thus dealt with the Lord God Almighty, by refusing his testimony concerning eternal life through his Son ! Your guilt, therefore, is fearfully aggravated; and the sentence of the violated law, which hangs over you, is additionally confirmed. Seriously reflect on your truly alarming state. The curse of God's law, rendered more than doubly heavy, by the sin of unbelief, pursues you wherever you go. It binds you over to "a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary." Nor is there any possibility for you to escape, except by cordially believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. 66 2. Your present condition is peculiarly dangerous. -This, you must admit, is characteristic of the state of every unpardoned sinner. But in a special manner it is so with those who, to their other iniquities, have added that of a false and hypocritical profession of faith in Christ. By this they have drawn a veil between themselves and the awful gulf which lies before them; and, though standing on its dizzy brink, and every moment in hazard of being precipitated into the overwhelming abyss, yet see not their terrible peril. Commonly they soon begin to feel as if they were safe, and gradually are lulled into a lethargic security. While they view others who have no religious profession, and who observe no religious duties, as certainly exposed to everlasting perdition, they persuade themselves that this cannot be their case. They have honoured Christ by calling him their Master, and they frequently honour him by the perfor mance of religious services. They are Christians already, and are recognized as such by all good men. Why, therefore, should they trouble themselves by questioning the sincerity of their profession ? Similar to this was the case with the Pharisees. They were not like the infidel Sadducees around them, who openly avowed their disbelief of the fundamental truths of revelation. They both professed their faith in the word of God, and they practised its requirements. They regularly attended public worship in the temple and in the synagogues,-daily prayed at the hours of the morning and evening sacrifices,fasted very frequently,-payed tithes with more than required scrupulosity, and liberally gave alms to the poor. In consequence of all this, they were esteemed by their countrymen as persons of the most eminent and exemplary sanctity. And so high was the opinion which they entertained of their own holiness, that they looked down with pity and scorn on all who were not of their own party. They trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." And yet, after all, Christ pronounced them the rankest hypocrites, and denounced against them the heaviest woes. He told them to their face, that they were like whited sepulchres; beautiful without, but within full of noisome putrefaction. And to impress their minds with the awful danger of their condition, he assured them that publicans and harlots were nearer the kingdom of God than they ;-in other words, that the most notorious and profligate sinners were more open to conviction, and more likely to become converts, than these self-righteous and secure religionists. 66 How applicable to your case is all this! Like those deluded men you are hedged round with a religious profession, and already are, or at least not far from becoming, secure in the midst of danger. While the voice of God in his word deeply pierces the conscience and heart of many a sinner around you—fills them with trembling alarm, and restless solicitude for salvation-and excites them gladly to flee to Christ, the only refuge set before them; it falls pointless on your callous and fortified soul. You put it from yourself, and apply it to others. In your own estimation you are whole, and therefore need not the aids of the heavenly Physician. And you are in awful hazard of continuing in this state, till you sleep the sleep of death. In terrible judgment God may give you up to blindness and obduracy, and say concerning you, as he formerly spake respecting the members of the Jewish church, "Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." * 3. Your punishment shall be dreadful, if you die in your present state. You need not to be informed, that the duration of your life is altogether uncertain -so fearfully uncertain, that you have no security for another moment beyond the present. The next may come to you fraught with the message of death, * Isa. vi. 9, 10. and may hurry you without delay into the presence of your Judge. Or, should you be spared for many years to come, but these, like those which are past, be spent in your present unbelieving condition, your prospects for eternity, so far from being brightened, would then be darker than they now are. An additional load of guilt would subject you to increased punishment. And horrible beyond conception shall be the eternal doom of unbelievers! The misery of those, in any case, who shall be consigned to hell, must be dreadful. But that which shall be inflicted on persons like you, who have been favoured with the light of the gospel, and who have professed to believe it, while yet they have continued in unbelief, we are assured shall be peculiarly great. Our blessed Lord taught this-"Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto it shall be more tolerable for the land of the day of judgment than for thee.” * · Matt. xi, 20-24. you, That Sodom in Seriously think how awfully intolerable your punishment must be. Christ has taught in your hearing by his servants-exhibited the faithful record of his mighty works before your eyes—and often graciously entreated you to accept the blessings of his great salvation. But notwithstanding your fair professions you have been deaf to his voice, blind to his wonderful deeds, and rejected his offers of pardon and life. More tolerable, therefore, shall it be in the great day of final retribution for those who were swallowed up amid fiery judgment, than for you. In vain will it then be for you to cry to the Redeemer, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name" -professed to believe thy truth-perhaps taught it to others and joined with thy people in worshipping thee? To you he will reply in these appalling terms, "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity ;"—" Because I have called, and ye have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded: but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall ye call upon me, but I will not answer; ye shall seek me early, but ye shall not find me: For that ye hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Ye would none of my counsel, ye despised all my reproof: therefore shall ye eat of the fruit of way, and be filled with your own devices." * * Prov. i. 24-31. your own |