Would it not be better for you to be a cat or dog? By Samuel Davies.

You will not come to me that you might have life. John 5.40 Yet you think that your not coming to Jesus is no crime. Is this consistent reasoning? Is it not the same as if a rebel should think to excuse himself by pleading, I have such an inverterate hatred to my king that I cannot love him? Or as if a robber should plead in his defense, I have such an aversion to honesty that I cannot possibly help stealing. Would not this be an aggravation of the crime rather than an excuse? Is the invincible strength of your hatred to Christ a vindication of it? Are you the more excusable by how much the more you hate Him?

Sinners, give up this foolish reasoning, for the matter is too important to be trifled with. In short, whatever pleas and excuses you make, you will find at last that your destruction is entirely the effort of your own perverse desires and choice. You simply will not come unto Christ, that you might have life, and therefore you must perish without it. This reflection will forever torment you, that you willfully destroyed yourselves and were guilty of the most unnatural self-murder.

To you, therefore, I may properly address that expostulation. Why will you die? Why will you? Why do you most willfully destroy yourselves? Why will you die? Why will you causelessly, eternally perish by your own act? What can be greater stupidity than this?

In this light, the conduct of sinners is frequently exposed in the sacred writings. The ox knows his owner, says Isaiah, and the donkey his master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people does not consider, Isaiah 1.3. Everyone turns to his course, says Jeremiah, as the horse rushes into the battle. Yes, the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times, and the turtle-dove, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming. But my people, who are more stupid than these brutes, know not the judgments of the Lord." "â€"Jeremiah 8, 6 and 7.

To refuse the offer of eternal salvation, when proposed upon the most reasonable terms, is to rush into hell rather than be saved by the friendly hands of Jesus Christ. It is to suffer the most dreadful execution rather than accept Christ's free pardon. It is to reject all the bliss of heaven when freely proposed by Christ. It is to choose the pleasures of sin for a season, rather than an eternity of the most exalted happiness. Is this the conduct of a reasonable creature? No. Show me the brute, if you can, that would act so stupid a part, in things which come within the sphere of its capacity.

Would it not be better for you to be a cat or dog, than that brute man, who is capable of so much stupidity? An immortal soul lost, lost forever, lost by its own obstinacy, lost amidst the means of salvation. How tragic a case is this! God dishonored, Jesus rejected, His love spurned, His blood trampled upon, His spirit grieved. How lamentable is this!