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the great day of his wrath is come, and who fhall be able to stand? And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, faying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they fhall be his people, and God himself fhall be with them and be their God. God fhall wipe away all tears from their Eyes, and there fhall be no more death, neither forrow nor crying, neither fhall there be any more pain. But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whore-mongers, and all Lyars fhall have their part in the Lake, which burneth with fire and brimftone." *

These, and the like defcriptions in holy Scripture, point out in very lively colours that great and terrible day of the Lord. So penetrating are the words, and fo folemn the Ideas

M 3

Rev. i. 7. ch. vi. 15, 16, 17. ch. xxi. 3, 4, 8.

Ideas excited by them, that no one who imagines he fhall bear any part in that awful Scene, can hear them unmoved. You, who are here waiting the Sentence of an earthly Judge, or are separated from the Society of mankind for offences committed against it, cannot but feel yourselves particularly affected at the confideration of the laft Judgment. You cannot be fo abandoned, fo loft to all ferious thought as to imagine the day of univerfal recompenfe a fable, that religion is intended only to frighten the minds of the weak, and that Vice and Virtue are of equal fignification. Your Confcience, when you attend to it, gives a different Evidence, and, in fpite of every Effort to calm its turbulence, you are obliged to make this confeffion with the Pfalmift

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verily there is a reward for the righteous, doubtlefs there is a God that Judgeth in the Earth." + When

Pf. lviii. 14.

When we confider too, for what we shall be judged in the last day, fuch an Impreffion furely fhall be left upon our minds, that we fhall " flee from fin, as from the face of

a ferpent." * The first object of divine cognizance will be our thoughts. When David was about to refign his fpirit to the God that gave it, and his Kingdom to Solomon his Son, thefe are the words he ufes-" And thou, Solomon my Son, know thou the God of thy father, and ferve him with a perfect mind: for the Lord fearcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the Imaginations of the thoughts. If thou feek him he will be found of thee; but if thou forfake him, he will caft thee off for ever." † —It may be faid, if the thoughts be fo feverely the objects of divine fcrutiny, what flesh can be saved! "But who art thou, O man. that repliest

against

Ecc. xxi. 2. † 1 Chron. xxviii. 9, 10.

against God? + Confider the thoughts, as the fountains from whence Evil of every kind proceeds, and then thy hafty cenfure will be done away. For" out of the heart, fays our bleffed Lord, proceed murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, falfe witnefs, blafphemies." It is not the tranfient Idea of the moment, an Idea which rifes in the mind and then vanishes for ever, that must be thus guarded againft, but an evil thought cherished and dwelt upon till it bring forth a dangerous fruit. It is a plor, as too many of you can witness, long harboured in the mind till time and opportunity mature it. Such, even yourselves being judges, deserve as fevere a punishment as many actual offences. Of crimes of this nature, an earthly tribunal can take no cognizance, because it knows them not. God only, who is a difcerner of the

† Rom. ix. 20."

thoughts,

↑ Mat. xv. 19.

thoughts, can for these make ample retribution. In the diftinction, however, of crimes and the proportion of punishments, an earthly court always makes Enquiries concerning the Intention with which any offence is committed. In this it follows the best of all judicatures, the folemn proceeding of the God of all the Earth. But in this it But in this it may often err. So intricate are the paths of the wicked, in fo many mazes are all their actions involved, that it requires the fharp and penetrating Eye of Heaven, to difcover all the intentions of their hearts. To that bar, therefore, I must leave the reward of the good, as well as the fentence of the bad: for, as an evil Intention, not fulfilled, renders the Sinner obnoxious to punishment; fo a difpofition to good recommends the virtuous man to the favour of God, and entitles him to the rewards of the bleffed.

The

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