The Difficulty of Escaping the Damnation of Hell
by Edward Payson My Hearers, I am not
without apprehensions that the passage which I have
chosen for the subject of this discourse will
sound harshly in your ears, and that its
first effect will be to excite in many
breasts feelings by no means favorable to the
reception of truth.
But it is a passage which was uttered
by the compassionate Savior of sinners, and I
cannot, I dare not, pretend to be more
merciful than He.
I dare not suffer either a false tenderness
or a fear of giving offense to prevent
me from calling your attention to His words.
Words which, if properly regarded, cannot fail to
produce the most salutary effects.
The words to which I refer are recorded
in Matthew 23.33, How can ye escape
the damnation of hell?
This appalling question was addressed by our Lord
to the Scribes and Pharisees.
It evidently intimates that their situation was exceedingly
dangerous, if not desperate, that it was almost,
if not quite, impossible for them to escape
final condemnation.
My impenitent Hearers, I will not assert that
your situation is equally dangerous, or that your
escape from the dreadful retributions of eternity is
equally improbable.
But the Word of God will justify the
assertion, and a regard to your eternal interest
constrains me to assert that your situation is
exceedingly dangerous, that the obstacles which oppose your
salvation are very great and numerous, and that
the improbability of your escaping the wrath to
come is by no means small.
To produce in your minds a conviction of
this truth is my object in the present
discourse.
Could you be thoroughly convinced of it, one
great obstacle, which now opposes your salvation, would
be removed.
So far as I have observed, nothing more
effectually prevents men from flying from the wrath
to come than a groundless persuasion that to
escape is easy.
Nothing so much encourages men to neglect religion
as a false belief that they can easily
become religious at any time.
Nothing prevents more persons from attaining a well
-founded hope of salvation than a delusive hope
that they shall somehow or other be saved.
Could this delusive hope, this groundless persuasion be
destroyed?
Could they be made to see that their
real situation and the obstacles which oppose their
escape, they would at once be alarmed.
Their false peace would be effectually disturbed and
they would begin to cry with earnestness, what
shall we do to be saved?
How shall we escape the wrath to come?
It is for these reasons, my careless hearers,
and not to gratify myself that I call
your attention to this subject.
It is much more for your interest than
it can be for mine that you should
entertain just views respecting it.
Let me then hope for your attention while
I endeavor to show you from the word
of God what your situation actually is.
What are the obstacles which oppose your escape
and which render it highly improbable that you
will escape final condemnation.
In the first place, permit me to remind
you that you are even now under sentence
of condemnation.
You are already doomed to eternal death by
the righteous law of God.
This is a truth which persons of your
character are ever apt to forget.
Many who assent to the fact that sinners
will be condemned at the judgment day do
not seem to be aware that they are
condemned already.
Yet nothing can be more certain.
On this point, the declarations of scripture are
explicit and full.
They assure us that all have sinned, that
the wages of sin is death, that the
soul that sinneth shall die, that sinners are
under the curse or condemnatory sentence of God's
violated law, that he who believeth not is
condemned already, and that the wrath of God
abideth on him.
This being the case, it is evident, unless
the execution of this sentence can be averted,
unless you can obtain pardon of your offended
God, you must perish forever.
But the inspired writers assure us with one
voice that the execution of this sentence cannot
be averted, that pardon cannot be obtained without
the exercise of repentance and faith in Christ.
On these terms alone salvation is offered, and
if we neglect them, there is no escape.
Now that you may exercise repentance and faith
or become truly religious, several things are necessary,
each of which is attended with very great
difficulties.
It is necessary that you should be roused
from that careless, secure state in which all
men naturally live, that you should see religion
to be all-important and thus be led
to attend it with earnestness.
To use the language of inspiration, you must
be awakened, for with respect to your spiritual
and eternal interests, you are asleep.
Now it is evident that no man will
attend seriously to religion unless he sees it
to be an object of importance.
No man will exert himself to escape a
danger which he does not perceive.
No man will think seriously of flying from
the wrath to come until he sees that
he is exposed to this wrath.
And it is equally evident that no man
who, in a spiritual sense, is asleep, will
see that he is exposed to this wrath
until he is roused from his slumbers, until
he becomes awake to eternal realities.
Of this, your own experience and observation must
convince you.
You cannot but know that religion does not
appear in your view to be all-important,
that you do not perceive yourselves to be
exposed to the wrath of God.
And you know also that so long as
this continues to be the case, you will
make no exertions to escape it.
You cannot but be sensible that should you
live a hundred years in your present state
of religious indifference and insensibility, you would not
advance a single step towards preparation for death,
nor make one effort to become truly religious.
It is then evidently necessary that you should
be roused from this spiritual lethargy to a
sense of your danger.
Your slumbers must be disturbed, your dreams of
security and of worldly happiness must be banished,
and you must awake to the realities of
the eternal world, awake to a conviction that
religion is the one thing needful and that
without it you must perish forever.
Until this is done, nothing can be done.
Until this is done, you will no more
take one step towards heaven than a man
buried in sleep will commence a journey.
But to rouse you from this slumbering, careless
state, to fix your attention on religious subjects
is exceedingly difficult.
Of this, too, your own experience may convince
you.
The speaker has been laboring for many years
to affect this object by every means in
his power, but with how little success, you
well know.
Nay more.
God has long been using means to rouse
you.
He has called you, Awake, thou that sleepest.
Rise up, ye that are at ease.
Be troubled, ye careless ones.
Woe to them that are at ease in
Zion.
He has enforced attention to these calls by
the dispensations of his providence.
He has sent mercies and afflictions.
Many of you he has visited with sickness
and thus brought you near to the eternal
world, and he has caused all of you
to witness in repeated instances the death of
friends and acquaintance, but all in vain.
You still slumber on and dream of worldly
objects while death is daily approaching to hurry
you to the bar of God.
You still feel a strong unwillingness to have
your false peace disturbed and to commence a
religious life.
To every messenger of God, to every friendly
monitor, you reply, I pray thee, have me
excused.
A little more sleep, a little more slumber,
a little more folding of the hands to
sleep.
Here, then, is one great difficulty which opposes
your conversion.
And is there not great reason to fear
that it will prove insuperable?
Does it not render your conversion and consequently
your escape from final condemnation highly improbable?
Since you have already lived so many years
without becoming religious and even without being persuaded
to make it an object of earnest attention,
is it not probable that you will continue
to live in the same manner till death
arrives, especially since all means have been tried
in vain and no new means remain to
be employed?
But this is not all.
That you may escape final condemnation, it is
necessary not only that you should be roused
to think seriously of religion, but that you
should be induced to pursue it with constancy
and perseverance.
You must be awakened and you must be
kept awake.
And the latter is the more difficult thing.
For though it is by no means easy
to rouse you to a sense of your
situation, it is far more difficult to prevent
you from relapsing into a state of spiritual
slumber.
The very air of this world has a
drowsy effect and there is a strong and
constant propensity in the human heart to lose
all serious impressions and to become careless and
indifferent, respecting its eternal interests.
Besides, religion is always disagreeable to men when
they first make it a subject of attention.
They cannot then embrace its promises.
They know nothing of its divine consolations.
They see nothing in the Bible but a
system of restrictions and threatenings and penalties.
It requires them to renounce the objects which
they love and gives them nothing in return.
Every page seems to impose on them some
duty which they are unwilling to perform or
requires of them some sacrifice which they are
unwilling to make or denounces against them some
threatening which they are unwilling to believe.
Hence, they are strongly tempted to withdraw from
it their attention and return to their former
careless state.
Hence, scarcely one in five of those who
are roused from their slumbers can be prevented
from again falling asleep, though to sleep is
to perish.
Here again we may appeal to your own
observation and experience.
Many of you have at different times been
roused from your natural state of careless security.
You have been made to see that religion
is important.
You have felt something of the powers of
the world to come and resolved to attend
to your eternal interests.
But no sooner were these impressions made than
they began to be effaced.
In a few days or at most in
a few weeks they were entirely gone and
your slumbers became more profound than before.
Similar effects of this propensity to lose serious
impressions you have often witnessed in others.
How many in this assembly have you seen
attending to religion for a while with earnestness
and then again treating it with entire neglect?
Now this propensity remains in your breasts in
its full force and it will forever oppose
all persevering attempts to become religious.
Here then is another great obstacle which opposes
your conversion.
And when you consider how great it is
when you reflect on the instability of your
religious views on the proneness of your thoughts
to wander from religious subjects even while in
the house of God does it not appear
highly improbable even to yourselves that you shall
ever be the subjects of permanent religious impressions?
That you shall ever be induced to pursue
religion with that fixedness of purpose, that intensity
of feeling and that persevering diligence which alone
can secure success.
Does it not appear exceedingly probable that you
will continue to live as you have done,
making resolutions but delaying their accomplishment until your
day of grace comes to an end and
the sentence of final condemnation is executed upon
you.
Should you however be enabled to overcome these
obstacles others still greater will oppose your progress.
With whatever diligence and perseverance you may attend
to religious subjects, it will avail nothing unless
you obtain proper views of your own characters.
Or to use the language of scripture unless
you are convinced of sin.
For no man will seek to escape the
condemning sentence of God's law unless he fears
it.
No man will fear it unless he sees
that he deserves it.
And no man will see that he deserves
it unless he sees himself to be not
only a sinner but a great sinner, such
a sinner as the Bible asserts him to
be.
Besides, no man can repent of his sins
until he is convinced of them.
And we have already seen that without repentance
there is no pardon.
A deep and thorough conviction of your own
sinfulness then is indispensably necessary to your salvation.
But to produce such a conviction in your
minds is one of the most difficult things
imaginable.
It is always exceedingly difficult to convince a
man against his will, to convince him of
any unwelcome or disagreeable truth.
And the more disagreeable any truth is, so
much the more difficult it becomes to produce
a conviction of it.
How difficult it is, for instance, to convince
a consumptive man of his danger.
How difficult to make men sensible of their
own faults.
Or to make fond and injudicious parents see
the faults of their children.
But there is no truth more disagreeable to
man, none therefore of which they are so
unwilling to be convinced, as that which asserts
their exceeding sinfulness.
To see their sins as mortifying, as painful,
as alarming.
They will therefore shut their eyes against the
sight as long as possible.
Many sins they will deny themselves to be
guilty of.
What they cannot deny, they will extenuate.
And for those which they cannot extenuate, they
will make a thousand excuses.
If the fallacy of one excuse is shown,
they will fly to another, and from that
to a third and fourth.
And when all their pleas and excuses are
answered, they will return and urge them all
a second time, with as much confidence as
at first.
But this is not all.
The scriptures teach, and observation proves, that one
effect of men's sinfulness is to make them
blind to their own sins.
It prevents men from forming clear conceptions of
the rule of duty, that is, the law
of God.
Sin consists in a transgression of this law,
and so long as men have indistinct conceptions
of it, they will of course have very
imperfect views of their transgressions.
Sin too renders men in a great degree
insensible to the perfections, the authority, and even
to the existence of God.
And therefore they see little of the criminality
of offending Him.
Besides, sin impairs and almost destroys the sensibility
of conscience, and thus prevents her from perceiving
and reproving what is wrong in our temper
and conduct.
These remarks we see daily verified in our
intercourse with the world.
We often see the most abandoned characters entirely
blind to their own views.
We see that the longer men persist in
vicious courses, the more insensible they become to
the voice of conscience.
It is the same with respect to those
sins of the heart of which you were
all, my careless hearers, guilty, and of which
you must be convinced or perish.
It is even more difficult to see these
sins in ourselves than it is to perceive
those which are open and gross.
Hence, the exclamation of the psalmist, who can
understand his errors?
Hence, too, we find multitudes of sinners mentioned
by the inspired writers who, when reproved by
God's messengers for their sins, boldly replied, What
is our iniquity, and what is our sin
that we have transgressed against the Lord?
When he said, Ye have despised my name,
they replied, Wherein have we despised it?
When he said, Ye have robbed God, they
did not fear to reply, Wherein have we
robbed thee?
And when he charged them with uttering impious
language, they asked, What have we spoken against
thee?
Now, since human nature is the same in
every age, and since it can thus impudently
repel the charges of God himself, how exceedingly
difficult, or rather how impossible must it be
for us to convince you that you were
sinful in that degree which the Bible describes?
Here, as before, we may appeal to your
own experience.
You know the Scriptures assert in the most
unequivocal terms that the hearts of men are
full of evil, that they are desperately wicked,
that they are enmity against God.
Yet these assertions do not convince you that
your hearts are thus sinful.
What then will ever convince you of it?
God will give you no new revelation of
the fact, and his ministers can say nothing
more than you have already heard hundreds of
times.
And yet you must be convinced of it,
or your condemnation is certain.
Here, then, is another, and apparently an insuperable
obstacle which opposes your escape, and which renders
it exceedingly improbable that you ever will escape
final condemnation.
But suppose all these difficulties removed.
Suppose, though there is little ground for the
supposition, that by some means or other you
should be made sensible of your sins.
Still, new obstacles, no less insurmountable, remain to
oppose your salvation.
Every sinner, when convinced of his sinfulness and
danger, invariably asks deliverance in a way in
which it cannot be obtained.
He relies upon his own watchfulness, strength, and
exertions to subdue his sinful propensities, and upon
his own prayers, tears, and merits to obtain
the pardon of his sins.
In the language of an apostle, he goes
about to establish his own righteousness, and does
not submit to the righteousness of God.
Disregarding our Savior's assertion, without me ye can
do nothing, he attempts to do everything without
obtaining by faith the assistance of Christ.
He says, I am the way, the truth,
and the life.
No man cometh to the Father but by
me.
Yet still the convicted but misguided sinner will
endeavor to come to God and to obtain
his favor without Christ.
And though he is assured that without the
teaching of God's good spirit, he never will
be able to understand the Scriptures, he will
not humbly pray for this teaching, but endeavor
to ascertain their meaning by his own unassisted
researches.
These errors, if persisted in, prove fatal.
The man is soon bewildered and lost and
never finds the way to heaven.
For we are taught that the Scriptures make
men wise to salvation only through faith in
Christ Jesus.
Agreeably, the apostle, speaking of such characters, says
they followed after righteousness, but they have not
attained to righteousness.
Wherefore?
Because they sought it not by faith, but
by the works of the law.
For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
At the same stumbling stone, multitudes have ever
since continued to stumble and fall to rise
no more.
After laboring a while to establish their own
righteousness, as the apostle expresses it, they begin
to fancy that they have succeeded.
They become pleased and satisfied with themselves and
imagine that all is safe.
Their alarm subsides, their religious zeal declines, and
they settle down upon a false foundation, never
to be disturbed till the day in which
God shall come to sweep away their refuge
of lies and overflow, as with a flood,
their hiding place.
Others fall into a mistake of a different
nature, but no less fatal.
Eager to obtain relief from their guilty fears
and apprehensions, and yet unwilling to obtain it
by the exercise of repentance and faith in
Christ, they daily seek for the application of
some promise, or for some change in their
own feelings, which shall encourage a hope that
their sins are forgiven.
What they thus earnestly seek, they are almost
sure to find.
They are powerfully, but transiently affected by some
promise, or encouraging portion of Scripture.
Like the stony ground hearers, they receive it
with joy.
They consider this joy as a proof of
their conversion, and sit down satisfied that now
they are safe.
But they are deceived, fatally deceived.
They have no root in themselves, and therefore
endure but for a time, and in a
season of temptation fall away.
My careless hearers, if you would know how
many are thus deceived and perish, look at
this church, or at any other church of
Christ.
See how many there are who, after professing
to be converted, and appearing joyful and zealous
for a time, lose everything of religion except
the name, and a little of the outward
form.
Yet all these persons have surmounted the first
two great difficulties mentioned above.
They had been roused from their slumbers, and
they had been convinced of their sins.
But in consequence of that strong propensity which
is natural to all men, to neglect the
guide provided by God, they only escaped one
snare, to be entangled in another equally fatal.
The same propensity exists with equal force in
your breasts.
Should you then be roused to think seriously
of religion, nay, should you be convinced of
your sins, still it is exceedingly probable that,
like them, you would go about to establish
your own righteousness, or be fatally deceived by
a false conversion.
If you think this improbable, if you say
within yourselves, we would be more wise and
more cautious, it only proves that you were
under the influence of a self-confident spirit,
which would infallibly plunge you into these very
snares.
But suppose you should be preserved from these
snares, that you should be enabled to surmount
all the difficulties which have been mentioned.
There would still remain another obstacle, which would
alone be sufficient to render your conversion altogether
improbable.
This is a sinful, hard, unbelieving heart, which
is full of enmity against God and of
opposition to His truth, and which will never
believe or submit to God until its enmity
and opposition are taken away.
This you do not at present perceive.
No sinner perceives it until he has been
convinced of his sinfulness and danger, till he
sees that his own exertions cannot save him,
and till the true character of God and
of His law is clearly brought to his
view.
Until this is done, he always fancies that
he has some love to God, and that
he sincerely desires to please Him.
But when he sees what God is, and
what He requires, then this long concealed opposition
never fails to burst forth.
And the sinner finds his heart, instead of
submitting to God, filled with dislike of His
character and of His law.
It will not repent.
It will not believe in Christ.
For we are assured that every sinner hates
the light, and will not come to it.
Finding the light then unpleasant, the convinced sinner,
if left to himself, makes a desperate effort,
shuts his eyes against it, returns to his
former state, and probably plunges into infidelity, or
some other error equally fatal.
Thus it was with many during our Savior's
residence on earth.
They followed Him so long and so constantly
that they considered themselves as His disciples, and
are so called by an inspired writer.
But on a certain occasion, our Savior brought
clearly to their view some of those truths
which are peculiarly disagreeable to a sinful heart.
The consequence was that they forsook Him forever.
In a similar manner, I have known many
go back and perish after they seem to
have almost reached the entrance of the way
of life.
I have seen them sensible that they were
the chief of sinners, fully convinced that everlasting
misery would be their portion unless they repented
and embraced the Savior, and assenting to the
truth that He was able and willing to
save them.
I have seen them in the state for
several days, unutterably distressed by a sense of
guilt and fear of God's wrath, while their
understandings and consciences waged an ineffectual war with
their obdurate hearts and made vain attempts to
subdue them.
At length, their hearts gained a fatal victory.
Their conviction of the truth was banished.
The voice of conscience was silenced, and they
returned to their former courses, and their last
state became sevenfold worse than the first.
The same obstacle, my careless hearers, will oppose
your salvation with a strength and violence of
which you can at present form no conception.
Terrible proofs of its power I have often
witnessed when attending the sinner's dying bed.
I have seen them when they knew that
their disease was mortal and that they had
but a few days to live, fully convinced
that hell would be their portion unless they
repented, agonizing in view of their approaching fate,
expressing no doubt that the Savior was ready
to receive them if they would apply to
Him with sincerity, and yet refusing to apply
to Him, and at last dying in despair
rather than accept on these terms His offered
grace.
While I have been holding up to their
view, the power, the compassion, and love of
the Savior, His precious promises, and His readiness
to receive all who come to Him, they
have replied, Yes, it is all true, but
my hard, wicked, unbelieving heart will not repent,
will not believe, will not pray.
I can repeat prayers with my lips, but
my heart feels them not.
O my hearers, how great, how insuperable must
be the obstacle which in such circumstances as
these can prevent a sinner from accepting salvation
on the terms of the gospel.
Whether you now believe it or not, O
sinner, the same obstacle opposes your salvation, and
you will one day be convinced of it.
I might easily proceed to mention other obstacles
which render your escape from final condemnation improbable,
for it would require a volume to enumerate
them all.
I have said nothing of the fascinating power
of worldly objects, nothing of the contagious influence
of evil example, nothing of the strong current
of prevailing customs and prejudices which must be
stemmed, nothing of the chain which long-continued
habits of sinning have thrown over you, nothing
of the many deceivers who will spread snares
for your feet and cry peace when there
is no peace, nothing of the sophistical arguments
which will be employed to overthrow your conviction
of the truth, nothing of the temptations to
neglect religion which will daily assail you on
the right hand and on the left, nothing
of that great adversary who, as inspiration informs
us, keeps your hearts like a strong man
armed and is not to be cast out
of them, but by a stronger than he.
But the obstacles which I have mentioned are
surely sufficient to render it exceedingly improbable that
you will escape final condemnation.
And remember that all these obstacles are of
such a nature as to furnish you with
no excuse.
They all originate in your own sinful carelessness,
presumption, and opposition to the truth.
There are no obstacles on the part of
God or of the Savior.
It is your hearts, it is yourselves, which
place all these mountains in the path to
heaven.
And now, my careless hearers, would it answer
any purpose I could sit down and weep
in anguish over the picture I have drawn,
or rather which the pencil of inspired truth
has drawn of your situation?
To see immortal souls thus situated, to see
their way to life thus blocked up by
their own folly and sinfulness, to see so
many powerful causes combining, to thrust them down
to endless, remedy-less ruin, is a sight
over which even angels might weep.
Nay more, it is a sight over which
the Lord of angels has wept with unavailing
compassion.
Do any of you reply, It cannot be
that our situation is so terrible, so dangerous,
so nearly desperate as has now been represented.
Why, then, do the scriptures of truth describe
it as such?
Why were all the inspired messengers whom God
has ever sent to men so much alarmed
and distressed by the situation of their hearers?
Why did one cry, Oh, that my head
were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of
tears, that I might weep day and night
on their account?
Why did another exclaim, I have great heaviness
and continual sorrow in my heart, for I
could wish that I myself were accursed from
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to
the flesh?
Nay more, why is there joy in heaven?
Why do angels rejoice over every sinner who
repents?
They must be perfectly acquainted with the situation,
and did they not see it to be
dangerous, awfully dangerous?
They never would think his escape from it
by repentance an occasion of such joy.
Oh, then, believe not your own deceitful hearts,
but believe the angels, believe the scriptures, believe
God, believe the Savior when he tells you
straight is the gate, and narrow the way
which leadeth unto life, and few there be
who find it, if you will not believe
all these witnesses.
If you refuse to pay any attention to
this warning, it will furnish another proof of
the greatness of those obstacles which oppose your
salvation, and of the improbability of your escape.
I have no hope of ever being able
to set before you truths more alarming, more
adapted to rouse you from your slumbers than
those which have now been exhibited.
The word of God contains nothing more alarming,
and did you really believe it, the archangels
trump would not rouse you more effectually than
these truths, and shall they not rouse you?
Will you still sit unconcerned on the verge
of the abyss with the wrath of God
abiding on you while you are so far
from safety, while so long and difficult a
journey is before you, while precipitous mountains rise,
and deep gulfs sink, and powerful enemies lie
in ambush, and numberless snares are spread between
you and heaven?
Will you sit thus, and lose the precious
hours while the night of death is approaching,
while the shadows of evening are already stealing
upon some of you, and while none of
you is sure of a week or a
day?
O ye gay, thoughtless triflers, is this a
situation for carelessness and gaiety?
O ye who are laboring to be rich,
is this the place in which you would
lay up treasure?
O ye immortal spirits, condemned already, and hastening
to hear the confirmation of your sentence at
the tribunal of God, can you find nothing
more important than the trifles which now engross
your attention?
If you have not cast off all regard
to God's word, if you are not infidels
in theory as well as in practice, you
cannot, methinks, contemplate with perfect indifference the view
which has been given of your situation.
You cannot feel perfectly at ease while you
hear it clearly proved from the scriptures that
there is very little probability of your escaping
final condemnation.
If you are in any degree roused from
your slumbers, one great obstacle is removed.
But remember that it may easily return.
Consider how easily the present impression may be
effaced, how soon it may be lost, and
how much more dangerous your situation will then
be.
Welcome every serious thought, then, as you would
welcome an angel from heaven.
Cherish it as the apple of your eye,
nay as your own soul.
Avoid everything which tends to banish it.
Dread more than death its departure.
Repair to every place in which your serious
impressions may be strengthened, and use with earnest
diligence and solicitude every means which may increase
them.
Remember that your soul, your eternal all, is
at stake.
That the question to be decided is whether
you shall spend your eternity in heaven or
in hell, and that at present it is
exceedingly probable the latter will be your portion.
Do any reply.
The difficulties to be surmounted are so great,
and the probability of our surmounting them so
small, that we have no courage to make
the attempt.
It will therefore be best to give ourselves
no concern respecting it, but to enjoy life
while we can.
And do you thus talk of enjoyment in
such a situation, and while exposed to such
a fate as this?
Well may we say of such enjoyment, it
is madness.
It is far more irrational and preposterous than
the mirth of criminals confined in a dungeon,
and doomed to die, who attempt to drown
their fears by noise and intoxication.
There is no necessity for your adopting this
desperate resolution.
Though your destruction is probable, it is not
yet certain, and nothing but your own folly
can make it so.
It would indeed be certain the obstacles before
you would be insurmountable were there not an
almighty, sovereign helper who can assist you to
overcome them, and who is ready to afford
you assistance.
While therefore you justly despair of saving yourselves,
go to him and implore his help.
Go and tell him that you have ruined
yourselves by disobeying him, that you have raised
impassable mountains between yourselves and heaven, that you
do not deserve his assistance, that you are
justly condemned already, and merit nothing but eternal
condemnation.
This, however, which is the only safe course,
I fear your sinful hearts will not consent
to pursue.
I fear that however you may now feel,
you will dismiss your serious thoughts and banish
the subject from your minds almost as soon
as you leave this house.
This I cannot prevent.
My arm is too weak to draw you
out of that fatal current which is rapidly
sweeping you away to destruction.
I can only sit on the bank and
weep as I contemplate the increasing strength of
the current, and breathe out in agony cries
to that God who alone can rescue you
from its power and prevent it from hurrying
you into that bottomless gulf in which it
terminates.
And come, you my Christian hearers, come all
who have been rescued from this fatal current,
all who can feel compassion for perishing immortals.
Come and assist in crying to him for
help.
That you may be excited to this, look
at the scene before you.
Look around and see how many of your
children, acquaintances and friends are swept away towards
perdition while they sleep and know it not.
And no voice but that of God can
rouse them.
Do you know whither they are hastening?
Do you know what hell is?
Do you consider how improbable it is that
they will escape its condemnation?
Do you consider that unless grace prevents, they
will in a few years be lifting up
their eyes in torment and despair?
Surely if you know and consider these things,
one universal cry of God have mercy upon
them will burst from every Christian heart.