The ancient heathens, with whose notions we are acquainted, how far soever they might have carried their speculations of moral or civil wisdom, had no conception of a future state, except idle fictions, which those who considered them treated as ridiculous; or dark conjectures, formed by men of deep thoughts and great enquiry, but neither, in themselves, capable of compelling conviction, nor brought at all to the knowledge of the gross of mankind, of those who lived in pleasure and idleness, or in solitude and labour; they were confined to the closet of the student, or the school of the lecturer, and were very little diffused among the busy or the vulgar.

There is no reason to wonder, that many enormities should prevail, where there was nothing to oppose them. When we consider the various and perpetual temptations of appetite within, and interest without; when we see, that on every side there is something that solicits the desires, and which cannot be innocently obtained; what can we then expect, but that, notwithstanding all the securities of law, and all the vigilance of magistrates, those that know of no other world will eagerly make the most of this, and please themselves whenever they can, with very little regard to the right of others?

As the state of the heathens was a state of darkness, it must have been a state, likewise, of disorder; a state of perpetual contest for the goods of this life, and by consequence of perpetual danger to those who abounded, and of temptation to those that were in want.

The Jews enjoyed a very ample communication of the divine will, and had a religion which an inspired legislator had prescribed. But even to this nation, the only nation free from idolatry, and acquainted with the perfections of the true God, was the doctrine of a future state so obscurely revealed, that it was not necessarily consequential to the reception, or observation, of their practical religion. The Sadducees who acknowledged the authority of the Mosaical law, yet denied the separate existence of the soul, had no expectation of a future state. They held that there was no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit.3

This was not in those times, the general state of the Jewish nation; the Pharisees held the resurrection, and with them probably far the greater part of the people; but that any man could be a Jew, and yet deny a future state, is a sufficient proof that it had not yet been clearly revealed, and that it was reserved for the preachers of Christianity to bring life and immortality to light. In such a degree of light they are now placed, that they can be denied or doubted no longer, but as the gospel, that shews them, is doubted or denied. It is now certain that we are here, not in our total, nor in our ultimate existence, but in a state of exercise and probation, commanded to qualify ourselves, by pure hearts and virtuous actions, for the enjoyment of future felicity in the presence of God; and prohibited to break the laws which his wisdom has given us, under the penal sanction of banishment from heaven into regions of misery.

Yet notwithstanding the express declaration of our Saviour, and the constant reference of our actions and duties to a future state, throughout the whole volume of the New Testament; there are yet, as in the Apostle’sa time, men who are deceived, who act as if they thought God would be mocked, or deluded, and who appear to forget, that “whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap.”

From this important caution, given by the Apostle immediately to those whom he was then directing, and consequently to all professors of the religion of Christ, occasion may be taken to consider,

First, how sinners “are deceived.”

Secondly, how certain it is, that “God is not mocked.”

Thirdly, in what sense it is to be understood, that whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap.

In examining first, how sinners are deceived, it will immediately occur to us, that no man is deceived to his damnation, but by the devil himself. The subtilties of the devil are undoubtedly many; he has probably the power of presenting opportunities of sin, and at the same time of inflaming the passions, of suggesting evil desires, and interrupting holy meditations; but his power is so limited by the Governour of the universe, that he cannot hurt us without our own consent; his power is but like that of a wicked companion, who may solicit us to crimes or follies, but with whom we feel no necessity of complying; he therefore that yields to temptation, has the greater part in his own destruction; he has been warned of his danger, he has been taught his duty, and if these warnings and instructions have had no effect, he may be said voluntarily to desert the right way, and not so much to be deceived by another, as to deceive himself.

Of self-deceit, in the great business of our lives, there are various modes. The far greater part of mankind deceive themselves, by willing negligence, by refusing to think on their real state, lest such thoughts should trouble their quiet, or interrupt their pursuits. To live religiously, is to walk, not by sight, but by faith; to act in confidence of things unseen,4 in hope of future recompence, and in fear of future punishment. To abstract the thoughts from things spiritual is not difficult; things future do not obtrude themselves upon the senses, and therefore easily give way to external objects. He that is willing to forget religion, may quickly lose it; and that most men are willing to forget it, experience informs us. If we look into the gay, or the busy world, we see every eye directed towards pleasure or advantage, and every hour filled with expectation, or occupied by employment, and day passed after day in the enjoyment of success, or the vexation of disappointment.

Nor is it true only of men, who are engaged in enterprises of hazard, which restrain the faculties to the utmost, and keep attention always upon the stretch. Religion is not only neglected by the projector and adventurer, by men, who suspend their happiness on the slender thread of artifice, or stand tottering upon the point of chance. For if we visit the most cool and regular parts of the community, if we turn our eye to the farm, or to the shop, where one year glides uniformly after another, and nothing new or important is either expected or dreaded; yet still the same indifference about eternity will be found. There is no interest so small, nor engagement so slight, but that if it be followed and expanded, it may be sufficient to keep religion out of the thoughts. Many men may be observed, not agitated by very violent passions, nor overborne by any powerful habits, nor depraved by any great degrees of wickedness; men who are honest dealers, faithful friends, and inoffensive neighbours; who yet have no vital principle of religion; who live wholly without self-examination; and indulge any desire that happens to arise, with very little resistance, or compunction; who hardly know, what it is to combat a temptation, or to repent of a fault; but go on, neither self-approved, nor self-condemned; not endeavouring after any excellence, nor reforming any vicious practice, or irregular desire. They have no care of futurity, neither is God in all their thoughts; they direct none of their actions to his glory, they do nothing with the hope of pleasing, they avoid nothing for the fear of offending him. Those men want not much of being religious, they have nothing more than casual views to reform, and from being peaceable and temperate heathens, might, if they would once awaken to their eternal interest, become pious and exemplary Christians. But let them not be deceived, they cannot suppose that God will accept him, who never wished to be accepted by him, or made his will the rule of action.

Others there are, who, without attending to the written revelation of God’s will, form to themselves a scheme of conduct, in which vice is mingled with virtue, and who cover from themselves, and hope to cover from God, the indulgence of some criminal desire, or the continuance of some vicious habit, by a few splendid instances of publick spirit, or some few effusions of occasional bounty. But to these men it may, with emphatical propriety, be urged, that God is not mocked; he will not be worshiped nor obeyed, but according to his own laws.

The mode of self-deception which prevails most in the world, and by which the greatest number of souls is at last betrayed to destruction, is the art, which we are all too apt to practise, of putting far from us the evil day, of setting the hour of death, and the day of account, at a great distance.

That death is certain, every one knows; nor is it less known, that life is destroyed at all ages, by a thousand causes; that the strong and the vigorous are liable to diseases, and that caution and temperance afford no security against the final stroke. Yet as the thought of dissolution is dreadful, we do not willingly admit it; the desire of life is connected with animation; every living being, shrinks from his destruction; to wish, and to hope, are never far asunder; as we wish for long life, we hope that our wishes will be granted, and what we hope, we either believe, or do not examine. So tenaciously does our credulity lay hold of life, that it is rare to find any man so old, as not to expect an addition to his years, or so far wasted and enfeebled with disease, as not to flatter himself with hopes of recovery.

To those, who procrastinate amendment, in hopes of better opportunities in future time, it is too often vainly urged by the preacher, and vainly suggested by a thousand examples, that the hour of death is uncertain. This, which ought to be the cause of their terrour, is the ground of their hope; that as death is uncertain, it may be distant. This uncertainty is, in effect, the great support of the whole system of life. The man who died yesterday, had purchased an estate, to which he intended some time to retire; or built a house, which he was hereafter to inhabit; and planted gardens and groves, that, in a certain number of years, were to supply delicacies to his feasts, and shades to his meditations. He is snatched away, and has left his designs and his labours to others.

As men please themselves with felicities to be enjoyed, in the days of leisure and retreat; so among these felicities, it is not uncommon to design a reformation of life, and a course of piety. Among the more enlightened and judicious part of mankind, there are many who live in a continual disapprobation of their own conduct, who know, that they do every day what they ought to leave undone, and every day leave undone what they ought to do; and who therefore consider themselves, as living under the divine displeasure, in a state, in which it would be very dangerous to die. Such men answer the reproaches of conscience, with promises of amendment, promises made with sincerity and intention of performance, but which they consider, as debts to be discharged at some remote time. They neither sin with stupid negligence, nor with impious defiance, of the divine laws; they fear the punishments denounced against sin, but pacify their anxiety, with possibilities of repentance, and with a plan of life to be led, according to the strict precepts of religion, and to be closed at last, by a death softened by holy consolations. Projects of future piety are perhaps not less common, than of future pleasure, and are, as there is reason to fear, not less commonly interrupted; with this dreadful difference, that he who misses his intended pleasure, escapes a disappointment, but he who is cut off before the season of repentance, is exposed to the vengeance of an angry God.

Whoever has been deluded by this infatuation, and has hitherto neglected those duties which he intends some time to perform, is admonished, by all the principles of prudence, and all the course of nature, to consider, how much he ventures, and with how little probability in his favour. The continuance of life, though, like all other things, adjusted by Providence, may be properly considered by us casual; and wisdom always directs us, not to leave that to chance which may be made certain, and not to venture any thing upon chance which it will much hurt us to lose.

He who, accused by his conscience of habitual disobedience, defers his reformation, apparently leaves his soul in the power of chance. We are in full possession of the present moment; let the present moment be improved; let that, which must necessarily be done some time, be no longer neglected. Let us remember, that if our lot should fall otherwise than we suppose; if we are of the number of them, to whom length of life is not granted, we lose what can never be recovered, and what will never be recompensed, the mercy of God, and the joys of futurity.

That long life is not commonly granted, is sufficiently apparent; for life is called long, not as being, at its greatest length, of much duration, but as being longer than common. Since therefore the common condition of man is not to live long, we have no reason to conclude, that what happens to few will happen to us.

But, to abate our confidence in our own resolutions, it is to be remembered, that though we should arrive at the great year, destined for the change of life, it is by no means certain, that we shall effect what we have purposed. Age is shackled with infirmity and diseases. Immediate pain and present vexation will then do what amusement and gaiety did before, will enchain the attention, and occupy the thoughts, and leave little vacancy for the past or future. Whoever suffers great pain, has no other care than to obtain ease; and if ease is for a time obtained, he values it too much, to lessen it by painful reflections.

Neither is an efficacious repentance so easy a work, as that we may be sure of performing it, at the time appointed by ourselves. The longer habits have been indulged, the more imperious they become; it is not by bidding them to be gone, that we can at once dismiss them; they may be suppressed and lie dormant for a time, and resume their force, at an unexpected moment, by some sudden temptation; they can be subdued only by continued caution and repeated conflicts.

The longer sin has been indulged, the more irksome will be the retrospect of life. So much uneasiness will be suffered, at the review of years spent in vicious enjoyment, that there is reason to fear, lest that delay, which began in the love of pleasure, will be continued for fear of pain.

Neither is it certain, that the grace, without which no man can correct his own corruption, when it has been offered and refused, will be offered again; or that he who stopped his ears against the first call, will be vouchsafed a second. He cannot expect to be received among the servants of God, who will obey him only at his own time; for such presumption is, in some degree, a mockery of God, and we are to consider secondly, how certain it is, that God is not mocked.

God is not mocked in any sense. He will not be mocked with counterfeit piety, he will not be mocked with idle resolutions; but the sense in which the text declares, that God is not mocked, seems to be, that God will not suffer his decrees to be invalidated; he will not leave his promises unfulfilled, nor his threats unexecuted. And this will easily appear, if we consider, that promises and threats can only become ineffectual by change of mind, or want of power. God cannot change his will, “he is not a man that he should repent”;5 what he has spoken, will surely come to pass. Neither can he want power to execute his purposes; he who spoke, and the world was made, can speak again, and it will perish. God’s “arm is not shortened, that he cannot save”;6 neither is it shortened, that he cannot punish; and that he will do to every man, according to his works, will be shown, when we have considered,

Thirdly, in what sense it is to be understood, that whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap.

To sow and to reap are figurative terms. To sow, signifies to act; and to reap, is to receive the product of our actions. As no man can sow one sort of grain, and reap another, in the ordinary process of nature; as no man gathers grapes of thorns or figs of thistles,7 or when he scatters tares in the furrows, gathers wheat into his garners; so, in the final dispensations of Providence, the same correspondence shall be found in the moral system; every action shall at last be followed by its due consequences; we shall be treated according to our obedience or transgressions; the good shall not miss their reward, nor the wicked escape their punishment; but when men shall give account of their own works, they that have done good shall pass into everlasting life, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

Let us therefore at this, and at all times, most heartily and fervently beseech Almighty God to give us faithful and sincere repentance, to pardon and forgive us all our sins, to endue us with the grace of his holy spirit, and to amend our lives according to his holy will and commandments.