[USE AND APPLICATION OF THE WHOLE.]
[USE FOURTH.]—If so, what a strange disappointment many professors will meet with on the day of judgment! I speak not now to the open profane; everybody, as I have said, that had but the common understanding between good and evil, knows that they are in a broad way to hell and damnation, and they must need come thither; nothing can hinder it but repentance unto salvation, except God should prove a liar to save them, and it is hard venturing of that.
Neither is it amiss if we take notice of the examples that are briefly mentioned in the Scriptures concerning professors who have miscarried. 1. Judas perished from among the apostles. (Acts 1) 2. Demas, I think, perished from among the evangelists. (2 Tim 4:10) 3. Diotrephes are from among the ministers or in office in the church. (3 John 9) 4. As for Christian professors, they have fallen by heaps and almost by whole churches. (2 Tim 1:15, Rev 3:4,15-17) 5. Let us add to these that the things mentioned in the Scriptures about these matters are but brief hints and items of what is afterward to happen; as the apostle said, “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.” (1 Tim 5:24)
So that, fellow professors, let us fear, lest a promise be left to us of entering into this rest, any of us should seem short of it. O! to come short! Nothing kills like it, and nothing will burn like it. I intend not discouragements but awakenings; the churches need awakening, and so have all professors. Do not despise me, therefore, but hear me over again. What a strange disappointment many professors will meet on God Almighty’s day! It is a disappointment, I say, as to several things.
(1.) They will look to escape hell and fall just into the mouth of hell: what a disappointment will be here! (2.) They will look for heaven, but the gate of heaven will be shut against them: what a disappointment is here! (3.) They will expect that Christ should have compassion for them but will find that he hath shut up all bowels of compassion from them: what a disappointment is here! Again,
[USE FIFTH.]—As this disappointment will be fearful, it will undoubtedly be full of amazement.
1. Will being unexpectedly excluded from life and salvation not amaze them? 2. Will it not be amazing to see their own madness and folly while they consider how they have dallied with their own souls and took lightly for granted that they had that grace that would save them but hath left them in a damnable state?
3. Will they not also be amazed one at another while they remember how, in their lifetime, they counted themselves fellow heirs of life? To allude to that of the prophet, “They shall be amazed one at another, their faces shall be as flames.” (Isa 13:8) 4. Will it not be unique to some of the damned themselves to see some come to hell that then they shall see come thither? To see preachers of the Word, professors of the Word, practices in the Word, to go thither. What wondering was there among them at the fall of the king of Babylon since he was thought to have swallowed up all because he was run down by the Medes and Persians! “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations!” If such a thing as this will with amazement surprise the damned, what amazement will it be to them to see such a one as he whose head reached to the clouds, to see him come down to the pit and perish forever like his own dung? “Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming; it stirred up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth.” (Isa 14) They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee, saying, Is this the man? Is this he that professed, disputed, and forsook us, but now he is coming to us again? Is this he that separated from us but has now fallen with us into the same eternal damnation?
[USE SIXTH.]—Again, one word more, if I may awaken professors. Consider, though the poor carnal world shall undoubtedly perish, yet they will want these things to aggravate their sorrow, which thou wilt meet with in every thought that thou wilt have of the condition thou was in when thou was in the world.
1. They will not have a profession to bite them when they come. 2. They will not have a taste of a lost heaven to bite them when they come thither. 3. They will not have the thoughts of, “I was almost at heaven,” to bite them when they come thither. 4. They will not think about how they cheated saints, ministers, and churches to bite them when they come thither. 5. They will not have the dying thoughts of false faith, false hope, false repentance, and false holiness to bite them when they come thither. I was at the gates of heaven. I looked into heaven, and I thought I should have entered it. How would these things sting? They will, if I may call them so, be the sting of the sting of death in hell-fire.
[USE SEVENTH.]—Give me leave now in a word to give you a little advice.
1. Dost thou love thine own soul? Then pray to Jesus Christ for an awakened heart, for a heart so awakened with all the things of another world, that thou mayest be allured to Jesus Christ. 2. When thou comes there, beg again for more awakenings about sin, hell, grace, and the righteousness of Christ. 3. Cry also for a discerning spirit, that thou mayest know that which is saving grace indeed. 4. Above all studies, apply yourself to the study of those things that show thee the evil of sin, the shortness of man’s life, and which is the way to be saved. 5. Keep company with the most godly among professors. 6. When you hear the nature of actual grace, do not ask thine own heart if this grace is there. And here take heed— (1.) That the preacher himself be sound and of good life. (2.) That thou take not seeming graces for real ones, nor seeming fruits for natural fruits. (3.) Take heed that sin in thy life goes not unrepented of; for that will make a flaw in thine evidence, a wound in thy conscience, and a breach in thy peace; and a hundred to one, if at last it doth not drive all the grace in thee into so dark a corner of thy heart, that thou shalt not be able, for a time, by all the torches that are burning in the gospel, to find it out to thine own comfort and consolation.
