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གད་མར་

CHAP. VIII.

The Subject farther improved, by Way of Conviction.

IF the favour of God be the life of his children,

they must be in an unhappy condition who have no reason to believe themselves in a state of acceptance with him. To live and die under the difpleasure of the Most High, is miserable indeed. It had been better for fuch, as our Lord faid concerning Judas, if they had never been born. O finners, how can you live, how dare you die in such a state? If the great Judge of the world difown you at last, who do you think will take pity on you? By what strange expedient do you fortify your minds against the terrors of that awful day? Can you eat, drink, fleep, and purfue your diverfions, while you are yet in a state of enmity with God?

Perhaps you mind not these things, but put off all thought of the affairs of your fouls, and of what will become of you hereafter. This is astonishing indeed, fince you are not affured of one hour's longer continuance in this world. But what will you do in the day of visitation, when the king of terrors makes his approach? Can you hope for an exemption from the awful ftroke of his killing hand? Or

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can you expect a reprieve when he is commiffioned to make you his prey? You furely cannot fuppofe that you fhall die, like a brute, and know neither happiness nor mifery when life is gone. You cannot be so foolish as to imagine, that if there be a state of future happiness, you can enter into it without reconciliation with God. You cannot think of poffeffing it in a way directly contrary to his word and will. Life is in God's favour. I may fay to him who is the enemy of the Almighty, as it was faid to Abimelech, "Thou art but a dead

man.

If you are in this ftate you have no fpiritual life, but are dead in trefpaffes and fins. Though you have a name to live, you are still dead. A dead carcafe may be dreffed and adorned in a fplendid manner, but its ornaments will not give it life. He who is not in a state of friendship with God, whatever gifts or talents he may poffess, or whatever duties he may perform, is ftill in a state of death.

He is likewife under the fentence of condemnation. The law paffes this fentence upon him; the word of God declares him to be condemned already. By fin he has forfeited all right even to the comforts of this life, though it pleases the Father of mercies to beftow them upon him, yet he is but in the state of the condemned. There is no

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moment of his life in which he is not liable to the execution of that awful fentence which the law passes upon him. His life hangs in doubt, and depends on the mercy of his offended Judge. The almighty Sovereign has declared, that the workers of iniquity fhall be cut off, that he is angry with the wicked every day; if they turn not he will whet his sword, he hath bent his bow and made it ready; he hath prepared for them the inftruments of death.

How then, O finner, can you be thoughtless and fecure, how can you reft quietly under the weight of all your crimes, and in fo much danger? You know not that you fhall live another day, another hour. Death may meet you at your board, in your bed, in the field, or on the high way, and at once remove you from this world to another. You may be of the number of those who perifh at the rebuke of his countenance. When he fends the ghaftly meffenger to summon you away, you cannot evade the call.

But what is ftill more awful, if you die in a ftate of impenitence, you will immediately enter on the bitter pangs of eternal death. O confider what it will be to have your fouls everlastingly banished from the favourable prefence of God, and fhut up in darkness and perpetual defpair. Can you read fuch awakening declarations as the following, with

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་བན་ར་

out trembling?" He shall take vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jefus Chrift: who shall be punished with everlasting deftruction from the prefence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power!" Though you can now live contented without the enjoyment of God's favour, your eyes will then be opened to fee the infinite value of it.

The withdrawings of the light of God's countenance for a time, have filled holy fouls in this world with deep diftrefs and forrow. What then will it be to lie expofed to his awful indignation for ever? Your vain and delufive hopes, O finners, will then exist no more, the felf-flattering delufion will be at an end. Your fenfual delights will be over; in the room of them, there will be weeping and wailing and gnafhing of teeth, drinking of the wine of the wrath of God, poured out without mixture. O dreadful state of hopeless misery, where their worm dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched!

Think, O finners, on the dangerous condition of your poor fouls, while there is yet hope of fleeing from the wrath to come. There is but a step between you and death, between you and that everlafting punishment prepared for the devil and his angels. Your breath is in your noftrils, when that departs, your everlasting state is unalterably fixed.

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Your hearts, I fear, are hardened through the deceitfulness of fin, fo that the threatenings of God, your Maker, and your Judge, make no impreffions on them. Is not this a fad indication that you are ripening for ruin? You are fleeping on the bed of carnal fecurity, yet your judgment lingereth not.

Think on the miferable condition of thofe unhappy men, who were once as careless and as unconcerned as you can be, but are now lifting up their eyes in hell, being in torments, and crying in vain for a drop of water to cool their tongues. They are execrating those days of vanity, when they lived in this world as you do now. They are calling themselves a thoufand fools, for that ftupidity, that forgetfulness of God, that difregard of the threatenings of his wrath, and of the promises of his mercy, of which you are now living examples.

And ancient writer used to say, “I would not for all the world be in the ftate of an unconverted man for one hour, left, in that hour, death fhould cut me off, and the dungeon of eternal darkness receive me." What fhall I fay to you, O poor unconcerned finners, to rouse you from your fatal fecurity? Who can dwell with devouring fire! Who can dwell with everlasting burnings! Will you not begin seriously to inquire how you fhall escape that dreadful and never-ending punishment,

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