made, each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats, to go into the clefts of the rock, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his Majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth."

Sinners who once could not tell how to spend a day without gay company,' those sons and daughters of mirth, who turned their midnights into noon, with the splendor of their lamps, and the rich and shining furniture of their palaces, those noisy companions of riot, who made the streets of the city resound with their midnight revels, they shall now fly to the solitary caverns of the rocks, and would be glad to dwell there in darkness and silence for ever, if they might but avoid the wrath of a provoked God, and the countenance of an abused Saviour. They would fain be shut up for ever from day-light, lest they should see the face of an Almighty enemy, whose name and honour have been reproached, in their songs of lewd jollity and prophaneness.

Sinners who once were fond of liberty in the wildest sense,' and could not bear that any restraints should be laid upon their persons or their wishes, who never could endure the thought of a confinement to their closets, for one half hour to converse with God, or with their own souls there, they now call aloud to the rocks and the mountains to immure them round, as a refuge from the eye of their Judge. They were once perpetually roving abroad, and gadding through all the gay scenes of sensuality, in quest of new and Howery pleasures, but now they beg to be imprison

ed for ever in the dens and caves of the earth; the deepest and most dismal caves are their most ardent wishes, that they might never see the countenance of their divine Avenger, nor feel the weight of his hand.

Sinners who 'heretofore thought themselves and their deeds of darkness secure enough from the eye of God, and from the strokes of his justice,' while they revelled in their common habitations, those, who even under the open sky could defy the Almighty, could laugh at his threatnings, and mock the prophecies of his vengeance, now they can find no caverns, deep or dark enough, to hide them from his sight; his lightenings penetrate the hardest rocks, and shine into the deepest solitudes: There is no screen or shelter thick and strong enough to stand between God and them, and to cover and shield them from his thunder. They call now to the mountains and the rocks to be an eternal screen; but the rocks and the mountains are deaf to their cry: Then shall they remember, with unknown regret and anguish, those days of grace, when Christ Jesus, who is now their Judge, offered himself to become a screen to them,. and a defence from the anger of God their Creator: But they rejected this offered grace. He would have been the rock of their safety, where they should have found refuge from the fiery threatnings of the broken law, and the majesty of an offended God: The Father himself had appointed him for this kind office to repenting sinners; and perhaps he gave Moses a type or emblem of it, when he commanded him to hide himself

in the clefts of the rock, to secure him from destruction, while the burning blaze of his glory passed by, Exod. xxxiii. 22. And Isaiah the prophet had foretold, that this Jesus should be as "the shadow of a great rock," to shelter them from the beams of the wrath of God; but they refused this blessing, they renounced this refuge; and now they find there is no other rock sufficient to become a shelter from the stroke of his Almighty arm, or a sufficient shadow from the burning vengeance.

Sinners, who once over-rated their flesh and blood, and loved it with infinite fondness,' who treated their fleshly appetites with excessive nicety and elegance, and affected a humourous delicacy in every thing round about them, would now gladly creep into the mouldy caverns of the rocks, they would be glad to hide and defile themselves in the dark and noisome grottos of the earth, and squeeze their bodies into the rough and narrow clefts, to shield themselves from the indignation of him that sits upon the throne, and of the Lamb.

Those who once were so tender of this mortal life and limbs,' and could not think of bearing the least hardship for the sake of virtue and piety, are now wishing to have those delicate limbs of theirs crushed by the fall of rocks and mountains: They wish earnestly to have their lives and their souls destroyed for ever, and their whole natures buried in desolation and death, if they might but avoid the eternal agonies and torments that are prepared for them. Now they long for caverns, and graves, to

hide them for ever from the justice of God, whose authority they have despised, and from the wrath of a Saviour whose mercy they have impiously renounced.

Look forward, Oh my soul, to this awful and dreadful hour; survey this tremendous scene of confusion, when sinners shall run counter to all their former principles and wishes, and pass a quite different judgment upon their sinful delights, from what they were wont to do in the days of this life of vanity. Learn, Oh my soul, to judge of things more agreeably to the appearances of that day: Never canst thou set the flattering pleasures of sense, and the joys of sin, in a truer and juster view, than in the light of this glorious and tremendous judgment.

Ref. 3. How great and dreadful must the distress of creatures be, when they cannot bear to see the face of God their Creator?' How terrible must be the circumstances of the sons of men, when they cannot endure to see the face of the Son of God, but would fain hide themselves from the sight under rocks and mountains? How wretched must their state be, who avoid the face of the blessed God with horror, which the holy angels ever behold with most intense delight, and which the saints rejoice in as their highest happiness? It is their heaven to see God, and be. hold the glory of his Son Jesus, Matth. v. 8. John xvii. But this is the very hell of sinners in that dismal hour, and will fill their souls with such inexpressible anguish, that they call to the rocks and mountains to hide them from the sight. Dreadful

and deplorable is their case indeed, who cannot en dure to see the countenance of Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the Saviour of men, the copy of the Father's glory, and the image of his beauty and love. They cannot bear to see that Jesus who is the chiefest of ten thousands, and altogether lovely; they fly from that blessed countenance, which is the ornament, and the joy of all the holy and happy creation: That blessed countenance is become the terror and confusion of impenitent and guilty rebels.

And what shall I do, if I should be found amongst this criminal number, in that great day? If I look at the wisdom and the righteousness of God, these will reflect the keenest rays of horror and anguish upon my soul, for it is that wisdom, and that righteousness, that have joined to prepare the salvation which I have rejected, and therefore now that wise and righteous God seeth it proper and necessary to punish me with everlasting sorrows. If I look at the power of God, it is a dreadful sight: Eternal and Almighty power, that can break through rocks and mountains, to inflict vengeance upon the guilty, and stands engaged by his honour to break my rebellious spirit with unknown torments. If I look at his goodness or his love, it is love and goodness that I have despised and abused, and it is now changed into divine fury. If I look at the face of Jesus, and find there the correspondent features of his Father, I shall then hate to see it for this very reason, because it bears his Father's image, who is so terrible to my thoughts. I

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