of this salvation, are the very persons whom we address, and against whom we are collecting this great assembly. And all of this description, the Lord Jesus Christ meets full in their path, and says, Pursue this path no farther, on peril of your souls. He meets all the impenitent, and says, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. He meets the unbelieving, and says, He that believeth not, shall be damned. He meets all the unholy, and says, Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. He meets all the unregenerate, and exclaims, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye be born again, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And if any of these characters shall continue till death in their present course, they will find him against them at the judgment day, prepared and disposed to execute upon them the sentence pronounced in his word.

Finally, my irreligious hearers, God the Father is against you. Yes, sinner, the infinite God, the ever-living, almighty, and every where present God, the high, and holy, and just, and unchangeable God, is against you. He who sitteth on the circle. of the earth, and counts all its inhabitants as nothing and vanity; he who holds all creatures and all worlds as in the hollow of his hand; He in whom you live, and move, and have your being, even he has revealed himself in direct opposition to the course you are pursuing. Coming forth from the unapproachable light in which he dwells, arrayed in all the majesty, and terrors, and glory of self-existent divinity, he discloses himself to view, seated on the throne of the universe, with his immutable law issuing from his lips, and going forth to demand obedience from his creatures on pain of death. Casting a glance of severe and awful displeasure on the course which you are pursuing, with his own right hand he waves you back, and with his own authoritative voice of power, bids you turn, and no longer advance in opposition to your Sovereign. Let the potsherds, he exclaims, strive with the potsherds of the earth, but woe to him who striveth with his Maker. My hearers, while you neglect religion, you are striving with your Maker, and all the laws of his kingdom, all the perfections of his nature, all the dispensations of his providence, all the contents of his word, are against you.

And now survey once more and collectively, the vast assembly which is arrayed against you, an assembly composed of all the good on earth, of all the spirits of the just in heaven, of all

the holy angels, with God's eternal Son, and the ever living Jehovah at their head? Before such an assembly, what are you? And whom will you array against it? You may indeed assemble all the wicked on earth; you may call for the departed spirits of all wicked men, who have gone to their own place; and you may add the spirits of disobedience, the apostate angels, to swell the throng; but these are all whom you can assemble. No holy angels, no good man, in heaven or earth, will join your unhallowed host, or countenance you in disobeying or neglecting the Sovereign whom they love.

Surely then, those of you who acknowledge the truth of the Scriptures, will no more boast of, or rely upon the number which swells your ranks. Indeed, methinks a view of those who are with you, can scarcely be more pleasing than a view of those who are against you. To see all evil beings on your side, is little less appalling, than to see all good beings on the opposite side. And remember that what you have now heard described, you will one day see. You will see all the different classes and beings, who have been mentioned, assembled at thể judgment day. On one side, you will see all wicked men and wicked spirits; on the other, all good men, all holy angels, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the everlasting Father. And if you continue what you now are, you will see all the former arrayed on your side, and all the latter against you. And then, if not now, you will feel, that there is a great assembly against you, and that to have such an assembly against you, is indeed an evil above all things to be deprecated.

I need not, my irreligious hearers, repeat remarks which I have often made respecting the pain which it gives me to address you in this manner. Nor need I again remind you, that my only object is to promote your happiness. The use which I wish to make of the subject is, to persuade you to leave the host to which you now belong, and to join the assembly which is arrayed against it. There is not an individual in the assembly referred to, who is not prepared to receive and welcome you with cordial affection. All the good on earth, would gladly embrace you as brethren; holy beings in heaven would rejoice over you, as they do over every sinner that repenteth. The Lord Jesus Christ is ready to receive you, and God the Father to forgive you, and adopt you as his children. All, all combine

with one voice to cry, Come with us, and we will do you good. Do you reply, we would join you, were there not so many hypocrites in your number. My hearers, we are not inviting you to join us. We are inviting you to join the armies of the Lamb, the camp of God, to join an assembly composed of none but the truly good. Surely, in such an assembly, there are no hypocrites. All hypocrites belong to the host which we wish you to leave. They will, as inspiration assures us, have their portion with unbelievers, for unbelievers they in reality are. If you wish to be separate from them here, and hereafter, you must join those who worship God in spirit and in truth. Choose then, my hearers, choose your associates, and while choosing them, remember that you are choosing them for eternity. Remember too that all the goodness in the universe is on one side, and all the evil on the other. There is not a good man among those you are invited to leave. There is not an evil being among those you are invited to join.

The subject is well calculated to encourage and animate those of you, who are truly religious. You see to how numerous, and how glorious an assembly you belong. When you look around upon the state of the world, you perhaps sometimes feel, like the prophet, as if you were almost alone. But if your eyes are opened to see the great assembly which has been described, you will see that there are more with you, than against you, more with you, than with your adversaries. You are come unto Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, and to an innumerable company of angels, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And O, what an honor and privilege is it, to compose one of such an assembly as this! What an honor and privilege would it be, were the assembly much smaller than it is! And if it be an honor and privilege now, what will it be at the great day, in which all shall be assembled before the judgment seat of Christ! What happiness to hear him acknowledge you as his, to hear him say, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. You were not ashamed to acknowledge me in the midst of an ungodly world, and now I will not be ashamed of you. You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things; enter ye, into the joy of your Lord.

But remember, that if union to such an assembly be a great honor and privilege, it also imposes great obligations. What ought they to be, in temper and conduct, who profess to belong to such an assembly as this! How white, how unspotted ought to be their garments! How should their whole lives testify to whom they belong! And how great and how just will be the punishment of those false disciples, who, while they pretend to belong to this holy assembly, only disgrace it by their ungodly lives, and appear as spots and blemishes in the midst of it. Not long shall they be permitted thus to dishonor it; for he, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, will come to purify his church, and to cast into outer darkness those who have assumed his name only to profane it, and professed his religion only to dishonor it. Then he will say to his church, Rejoice, rejoice, for from henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumsised and the unclean. Then he will present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or imperfection, or any such thing; but perfectly holy and without blemish. What manner of persons then ought ye to be! As he who hath called us is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because he hath said, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

THESE words were addressed by Jehovah to Abraham, when he first promised to give his posterity the land of Canaan. While giving him this promise God informed him, that it would not be fulfilled till after the lapse of a considerable number of years; and assigned the reason of this delay in the words of our text. In the fourth generation, says he, thy seed shall come into the land again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. As if he had said, The putting of your posterity in possession of the land of Canaan, will be attended with the destruction of its present inhabitants, the Amorites; but they are not yet ripe for destruction; for the measure of their iniquity is not yet full. But when their iniquity is full, your posterity shall return hither, and the Amorites shall be destroyed.

This passage, taken in connection with its attending circumstances, teaches us the following important truth; God waits until sinners have filled up a certain measure of iniquity, before he executes the sentence by which they are doomed to destruction; but when this measure is full, execution certainly and immediately follows. To explain, establish and improve this remark is my present design.

I. In explanation of this remark, I observe,