Archive for June 24th, 2008
The Long-Suffering of God with Individuals
ECCLESIASTES viii. 11, 12.
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. For the sinner doth evil a hundred times, and God prolongeth his days.
THE Wise Man points out, in the words of the text, one general cause of the impenitence of mankind. The disposition to which he attributes it, I own, seems shocking and almost incredible; but if we examine our “deceitful and desperately wicked hearts,” Jer. xvii. 9; we shall find, that this disposition, which, at first sight, seems so shocking, is one of those, with which we are too well acquainted. “The heart of the sons of men is fully set to do evil.” Why? “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily.”
This shameful, but too common, inclination, we will endeavor to expose, and to show you that the long-suffering, which the mercy of God grants to sinners, may be abused either in the disposition of a devil, or in that of a beast, or in that of a philosopher, or in that of a man. He who devotes his health, his prosperity, and his youth, to offend God, and, while his punishment is deferred, to invent new ways of blaspheming him; he, who follows such a shameful course of life, abuses the patience of God in the disposition of a devil. He, who enervates and impairs his reason, either by excessive debauchery, or by worldly dissipations, by an effeminate luxury, or by an inactive stupidity, and pays no regard to the great end for which God permits him to live in this world, abuses the patience of God in the disposition of a beast.
He who from the long-suffering of God infers consequences against his providence, and against his hatred of sin, is in the disposition, of which my text speaks, as a philosopher. He, who concludes because the patience of God has continued to this day that it will always continue, and makes such a hope a motive to persist in sin, without repentance or remorse, abuses the patience of God in the dis position of a man. As I shall point out these principles to you, I shall show you the injustice and extravagance of them.