and again, in wonderful
compassion, a third time, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched," (Mark 9:44, 46, 48) Nor was it originally prepared or principally
intended for you: it was "prepared for the devil and his angels;" for those
first grand rebels who were, immediately upon their fall, doomed to it: and
since you have taken part with them in their apostacy, you must sink with them
into that flaming ruin, and sink so much the deeper, as you have despised the
Savior, who was never offered to them. These must be your companions and your
tormentors, with whom you must dwell forever. And is it I that say this? or
says not the law and the Gospel the same? Does not the Lord Jesus Christ
expressly say, who is the "faithful and true witness," (Rev. 3:14) even he who
himself is to pronounce the sentence?
10. And when it is thus pronounced, and
pronounced by him, shall it not also be executed? Who could imagine the
contrary? Who could imagine there should be all this pompous declaration to
fill the mind only with vain terror, and that this sentence should vanish into
smoke? You may easily apprehend that this would be a greater reproach to the
Divine administration than if sentence were never to be passed. And therefore
we might easily have inferred the execution of it, from the process of the
preceding judgment. But lest the treacherous heart of a sinner should deceive
him with so vain a hope, the assurance of that execution is immediately added
in very memorable terms. It shall be done: it shall immediately be done. Then
on that very day, while the sound of it is yet in their ears, "the wicked shall
go away into everlasting punishment;" (Matt. 25:46) and thou, O reader! whoever
thou art, being found in their number, shalt go away with them; shalt be driven
on among all these wretched multitudes and plunged with them into eternal ruin.
The wide gates of hell shall be open to receive thee: they shall be shut upon
thee for ever, to enclose thee, and be fast barred by the Almighty hand of
divine justice, to prevent all hope, all possibility of escape for ever.
11. And now "prepare" thyself "to meet the Lord
thy God." (Amos 4:12) Summon up all the resolution of thy mind to endure such a
sentence such an execution as this: for "he will not meet thee as a man;" (Isa.
47:36) whoseheart may sometimes fail him when about to exert a needful act of
severity, so that compassion may prevail against reason and justice. No, he
will meet thee as a God, whose schemes and purposes are all immovable as iris
throne. I therefore testify to thee in his name this day, that if God be true,
he will thus speak; and that if he be able, he will thus act. And on
supposition of thy continuance in thine impenitence and unbelief, thou art
brought into this miserable case, that if God be not either false or weak, thou
art undone, thou art eternally undone.
The Reflection of a Sinner struck with the Terror of his Sentence.