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Suffer me a little to expostulate with you on God’s behalf, and on your own soul’s behalf. Why, in your peculiar day of grace, do you indulge such ignorance of Jehovah and His law, of Jesus and His salvation, and of their necessity and usefulness to you? Why indulge such contempt and unbelief of the gospel of the grace of God? Why encourage and promote such desperate hardness of heart? Why cherish such superlative attachment to the perishing pleasures and profits of sin and sense? Why cultivate such malice and enmity against Jesus Christ, and His Father and blessed Spirit, as to make light of, and neglect His infinitely precious, necessary, and great salvation? Oh! that you but felt “the word of God quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of your soul and spirit, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart.” O! that ye but knew the infinite sinfulness which is in, and on you, and the infinite and everlasting misery which awaits you! Oh! that you would believe God’s infallible declarations of the absolute necessity of His supernatural change of your state and nature, Except ye be converted, born of the Spirit, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature: all old things are passed away, and all things are become new. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Putting off the old man, with his deceitful lusts, and putting on the new man, which, after God, is created in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, ye must, as new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: for, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. O that ye but knew the riches of the glory of the gospel, which is Christ in you the hope of glory; that ye but apprehended, with all saints, what is the “breadth and length, and height, and knew the power and the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.”
O think! with astonishment think, what kind preparations God hath made for your everlasting salvation; how He “so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him, might not perish, but have everlasting life;” how He set Him up from everlasting, as our surety; how, in His incarnation, He brought Him into this world in the likeness of sinful flesh, how He made Him under the law, and exacted from Him all the infinite debt of obedience and suffering due from us, that He might redeem us that were under the law; how He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we, who knew nothing but sin, might be made the righteousness of God in Him; how He made Him a curse for us, that we might be blessed in Him with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places; how He put Him to grief, to death for us, that we might live through Him; how He delivered Him for our offences, and raised Him again for our justification; gave Him glory for Himself, and unbounded fulness of gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious, that our faith and hope might be in God; and how He hath made Him to us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption! And O with application think, with what compassionate tenderness, Jehovah, by all His promises and threatenings, by all His mercies and judgments, by all His ordinances and ministers, by all your needs in time and eternity, calls, and expostulates with you, to receive Himself, and His full and everlasting salvation offered to you in the gospel, freely, without money, and without price!
Alas! my dear young friends, why are you so prone to comply with every temptation of Satan, your destroyer; every enticement of your vain companions; every suggestion of your foolish and wicked heart, and yet so deaf, so averse to the most earnest entreaties of the great God your Saviour? Do they love you more, or will they, or can they do more for your everlasting welfare, than He? Why, by your ready compliance with every thing ruinous, do you labour to pull down everlasting destruction upon your own heads?
Nay, my beloved friends, whom I wish for my joy and crown in the day of the Lord, when so much of the best of your time is already spent in vanity, when death, judgment, and eternity hasten to meet you; why should you delay your concern about your eternal salvation one moment longer? Why defer coming to an infinitely gracious Redeemer, to the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin?” Why delay, when called from darkness to God’s marvellous light; called to receive “redemption through Jesus’ blood, to receive out of His fulness, and grace for grace; called to the fellowship of God’s Son, called to be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ? Why lose another year, another month, another hour, another moment, without the enjoyment, the infinitely sweet enjoyment of God in Christ, as your father, friend, and portion? Why ruin yourselves, when a kingdom which cannot be moved, is offered unto you? Why, to render your eternal damnation more certain and more dreadful, and your way of escape more difficult, should you remain among carnal companions, and filthy lusts, when Jesus is lifting up His voice, and crying, “whosoever will, let him come unto me. Come unto me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. Behold, I stand at the door of thine heart and knock; open to me, my sister, my love, for my head is filled with the dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.” When you hasten from outward danger, why not make haste to Jesus, the refuge, the hope set before you? When He saith, to-day, if ye will hear my voice, harden not your hearts; now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation: why should you say to-morrow, when He waits to be gracious, and exalteth Himself to shew mercy; why tire out His patience till He shut up all His tender mercies in His wrath? It is a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
Lord Jesus, make haste to convince, to convert, to save the rising generation in Britain. They perish, they perish! O Redeemer, make no tarrying. Now be an accepted time, now be a day of salvation. Save now, O Lord; we beseech Thee, send now prosperity.