chariot to sit with them, but all other arc commanded to go behind. Alas, poor-spirited wretches ! something might be said for you, if this evil day of death and judgment were such en/ia i-a(ionls as had no foundation or being but what our fancies give them. Such troubles there are in the world, which have all their evil from our thoughts ; when we are disquieted with the scorns and reproaches of men, did we but not think of them, they were nothing : but thy banishing the thoughts of this evil day from thy mind will be a poor, sliort relief. Thou canst neither hinder its coming, nor take away its sting when it comes by the slighting it. Thou art like a passenger in a ship, sleep or awake thou art going thy voyage. Thou dost but like that silly bird, who puts her head into a reed, and then thinks she is safe from the fowler because she sees him not. Thou art a fair mark for God's vengeance ; he sees thee, and is taking his aim at thee, when thou seest him not ; yea, thou puttest thyself under an inevitable necessity of perishing by not thinking of this day. The first step to our safety is consideration of oiu- danger.
Use 2. — It reproves those, who if they think of the evil day, yet it is so far off, that it is to little purpose. They will be sure to set it at such a distance from them as shall take away the force of the meditation, that it shall not strike them down in the deep sense and fear of it. That cannon, which if we stood at the mouth of it, would scatter us limb from limb, will not so much as scare them that get out of its reach. The further we put the evil day, the weaker impression it makes on us. It is true, say sinners, it cannot be helped ; we owe a debt to nature, it must be paid : sickness will come, and death follow on that, and judgment brings up the rear of both. But, alas ! they look not for these guests yet ; they prophesy of these things a great while hence to come ; many a fair day they hope will intervene. Thus men are very kind to themselves : first they wish it may be long before it comes ; and then because they would have it so, they are bold to promise themselves it shall be so ; and when once they have made this promise, no wonder if they then live after the rate of their vain hopes, putting off" the stating of their accounts till the winter evening of old age, when they shall not have such allurements to gad abroad from the pleasures of this life. O then they will do great matters to fit them for the evil day ! Bold man ! who gave thee leave to cut out such large thongs of that time which is not thine, but God's? Who makes the lease? the tenant or the landlord ? Or dost thou forget thou farmest thy life, and art not an owner ? This is the device of Satan to make you delay ; whereas a present expectation of the evil day would not let you sit still unprepared. Oh, why do you let your souls from their work, make them idle and rest from their burdens, by telling them of long life, while death chops in upon you unawares? And let me tell you, sudden destruction is threatened, especially to such secure ones. Read Matt. xxiv. 48, 50, 51, where it is denounced against that sort of sinners who please themselves with their Lord's delaying his coming, that ' the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of.' Indeed, God must go out of his ordinary road of dealing with sinners if such escape sudden ruin. One is bold to challenge any to shew a precedent in Scriptvu'e of any that are branded for secin'ity, that some remarkable, yea, sudden judgment did not surprise. Sodom, how soon after a sunshine morning did the heavens thicken, and bury them in a few hours, by a storm of fire, in their own ashes ! Careless Laish cut off" before they almost think of it. Agag, when he saw the clouds of his fears break, and fair weather was in his countenance, they return immediately upon him, and shut him up in death ; he is presently hewn in pieces. Amalek slaughtered by David before the triumph of their late victory was cold. Nebuchadnezzar strutting himself in his palace with this bravado in his mouth, ' Is not this great Babylon which I have built?' and before he can get the words out of his throat, there is another voice, falling from heaven, saying, ' O king, to thee be it spoken, thy kingdom is departed from thee,' Dan. iv. .'51, .'53. ' And the same hoiu- it was fulfilled,' and he sent to graze with the beasts. Dives blessing himself for many years, and within a few hours the pillow is plucked from under his head, and you hear no more of him, till out of hell he roar. Yea, a whole world, few persons excepted, drowned, and they not know till the day the flood came
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Matt. xxiv. 39, and swept them all away. And who art thou, O man, that promisest thyself an exemption, when kings, cities, a whole world have been mined after this sort ?