Not
dated.
Psalms
36:2
For he flattereth
himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be
hateful.
In the foregoing verse,
David says, “The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there
is no fear of God before his eyes;” that is, when he saw that the wicked went on
in sin, in an allowed way of wickedness, it convinced him, that he was not
afraid of those terrible judgments, and of that wrath with which God hath
threatened sinners. If the sinner were afraid of these, he could never go on so
securely in sin, as he doth.
It was a strange thing that
men, who enjoyed such light as they did in the land of Israel, who read and
heard those many awful threatenings which were written in the book of the law,
should not be afraid to go on in sin. But saith the Psalmist, They flatter
themselves in their own eyes: they have something or other which they make a
foundation of encouragement, whereby they persuade themselves that they shall
escape those judgments, and that makes them put far away the evil
day.
In this manner he proceeds,
until his iniquity be found to be hateful; that is, until he finds by
experience that it is a more dreadful thing to sin against God, and break his
holy commands, than he imagined. He thinks sin to be sweet, and hides it as a
sweet morsel under his tongue. He loves it and flatters himself in it, till at
length he finds, by experience, that it is bitter as gall and wormwood. Though
he thinks the commission of sin to be lovely, yet he will find the fruit of it
to be hateful, and what he cannot endure. Pro 23:32, “At last it will bite like
a serpent, and sting like an adder.”
Here observe, the subject
spoken of is the wicked man, of whom the Psalmist had been speaking in
the foregoing verse. — His action in flattering himself in his own eyes;
i.e. he makes himself and his case to appear to himself, or in his own eyes,
better than it is.
How long he continues so to
do, until his iniquity be found to be hateful. Which may be taken for
either his sin itself, the wicked will see how odious sin is to God, when
he shall feel the effects of his hatred, and how hateful to angels and saints.
Or rather the cause is here put for the effect, the tree for its fruit,
and he will find his iniquity to be hateful, as he will find the hatefulness and
feel the terribleness of the fruit of his iniquity. — Hence it appears
that Wicked men generally flatter themselves with hopes of escaping
punishment, till it actually comes upon them.
There are but few sinners
who despair, who give up the cause and conclude with themselves, that they shall
go to hell. Yet there are but few who do not go to hell. It is to be feared that
many go to hell every day out of this country. Yet very few of them suffer
themselves to believe that they are in any great danger of that punishment. They
go on sinning and traveling in the direct road to the pit; yet by one they
persuade themselves that they shall never fall into it,
SECTION
I
Sinners flatter themselves
with the hope of impunity.
WE are so taught in the Word
of God, Deu. 29:18, 19, “Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or
family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God. Lest
there should he among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood, and it come to
pass when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his
heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine
heart, to add drunkenness to thirst.” Where it is supposed that they whose
hearts turn away from God, and are roots that bear gall and wormwood, generally
bless themselves in their hearts, saying, We shall have
peace.
See also Psa. 49:17, 18,
“When he dieth, he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after
him, though while he lived, he blessed his soul.” And Psa. 50:21, “These
things thou hast done, and I kept silence: thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such a one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before
thee.”
It is very evident that
sinners flatter themselves that they shall escape punishment, otherwise they
would be in dreadful and continual distress. They could never live and go about
so cheerfully as they now do. Their lives would be filled with sorrow and
mourning, and they would be in continual uneasiness and distress, as much as
those that are exercised with some violent pain of body. But it is apparent that
men are careless and secure, that they are not much concerned about future
punishment, and that they cheerfully pursue their business and recreations.
Therefore they undoubtedly flatter themselves, that they shall not be
eternally miserable in hell, as they are threatened in the Word of
God.
It is evident that they
flatter themselves with hopes that they shall escape punishment. Otherwise they
would certainly be restrained, at least from many of those sins in which they
now live. They would not proceed in willful courses of sin. The transgression of
the wicked convinced the Psalmist, and is enough to convince everyone, that
there is no fear of God before his eyes, and that he flatters himself in his own
eyes. It would be impossible for men allowably from day to day to do those very
things which they know are threatened with everlasting destruction, if they did
not some way encourage themselves [that] they should nevertheless escape that
destruction.
SECTION
II
Some
of the various ways wherein sinners flatter themselves in their own
eyes.
1. SOME flatter themselves
with a secret hope that there is no such thing as another world. They
hear a great deal of preaching, and a great deal of talk about hell, and the
eternal judgment. But those things do not seem to them to be real. They never
saw hell, nor the devils and damned spirits. And therefore are ready to say with
themselves, “How do I know that there is any such thing as another world?” When
the beasts die, there is an end of them, and how do I know but that it will be
so with me? Perhaps all these things are nothing but the inventions of men,
nothing but cunningly devised fables.
Such thoughts are apt to
rise in the minds of sinners, and the devil sets in to enforce them. Such
thoughts are an ease to them. Therefore they wish they were true, and
that makes them the more ready to think that they are so. So that they
are hardened in the way of sin, by infidelity and atheistic thoughts. Psa. 14:1,
“ The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Psa. 94:6, 7, “They slay
the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, the Lord
shall not see; neither shall the God of Jacob regard it,”
2. Some flatter themselves
that death is a great way off, and that they shall hereafter have much
opportunity to seek salvation. And they think if they earnestly seek it, though
it be a great while hence, they shall obtain. Although they see no reason to
conclude that they shall live long, and perhaps they do not positively conclude
that they shall, yet it doth not come into their minds that their lives are
really uncertain, and that it is doubtful whether they will live another year.
Such a thought as this doth not take any hold of them. And although they do not
absolutely determine that they shall live to old age or to middle age, yet they
secretly flatter themselves with such an imagination. They are disposed to
believe so. They act upon it and run the venture of it.
Men will believe that things
will be as they choose to have them, without reason, and sometimes without the
appearance of reason, as is most apparent in this case, Psa. 49:11, “Their
inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their
dwelling-places to all generations; they call their lands after their own
names.” — The prepossession and desire of men to have it so, is the principal
thing that makes them believe so. However, there are several other things which
they use as arguments to flatter themselves. Perhaps they think that since they
are at present in health, or in youth, or that since they are useful men, do a
great deal of good, and both themselves and others pray for the continuance of
their lives; they are not likely to be removed by death very soon. — If they
shall live many years in the world, they think that it is very probable they
shall be converted before they die. As they expect hereafter to have much more
convenient opportunities to become converted, than they have now. And by some
means or other, they think they shall get through their work before they arrive
at old age.
3. Some flatter themselves
that they lead moral and orderly lives, and therefore think that they
shall not be damned. They think with themselves that they live not in any vice,
that they take care to wrong no man, are just and honest dealers, that they are
not addicted to hard drinking, or to uncleanness, or to bad language; that they
keep the Sabbath strictly, are constant attendants on the public worship, and
maintain the worship of God in their families. Therefore they hope that God will
not cast them into hell. They see not why God should be so angry with them as
that would imply, seeing they are so orderly and regular in their walk! They see
not that they have done enough to anger him to that degree. And if they have
angered him, they imagine they have also done a great deal to pacify
him.
If they be not as yet
converted, and it be necessary that they should experience any other conversion
in order to their salvation, they hope that their orderly and strict lives will
move God to give them converting grace. They hope that surely God will not see
those that live as they do go to hell. Thus they flatter themselves, as those
(Luke 18:9) “that trusted in themselves that they were
righteous.”
4. Some make the
advantages under which they live an occasion of self flattery. They
flatter themselves that they live in a place where the gospel is powerfully
preached and among a religious people, where many have been converted. And they
think it will be much easier for them to be saved on that account. Thus they
abuse the grace of God to their destruction. They do that which the Scriptures
call despising the riches of God’s goodness: Rom. 2:4, “Or despisest thou
the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long suffering; not knowing
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”
Some flatter themselves that
they are born of godly parents, who are dear to God, who have often and
earnestly prayed for them. They hope that their prayers will be heard, and that
encourages them to go on in the way of neglecting their souls. The Jews had
great dependence upon this, that they were the children of Abraham. In John
8:33, they make their boast. “We be Abraham’s seed;” and in verse 39, “Abraham
is our father.”
5. Some flatter themselves
with their own intentions. They intend to neglect themselves, and give
themselves liberty for a while longer, and then to reform. Though now
they neglect their souls, and are going on in sin; yet they intend ere long to
bestir themselves, to leave off their sins, and to set themselves to seek God.
They hear that there is great encouragement for those who earnestly seek God,
that they shall find him. So they intend to do; they propose to seek with a
great deal of earnestness. They are told that there are many who seek to enter
the kingdom of heaven who shall not be able. But they intend, not only to seek,
but to strive, however, for the present they allow themselves in their
ease, sloth, and pleasure, minding only earthly things.
Or if they should be seized
with some mortal distemper, and should draw near to the grave, before the time
which they lay out in their minds for reformation, they think how earnestly they
would pray and cry to God for mercy. And as they hear God is a merciful God who
taketh no delight in the death of sinners, they hence flatter themselves that
they shall move God to have pity on them.
There are but few who are
sinners, knowing themselves to be such, who do not encourage themselves with
intentions of future repentance and reformation. But few who do not flatter
themselves, that they shall in good earnest set themselves to seek God some time
or other. Hell is full of good intenders who never proved to be true
performers: Acts 24:25, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient
season, I will call for thee.”
6. There are some who
flatter themselves, that they do and have done, a great deal for
their salvation, and therefore hope they shall obtain, when indeed they neither
do what they ought to do, nor what they might do in their present state of
unregeneracy. Nor are they in any likely way to be converted They think they are
striving, when they neglect many moral and some instituted duties; nor do they
exert themselves as if it were for their lives. They are not violent for
the kingdom of heaven.
There are doubtless many
such. Many are concerned, and are seeking, and do many things, and think that
they are in a very fair way to obtain the kingdom of God. Yet there is great
danger that they will prove at last to be some of the foolish virgins, and be
found without oil in their vessels.
7. Some hope by their
strivings to obtain salvation of themselves. They have a secret
imagination that they shall, by degrees, work in themselves sorrow and
repentance of sin, and love towards God and Jesus Christ. Their striving is not
so much an earnest seeking to God, as a striving to do themselves that which is
the work of God. Many who are now seeking have this imagination; they labor,
read, pray, hear sermons and go to private meetings, with the view of making
themselves holy, and of working in themselves holy
affections.
Many, who only project and
design to turn to God hereafter, are apt to think that it is an easy thing to be
converted, that it is a thing which will be in their own power at any time, when
they shall earnestly set themselves to it.
8. Some sinners flatter
themselves that they are already converted. They sit down and rest in a
false hope, persuading themselves that all their sins are pardoned, that God
loves them, that they shall go to heaven when they die, and that they need
trouble themselves no more, Rev. 3:17, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and
increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”
Sinners very generally go on
flattering themselves in some or other of these ways till their punishment
actually overtakes them. These are the baits by which Satan catches souls and
draws them into his snare. They are such self-flatteries as these that keep men
from seeing their danger, and that make them go on securely, “as the bird
hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his
life.”
Those that flatter
themselves with hopes of living a great while longer in the world, very commonly
continue so to do till death comes. Death comes upon them when they expect it
not. They look upon it as a great way off, when there is but a step between them
and death. They thought not of dying at that time, nor at anytime near it. When
they were young, they proposed to live a good while longer. And if they happen
to live till middle age, they still maintain the same thought, that they are not
yet near death. And so that thought goes along with them as long as they live,
or till they are just about to die.
Men often have a dependence
on their own righteousness, and as long as they live are never brought off from
it. Multitudes uphold themselves with their own intentions till all their
prospects are dashed in pieces by death. They put off the work which they have
to do till such a time. And when that comes, they put it off to another time;
until death, which cannot be put off, overtakes them. There are many also that
hold a false hope, a persuasion that they belong to God. And as long as they
live, by all the marks and signs which are given of a true convert, they never
will be persuaded to let go their hope till it is rent from them by
death.
Thus men commonly uphold
themselves, and make themselves easy, till hell-fire makes them uneasy.
Everlasting ruin comes upon them as a snare, and all their hopes are at once cut
off, and turned into everlasting despair: 1 Thes. 5:3, “When they shall say,
Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a
woman with child; and they shall not escape.”
SECTION
III
The
subject applied
1. HENCE we learn one reason
why there are but few saved, and why so many perish from under the gospel. All
men know that they must die, and all that sit under the light of the gospel have
been told many a time, that after this there is an other world, that there are
but two states in that other world — a state of eternal happiness, and a state
of eternal misery — that there is but one way of escaping the misery and
obtaining the blessedness of eternity, which is by obtaining an interest in
Christ, through faith in him, and that this life is the only opportunity of
obtaining an interest in Christ. Yet men are so much given to flatter themselves
in those ways which we have mentioned, that there are but few that seasonably
take care of their salvation. Indeed they cannot but be in some measure
concerned about their souls. Yet they flatter themselves with one thing or
other, so that they are kept steadily and uninterruptedly going on in the broad
way to destruction.
2. Hence we learn the reason
why awakening truths of Scripture, and awakening sermons, make no more
impression upon men. It is in itself a wonderful and surprising thing that God’s
denunciations of eternal misery and threatenings of casting sinners into the
lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever, do not affect them
[or] do not startle them. But the truth is, they flatter themselves by
such means as we have mentioned, that this dreadful misery is not for
them; that they shall escape it, though multitudes of others are
involved in it. They take not these threatenings to themselves. They seem to
think that they do not belong to them.
How many are there, who for
all the awakening sermons they have heard, are yet secure in sin! And who,
although they are sensible that they are in a Christless condition, and are
still going on in sin, yet intend to go to heaven, and expect that by some means
or other they shall arrive there. They are often told that God is very angry
with them. Yet they think God is a very merciful God and they shall be able to
pacify him. If they be told how uncertain life is, that doth not awaken
them, because they flatter themselves with long life. If they be told how
dangerous it is to delay the business of religion, they promise themselves, that
they will hereafter engage in it with more earnestness than others, and so
obtain the end, the salvation of their souls. Others, when they are told that
many shall seek who shall not he able to obtain, think surely that they,
having done so much for salvation, shall not be denied.
3. Let every sinner examine,
whether he do not flatter himself in some of those ways which have been
mentioned. What is it in your own minds which makes you think it is safe for you
to delay turning to God? What is it that encourages you to run such a venture as
you do, by delaying this necessary work? Is it that you hope there is no such
state as heaven or hell and have a suspicion that there is no God ? Is it this
that makes you secure ? Or is it that you are not much afraid but that you shall
have opportunity enough, a great while hence, to mind such things? Is it an
intention of a future seeking a more convenient season? And are you persuaded
that God will hearken to you then, after you shall have so long turned a deaf
ear to his commands and gracious invitations? Are you encouraged to commit sin,
because you hope to repent of it? Are you encouraged by the mercy of God to be
his enemies? And do you resolve still to provoke him to anger because you think
he is easily pacified ?
Or do you think that your
conversion is in your own power, and that you can turn to God when you please?
Is it because you have been born of godly parents that you are so secure? Or do
you imagine that you are in a fair way to be converted? Do you think that what
you have done in religion will engage God to pity you, and that he never can
have the heart to condemn one who has lived in so orderly a manner? Or do you
think that you are indeed converted already? And doth that encourage you to take
a liberty in sinning ? Or are you secure because you are so stupid as to think
nothing about these things? Do you let these concerns wholly alone, and scarcely
ever think at all how it will be with you after you are dead? — Certainly it
must be one or more of these things which keeps you in your security and
encourages you to go on in sin. Examine, therefore, and see which of them it
is.
4. Be persuaded to leave off
thus flattering yourselves in your own eyes. You are therein informed that those
who do as you do, commonly continue so doing till their punishment actually
comes upon them. Thereby you may be convinced of the vanity of all such
flatteries. Be afraid of that which you are sure is the devil’s bait. “Surely in
vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird,” Pro.
1:17.
You are not only told in the
Scriptures that sinners are generally thus allured to hell, but your own reason
may convince you that it is so. For doubtless other sinners have as much ground
to hope to escape punishment as you. And it is evident, that they generally do
hope to escape. Men under the gospel almost universally think they shall not go
to hell. If it were otherwise, they could have no peace or comfort in the world.
Yet what multitudes have we reason to conclude go down from under the preaching
of the gospel to the pit of destruction! Now, this is surely enough to convince
any sober, prudent person of the folly of such flattery, and of the folly of
everyone that doth not immediately set about his great work with his might. If
you could have access to the damned, you would hear many of them curse
themselves, for thus flattering themselves while they lived in this world. And
you would have the same doctrine preached to you by their wailings and yellings
which is now preached to you from the pulpit.
If your temptation to
security be unbelief of the fundamental doctrines of religion, such as the being
of God, of another world, and an eternal judgment, you may consider, that though
that makes you secure at present, yet it will not do always. It will not stand
by when you come to die. The fool often in health saith, There is no God.
But when he comes to die, he cannot rest in any such supposition. Then he is
generally so much convinced in his own conscience that there is a God, that he
is in dreadful amazement for fear of his eternal wrath. It is folly, therefore,
to flatter yourselves with any supposition now which you will not then be able
to hold. — If you depend on long life, consider how many who have depended on
the same thing, and had as much reason to depend on it as you, have died within
your remembrance.
Is it because you are outwardly of an orderly life
and conversation, that you think you shall be saved? How unreasonable is it to
suppose that God should be so obliged by those actions, which he knows are not
done from the least respect or regard to him, but wholly with a private view! Is
it because you are under great advantages that you are not much afraid but that
you shall some time or other be converted, and therefore neglect yourselves and
your spiritual interests? And were not the people of Bethsaida, Chorazin and
Capernaum, under as great advantages as you, when Christ himself preached the
gospel to them, almost continually, and wrought such a multitude of miracles
among them? Yet he says, that it shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment
for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for those cities.
Do you expect you shall be
saved, however you neglect yourselves, because you were born of godly parents?
Hear what Christ saith, Mat. 3:9, “Think not to say within yourselves, we have
Abraham to our father.” Do you flatter yourselves that you shall obtain mercy,
though others do not, because you intend hereafter to seek it more earnestly
than others? Yet you deceive yourselves if you think that you intend better than
many of those others, or better than many who are now in hell once
intended.
If you think you are in a
way of earnest seeking, consider, whether or no you do not mind other things yet
more? If you imagine that you have it in your own power to work yourselves up to
repentance, consider, that you must assuredly give up that imagination before
you can have repentance wrought in you. If you think yourselves already
converted, and that encourages you to give yourselves the greater liberty in
sinning, this is a certain sign that you are not
converted.
Wherefore abandon all these
ways of flattering yourselves. No longer follow the devil’s bait and let nothing
encourage you to go on in sin; but immediately and henceforth seek God with all
your heart, and soul, and strength.