acquiesce in your damnation, and say, Alleluiah, as the smoke of your torment ascendeth up forever and ever. But at present the thought is very afflicting. How does it seem to you? Would you for ten thousand worlds be found at last in the circumstances which have been described? I can say no more; and "if ye will not hear,-my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and my eye shall weep sore and run down with tears, because the Lord's flock is carried away captive" to that land from which there is no return. Amen. SERMON XII. WHAT WILT THOU SAY WHEN HE SHALL PUNISH THEE? JER. XIII. 21. What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? The time had come when God was about to call the Jewish nation to an awful account. While the storm of war was gathering in the north, and had almost rolled itself to their door, the distressed prophet was sent to say to them, "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will fill all the inhabitants of this land-with drunkenness, and I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together. I will not pity nor spare nor have mercy." This holy man, who was disciplined to grief from his infancy, whose tones seemed always the sounds of a breaking heart, set himself to mourn over them and entreat them. "Hear ye and give ear; be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken.-But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and my eye shall weep sore and run down with tears." He then puts this penetrating question: "What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee?"-After all he turns away discouraged, and cries, "Can the Ethiopean change his skin or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil." The same question may be put to sinners in every age and place. God has solemnly declared that he will punish the wicked with everlasting destruction. And when he shall summon you to his bar, and explain the grounds of his conduct, and with the approbation of every conscience in the universe banish you to your eternal prison, what will you then say, poor, ruined sinner? What reason can you offer why sentence should not be executed upon you? What can you allege against the justice of your doom? To this question I must insist on an unwavering answer. And to enable you to meet it with clearness and precision, I will, I. Lead you to reflect on that change of circumstances which will be favorable to a correct judg ment. II. Examine the several pleas which may be supposed then to offer themselves to your thoughts. I. I will lead you to reflect on that change of circumstances which will be favorable to a correct judgment. All that infidelity which now blinds your minds will then be done away. You will see that there is a God, as you now see that your parents and child ren exist. You will see that God was your Creator, Proprietor, and Master, who put you into his world and supported you in it that you might labor for him; that he put you under law and commanded you to serve him; that all your sins and all the idolatry of living to yourselves were a gross contempt of his authority. When "the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll" "and the elements shall melt with fervent heat," then you will see the majesty of that God against whom you dared to rebel. When the Son of God shall descend with his innumerable retinue, and arraign three worlds before his bar, and the destiny of all creatures shall tremble on his lips; then will you see the dignity of him who descended to the manger and the sepulchre for you: then will you see the infinite evil which your sins wrought on Calvary, and the amazing exhibition there made of their horrid deformity. When "the books" shall be "opened" which contain an account of all your talents, a record of all your sins, an explanation of all the dealings of God with you, a justification of all his requirements, of all his dispensations ;-the books, in short, which shall make a full "revelation of the righteous judgment of God;" then will you see that you have sinned against a God of infinite rectitude as well as infinite majesty, that your sins were unspeakably more numerous, as well as more aggravated, than you ever supposed. When eternity shall be laid open to your view, in all the glories of heaven and in all the horrors of hell; when, looking through the universe, you shall see the infinite and eternal |