the Lord of the creation was with Joshua; and once a thief obtained an instantaneous salvation and a passport to heaven in the hour of his extremity, to show that Jesus had absolute power on earth to forgive sins; but who will look for a repetition of these things as often as our procrastination may make it necessary ?

No hope may dawn on the mind of this dying sinner, then it is not strange that he is reluctant to die. He struggles to disbelieve the threatenings of the Bible; but he finds that if that were done, he has his conscience to discredit also; and now he begins to hate that constitution of things that proves so unfriendly to his views-and the holiness of God that is so scrupulous, and himself formerly so unwise and so wretched now. But while he

struggles, behold the realities of death crowd faster and faster upon him. He has no bodily strength to oppose to them the obstinacy of his soul only remains; he clings to life, while, inch by inch, the king of terrors urges him forward; the combat of his reluctant mind against the resistless messenger grows more rapid; and still be retreats, and grasps at one feeble support after another. But we may not enter into the feelings of the soul at such a season, for they cannot be described. Behold him after a little the period of desperate hope is past-the weary body has obtained its discharge, and is given to be food for worms, still we must borrow from it a metaphor, to convey some idea of the condition of the soul: "He lifts up his eyes in hell, being in torment." Nor let us for a moment entertain an idea, that there has been any thing too severe in this dispensation. What plea could be offered to God in his behalf? Was not mercy itself exhausted, till longer forbearance would have evinced but weakness in the Providence that rules the world?

Can we suppose that a period would have ever arrived when he would have gone without reluctance? Did the continuance of his day of grace bring him any nearer to such a disposition? No; the longer he lived, the more was he wedded to sinful pleasures and pursuits, in which the fear of God and preparation for eternity made no part. The longer he lived, the more hardened had he become to every warning. Long ago, he had some tender impressions about his duty to God and his delinquency-some convictions of his folly, and some faint resolutions of amendment; but they were all erased from his conscience,

and he thought of God and of sin, of heaven and hell, without any lively sensations. What, then, could be done?

Do you suppose that old age, had he lived so long, would have disunited him from his idols, and brought him back to God? Old age might have rendered him more stupid and more blindly wedded to this life, but not more tender or more submissive to God. What, then, was to be done? Let him live for ever? What! and on the same principle let every sinner live, and fill this footstool of God with sin and misery? Let the evil accumulate, and convert this fair creation, not into an hospital of recovery, the only use which seems now to justify its continuance, but a lazar-house of incurables-till the pestilence should take the air, and not even a seed of righteousness be left-or the purging fire of the general conflagration be anticipated? God has in goodness, as well as wisdom, shortened the life of sinful man; and we are assured, that if men hear not Moses and the prophets,-if the means of grace which we now enjoy prove ineffectual, no other arrangements would serve to persuade us. The wicked, therefore, are driven away in their wickedness-with all their sins upon their head-having lived in sin-in an unconverted state-in the gall of bitterness, they are still at enmity with God, and they go to reap the fruits of their enmity, and taste the bitterness of the gall.

Loaded with guilt! 'Tis a heavy burden in life to be conscious of error and responsibility where we have no plea of justification; this is bitter in the presence of man, but still more so before God; and if bitter in life, what is it when we come to the very interview, and are subjected to the shame and contempt that belong to guilt? No wonder that the wicked are represented as crying to the hills and the mountains to hide them from the presence of the Judge. Annihilation would be a heaven to them; and the darkest and remotest corner of the earth would be enviable distinction, compared with the exposure of that day, when the wicked shall be, for the last time, driven away in their wickedness.

You have seen, my friends, the end of the wicked. Can you help asking, is it I? You do not discredit the description. You are acquainted with the Bible; and you know that I have not exceeded nor equalled the language of terror that is there employed on this awful topic. You do not suspect me of delighting to present you with

a gloomy picture. No, my friends, that tongue that deals in the fires of hell merely to give effect to its oratory-and that heart that takes pleasure in pourtraying the miseries of the wicked merely to harrow up the feelings, deserves to be disowned by humanity. But to remind you of the truth, is a duty of love, however disagreeable its aspect. Jesus, the friend of sinners, has dwelt upon this topic, that he might induce men to "flee from the wrath to come." But it is to no purpose that I address you, if you are not each employed in asking, "Is it I?" Am I living in a state of enmity with God-leading a wicked lifeestranged from God-alienated from a life of godliness? And does the end that has been described, indeed, await me?

To assist you in this most important inquiry, we add a few observations, in reply to the question, who is the wicked? and first

Not merely the outrageous transgressor of the laws and decencies of life, such as the murderer, and the adulterer, and the profane despiser of God and his lawsthe liar and the thief, the extortioner and the oppressor. These are clearly denounced by reason, as well as by the voice of religion. But it must be considered that the criminality of individuals consists in the evil dispositions of the heart, from which their outward acts proceed. So Christ declares, that "out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries," &c. Now in the sight of God, the crime itself is justly charged, wherever the dispositions exist that, under favourable circumstances, would produce the act. Human laws take cognizance of overt acts merely because these are the only evidence of criminal disposition to man, who cannot see the heart; but God, who knows the most secret movements within us, holds us fully guilty in innumerable instances, where a violation of human laws has not existed; for it is perfectly obvious that mere occasion and opportunity of crime cannot constitute any part of its moral guiltiness. Many a man, therefore, who walks in the sunshine of public favour, and is saluted by the voice of popular applause-reputed for virtue, and honour, and moral worth-is classed in God's book of reckoning, on the same list with the man who forfeits his life to the laws of his country, and dies abhorred and detested by mankind. And one circumstance, not the least alarming, about this consideration, is, that the crimes

of the heart make but a slight impression on the man himself. When an outward act of immorality comes under the cognizance of his fellow-men, and brings down their reproach or the penalty of the laws, a deep memorial is implanted in the sinner's breast. He remembers it with sorrow till his dying day; but the crimes of the heart, which are only registered in the book of God, follow each other in quick succession, and are remembered no more; bring no remorse-no shame-no repentance. Indeed, they somehow come to be regarded by the individual as if they were no crimes, when they have never escaped the precincts of his own heart. But here-the laws of God are substantially broken: in a court that extends its judgment to the heart, the man is clearly guilty; the authority of God is here set aside, and treated as if it were nothing; either the attribute of his spiritual omnipresence is denied, or he is boldly defied by this heart-transgressor to note and punish.

And here another important consideration presents itself, viz. that to be restrained from any sin, merely by the fear of human laws, or a regard for human favour, does not exempt a man from the character of wicked. This follows of necessity from what we have already observed. The fear of punishment, or the love of reputation and its concomitant advantages, are mere circumstances that, in the judgment of the individual, outweigh the propensity to crime, if that propensity exist; so that these circumstances being removed, the crime would naturally be committed; then most obviously the cause why that individual is not outwardly criminal, is not to be sought for in his disposition, but in things external, which, as before, cannot affect the guilt or innocence of his character before a heart-searching God.

But besides those crimes of the heart, which would be cognizable by human laws, when acted out in palpable transgression, there are a thousand others, most heinous in the sight of God, against which no human statutes have been framed, and which, for that reason also, are committed with less reserve, and remembered with less compunction among men. There is the whole class of duties, for instance, which we owe directly to God. No human laws can reach most of these; and those which they can affect, are tardily enjoined and reluctantly executed. The duties which we owe to the Supreme Executive of the hu

man government under which we live, are enjoined with precision and guarded with a vigilant eye; treason against our country is branded with infamy; and to defraud a fellow-citizen is justly punished as a crime. But disaf fection against the Sovereign of the universe is hardly esteemed a crime; and treason against his government has no infamy attached to it; his claims are disallowed, his institutions are disregarded, and his ordinances treated with levity or neglect, and yet no civil penalty ensues. Ungodliness, although the highest rank of crime in reason and nature itself, the parent of every crime, is yet so common in our world, as to be thought consistent with every social virtue; and men are reputed and esteemed, and of consequence esteem and comfort themselves with the idea, that they are good and virtuous, while, in the sight of God, and in an equal and just judgment of others, they are wicked men.

And such, in a word, my hearers, is every one of you by nature: a fair external you may possess, from the influence of the civil laws and a civilized education; regular and virtuous you may be in the phrase of the world, from a high relish for the commendation of your neighbours, and a sense of the loss which would sustain from infamy; but guilty, guilty in the sight of God you are, of a thousand crimes that never saw the light of day-a thousand crimes which you have now forgotten, and which made no other impression as they passed, than to habituate you to the like again. Guilty you are of innumerable enormities, of which, in the spirit of human statutes, you never charged yourself; rebellion against your Maker; contumacy of his presence and contempt of his authority; irreverence towards his name and profanation of his institutions. Guilty of these you have been; and these denominate you and all of us, "wicked." "All our race who are not so are recovered, by being renewed in the spirit of their minds-purified and sanctified by the Spirit of our God. Being reconciled to him through his Son, they obey from the heart unfeignedly. The love of God with them casts out the fear of man and of human laws. The sense of the favour of God swallows up the little motives arising from the favour of men. They live to God-their lives are directed by his will and devoted to his service;-these, and these alone, are not the "wicked." You can now, therefore, form some idea of the