Dreadful sentence !

the redemption and salvation of men. and so much the more dreadful, when considered in that view! To what shall I look to save me from it? To whom shall I call? Shall I say to the rocks, fall upon me, and to the hills, cover me? What shall I gain by that? Were I indeed overwhelmed with rocks and mountains, they could not conceal me from the notice of his eye; and his hand could reach me with as much ease there, as any where else.

"Wretch indeed that I am! Oh that I had never been born! O that I had never known the dignity and prerogative of the rational nature! Fatal prerogative indeed, that renders me obnoxious to condemnation and wrath! Oh that I had never been instructed in the will of God at all, rather than that being thus instructed, I should have disregarded and transgressed it! Would to God, I had been allied to the meanest of the human race, to them that come nearest to the state of the brutes, rather than that I should have had my lot in cultivated life, amidst so many of the improvements of reason, and (dreadful reflection!) amidst so many of the advantages of religion too! and thus to have perverted all to my own destruction !-Oh that God would take away this rational soul! But alas, it will live for ever; will live to feel the agonies of eternal death.-Why have I seen the beauties and glories of a world like this, to exchange it for that flaming prison! Why have I tasted so many of my Creator's bounties, to wring out at last the dregs of his wrath! Why have I known the delights of social life and friendly converse, to exchange them for the horrid company of devils and damned spirits in Tophet! Oh, who can dwell with them in devouring flames! who can lie down with them in everlasting, everlasting, everlasting burnings + !

"But whom have I to blame in all this, but myself? What have I to accuse, but my own stupid incorrigible folly? On what is all this terrible ruin to be charged, but on this one fatal cursed cause, that having broken God's law, I rejected his gospel too?

"Yet stay, O my soul, in the midst of all these doleful, foreboding complaints. Can I say, that I have finally rejected the gospel? Am I not to this day under the sound of it? The sentence is not yet gone forth against me, in so determinate a manner as to be utterly irreversible. Through all this gloomy prospect one ray of hope breaks in, and it is possible I may be delivered.

* Luke xxiii, 30. VOL. I.

Isai. xxxiii, 14.

Kk

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Reviving thought! Rejoice in it, O my soul, though it be with trembling; and turn immediately to that God, who though provoked by ten thousand offences, has not yet sworn in his wrath, that thou shalt never be permitted to hold farther intercourse with him, or to enter into his rest*.

"I do then, O blessed Lord, prostrate myself in the dust before thee. I own, I am a condemned and miserable creature. But my language is that of the humble publican, God be merciful to me a sinnert! Some general and confused apprehenfions I have of a way, by which I may possibly escape. O God, whatever that way is, shew it me, I beseech thee! Point it out so plainly, that I may not be able to mistake it! And Oh, reconcile my heart to it, be it ever so humbling, be it ever so painful!

"Surely, Lord, I have much to learn; but be thou my teacher! Stay for a little thine uplifted hand; and in thine infinite compassion delay the stroke, till I enquire a little farther, how I may finally avoid it!"

CHAP. VII.

The helpless State of the Sinner under Condemnation. The Sinner urged to consider, how he can be saved from this impending Ruin. §. 1, 2. (1.) Not by any Thing he can offer. §. 3. (2.) Nor by any Thing he can endure. § 4. (3.) Nor by any Thing he can do in the Course of future Duty. §. 5. (4.) Nor by any Alliance with FellowSinners, on Earth, or in Hell. §. 6.-8. (5.) Nor by any Interposition, or Intercession of Angels or Saints in his Favour. §. 9. Hint of the only Method, to be afterwards more largely explained, ibid. The Lamentation of a Sinner in this miserable Condition.

§. 1.SINNER, thou hast heard the sentence of God, as it

stands upon record in his sacred and immutable word. And wilt thou lie down under it in everlasting despair? Wilt thou make no attempt to be delivered from it, when it speaks nothing less than eternal death to thy soul? If a criminal, condemned by human laws, has but the least shadow of hope, that he may possibly escape, he is all attention to it. If there be a friend, who he thinks can help him, with what strong importunity does he intreat the interposition of that friend? And even while he is before the judge, how difficult is it often to force him away from the bar, while the cry of mercy, mercy, mercy may be heard,

Psal. xcv. 11.

+ Luke xviii. 13.

though it be never so unseasonable? A mere possibility that it may make some impression, makes him eager in it, and unwilling to be silenced and removed.

§. 2. Wilt thou not then, O sinner, ere yet execution is done, that execution which may perhaps be done this very day, wilt thou not cast about in thy thoughts, what measures may be taken for deliverance? Yet what measures can be taken? Consider attentively, for it is an affair of moment. Thy wisdom, thy power, thy eloquence, or thine interest, can never be exerted on a greater occasion. If thou canst help thyself, do. If thou hast any secret source of relief, go not out of thyself for other assistance. If thou hast any sacrifice to offer; if thou hast any strength to exert, yea, if thou hast any allies on earth, or in the invisible world, who can defend and deliver thee, take thine own way, so that thou mayest but be delivered. at all, that we may not see thy ruin. But say, ( sinner, in the presence of God, what sacrifice thou wilt present, what strength thou wilt exert, what allies thou wilt have recourse to, on so urgent, so hopeless an occasion. For hopeless I must indeed pronounce it, if such methods are taken.

§. 3. The justice of God is injured: hast thou any atonement to make to it? If thou wast brought to an enquiry and proposal, like that of the awakened sinner, wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil* ? Alas! wert thou as great a prince as Solomon himself, and couldst thou indeed purchase such sacrifices as these, there would be no room to mention them. Lebanon would not be sufficient to burn, nor all the beasts thereof for a burnt offering+. Even under that dispensation, which admitted and required sacrifices in some cases, the blood of bulls and of goats, though it exempted the offender from farther temporal punishment, could not take away sint, nor prevail by any means to purge the conscience in the sight of God. And that soul that had done aught presumptuously was not allowed to bring any sin-offering, or trespass-offering at all, but was condemned to die without mercy. Now God and thine own conscience know, that thine offences have not been merely the errors of ignorance and inadvertency, but that thou hast sinned with an high hand in repeated aggravated instances,

* Mic. vi. 6, 7. + Isai. xl. 16.

Heb. x. 4.

Numb. xv. 30.

as thou hast acknowledged already.-Shouldst thou add, with the wretched sinner described above, shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul! What could the blood of a beloved child do in such a case, but dye thy crimes so much the deeper, and add a yet unknown horror to them? Thou hast offended a being of infinite majesty; and if that offence is to be expiated by blood, it must be by another kind of blood than that which flows in the veins of thy children, or in thine own.

§. 4. Wilt thou then suffer thyself, till thou hast made full satisfaction? But where shall that satisfaction be made?Shall it be by any calamities to be endured in this mortal momentary life? Is the justice of God then esteemed so little a thing that the sorrows of a few days should suffice to answer its demands-Or dost thou think of future sufferings, in the invisible world? If thou dost, that is not deliverance; and with regard to that I may venture to say, When thou hast made full satisfaction, thou wilt be released: when thou hast paid the utmost farthing of that debt, thy prison-doors shall be opened in the mean time, thou must make thy bed in hell† : and, Oh unhappy man, wilt thou lie down there, with a secret hope, that the moment will come, when the rigour of divine justice will not be able to inflict any thing more than thou hast endured, and when thou mayest claim thy discharge as a matter of right? It would indeed be well for thee, if thou couldst carry down with thee such a hope, false and flattering as is but alas, thou wilt see things in so just a light, that to have no comfort but this, will be eternal despair. That one word of thy sentence, everlasting fire; that one declaration, the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; will be sufficient to strike such a thought into blank confusion, and to overwhelm thee with hopeless agony and horror.

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§. 5. Or do you think, that your future reformation and diligence in duty for the time to come, will procure your discharge from this sentence? Take heed, sinner, what kind of obedience thou thinkest of offering to an holy God. That must be spotless and complete which his infinite sanctity can approve and accept, if he consider thee in thyself alone: there must be no inconstancy, no forgetfulness, no mixture of sin, attending it. And wilt thou, enfeebled as thou art, by so much original corruption, and so many sinful habits contracted by innumerable actual transgressions, undertake to render such an

obedience, and that for all the remainder of thy life? In vain wouldst thou attempt it, even for one day. New guilt would immediately plunge thee into new ruin, But if it did not; if from this moment to the very end of thy life all were as complete obedience as the law of God required from Adam in Paradise, would that be sufficient to cancel past guilt? Would it discharge an old debt, that thou hast not contracted a new one? Offer this to thy neighbour, and see if he will accept it for payment; and if he will not, wilt thou presume to offer it to thy God?

§. 6. But I will not multiply words on so plain a subject. While I speak thus, time is passing away, death presses on, and judgment is approaching. And what can save thee from these awful scenes, or what can protect thee in them? Can the world save thee, that vain delusive idol of thy wishes and pursuits, to which thou art sacrificing thine eternal hopes? Well dost thou know, that it will utterly forsake thee, when thou needest it most; and that not one of its enjoyments can be carried along with thee into the invisible state: no, not so much as a trifle to remember it by; if thou couldst desire to remember so inconstant, and so treacherous a friend, as the world has been.

§. 7. And when you are dead, or when you are dying, can your sinful companions save you? Is there any one of them, if he were ever so desirous of doing it, that can give unto God a ransom for you*, to deliver you from going down to the grave, or from going down to hell? Alas, you will probably be so sensible of this, that when you lie on the border of the grave, you will be unwilling to see or to converse with those, that were once your favourite companions. They will afflict you, rather than relieve you, even then: how much less can they relieve you before the bar of God, when they are overwhelmed with their own condemnation ?

§. 8. As for the powers of darkness, you are sure they will be far from any ability, or inclination to help you. Satan has been watching and labouring for your destruction, and he will triumph in it. But if there could be any thing of an amicable confederacy between you, what would that be, but an association in ruin? For the day of judgment for ungodly men, will also be the judgment of these rebellious spirits; and the fire into which thou, O sinner, must depart, is that which was prepared for the devil and his angels.

§. 9. Will the celestial spirits then save thee? will they interpose their power, or their prayers, in thy favour? An in