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CHAPTER XIV.

No real good possessed by those who are destitute of Religion.

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Sect. 1. Nothing can supply the want of religion....s. 2. They who are destitute of it are by that want deprived of many blessings....s. 3. And exposed to many evils....s. 4. The want of religion changes even blessings into curses.

SECT. 1. THOSE considerations, from which I have hitherto endeavoured to show the infinite importance of early piety, have been mostly of a pleasing kind; but if you be one on whom all these have been urged in vain, permit me now more briefly to display the value of religion, by presenting to your view some of the dreadful evils to which the want of it will expose you.

Consider, I entreat you, the words of the Lord Jesus to that amiable youth, whose character is noticed, chapter 5, section 2," One thing thou lackest." Though possessed of much that was so amiable, he wanted that one thing, which is of infinitely more importance than every thing united besides. Humble religion is the best of blessings, and the want of it

"Is worse than hunger, poverty, and pain,
And all the transitory ills below."

Religion is so truly the one important blessing, that it
would in the end make up for the want of every thing,
while all earthly blessings united can never supply its
want. Were the whole world your own, it could not
give you real peace in life; it could not quiet the stings
of conscience; it could not ease you in the hour of pain,
nor support you on the bed of death; nor obtain for
you a place in heaven. If you possessed friends, the
most faithful, endeared, and affectionate, yet they can-
not supply the want of his friendship, whose favour is
better than life. They cannot drive sickness, pain, or
death away; nor cheer your trembling soul when going
to meet an injured God; or when standing at his awful
bar. Helpless comforters would they then be; nor
could their prayers or tears, or agonies, arrest the
dreadful sentence, 66
Depart from me ye cursed."
Neither in God's sight will any personal, any mental,

enter heaven.

or even any moral recommendations stand in the stead of humble piety. You must be born again, or never Without that divine change in your nature, God will still look upon you as an object of abhorrence, and all that is most pleasing in human esteem will do no more to recommend you to him, than dressing a rotting corpse in fine apparel would do to recommend it in the sight of man. The finest dress could not thake such a melancholy object pleasing; but if life and the bloom of health and youth were restored to it, then it would be so, though in the meanest garb. And let me say, that while destitute of religion, you, in the divine sight, are only a disgusting mass of corruption and iniquity; nor can the bloom of health and youth, or the charms of beauty, or the attractions of all the pleasing endowments imaginable, hide from the eye of God the loathsomeness of ruling sin. He is declared to hate all workers of iniquity. Even to be satisfied with being almost a christian, is still to continue destitute of all real good; you would then be like a whited sepulchre, fair without, but within full of uncleanness. In this way you would go to hell, as it were, by the gate of heaven. But if your nature were renewed, and the divine image formed on your soul, then though you were on earth most despised, yet God would approve and love you.

Sect. 2. The want of religion is not merely a want which nothing can supply, but a want which deprives you of a thousand benefits and comforts. While in this state you live, without true wisdom, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.2 They must be strangers to wisdom who are strangers to Christ, the wisdom and the power of God. You want the forgiveness of sins; all your crimes are upon you, and the least of them is heavy enough to sink you to hell. Forgiveness is the portion of those who have come to Jesus for it. You want composure of mind and inward peace. In your present state, the peace which passeth all understanding, cannot be yours. You may be asleep in sin.Your conscience may be seared as with a hot iron; or you may be indulging dreams of future happiness, which Psalm v. 5. *Prov. ix. 10.

nover will be realized; but the true peace of a humble and pious mind cannot be yours till you are Christ's. He left the blessed legacy of Peace, not to the world but to his own. You want peace with God. There is no peace saith my God to the wicked. You are naturally alienated from God by sin, and till reconciled to him, God must be to you an awful Judge, and you a rebel, deserving his severe displeasure; and boundless as his love is to those that return to him by Christ, yet to others he is a consuming fire. You want his fatherly care. In the hour of distress you have no God to go to that you can justly call your friend and Father. His children may approach him as their own; the language they are taught is, Abba Father; but you, while destitute of real piety, are destitute of this sweet interest in him. You want all interest in the love of Christ; how tender is his affection to his people; and from his love nothing shall divide them; but you have no part nor lot in this matter. It is a treasure in which you have no share; an inheritance to which you have no title. Unhappy youth! to be without a Saviour's Jove. Wretched creature! to have no part in that treasure, compared with which the treasures of a thousand worlds would be as dross and dust. As while you slight religion, you are without an interest in the love of Christ, so also you live without a part in any of the blessings he bestows. He is no Saviour of yours, though you may insult him with the title of Saviour. He is no shepherd of yours, for you refuse to submit to, his gentle yoke, and are not one of his flock. If you call the blessings of his gospel, grace, and glory yours, you are deluding your own soul, for they will never belong to you till you belong to him. It is to his sheep only that he gives eternal life; but you will not come to him that you may have life. Calling him Lord, Lord, will avail you not, for he has solemnly declared, Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name; and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then 6 John v. 46.

3Isa. Ivii. 21. 4Heb. xii. 29. 5 Gal. iv. 6.

I will profess unto them, Inever knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Thus you have no Saviour to take your sins away; no intercessor to plead for you before the eternal Father's throne; no shepherd to guide you through the wilderness of life.

Bright indeed are the hopes of those who are truly the young disciples of the Lord; but none of these hopes are yours. O the blest eternal mansions of purity and joy! the sweet immortal morning of never ending day! O the kingdom of God! the smile of his countenance! the tokens of his love! O the welcome of a Saviour! and the crowns of glory that he purchased, when wearing a crown of thorns! O the blessed society above! the bright natives of that higher world, or revered saints from this! These are the hopes, that the dwelling, those the friends, that the humble christian shall shortly possess. But, alas! for you no glorious mansions are prepared, no Saviour smiles, no heaven blooms; no immortal day shines for you. No crown of life awaits you; and none are ready to welcome your entrance on eternity but those infernal beings, who with hellish joy may exclaim, Art thou become like unto us?

You want also those blessings that should comfort you in death. All the false supports and deluding pleasures of the world will then be vanity of vanities; and what have you besides? You want a title to the bliss of heaven. You have no reason for supposing that your name is written in the book of life; for he that believeth not shall be damned, and except you be converted you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Heaven is no home of yours, it is not a rest to which you have any claim. The friends of Christ and the children of God are the heirs of it; for they are begotten again to a lively hope of an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for them; but the followers of the world are the children of Satan, and they have no part there; they are the children of wrath, without Christ and without hope.10 Unhappy young man, or young woman! this is too surely your sad condition. O wretched creature! how poor are you in the midst of all you may

"Mark xvi. 16. Matt. xviii.3. 91 Pot. i. 4. 10Ephes. ii. 3. 12.

possess! how truly miserable, in the midst of all your gayeties and pleasures! Poor trifler, you have not one cheering promise in the book of God. If you turn to God, you will have many, but now you have not one. Not one promise that you shall be kept out of hell, even for one month; but many awful threats, that it' you die as you are, you shall be turned into that flaming prison. Poor indeed are you, all you have will leave you soon. Your hasty pleasures will soon depart, and you must lie down in the dust of death, and leave for ever the world you love so well, while a dreadful and neglected eternity will appear before your trembling soul.

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Sect. 3. The want of religion not merely deprives you of numberless blessings, but exposes you to numberless evils. While without this one thing needful, sin, in one form or another, will reign over you. You will be the easy prey of temptations; companions in folly will lead you astray, and Satan guide you in the way to destruction. Dreadful are the evils that sin occasions. old writer has truly said, "It brings upon us infinite sorrows, plagues, miseries, and the most fearful judg ments, blindness of mind, hardness of heart, deadness of spirit, a reprobate sense, desperate thoughts, horrors of conscience, vexation and anguish of soul, bondage under Satan, the prince of darkness, and banishment from God, the fountain of all bliss; and mischiefs more than either tongue can tell or heart can think. We are hereby ever subject and hourly liable to madness, terrors, &c. It kills an immortal soul eternally, which is more than all the bloody men on earth, or all the desperate devils in hell can do. It will bring upon it in the world to come sorrows without end, and past imagination."* How sad an end is this to a few short years of sinful delight!

Sect. 4. Another evil attending the want of religion is, that it is a want which spoils all other blessings. The longer the humble christian lives, the more he may advance in grace, and ripen for a crown of brighter glory; but if you live without religion, life will be no blessing to you. The longer you live the worse will be your guilt, the more numerous your sins, and the great

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