dregs of his wrath!—why have I known the designs 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 yet be delivered.

Reviving thought! rejoice in it, O my soul, tho' 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 sinner! Some gen. eral and confused apprehensions 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 inquire a little farther how I may finally avoid it!

CHAP. VII.

THE HELPLESS STATE OF THE SINNER UNDER CONDEM. NATION.

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 fellow sinners on earth, or in hell, 6-8 (5.) Nor by any interposition or intercession of angels or saints in his favor, 9. Hint of the only method, to be afterwards more largely explained, ib. 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. I there be a friend who he thinks can help him, with what strong importunity does he entreat 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, 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,

and we may not see thy ruin. But say, O 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 inquiry and proposal, like that of the awakened sinner, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the most 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 goats, though it exempted the offender from farther temporal punishment, could not take away sin, nor prewail by any means to purge the conscience in the sight of God. And that soul that had done ought 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 of fences have not been merely the errors of ignorance and inadvertency, but that thou hast sinned with a high hand, in repeated aggravated instances, as thou hast acknowledged already.-Shouldst thou add, with the wretched sinner described above, Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions, 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 how 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 sorrow 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, O unhappy man! wilt thou lie down there with a secret hope that the moment will come when the rigor 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 it 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 black confusion, and to overwhelm thee with hopeless agony and horror.

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 requires from Adam in Paradise, would that be sufficient to cancel past guilt? would i: dis

charge an old debt that thou hadst not contracted a new one? Offer this to thy neighbor, 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 deing 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 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 favorite 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 laboring 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 of 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 favor? An interposition of power when sentence is