the face of Him who fits upon the throne, and from the wrath Heaven, and earth, fhall flee away; Hear the trump proclaim the day, Stand before the Son of Man. See! fee! a horrid throng! pale with guilty fhame, trembling with dreadful fear. The rash blafphemer, the pilfering thief, a fhameful herd of fornicators and rank adulterers, by whofe filthinefs their very loathfome bodies became corrupt before the time; many of whom were feducers of others into the deteftable mystery of iniquity, and, of course, their punishment must be answerable thereunto. Now thefe tares must be bundled up, arranged in their refpective claffes; fabbath-breakers, murderers, fodomites, cheats, liars, and all the hellish crew; a dreadful affembly! He now brings every work into judgment, with every fecret, whether it be good or evil. Answer, ye enemies to the Cross of Chrift; anfwer for the abufe of your time, the abuse of your bodies, your talents, the contempt which you have caft upon your Saviour, his blood which you have trampled upon, his warnings which you have fet at nought, his precepts which you have treated with fneer and ridicule, and all your accumulated crimes, vile and abominable as they are: What plea have ye? If the man after God's own heart could fay, If thou, Lord, fhouldeft mark iniquity, who can ftand before thee? then how can the profane, the the abandoned, ftand before God? If the righteous fcarcely are faved, where fhall the ungodly and the finner appear! Can these miferable wretches lift up their guilty eyes, and face their Judge? No. Can they plead, Lord, we did not think thou wouldest be so fevere, but thought thou wouldeft make fome favourable allowances for us: we hoped thou wouldest indulge us with our appetites and paffions; and, therefore, we finned without remorse, not expecting to be called to an account? May not the Judge fay, Did I not give you a book, which fet life and death before you? A book, which told you what qualifications were abfolutely neceflary to enter into heaven? Did not my fervants rife early, and fpeak late unto you? Did not they bid you stand in the ways, and fee, and ask for the old paths, and where the good was, and walk therein, and ye fhould find reft for your fouls? But you faid, and impioufly made it good,-We will not walk therein ! May he not add, Were not my works and providence continually, as fo many lights, fhining before you? Did I not fix the Sun, that bright lamp of day, before your eyes? and did he not preach my love, my power, to all lands? Did I not direct the Moon, when walking in her brightness, and all her starry train, as fo many witneffes of my care and tenderness for a guilty world? Did not my Spirit repeatedly warn, admonish, call, and allure you, to the end that ye might escape the wrath to come? Did not the alternate seasons of the year preach my goodness and liberality to you? Did I not caufe my clouds to drop fatnefs, to diftil upon the paftures of the wildernefs? and did I not crown the year with my goodness? Did I not fend wholesome croffes, needful and neceflary neceffary difappointments, afflictions upon your bodies, and anguish upon your minds ? and all to warn you from the world, and lead you to myfelf? Did I not check, and call at your confcience, by my good Spirit! a faithful monitor! Were you not frequently made uneasy in your wickedness? Did not fomething frequently fuggeft to your mind, For all this the Lord will bring thee into judgment ? Yet you rafhly blundered on, hardened your hearts, fet at nought my counfel, and despised my reproof; therefore depart, ye curfed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. 8. PERHAPS there may be many who are whole, and need not a phyfician; who truft in themselves that they are righteous, and despise others. To these he may addrefs himself,-O ye generation, pure in your own eyes, but not washed from your filthinefs, ftand forth and anfwer for yourselves:-" Well, Lord, we have eat and "drank in thy prefence, and thou haft taught in our "ftreets. We thank God, we were not as other men: " we were not fwearers, drunkards, fabbath-breakers, liars, whoremongers or adulterers, thieves or cheats: we at"tended our Church and Sacrament, read the Scriptures, "and were charitable to our neighbours; and, therefore, "we hope to fare better than that herd of wretches fo "justly doomed to everlasting torments." But may not the Judge reply, Ye whited walls, ye painted fepulchres; ye your fins, and died in your fins; ye were never changed; ye never came to me, poor, and naked, and miferable. Did I not declare unto you, I am the Wa Truth, and the Life; and no man cometh unto the Father but are in ay, the by me? Your refuges of lies have deceived you! As you attempt to climb into the fold fome other way, are you not a company of thieves and robbers? Therefore depart from me, ye workers of iniquity-I know ye not; therefore, I fay, depart into everlasting burnings! 9. THERE is another class of men very confident in themselves here, however it may go with them in that awful day; and that is, fuch as have refted their cause upon their fancied orthodoxy, or a set of notions without any humbling grace in their hearts. These are very often noify and troublesome, full of fcorn and contempt, and have fet up a fort of infallibility in their own notions; and are wifer-in their own conceits-than all the world befides. If these present themselves before the awful throne with as much confidence as they are poffessed of affurahce here, they will be bold indeed! But let us confider a little how the caufe is most likely to go with them: They are fummoned to the bar; methinks their creft begins to fall a little. Hear, hear, what the Judge fays: Draw near, ye confident congregation; anfwer for the deeds done in the body. Now these finners in Zion begin to tremble, and fearfulness furprize these miferable felf-deceivers. Now the Lord fcorneth these scorners, and, with all their former parade, they are deftitute of the wedding-garment-they are fpeechlefs: they would attempt to relate how well they had talked, how clear their notions had been, and how they had confuted their adverfaries; but alas! it was all wrong-it was found they had put a fumbling-block before the weak, and had turned the feeble out of the way, and that all their noile tended to vain jangling, and puffing themfelves up with great great fwelling words of vanity, therefore had moft miferably deceived their own fouls, and were found enemies to the Crofs of Chrift. The cheat is detected, their nakedness is difcovered, and, when it is too late, they difcover they want the image of God. See now the Judge lifting up his flaming eyes, his countenance reddening into terror, and hear the fentence:-Forafmuch as ye have made a faviour of your notions, trufted in vain opinions and empty words, and thus have walked in the light of your own fire, this fhall ye have at my hands,— Ye fhall lie down in never-ending forrow. 10. Nor can we fuppofe it will fare better with miserable apoftates, who have made fhipwreck of faith and of a good confcience: Thefe have trampled under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were fanctified, an unholy thing, and have done defpite to the Spirit of grace. Certainly it would have been better for thefe not to have known the ways of righteousness, than, after knowing, to turn from the holy commandment which was given unto them t. It is ftill more terrible, when fuch turn perfecutors; as was the cafe with many in the primitive days; as the Emperor Julian, and various others of lefs eminence, who yet became dreadful perfecutors of the faints of God. If there are degrees of punishment, we may fuppofe it will fall extremely heavy upon fuch, for they have trode in the footsteps of their mafter, the Devil, and must be the likeft him in punishment; of course a deeper den, and a hotter flame, must be their portion, seeing they were not content to go to Hell alone, but would, if poffible, pluck Chrift's fheep out of his hand; Heb. x. 29. † 2 Pet. ii. 2. |