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this day warned of the confequences of despifing it. If you will perish, I am clear

of your blood.

II. I proceed to confider the final issue of this unequal conteft, between the worms of the earth and their Maker. He will dafh them in pieces like a potter's veel. Such a veffel may be curiously wrought, and appear beautiful to the eye, but it is frail, eafily broken, and when once broken to pieces it is irreparable. It is, therefore, a fit emblem of mortal man in his beft eftate. We are fearfully and wonderfully made *. The texture of the human frame is admirable. The natural capacities of the mind of man, the powers of his understanding, will, and affections, the rapidity of imagination, the comprehenfion of memory, efpecially in fome inftances, are so many proofs, that, confidered as a creature of God, he is a noble creature. And though he is debafed and degraded by fin, there are traces of his original excellence remaining, fufficient to denominate him, in the words of the poet, majeftic tho' in ruins. But if you fuppofe him rich, powerful, wife, in the common fenfe of the

* Pf. cxxxix. 14.

words,

words, he is brittle as a potter's veffel, and while poffeffed of every poffible advantage, he is but like the grafs or the flower of the field, which in its moft flourishing state, falls, in a moment, at the stroke of the fcythe, and withers and dies. A fever, a fall, a tile, a grain of fand, or the air that finds its way through a crevice, may be an overmatch for the strongest man, and bring him down haftily to the grave. By a small change in the brain, or fome part of the nervous fyftem, he who now prides himself in his intellectual abilities, may foon become a lunatic, or an idiot. Difeafe may quickly render the beauty loathfome, and the robust weak as infancy. There are earthen or china veffels, which might poffibly endure for many ages, if carefully preserved from violence. But the feeds of decay and death are fown in our very frame. We are crushed before the moth, and moulder away untouched, under the weight of time. How furely and inevitably then muft they whom the Lord ftrikes with his iron rod, be shattered with the blow!

are,

Communities and collective bodies of men, in his hand, no lefs frail than individuals.

The

advocate be found.

Can their hearts endure,

or their hands be strong, when he shall speak to them in his wrath, and fay, Depart from me, ye curfed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels?

But let them who love his name rejoice. You have fled for refuge to the hope set before you. To you his appearance will be delightful, and his voice welcome. You shall not be ashamed. This awful God is your's. He will then own and accept you before assembled worlds, and will fay, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. Then the days of your mourning shall be ended, and your fun fhall go down no more

*Matt. xxv. 34.

*

Ifa. lx. 20.

SER

SERMON XXXVI.

THE LORD REIGNET H.

REV. xix. 6.

Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent

T

reigneth!

HE book of the Revelation, being chiefly prophetical, will not, perhaps, be fully understood, till the final accomplishment of the events shall draw near, and throw a ftronger light upon the whole feries. But while the learned commentators have been, hitherto, divided and perplexed in their attempts to illuftrate many parts of it, there are other parts well adapted for the inftruction and refreshment of plain chriftians. Particulary those paffages in which the scenery

and

and images feem defigned to give us fome representation of the happiness and worship of the heavenly ftate. Thus a plain unlettered believer, when reading with attention the fourth and fifth chapters, though he cannot give a reason why the elders are four and twenty, the living creatures four, and the number of their wings neither more nor less than fix; yet, from the whole description of the Lamb upon the throne, the fongs of the redeemed, and the chorus of the angels, he receives fuch an impreffion of glory, as awakens his gratitude, defire and joy, and excites him likewife to take up the fame fong of praise, to him who has loved him, and washed him from his fins in his own blood. He is content to leave the difcuffion of hard questions to learned men, while he feeds by faith upon thofe fimple truths, which can only be relifhed by a spiritual tafte; and which, where there is fuch a tafte, make their way to the heart, without the affiftance of critical difquifition.

The fubject of the preceding chapter, is the deftruction of mystical Babylon, the head of the oppofition against the kingdom of the Lord Chrift. But Babylon finks like a mill

ftone

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