THE LATE REV. ARTHUR TRIGGS. - The Gospel Magazine

The Gospel Magazine.
377
A WORD IN SEASON TO
EVERY ONE.
By THE LATE REV. W. PARKS, RA., RECTOR OF OPENSHAW.
I ASK not whether you are a Churchman or a Methodist-a Unitarian
or a Roman Catholic. I do not inquire whether you are inclined
towards Arminianism or Calvinism, Socinianism or Mahometanism;
it matters not one jot, if you are not a Christian! But I ask, Are
you concerned for the salvation of your immortal soul ~ Do you
know that you are, by nature, a hell-deserving sinner; and that it is
of God's mercy alone you are yet alive, and within reach of the Gospel
Bound ~ Do you know that Jehovah, in His Trinity of Persons, has
provided for the eternal safety, happiness, and bliss of His Churcha
body composed of human beings out of every clime, and language,
and tongue; and that it is possible you are of that Church ~ Do you
know this 1 Have you ever heard of it ~ I care not whether you are
poor or rich, educated or uneducated, talented or imbecile, an employer
or an employed one, master or servant. I put these solemn questions
to you, and charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ to
answer them in His presence!
Oh! awful thought! Heaven or hell-redemption or damnationeverlasting
bliss or everlasting woe! By-and-by it will avail not
that you had led a moral life, or had given your goods to feed the poor,
or had done what is called your duty, or had had a zeal for God, or
had made vows and formed resolutions, aye, and kept them too!
Moral men have gone 'to hell: almsgiving men have been damned!
Many a man has passed the rocks of gross sin, who has suffered
shipwreck on the sands of self-righteousness. A zeal for God by no
means proves one to be a child of God. Some of the Jews of old had
a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Jehu had a zeal for
the Lord, but not a particle of grace. Paul, before his conversion,
could boast of more good deeds than a score of modern professors put
together; and yet God has written" TEKEL ,,* upon all such characters.
" What!" you will perhaps cry out, "shall lI'1£n who have done their
best be damned?" Aye, indeed, I answer, for bad is the best of a.ll
creature performanee. Man, by nature, can do no good thing-all his
righteousness is as filthy rags in Jehovah's sight; and whether he
has done his best or done nothing, he is in an equally hopeless condition!
" What! " you perhaps again ask, " will you make no difference between
one who is not an extortioner, or unjust, or an adulterer, and him who is
all these?" For a reply to this question I refer you to Luke xviii.
9-14; and let me remind you, that it is possible to be neither a
murderer, nor an adulterer, nor a thief, nor a drunkard, and yet be
an enemy of God! For wherever there are high thoughts exalting
themselves against the sovereignty of Jehovah, there is enmity against
God; and where there is enmity, there can be no reconciliation;
• DaD. V. 25.