“Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.” Psalm 19:13
ALL sins are great sins, but yet some sins are greater than others. Every sin
has in it the very venom of rebellion, and is full of the essential marrow of
traitorous rejection of God. But there be some sins which have in them a
greater development of the essential mischief of rebellion, and which wear
upon their faces more of the brazen pride which defies the Most High. It is
wrong to suppose that because all sins will condemn us, that therefore one
sin is not greater than another. The fact is, that while all transgression is a
greatly grievous sinful thing, yet there are some transgressions which have
a deeper shade of blackness, and a more double scarlet dyed hue of
criminality than others. Now the presumptuous sins of our text are just the
chief of all sins: they rank head and foremost in the list of iniquities. It is
remarkable that though an atonement was provided under the Jewish law
for every kind of sin, there was this one exception. “But the soul that
sinneth presumptuously shall have no atonement, it shall be cut off from
the midst of my people.” And now under the Christian dispensation,
although in the sacrifice of our blessed Lord there is a great and precious
atonement for presumptuous sins whereby sinners who have sinned in this
manner are made clean, yet without doubt, presumptuous sinners, dying
without pardon, must expect to receive a double portion of the wrath of
God, and a more wonderful manifestation of the unutterable anguish of the
torment of eternal punishment in the pit that is digged for the wicked.
I shall this morning first of all endeavor to describe presumptuous sins,
then secondly, I shall try, if I can, to show by some illustrations why the
presumptuous sin is more heinous than any other, and then thirdly, I shall
try to press this prayer upon your notice — the prayer, mark you, of the
holy man — the prayer of David. “Keep back thy servant also from
presumptuous sins.”
I. First, then, WHAT IS A PRESUMPTOUS SIN? Now, I think there must be
one of four things in a sin in order to make it presumptuous. It must either
be a sill against light and knowledge, or a sin committed with deliberation,
or a sin committed with a design of sinning, merely for sinning’s sake, or
else it must be a sin committed through hardihood, from a man’s rash
confidence in his own strength. We will mark these points one by one.
1. A sin that is committed wilfully against manifest light and knowledge, is
a presumptuous sin. A sin of ignorance is not presumptuous, unless that
ignorance also be wilful, in which case the ignorance is itself a
presumptuous sin. But when a man sins for want of knowing better — for
want of knowing the law, for want of instruction, reproof, advice and
admonition, we say that his sin, so committed, does not partake to any
great extent of the nature of a presumptuous sin. But when a man knows
better, and sins in the very teeth and face of his increased light and
knowledge, then his sin deserves to be branded with this ignonimous title
of a presumptuous sin. Let me just dwell on this thought a moment
conscience is often an inner light to men, whereby they are warned of
forbidden acts as being sinful. Then if I sin against conscience, though I
have no greater light than conscience affords me, still my sin is
presumptuous, if I have presumed to go against that voice of God in my
heart, an enlightened conscience. You, young men, were once tempted,
(and perhaps it was but yesterday,) to commit a certain act.
The very moment you were tempted, conscience said, “It is wrong, it is
wrong” — it shouted murder in your heart, and told you the deed you
were about to commit was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Your
fellow apprentice committed the same sin without the yearning of
conscience; in him it was guilt — guilt which needs to be washed away
with the Saviour’s blood. But it was not such guilt in him as it was in you,
because your conscience checked you; your conscience told you of the
danger, warned you of the punishment, and yet you dared to go astray
against God, and therefore you sinned presumptuously. You have sinned
very grievously in having done so. When a man shall trespass on my
ground, he shall be a trespasser though he have no warning, but if straight
before his face there stands a warning, and if he knowingly and willingly
trespasses then he is guilty of a presumptuous trespass, and is to be so far
punished accordingly. So you, if you had not known better; if your
conscience had been less enlightened, you might have committed the deed
with far less of the criminality which now attaches to you, because you
sinned against conscience, and consequently sinned presumptuously.
But, oh I how much greater is the sin, when man not only has the light of
conscience, but has also the admonition of friends, the advice of those who
are wise and esteemed by him. If I have but one cheek, the cheek of my
enlightened conscience, and I transgress against it, I am presumptuous; but
if a mother with tearful eye warns me of the consequence of my guilt, and
if a father with steady look, and with affectionate determined earnestness,
tells me what will be the fact of my transgression — if friends who are dear
to me counsel me to avoid the way of the wicked, and warn me what must
be the inevitable result of continuing in it, then I am presumptuous, and my
act in that very proportion becomes more guilty. I should have been
presumptuous for having sinned against the light of nature, but I am more
presumptuous, when added to that, I have the light of affectionate counsel
and of kind advice, and therein I bring upon my head a double amount of
divine wrath. And how much more is this the case, when the transgressor
has been gifted with what is usually called a religious education; in
childhood he has been lighted to his bed by the lamps of the sanctuary, the
name of Jesus was mingled with the hush of lullaby, the music of the
sanctuary woke him like a matin hymn at morning, he has been dandled on
the knee of piety and has sucked the breasts of godliness; he has been
tutored and trained in the way he should go; how much more fearful I say,
is the guilt of such a man than that of those who have never had such
training, but have been left to follow their own wayward lusts and
pleasures without the restraint of a holy education and the restraints of an
enlightened conscience!
But, my friends, even this may become worse still. A man sins yet more
presumptuously, when he has had most special warning from the voice of
God against the sin. What mean you? say you. Why, I mean this. You saw
but yesterday a strong man in your neighborhood brought to the grave by
sudden death; it is but a month ago that you heard the bell toll for one
whom once you knew and loved, who procrastinated and procrastinated
until he perished in procrastination. You have had strange things happen in
your very street, and the voice of God has been spoken loudly through the
lip of Death to you. Ay, and you have had warnings too in your own body,
you have been sick with fever, you have been brought to the jaws of the
grave, and you have looked down into the bottomless vault of destruction.
It is not long ago since you were given up; all said they might prepare a
coffin for you, for your breath could not long be in your body. Then you
turned your face to the wall and prayed, you vowed that if God would
spare you you would live a goodly life, that you would repent of your sins;
but to your own confusion you are now just what you were. Ah I let me
tell you, your guilt is more grievous than that of any other man, for you
have sinned presumptuously, in the very highest sense in which you could
have done so. You have sinned against reproofs, but what is worse still,
you have sinned against your own solemn oaths and covenants, and against
the promises that you made to God. He who plays with fire must be
condemned as careless, but he who has been burned out once, and
afterwards plays with the destroying element, is worse than careless; and
he who has himself been scorched in the flame, and has had his locks all hot
and crisp with the burning, if he again should rush headlong into fire, I say
he is worse than careless, he is worse than presumptuous, he is mad. But I
have some such here. They have had warnings so terrible that they might
have known better; they have gone into lusts which have brought their
bodies into darkness, and perhaps this day they have crept up to this house,
and they dare not tell to their neighbor who stands by their side what is the
loathsomeness that even now doth breed upon their frame. And yet they
will go back to the same lusts; the fool will go again to the stocks, the
sheep will lick the knife that is to slay him. You will go on in your lust and
in your sins, despite warnings, despite advice, until you perish in your guilt.
How worse than children are grown-up men! The child who goes for a
merry slide upon a pond, if he be told that the ice will not bear him, starteth
back affrighted, or if he daringly creepeth upon it how soon he leaves it, if
he hears but a crack upon the slender covering of the water! But you men
have conscience, which tells you that your sins are vile, and that they will
be your ruin; you hear the crack of sin, as its thin sheet of pleasure gives
way beneath your feet; ay, and some of you have seen your comrades sink
in the flood, and lost; and yet ye go sliding on, worse than childish, worse
than mad are you, thus presumptuously to play with your own everlasting
state. O my God, how terrible is the presumption of some! How fearful is
presumption in any! Oh! that we might be enabled to cry, “Keep back thy
servant also from presumptuous sins.”
2. I said again, that another characteristic of a presumptuous sin was
deliberation. A man perhaps may have a passionate spirit, and in a moment
of hot haste he may utter an angry word of which in a few short minutes he
will sincerely repent. A man may have a temper so hot that the least
provocation causes him at once to be full of wrath. But he may also have a
temperament which has this benefit to balance it, that he very soon learns
to forgive and cools in a moment. Now, such a man does not sin
presumptuously, when suddenly overcome by anger, though without doubt
there is presumption in his sin, unless he strives to correct that passion and
keep it down. A man, again, who is suddenly tempted and surprised into a
sin, which is not his habit, but which he commits through the force of some
strong temptation, is guilty, but not guilty of presumption, because he was
taken unawares in the net and caught in the snare. But there are other men
who sin deliberately; there are some who can think of a lust for weeks
beforehand, and dote upon their darling crime with pleasure. They do, as it
were, water the young seedling of lust until it grows to the maturity of
desire, and then they go and commit the crime. There are some to whom
lust is not a passer by, but a lodger at home. They receive it, they house it,
they feast it, and when they sin they sin deliberately, walk coolly to their
lusts, and in cold blood commit the act which another might haply do in
hot and furious haste. Now, such a sin has in it a great extent of sinfulness,
it is a sin of high presumption. To be carried away as by a whirlwind of
passion in a moment is wrong, but to sit down and deliberately resolve
upon revenge is cursed and diabolical. To sit down and deliberately fashion
schemes of wickedness is heinous, and I can find no other word fitly to
express it. To deliberate carefully how the crime is to be done, and Hamanlike
to build the gallows, and set to work to destroy one’s neighbor, to get
the pit digged that the friend may fall into it and be destroyed, to lay snares
in secret, to plot wickedness upon one’s bed — this is a high pitch of
presumptuous sin. May God forgive any of us, if we have been so far
guilty!
Again, when a man continues long in sin, and has time to deliberate about
it, that also is a proof that it is a presumptuous sin. He that sins once, being
overtaken in a fault, and then abhors the sin, has not sinned
presumptuously; but he who transgresses to day, to-morrow and the next
day, week after week and year after year until he has piled up a heap of sins
that are high as a mountain, such a man, I say sins presumptuously,
because in a continued habit of sin there must be a deliberation to sin; there
must be at least such a force and strength of mind as could not have come
upon any man if his sin were but the hasty effect of sudden passion. Ah!
take heed, ye that are sodden in sin, ye that drink it down as the greedy ox
drinketh down water, ye who run to your lust as the rivers run to the sea,
and ye who go to your passions as the sow to her wallowing in the mire.
Take heed! your crimes are grievous, and the hand of God shall soon fall
terribly on your heads, unless by divine grace it be granted to you to repent
and turn unto him. Fearful must be your doom, if unpardoned, God should
condemn you for presumptuous sin. Oh! Lord, keep back thy servant also
from presumptuous sins.”
3. Again: I said that a presumptuous sin must be a matter of design, and
have been committed with the intention of sin. If at your leisure at home
you will turn to that passage in the Book of Numbers, where it says there is
no pardon for a presumptuous sin under the Jewish dispensation, you will
find immediately afterward, a case recorded. A man went out on the
Sabbath-day to gather sticks; he was taken in the act of Sabbath-breaking,
and the law being very stringent under the Jewish dispensation, he was
ordered at once to be put to death. Now, the reason why he was put to
death was not because he gathered sticks on the Sabbath merely, but
because the law had just then been proclaimed, “In it thou shalt do no
manner of work.” This man wilfully, out of design, in order, as it were, to
show that he despised God — to show that he did not care for God —
without any necessity, without any hope of advantage, went straight out, in
the very teeth of the law, to perform not an act which he kept in his own
house, which might perhaps have been overlooked, but an act which
brought shame upon the whole congregation, because infidel-like, he dared
to brazen it out before God; as much as to say, “I care not for God.” Has
God just commanded, “Ye shall do no manner of work?” Here am I. I do
not want sticks to-day; I do not want to work; not for the sake of sticks,
but with the design of showing that I despise God, I go out this day and
gather sticks. “Now,” says one, “surely there are no people in the world
that have ever done such a thing as this.” Yes, there are, and there are such
in the Surrey Music Hall this day. They have sinned against God, not
merely for the pleasure of it, but because they would show their want of
reverence to God. That young man burned his Bible in the midst of his
wicked companions — not because he hated his Bible, for he quivered and
looked pale as the ashes on the hearth when he was doing it, but he did it
out of pure bravado, in order to shew them, as he thought, that he really
was far gone from anything like a profession of religion. That other man is
accustomed sometimes to stand by the wayside, when the people are-going
to the house of God, and he swears at them, not because he delights in
swearing, but because he will show that he is irreligious, that he is ungodly.
How many an infidel has done the same — not because he had any
pleasure in the thing itself, but because out of the wickedness of his heart
he would spite at God, if it were possible, having a design to let men know
that though the sin itself was cheap enough, he was determined to do
something which would be like spitting in the face of his Maker, and
despising God who created him! Now, such a sin is a master-piece of
iniquity. There is pardon for such an one — there is full pardon to those
who are brought to repentance, but few of such men ever receive it; for
when they are so far gone as to sin presumptuously, because they will do it
— to sin merely for the sake of showing their disregard of God and of
God’s law, we say of such, there is pardon for them, but it is wondrous
grace which brings them into such a condition that they are willing to
accept it. Oh that God would keep back his servants here from
presumptuous sins! And if any of us here have committed them, may he
bring us back, to the praise of the glory of his grace!
4. But one more point, and I think I shall have explained these
presumptuous sins. A presumptuous sin also is one that is committed
through a hardihood of fancied strength of mind. Says one, “I intend tomorrow
to go into such-and-such a society, because I believe, though it
hurts other people, it does me no hurt.” You turn round and say to some
young man, “I could not advise you to frequent the Casino — it would be
your ruin.” But you go yourself, sir? “Yes.” But how do you justify
yourself? Because I have such strength of principle that I know just how
far to go, and no farther. Thou liest, sir, against thyself thou liest; thou liest
presumptuously in so doing. Thou art playing with bombshells that shall
burst and destroy thee; thou art sitting over the mouth of hell, with a fancy
that thou shalt not be burned. Because thou hast gone to haunts of vice and
come back, tainted, much tainted, but because thou art so blind as not to
see the taint, thou thinkest thyself secure. Thou art not so. Thy sin, in
daring to think that thou art proof against sin, is a sin of presumption. “No,
no,” says one, “but I know that I can go just so far in such-and-such a sin,
and there I can stop.” Presumption, Sir; nothing but presumption. It would
be presumption for any man to climb to the top of the spire of a church,
and stand upon his head. ‘Well, but he might come down safe, if he were
skilled in it.’ Yes, but it is presumptuous. I would no more think of
subscribing a farthing to a man’s ascent in a balloon, than I would to a
poor wretch cutting his own throat. I would no more think of standing and
gazing at any man who puts his life in a position of peril, than I would of
paying a man to blow his brains out. I think such things, if not murders, are
murderous. There is suicide in men risking themselves in that way; and if
there be suicide in the risk of the body, how much more in the case of a
man who puts his own soul in jeopardy just because he thinks he has
strength of mind enough to prevent its being ruined and destroyed. Sir,
your sin is a sin of presumption; it is a great and grievous one; it is one of
the master-pieces of iniquity.
Oh! how many people there are who are sinning presumptuously to-day!
You are sinning presumptuously in being to-day what you are. You are
saying, in a little time I will solemnly and seriously think of religion, in a
few years, when I am a little more settled in life, I intend to turn over a
new leaf, and think about the matters of Godliness. Sir, you are
presumptuous. You are presuming that you shall live, you are speculating
upon a thing which is as frail as the bubble on the breaker; you are staking
your everlasting soul on the deadly odds that you shall live for a few years,
whereas, the probabilities are that you may be cut down ere the sun shall
set: and it is possible, that ere another year shall have passed over your
head, you may be in the land where repentance is impossible, and useless
were it possible. Oh! dear friends, procrastination is a presumptuous sin.
The putting off a thing which should be done to day, because you hope to
live to-morrow, is a presumption. You have no right to do it — you are in
so doing sinning against God, and bringing on your heads the guilt of
presumptuous sin. I remember that striking passage in Jonathan Edward’s
wonderful sermon, which was the means of a great revival, where he says,
“Sinner, thou art this moment standing over the mouth of hell, upon a
single plank, and that plank is rotten, thou art hanging over the jaws of
perdition, by a solitary rope, and the strands of that rope are creaking
now.” It is a terrible thing to be in such a position as that, and yet to say,
“tomorrow,” and to procrastinate. You remind me, some of you, of that
story of Dionysius the tyrant, who, wishing to punish one who had
displeased him, invited him to a noble feast. Rich were the viands that were
spread upon the table, and rare the wines of which he was invited to drink.
A chair was placed at the head of the table, and the guest was seated within
it. Horror of horrors! The feast might be rich, but the guest was miserable,
dreadful beyond thought. However splendid might be the array of the
servants, and however rich the dainties, yet he who had been invited sat
there in agony. For what reason? Because over his head, immediately over
it, there hung a sword, a furbished sword, suspended by a single hair. He
had to sit all the time with this sword above him, with nothing but a hair
between him and death, you may conceive the poor man’s misery. He
could not escape, he must sit where he was. How could he feast? How
could he rejoice! But, oh my unconverted hearer, thou art there this
morning, man, with all thy riches and thy wealth before thee, with the
comforts of a home and the joys of a household; thou art there this day, in
a place from which thou canst not escape; the sword of death above thee,
prepared to descend, and woe unto thee, when it shall cleave thy soul from
thy body! Canst thou yet make mirth, and yet procrastinate? If thou canst,
then verily thy sin is presumptuous in a high degree. “Keep back thy
servant also from presumptuous sins.”
II. And now I come to the second part of the subject, with which I shall
deal very briefly. I am to try and show you IT IS THAT THERE IS GREAT
ENORMITY IN A PRESUMPTUOUS SIN.
Let me take any one of the sins: for instance, the sin against light and
knowledge. There is greater enormity in such a presumptuous sin than in
any other. In this our happy land it is just possible for a man to commit
treason. I think it must be rather difficult for him to do it, for we are
allowed to say words here which would have brought our necks beneath
the guillotine, if they had been spoken on the other side the channel; and
we are allowed to do deeds here which would have brought us long years
of imprisonment, if the deed had been done in any other land. We, despite
all that our American friends may say, are the freest people to speak and
think in all the world. Though we have not the freedom of beating our
slaves to death, or of shooting them if they choose to disobey — though
we have not the freedom of hunting men, or the freedom of sucking
another man’s blood out of him to make us rich — though we have not the
freedom of being worse than devils, which slave-catchers and many slaveholders
most certainly are — we have liberty greater than that, liberty
against the tyrant mob, as well as against the tyrant king. But I suppose it
is just possible to commit treason here. Now, if two men should commit
treason — if one of them should wantonly and wickedly raise the standard
of revolt to-morrow, should denounce the rightful sovereign of this lard in
the strongest and most abominable language, should seek to entice the
loyal subjects of this country from their allegiance, and should draw some
of them astray, to the hurt and injury of the common weal. He might have
in his rebellions ranks one who joined incautiously, not knowing whereunto
the matter might tend, who might come into the midst of the rebels, not
understanding the intention of their unlawful asssembling, not even
knowing the law which prohibited them from being banded together. I can
suppose these two men brought up upon a charge of high treason: they
have both, legally, been guilty of it; but I an suppose that the one man who
had sinned ignorantly would be acquitted, because there was no malignant
intent, and I can suppose that the other man, who had wilfully, knowingly,
maliciously and wickedly raised the standard of revolt, would receive the
highest punishment which the law could demand. And why? Because in the
one case it was a sin of presumption, and in the other case it was not so. In
the one case the man dared to defy the sovereign, and defy the law of the
land, wilfully, out of mere presumption. In the other case not so. Now,
every man sees that it would be just to make a distinction in the
punishment, because there is — conscience itself tells us — a distinction in
the guilt.
Again: some men, I have said, sin deliberately, and others do not do so.
Now, in order to show that there is a distinction here, let me take a case.
To-morrow the bench of magistrates are sitting. Two men are brought up.
They are each of them charged with stealing a loaf of bread. It is clearly
proved, in the one case that the man was hungry, and that he snatched the
loaf of bread to satisfy his necessities. He is sorry for his deed, he grieves
that he has done the act; but most manifestly he had a strong temptation to
it. In the other case the man was rich, and he wilfully went into the shop
merely because he would break the law and show that he was a lawbreaker.
He said to the policeman outside, “Now, I care neither for you nor
the law; I intend to go in there, just to see what you can do with me.” I can
suppose the magistrate would say to one man, “You are discharged; take
care not to do the like again, there is something for your present
necessities; seek to earn an honest living.” But to the other I can conceive
him saying, “You are an infamous wretch; you have committed the same
deed as the other, but from very different motives; I give you the longest
term of imprisonment which the law allows me, and I can only regret that I
cannot treat you worse than I have done.” The presumption of the sin
made the difference. So when you sin deliberately and knowingly, your sin
against Almighty God is a higher and a blacker sin than it would have been
if you had sinned ignorantly, or sinned in haste.
Now let us suppose one more case. In the heat of some little dispute some
one shall insult a man. You shall be insulted by a man of angry temper; you
have not provoked him, you gave him no just cause for it; but at the same
time he was of a hot and angry disposition, he was somewhat foiled in the
debate and he insulted you, calling you by some name which has left a stain
upon your character, so far as epithets can do it. I can suppose that you
would ask no reparation of him, if by to-morrow you saw that it was just a
rash word spoken in haste, of which he repented. But suppose another
person should waylay you in the street, should week after week seek to
meet you in the market place, and should after a great deal of toil and
trouble at last meet you, and there, in the center of a number of people,
unprovoked, just out of sheer, deliberate malice, come before you and call
you a liar in the street; I can suppose that Christian as you are, you might
find it necessary to chastise such insolence, not with your hand but with the
arm of that equitable law which protects us all from insulting violence. In
the other case I can suppose it would be no trouble to you to forgive. You
would say, “My dear fellow, I know we are all hasty sometimes — there,
now, I don’t care at all for it, you did not mean it.” But in this case, where
a man has dared and defied you without any provocation whatever, you
would say to him, “Sir, you have endeavored to injure me in respectable
society; I can forgive you as a Christian, but as a man and a citizen, I shall
demand that I am protected against your insolence.”
You see, therefore, in the cases that occur between man and man, how
there is an excess of guilt added to a sin by presumption. Oh! ye that have
sinned presumpuously — and who among us has not done so? — bow
your heads in silence, confess your guilt, and then open your mouths, and
cry, “Lord, have mercy upon me, a presumptuous sinner.”
III. And now I have nearly done — not to weary you by too long a
discourse we shall notice THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THIS PRAYER —
“Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.”
Will you just note, that this prayer was the prayer of a saint, the prayer of
a holy man of God? Did David need to pray thus? Did the “man after
God’s own heart” need to cry, “Keep back thy servant?” Yes, he did. And
note the beauty of the prayer. If I might translate it into more metaphorical
style, it is like this “Curb thy servant from presumptuous sin.” “Keep him
back, or he will wander to the edge of the precipice of sin. Hold him in,
Lord he is apt to run away; curb him; put the bridle on him; do not let him
do it; let thine overpowering grace keep him holy; when he would do evil,
then do thou draw him to good, and when his evil propensities would lead
him astray, then do thou check him.” “Check thy servant from
presumptuous sins?”
What, then? Is it true that the best of men may sin presumptuously? Ah! it
is true. It is a solemn thing to find the apostle Paul warning saints against
the most loathsome of sins. He says, “Mortify therefore your members
which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, idolatry inordinate
affection,” and such like. What I do saints want warning against such sins
as these? Yes, they do. The highest saints may sin the lowest sins, unless
kept by divine grace. You old experienced Christians boars not in your
experience; you may trip yet, unless you cry, “Hold thou me up and I shall
be safe.” Ye whose love is fervent, whose faith is constant, whose hopes
are bright, say not, “I shall never sin,” but rather cry out, “Lord, lead me
not into temptation, and when there leave me not there, for unless thou
hold me fast I feel I must, I shall decline, and prove an apostate after all.”
There is enough tinder in the heart of the best men in the world to light a
fire that shall burn to the lowest hell, unless God should quench the sparks
as they fall. There is enough corruption, depravity, and wickedness in the
heart of the most holy man that is now alive to damn his soul to all eternity,
if free and sovereign grace does not prevent. O Christian, thou hast need to
pray this prayer. But I think I hear you crying, “Is thy servant a dog that I
should do this thing?” So said Hazael, when the prophet told him that he
would slay his master; but he went home, and took a wet cloth and spread
it over his master’s face and stifled him, and did the next day the sin which
he abhorred before. Think it not enough to abhor sin, you may yet fall into
it. Say not, “I never can be drunken, for I have such an abhorrence of
drunkenness;” thou mayest fall where thou art most secure. Say not, “I can
never blaspheme God, for I have never done so in my life;” take care; you
may yet swear most profanely. Job might have said, “I will never curse the
day of my birth;” but he lived to do it. He was a patient man, he might have
said, “I will never murmur; though he slay me yet will I trust in him;” and
yet he lived to wish that the day were darkness wherein he was brought
forth. Boast not, then, O Christian: by faith thou standest. “Let him that
thinketh he standth take heed lest he fall.”
But if this need to be the prayer of the best, how ought it to be the prayer
of you and me? If the highest saint must pray it, O mere moralist, thou hast
good need to utter it. And ye who have begun to sin, who make no
pretensions to piety, how much need is there for you to pray that you may
be kept from presumptuously rebelling against God.
Instead, however, of enlarging upon that point, I shall close my few
remarks this morning by just addressing myself most affectionately to such
of you as are now under a sense of guilt by reason of presumptuous sins.
God’s Spirit has found some of you out this morning. I thought when I was
describing presumptuous sin that I saw here and there an eye that was
suffused with tears; I thought I saw here and there a head that was bowed
down, as much as to say, “I am guilty there.” I thought there were some
hearts that palpitated with confession, when I described the guilt of
presumption. I hope it was so. If it was, I am glad of it. If I hit your
consciences, it was that I meant to do. Not to your ears do I speak, but to
your hearts. I would not give the snap of this my finger to gratify you with
mere words of oratory, with a mere flow of language. No, God is my
witness. I never sought Effect yet, except the effect of hitting your
consciences. I would use the words that would be most rough and vulgar
in all our language, if I could get at your heart better with them than with
any other; for I reckon that the chief matter with a minister is to touch the
conscience. If any of you feel then that you have presumed against God in
sinning, let me just bid you look at your sin, and weep over the blackness
of it; let me exhort you to go home and bow your heads with sorrow, and
confess your guilt, and weep over it with many tears and sighs. You have
greatly sinned, and if God should blast you into perdition now, he would be
just, if now his fiery thunderbolt of vengeance should pierce you through, if
the arrow that is now upon the string of the Almighty should find a target
in your heart, he would be just. Go home and confess that, confess it with
cries and sighs. And then what next wilt thou do? Why, I bid thee
remember that there was a man who was a God. That man suffered for
presumptuous sin. I would bid thee this day, sinner, if thou knowest thy
need of a Savior, go up to thy chamber, cast thyself upon thy face and
weep for sin; and when thou hast done that, turn to the Scriptures, and
read the story of that Man who suffered and died for sin. Think you see
him in all his unutterable agonies, and griefs, and woes, and say —
“My soul looks back to see
The burdens thou didst bear,
When hanging on th’ accursed tree,
And hopes her guilt was there.”
Lift up your hand, and put it on his head who bled, and say —
“My faith would lay its hand
On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin.”
Sit down at the foot of his cross, and watch him till your heart is moved,
till the tears begin to flow again, until your heart breaks within you; and
then you will rise and say —
“Dissolved by his mercy I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.”
O sinner, thou canst never perish, if thou wilt cast thyself at the foot of the
cross. If thou seekest to save thyself thou shalt die, if thou wilt come, just
as thou art all black, all filthy, all hell-deserving, all ill-deserving, I am my
Master’s hostage, I will be answerable at the day of judgment for this
matter, if he does not save thee. I can preach on this subject now, for I
trust I have tried my Master myself. As a youth I sinned, as a child I
rebelled, as a young man I wandered into lusts and vanities: my Master
made me feel how great a sinner I was, and I sought to reform, to mend
the matter, but I grew worse. At last I heard it said, “Look unto me, and be
ye saved all the ends of the earth;” and I looked to Jesus. And oh! my
Savior, thou hast eased my aching conscience, thou hast given me peace,
thou hast enabled me to say —
“Now freed from sin I walk at large
My Saviour’s blood’s a full discharge;
At his dear feet my soul I lay,
A sinner saved, and homage pay.”
And oh! my heart pants for you. Oh that you who never knew him could
taste his love now. Oh that you who have never repented might now
receive the Holy Ghost who is able to melt the heart! And oh that you that
are penitents would look to him now! And I repeat that solemn assertion
— I am God’s hostage this morning, ye shall feed me on bread and water
to my life’s end, ay, and I will bear the blame for ever, it any of you seek
Christ, and Christ rejects you. It must not, it cannot be. “Whosoever
cometh,” he says, “I will in nowise cast out.” “He is able to save to the
uttermost them that come unto God by him.” May God Almighty bless you
and may we meet again in yonder paradise, and there will we sing more
sweetly of redeeming love and dying blood, and of Jesus’ power to save —
“When this poor lisping, stammering tongue,
Lies silent in the grave.”
