Jonathan Edwards · 398 of 409

SERMON XI. Wicked Men inconsistent with themselves · Part 4

And what folly does it argue for men, that their practices are so inconsistent with their hearts, and that they say one thing and do another, and so are unsteady in their practice, and inconsistent with themselves at different times! It is looked upon as great folly, and what persons are much to be ashamed of, to be so unsteady in temporal matters, to undo one day what they did another; and so, in their practice in some things to be inconsistent with their practice in others; in one thing to act like a friend, and in another like an enemy. Persons that do so in temporals are abhorred of men, and looked upon as not fit for human society.

2. You may hereby be convinced of your misery. A man cannot be happy, and cannot but be miserable, with whom it is thus. It shows a man to be undone. He, whose nature is brought into such violation, is evidently brought into a state of ruin. Where there is such self-inconsistency and self-opposition, a man is at war with himself, and therefore must be miserable. It is a calamity for a man not to be at peace with his neighbour, and to live in contention with those that are about him; but certainly it is a much greater calamity for him to be at war with himself; to have his judgment at war with his judgment, and his will at war with his reason and conscience, and his will at war with itself, and one lust thwarting another, and his outward man at war with his inward man; his mouth contradicting his heart, his practice contradicting his profession, and contradicting itself. It is impossible that such a man should enjoy any happiness as long as things are thus within him. Do what you will here, you cannot make him happy; if you take him and place him in a palace, and set him on a throne, and clothe him in the robes of princes, and put a crown of gold on his head, and set before him the richest dainties, feed him and feast him as much as you will, still he that so disagrees with himself, is a miserable wretch. Though he may be stupid, yet it is impossible he should enjoy any true peace or rest. How should he, in whom all things are in such utter confusion and uproar within, and in whom there is so much self-opposition.

This may convince us of the truth, and show us the reason, of Isa. lvii. 20, 21. “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

How should he have any peace, who is his own enemy, who chooses and practises these things which his own conscience condemns, and which his own reason tells him tend to his own ruin? How should he have any peace, that hates his own soul and loves his own death, and that has one lust holding him one way, and another the contrary, so as in some respects to choose and refuse the same thing, to wish for a thing that at the same time he hates and refuses, and so goes on from day to day in warring against himself?

3. This shows your inexcusableness. By this inconsistency with yourself, you are condemned out of your own mouth in that you act contrary to your own conscience. Your own conscience condemns you in your will and practice being contrary to your own reason; your own reason condemns you in acting contrary to your profession; your own profession condemns you in the sense in which the apostle speaks of a heretic as being condemned of himself. Titus iii. 10, 11. “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself:” i e. he in departing from his former profession is inconsistent with himself: his present heretical tenets are contrary to his former solemn profession, and therefore that former profession condemns him.

Consider how inexcusable you, who are thus inconsistent with yourself in your wickedness, will appear at the last day; when you come to stand before the judgment-seat of God, when you are by him called to an account for your wicked life, how will your mouth be stopped. When you are called to an account why you have preferred things of such short and uncertain continuance as the things of this vain world, to the great things of the eternal world, what will you have to say for yourself, when it shall appear that herein you acted in direct opposition to the plain dictates of your own reason, and that this choice is inconsistent with the judgment and choice you were wont to make in temporal things? And what will you say for yourself when you are called to give an account why you rejected God, and Christ, and heaven for their holiness; when it so plainly appears that you would not like them, and would not have accepted them, if they had been any other way than holy?

It will then appear that you have voluntarily rejected Christ and his great salvation, and refused to accept of heaven, and that you are condemned of yourself in it, in that at the same time you evinced the great necessity of those things in praying for them, and doing many things in order to the obtaining of them.

When it shall then appear how you had a mind to have impossibilities: as a sufficiently worthy Saviour, and not a holy one; salvation from misery, and not salvation from sin, the source of all misery; and happiness without holiness; it shall from hence most plainly appear, that you did in effect utterly refuse to accept of any Saviour or any salvation at all, and would not be saved from misery at all, and refused to accept of any happiness at all, because you would have no salvation, no happiness, but such as was impossible in the nature of things, such a salvation as was not and could not be; and then how just will it appear to your own conscience, and to the world, that you should e’en go without salvation!

And when it shall appear how you had life and death set before you, and were told the necessity of coming to a choice, and were so often urged to it, and had so much opportunity for it, and yet refused; how just will it appear that divine justice should make your choice for you, when you refused to make any for yourself!

And how will you appear condemned out of your own mouth, when you shall be called to an account by the Judge, why you so often professed to God in your prayers that he was an infinitely great and holy God, and yet never feared him; and why you so often said to God that he was a sovereign and righteous God, and yet never submitted to him; and why you so often said to him that he was an all-sufficient and faithful God, and yet never would put your trust in him; and why you so often said to him that he was an infinitely glorious, and excellent, and good God, and yet never loved him; and why you so often owned that he was an infinitely gracious and bountiful God, and what you had received abundance of kindness from him, and owned him to be the author of all those good things of your life that you enjoy, and yet never were truly thankful to him, but improved those things that you owned were the gifts of God, against himself who was the giver of them; why you so often owned in your prayers before God that you were a poor sinful, vile creature for your sins, and yet never would forsake your sins; and begged of God to keep you from sin, and yet carelessly and wilfully went on in the commission of sin? What will you say to such interrogations of the Judge of heaven and earth? Will not your mouth be stopped, when it shall appear that what has already so often proceeded out of your own mouth, does so much condemn you? And what will hypocrites and self-pretenders to experiences say, who have told what discoveries they had of the glory of God, of Christ, and of heaven; when the Judge inquires of them, why they set so light by this God, and did so prefer the dust of the earth and the filth of sin, before him? When those who have often told what love they have felt to the Lord Jesus Christ, are asked why they took no more care to please and honour him, and why they rather chose from time to time to reject him than sacrifice their worldly interest.

So when wicked men are inquired of why, when they professed to believe a future state, they took no more pains to prepare for it; why, when they professed to be the followers of Christ the Lamb of God, they were no more like him; why, when they owned him for their head, and expressed such wonderful love to him, they could turn and become his enemies; why, when they lived in hope of a life of such unspeakable glory in heaven, they set their affections wholly on this world; why, seeing they made such a show of regard to God and their duty at one time, they discovered such a total disregard at another; why, when they made such pretences to religion, and had such appearances of it in some things, they were so irreligious and wicked in others; what will they answer? Wicked men will appear self-condemned every way: their own reason and their own consciences, their own mouths and their own actions, have condemned them: their reason and consciences will still condemn them, and God will condemn them, and men and angels will and must condemn them: so that they will appear universally condemned; they will have nothing to say for themselves, nor will any one have any thing to say for them.

4. If you are so inconsistent with yourself, you need not wonder that God will enter into no friendship with you, or that he does not receive you into his favour. Many natural men are ready to wonder that God will not receive them into favour they do so much in religion.

But if you consider what has been said, you need not wonder at it. A wise man will make no friendship with another who is very inconsistent with himself in those things wherein men are concerned with him. He will not associate himself with him, nor care to have such to communicate with him; for men know that such persons are not to be depended on. One does not know where to find them, nor how to suit them, and if they will be so inconsistent with themselves, certainly they will not be very consistent with others that trust them. God therefore justly refuses to receive such persons into union with him. It is not consistent with his divine wisdom to give himself to them in a covenant relation.

No wonder that Christ will not commit himself to such persons as these; John ii. 23, 24, 25. “Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man; for he knew what was in man.” Christ knew that there was no dependence to be had upon them; he knew they would not prove consistent with themselves.

5. How vain and inconsistent is the dependence of wicked men on themselves! If this be the case with natural men, if all natural men are as we have heard, so absurdly inconsistent with themselves, how unreasonable is their high thought of themselves, and their trusting to their own goodness, to their own prayers, and their other performances!

And that they do so, is an evident sign of their woeful ignorance of themselves. If such persons saw themselves as they are, and to be such as we have described them, certainly they would be far from trusting in their own excellency and goodness, but would see themselves to be polluted, wretched, miserable, lost creatures, and would no more say in their hearts, “I am rich, and increased with goods;” but would rather condemn themselves, and cry out with self-abhorrence and amazement, “Unclean, unclean, undone, undone!”