self to hear the sentence which his law pronounces against you? You must feel the execution of it, if the gospel does not at length deliver you; and you must feel something of the terror of it, before you can be excited to seek to that gospel for deliverance.

The MEDITATION of a Convinced Sinner, giving up his vain Pleas before God.

"DEPLORABLE condition, to which I am indeed reduced! "I have sinned; and what shall I say unto thee, O thou Preserver of men?" (Job vii. 20.) what shall I dare to say? Fool that I was, to amuse myself with such trifling excuses as these, and to imagine, they could have any weight in thy tremendous presence; oi that I should be able so much as to mention them there! I cannot presume to do it. I am silent and confounded. . My hopes, alas! are slain; and my soul itself is ready to die too; so far as an immortal soul can die: and I am almost ready to say, O that I could die entirely! I am indeed a criminal in the hands of justice, quite disarmed, and stripped of the weapons in which I trusted. Dissimulation can only add provocation to provocation. I will therefore plainly and freely own it. I have acted, as if I thought God was altogether such a one as myself: but he hath said, I will reprove thee; I will set thy sins in order before thine eyes," (Psa. l. 21.) will marshal them in battle-array. And O what a terrible kind of host do they appear! and how do they surround me beyond all possibility of an escape! O my soul, they have, as it were, taken thee prisoner; and they are bearing thee away to the divine tribunal.

"Thou must appear before it! thou must see the awful eternal Judge, who "tries the very reins;” (Jer. xvii. 10.) and who needs no other evidence, for he has "himself been witness" (Jer. xxix. 23.) to all thy rebellion. Thou must see him, O my soul, sitting in judgment upon thee: and when he is strict to mark iniquity," (Psalm cxxx. 3.) how wilt thou answer him for one of a thousand?" (Job ix. 3.) and if thou canst not answer nim, in what language will he speak to thee? Lord, as

things at present stand, 1 can expect no other language than that of condemnation. And what a condemnation it is! let me reflect upon it! let me read my sentence before I hear it finally and irreversibly passed! I know, he has recorded it in his word; and I know, in the general, that the representation is made with a gracious design. I know, that he would have us alarmed, that we may not be destroyed. Speak to me, therefore, O God, while thou speakest not for the last time, and in circumstances when thou wilt hear me no more. Speak in the language of effectual terror, so that it be not to speak me into final despair. And let thy word, however painful in its operation, be "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword." (IFeb. iv. 12.) Let me not vainly flatter myself: let me not be left a wretched prey to those who would "prophesy smooth things to me," (Isa. xxx. 10.) till I am sealed up under wrath, and feel thy justice piercing my soul, and "the poison of thine arrows drinking up my spirit." (Job vi. 4.)

"Before I enter upon the particular view, I know in the general, that "it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb. x. 31.) O thou living God, in one sense I am already fallen into thine hands. I am become obnoxious to thy displeasure, justly obnoxious to it; and whatever thy sentence may be when it "comes forth from thy presence," (Psalm xvii. 2.) I must condemn myself, and justify thee. Thou canst not treat me with more severity, than mine iniquities have deserved and how bitter soever "that cup of trembling" may be, (Isa. li. 17.) which thou shalt appoint for me, I give judgment against myself, that I deserve "to wring out the very dregs of it." (Psa. lxxv. 8.)

CHAPTER VI.

THE SINNER SENTENCED.

IIEAR, O sinner, and I will speak yet once more, as in the name of God, of GOD, thine Almighty Judge; who if thou dost not attend to his servants, will ere long speak unto thee in a more immediate manner, with

an energy and terror which thou shalt not be able to resist.

Thou hast been convicted, as in his presence. Thy pleas have been over-ruled; or rather, they have been silenced. It appears before God, it appears to thine own conscience, that thou hast nothing more to offer in arrest of judgment; therefore hear thy sentence, and summon up, if thou canst, all the powers of thy soul to bear the execution of it. "It is indeed a very small thing to be judged of man's judgment; but he that now judgeth thee, is the Lord." (1 Cor. iv. 3, 4.) Hear therefore, and tremble, while I tell thee, how he will speak to thee; or rather, while I shew thee, from express scripture, how he doth even now speak, and what is the authentic and recorded sentence of his word; even of his word, who hath said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but not one tittle of my word shall ever pass away." (Matt. v. 18.)

The law of God speaks, not to thee alone, O sinner, not to thee by any particular address; but in a universal language, it speaks to all transgressors, and levels its terrors against all offences; great or small, without any exception. And this is its language: "Cursed is every one, that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." (Gal. iii. 10.) This is its voice to the whole world: and this it speaks to thee. Its awful contents are thy personal concern, O reader; and thy conscience knows it. Far from " continuing in all things that are written therein to do them, thou canst not but be sensible that innumerable evils have encompassed thee about." (Psalm xl. 12.) It is then manifest, "thou art the man," whom it condemns; thou art even now "cursed with a curse," as God emphatically speaks; (Mal. iii. 9.) with the curse of the most high God; yea, "all the curses which are written in the book of the law, are pointed against thee." (Deut. xxix. 20.) God may righteously execute any of them upon thee in a moment: and though thou at present feelest none of them, yet, if infinite mercy does not prevent, it is but a little while, and they will come into thy bowels like

water, till thou art burst asunder with them, and shall penetrate "like oil into thy bones." (Psa. cix. 18.)

Thus saith the Lord, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezek. xviii. 4.) But thou hast sinned, and therefore thou art under a sentence of death. And, O unhappy creature, of what a death! what will the end of these things be?-that the agonies of dissolving nature shall seize thee; that thy soul shall be torn away from thy languishing body, and thou "return to the dust from whence thou wast taken;" (Psa. civ. 29.) this is indeed one awful effect of sin.. In these affecting characters has God, through all nations and all ages of men, written the awful register and memorial of his holy abhorrence of it, and righteous displeasure against it. But, alas! all this solemn pomp and horror of dying, is but the opening of the dreadful scene. It is but a rough kind of stroke, by which the fetters are knocked off, when the criminal is led out to torture and execution.

Thus saith the Lord, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, even all the nations that forget Gon." (Psa. ix. 17.) Though there be whole nations of them, their multitudes and their power shall be no defence to them. They shall be driven into hell together; into that flaming prison, which divine vengeance hath prepared; into Tophet, which is ordained of old, even for royal sinners, as well as for others, so little can any human distinction protect! "He hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood, the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle it;" (Isaiah xxx. 33.) and the flaming torrent shall flow in upon it so fast, that it shall be turned into a sea of liquid fire, or, as the scripture also expresses it, a lake burning with fire and brimstone for ever and ever." (Rev. xxi. 8.) This is the second death; and the death, to which thou, () sinner, by the word of God art doomed.

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And shall this sentence stand upon record in vain? Shall the law speak it, and the gospel speak it? And shall it never be pronounced more audibly? and will God never require and execute the punishment? He will, sinner, require it; and he will execute it; though he

may seem for a while to delay. For well dost thou know, that "He hath appointed a day in which he will judge the whole world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, of which he has given us assurance in having raised him from the dead." (Acts xvii. 31.) And when God judgeth the world, O reader, whoever thou art, he will judge thee. And while I remind thee of it, I would also remember, that he will judge me. And "knowing the terror of the Lord," (2 Cor. v. 11.) that 1 may "deliver my own soul," Ezek. xxxiii. 9.) I would with all plainness and sincerity labour to deliver thine.

therefore repeat the solemn warning: thou, O sinner, halt "stand before the judgment-seat of Christ." (2 Cor. v.10.) Thou shalt see that pompous appearance; the description of which is grown so familiar to thee, that the

petition of it makes no impression on thy mind. But urely, stupid as thou now art, the shrill trumpet of the archangel shall shake thy very soul: and if nothing else can awaken and alarm thee, the convulsions and flames of a dissolving world shall do it.

Dost thou really think, that the intent of Christ's final appearance is only to recover his people from the grave, and to raise them to glory and happiness? Whatever assurance thou hast, that there shall be a resurrection of the just; thou hast the same, that there shall also be "a resurrection of the unjust:" (Acts xxiv. 15.) That he shall separate the rising dead one from another : as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats," (Matt. xxv. 32.) with equal certainty, and with infinitely greater ease. Or can you imagine, that he will only make an example of some flagrant and notorious sinners, when it is said, that "all the dead, both small and great, shall stand before GOD;" (Rev. xx. 12.) and that even he who knew not his Master's will, and consequently seems of all others to have had the fairest excuse for his omission to obey it, yet even he, for that very omission, "shall be beaten, though with fewer stripes?" (Luke xii. 48.) Or can you think, that a sentence to be delivered with so much pomp and majesty, a sentence i