The Best Excuses the Worst.
By Presb. of the West.
The common disposition of impenitent sinners to excuse themselves from the privileges offered in the gospel, is not only wicked in itself, and dangerous in its tendency, but it is pre-eminently foolish. There is nothing valuable to be gained by the most plausible and forcible excuses. A thoughtful mind may easily see this. Let us suppose that a sinful man has an excuse and a really good one. Let us even suppose that the excuse is sustained as valid at the bar of God. This, surely, is as strong a supposition as any sinful soul could desire. Now what would result from it? The certain loss of the sinner's soul! We too seldom think of this. We too seldom think of the sinful soul as already lost; and of the gospel as the remedy. Yet this is the just view of the case. The gospel is a privilege; and a man excused from exercising a privilege is excused at his own loss. The gospel is salvation; and to be excused from salvation is to lose salvation. Look at the matter in the light of the Saviour's parable. Many were bidden to a Great Supper; and they excused themselves. If a man is invited to a feast, and excuses himself whose loss is it? If a railroad train is hurrying on to some fearful precipice, and the voice of warning is raised, and the passengers cry out, "excuse us, we have no time to listen;" whose loss is it? If dangerous disease seizes a man's system and a physician prescribes the only adequate remedy, and the patient says, "excuse me," whose loss is it? If a man is in a burning house asleep, and a friend awakes him, entreats him to make haste, tells him that the danger is increasing, assures him that his hopes, one by one, are cut off, and calls out that if he is not even now in earnest he must perish; and he turns slothfully on his bed and exclaims, "excuse me," who suffers? Is it any better when a guilty soul, already under the curse of God's violated law, is urged to flee to Christ for salvation, and pleads "I pray thee have me excused?" Surely men do not consider that they are already lost; that Christ came to save; and that whatever keeps the soul from coming to Christ, keeps it from heaven. To do nothing, is to perish; to be excused, is to perish. Such thoughts should put an end to all excuses. The better a man's excuses are, the worse. The more power an excuse has over a man's mind to keep him still; to prevent his praying; to prevent his repenting; to prevent his coming humbly to Jesus, the more certainly will they secure his perdition. A poor excuse has less power to blind the mind, than a plausible one; and since every successful excuse is fatal, the best excuses are likely to be most fatal. Can the spirit of making excuses be a good one, when its most successful excuse is the deepest ruin of the soul?