[Through sin the soul
sets itself against God.]
1. He saith, that he regardeth not this Christ, that he seeth nothing in Him, why he should admit Him to be entertained in his affections. Therefore the prophet, speaking in the person of sinners, says, 'He (Christ) hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him;' and then adds, to show what he meaneth by his thus speaking, he is despised and rejected of men' (Isa 53:2, 3). All this is spoken with reference to His person, and it was eminently fulfilled upon Him in the days of His flesh, when He was hated, maligned, and persecuted to death by sinners; and is still fulfilled in the souls of sinners, in that they cannot abide to think of Him with thoughts that have a tendency in them to separate them and their lusts asunder, and to the making of them to embrace Him for their darling, and the taking up of their cross to follow Him. All these sinners speak out with loud voices, in that they stop their ears and shut their eyes as to Him, but open them wide and hearken diligently to anything that pleases the flesh, and that is a nursery to sin. But,
2. As they despise, and reject, and do not regard His person, so they do not value the grace that He tendereth unto them by the gospel; this is plain by that indifference of spirit that always attends them when, at any time, they hear thereof, or when it is presented to them.
I may safely say, that most men who are concerned in a trade, will be more vigilant in dealing with a twelve-penny customer than they will be with Christ when He comes to make unto them, by the gospel, a tender of the incomparable grace of God. Hence they are called fools, because a price is put into their hands to get wisdom, and they have no heart for it (Prov 18:16). And hence, again, it is that that bitter complaint is made, 'But My people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of Me' (Psa 81:11). Now, these things being found, as practiced by the souls of sinners, must, after a wonderful manner, provoke; wherefore, no marvel that the heavens are bid to be astonished at this, and that damnation shall seize upon the soul for this (Jer 2).
And indeed, the soul that doth thus by practice, though with his mouth—as who doth not? he shall show much love, he doth, interpretatively, say these things:
(1.) That he loves sin better than grace, and darkness better than light, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown, 'And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness more than light (as is manifest) because their deeds were evil' (John 3:19).
(2.) They do, also, by their thus rejecting of Christ and grace, say, that for what the law can do to them, they value it not; they regard not its thundering threatenings, nor will they shrink when they come to endure the execution thereof; wherefore God, to deter them from such bold and desperate ways, that do, interpretatively, fully declare that they make such desperate conclusions, insinuates that the burden of the curse thereof is intolerable, saying, 'Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and will do it' (Eze 22:14). (3.) Yea, by their thus doing, they do as good as say that they will run the hazard of a sentence of death at the day of judgment and that they will, in the meantime, join issue, and stand trial at that day with the great and terrible God. What else means their not hearkening to Him, their despising of His Son, and their rejecting of His grace; Yeah, I say again, what else means their slighting of the curse of the law, and their choosing to abide in their sins till the day of death and judgment? And thus I have shown you the causes of the loss of the soul; and, assuredly, these things are no fables.
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