same measure of guilt upon their consciences, as they would have had, if, like the others, they had " run into every excess of riot •" but if, as must be confessed by all, they have lived to themselves, and not unto the Lord, we must put the same question to them, Have you found real happiness in your ways? Have you not, in the midst of all your self-complacency, had a secret consciousness that you were not prepared for death and judgment ? and did not that consciousness embitter your lives, so far at least, that you could not bear to think of the state of
your souls, and the realities of the eternal world? God
had said, that " the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, which casteth up mire and dirt." Whatever peace therefore you have felt has been a false peace, which in reality rendered you more miserable, in proportion as it hid your misery from your view. " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wickedd."]
2. What fruit have ye in the retrospect ?
[Supposing sin to have made us ever so happy at the time, how does it appear when we look back upon it ? Is not that which was " rolled as a sweet morsel under the tongue become as gall in the stomach ? " Would not the voluptuary be well pleased on the whole, that the criminal excesses of his former life had never been committed? Would he not be well satisfied to have lost the gratifications, if he could ex- punge from his conscience, and from the book of God's remembrance, the guilt which they have entailed upon him ?
And if the man who has sought his happiness in less
criminal enjoyments, but has wasted in mere earthly pursuits the time that was given him to prepare for eternity, could recall his mispent hours, would he not rather that they should have been spent in seeking the things belonging to his peace ? Though he may not look with complacency on a pious cha- racter who has given up himself unreservedly to God, does he not secretly reverence that man, and wish that his latter end might be like his ? ]
3. What fruit have ye in the prospect of your great account ?
[If ever we look forward to death and judgment, what do we think of a sensual or worldly life in reference to those sea- sons ? Will it afford us any pleasure in a dying hour, to reflect, that we have, on such and such occasions, gratified our cri- minal desires, or indulged in revelling and excess ? Or will a life of mere external decency afford us comfort, when we con- sider how we have neglected God and our own souls ? Shall
d Tsai. lvii. 20, 21.