A Call to the Unconverted, Doctrine 6
Doct 6. The Lord condescendeth to reason the case with Vnconverted sinners, and to ask them why they will die?
A strange Disputation it is, both as to the Controversie, and as to the Disputants. 1. The Controversie or Question propounded to dispute of, is, Why wicked men will damn themselves? Or, Why they will rather die then Turn? Whether they have any sufficient reason for so doing?
2. The Disputants are God and * man: the most Holy God, and wicked unconverted sinners.
1. Is it not a strange Thing which God doth seem here to suppose, that any man should be willing to die, and be damned? Yea that this should be the case of all the wicked; that is, of the greatest part of the world; but you will say, This cannot be; for nature desireth the preservation and felicity of it self, and the wicked are more selfish then others, and not less; and therefore how can any man be willing to be damned?
To which I answer, 1. It is a certain Truth. that no man can be willing of any evil as evil, but only as …t hath some appearance of good; much less can any man be willing to be eternally tormented. Misery as such is desired by none. 2. But yet for all that it is most true which God here teacheth us, that the cause why the wicked die and are damned, is because they will die and be damned. And this is true in several respects.
1. Because they will go the way that leads to Hell; though they are told by God and man, whether it goes, and where it ends; and though God hath so often professed in his word, that if they hold on in that way, they shall be condemned: and that they shall not be saved unless they Turn. Isa. 48.22. & 57.21. There is no Peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.] Isa. 59 8. The way of Peace they know not; there is no Iudgement in their goings; They have made them crooked paths: Whosoever goeth therein shall not know Peace.] They have the word and the Oath of the living God for it; that if they will not Turn, they shall not enter into his Rest. And yet wicked they are, and wicked they will be, let God and man say what they will; Fleshly they are, and fleshly they will be: Worldlings they are, and Worldlings they will be: though God hath told them that the Love of the world is enmity to God, and that if any man love the world, (in that measure) the love of the Father is not in him, James 4.4. 1 John 2.15. so that consequentially these men are willing to be damned, though not directly: They are willing of the way to Hell, and Love the certain cause of their torment, though they be not willing of Hell it self, and do not love the pain which they must endure.
Is not this the Truth of your case Sirs? You would not burn in Hell: But you will kindle the fire by your sin, and cast your selves into it: you would not be tormented with Devils for ever; But you will do that which will certainly procure it, in despite of all that can be said against it. It is just as if you would say, I will drink this rats-bane, or other poison, but yet I will not die. I will cast my self headlong from the top of a steeple, but yet I will not kill my self; I will thrust this knife into my heart, but yet I will not take away my life. I will put this fire into the thatch of my house, but yet I will not burn it. Just so it is with wicked men; they will be wicked; and they will live after the flesh and the world, and yet they would not be damned. But do you not know that the means do lead unto the end? and that God hath by his righteous Law concluded that you must repent or perish? He that will take poyson, may as well say plainly, I will kill my self: for it will prove no better in the end: Though perhaps he loved it for the sweetness of the Sugar that was mixt with it, and would not be perswaded that it was poyson, but that he might take it and do well enough: But it is not his conceits, and confidence, that will save his life. So if you will be Drunkards, or Fornicators, or worldlings, or live after the flesh, you may as well say plainly, we will be damned: For so you shall be unless you Turn; would you not rebuke the folly of a thief or murderer, that would say, [I will steall, and kill, but I will not be hanged,] when he knows that if he do the one, the Judge in justice will see that the other be done? If he say, I will steal and murder, he may as well say plainly, I will be hanged. So if you will go on in a carnal life, you may as well say plainly, we will go to Hell.
2. Moreover, The wicked will not use those means, without which there is no hope of their Salvation: He that will not eat, may as well say plainly he will not live, unless he can tell how to live without meat; He that will not go his journey, may as well say plainly, he will not come to the end. He that falls into the water and will not come out, nor suffer another to help him out, may as well say plainly he will be drowned; So if you be carnal and ungodly, and will not be converted, nor use the means by which you should be converted, but think it more ado then needs, you may as well say plainly, you will be damned. For if you have found out a way to be saved without Conversion, you have done that which never was done before.
3. Yea, this is not all, but the wicked are unwilling, even of salvation it self. Though they may desire somewhat which they call by the name of Heaven, yet Heaven it self, considered in the true nature of the felicity, they desire not: Yea their hearts are quite against it. Heaven is a state of perfect holiness, and of continual Love, and Praise to God, And the wicked have no heart to this. The imperfect Love, and Praise, and holiness which is here to be attained, they have no mind of: Much less of that which is so much greater. The joyes of Heaven are of so pure and spiritual a nature, that the heart of the wicked cannot truly desire them.
So that by this time you may see on what ground it is that God supposeth that the wicked are willing of their own destruction: They will not turn, though they must Turn or die, they will rather venture on certain misery, then be converted; and then to quiet themselves in their sin, they will make themselves believe that they shall nevertheless escape.
2. And as the Controversie is matter of wonder (that ever men should be such enemies to themselves, as wilfully to cast away their souls) so are the Disputants too. That God should stoop so low, as thus to plead the case with man; and that man should be so strangely blind and obstinate, as to need all this in so plain a case, yea and to resist all this, when their own salvation lieth upon the issue.
No wonder if they will not hear us that are men, when they will not hear the Lord himself. As God saith, Ezek. 3.7. when he sent the Prophet to the Israelites, [The house of Israel will not hearken unto thee: For they will not hearken unto me; For all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.] No wonder if they can plead against a Minister, or a godly Neighbour, when they will plead against the Lord himself, even against the plainest passages of his word, and think that they have Reason on their side. When they weary the Lord with their words, they say, wherein have we wearied him? Mal. 2.17. The Priests that despised his name, durst ask, Wherein have we despised thy name? And when they polluted his Altar, and made the Table of the Lord contemp…ible, they durst say Wherein have we polluted thee? Mal. 1.6, 7. But, [Wo unto him (saith the Lord) that striveth with his Maker! Let the Potsheards strive with the Potsheards of the earth; Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it; What makest thou?] Isa. 45.9.
Quest. But why is it that God will reason the Cause with man?
Answ. 1. Because that man being a reasonable creature, is accordingly to be dealt with, and by Reason to be perswaded and overcome. God hath therefore endued them with Reason, that they might use it for him. One would think a reasonable creature should not go against the clearest and greatest Reason in the world, when it is set before him.
2. At least men shall see that God did require nothing of them that was unreasonable; but that whatever he commandeth them, and whatever he forbiddeth them, he hath all the right Reason in the world on his side; and they have good Reason to obey him; but none to disobey. And thus even the damned shall be forced to justifie God. and confess that it was but Reason that they should have turned to him; and they shall be forced to condemn themselves, and confess that they had little reason to cast away themselves by the neglecting of his Grace in the day of their visitation.