FOUR CONSIDERATIONS proving the sin of despair to exceed all others together 1/3

Consideration 1.  Despair opposeth God in the greatest of all his commands.  the greatest command without all compare in the whole Bible, is to believe.  When those Jews asked our Lord Jesus, ‘What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?’ mark his answer, ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent,’ John 6:28, 29.  As if he had said, The most compendious way that I am able to give you, is to receive me into your hearts by faith; do this, and you do all in one.  This is the work that is instar omnium—all in all.  All you do is undone, and yourselves also, till this work be done, for which you shall have as much thanks at God’s hands as if you could keep the whole law.  Indeed, it is accepted in lieu of it: ‘To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness,’ Rom. 4:5; where ‘he that worketh not,’ is not meant a slothful lazy sinner that hath no list to work, nor a rebellious sinner whose heart riseth against the work which the holy law of God would employ him in; but the humbled sinner, who desires and endeavours to work, but is no way able to do the task the law as a covenant sets him, and therefore is said to have a law‑sense not to work, because he doth not work to the law’s purpose, so as to answer its de­mands, which will accept nothing short of perfect obedience.  This man’s faith on Christ is accepted for righteousness; that is, God reckons him so, and so he shall pass at the great day by the judge’s sentence, as if he had never trod one step awry from the path of the law.  Now, if faith be the work of God above all other, then unbelief is the work of the devil, and that to which he had rather thou shouldst do than drink or drab.  And despair is unbelief at the worst.  Unbelief among sins is as the plague among disease, the most dangerous; but when it riseth to despair, then it is as the plague with the tokens that bring the certain message of death with them.  Unbelief is despair in the bud, despair is unbelief at its full growth.

           Consideration 2.  Despair hath a way peculiar to itself of dishonouring God above other sins.  Every sin wounds the law, and the name of God through the law's sides.  But this wound is healed when the peni­tent sinner by faith comes to Christ and closeth with him.  God makes account, reparations now are fully made through Christ—whom the believer receives —for the wrong done to his law, and his name vindi­cated from the dishonour cast upon it by the crea­ture’s former iniquities; yea, that it appears more glorious because it is illustrious, by the shining forth of one title of honour, not the least prized by God himself—his forgiving mercy—which could not have been so well known to the creature, if not drawn forth to act upon this occasion.  But what would you say of such a prodigious sinner that, when he hath wounded the law, is not willing to have it healed? when he hath dishonoured God, and that in a high provoking man­ner, is not willing that the dirt he hath cast on God’s face should be wiped off?  Methinks I see every one of your choler to rise at the reading of this, against such a wretch, and hear you asking, as once Ahasu­erus did Esther, ‘Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?’ Est. 7:5.  Would you know?  Truly, the adversary and enemy is this wicked despair.  The despairing soul is the person that will not let Christ make satisfaction for the wrong that by his sins he hath done to God.  Suppose a man should wound another dangerously in his passion, and when he hath done, will not let any chirurgeon come near to cure the wound he hath made.  Every one would say his last act of cruelty was worse than his first.