shall be admitted into heaven before them*. Is not this a just ground of fear to those, whose hearts are not broken with a sense of sin ?
But more dreadful still are the threatenings denounced against hypocritical prof essors of religion. Their doom is cha- racterized as the most severe of anyg: and the wrath which they heap up to themselves, while they hold the truth in unrighteousness, is beyond measure great11. Let the proud and passionate, the malicious and revengeful, the worldly and covetous, the impure and sensual professor, hear this : and let them know, that the Lamb of God will be a lion to them, if they walk not more worthy of their high calling1.
There is however one description of persons, against whom God's threatenings are more awful still. He declares that negligent and unfaithful ministers shall perish under the accu- mulated guilt of destroying the souls committed to their charge. The blood of all whom they have neglected to warn shall be required at their hands k. Surely if the voice of God to others be as the roaring of a lion, to these it is rather as the voice of thunder. O, that it might be for ever sounding in the ears of all who are in the service of the sanctuary, till there should not be found one negligent or unfaithful minister in the Christian church !]
II. What effect it should have upon us —
[With respect to ministers, should they not fear ? Does it become them, in the very face of such warnings, to in- dulge a slothful spirit, or to withhold the truth from their people through fear of offending them ? Ought they, however their hearers may wish it, to speak smooth things to them, and to prophesy deceits1 ? Should they be intent on feeding them- selves rather than the flockm; and be more studious to esta- blish a reputation as preachers, than to save the souls committed to them ? Surely, when it is considered whose ambassadors they are, and to whom they must give account, and what must be their doom if any perish through their neglect, they can never study too earnestly to approve themselves to God", that they may give up their account to him with joy, and not with grief0. With respect to others, of whatever description they may be, it becomes them well to fear, when " the Lord God," the almighty and immutable Jehovah, speaks to them such mo- mentous truths p.
f Matt. xxi. 31. s Matt. xxiv. 51. h Job xxxvi. 13.
1 Ps. 1. 16—22. with Hos. xiii. 6—8. " Ezek. xxxiii. 6.
1 Isai. xxx. 10, 11. m Ezek. xxxiv. 2, 3, 10.
n 2 Tim. ii. 15. Acts xx. 28. ° Heb. xiii. 17. p There is a peculiar emphasis in the name by which Jehovah is here called. See also Jer. v. 21, 22. and Rev. xv. 3, 4.