Again. We naturally hate efforts to promote the interests of our enemies. We are very apt to cavil at the measures which they use; call their motives in question; and find a great deal of fault with the spirit, and manner of their efforts; when we are opposed to the end which they have in view. If it be to promote the interests of our enemy, we are naturally watching for objections, and are captious, and ill-natured, in regard to their movements. We are apt to ridicule, and oppose such efforts; and any thing like zeal, in such a case, is looked upon by us, as enthusiasm and madness. Witness the conduct of impenitent sinners, on the subject of religion. If any efforts are made to promote the interests of the kingdom of God; to honour and glorify him, they are offended. They get up an opposition. They not unfrequently ridicule their meetings. Speak evil of those that are engaged in them. Denounce their zeal, as enthusiasm, and madness; and something for which they deserve the execration of all their neighbours. People may get together, and dance all night, and impenitent sinners do not think it objectionable. The theatre may be opened, every night, at great expense, and the actors and multitudes of others, may be engaged all day in preparing for the entertainment of the evening; and thus the devil may get up a protracted meeting, and continue it for years, and they see no harm in it: no enthusiasm in all this. Ladies may go, and stay till midnight, every evening. Poor people may go, and spend their time and money, and waste their health and lives, and ruin their souls; and there is no harm in all this. But let Christians do any thing like this, and exercise one tenth part of this zeal in promoting the honour of God, and the salvation of souls; why, it would be talked of from Dan to Beersheba. Sinners may go to a ball, or party, and stay nearly all night; but excessively indecorous it is for ladies to go out to evening meetings. For Christians to have protracted meetings, and to pray till 10 o'clock at night. Abominable! Why, such things are spoken against in the newspapers. They are the subjects of remark and reprobation in steamboats, and stage-coaches, and bar-rooms, and wherever impenitent sinners are assembled. Politicians, may manifest the greatest zeal on the subject of politics. May hold their caucuses; post up their handbills; blaze away in the public journals; appoint their ward-committees; ransack every nook and corner; parade through the streetsar with their music; fire their guns, show their flags, transport their frigates through the streets on wheels, send their coaches up and down the streets with hand-bills posted on their sides, to bring men to the polls, hundreds of thousands of dollars may be expended to carry an election, and all this is well enough. But, O, let Christians but begin to serve God with such zeal, and make such efforts to build up his kingdom, and save the souls of men; and ten to one, if the wicked did not absolutely mob them, and cry out that such efforts would ruin the nation. They would brand such proceedings as the most arrant (throughgoing) enthusiasm, and downright madness. But is it because politics are of so much more importance than the salvation of souls? Is it, because no effort is necessary to arouse a slumbering world, and bring sinners to act, and think, and feel, as they ought on the subject of salvation. No, there is reason enough for the highest possible degree of Christian effort, and sinners know it very well; but their enmity against God is so great, that such efforts cannot be made without arousing all the hell there is within them.
Suppose the business in which your steward was employed, required that he should entertain right notions concerning the manner of doing it, and the principles involved in it; of your will and of his duty. And suppose you had given him, in writing, a set of rules for the government of his conduct, in relation to all the affairs with which he was intrusted; then if he should neglect to examine those rules, or should pervert their plain meaning, and should thus pervert his own conduct, and be instrumental in deceiving others, and leading them in the way of disobedience, would you not look upon this as criminal and deserving the severest reprobation?
Lastly, God requires you to give all diligence to make your calling and election sure. In choosing his elect, you must understand, that he has thrown the responsibility of their being saved upon them, that the whole is suspended upon their consent to the terms; you are all perfectly able to give your consent, and this moment to lay hold on eternal life. Irrespective of your own choice no election can save you, and no reprobation can damn you. The spirit and the bride say Come, let him that heareth say Come, let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the waters of life freely. The responsibility is yours. God does all that he wisely can, and challenges you to show what more he could do that he has not done. If you go to hell, you must go stained with your own blood. God is clear, angels are clear. To your own master your stand or fall; mercy waits, the Spirit strives; Jesus stands at the door and knocks; do not then pervert this doctrine, and make it an occasion of stumbling till you are in the depth of hell.