God will not suf

should be desirous to get to the greatest possible distance from it, that we might in no wise be partakers in her abominations. 2. We ought not to look back when fleeing out of Sodom, because Sodom is a city appointed to destruction. The cry of the city hath reached up to heaven. The earth cannot bear such a burden as her inhabitants are; she will therefore dis burden herself of them, and spue them out. fer such a city to stand; he will consume it. God is an holy God, and his nature is infinitely opposite to all such uncleanness as Sodom is full of; he will therefore be a consuming fire to it. The holiness of God will not suffer it to stand, and the Majesty and justice of God require that the inhabitants of that city, who thus offend and provoke him, be destroyed. And God will surely destroy them; it is the immutable and irreversible decree of God. He hath said it, and he will do it, The decree is gone forth, and so sure as there is a God, and he is Almighty, and able to fulfil his decrees and threatenings, so surely will he destroy Sodom. Gen. xix. 12, 13. "What❤ soever thou hast in this city, bring them out of this place; for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it." And verse 14. "Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city."

This city is an accursed city; it is destined to ruin. Therefore, as we would not be partakers of her curse, and would not be destroyed, we should flee out of it, and not look behind us, Rev. xviii. 4. "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues,"

3. We ought not to look back when fleeing out of Sodom, because the destruction to which it is appointed is exceedingly dreadful; it is appointed to utter destruction, to be wholly and entirely consumed. It is appointed to suffer the wrath of the great God, which is to be poured down from God upon it, like a dreadful storm of fire and brimstone. This city is to be filled full of the wrath of God. Every one that remains in it shall have the fire of God's wrath come down on his head

and into his soul: He shall be full of fire, and full of the wrath of the Almighty. He shall be encompassed with fire without and full of fire within: His head, his heart, his bowels, and all his limbs shall be full of fire, and not a drop of water to cool him.

Nor shall he have any place to flee to for relief. Go where he will, there is the fire of God's wrath: His destruction and torment will be inevitable. He shall be destroyed without any pity. He shall cry aloud, but there shall be none to help, there shall be none to regard his lamentations, or to afford relief. The decree is gone forth, and the days come when Sodom shall burn as an oven, and all the inhabitants thereof shall be as stubble. As it was in the literal Sodom, the whole city was full of fire; was no safety, for they were all on fire; into the streets, they also were full of fire. came down out of heaven every where. time. What a cry was there then in that city, in every part of it! But there was none to help; they had no where to go, where they could hide their heads from fire: They had none to pity or relieve them. If they fled to their friends, they could not help them.

in their houses there and if they fled out

Fire, continually That was a dismal

Now, with what haste should we flee from a city appointed to such a destruction! And how should we flee without looking behind us! How should it be our whole intent, and what we with all our minds and might are engaged about, to get at the greatest distance from a city in such circumstances! How far should we be from thinking at all of returning to a city which has such wrath hanging over it!

4. The destruction to which Sodom is appointed is an universal destruction. None that stay in it shall escape: None will have the good fortune to be in any by corner, where the fire will not search them out. All sorts, old and young, great and small, shall be destroyed. ception of any age, or any sex, or any perish together. Gen. xix. 24, 25. "Then the Lord rained Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the

upon

There shall be no excondition, but all shall

Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." We therefore must not longer delay or look behind us; for there is no place of safety in Sodom, nor in all the plain on which Sodom is built. The mountain of of safety is before us, and not behind us.

5. The destruction to which Sodom is appointed is an everlasting destruction. This is said of the literal Sodom, that it suffered the vengeance of eternal fire, Jude vii. "Even as

Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." That destruction that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered was an eternal destruction: Those cities were destroyed, and have never been built since, and are not capable of being rebuilt; for the land on which they stood at the time of their destruction sunk, and has been ever since covered with the lake of Sodom or the dead sea, or as it is called in scripture, the salt sea. This seems to have been thus ordered on purpose to be a type of the eternal destruction of ungodly men. So that fire by which they were destroyed is called eternal fire, because it was so typically, it was a type of the eternal destruction of ungodly men; which may be in part what is intended, when it is said in that text in Jude, that they were set forth for an example, or for a type or representation of the eternal fire in which all the ungodly are to be consumed.

Sodom has in all ages since been covered with a lake which was first brought on it by fire and brimstone, to be a type of the lake of fire and brimstone in which ungodly men shall have their part forever and ever, as we read Rev. xx. 15, and elsewhere.

We ought not therefore to look back when fleeing out of Sodom, seeing that the destruction to which it is appointed is an eternal destruction; for this renders the destruction infinitely dreadful.

6. Sodom is a city appointed to swift and sudden destruction. The destruction is not only certain and inevitable, and infinitely dreadful, but it will come speedily. "Their judg ment lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not ;" 2 Pet. ii. 3. And so Deut. xxxii. 35. "The day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste." The storm of wrath, the black clouds of divine vengeance even now every moment hang over them, just ready to break forth and come down in a dreadful manner upon them. God hath already whet his sword, and bent his bow, and made ready his arrow on the string, Psalm vii. 12. There, fore we should make haste, and not look behind us. For if we linger and stop to look back, and flee not for our lives, there is great danger that we shall be involved in the common ruin.

The destruction of Sodom is not only swift, but will come suddenly and unexpectedly. It seems to have been a fair morning in Sodom on the morning that it was destroyed. There is notice taken of the time when the sun rose that morning, Gen. xix. 23. It seems that there were no clouds to be seen, no appearance of any storm at all, much less a storm of fire and brimstone. The inhabitants of Sodom expected no such thing; even when Lot told his sons in law of it, they would not believe it; Gen. xix. 14. They were making merry; their hearts were at ease, they thought nothing of such a calamity at hand. But it came at once, as travail upon a woman with child, and there was no escape; as it is observed in the context, v. 28, 29. "They did eat, they drank; they bought, they sold; they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and detroyed them all.”

"How are

So it is with wicked men; Psalm lxxiii. 19. they brought into desolation in a moment; they are utterly consumed with terrors." If therefore we linger and look back, we may be suddenly overtaken and seized with destruction.

7. There is nothing in Sodom that is worth looking back upon. All the enjoyments of Sodom will soon perish in the common destruction, all will be burnt up. And surely it is not worth the while to look back on things that are perishing and consuming in. the flames, as it is with all the enjoyments of sin; they are all appointed to the fire. Therefore it is foolish for any who are fleeing out of Sodom to hanker any more after them; for when they are burnt up, what good can they do? And is it worth the while for us to return back for the sake of a moment's enjoyment of them, before they are burnt, and so expose ourselves to be burnt up with them?

Lot's wife looked back, because she remembered the pleasant things that she left in Sodom. She hated to leave them; she hankered after them; she could not but look back with a wishful eye upon the city, where she had lived in such ease and pleasure. Sodom was a place of great outward plenty; they ate the fat, and drank the sweet. The soil where Sodom was built was exceedingly fruitful; it is said to be as the garden of God, Gen. xii. 10. And fulness of bread was one of the sins of the place, Ezek. xvi. 49.

Here Lot and his wife lived plentifully; and it was a place where the inhabitants wallowed in carnal pleasures and delights. But however much it abounded in these things, what were they worth now, when the city was burning? Lot's wife was very foolish in lingering in her escape, for the sake of things which were all on fire. So the enjoyments, the profits, and pleasures of sin, have the wrath and curse of God on them: Brimstone is scattered on them: Hellfire is ready to kindle. on them. It is not therefore worth while for any person to look back after such things.

us.

8. We are warned by messengers sent to us from God to make haste in our flight from Sodom, and not to look behind God sends to us his ministers, the angels of the churches, on this grand errand, as he sent the angels to warn Lot and his wife to flee for their lives, and to say and do as we have account in Gen. xix. 15, 16. If we delay or look back, now that we have had such fair warning, we shall be exceedingly. inexcusable. and monstrously foolish.