short ; the Judge is at the door/' and if we be unpre- pared to meet him, woe be unto us ; our sentence will be awful indeed : the very terms, in which it will be expressed, are already told us ; " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels'." In one respect indeed we differ widely from such a criminal : if he escape, it must be through want of evidence to convict him: whereas the only way for us to escape is, to confess our guilt, and plead the atonement offered for us by the Son of God.
This leads me to my last observation, namely,
III. That a neglect of Christ will be found in that day to have been the most fatal of all offences.
Sins of any other kind, how heinous soever they may have been, yea, though they may have brought us to an ignominious end, may yet be pardoned of our God, provided we turn to him with unfeigned sorrow and contrition, and rely on the atonement which Christ has offered. The Scriptures are ex- tremely full and strong upon this subject. They declare that " all who believe, shall be justified from all things ;" that ''the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin ;" that " though our sins be as scarlet they shall be as wool, though they be red like crim- son they shall be white as snow." So undoubted is this truth, and so suited to the condition of fallen man, that it has been often and well proclaimed in our very courts of justice; proclaimed, I say, to cri- minals condemned, at the very time of condemnation, and that too, by those very persons who pronounced the sentence of death against them. Yes, thanks be to God, there are judges, even in this degenerate age, who are not ashamed to unite the balm of Christian counsel with the severity of a penal sentence.
But let us suppose that we have neither violated the laws of man, nor, in any flagrant instances, the laws of God ; shall we therefore be acquitted at God's tribunal ? Shall we need none to entreat for us,
s Matt. XXV. 41.