This is a classic writing
by the great George Whitefield, the outstanding preacher of the
18th century; the article often does not use the kind of language
which we would today, but it is well worth persevering
with.
Matthew 11:28, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy
laden, and I will give you rest."
Nothing is more generally known than our duties which belong to
Christianity; and yet, how amazing is it, nothing is less
practiced? There is much of it in name and show, but little of it
in the heart and conversation; indeed, if going to church, and to
the sacrament, or, if our being called after the name of Christ,
and being baptized into that name; if that will make us
Christians, I believe all of us would have a claim thereto: but
if it consists in the heart, that there must be an inward
principle wrought in us by faith; that there must be a change of
the whole nature, a putting off the old man with his deeds, a
turning from sin unto God, a cleaving only unto the Son of
Righteousness; and that there must be a new birth, and we
experience the pangs thereof; and that you must feel yourselves
weary and heavy laden with your sins, before you will seek for
deliverance from them; if this is to be the case, if there is so
much in being children of God, alas! how many who please
themselves with an outside show, a name to live whilst they are
dead; and how few that have any share in this spiritual state, in
this true and living name? How few are they who are weary and
heavy laden with their sins, and seek to Christ for rest? They
say, in a formal customary manner, we are sinners, and there is
no health in us; but how few feel themselves sinners, and are so
oppressed in their own spirits, that they have no quiet nor rest
in them, because of the burden of their sins, and the weight that
is fallen and lays on their minds?
Under these burdens, these heavy burdens, they are at a loss what
to do whereby they may obtain rest; they fly to their works, they
go to a minister, and he tells them to read, to pray, and
meditate, and take the sacrament: thus they go away, and read,
and pray, and meditate almost without ceasing, and never neglect
the sacrament whenever there is an opportunity for the taking of
it. Well, when the poor soul has done all this, it still finds no
ease, there is yet no relief. Well, what must you do then? To lie
still under the burden they cannot, and to get rid of it then
cannot. O what must the burdened soul do! Why, goes to the
clergyman again, and tells him the case, and what it has done,
and that it is no better. Well, he asks, have you given alms to
the poor? Why no. Then go and do that, and you will find rest.
Thus the poor sinner is hurried from duty to duty, and still
finds no rest: all things are uneasy and disquiet within, and
there remains no rest in the soul. And if it was to go through
all the duties of religion, and read over a thousand manuals of
prayers, none would ever give the soul any rest; nothing will,
until it goes to the Lord Jesus Christ, for there is the only
true rest; that is the rest which abideth, and will continue for
ever. It is not in your own works, nor in your endeavors: no;
when Christ comes into your souls, he pardons you, without any
respect to your works, either past, present, or to come.
From the words, my brethren, I have now read, I shall
I. Show you who are the weary and heavy laden.
II. Inquire what is meant by coming to Christ. And,
III. Conclude with exhorting you to accept of the invitation
which the
Lord Jesus Christ gives unto you to come unto him, with the
assurance of finding rest.
FIRST, I am to show you, who are the weary and heavy-laden.
And here it will be necessary to consider who are
not; and then, to consider who they are that are really so.
1. Those who think themselves good enough, and are pleased that
they are not so bad as others, these are not weary or heavy
laden.
No, these Pharisees are not thus troubled; they laugh and jest at
those who talk of feeling their sins, and think there is no
occasion to make so much ado about religion: it is to be
righteous over-much, and the means to destroy yourselves. They
think if they do but mean well, and say their prayers, as they
call them, it is sufficient: though they may say a prayer, yea,
thousands of prayers, and all the while be only offering up the
sacrifice of fools. They may call God, Father, every day, when it
isonly mocking of God, and offering up false fire unto him; and
it would bejust for him to serve them, as he did Nadab and Abihu,
destroy them, cut them off from the face of the earth: but he is
waiting to be gracious, and willing to try a little longer,
whether you will bring forth any thing more than the leaven of an
outward profession, which is not all that the Lord requires; no,
he wants the heart; and unless you honor him with that, he does
not regard your mouths, when the other is far from him. You may
say over your prayers all your lives, and yet you may never pray
over one: therefore, while you flatter yourselves you are good
enough, and that you are in a state of salvation, you are only
deceiving you own souls, and hastening on your own destruction.
Come unto him, not as being good enough, but as vile sinners, as
poor, and blind, and naked, and miserable, and then Jesus will
have compassion.
O ye Pharisees, what fruits do ye bring forth? Why, you are
moral, polite creatures; you do your endeavors, you do what you
can, and so Jesus is to make up the rest. You esteem yourselves
fine, rational, and polite beings, and think it is too
unfashionable to pray; it is not polite enough: perhaps you have
read some prayers, but knew not how to pray from your hearts; no,
by no means: that was being righteous over-much indeed.
But when once you are sensible of your being lost, damned
creatures, and see hell gaping ready to receive you: if God was
but to cut the thread of life, O then, then you would cry
earnestly unto the Lord to receive you, to open the door of mercy
unto you; your bones would then be changed, you would no more
flatter yourselves with your abilities and good wishes; no, you
would see how unable you were, how incapable to save yourselves;
that there is no fitness, no free will in you; no fitness, but
for eternal damnation, no free will but that of doing evil; and
that when you would do good, evil is present with you, and the
thing that ye would not, that do ye. He knows the secret intent
of every heart; and this is a pleasure to you, my dear brethren,
who come on purpose to meet with him, though it be a field. And,
however some may esteem me a mountebank, and an enthusiast, one
that is only going to make you methodically mad; they may breathe
out their invectives against me, yet Christ knows all; he takes
notice of it, and I shall leave it to him to plead my cause, for
he is a gracious Master: I have already found him so, and am sure
he will continue so. Vengeance is his, and he will repay it. Let
them revile me; let them cast me out of their synagogues, and
have my name in reproach, I shall not answer them by reviling
again, or in speaking evil against them: no, that is not the
Spirit of Christ, but meekness, patience, long-suffering,
kindness, &c.
Ye Pharisees, who are going about to establish your own
righteousness; you, who are too polite to follow the Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity and truth; you, who are all for a little
show, a little outside work; who lead moral, civil, decent lives,
Christ will not know you at the great day, but will say unto you,
O ye Pharisees, was there any place for me in your love? Alas!
you are full of anger and malice, and self-will; yet you
pretended to love and serve me, and to be my people: but,
however, I despise you; I, who am God, and knoweth the secret of
all hearts; I, who am truth itself, the faithful and true
witness, say unto you, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity,
into that place of torment, prepared for the devil and his
angels." Good God! And must these discreet polite creatures, who
never did any one harm, but led such civil, decent lives, must
they suffer the vengeance of eternal fire? Cannot their righteous
souls be saved? Where then must the sinner and the ungodly
appear? Where wilt thou, O Sabbath- breaker, appear, thou, who
canst take thy pleasure, thy recreation, on the Lord's-day, who
refuseth to hear the word of God, who wilt not come to church to
be instructed in the ways of the Lord? Where will you, O ye
adulterers, fornicators, and such-like of this generation appear?
Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge, and them he will
condemn. Then you will not call these tricks of youth: no, but
you will call on the rocks and the mountains to fall on you, to
hide you from the fury and anger of the Lord. Where wilt thou, O
man, appear, that takes pleasure in making a mock of sin, who
despiseth all reproof, who throws about thy jests as a madman
does fire, and asks whether thou art not in sport? Where wilt
thou, O man, appear, that makes it thy business to preach against
the children of the Most High; thou, who art inventing methods in
order to stop the progress of the gospel, and using thy utmost
power to quash [squash] thepreaching thereof; who art raising of
evil reports against the disciple ofChrist, and esteemest them
madmen, fools, schismatics, and a parcel of rabble? Thou, O man,
with all thy letter-learning, wilt surely see the judgment seat
of Christ, though, perhaps, sorely against your will; to be cast
by him into eternal fire, a place prepared for the devil and his
angels. There is a burning tophet kindled by the fury of an
avenging God, which will never, never be quenched. The devil
longs to embrace you in his hellish arms, whenever the sentence
is past, where you must for ever bear the weight of your sin:
there is no redemption then; the day of grace is past; the door
of hope is shut; mercy will be no more offered, but you must be
shut out from God for ever. O who can dwell with everlasting
burnings!
However you may think of hell, indeed it is not a painted fire;
it is not an imagination to keep people in awe: then, then you
will feel the power of the almighty arm. If you will not lay hold
on his golden scepter, he will break you with his iron rod. O ye
Pharisees, who are now so good, so much better than others, how
will ye stand before Christ, when dressed in his glory as judge?
You Arians, may now despise his divinity; then you shall have a
proof of it; he will show, that he has all power, and that he was
no subordinate God; he will show you that he has all power in
heaven and earth; that he was King of kings, and Lord of lords;
that he was the mighty God, the everlasting Father; and this
power that he has, he will exercise in preserving you to no other
end, but to punish you forever. Thus you, who please yourselves
with being good enough now, who are not weary and heavy laden
with a sense of your sins here, will be weary and heavy laden
with a sense of your punishment hereafter.
2. Those, my brethren, are not weary and heavy laden with a sense
of their sins, who can delight themselves in the polite
entertainments of the age, and follow the sinful diversion of
life.
Now they can go to balls and assemblies, play-houses and
horse-racing; they have no thought of their sins; they know not
what it is to weep for sin, or humble themselves under the mighty
hand of God; they can laugh away their sorrows, and sing away
their cares, and drive away these melancholy thoughts: they are
too polite to entertain any sad thoughts; the talk of death and
judgment is irksome to them, because it damps their mirth; they
could not endure to think of their sin and danger; they could not
go to a play, and think of hell; they could not go quietly to a
masquerade, and think of their danger; they could not go to a
ball or an assembly in peace, if they thought of their
sins.
And so it is proved, even to a demonstration, that these are not
weary and heavy laden: for if they are not thoughtful about their
sins, they will never be weary and heavy laden of them. But at
the day of judgment all will be over; they shall lose all their
carnal mirth, all their pleasure, all their delight will be gone
forever.
They will say then of their laughter, it is mad; and of mirth,
What dost thou? Their merry conceits, and witty jests against the
poor despised people of God, are then over. Their mirth was but
as the crackling of thorns under a pot; it made a great blaze and
unseemly noise for a while, but it was presently gone, and will
return no more.
They think now, that if they were to fast or to pray, and
meditate and mourn, they should be righteous over-much, and
destroy themselves; their lives would be a continual trouble, and
it would make them run mad. Alas, my brethren, what misery must
that life be, where there is no more pleasant days, no more balls
or plays, no cards or dice, those wasters of precious time, no
horse-racing and cock-fighting, from whence no good ever came,
unless abusing God Almighty's creatures, and putting them to that
use which he never designed them, can be called so. How miserable
will your life be, when all your joys are over, when your
pleasures are all past, and no more mirth or pastime? Do you
think there is one merry heart in hell? One pleasing countenance?
Or jesting, scoffing, swearing tongue? A sermon now is irksome;
the offer of salvation, by the blood of Jesus Christ, is now
termed enthusiasm; but then you would give thousands of worlds,
if in your power, for one tender of mercy, for one offer of
grace, which now you so much despise.
Now, you are not weary of your diversions, nor are you heavy
laden with the sins, with which they are accompanied; but then
you will be weary of your punishment, and the aggravation which
attends it. Your cards anddice, your hawks and hounds, and bowls,
and your pleasant sports, will thenbe over. What mirth will you
have in remembering your sports and diversions? I would not have
you mistake me, and say, I am only preaching death and damnation
to you; I am only showing you what will be the consequence of
continuing in these sinful pleasures; and if the devil does not
hurry you away with half a sermon, I shall show you how to avoid
these dangers, which I now preach up as the effect of sin
unrepented of. I mention this, lest you should be hurried away by
the devil: but be not offended, if I point our unto you more of
the terrors which will attend your following these polite and
fashionable entertainments of the present age, and of not being
weary and heavy laden with a sense of your sins.
They who delight in drinking wine to excess, and who are
drunkards, what bitter draughts will they have instead of wine
and ale? The heat of lust will be then also abated; they will no
more sing the song of the drunkard; no more spend their time in
courting their mistresses, in lascivious discourse, in amorous
songs, in wanton dalliances, in brutish defilements: no, these
are all over; and it will but prick each other to the heart to
look one another in the face. Then they will wish, that instead
of sinning together, they had prayed together; had frequented
religious societies; had stirred up each other to love and
holiness, and endeavored to convince each other of the evil of
sin, and how obnoxious they are to the wrath of God; and the
necessity of being weary and heavy laden with a sense thereof;
that they might have escaped the punishment which they suffer, by
their following the sinful an polite diversions of the age they
fell into. But as it was against God himself they had sinned, so
no less than God will punish them for their offenses: he hath
prepared those torments for his enemies; his continual anger will
still be devouring of them; his breath of indignation will kindle
the flame; his wrath will be a continual burden to their souls.
Woe be to him who falls under the stroke of the Almighty!
Thus they are not weary and heavy laden with their sins, who can
follow the polite and fashionable entertainments of the age.
But,
1. You may be said, my brethren, to be weary and
heavy laden, when your sins are grievous unto you, and it is with
grief and trouble you commit them.
You, who are awakened unto a sense of your sins, who see how
hateful they are to God, and how they lay you open to his wrath
and indignation, and would willingly avoid them; who hate
yourselves for committing them; when you are thus convinced of
sin, when you see the terrors of the law, and are afraid of his
judgments; then you may be said to be weary of your sins. And O
how terrible do they appear when you are first awakened to a
sense of them; when you see nothing but the wrath of God ready to
fall upon you, and you are afraid of his judgments! O how heavy
is your sin to you then! Then you feel the weight thereof, and
that it is grievous to be born.
2. When you are obliged to cry out under the burden of your sins,
and know not what to do for relief; when this is your case, you
are weary of your sins. It does not consist in a weariness all of
a sudden; no, it is the continual burden of your soul, it is your
grief and concern that you cannot live without offending God, and
sinning against him; and these sins are so many and so great,
that you fear they will not be forgiven.
I come, SECONDLY, to show you what is meant by coming to
Christ.
It is not, my brethren, coming with your own works: no, you must
come in full dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ, looking on
him as the Lord who died to save sinners: Go to him, tell him you
are lost, undone, miserable sinners, and that you deserve nothing
but hell; and when you thus go to the Lord Jesus Christ out of
yourself, in full dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will
find him an able and a willing savior; he is pleased to see
sinners coming to him in a sense of their own unworthiness; and
when their case seems to be most dangerous, most distressed, then
the Lord in his mercy steps in and gives you his grace; he puts
his Spirit within you, takes away your heart of stone, and gives
you a heart of flesh. Stand not out then against this Lord, but
go unto him, not in your own strength, but in the strength of
Jesus Christ.
And this brings me, THIRDLY, to consider the
exhortation Christ givesunto all of you, high and low, rich and
poor, one with another, to come unto him that you may have rest.
And if Jesus Christ gives you rest, you may be sure it will be a
rest indeed; it will be such a rest as your soul wants; it will
be a rest which the world can neither give nor take away. O come
all of ye this night, and you shall find rest: Jesus Christ hath
promised it. Here is a gracious invitation, and do not let a
little rain hurry you away from the hearing of it; do but
consider what the devil and damned spirits would give to have the
offer of mercy, and to accept of Christ, that they may be
delivered from the torments they labor under, and must do so
forever; or, how pleasing would this rain be to them to cool
their parched tongues; but they are denied both, while you have
mercy offered to you; free and rich mercy to come to Christ; here
is food for your souls, and the rain is to bring forth the fruits
of the earth, as food for you bodies. Here is mercy upon
mercy.
Let me beseech you to come unto Christ, and he
will give you rest; you shall find rest unto your souls. O you,
my weary, burdened brethren, do but go to Christ in this manner,
and though you go to him weary, you shall find rest before you
come from him: let not anything short of the Lord Jesus Christ be
your rest; for wherever you seek you will be disappointed; but if
you do but seek unto the Lord Jesus Christ, there you will find a
fullness of every thing which your weary soul wants. Go to him
this night; here is an invitation to all you who are weary souls.
He does not call you, O Pharisees; not, it is only you weary
sinners; and sure you will not stay from him, but accept of his
invitation; do not delay; one moment may be dangerous: death may
take you off suddenly. You know not but that a fit of the
apoplexy may hurry you from time into eternity; therefore, be not
for staying till you have something to bring; come in all your
rags, in all your filthiness, in all your distresses, and you
will soon find Jesus Christ ready to help, and to relieve you; he
loves you as well in your rags, as in your best garments; he
regards not your dress; no, do but come unto him, and you shall
soon find rest for your souls.
What say you? Shall I tell my Master you will come unto him, and
that you will accept him on his own terms. Let me, my brethren,
beseech you to take Jesus without anything of your own
righteousness: for if you expect to mix anything of yourself with
Christ, you build upon a sandy foundation; but if you take Christ
for your rest, he will be that unto you. Let me beseech you to
build upon this rock of ages. O my brethren, think of the
gracious invitation, "Come unto me," to Jesus Christ; it is he
that calls you; And will you not go?
Come, come unto him. If your souls were not immortal, and you in
danger of losing them, I would not thus speak unto you; but the
love of your souls constrains me to speak: methinks this would
constrain me to speak unto you forever. Come then by faith, and
lay hold of the Lord Jesus; though he be in heaven, he now
calleth thee. Come, all ye drunkards, swearers, Sabbath-breakers,
adulterers, fornicators; come, all ye scoffers, harlots, thieves,
and murderers, and Jesus Christ will save you; he will give you
rest, if you are weary of your sins. O come lay hold upon him.
Had I less love for your souls, I might speak less; but that love
of God, which is shed abroad in my heart, will not permit me to
leave you, till I see whether you will come to Christ or no. O
for your life receive him, for fear he may never call you any
more. Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; it may be this night the cry
may be made. Now would you hear this, if you were sure to die
before the morning light? God grant you may begin to live, that
when the king of terrors shall come, you may have nothing to do
but to commit your souls into the hands of a faithful
Redeemer.
Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be
all honor, praises, dominion, and power, henceforth and for
evermore. Amen, Amen.
(This article comes from the Christian Classics
Ethereal Library; www.ccel.com)
WITNESS
TO THE WORD MENU