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dream-awake you to everlafting damnation-to weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, to all eternity!

12. CONSIDER this, ye fwearers, blafphemers, drunkards, and all the herd of unclean wretches-ye pilfering thieves, liars, and all who bear the mark of the devil in your foreheads; confider, I fay, if the righteous fcarcely be faved, where fhall the ungodly and the finner appear? Now you can drink, fwear, trifle with death, defpife damnation, yea, and falvation too;—but which of you can endure everlasting burnings? Who among you can abide devouring fire? The great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to fland? I warn you to flee from the wrath to come. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and diftrefs, a day of waftenefs and defolation, a day of darknefs and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Neither their filver, nor their gold, fhall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of bis jealousy: for he shall make even a fpeedy riddance of all them that dwell in the earth. ‡

Great God, what manner of perfons ought we to be, in all manner of conversation and godliness? How dead to the world! How much alive to Him who died for us! O, may our loins be girt, and our lamps burning, fo that we may be ready, left that day fhould overtake us as a thief! That we may be of that happy number-who fhall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air-and may inhabit the New Heavens, and New Earth, wherein will dwell Righteoufnefs for evermore !

*Ifa. xxxiii. 14. + Rev. vii. 17.

Bb 2

Zeph. i. 15-18,

SERMON

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And I faw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

WH

HETHER the Grand Conflagration, or the General Resurrection, will take place first, is a circumftance which is not very clear from the Scriptures; nor is it very material for us to know. I have supposed, in the preceding fermon, that the earth will be burnt up first; or, very probable, both may happen in the very fame point of time, that is, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; for the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God may be the general fignal for each of thefe awful events! fo that the final ruin of the world, the refurrection, and the fummons to judgment, may be at the fame inftant. However, be that as it may, the world must burn, and the dead be raifed, before, the Day

of

of judgment. For as foul and body were affociates, and mutually engaged, either in rebellion or obedience, in faith or unbelief, it is reasonable that they should be reunited again to hear their final doom. And, as it is faid, Many of them that fleep in the dust of the earth fhall awake, fome to everlafling life, and fome to fhame and everlafting contempt. So our Lord affures us, that the hour is coming when all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and come forth;-they that have done good, to the refurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the refurrection of damnation *.

1. IT is fuppofed that the region of the air will be the fcene of this most awful tranfaction; and, confidering the texture of raifed bodies, I fee nothing inconfiftent with their changed nature at all. And confidering the vaft concourfe of all that have lived, all that do live, and all that will live, it feems the prefent earth would be far too fmall: For, I apprehend, the magnitude of the bodies will be the fame as when they were composed of flesh and blood, and, therefore, muft want a large space, wherein to stand, to hear the final doom. Awful scene-tremendous thought!

How fhall I leave my tomb?

With triumph or regret-
A fearful, or a jɔyful doɔm-
A curfe, or bleffing, meet?

3. How long time this general fcrutiny may take, is a fecret to us; but were we to measure the proceedings of the Almighty with thofe of our own, and confidering the inconceivable number of very perplexed and knotty cafes which must be brought to light, every caufe to be

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fully investigated, we might fuppofe it would take far more time than the world has exifted, seeing God will bring every work into judgment, with every fecret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil*.

4. BUT, then, his ways are not our ways; He can lay open the whole scene in an inftant, and unravel every circumftance, let it be ever fo intricate, feeing one day is, with the Lord, as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Ir is time now to attend unto the text, in which, according to the prophetic stile, the Apostle speaks of it as a thing already past,-I faw the dead, small and great, ftand before God; and the books were opened, &c. From whence it may be proper to obferve,

Firft, The Judge.

Secondly, The Perfons to be judged.

Thirdly, The Books by which they are to be judged.

And Firft, I am to confider the Judge. Who this auguft Perfonage fhall be, we are at no great loss to know, feeing he himself hath explicitly told us :-When the Son of Man fhall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then fhall he fit upon the throne of his glory: and before him fhall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. And be fball fet the fheep on his right hand, but the goats on bis left t. In like manner, the Apostle obferves, We must all appear before the judgment-feat of Chrift‡. And, as our most bleffed Lord lived for us and

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died

* Eccl. xii. 14. † Mett, xxv. 31—35. † Rom. xiv. 10.-2 Cor. v. 10

died for us, fo he will appear, in the fame human nature, to judge us; hence it is faid, God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given afsurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead *. It seems a very equitable law, in all civilized ftates, that all criminals fhould be judged by their Peers; that is, by those who are in the fame rank with themselves; Noblemen are judged by the Nobles, and a Commoner by the Commons; fo, in this moft awful trial, we fhall meet with our Judge in our nature, in which he hath lived, suffered, and died. Hence our Lord fays,-The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son; that all men should bonour the Son even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which fent bimt.

2. BUT, then, it is to be observed, that he will not appear in the form of a fervant: O, no ;-when he comes in the clouds of heaven, it is in his glory, and in the glory of the Father, and all his angelic attendants, and shall

fit

upon the throne of his glory, and before him all nations shall be gathered. This our Lord declared before the high-prieft, and the Jewish Sanhedrim,-Hereafter fhall ye Jee the Son of Man-fitting at the right hand of power-and coming in the clouds of heaven.

3. PERHAPS we may form a fmall conception of this awful Judge, if we confider the form in which he appeared to the beloved difciple, which had fuch an over-powering influence, that he fainted away. He tells us he heard a

A&ts xvii. 31. f John v. 22, 23.

great

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