“Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy
sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be
clear when thou judgest.” Psalm 51.4
YESTERDAY was to me a day of deep solemnity; a pressure rested on my
mind throughout the whole of it, which I could not by any possibility
remove for at every hour I remembered that during that day one of the
most fallen of my fellow-creatures was launched into an unknown world,
and made to stand before his Maker. Some might have witnessed his
execution without tears; I think I could not even have thought of it for long
together without weeping, at the terrible idea of a man so guilty, about to
commence that endless period of unmingled misery, which is the horrible
doom of the impenitent, which God hath prepared for sinners. Yesterday
morning the sun saw a sight which sickened it — the sight of a man
launched, by a judicial process, into eternity, for guilt which has rendered
him infamous, and which will stamp his name with disgrace as long as it
shall be remembered.
There is now agitating the public mind something which I thought I might
improve this day, and turn to very excellent purpose. There are only two
things concerning which the public have any suspicion. The verdict of the
jury was the verdict of the whole of England, we were unanimous as to the
high probability, the well-nigh absolute certainty of his guilt; but there were
two doubts in our minds — one of them but small, we grant you, but if
both could have been resolved we should have felt more easy than we do
now. The one was concerning the criminal’s guilt, and the other was
concerning his punishment. At least some few of our fellow-countrymen
have been afraid, lest we may not have been justified when we spoke
against him, and quite clear when he was judged. Two things were wanted:
we should have liked to have had his own confession, and certainly we
should have preferred something more than circumstantial evidence; we
desired to have had the testimony of an eye-witness, who could swear to
the deed of murder done. But moreover, there is also a strong feeling in the
mind of many, that the severity of the punishment is questionable. There
are some who pronounce authoritatively, that the murderer’s blood must
be shed for murder; but there are some who think the Christian
dispensation has ameliorated the law, and that now it is no longer “eye for
eye, tooth for tooth.” Many persons in England have shuddered at the
thought of executing a penalty so fearful, on any man, however great his
crime, seeing that it puts him beyond the pale of hope. I shall not enter into
the question of the rightness of capital punishment; I have my opinion upon
it, but this is not exactly the place to state it: I only wish to use these facts
as an illustration of the text. David says, “O Lord, hear my own confession:
‘against thee, thee only, have I sinned,’ and by my own confession thou
wouldst ‘be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest.’
And, Lord, there is something else besides my own confession. Thou,
thyself, wast eye-witness of my deed. ‘Against thee thee only, have I
sinned, and done this evil in thy sight;’ and now thou art, indeed, ‘justified
when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest.’ And as to the severity
of my punishment, there can be no doubt of that.” There may be doubt of
the severity, when man executes punishment for a crime against man, but
there can be no doubt when God himself executes vengeance for a crime
that is committed against himself. “Thou art justified when thou speakest;
thou art clear when thou judgest.”
Our subject this morning, then, will be, that both in the condemnation and
in the punishment of every sinner, God will be justified: and he will be
made most openly clear, from the two facts of the sinner’s own confession,
and God himself having been an eye-witness of the deed. And as for the
severity of it, there shall be no doubt upon the mind of any man who shall
receive it, for God shall prove to him in his own soul, that damnation is
nothing more nor less than the legitimate reward of sin.
There are two kinds of condemnation: the one is the condemnation of the
elect, which takes place in their hearts and consciences, when they have the
sentence of death in themselves, that they should not trust in themselves —
a condemnation which is invariably followed by peace with God, because
after that there is no further condemnation, for they are then in Christ
Jesus, and they walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The second
condemnation is that of the finally impenitent, who, when they die, are
most righteously and justly condemned by God for the sins they have
committed — a condemnation not followed by pardon, as in the present
case, but followed by inevitable damnation from the presence of God. On
both these condemnations we will discourse this morning. God is clear
when he speaks, and he is just when he condemns, whether it be the
condemnation which he passes on Christian hearts, or the condemnation
which he pronounces from his throne, when the wicked are dragged before
him to receive their final doom.
I. In the first place, CONCERNING THE CHRISTIAN, when he feels himself
condemned by conscience and by God’s Holy Spirit, and when he hears the
thunders of God’s law proclaiming against him a sentence which, if it had
not been already executed on his Savior, would have been fulfilled on him,
the man has no grounds whatever at that time to plead any excuse; but he
will say in the words of the Psalmist. “Thou art justified when thou
speakest, and clear when thou judgest.” Let me show you how.
1. In the first place, there is a confession. With regard to the man who was
executed yesterday, there was no confession; we could not have expected
it: such crimes could not have been committed by a man capable of
confessing them. The fact that he died hardened in his guilt is proof wellnigh
conclusive that he was guilty for had he betrayed any emotion, or had
he bowed his knees and cried for mercy we might then have suspected that
he had not been guilty of so dark a deed of blood; but from the very fact
that he hardened his heart, we infer that he was capable of committing
crimes, the infamy of which point them out as the offspring of a seared and
torpid conscience. The Christian, when he is condemned by the Holy Law,
makes a confession, a full and free confession. He feels, when God records
the sentence against him, that the execution of it would be just, for his now
honest heart compels him to confess the whole story of his guilt. Allow me
to make some remarks on the confession which is followed by pardon.
First, such a confession is a sincere one. It is not the prattling confession
used by the mere formalist, when he bends his knee and exclaims that he is
a sinner, but it is a confession which is undoubtedly sincere, because it is
attended by awful agonies of mind, and usually by tears, and sighs, and
groans. There is something about the penitent’s demeanour which puts it
beyond the possibility of a fear that he is a deceiver when he is confessing
his sin. There is an outward emotion, manifesting the inward anguish of the
spirit. He stands before God, and does not merely turn King’s evidence
against himself, as the means of saving himself, but with tears in his eyes he
cries, “O God, I am guilty;” and then he begins to recount the
circumstances of his crime, even as if God had never seen him. He tells to
God what God already knows, and then the Gracious One proves the truth
of the promise, “He that confesseth his sin shall find mercy.”
In the next place, that confession is always abundantly sufficient for our
own condemnation. The Christian feels that if he had only half the sin to
confess that he is obliged to tell out to God, it would be enough to damn
his soul for ever — that it be had only one crime to acknowledge, it would
be like a millstone round his neck, to sink him for ever in the bottomless
pit. He feels that his confession is superabundantly enough to condemn him
— that it is almost a work of supererogation to confess all, for there is
enough in one tenth of it to send his soul to hell, and make it abide there
for ever. Have you ever confessed your sins like this? If not, as God liveth,
you have never known what it is to make a true confession of your sin, you
have never had the sentence of condemnation passed on you, in that way
which is succeeded by mercy; but you are yet awaiting that terrible
sentence which shall be succeeded by no words of love, but by the
execution of the sentence of infinite indignation and displeasure.
This confession is attended with no apology on account of sin. We have
heard of men who have confessed their guilt, and afterwards tried to
extenuate their crime and show some reasons why they were not so guilty
as apparently they would seem to be; but when the Christian confesses his
guilt, you never hear a word of extenuation or apology from him. He says,
“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight;” and
in saying this, he makes God just when he condemns him, and clear when
he sentences him for ever. Have you ever made such a confession? Have
you ever thus bowed yourselves before God? Or have you tried to palliate
your guilt, and call your sins by little names and speak of your crimes as if
they were but light offenses? If you have not, then you have not felt the
sentence of death in yourselves, and you are still waiting till the solemn
death-knell shall toll the hour of your doom, and you shall be dragged out,
amidst the universal hiss of the execration of the world, to be condemned
for ever to flames which shall never know abatement.
Again: after the Christian confesses his sin, he offers no promise that he
will of himself behave better. Some, when they make confessions to God,
say, “Lord, if thou forgive me I will not sin again;” but God’s penitents
never say that. When they come before him they say, “Lord, once I
promised, once I made resolves, but I dare not make them now, for they
would be so soon broken, that they would but increase my guilt, and my
promises would be so soon violated, that they would but sink my soul
deeper in hell. I can only say, if thou wilt create in me a clean heart, I will
be thankful for it, and will sing to thy praise for ever; but I cannot promise
that I will live without sin, or work out a righteousness of my own. I dare
not promise, my Father, that I will never go astray again;
‘Unless thou hold me fast,
I feel I must, I shall decline
And prove like them at last.’
Lord, if thou dost damn me, I cannot murmur; if thou dost cast me into
perdition, I cannot complain, but have mercy upon me, a sinner, for Jesus
Christ’s sake.” In that case, you see, God is justified when he condemns,
and he is clear when he judges, even clearer than any earthly judge can be,
because it is seldom that such a confession as that is ever made before the
bar.
2. Again: when the Christian is condemned by the law in his conscience,
there is something else which makes God just in condemning him beside his
confession, and that is the fact, that God himself, the Judge, comes
forward as a witness to the crime. The convinced sinner feels in his own
soul that his sins were committed in the face of God, in the teeth of his
mercy, and that God was an exact and minute observer of every part and
particle of the crime for which he is now to be condemned, and the sin
which has brought him to the bar. “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou
speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”
The convinced sinner who has just become a Christian feels at that time
that God was a witness, and that he was a most veracious witness — that
he saw, and saw most clearly, and when God, by his law, says to him,
“Sinner, you did such-and-such a thing, and such-and-such a thing,” the
awakened conscience says, “Lord, that is true; it is true in every
circumstance.” And when God goes on to say, “Your motives were vile,
your objects were sinful,” conscience says, “Ay, Lord, that is true. I know
that thou didst see it, and that thou art a sure observer, thou art no false
witness, but all that thou sayest in thy law about me is true.” When God
says, “The poison of asps is under thy lips, thy throat is an open sepulcher,
thou dost flatter with thy tongue,” conscience says, “It is all true;” and
when he says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked,” conscience says, “It is all true;” and the sinner has this awful
thought, that every sin he ever sinned is written in heaven, and God records
it there; he feels, therefore, that God is just when he condemns, and clear
when he judges.
And, moreover, God is not simply a veracious witness, but the testimony
God gives is an abundant one. You know that in some cases which are
brought before our courts, the witness swears that he saw the man do so
and-so; but then he may be mistaken as to the identity of the person,
perhaps he did not see the whole transaction; and then he has not pryed
into the man’s heart to see what was the man’s reasons, which may make
the crime lighter or greater, as the case may be. But here we have a witness
who can say, “I saw all the crime; I saw the lust when it was conceived; I
saw the sin when it was brought forth; I saw the sin when it was finished,
bringing forth death; I saw the motive; I beheld the first imagination; I saw
the sin when, as a black rivulet, it started on its way, when it suddenly
began to increase by contributions of evil, and I saw it when it became at
last a broad ocean of unfathomable depth — an ocean of guilt which
human foot could not pass and over which the ship of mercy could not
have sailed, unless some mighty pilot had steered it by shedding his own
blood.” Then the Christian feels that God having seen it all, is justified
when he speaks, and clear when he condemns. I should feel a solemn
responsibility, if I were a judge, in putting on the black cap to condemn a
man to death; because, however carefully I may have weighed the
evidence, and however clear the guilt of the prisoner may have seemed,
there is a possibility of mistake, and it seems a solemn thing to have
consigned a fellow-creature’s soul to a future world, even with a possibility
of an error in that judgment; but if I had myself beheld the bloody act, with
what ease of mind might I then put on the black cap, and condemn the man
as being guilty, for I should know, and the world would know, that having
been a witness I should be just when I spake, and clear when I condemned.
Now, that is just what the Christian feels when God condemns him in his
conscience, he puts his hand upon his mouth, and yields without a word to
the justness of the sentence. Conscience tells him he was guilty, because
God himself was a witness.
3. The other question which I hinted at as being on the public mind, is the
severity of the punishment. In the case of a believer, when he is
condemned, there is no doubt about the justice of the punishment. When
God the Holy Ghost in the soul passes sentence on the old man, and
condemns it for its sins, there is felt most solemnly in the heart the great
truth, that hell itself is but a rightful punishment for sin. I have heard some
men dispute whether the torments of hell were not too great for the sins
which men can commit. We have heard men say that hell was not a right
place to send such sinners to as they were; but we have always found that
such men found fault with hell because they knew right well they were
going there. As every man finds fault with the gallows who is going to be
hung, so do many men find fault with hell because they fear that they are in
danger of it. The opinion of a man about to be executed must not be taken
with regard to the propriety of capital punishment, nor must we take the
opinion of a man who is himself marching to hell concerning the justice of
hell, for he is not an impartial judge. But the convinced sinner is a fair
witness; God has made him so, for he feels in his soul that there will be
pardon given to him, and that God, by grace, will never condemn him
there; but at the same time he feels that he deserves it, and he confesses
that hell is not too great a punishment, and that the eternity of it is not too
long a duration of punishment for the sin which he has committed. I appeal
to you, my beloved brethren and sisters. You may have had doubts as to
the propriety of your being sent to hell before you knew your sins; but I
ask you, when you were convinced of God, whether you did not solemnly
feel that he would be unjust if he did not damn your soul for ever. Did you
not say in your prayer, “Lord, if thou shouldst now command the earth to
open and swallow me up quick, I could not lift up my finger to murmur
against thee, and if thou wert now to roll o’er my head the billows of
eternal fire, I could not, in the midst of my howlings in misery, utter one
single word of complaint about thy justice?” And did you not feel that if
you were to be one thousand, thousand years in perdition, you would not
have been there long enough? You felt you deserved it all; and if you had
been asked what was the right punishment for sin, you dare not, even if
your own soul had been at stake have written anything except that
sentence, “everlasting fire.” You would have been obliged to have written
that, for you felt it was but deserved doom. Now, was not God just then
when he condemned, and clear when he judged? and did he not come off
clear from the judgment seats because you, yourself, said the sentence
would not have been one whit too severe if it had been fulfilled instead of
being simply recorded, and then you, yourself, set at liberty. Ah I my dear
friends there may be some who rail at God’s justice, but no convinced
sinner ever will. He sees God’s law in all its glorious holiness and he smites
his hand upon his breast and he says, “O sinner that I am! that I ever could
have sinned against such a reasonable law and such perfect
commandments!” He sees God’s love towards him, and that cuts him to
the very quick. He says, “Oh! that I should ever have spit on the facex of
that Christ who died for me! Wretch that I am, that I could ever have
crowned that bleeding head with the thorns of my sins, which gave itself to
slumber in the grave for my redemption!” Nothing cuts the sinner to the
quick more than the fact, that he has sinned against a great amount of
mercy. This indeed, makes him weep; and he says, “O Lord, seeing I have
been so ungrateful, the direst doom thou canst ever sentence me to, or the
fiercest punishment thou canst ever execute upon my head, would not be
too heavy for the sins I have committed against thee.”
And then the Christian feels too, what a deal of mischief he has done in the
world by sin. Ah! if he has been spared to middle age before he is
converted, he looks back and says, “Ah! I cannot tell how many have been
damned by my sins; I cannot tell how many have been sent down to
perdition by words which I have used, or deeds which I have committed.” I
confess, before you all, that one of the greatest sorrows I had, when first I
knew the Lord, was to think about certain persons with whom I knew right
well that I had held ungodly conversations, and sundry others that I had
tempted to sin, and one of the prayers that I always offered, when I prayed
for myself, was that such an one might not be damned through sins to
which I had tempted him. And I dare say this will be the case with some of
you when you look back. Your dear child has been a sad reprobate; and
you think, “Did, not I teach him very much that was wrong?” and you hear
your neighbors swear, and you think, “I cannot tell how many I taught to
blaspheme.” Then you will recollect your boon companions, those you
used to play eards or dance with, and you will think, “Ah! poor souls, I
have damned them.” And then you will say, “Lord, thou art just, if thou
dampest me,” When you reflect what a deal of mischief you have done by
your sir, you will then say, “Lord, thou art clear when thou judgest; thou
art justified when thou condemnest.” I warn you who are going on in your
sins, that one of the most fearful things you have to expect is, to meet
those in another world who perished through being led astray by you.
Think of that, O man! thou who hast been an universal tempter! There is a
man now in perdition who was taught to drink his first glass through you.
There lies a soul on his deathbed, and he says, “Ah! John, I had not been
here, as I now am, if you had not led me into evil courses which have
weakened my body, and brought me to death’s door.” Oh! what a horrible
fate will yours be, when, as you walk into the mouth of hell you will see
eyes staring at you, and hear a voice saying, “Here he comes! here comes
the man that helped to damn my soul!” And what must be your fate, when
you must lie for ever tossed on the bed of pain with that man whom you
were the means of damning? As those who are saved will make jewels in
the crowns of glory to the righteous, sure those whom you helped to damn
will forge fresh fetters for you and furnish fearful faggots, to increase the
flames of torment which shall blaze around your spirits. Mark that, and be
you warned. The Christian feels this terrible fact, when he is convinced of
sin, and that makes him feel that God would be clear if he judged him, and
would be justified if he condemned him. So much concerning this first
condemnation.
II. But now a little concerning THE SECOND CONDEMNATION, which is the
more fearful of the two. Some of you have never been condemned by
God’s law in your conscience. Now, as I stated at first, that every man
must be condemned once, so I beg to repeat it. You must either have the
sentence of condemnation paused on you by law in your conscience, and
then find mercy in Christ Jesus, or else you must be condemned in another
world, when you shall stand with all the human race before God’s throne.
The first condemnation to the Christian, though exceedingly merciful, is
terrible to bear. It is a wounded spirit, which none can endure. But, as for
the second condemnation, if I could preach with sighs and tears, I could
not tell you how horrible that must be. Ah, my friends, could some sheeted
ghost start from its tomb, and be reunited to the spirit which has been for
years in perdition, possibly such a man might preach to you, and let you
know what a fearful thing it will be to be condemned at last. But as for my
poor words, they are but air; for I have not heard the miserere of the
condemned, nor have I listened to the sighs, and groans, and moans of lost
spirits. If I had ever been permitted to gaze within the sheet of fire which
walls the Gulf of Despair — if I had ever been allowed to walk for one
moment o’er that burning marl whereon is built the dreadful dungeon of
eternal vengeance, then I might tell you somewhat of its misery; but I
cannot now for I have not seen those doleful sights which might fright our
eyes from their sockets, and make each individual hair stand upon your
heads. I have not seen such things; yet, though I have not seen them, nor
you either, we know sufficient of them to understand that God will be just
when he condemns, and that he will be clear when he judges. And, now, I
must go over the three points again; but I must be very brief about them.
1. God will be clear when he condemns a sinner, from this fact, that the
sinner when he stands before God’s bar, will either have made a
confession, or else such will be his terror that he will scarce be able to
brazen it out before the Almighty. Look at Judas. When he comes before
God’s bar, will not God be clear in condemning him? for he himself
confessed, “I have sinned against innocent blood,” and he cast down the
money in the temple. And few men are so hardened as to restrain
themselves from acknowledging their guilt. How many of you when you
thought you were dying, made a confession upon your death-beds to your
God! And mark you, there will be many of you, who, when you come to
die, though you have never confessed, yet will lie there, and confess before
God in your moments of wakefulness during the night, the sins of your
youth, and your former transgressions; and it may be, that when you are
laying there, God’s vengeance will be heavy on your conscience, that you
will be obliged to tell those who stand about your bed, that you have been
guilty of notorious sins. Ah! will not God be just when you shall go straight
from your death-bed to his bar, and he shall say, “Sinner, thou art
condemned on thine own confession; there is no need for me to open the
book, no need for me to pronounce the sentence; thou hast thyself
pronounced thine own guilt; ere thou didst die, thou didst stamp thyself
with condemnation; ‘depart ye cursed!’” And though there will be many
die who never made a confession in this world, and perhaps there will be
some professors so brazen-faced that they will even stand before God’s
throne and say, “when saw we thee a hungered, and fed thee not? When
saw we thee naked, and clothed thee not?” yet I cannot believe that most
of them will be able to plead any excuse. I find Christ saving of one that he
stood speechless when he was asked how he got in, not having on a
wedding garment, and so it may be with you, sirs. You may brazen it out
when here, you may scorn the law and despise the thunders of Sinai, but it
will be different with you then. You may sit up in your bed, and rail against
Christ, even when death is staring you in the face, but you will not do it
then. Those bones of yours which you thought were of iron, will suddenly
be melted; that heart of yours, which was like steel or the nether millstone,
will be dissolved like wax in the midst of your bowels; you will begin to cry
before God, and weep, and howl: you yourself will testify to your own
guilt, when you say, “Rocks! hide me; mountains! on me fall;” for you
would need no mountains and no rocks to fall upon you, if you were not
guilty. You will be justly condemned, for you will make your own
confession when you stand before God’s bar. Ah! if you could see the
criminal then, what a difference there is in him! Where now are those eyes
that stared so impiously at the Bible? Where now are those lips which said,
“I curse God and die!” Where now is that heart which once so stout, that
spirit once so valiant, as to laugh at hell and talk familiarly with death? Ah!
where is it? Is that the selfsame creature — he whose knees are knocking
together, whose hair is standing up on end whose blanched cheek displays
the terror of his soul? Is that the selfsame man who just now was burning
with impudent rage against his Maker? Yes, it is he; hear what he has to
say, “O God, I hate thee. I confess it; I was unjust in the world that has
gone by, and I am unjust now; wreak thy vengeance on me; I dare ask no
mercy, and no pardon, for fixed is my heart still to rebel against thee,
indissoluble are the bonds of my guilt: I am dammed, I am damned, and I
ought to be.” Such will be the confession of every man, when he shall stand
before his God at last, if he is out of Christ, and unwashed in the Savior’s
blood. Sinners! can ye hear that and not tremble? Then I have a wonder
before me this day — a wonder of conscience, a wonder of hardness of
heart, a wonder of impenitency.
2. But in the second place, God will be just, because there will be witnesses
there to prove it. There will be none of you my dear friends, if you are ever
condemned who will be condemned on circumstantial evidence: there will
be no necessity for the deliberation of a jury; there will be no conflicting
evidence concerning your crimes, there will be no doubts to testify in your
favor. In fact, if God himself should ask for witnesses in your case, all the
witnesses would be against you. But there will be no need of witnesses.
God himself will open his Book, and how astonished will you be, when all
your crimes are announced, with every individual circumstance connected
with them — all the minuteness of your motives, and an exact description
of your designs! Suppose I should be allowed to open one of the books of
God, and read that description, how astonished you would be! But what
will be your astonishment when God shall open his great book and say,
“Sinner, here is thy case,” and begin to read! Ah! mark how the tears run
down the sinner’s cheek; the sweet of brood comes from every pore; and
the loud thundering voice still reads on, while the righteous execrate the
man who could commit such acts as are recorded in that book. There may
be no murder staining the page, but there may be the filthy imagination,
and God reads what a man imagines, for to imagine sin is vile, though to
do it is viler still. I know I should not like to have my thoughts read over
for a single day. Oh! when you stand before God’s bar, and hear all this,
wilt thou not say, “Lord, thou wilt condemn me, but I cannot help saying
thou art just when thou condemnest, and clear when thou judgest.” There
will be eye-witnesses there.
3. But lastly, in the sinner’s heart there will be no doubt at last as to the
righteousness of his punishment. The sinner may in this world think that he
can never by his sins by any possibility deserve hell, but he will not indulge
that thought when he gets there. One of the miseries of hell will be that the
sinner will feel that he deserves it all. Tossed on a wave of fire he will see
written in every spark that emanates therefrom, “Thou knewest thy duty,
and thou didst it not.” Tossed back again by another wave of flame, he
hears a voice saying, “Remember, you were warned!” He is hurled upon a
rock, and whilst he is being wrecked there, a voice says, “I told thee it
would be better for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for thee.”
Again he plunges under another wave of brimstone, and a voice says “He
that believeth not shall be damned, thou didst not believe, and thou art
here.” And when again he is hurled up and down on some wave of torture,
each wave shall bear to him some dreadful sentence, which he read in
God’s Word, in a tract, or in a sermon. Yes, it may be, my friends, that I
shall be one of your tormentors in hell, if you should be damned. I trust in
God that I myself shall be in heaven; and perhaps, if ye are lost, one of the
most powerful things that shall tend to increase your misery will be the fact
that I have always tried to warn you, and warn you as earnestly as possible,
and when you lift up your eyes to heaven, you will shriek and say, “O God!
there is my minister looking down reprovingly on me, and saying ‘Sinner, I
warned thee.’” If thou art lost, it is not for want of preaching: if thou art
damned, it is not because I did not tell thee how thou mightest be saved, if
thou art in hell, it is not because I did not weep over thee, and urge thee to
flee from the wrath to come, for I did warn thee, and that will be the terror
of thy doom — that thou hast despised warnings and invitations, and hast
destroyed thyself. God is not accountable for thy damnation, and man is
not accountable for it; but thou thyself hast done it. And thou wilt say, “O
Lord, it is true I am now tossed in fire but I myself lit the flame, it is true
that I am tormented, but I forged the irons; which now confine my limbs; I
burned the brick that hath built my dungeon; I myself didst bring myself
here; I walked to hell, even as a fool goeth to the stocks, or an ox to the
slaughter; I sharpened the knife which is now cutting my vitals; I nursed
the viper which is now devouring my heart; I sinned, which is the same as
saying that I damned myself; for to sin is to damn myself — the two words
are synonymous.” Sin is damnation’s sire, it is the root, and damnation is
the horrible flower which must inevitably spring from it. Ay, my dear
friends, I tell you yet again there will be nothing more patent before the
throne of God than the fact, that God will be just when he sends you to
hell. You will feel that then, even though you do not feel it now.
I thought within myself just this minute, that I heard the whisper of some
one saying, “Well, sir, I feel that such men as Palmer, a murderer, will feel
that God is just in damning them, but I have not sinned as they have done.”
It is true, but if thy sins be less, remember that thy conscience is more
tender, for according to the amount of guilt, men’s consciences generally
begin to get harder, and because thy conscience is more tender, thy little
sin is a great sin, because it is committed against greater light and greater
tenderness of heart; and I tell you — that a little sin against great light may
be greater than a great sin against little light. You must measure your sins
not by their apparent heinousness, but by the light against which you
sinned. No crime could be much worse than the crime of Sodom; but even
Sodom, filthy Sodom, shall not have so hot a place as a moral young lady
one who has fed the poor and clothed the naked, and done all she could,
except loving Christ. What say you to that? Is it unjust? No. If I be a less
sinner than another, I all he more deserve to be damned, if I do not come
to Christ for mercy. Oh! my dear hearers, my beloved hearers, I cannot
bring you to Christ. Christ has brought some of you himself, but I cannot
bring you to Christ. How often have I tried to do it! I have tried to preach
my Savior’s love, and this day I have preached my Father’s wrath, but I
feel I cannot bring you to Christ. I may preach God’s law; but that will not
affright you, unless God sends it home to your heart; I may preach my
Savior’s love, but that will not woo you, unless my Father draw you. I am
sometimes tempted to wish that I could draw you myself — that I could
save you. Sure, if I could, ye should soon be saved! But ah! remember,
your minister can do but little; he can do nothing else but preach to you.
Do pray that God would bless that little, I beseech you, ye who can pray. If
I could do more, I would do it; but it is very little I can do for a sinner’s
salvation. Do, I beseech you, my dear people, pray to God to bless the
feeble means that I use. It is his work and his salvation; but he can do it. O
poor trembling sinner, dost thou now weep? Then come to Christ! O poor
haggard sinner, haggard in thy soul! come to Christ! O poor sin-bitten
sinner! look to Christ! O poor worthless sinner! come to Christ! O poor
trembling, fearing, hungering, thirsting sinner! come to Christ! “no! every
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come,
buy wine and milk; yea, come buy wine and milk, without money and
without price.” Come! Come! Come! God help you to come! for Jesus
Christ’s sake. Amen.
