Exhortations To The Sinner To Embrace This Peace With God, Offered In The Gospel 1/5

First. Consider what it is that is offered thee —peace with God.  A thing so indispensable—thou canst not have less, and so comprehensive—thou needest have no more than this, and what cometh with it, to make thee truly, fully happy.  Of all the variety of enjoyments with which it is possible thy table can be spread, this is a dish can least be spared. Take away peace, and that but of an inferior nature —outward peace—and the feast is spoiled, though it be on a prince’s table.  David’s children had little stomach to their royal dinner when one of them was slain that sat at the board with them.  And what taste can you have in all your junkets while God is in array against you; many sinners slain before your eye by God's judgments; and the same sword that hath let out their blood, at thy throat, while the meat is in thy mouth?  Methinks your sweet morsels should stick in your throat, and hardly get down, and hardly get down, while you muse on these things.  O sinner! is not this as a toad swelling at the bottom of thy most sweetly sugared cup—that the controversy yet depends betwixt God and thee?  Thy sins are unpar­doned, and thou a dead damned creature, however thou dost frolic it for the present in thy prison. Would you not wonder to see a man at his sport, hunting or hawking, and one should tell you that that man is to be hanged tomorrow?  Truly God is more merciful to thee than thou canst promise thyself, if he stay the execution till another day.  I confess, when I meet a man whose life proclaims him an unreconciled sinner, and see him spruce up himself with the joy of his children, estate, honour, or the like, in this life, it administers matter of admiration [amazement] to me, what such a one thinks of God or himself.  Canst thou think it is long thou shalt sit at this fire of thorns thou hast kindled, and not God for thee?  Must it needs provoke a creditor to see his debtor live high, and go brave, all at his cost, and all the while never think of getting out of his debt, or of making his peace with him?  Much more then doth it provoke God to see sinners spend upon his bounty—lead joyful jovial lives in the abundance of outward enjoyments he lends them, but take no thought of making peace with him in whose debt‑book they are so deep in arrears.

           What folly had it been for the Jews, when Ahasu­erus had sealed the warrant for their destruction, to have gone and painted their houses, planted their fields, and let out their hearts in the enjoyment of their estates, without taking care, in the first place, of getting that bloody decree reversed?  A worse sot art thou, that doest all these, while thou carriest the sen­tence of death from God’s mouth, about thee in thy own conscience.  Sir Thomas More, when in the Tower, would not so much as trim himself, saying, ‘There was a controversy betwixt the king and him for his head, and till that was at a happy end, he would be at no cost about it.’  Scum but off the froth of his wit and you may make a solemn use of it.  Certainly all the cost you bestow on yourselves to make your lives pleasurable and joyous to you is mere folly, till it be decided what will become of the suit betwixt God and you, not for your heads, but souls, yea soul and body, whether for heaven or hell.  O were it not thy wisest choice to begin with making thy peace, and then thou mayest soon lead a happy life!  We say, ‘He that gets out of debt grows rich.’  I am sure the recon­ciled soul cannot be poor.  As soon as the peace is concluded a free trade is opened betwixt God and the soul. 

If once pardoned, thou mayest then sail to any port that lies in God’s dominions, and be welcome. All the promises stand open with their rich treasure. Take, poor soul, full lading in of all the precious things they afford, even as much as thy faith can bear, and none shall hinder thee.  As a man may draw the wine of a whole vessel through one tap, so faith may draw the comfort of all the covenant out of this one promise of reconciliation.  If reconciled, then the door is open to let thee into communion with God in all his ordinances.  God and thou being agreed may now walk together, whereas before thou couldst not look into God’s presence but his heart rose against thee, as one at the sight of his enemy, ready to draw upon thee with his judgments.  ‘The smith,’ we say, ‘and his penny, both are black.’  So wert thou with all thy duties and performances, while unreconciled in his eye.  But now thy ‘voice is sweet, and countenance comely.’  All the attributes of God, thy ally, are thine: his horses and chariots thine, as Jehoshaphat told Ahab.  Whenever any enemy puts thee in fear, you know where to have a friend that will take part with thee.  All his providences, though like bees, they fly some this way, and some that, yea, one contrary to another, as, thou thinkest, impossible to trace them, are yet all at work for thee; and thy soul is the hive wherein they will unlade the sweet fruit of all their labour, though possibly it may be night—the evening of thy days—before thou findest it.  In a word, if reconciled, thou standest next step to heaven; ‘whom he justifies, them he glorifies,’ Rom. 8:30.  Thou art sure to be there as soon as death rends the veil of thy flesh, which is all that interposeth between thee and it.