The Misery of Unbelievers
Bishop Horne. Mark 16:16 He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned. A dreadful representation of this here. 1. The unbeliever is without Christ, the fountain of life. His heart is the habitation of the devil. He has no rights in Christ. Nothing to do with the righteousness of Christ. Nor with the intercession of Christ. No life in him. 2. He is without the covenant, the evidence of life. The promises are not for him. Nothing is sealed to him but condemnation. 3. Without grace, the beginning of life. How finely soever the sepulchre is painted and beautified without, if faith be not within there is nothing but dead bones and rottenness; nothing but what is as loathsome in the eye of God as the rottenness of a dead carcase is to us. 4. He has no title to heaven, which is eternal life. 5. He is far from life; so far as never to come in sight of it, never see it. 6. The wrath of God abides on him. (1) Wrath. Not anger or displeasure merely, though that were dreadful; but wrath — sublimated anger, anger blown up into a terrible flame. A consuming fire, the furnace made seven times hotter (Isaiah 33:14). (2) The wrath of God. The wrath of all the kings of the earth and all the angels of heaven put together is as nothing compared with this. Theirs would but be as the breath of one's nostrils; whereas the wrath of God is as a whirlwind that rends the rocks, and tears up the mountains, and shakes the foundations of the earth, and shrivels up the heavens like a scroll, and causes the whole fabric of heaven and earth to stagger like a drunken man. Oh, who knows the power of His wrath! Their wrath is but like a spark; His wrath is like a river, a sea of kindled brimstone. This wrath of God will be thy portion if thou believe not. (3) It is the wrath of God on him. Not near, or coming towards, but on him. Not that all the wrath of God is on him already, for there are vials of wrath that will never be emptied, never emptier, though the Lord be pouring them forth to all eternity. It is compared to a river which is continually running; and when it has run some hundred years, there is as much to come as if there were none run by already; it will run on thee to eternity, unless by believing thou stop it, divert the course of it in time. The first fruits of wrath are reaped now, but a full harvest is coming; and the longer thou continuest in unbelief, the riper thou art for that dreadful harvest. (4) It is abiding wrath. Not on and off, but always on without intermission. On him in every place, in every state, in every enjoyment, in every undertaking. (Bishop Horne.) Parallel Verses KJV: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. WEB: He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who disbelieves will be condemned.