evil as you judge it to be ? Can you conceive that such means would have been used for your recovery, if the state into which sin had brought you was not beyond measure terrible ? Had no misery awaited you, or a misery only that was light and transient, do you suppose that God would have had recourse to such a method of delivering you from it ; or that, after he has used such means to take away your sin, you incur no danger by holding it fast? You may " make a mock of sin," if you please ; but you will not think so lightly of it when you come to stand in the presence of your Judge. When the Lord Jesus Christ shall remind you of what he endured to deliver you from it, what will ye say to him ? Will ye then make the foolish excuses that ye now do? No, verily: your mouths will then be shut : you will be amazed and confounded at your present folly and impiety: and it will be no consolation to you then that there are so many in the same condemnation with yourself. The antediluvian scoffers, when warned of the approaching deluge, thought it impossible that such a judg- ment should ever be inflicted ; or consoled themselves, perhaps, that they should be in no worse plight than others. But when the deluge actually came, did they find their own terrors less appalling, or their sufferings less acute, because they were endured by others also ? Nor will ye in that day find the wrath of God a whit more tolerable because of the multitudes that shall bear it with you. Had the Saviour never come, you would have had to endure the wrath of God ; but since he has come, and been despised and rejected by you, you shall have to bear " the wrath of the Lamb1," even of that Lamb whom you " crucified afresh k:" and hell itself will be seven- fold more terrible, in consequence of the means which have been used to deliver you from it. Yes, the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrha will be light in comparison of yours1. O that you were wise, and would consider this, ere it be too late !]
2. Ye who found your hopes of mercy on your own self-righteous endeavours —
[What can ye think of yourselves, when ye recollect the principles which you yourselves acknowledge ? You know that Christ was manifested to take away your sins : how then do you presume to imagine, that you can remove them by any efforts of your own ? Is there any such virtue in your own tears or almsdeeds, that you will rely on them, rather than on the atoning blood of Christ ? Or is there any such strength in your own resolutions, that you will trust to them for the subduing of sin, rather than to the grace of our Lord Jesus
1 Rev. vi. 1G. k Heb. vi. 6. ' Matt. x. 15.