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part 2
But further, you dislike to have the claims of God urged upon you. Let the preaching you hear be plain and pointed, or let Christians be faithful in conversation, and very likely you will be offended.-- Why? If you loved God, you would delight to hear his truth plainly and faithfully preached, to have your duty plainly and faithfully, but affectionately urged upon you. And how can you love God, when thus opposed to his claims, and displeased when they are pressed upon your attention?
Again, you have broken the law of God, and yet you feel no sorrow for it. You are not grieved that you have broken the law of God, and set at naught his commands; how then can you love him?-- Love always leads us to embrace the first opportunity to confess our faults to those whom we have injured; but when did you confess your sins to God? You have injured him by your transgressions; but when and where have you made confession, and sued for his forgiveness?
And what regard have you for God's honor and glory? Are you grieved when his name is dishonored and his law broken? Do rivers of waters run down your eyes because men keep not his law? Psa. 119: 136. But how do you treat his law, his Bible, his Sabbath, his sanctuary, his worship, his ordinances, his people? Are you honoring and glorifying God? Is this your aim? Is God honored and glorified by your unholy and prayerless and irreligious life? But, reader, not to reason further, I ask you plainly, must you not confess that you have not the love of God in you? Are you not convinced that you are wholly destitute of all true evangelical love to God? Whether convinced or not, remember the Saviour says, and it is true, I know you, that you have not the love of God in you. This is your condition; I would to God you might realize it, repent of it, and forsake it.
In the above, do we not see most clearly that,
1. Sinners, unrenewed, are not fit for Heaven. Reader, what would you do in heaven, if admitted there? You have no love to God. You could not delight in his praise. You could not be happy in the society of those who are filled with the love of God. Negative goodness, be it remembered, is not sufficient. Nor is morality sufficient. Many, it would seem, pride themselves on their harmlessness.-- They have injured no one; they have done, they say, nothing very bad. This is the amount of their righteousness. On this they build their hopes of heaven.-- But such hopes are vain. To be destitute of good fruits is damning. Matt. xxv: 41-- 43, and 14--30. "Ye have not the love of God in you," is the description and condemnation of impenitent, unregenerate men. John v: 42. It is a sufficient crime to be destitute of love to God. Of this crime you are guilty. You do not love God. This has been proved. You therefore are not fit for heaven. You know you are not, you feel that you are not. If you die as you are, you must be forever excluded from the paradise of God. Are you willing thus to die, and sink down in endless despair? I know you are not.-- Then why not turn and live? Why need so much urging, so much entreaty?
2. Again I remark, you must be born again, or perish. There is no escape. To dream of going to heaven as you are, without the love of God in you, with a heart opposed to God and at enmity with him, Rom. viii: 7, is folly and madness. There must be a change, or you are lost. The enmity of your heart must be subdued, and a principle of holy love be begotten within you. You must be renewed in the spirit of your mind, Eph. iv: 23 --become a new creature in Christ Jesus, 2 Cor. v: 17--experience the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, Titus iii: 5--be born again, John iii: 5--8--born of the Spirit , or you will perish in you sins and sink to hell. Ask, that you may receive. Luke xi: 1--13. And beware how you resist and grieve the Spirit! He will not always strive. Gen. vi: 3.
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First edition, 2000
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