By the late REV. LACHLAN MACKENZIE, Lochcarron.
JEREMIAH ix. 9: “Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
YOU all know, my friends, the occasion of this meeting. This is a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer. We all profess to come here to deprecate the wrath of God and implore His mercy to our souls. And if we are in earnest we can tell you from the Word of God that there is very great cause. The Scriptures were writ for the instruction of the Church in all ages, and the sins which have brought judgments upon the Jews and upon guilty Jerusalem will bring similar vengeance upon all guilty nations to the end of the world. There is a natural connection between sin and misery, for the one will always produce the other. In speaking upon these words, I shall—
- Point out to you some of the crying sins that draw down the vengeance of God upon nations, families, and individuals.
- I shall prove to you by several arguments that God absolutely will punish, and must punish, such crying abominations.
Lastly—Make some practical improvement.
I. I am to point out to you some of the crying sins that bring down the vengeance of God upon nations, families and individuals. It is the Word that points out to us the nature and the danger of sin. Among other portions of Scripture that speak of
great sins we may consult the 5th, 7th and 9th of Jeremiah, and 20th and 22nd of Ezekiel. In the black list the prophets mention the following:—(1) Uncleanness, (2) False swearing, (3) Sabbath-breaking, (4) Covetousness. In pointing out the branches of these shocking sins I shall show you their awful danger and horrible nature.
(1) The prophets mention the awful sin of uncleanness in several of its branches. The nature of this sin, whether fornication or adultery, may point out its horrid danger and its great hurt both in a spiritual and temporal view. In a spiritual view it brings death and damnation to the soul, for the house of the strumpet is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. “A whore is a deep ditch; he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein.” The man that committeth lewdness destroyeth his own soul and prepareth himself for the lake of fire and brimstone. This sin hardens the heart, blinds the mind, and stupifies the conscience. And what makes it particularly awful is that few of those who go on in a course of uncleanness ever returned to God. When the practice of sin becomes a second nature it is not only grace but a miracle of grace that converts them. It perfectly makes a fool of the sinner, for he laughs at the threatenings of God, and in return for this God will laugh at his distress in death and at the terrible judgment, because he did not take warning from the Word. And he likewise endangers the souls of others, for his bad example may ruin them for ever. He may likewise destroy the souls of those who knew his bad practices and conceal his crimes, for by doing so the Psalmist informs us that they participate in his wickedness. Let us pursue this thought a little further. His unlawful brood may be hid from the world, and a poor man, unknown to him, may come under the vows of baptism for the bastard of another, and what is still more awful, the adulterer may be the cause of the brother marrying his own sister. Can we, then, suppose that the God Who sees all this will pass it without punishment? The sin of uncleanness makes the heart a sink of filthy thought and this nauseous quagmire will drown all serious impression and thoughts of eternity from his view; and as this sin is hurtful to the soul, it also hurts his temporal interest. This sin is an enemy to the health; he defiles his body as well as his soul. It often brings on disease and premature old age. As it hurts his character, it will effectually hurt his family. It is well known that men of virtue will naturally avoid such connections as they avoid the pestilence, for what can be expected from the nest of the raven but a bird like the parent. And even should the children be virtuous, how difficult to make the world believe that this can be the case. Scripture positively assures us that the seed of the wicked will not be removed. Adulterers often give their strumpets the very portions which they ought to give their children of lawful wedlock. And if a person points out the bastard brother or sister to the lawful child, this must greatly vex him, unless his soul is darkened with the crimes of his father.
And to conclude this awful, shocking picture, this sin is often accompanied with murder! How often do mothers take poisonous draughts to hide their shame? But if you wish to get a complete sight of the picture come in to the dying chamber of the unclean person and look at him one-half hour before he goes to hell.
(2) Another of the awful sins mentioned is false swearing. A false oath is such a horrid profanation of God’s holy name that Himself says He will not hold them guiltless. He is not like the false heathen gods of whom their stupid votaries bear witness that they laugh at the perjuries of lovers. God will punish sin, and though perjury is small in the sight of wicked men, it will appear great at the judgment seat. Many of you know how much the King’s revenue is hurt by the false oath of the wicked. And we may complain how much the revenue of the King of Glory suffers by the perjury of wicked parents who solemnly swear to consecrate their children to God, and afterwards bring them up to the devil. But the oath they took is in God’s book of remembrance, and shall be read before men and angels. And we are informed from Scripture that the curse of God will enter into the house of the thief and into the house of the false swearer, and destroy the house with the stores and timber thereof. Let thieves and sinful parents consider this in time.
(3) Another sin that brings the vengeance of God is Sabbath-breaking. The prophet Ezekiel informs us that the profanation of the Sabbath was one of the sins for which God poured out His judgments and His fury upon the Israelites in the wilderness, and yet they had not the Spiritual advantage which we enjoy. God is a jealous God, and He takes note of the breach of the Sabbath. Some people despise the Sabbath so much that they never come to the house of God. It is their day for visiting, for riding, and for idle discourse. God gives them up to awful insensibility and infidel principles as a punishment for their breach of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a sign or love token between God and His people. Now when a woman despises the jewels and love tokens which her husband gave her and bestows them upon another man, she is surely an adulteress. Men of loose principles are afraid of virtuous women, but no libertine is afraid of women that breaks the Sabbath, nor has he cause. It was that same God that said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” that said also, “Remember the Sabbath.” God will hold both guilty.
(4) Covetousness is the great sin that brings down the wrath and curse of God upon guilty nations. It is the fruitful source of many other sins. A certain commentator observes that in one chapter there are twenty-four sins mentioned, but that to covetousness alone might be ascribed the destruction of the City of Jerusalem. It is often the cause of Sabbath-breaking, of oppression, extortion, fraud, perjury, theft, borrowing money without intention to pay it, and every other unlawful means that people take to become rich. They have
no idea how far this sin will carry them. Any kind of animal does not thrive that eats its own species. We reckon them very unnatural that eat men. A certain gentleman fed a sow with swines’ flesh and a dog with dog’s flesh, but the poor animals paid dearly for the experiment. There is surely no man here that would eat man’s flesh. But hear what the Scripture says:—”They eat up my people as they eat bread.” When a man eats up the substance, the field or the money of another and lives at his neighbour’s expense he surely eats his flesh. And the man that does so acts as unnatural a part as the dog that eats the dog’s flesh and the sow that eats the swines’ flesh. The man that brings the curse of God to his house by getting rich in a hurry takes the most effectual method to hurt the temporal interests of his children. He may feed his children with what ought to support and feed the flesh of his poor neighbours. But, it may be asked, what is this man in the sight of God, for he surely devours his brother’s flesh? And we can tell him with certainty that the tears and groans and prayers and complaints of the people whom he oppressed, defrauded, or injured will meet him somewhere. And without restitution he cannot expect admission into the Kingdom of Heaven. And if there are any in this congregation that has been guilty of these awful sins, let him repent, turn to God, and give his own to all that he has injured. He may swallow riches, but his children shall throw them up, and are in danger of begging their bread.
II. I shall prove to you by several arguments that God absolutely will punish, and must punish, such crying abominations. That God will punish and must punish sinners is clear from the following reasons:—
(1) Such sinners rebel against His authority, and though His long suffering and great patience may suffer them for a while, and His providence seems to wink at their crimes. He will show them at last that He was not an indifferent spectator of their conduct. By continuing in sin they defy His power, and God is bound in honour to take vengeance. The long delay will prove that He had no pleasure in the death of sinners, and the punishment will prove that He is the determined enemy of sin.
(2) Sinners, and especially unclean sinners, are enemies to His holiness, and are so foul that they must be excluded from His presence and kingdom. Lepers were formerly excluded from the society of the people of God. They were loathsome to others, and the disease was very afflictive and painful to the lepers themselves. Much more loathsome to God is the unclean sinner. He cannot be admitted into the Kingdom of God, nor can God have communion with him while he continues in sin. And himself must be miserable. The gratification of his passions fixes stings in his conscience. He has
an awful foreboding of what is to come. He stifles convictions because he thinks they torment him before the time, and as his unbelieving heart and guilty conscience tell him that God will not have mercy upon him, he takes his fill of pleasure, and this will make him a vessel of wrath to receive his fill of punishment. He is a slave to his strumpet, he is a slave to her friends, and he is afraid of any man whom he suspects his conduct is known. He is a slave to his very slave. And if his slave should tell him, “Do this, else I will tell all that I know,” he obeys through fear. And does not the purity of God lay him under the necessity of punishing such a man? It does. Scripture says (Psalm 25th) that God hath no pleasure in wickedness, that evil shall not dwell with Him, that the foolish shall not stand in His sight, and that He hateth all the workers of iniquity. In the nature of things the unclean sinner is a burden to himself; he is a burden on the earth, it groaneth under him, and no place is fit for him but that hell to which he is fast approaching.
(3) Divine justice must punish sinners. God is a just God, and He is an enemy to every act of injustice. The worldly man cannot gratify all the desires of his covetous heart without committing several gross acts of villainy; and himself must be conscious though the world is a stranger to what he has done, that God saw him. He may gather a heap, but let us see what price he paid. Will he not say that the poor strumpet that has got money to buy fine clothes has but poor pennyworth when she ruined her soul? And very poor is the pennyworth of the worldling. He sold his conscience and he sold his religion. He knows what he has done. Conscience, however her mouth may be shut, will tell him this. Whatever pleasures he may have in his self or plans, he knows very well that he has lost the pleasures of religion by them. After he has made this fine bargain he may prosper or triumph for a moment, but Scripture says (Job xx) that he shall perish for ever like his own dung, and that the justice of God is determined to punish himself and his family. Justice armed with power will prove an awful adversary to the unjust and unprincipled sinner.
(4) The truth of God must punish false sinners. God hath sworn that sinners continuing in sin will not see the Kingdom. Sinners will find to their cost that God is not such as themselves. They think nothing of a false oath; but God cannot break His oath or deny Himself. It is said that there are people in London who will swear anything you desire them. We need not go to London for such wretches; they are much nearer us. Let any person pass through a large village upon the Lord’s Day, and there he will see the most awful proof of perjury. Did not such parents swear by God that they would train up their children in His fear, and can they without blasphemy think that God will break His own word and oath though they broke theirs? False swearers will go to perdition if God is a God of truth. And He is determined to keep His word. Now,
if God is determined to punish—if all the Divine attributes are engaged to punish guilty nations and guilty individuals—have we not all cause to be humbled in the dust and turn to God from all our sins that iniquity may not be our ruin? When the lion roars all the beasts in the forest tremble, and if the threatenings of God do not affect people, their ruin is near and their destruction without remedy.
Lastly, sin, in the nature of things, must bring misery on nations and individuals. The very light of nature could teach this much to blind heathens. They believed a future state of rewards and punishments. Now, if people believe an existence after death it naturally follows that unbridled and impetuous passions will make a hell in every sinner’s breast. He cannot gratify his lusts in the other world. There is not as much as a drop of cold water to quench his thirst. And when companions in sin meet, as they cannot gratify their passions, their souls are filled with the rage of devils. If all the mad people and fools in Great Britain were gathered to one very large house and let loose upon one another, what an awful company would they make! Much more awful, however, is the place of torment. The fence of human laws and the fear of the gallows will keep the wicked in some kind of order in this life. But in the world of black spirits all restraint is taken off, and they are abandoned to their own thoughts and to their fury and tumultuous passions. Like the heathen fanatics, they are seeking happiness in a rage of despair because they cannot find it. They refused the food and medicine of their souls. Instead of this they took poison. The poison has now begun to operate, which will torment them for ever. You all profess, when you appear to swear before a judge, that you are to answer to God at His judgment seat. And if you come before Him in your sins, how awful will your meeting be. It is your present work to commit sin and to forget sin. It will be your work then to remember sin and to suffer the weight of its punishment. Sin at this time sits lightly upon your conscience; it will then be heavier than mountains of lead. A trifle will keep you now from the means of grace, but an eternity hereafter will not give you one opportunity. You may now laugh at the people of God, but you will then be glad to get a single drop of the oil in their lamps. You see nothing now but their faults and failings, and you will see nothing then but your own misery. A sight of the strumpet will then terrify the unclean person, and the thought of his pelf will be intolerable to the covetous. What would Sabbath-breakers and unnatural parents give for one Sabbath, one sermon, one prayer, or one Psalm? Alas! the joyful sound is heard no more. God will then show sinful nations and sinful individuals how fearful a thing it is to fall under the weight of Divine vengeance. Sinner, is this sermon lost upon you with all the rest?
III. Lastly—I shall now lay two practical observations before you in the way of improvement.
(1) Though the sins of Great Britain are great and highly aggravated, if we turn, like Nineveh, our tranquillity may be lengthened and the prayers of the people of God may avert the judgments.
(2) Whether temporal judgments will seize the wicked or not, Divine vengeance will overtake them sooner or later.
(1) Though the sins of Great Britain are great and highly aggravated, if we turn, like Nineveh, our tranquillity may be lengthened and the prayers of the people of God may avert the judgments which we deserve as a nation. Great sins require great humiliation. Even wicked Ahab averted the judgments in his own day by a half repentance. And we may judge from this what would have happened if he had been truly penitent. Bloody Nebuchadnezzar, that great sinner, is advised to break off his sins by righteousness and his iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. If a nation were humbled for their sins we can predict the event, for God is gracious. But if they do not we cannot tell how long the prayers of the people of God can prevent their fall, for Ezekiel and Jeremiah could not prevent the captivity.
(2) Whether temporal judgments will seize the wicked or not, Divine vengeance will overtake them sooner or later. One wicked man may die on his bed, and, like the rich man in the Gospel, may open his eyes in hell; another bad man may perish by war or pestilence. But whatever be their fate in a temporal view, we are sure that punishment waits them hereafter. The prayers of God’s people may put by the judgments of which we were once afraid, but God has many ways of punishing though the sword should not come near our doors. God gave the antedeluvians 120 years to repent, and did thus strive with them by His Spirit. But were not the wicked who perished during that period as surely miserable in the world to come as those who were swept off the face of the earth by the flood? If God delays the temporal judgments of the families of bad men they are not the less sure for all that. The judgment came upon Saul’s family in his son’s day, and the family of Jehu were delayed to the fourth generation. Let us not, then, deceive ourselves, but let us turn to God by true repentance. And if we do so, whatever He may do with us in a temporal view, if the soul is saved we are happy. If we forsake our sins God will abundantly pardon; but though He pardoned David, He punished him in this life.
May God bless His Word for Christ’s sake. AMEN.
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words, than words without a heart.—Bunyan.
Episcopacy and Presbyterianism.
By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale,
XIX. The Joint Report.