fome do fo hate it, that it is a displeasing, irksome thing to them to hear any ferious difcourfe of holinefs; and they deteft and deride those as fanatical, troublesome precifians that diligently feek the one thing neceffary: fo that if the belief of the most may be judged by their practices, we may confidently fay, that they do not practically believe that ever they fhould be brought to judgment, or that there is any heaven or hell to be expected; and that their confeffion of the truth of the fcriptures and the articles of the chriftian faith are no proofs that they heartily take them to be true. Who can be fuch a stranger to the world as not to fee that this is the case of the greatest part of men. And, which is worst of all, they go on in this courfe against all that can be faid to them, and will give no impartial, confiderate hearing to the truth, which would recover them to their wits, but live as if it would be a felicity to them in hell to think that they came thither by wilful refolution, and in defpite of the remedy." This, finners, is a true reprefentation of your cafe, drawn by one that well knew it and lamented it. And what do you now think of it yourselves? What do you think will be the confequence of fuch a course? Is it fafe to perfift in it? or fhall I be fo happy as to bring you to a ftand? Will you still go on, troubling yourselves with many things? or will you refolve for the future to mind the one thing needful above all? I beseech you to come to fome refolution. Time is on the wing, and does not allow you to hesitate in fo plain and important an affair. Do you need any farther excitements? Then I fhall try the force of one confideration more contained in my text, and that is Neceffity. Remember neceffity, the moft preffing, abfolute neceffity, enforces this care upon you. One thing is needful, abfolutely needful, always needful, and needful above all other things. This, one would think, is fuch an argument as cannot but prevail. What ex ploits has neceffity performed in the world! What arts has it difcovered as the mother of invention! what labours, what fatigues, what fufferings has it undergone! What dangers has it encountered! What diffi culties has it overcome? Neceffity is a plea which you think will warrant you to do any thing and excufe any thing. Reasoning against neceflity is but reasoning against a hurricane; it bears all before it. To obtain the neceffaries of life, as they are called, how much will men do and fuffer! Nay, with what hardships and perils will they not conflict for things that they imagine neceffary, not to their life but to their eafe, their honour, or pleasure! But what is this neceffity when compared to that which I am now urging upon you? In comparison of this, the moft neceflary of those things are but fuperfluities; for if your ease, or honour, or pleasure, or even your life in this world be not abfolutely neceffary, as they cannot be to the heirs of immortality, then certainly those things which you imagine neceffary to your cafe, your honour, your pleasure, or mortal life, are ftill lefs neceffary. But O! to escape everlasting misery, and to fecure everlafting falvation, this is the grand neceffity! This will appear neceffary in every point of your immortal duration; neceffary when you have done with this world for ever, and muft leave all its cares, enjoyments, and purfuits behind you. And fhall not this grand neceffity prevail upon you to work out your falvation, and make that your great business, when a far lefs neceffity, a neceflity that will laft but a few years at moft, fets you and the world around you upon fuch hard labours and eager purfuits for perifhing vanities? All the neceflity in the world is nothing in comparison of that which lies upon you to work out your falvation; and fhall this have no weight? If you do not labour or contrive for the bread that perifbeth, you must beg or ftarve? but if you will not labour for the bread that endureth unto everlasting life, you must burn in hell for ever. You muft muft lie in prison if your debts with men be not paid but, O! what is it to the prifon of hell, where you must be confined for ever if your debts to the juftice of God be not remitted, and you do not obtain an intereft in the righteoufnefs of Chrift, which alone can make fatisfaction for them! You must fuffer hunger and nakedness unless you take care to provide food and raiment; but you muft fuffer eternal banishment from God and all the joys of his prefence if you do not labour to fecure the one thing needful. Without the riches of this world you may be rich in faith and heirs of the heavenly inheritance. Without earthly pleasures you may have joy unfpeakable, and full of glory in the love of God, and the expectation of the kingdom referved in heaven for you. Without health of body you may have happiness of fpirit; and even without this mortal life you may enjoy eternal life. Without the things of the world you may live in want for a little while, but then you will foon be upon an equality with the greateft princes. But without this one thing needful you are undone, abfolutely undone. Though you were as rich as Crœfus, you are wretched, and miferable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Your very being becomes a curfe to you. It is your curfe that you are a man, a reasonable creature. It had been infinitely better for you if you had been a toad or a fnake, and fo incapable of fin and of immortality, and confequently of punishment. O then let this grand neceffity prevail with you! I know you have other wants, which you should moderately labour to provide for, but O how small and of how fhort continuance! If life and all fhould be loft, you may more than find all in heaven. But if you mifs at this one thing, all the world cannot make up the lofs. Therefore, to conclude with the awakening and refiftless words of the author I before quoted, “ Awake, you fluggish, carelefs fouls! your houfe over your your head is in a flame! the hand of God is lifted up! If you love yourselves, prevent the ftroke. Vengeance is at your backs, the wrath of God purfues your fin, and wo to you if he find it upon you when he overtaketh you. Away with it fpeedily! up and begone; return to God! make Chrift and mercy your friends in time, if you love your lives! the Judge is coming! for all that you have heard of it fo long, yet ftill you believe it not. You fhall fhortly fee the majefty of his appearance and the dreadful glory of his face; and yet do you not begin to look about you, and make ready for fuch a day? Yea, before that day, your feparated fouls fhall begin to reap as you have fowed here. Though now the partition that ftands between you and the world to come do keep unbelievers ftrangers to the things that moft concern them, yet death will quickly find a portal to let you in and then, finners, you will find fuch do ings there as you little thought of, or did not sensibly regard upon earth.-Before your friends will have time enough to wrap up your pale corps in your winding-fheet, you will fee and feel that which will tell you to the quick, that one thing was neceffary. If you die without this one thing neceffary, before your friends can have finished your funerals, your fouls will have taken up their places among devils in endless torments and despair, and all the wealth, and honour, and pleasure that the world afforded you will not ease you. This is fad, but it is true, firs; for God hath fpoken it. Up therefore and beftir you for the life of your fouls. Neceffity will awake even the fluggard. Neceffity, we fay, will break through ftone walls. The proudeft will ftoop to neceffity: the moft flothful will beftir themselves in neceffity: the most careless will be induftrious in neceffity: necef fity will make men do any thing that is poffible to be done. And is not neceffity, the higheft neceffity, your own neceffity, able to make you caft away your fins, and take up an holy and heavenly life? O poor fouls! fouls is there a greater neceffity of your fin than of your falvation, and of pleafing your flesh for a little time than of pleafing the, Lord and escaping everlasting mifery?" O that you would confider what I fay! and the Lord give you understanding in all things! Amen. SERMON XXII. SAINTS SAVED WITH DIFFICULTY, AND THE CERTAIN PERDITION OF SINNERS. 1 PET. iv. 18. And if the righteous fcarcely be faved, where fhall the ungodly and the finner appear? TH HIS text may found in your ears like a meffage from the dead; for it is at the request of our deceased friend * that I now infift upon it. He knew fo much from the trials he made in life, that if he fhould be faved at all, it would be with great difficulty, and if he should escape destruction at all, it would be a very narrow escape; and he also knew so much of this ftupid, careless world, that they stood in need of a folemn warning on this head; and therefore defired that his death fhould give occafion to a fermon on this alarming fubject. But now the unknown wonders of the invifible world lie open to his eyes; and now alfo he can take a full review of his paffage through this mortal life; now he fees the many unfufpected dangers he narrowly efcaped, and the many fiery darts of the devil which the fhield of faith repelled; now, like a fhip arrived in port, he reviews the rocks and fhoals he paffed through, many of which lay under water and out of fight; and therefore now he is more fully acquainted with the difficulty of falvati on *The perfon was Mr. James Hooper; and the Sermon is dated Aug. 21, 1756. |