Presumptuous Sins
A Sermon
(No. 135)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 7, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins."–Psalm 19:13.
ALL SINS are great sins, but yet some sins are greater than others.
Every sin has in it the very venom of rebellion, and is full of the
essential marrow of traitorous rejection of God. But there be some sins
which have in them a greater development of the essential mischief of
rebellion, and which wear upon their faces more of the brazen pride
which defies the Most High. It is wrong to suppose that because all
sins will condemn us, that therefore one sin is not greater than
another. The fact is, that while all transgression is a greatly
grievous sinful thing, yet there are some transgressions which have a
deeper shade of blackness, and a more double scarlet-dyed hue of
criminality than others. Now the presumptuous sins of our text are just
the chief of all sins: they rank head and foremost in the list of
iniquities. It is remarkable, that though an atonement was provided
under the Jewish law for every kind of sin, there was this one
exception: "But the soul that sinneth presumptuously shall have no
atonement; it shall be out off from the midst of my people." And now,
under the Christian dispensation, although in the sacrifice of our
blessed Lord there is a great and precious atonement for presumptuous
sins, whereby sinners who have sinned in this manner are made clean,
yet, without doubt, presumptuous sinners, dying without pardon, must
expect to receive a double portion of the wrath of God, and a more
wonderful manifestation of the unutterable anguish of the torment of
eternal punishment in the pit that is digged for the wicked.
I shall this morning, first of all, endeavor to describe presumptuous
sins; then, secondly, I shall try, if I can, to show by some
illustrations, why the presumptuous sin is more heinous than any other;
and then thirdly, I shall try to press the prayer upon your notice–the
prayer, mark you, of the holy man–the prayer of David: "Keep back thy
servant also from presumptuous sins. "
I. First, then, WHAT IS PRESUMPTUOUS SIN? Now, I think here must be one
of four things in a sin in order to make it presumptuous. It must
either be a sin against light and knowledge, or a sin committed with
deliberation, or a sin committed with a design of sinning, merely for
sinning's sake, or else it must be a sin committed through hardihood,
from a man's rash confidence in his own strength. We will mark these
points one by one.
1. A sin that is committed willfully against manifest light and
knowledge is a presumptuous. sin. A sin of ignorance is not
presumptuous, unless that ignorance also be willful, in which case the
ignorance itself is a presumptuous sin. But when a man sins for want of
knowing better–for want of knowing the law, for want of instruction,
reproof, advice, and admonition, we say that his sin, so committed,
does not partake to any great extent of the nature of a presumptuous
sin. But when a man knows better, and sins in the very teeth and face
of his increased light and knowledge, then his sin deserves to be
branded with this ignominious title of a presumptuous sin. Let me just
dwell on this thought a moment. Conscience is often an inner light to
men, whereby they are warned of forbidden acts as being sinful. Then if
I sin against conscience, though I have no greater light than
conscience affords me, still my sin is presumptuous, if I have presumed
to go against that voice of God in my heart, an enlightened conscience.
You, young man, were once tempted (and perhaps it was but yesterday) to
commit a certain act. The very moment you were tempted, conscience
said, "It is wrong, it is wrong"–it shouted murder in your heart, and
told you the deed you were about to commit was abominable in the sight
of the Lord. Your fellow-apprentice committed the same sin without the
warning of conscience; in him it was guilt–guilt which needs to be
washed away with the Saviour's blood. But it was not such guilt in him
as it was in you, because your conscience checked you; your conscience
told you of the danger, warned you of the punishment, and yet you dared
to go astray against God, and therefore you sinned presumptuously. You
have sinned very grievously in having done so. When a man shall
trespass on my ground, he shall be a trespasser though he have no
warning, but if straight before his face there stands a warning, and if
he knowingly and willingly trespasses, then he is guilty of a
presumptuous trespass, and is to be so far punished accordingly. So
you, if you had not known better; if your conscience had been less
enlightened, you might have committed the deed with far less of the
criminality which now attaches to you, because you sinned against
conscience, and consequently sinned presumptuously.
But, O! how much greater is the sin, when man not only has the light of
conscience, but has also the admonition of friends, the advice of those
who are wise and esteemed by him. If I have but one check, the check of
my enlightened conscience, and I transgress against it, I am
presumptuous; but if a mother with tearful eye warns me of the
consequence of my guilt, and if a father with steady look, and with
affectionate determined earnestness, tells me what will be the effect
of my transgression–if friends who are dear to me counsel me to avoid
the way of the wicked, and warn me what must be the inevitable result
of continuing in it, then I am presumptuous, and my act in that very
proportion becomes more guilty. I should have been presumptuous for
having sinned against the light of nature, but I am more presumptuous
when, added to that, I have the light of affectionate counsel and of
kind advice, and therein I bring upon my head a double amount of divine
wrath. And how much more is this the case, when the transgressor has
been gifted with what is usually called a religious education; in
childhood he has been lighted to his bed by the lamps of the sanctuary,
the name of Jesus was mingled with the hush of lullaby, the music of
the sanctuary woke him like a matin hymn at morning; he has been
dandled on the knee of piety and has sucked the breasts of godliness;
he has been tutored and trained in the way he should go; how much more
fearful I say, is the guilt of such a man than that of those who have
never had such training, but have been left to follow their own wayward
lusts and pleasures without the restraint of a holy education and the
restraints of an enlightened conscience!
But, my friends, even this may become worse still. A man sins yet more
presumptuously, when he has had most special warning from the voice of
God against sin. "What mean you?" say you. Why, I mean this. You saw
but yesterday a strong man in your neighborhood brought to the grave by
sudden death; it is but a month ago that you heard the bell toll for
one whom once, you knew and loved, who procrastinated and
procrastinated until he perished in procrastination. You have had
strange things happen in your very street, and the voice of God has
been spoken loudly through the lips of Death to you. Ay, and you have
had warnings too in your own body; you have been sick with fever, you
have been brought to the jaws of the grave, and you have looked down
into the bottomless vault of destruction. It is not long ago since you
were given up; all said they might prepare a coffin for you, for your
breath could not long be in your body. Then you turned your face to the
wall, and prayed; you vowed that if God would spare you, you would live
a godly life, that you would repent of your sins; but to your own
confusion you are now just what you were. Ah! let me tell you, your
guilt is more grievous than that of any other man, for you have sinned
presumptuously, in the very highest sense in which you could have done
so. You have sinned against reproofs, but what is worse still, you have
sinned against your own solemn oaths and covenants, and against the
promises that you made to God. He who plays with fire must be condemned
as careless; but he who has been burned out once, and afterward plays
with the destroying element, is worse, than careless; and he who has
himself been scorched in the flame, and has had his locks all hot and
crisp with the burning, if he again should rush headlong into fire, I
say he is worse than careless, he is worse than presumptuous, he is
mad. But I have some such here. They have had warnings so terrible that
they might have known better; they have gone into lusts which have
brought their bodies into sickness, and perhaps this day they have
crept up to this house, and they dare not tell to their neighbor who
stands by their side what is the loathsomeness that even now doth breed
upon their frame. And yet they will go back to the same lusts; the fool
will go again to the stocks, the sheep will lick the knife that is to
slay him. You will go on in your lust and in your sins, despite
warnings, despite advice, until you perish in your guilt. How worse
than children are grown-up men! The child who goes for a merry slide
upon a pond, if he be told that the ice will not bear him, starteth
back affrighted, or if he daringly creepeth upon it how soon he leaves
it, if he hears but a crack upon the slender covering of the water! But
you men have conscience, which tells you that your sins are vile, and
that they will be your ruin; you bear the crack of sin, as its thin
sheet of pleasure gives way beneath your feet; ay, and some of you have
seen your comrades sink in the flood, and lost; and yet you go sliding
on, worse than childish, worse than mad are you, thus presumptuously to
play with your own everlasting state. O my God, how terrible is the
presumption of some! How fearful is presumption in any! O! that we
might be enabled to cry, "Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous
sins."
2. I said again, that another characteristic of a presumptuous sin was
deliberation. A man, perhaps, may have a passionate spirit, and in a
moment of hot haste he may utter an angry word of which in a few short
minutes he will sincerely repent. A man may have a temper so hot that
the least provocation causes him at once to be full of wrath. But he
may also have a temperament which has this benefit to balance it, that
he very soon learns to forgive, and cools in a moment. Now, such a man
does not sin presumptuously, when suddenly overcome by anger, though,
without doubt, there is presumption in his sin, unless he strives to
correct that passion and keep it down. A man, again, who is suddenly
tempted and surprised into a sin which is not his habit, but which he
commits through the force of some strong temptation, is guilty, but not
guilty of presumption, because he was taken unawares in the net and
caught in the snare. But there are other men who sin deliberately;
there are some who can think of a lust for weeks beforehand and dote
upon their darling crime with pleasure. They do, as it were, water the
young seedling of lust until it grows to the maturity of desire, and
then they go and commit the crime. There are some to whom lust is not a
passer-by, but a lodger at home. They receive it, they house it, they
feast it; and when they sin they sin deliberately, walk coolly to their
lusts, and in cold blood commit the act which another might haply do in
hot and furious haste. Now, such a sin has in it a great extent of
sinfulness, it is a sin of high presumption. To be carried away, as by
a whirlwind of passion, in a moment is wrong; but to sit down and
deliberately resolve upon revenge is cursed and diabolical. To sit down
and deliberately fashion schemes of wickedness is heinous, and I can
find no other word fitly to express it. To deliberate carefully how the
crime is to be done, and, Haman-like, to build the gallows, and to set
to work to destroy one's neighbor, to get the pit digged that the
friend may fall into it and be destroyed, to lay snares in secret, to
plot wickedness upon one's bed–this is a high pitch of presumptuous
sin. May God forgive any of us, if we have been so far guilty!
Again, when a man continues long in sin, and has time to deliberate
about it, that also is a proof that it is a presumptuous sin. He that
sins once, being overtaken in a fault, and then abhors the sin, has not
sinned presumptuously; but he who transgresses to-day, to-morrow, and
the next day, week after week, and year after year, until he has piled
up a heap of sins that are high as a mountain, such a man, I say, sins
presumptuously, because in a continued habit of sin there must be a
deliberation to sin; there must be at least such a force and strength
of mind as could not have come upon any man if his sin were but the
hasty effect of sudden passion. Ah! take heed, ye that are sodden in
sin, ye that drink it down as the greedy ox drinketh down water, ye who
run to your lust as the rivers run to the sea, and ye who go to your
passions as the sow to her wallowing in the mire. Take heed! your
crimes are grievous, and the hand of God shall soon fall terribly on
your heads, unless by divine grace it be granted to you to repent and
turn unto him. Fearful must be your doom if unpardoned, God should
condemn you for presumptuous sin. O "Lord, keep back thy servant also
from presumptuous sin."
3. Again: I said that a presumptuous sin must be a matter of design,
and have been committed with the intention of sin. If at your leisure
at home you will turn to that passage in the book of Numbers, where it
says there is no pardon for a presumptuous sin under the Jewish
dispensation, you will find immediately afterward a case recorded. A
man went out on the Sabbath-day to gather sticks; he was taken in the
act of Sabbath-breaking, and the law being very stringent under the
Jewish dispensation, he was ordered at once to be put to death. Now,
the reason why he was put to death was not because he gathered sticks
on the Sabbath merely, but because the law had just then been
proclaimed, "In it thou shalt do no manner of work." This man
willfully, out of design, in order, as it were, to show that he
despised God–to show that he did not care for God–without any
necessity, without any hope of advantage, went straight out, in the
very teeth of the law, to perform, not an act which he kept in his own
house, which might perhaps have been overlooked, but an act which
brought shame upon the whole congregation, because, infidel-like, he
dared to brazen it out before God; as much as to say, "I care not for
God. Has God just commanded, Ye shall do no manner of work?' Here am I;
I do not want sticks to-day; I do not want to work; not for the sake of
sticks, but with the design of showing that I despise God, I go out
this day and gather sticks." "Now," says one, "surely there are no
people in the world that have ever done such a thing as this." Yes,
there are; and there are such in the Surrey Music Hall this day. They
have sinned against God, not merely for the pleasure of it, but because
they would show their want of reverence to God. That young man burned
his Bible in the midst of his wicked companions–not because he hated
his Bible, for he quivered and looked pale at the ashes on the hearth
when he was doing it; but he did it out of pure bravado, in order to
show them, as he thought, that he really was far gone from any thing
like a profession of religion. That other man is accustomed sometimes
to stand by the wayside, when the people are going to the house of God;
and he swears at them, not because he delights in swearing, but because
he will show that he is irreligious, that he is ungodly. How many an
infidel has done the same–not because he had any pleasure in the thing
itself, but because out of the wickedness of his heart he would spit at
God, if it were possible, having a design to let men know that though
the sin itself was cheap enough, he was determined to do something
which would be like spitting in the face of his Maker, and despising
God who created him! Now, such a sin is a masterpiece of iniquity.
There is pardon for such a one–there is full pardon to those who are
brought to repentance; but few of such men ever receive it; for when
they are so far gone as to sin presumptuously, because they will do
it–to sin merely for the sake of showing their disregard of God and of
God's law, we say of such, there is pardon for them, but it is wondrous
grace which brings them into such a condition that they are willing, to
accept it. O that God would keep back his servants here from
presumptuous sins! And if any of us here have committed them, may he
bring us back, to the praise of the glory of his grace!
4. But one more point, and I think I shall have explained these
presumptuous sins. A presumptuous sin also is one that is committed
through a hardihood of fancied strength of mind. Says one, "I intend
to-morrow to go into such-and-such a society, because I believe, though
it hurts other people, it does me no hurt." You turn round and say to
some young man, "I could not advise you to frequent the Casino–it
would be your ruin." But you go yourself sir? "Yes." But how do you
justify yourself? Because I have such strength of principle that I know
just how far to go, and no further. Thou liest, sir; against thyself
thou liest; thou liest presumptuously in so doing. Thou art playing
with bombshells that shall burst and destroy thee; thou art sitting
over the mouth of hell with a fancy that thou shalt not be burned.
Because thou hast gone to haunts of vice and come back tainted, much
tainted, but because thou art so blind as not to see the taint, thou
thinkest thyself secure. Thou art not so. Thy sin, in daring to think
that thou art proof against sin, is a sin of presumption. "No, no,"
says one; "but I know that I can go just so far in such-and-such a sin,
and there I can stop." Presumption, sir; nothing but presumption. It
would be presumption for any man to climb to the top of the spire of a
church, and stand upon his head. "Well, but he might come down safe, if
he were skilled in it." Yes, but it is presumptuous. I would no more
think of subscribing a farthing to a man's ascent in a balloon, than I
would to a poor wretch cutting his own throat. I would no more think of
standing and gazing at any man who puts his life in a position of
peril, than I would of paying a man to blow his brains out. I think
such things, if not murders, are murderous. There is suicide in men
risking themselves in that way; and if there be suicide in the risk of
the body, how much more in the case of a man who puts his own soul in
jeopardy just because he thinks he has strength of mind enough to
prevent its being ruined and destroyed. Sir, your sin is a sin of
presumption; it is a great and grievous one; it is one of the
masterpieces of iniquity.
O! how many people there are who are sinning presumptuously to-day! You
are sinning presumptuously in being to-day what you are. You are
saying, "In a little time I will solemnly and seriously think of
religion, In a few years, when I am a little more settled in life, I
intend to turn over a new leaf, and think about the matters of
godliness." Sir, you are presumptuous. You are presuming that you shall
live; you are speculating upon a thing which is as frail as the bubble
on the breaker; you are staking your everlasting soul on the deadly
odds that you shall live for a few years, whereas, the probabilities
are, that you may be cut down ere the sun shall set: and it is
possible, that ere another year shall have passed over your head, you
may be in the land where repentance is impossible, and useless were it
possible. O! dear friends, procrastination is a presumptuous sin. The
putting off a thing which should be done to-day, because you hope to
live to-morrow, is a presumption. You have no right to do it–you are,
in so doing, sinning against God, and bringing on your heads the guilt
of presumptuous sin. I remember that striking passage in Jonathan
Edwards' wonderful sermon, which was the means of a great revival,
where he says, "Sinner, thou art this moment standing over the mouth of
hell, upon a single plank, and that plank is rotten; thou art hanging
over the jaws of perdition, by a solitary rope, and the strands of that
rope are creaking now." It is a terrible thing to be in such a position
as that, and yet to say, "to-morrow," and to procrastinate. You remind
me, some of you, of that story of Dionysius the tyrant, who, wishing to
punish one who had displeased him, invited him to a noble feast. Rich
were the viands that were spread upon the table, and rare the wines of
which he was invited to drink. A chair was placed at the head of the
table, and the guest was seated within it. Horror of horrors! The feast
might be rich, but the guest was miserable, dreadful beyond thought.
However splendid might be the array of the servants, and however rich
the danties, yet he who had been invited sat there in agony. For what
reason? Because over his head, immediately over it, there hung a sword,
a furbished sword, suspended by a single hair. He had to sit all the
time with this sword above him, with nothing but a hair between him and
death. You may conceive the poor man's misery. He could not escape; he
must sit where be was. How could he feast? How could be rejoice? But O,
my unconverted hearer, thou art there this morning, man, with all thy
riches and thy wealth before thee, with the comforts of a home and the
joys of a household; thou art there this day, in a place from which
thou canst not escape; the sword of death above thee, prepared to
descend; and woe unto thee, when it shall cleave thy soul from thy
body! Canst thou yet make mirth, and yet procrastinate? If thou canst,
then verily thy sin is presumptuous in a high degree. "Keep back thy
servant also from presumptuous sins."
II. And now I come to the second part of the subject, with which I
shall deal very briefly. I am to try and show WHY IT IS THAT THERE IS
GREAT ENORMITY IN A PRESUMPTUOUS SIN.
Let me take any one of the sins; for instance, the sin against light
and knowledge. There is greater enormity in such a presumptuous sin
than in any other. In this our happy land it is just possible for a man
to commit treason. I think it must be rather difficult for him to do
it; for we are allowed to say words here which would have brought our
necks beneath the guillotine if they had been spoken on the other side
the Channel; and we are allowed to do deeds here which would have
brought us long years of imprisonment if the deed had been done in any
other land. But I suppose it is just possible to commit treason here.
Now, if two men should commit treason–if one of them should wantonly
and wickedly raise the standard of revolt to-morrow, should denounce
the rightful sovereign of this land in the strongest and most
abominable language, should seek to entice the loyal subject of this
country from their allegiance, and should draw some of them astray, to
the hurt and injury of the common weal; he might have in his rebellious
ranks one who had joined incautiously, not knowing whereunto the matter
might tend, who might come into the midst of the rebels, not
understanding the intention of their unlawful assembling, not even
knowing the law which prohibited them from being banded together, I can
suppose these two men brought up upon a charge of high treason: they
have both, legally, been guilty of it; but I can suppose that the one
man who had sinned ignorantly would be acquitted, because there was no
malignant intent; and I can suppose that the other man, who had
willfully, knowingly, maliciously and wickedly raised the standard of
revolt, would receive the highest punishment which the law could
demand. And why? Because in the one case it was a sin of presumption,
and in the other case it was not so. In the one case the man dared to
defy the sovereign, and defy the law of the land, willfully, out of
mere presumption. In the other case not so. Now, every man sees that it
would be just to make a distinction in the punishment, because there
is–conscience itself tells us–a distinction in the guilt.
Again: some men, I have said, sin deliberately, and others do not do
so. Now, in order to show that there is a distinction here, let me take
a case. To-morrow the bench of magistrates are sitting. Two men are
brought up. They are each of them charged with stealing a loaf of
bread. It is clearly proved, in the one case, that the man was hungry,
and that he snatched the loaf of bread to satisfy his necessities. He
is sorry for his deed, he grieves that he has done this act; but most
manifestly he had a strong temptation to it. In the other case the man
was rich, and he willfully went into the shop merely because he would
break the law and show that he was a law-breaker. He said to the
policeman outside, "Now, I care neither for you nor the law; I intend
to go in there, just to see what you can do with me." I can suppose the
magistrate would say to one man, "You are discharged; take care not to
do the like again; there is something for your present necessities;
seek to earn an honest living." But to the other I can conceive him
saying, "You are an infamous wretch; you have committed the same deed
as the other, but from very different motives; I give you the longest
term of imprisonment which the law allows me, and I can only regret
that I can not treat you worse than I have done." The presumption of
sin made the difference. So when you sin deliberately and knowingly,
your sin against Almighty God is a higher and a blacker sin than it
would have been if you had sinned ignorantly, or sinned in haste.
Now let us suppose one more case. In the heat of some little dispute
some one shall insult a man. You shall be insulted by a man of angry
temper; you have not provoked him, you gave him no just cause for it;
but at the same time he was of a hot and angry disposition; he was
somewhat foiled in the debate, and he insulted you, calling you by some
name which has left a stain upon your character, so far as epithets can
do it. I can suppose that you would ask no reparation of him, if by
to-morrow you saw that it was just a rash word spoken in haste, of
which he repented. But suppose another person should waylay you in the
street, should week after week seek to meet you in the market-place,
and should, after a great deal of toil and trouble, at last meet you,
and there, in the center of a number of people, unprovoked, just out of
sheer, deliberate malice, come before you and call you a liar in the
street; I can suppose that, Christian as you are, you might find it
necessary to chastise such insolence, not with your hand, but with the
arm of that equitable law which protects us all from insulting
violence. In the other case I can suppose it would be no trouble to
forgive. You would say, "My dear fellow, I know we are all hasty
sometimes–there, now, I don't care at all for it; you did not mean
it." But in this case, where a man has dared and defied you without any
provocation whatever, you would say to him, "Sir, you have endeavored
to injure me in respectable society; I can forgive you as a Christian,
but as a man and a citizen I shall demand that I am protected against
your insolence."
You see, therefore, in the cases that occur between man and man, how
there is an excess of guilt added to a sin by presumption. O! ye that
have sinned presumptuously–and who among us has not done so?–bow your
heads in silence, confess your guilt, and then open your mouths, and
cry, "Lord have mercy upon me, a presumptuous sinner."
III. And now I have nearly done–not to weary you by too long a
discourse–we shall notice THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THIS PRAYER–"Keep
back thy servant also from presumptuous sins."
Will you just note, that this prayer was the prayer of a saint, the
prayer of a holy man of God? Did David need to pray thus? Did the "man
after God's own heart" need to cry, "Keep back thy servant?" Yes, he
did. And note the beauty of the prayer. If I might translate it into
more metaphorical style, it is like this: "Curb thy servant from
presumptuous sin." "Keep him back or he will wander to the edge of the
precipice of sin. Hold him in, Lord; he is apt to run away; curb him;
put the bridle on him; do not let him do it; let thine overpowering
grace keep him holy; when he would do evil, then do thou draw him to
good, and when his evil propensities would lead him astray, then do
thou check him." "Check thy servant from presumptuous sins."
What then? Is It true that the best of men may sin presumptuously? Ah!
it is true. It is a solemn thing to find the Apostle Paul warning
saints against the most loathsome of sins. He says, "Mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness,
idolatry, inordinate affection," and such like. What! do saints want
warning against such sins as these? Yes, they do. The highest saints
may sin the lowest sins, unless kept by divine grace. You old
experienced Christians, boast not in your experience; you may trip yet,
unless you cry, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." Ye whose love
is fervent, whose faith is constant, whose hopes an bright, say not "I
shall never sin," but rather cry out, "Lord, lead me not into
temptation, and when there leave me not there; for unless thou hold me
fast I feel I must, I shall decline, and prove an apostate after all."
There is enough tinder in the hearts of the best men in the world to
light a fire that shall burn to the lowest hell, unless God should
quench the sparks as they fall. There is enough corruption, depravity,
and wickedness in the heart of the most holy man that is now alive to
damn his soul to all eternity, if free and sovereign grace does not
prevent. O Christian, thou hast need to pray this prayer. But I think I
hear you saying, "Is thy servant a dog, that I should do this thing?"
So said Hazael, when the prophet told him that he would slay his
master; but he went home and took a wet cloth and spread it over his
master's face and choked him, and did the next day the sin which he
abhorred before. Think it not enough to abhor sin, you may yet fall
into it. Say not, "I never can be drunken, for I have such an
abhorrence of drunkenness;" thou mayest fall where thou art most
secure. Say not, "I can never blaspheme God, for I have never done so
in my life;" take care; you may yet swear most profanely. Job might
have said, "I will never curse the day of my birth;" but he lived to do
it. He was a patient man; he might have said, "I will never murmur;
though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;" and yet he lived to wish
that the day were darkness wherein he was brought forth. Boast not,
then, O Christian; by faith thou standest. "Let him that thinketh he
standeth take heed lest he fall."
But if this need to be the prayer of the best, how ought it to be the
prayer of you and me? If the highest saint must pray it, O mere
moralist, thou hast good need to utter it. And ye who have begun to
sin, who make no pretensions to piety, how much need is there for you
to pray that you may be kept from presumptuously rebelling against God.
Instead, however, of enlarging upon that point, I shall close my few
remarks this morning by just addressing myself most affectionately to
such of you as are now under a sense of guilt by reason of presumptuous
sins. God's Spirit has found some of you out this morning. I thought
when I was describing presumptuous sin that I saw here and there an eye
that was suffused with tears; I thought I saw here and there a head
that was bowed down, as much as to say, "I am guilty there." I thought
there were some hearts that palpitated with confession, when I
described the guilt of presumption. I hope it was so. If it was I am
glad of it. If I hit your consciences, it was that I meant to do. Not
to your ears do I speak, but to your hearts. I would not give the snap
of this my finger to gratify you with mere words of oratory, with a
mere flow of language. No, God is my witness. I never sought effect
yet, except the effect of hitting your consciences. I would use the
words that would be most rough and vulgar in all our language, if I
could get at your heart better with them than with any other; for I
reckon that the chief matter with a minister is to touch the
conscience. If any of you feel, then, that you have presumed against
God in sinning, let me just bid you look at your sin, and weep over the
blackness of it; let me exhort you to go home and bow your heads with
sorrow, and confess your guilt, and weep over it with many tears and
sighs. You have greatly sinned, and if God should blast you into
perdition now, he would be just; if now his fiery thunderbolt of
vengeance should pierce you through, if the arrow that is now upon the
string of the Almighty should find a target in your heart, he would be
just. Go home and confess that, confess it with cries and sighs. And
then what next wilt thou do? Why, I bid thee remember that there was a
man who was a God. That man suffered for presumptuous sin. I would bid
thee this day, sinner, if thou knowest thy need of a Saviour, go up to
thy chamber, cast thyself upon thy face, and weep for sin; and when
thou hast done that, turn to the Scriptures, and read the story of that
man who suffered and died for sin. Think you see him in all his
unutterable agonies, and griefs, and woes, and say this–
"My soul looks back to see
The burdens thou didst bear
When hanging on the accursed tree,
And hopes her guilt was there."
Lift up your hand, and put it on his head who bled, and say,
"My faith would lay its hand
On that dear head of thine,
While, like a penitent, I stand,
And there confess my sin."
Sit down at the foot of his cross, and watch him till your heart is
moved, till the tears begin to flow again, until your heart breaks
within you; and then you will rise and say–
"Dissolved by his mercy, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I found."
O sinner, thou canst never perish, if thou wilt cast thyself at the
foot of the cross. If thou seekest to save thyself thou shalt die; if
thou wilt come, just as thou art, all black, all filthy, all
hell-deserving, all ill-deserving, I am my Master's hostage, I will be
answerable at the day of judgment for this matter, if he does not save
thee, I can preach on this subject now, for I trust I have tried my
Master myself. As a youth I sinned, as a child I rebelled, as a young
man I wandered into lusts and vanities: my Master made me feel how
great a sinner I was and I sought to reform, to mend the matter; but I
grew worse. At last I heard it said, "Look unto me, and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth;" and I looked to Jesus. And O! my Saviour,
thou hast eased my aching conscience, thou hast given me peace; thou
hast enabled me to say#151;
"Now, freed from sin I walk at large;
My Saviour's blood's a full discharge
At his dear feet my soul I lay,
A sinner saved, and homage pay."
And O! my heart pants for you. O that you who never knew him could
taste his love now. O that you who have never repented might now
receive the Holy Ghost who is able to melt the heart! And O that you
who are penitents would look to him now! And I repeat that solemn
assertion–I am God's hostage this morning; ye shall feed me on bread
and water to my life's end, ay, and I will bear the blame for ever, if
any of you seek Christ and Christ rejects you. It must not, it can not
be. "Whosoever cometh," he says, "I will in no wise cast out." "He is
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him." May God
Almighty bless you; and may we meet again in yonder Paradise; and there
will we sing more sweetly of redeeming love and dying blood, and of
Jesus' power to save#151;
"When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave."