hot and crisp with the burning, if he again should rush headlong into fire, I say he is worse than careless, he is worse than presumptuous, he is mad. But I have some such here. They have had warnings so terrible that they might have known better; they have gone into lusts which have brought their bodies into sickness, and perhaps this day they have crept up to this house, and they dare not tell to their neighbour who stands by their side what is the loathsomeness that even now breeds upon their frame. And yet they will go back to the same lusts; the fool will go again to the stocks, the sheep will lick the knife that is to slay him. You will go on in your lust and in your sins, despite warnings, despite advice, until you perish in your guilt. How worse than children are grown up men! The child who goes for a merry slide upon a pond, if he is told that the ice will not bear him, stares back frightened, or if he daringly creeps upon it how soon he leaves it, if he hears only a crack upon the slender covering of the water! But you men have a conscience, which tells you that your sins are vile, and that they will be your ruin; you hear the crack of sin, as its thin sheet of pleasure gives way beneath your feet; indeed, and some of you have seen your comrades sink in the flood, and lost; and yet you go sliding on, worse than childish, you are worse than mad, thus presumptuously to play with your own everlasting state. Oh my God, how terrible is the presumption of some! How fearful is presumption in any! Oh! that we might be enabled to cry, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.”
7. 2. I said again, that another characteristic of a presumptuous sin was deliberation. A man perhaps may have a passionate spirit, and in a moment of hot haste he may utter an angry word of which in a few short minutes he will sincerely repent. A man may have a temper so hot that the least provocation causes him at once to be full of wrath. But he may also have a temperament which has this benefit to balance it, that he very soon learns to forgive and cools in a moment. Now, such a man does not sin presumptuously, when suddenly overcome by anger, though without doubt there is presumption in his sin, unless he strives to correct that passion and keep it down. A man, again, who is suddenly tempted and surprised into a sin, which is not his habit, but which he commits through the force of some strong temptation, is guilty, but not guilty of presumption, because he was taken unawares in the net and caught in the snare. But there are other men who sin deliberately; there are some who can think of a lust for weeks beforehand, and dote upon their darling crime with pleasure. They do, as it were, water the young seedling of lust until it grows to the maturity of desire, and then they go and commit the crime. There are some to whom lust is not a passerby, but a lodger at home. They receive it, they house it, they feast it; and when they sin they sin deliberately, walk coolly to their lusts, and in cold blood commit the act which another might perhaps do in hot and furious haste. Now, such a sin has in it a great extent of sinfulness, it is a sin of high presumption. To be carried away as by a whirlwind of passion in a moment is wrong; but to sit down and deliberately resolve upon revenge is cursed and diabolical. To sit down and deliberately fashion schemes of wickedness is heinous, and I can find no other word fitly to express it. To deliberate carefully how the crime is to be done, and Haman-like to build the gallows, and set to work to destroy one’s neighbour, to dig the pit so that the friend may fall into it and be destroyed, to lay snares in secret, to plot wickedness upon one’s bed — this is a high pitch of presumptuous sin. May God forgive any of us, if we have been so far guilty!
8. Again, when a man continues long in sin, and has time to deliberate about it, that also is a proof that it is a presumptuous sin. He who sins once, being overtaken in a fault, and then abhors the sin, has not sinned presumptuously; but he who transgresses today, tomorrow and the next day, week after week and year after year, until he has piled up a heap of sins that are high as a mountain, such a man, I say, sins presumptuously, because in a continued habit of sin there must be a deliberation to sin; there must be at least such a force and strength of mind as could not have come upon any man if his sin were only the hasty effect of sudden passion. Ah! take heed, you who are sodden in sin, you who drink it down as the greedy ox drinks down water, you who run to your lust as the rivers run to the sea, and you who go to your passions as the sow to her wallowing in the mire. Take heed! your crimes are grievous, and the hand of God shall soon fall terribly on your heads, unless by divine grace it is granted to you to repent and turn to him. Fearful must be your doom, if unpardoned, God should condemn you for presumptuous sin. Oh! “Lord, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.”
9. 3. Again: I said that a presumptuous sin must be a matter of design, and have been committed with the intention of sin. If at your leisure at home you will turn to that passage in the Book of Numbers, where it says there is no pardon for a presumptuous sin under the Jewish dispensation, you will find immediately afterward a case recorded. A man went out on the Sabbath day to gather sticks; he was taken in the act of Sabbath breaking, and the law being very stringent under the Jewish dispensation, he was ordered at once to be put to death. Now, the reason why he was put to death was not because he gathered sticks on the Sabbath merely, but because the law had just then been proclaimed, “In it you shall do no manner of work.” This man wilfully, out of design, in order, as it were, to show that he despised God — to show that he did not care for God — without any necessity, without any hope of advantage, went straight out, in the very teeth of the law, to perform not an act which he kept in his own house, which might perhaps have been overlooked, but an act which brought shame upon the whole congregation, because infidel-like, he dared to brazen it out before God; as much as to say, “I do not care for God.” Has God just commanded, “You shall do no manner of work?” Here am I; I do not need sticks today; I do not need to work; not for the sake of sticks, but with the design of showing that I despise God, I go out this day and gather sticks. “Now,” one says, “surely there are no people in the world that have ever done such a thing as this.” Yes, there are; and there are such in the Surrey Music Hall this day. They have sinned against God, not merely for the pleasure of it, but because they would show their lack of reverence to God. That young man burned his Bible in the midst of his wicked companions — not because he hated his Bible, for he quivered and looked pale as the ashes on the hearth when he was doing it; but he did it out of pure bravado, in order to show them, as he thought, that he really was far gone from anything like a profession of religion. That other man is accustomed sometimes to stand by the wayside, when the people are going to the house of God; and he swears at them, not because he delights in swearing, but because he will show that he is irreligious, that he is ungodly. How many an infidel has done the same — not because he had any pleasure in the thing itself, but because out of the wickedness of his heart he would spit at God, if it were possible, having a design to let men know that though the sin itself was cheap enough, he was determined to do something which would be like spitting in the face of his Maker, and despising God who created him! Now, such a sin is a masterpiece of iniquity. There is pardon for such a one — there is full pardon to those who are brought to repentance; but few of such men ever receive it; for when they are so far gone as to sin presumptuously, because they wish do it — to sin merely for the sake of showing their disregard for God and for God’s law, we say of such, there is pardon for them, but it is wondrous grace which brings them into such a condition that they are willing to accept it. Oh that God would keep back his servants here from presumptuous sins! And if any of us here have committed them, may he bring us back, to the praise of the glory of his grace!
10. 4. But one more point, and I think I shall have explained these presumptuous sins. A presumptuous sin also is one that is committed through a hardihood of fancied strength of mind. One says, “I intend tomorrow to go into such-and-such a society, because I believe, though it harms other people, it does me no harm.” You turn around and say to some young man, “I could not advise you to frequent the Casino — it would be your ruin.” But you go yourself, sir? “Yes.” But how do you justify yourself? Because I have such strength of principle that I know just how far to go, and no farther. You lie, sir; against yourself you lie; you lie presumptuously in so doing. You are playing with bombshells that shall burst and destroy you; you are sitting over the mouth of hell, with a fancy that you shall not be burned. Because you have gone to haunts of vice and come back, tainted, much tainted, but because you are so blind as not to see the taint, you think yourself secure. You are not so. Your sin, in daring to think that
