bottom; how long lie buried in slumber and death, dreaming of pleasure, while your Creator is displeased, while your Saviour is neglected, while death is approaching, while eternity is at the door, and your unprepared spirits are momentarily exposed to endless perdition! What meanest thou, O sleeper! to slumber while this is thy condition! Is it a time for mirth, when the Judge stands before the door, crying, Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep! Awake, then, thou that sleepest; escape for thy life; look not behind thee, renounce thy vain pleasures, deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Christ. Say not, my pleasures are too dear to part with. I know they are dear, dear to you as a right hand or a right eye. But what then? It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. Say not, if we renounce our pleasures, we shall never more be happy. Rather you will never be happy till you do renounce them, and seek happiness where alone it is to be found. Were the Samaritans unhappy when they had renounced sinful pleasures and embraced the cross of Christ? No; there was great joy in that city. Was the Ethiopian nobleman unhappy, after he had believed on a crucified Redeemer? No; he went on his way rejoicing. Renounce your idolatrous love of pleasure, and this joy will be yours. Enter the ways of wisdom, and you will find them ways of pleasantness. Cease to drink at your broken cisterns which can hold no water, and you shall drink of those rivers of pleasures which flow forever at the right hand of God. Imitate the example of Christ, who began early to say, I must be about my Father's business, and you shall have that rest, that peace which he gives, and rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Do any say, we would gladly renounce our unsatisfying pleasures, and follow Christ, but we feel unable to do so. We fear that when the hour of temptation comes, we shall forget and break our resolutions, and return to the world! My friends the power of Christ can render you victorious over the strongest temptations. His grace is sufficient for you; and if you can consent that he should take away that inordinate fondness for pleasure that enslaves you, he will do it. You perhaps recollect that, in the account we gave you last Sabbath, it was mentioned, that when the young were persuaded to renounce their vain

amusements, a glorious revival of religion soon followed. If you could be persuaded to imitate their example, perhaps the consequences would be similar. Will you not make the experiment, at least for one month! Will you not for one month, one little month, say No, to every call of sinful pleasure, and devote yourselves to the pursuit of religion? Is this too much time to give to the salvation of your souls? Too much to give to him who gave you being; too much to give to that Saviour, who gave his blood for your redemption, and whose language is, My son, give me thine heart.

My dying, yet immortal hearers, will you not grant him this small favor? If you still hesitate, still feel undecided, let me entreat you when you go from this house to repair to your closets, and there lay open the Bible before you; bring to your minds the solemn hour of death, and the awful scenes beyond it, and with these scenes full in your view, survey your past lives, consider how you will wish they had been spent, when your last hour arrives; and then, with the eye of God upon you, and with your eye upon the judgment scat, decide whether you will follow Christ or your pleasures.

SERMON LXVI.

THE SINNER'S MISTAKES EXPOSED AND REPROVED.

These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. PSALM L. 21, 22.

THE doctrine of a judgment to come is no new doctrine. It is almost, if not quite, as old as creation. Though it is revealed with the greatest clearness in the New Testament, yet there are many intimations, and not a few explicit predictions of it in the Old. Indeed, it appears highly probable, that, under the ancient dispensation, mankind were favored with some predictions of this day, which are not recorded in the Scriptures; for St. Jude informs us, that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, who was afterwards taken alive into heaven, prophesied, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly of their ungodly deeds. To the same great day Moses seems to refer, when he represents God as saying, A fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn to the lowest hell, and consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Another clear, and very explicit prediction of a future judgment, we have in the Psalm before us. Our God, says the Psalmist, shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round

about him. He shall call to the heaven from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people; and the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself. Having inspired his servant thus to foretell an approaching day of judgment, God himself takes up the subject, and after a most solemn address to his professing people, turns to sinners, charges them with various crimes, and concludes with the words of our text, These things thou hast done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. In this passage we have,

I. A description of the manner in which God treats impenitent sinners, during the present life. While they are going on in a course of sin, he sits as a watchful spectator of their conduct, but keeps silence: These things thou hast done, and I kept silence. There is, indeed, one sense in which he is not silent. He is continually speaking to them in his Word, inviting, counseling and warning them to repent and flee from the wrath to come; nor does he fail often to speak to them in the same manner, by the voice of conscience. But, as a Judge, he usually observes the most profound silence. Scarcely ever does he openly manifest his displeasure against sinful individuals, or visibly punish them for their sins in the present life; though he frequently sends his judgments on guilty nations. We are indeed told by the inspired writers, that his bow is bent to pierce, and his sword sharpened to cut off impenitent sinners, as soon as the day of grace shall have expired, and they shall have filled up the measure of their iniquities; but till that period arrives, the tokens of his anger are restrained, and nothing is done to show that he is more displeased with the wicked than with the good. The sun shines brightly over their heads, as it did upon Sodom an hour before its destruction; the rain of heaven descends upon them, and they are permitted to enjoy all the blessings of providence and all the means of grace. Young sinners are suffered to rejoice in their youth, and to walk in the way of their hearts, and in the sight of their eyes; and those that are farther advanced in life are suffered to pursue the world, and to glory in their wisdom, their riches and their strength; so that, in this life, there seems to be but one event to

the righteous and to the wicked, to him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. Thus while sinners are sinning and treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, God as a righteous Judge keeps silence; but though silent, he is not an indifferent or inactive witness of their conduct. All their sins, all their abused mercies, all the warnings they receive in vain, are carefully recorded by him in that book of remembrance which will be opened at the judgment day.

If it be asked, why God thus keeps silence; I answer, because this life is a season of trial and probation. Men are placed in this world, that they may show what is in their hearts, and thus discover their true characters. In order to this, it is necessary that they should be left in some manner to themselves; left at liberty to act as they please. It is evident that if the good were always openly rewarded, and the wicked visibly punished here; if the thunder always rolled, and the lightnings always flashed to blast the sinner at the very moment in which he sinned, this life would not be a state of trial. Men would be so much under the influence of a slavish fear, that they would not act as they pleased; and, consequently, would not make a discovery of their true character. It is evidently no time to discover whether a servant is faithful or unfaithful, while he feels that his master's eye is upon him. If we would know his true character, let his master withdraw for awhile, and leave him to himself, and it will then be seen whether he is an eye

servant or not.

He sets

Precisely in this manner God deals with mankind. before them in the works of creation, sufficient evidence of his existence and perfections; he lays them under obligations to love and thank him by the blessings of his providence; he clearly prescribes their duty, and gives them directions for its performance, in his word; he places conscience in their breasts, as an overseer, and monitor; and then, wrapped up in his own invisibility, sits silent and unseen, to notice and record, their conduct. His eyes run through the earth, beholding the evil and the good; he is present in all the scenes of business and amusement; he comes with sinners to his temple on the Sabbath; goes with them to their habitations when they return; is with them when they lie down, and when they rise up; and follows their steps through the day; but however they may provoke him, still