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of love to him, that you save. O, be misers there; be avaricious there: you cannot have too much treasure before you in heaven. For a man to have it said of him when he dies, "Such a man has left behind him hundreds of thousands"—how would angels read this on his tomb? They would view it as a mill-stone that sunk him deeper in hell, if he had saved it by robbing his God, and thus robbing his own immortal spirit. Angels would read it—if Christian humility would allow it so to be written there with joy and gratitude, if it were said, He died poor, for he had given all to God; and yet rich, for God had given all to him—given him his grace, and, in giving him that, given himself. May you so give, and may God so give to you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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THE SOLICITUDE OF CHRIST FOR INCORRIGIBLE SINNERS.

REV. G. SPRING, D.D.

TABERNACLE, FINSBURY, MAY 24, 1835.

"And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it."-LUKE, xix. 41.

men.

THIS affecting declaration, as you will recollect, is made concerning Jesus Christ. As he was going to Jerusalem for the last time, just as he was ascending the Mount of Olives, which lay over against the city, a multitude of ineffably tender thoughts rushed on his mind, and he wept. Long before his incarnation was this favoured city the place of his occasional habitation among Here his glory rested above the mercy-seat upon the ark of the covenant. Here he had dispensed his law, and the memorials of his grace; and from this radiating point were his truth and mercy to go forth to the ends of the world. Here, too, he was to establish the first Christian Church, and accomplish the promise of his Father in the long expected effusions of his Spirit. At a little distance before him also lay the garden of Gethsemane. From the Mount of Olives likewise he could look across the city to Calvary, where, in lingering and excruciating agony, he was so soon to pour out his soul unto death. And yet it was not for himself he wept; it was over that ill-fated city. His own sorrows were lost sight of and forgotten in theirs : "O Jerusalem," he exclaimed, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not!"

It is worthy of remark, that the individuals towards whom the sympathies of Christ were here so tenderly directed, were men whose habits of sin, and love of sinning, were incorrigible. They had filled up the measure of their iniquity, and the cry of it had gone up to heaven: the wrath of God was just about to descend upon them in the destruction of their city and temple, and in the sufferings and overthrow of his scattered and abused people: a people that were to be a hissing and a by-word, a living miracle of the truth of what they denied; an awful memento of the fearful consequences of disregarding the time of their visitation. Jesus saw that the time of their repentance was gone by; that the day of grace and hope with them was gone by for ever: and as he beheld the city he wept.

There is much, my brethren, in the condition of such men, to interest every benevolent mind. There is indeed every thing over which angels and men, and Jesus, the Lord of angels and men, might weep. What we propose in the present discourse, therefore, is, to specify some of the more obvious charac

teristics of incorrigible sinners, and to inquire what there is in their condition to excite the solicitude and sympathy of Jesus Christ.

In the first place, I am to specify SOME OF THE MORE OBVIOUS CHARAC

TERISTICS OF INCORRIGIBLE men.

It may be some such have come up to the house of God this evening and yet I am not about to be so presumptuous as to pretend to lift the veil, and predict who of all this assembly will be finally rejected of God. This God alone can, or has a right to do. He could disclose to us who, as he looks over these seats, and tell us before the time who, of all this people, will remain unmoved and incorrigible to the last. He could tell us where they sit; and to what families they belong, and what business they follow, and their age, and name: and, if we mistake not, it is easy for us to see, that there are several classes of people, who, to say the least, are greatly exposed to unyielding impenitence, and who give fearful indication of final ruin.

This may be affirmed, in the first instance, of men of a sceptical turn of mind. Such men are very apt never to become pious. They are not absolutely infidels; but they have a very unsettled state of mind. When their consciences are oppressed, and the truth of God perplexes them, they find relief in doubt and uncertainty. They are not sure that one religion is not as good as another, and have not made up their minds whether all that is said about vital godliness and a change of heart is true. When they are alarmed, and partially convinced of their sins, they run from their convictions into some soul-destroying error, and come as near as they can to infidelity: and then, again, when their convictions pass away, for the sake of satisfying their consciences they go back to the plain truths of the Bible. And thus they vacillate between truth and error, so that it is difficult to the last degree to arrest and impress their minds, and altogether very improbable that they will ever become the children of God.

Another class of persons who are rarely made the subjects of grace, are those of notoriously loose and vicious habits. The man whose habits are secretly vicious, is far enough from the probable sphere of divine grace. But the man whose pleasures are professedly low and grovelling, who has, for example, become the prey of intemperance, or of impetuous and licentious passions, and whose unrestrained propensities goad him on to unblushing crime, already bears the mark of premature ruin. The conscience of such a man is necessarily benumbed and seared, and the best feelings of his soul are prostrated. Those natural and generous sentiments on which the Spirit of God usually operates, are so far destroyed, that even now he seems a vessel of wrath, fitted to destruction.

It may also be remarked, that men who are in the habit of making light of sacred things, and trifling with God, seldom become men of piety. If they can scoff at religion, if they can deride its conscientious disciples, there is little reason to believe they will ever become its disciples themselves. A shrewd observer of human nature remarks, "Men may alter, and become that which they hate, but not often do they become that which they despise." If you see a man who can boast of his profanity, who can glory in turning the Sabbath into a day of business or amusement, who blesses God that he is no Christian, and no hypocrite; you may greatly fear that he will carry his contempt of

divine things to his dying pillow, and never become fit for the kingdom of God.

In the same melancholy multitude are likewise found, all those who are ardently and eagerly attached to the world. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for such persons to become the followers of Jesus Christ. If they are rich, they have too much to forsake; if they are poor, they have too much to gain. Excessive worldliness, merely, will probably drown them in destruction and perdition. They will be apt to indulge themselves in fraud and falsehood, in duplicity and management that are inconsistent with Christian rectitude. They will be very apt to hold unlawful gains, or pursue an unlawful business; and it will cost them too much to forsake all and follow Christ. And even though they be men of acknowledged integrity, yet when wealth is the object that fills the eye, and fires the heart, and engrosses the thoughts, and employs the hands, and occupies the time-O how little reason is there to hope that they will lay up treasure in heaven!

There is another class of men who exhibit fearful symptoms of deep degeneracy, and they are those whose chosen companions are the guilty enemies of God and all righteousness. Men cannot habitually associate with those who are destitute of all moral principle, and have no fear of God before their eyes, without partaking of their character. Eternal Truth has declared, "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but the companion of fools shall be destroyed."

Those persons also give strong indications of being incorrigible, who have become hardened under religious privileges. The truth of God is generally quick and rapid in its saving influence upon the souls of men. It is much more likely that a man will become pious during the first year of a serious attention on faithful preaching, than that he will ever become pious after having sat under faithful preaching for a series of years. Such persons have no serious, tender susceptibility of soul: instruction does not teach them; admonitions and reproofs will not move them; mercy and judgment do not move them. Of all these God has said, "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

Still more hopeless are those who have outlived conviction, and resisted the Holy Spirit. I have seen many such persons, and after the progress of years they appeared to be abandoned to incorrigible obstinacy. Where the Spirit of God has been again and again rebutted and grieved away, and the mind is left unconcerned, it usually plunges deeper and deeper in stupidity and guilt. Especially is this apt to be the case, where persons have survived three or four powerful revivals of religion without being reconciled to God: when divine influence has been descending around them, like showers, and amid all the living verdure they have remained like barren trees, and cumberers of the ground, there is too much reason to apprehend the severe denunciation against the barren fig-tree, "No fruit grow on thee henceforward and for ever.'

There is one class of persons more whose condition is as hopeless as that of any we have mentioned; I mean, the hypocrite and self-deceiver. They are those who, if they deceive others, are under strong temptation to deceive themselves; and if they deceive others, they will probably cling to their delusions. Very few are farther from the prospect of heaven than these; nor is it probable

they will be roused from their dream, except by the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.

Persons of this general description, like the Jews over whom the Saviour wept, appear to be the incorrigible enemies of God. We say not that they are beyond the reach of mercy; but who would venture to express any very strong expectation that they will ever become the humble followers of Jesus Christ? Who rather does not often fear, that he shall one day see them fall into the hands of an angry God? It was the certainty, nay, the near prospect of this, that excited that solicitude and tenderness to which our text refers, in the conduct of Christ, when he drew near to Jerusalem and wept over it.

We proceed, therefore, in the second place, to inquire, WHAT THERE IS IN

THE CONDITION OF SUCH PERSONS TO EXCITE THE SYMPATHY AND SOLICITUDE OF CHRIST.

Christ is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." His heart is as kind and affectionate, and as full of compassion now, as when he bled on the cross, and prayed for his murderers. The same spirit which led him to weep over Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago, would lead him now, if he were on earth, to weep over incorrigible sinners wherever they are found. Nor are there wanting, beloved hearers, causes for this solicitude, whatever view we take of the character or condition of such incorrigible men.

This, dear The Jews "Unto you

One of these is, their determined rejection of offered mercy. hearers, was the grief of the Saviour as he wept over Jerusalem. were his peculiar people; his kindred according to the flesh. first," says the Apostle Peter, "God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities." But, "He came unto his own, and his own received him." No, they would not receive him. Jesus himself knew this; he felt it: it was like a dagger to his heart; and when he thought of them he wept. So it is with all incorrigible men; deliberately and to the last they reject the Son of God: nothing will persuade them to accept his offered mercy: they will not come to him that they might have life. They neither desire nor are willing to receive the salvation of the Gospel. They hate and despise the person and the truth of the Redeemer; and, though offered on the most reasonable terms, they refuse to accept his mercy. And never is the Saviour so much grieved as when he is thus rejected. For his love they are his enemies. Him they reject, who, from compassion to our own ruined race, left the bosom of his Father, emptied himself of his glory, became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and died on the cross. He invites them to the arms of his mercy; he pledges them a warm and welcome reception to the bosom of his love; but they will not come. There is nothing in his person, there is nothing in his truth, there is nothing in this joyful sound of pardon and peace through the blood of his great atonement, there is nothing in the promise of eternal life to engage their affections, or charm or subdue their obduracy. Well is he represented as weeping over such sinners. Never does he consider himself treated with such foul ingratitude and indignity, as when men thus despise the offers of his love. He might be incensed with displeasure; he might be irritated with indignation: but it is much for his amiable and beloved character to be wounded and grieved.

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