THE WAYS OF SIN ARE HARD AND DIFFICULT

In the last issue, October, I stated that I would point out to you some seemingly insuperable obstacles in the way to hell, or some dire exploits, which, one would think, would be too hard for you to perform, which yet you must perform, if you persist in a course of sin.

Reader, is it not a hard thing to be an unbeliever, or a deist, in our age and country, while the light of the gospel shines around us with full blaze of evidence?

Before a man can work up himself to the disbelief of a religion attended with such undeniable evidence, and inspiring such divine dispositions and exalted hopes, what absurdities must he embrace! what strong convictions must he resist! what dark suspicions, what boding fears and misgivings, what shocking peradventures and tremendous doubts must he struggle with! what glorious hopes must he resign! what gloomy and shocking prospects must he reconcile himself to! what violence must be offered to conscience! what care must be used to shut up all the avenues of serious thought, and harden the heart against the terrors of death and the supreme tribunal! How painful a piece of preposterous self-denial to reject the balm the gospel provides to heal a broken heart and a bleeding conscience, and the various helps and advantages it furnishes us with to obtain divine favor and everlasting happiness! How hard to work up the mind to believe that Jesus, who spoke, and acted, and suffered, and did every thing, like an incarnate God, was an imposter, or at best a moral philosopher! or that the religion of the Bible, that contains the most sublime and God-like truths, and the most pure and perfect precepts of piety and morality, is the contrivance of artful and wicked men, or evil spirits! These, my friends, are no easy things. There are many sceptics and smatterers in infidelity, but few, very few, are able to make thorough work of it, or commence staunch unbelievers. The attempt itself is a desperate shift. A man must have reduced himself to a very sad case indeed, before he can have any temptation to set about it. He has, by his wilful wickedness, set Christianity against him, before he can have any temptation to set himself against Christianity: and when he proclaims war against it, he finds it hard, yea, impossible, to make good his cause. He may indeed put on the airs of defiance and triumph, and affect to laugh at his enemy, and at times may be half persuaded he has really got the victory. But such men find the arms of their own reason often against them, and their own conscience forms violent insurrections in favor of religion, which they cannot entirely suppress; so that they are like their father, whatever they pretend, they believe and tremble too. Alas! that there should be so many unhappy companions in this infernal cause, in our country and nation. They find it hard, even now, to kick against the goads: and O! how much harder they will find it in the issue! Their resistance will prove ruinous to themselves; but neither they nor the gates of hell shall prevail against the cause they oppose. Christianity will live when they are dead and damned, according to its sentence. It is a long tried bulwark, that has withstood all the assaults of earth and hell for near 6,000 years, and has still proved impregnable. Infidels may hurt themselves by opposing it; as an unruly stupid ox, their proper emblem may hurt himself, but not the goads, by kicking against them.

Is it not hard for men to profess themselves believers, and assent to the truth of Christianity, and yet live as if they were infidels?

A professed speculative atheist, or infidel, is a monster that we do not often meet with: but the more absurd and unaccountable phenomenon cf a practical atheist; one who is orthodox in principle, but an infidel in practice, we may find wherever we turn: and it would be strange if none such have mingled in our assemblies. To such I would particularly write unto now.

If you believe Christianity, or even the religion of nature, you believe that there is a God of infinite excellency; the Maker, Preserver, Benefactor, and ruler of the world, and of you in particular; and consequently, that you are under the strongest and most endearing obligations to love him, and make it your great study and endeavor to obey his will in all instances. Now is it not strange, that while you believe this, you are able to live as you do? How can you live so thoughtless of this great and glorious God, who bears such august and endearing relations to you? How can you withhold your love from him, and ungratefully refuse obedience? Is not this a hard thing to you? Does it not cost you some labor to reconcile your conscience to it? If this be easy to you, what champions in wickedness are you? how mighty to do evil! This would not be easy to the mightiest archangel: no, it is a dire achievement he would tremble to think of. And if it be easy to you, it is, as I observed before, in the same sense that it is easy to a dead body to rot. Your strength to do evil is your real weakness, or which is the same, the strength of your disease.

Again, if you believe the Christian religion, you believe the glorious doctrine of redemption through Jesus Christ; you believe that he, the Father’s great co-equal Son, assumed our nature, passed through the various hardships of life, and died upon a cross for you; and all this out of pure unremitted love. And is it no difficulty to neglect him, to dishonor him, to slight his love and disobey his commands? Does this monstrous wickedness never put you to a stand? Degenerate and corrupt as you are, have you not such remains of generous principles within you, as that you cannot, without great violence to your own hearts, reject such a Savior? Does not at least a spark of gratitude sometimes kindle in your hearts, which you find it hard to quench entirely? Does not conscience often take up arms in the cause of its Lord, and do you not find it hard to quell the insurrection? Alas! if you find little or no difficulty in treating the blessed Jesus with neglect, it shows that you are mighty giants in iniquity, and sin with the strength of a devil.

Again: If you believe the Christian religion, you must believe that regeneration, or a thorough change of heart and life, and universal holiness, are essentially necessary to constitute you a real Christian, and prepare you for everlasting happiness. And while you have this conviction, is it not a hard thing for you to be only Christians in name, or self-condemned hypocrites, or to rest contented in any attainments short of real religion? Is it an easy thing to you to keep your eyes always shut against the light, which would show you to yourselves in your true colors! to keep such a close guard, as never to let the mortifying secret pass, that you are indeed but a hypocrite, and to harden yourselves against the portion of hypocrites, which will ere long be distributed to you?

Finally, if you believe Christianity or even natural religion, you believe a future state of rewards and punishments; rewards and punishments the highest that human nature is capable of. And is it not a hard thing to make light of immortal happiness, or everlasting misery? Since you love yourselves, and have a strong innate desire of pleasure and horror of pain, how can you reconcile yourselves to the thoughts of giving up your portion in heaven, and being engulfed for ever in the infernal pit? Or how can you support your hope of enjoying the one, and escaping the other, while you have no sufficient evidence? Can you venture so important an interest upon an uncertainty, or dare to take your chance, without caring what might be the issue? Are you capable of such dreadful fool-hardiness? Do you not often shrink back aghast from the prospect? Does not the happiness of heaven sometimes so strongly attract you, that you find it hard to resist? And do not the terrors of hell start up before you in the way of sin, and are you not brought to a stand, and ready to turn back? The pit of hell, like a raging volcano, thunders at a distance, that you may not fall thereinto by surprise. You may perceive its flames, and smoke, and roarings, in the threatenings of God’s law, while you are yet at a distance from it. And is it easy for you to push on your way, when thus warned? O! one would think, it would be much more easy and delightful to a creature endowed with reason and self-love, to abandon this dangerous road, and ehoose the safe and pleasant way of life.

I might multiply instances under this head; but these must suffice at present, and I shall proceed to ask, Is it not hard for a man to live in a constant conflict with himself? I mean with his conscience, in the next issue, the Lord willing, and we are spared.

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