ned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment."7

IN OUR OWN WORLD THERE HAVE BEEN TREMENDOUS INSTANCES of God's wrath. Adam once sinned, and death passed upon him and all his posterity; and the misery, the groans, the lamentations pervading the whole human race, are so many standing proofs of the indignation of a righteous, sin-hating God. When the iniquities of the old world, the world before the flood, had become so great and so many, God's wrath was kindled against them, and he swept away all the ungodly with a flood of water. When the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah had grown so hardened and so daring in sin, that their wickedness cried to heaven for vengeance, the Lord God destroyed them with fire and brimstone out of heaven. In the records of his own people Israel, we read of his wrath being provoked against them, and of his judgments being poured out upon them. And, at last, when the measure of their iniquities was full, destruction came upon them to the uttermost." Their country was taken, their city was rased to the ground, their "holy and beautiful house was burnt up,"9 and the infatuated inhabitants suffered the most dreadful calamities and distresses of war, that we 8 Gen xix. 9 Isa. lxiv. 11.

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2 Pet. ii. 4.

read of in any history. To this day, the remnant of that people are a standing, living monument of the wrath of heaven.

Yet all the direful judgments which have, from time to time, been outpoured on the guilty race of Adam, are but as a foretaste or earnest of that inconceivable wrath which will overtake and torment all the ungodly in the eternal world. They will be judged, sentenced, and driven away into "everlasting burnings," "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." The day, the great and awful day, is approaching, when, to use the language of an inspired apostle, "the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power "Everlasting destruction!" For ever being destroyed, yet for ever undestroyed. For ever sinking in the depths of woe; yet never reaching the bottom of the bottomless pit!

2

These are solemn, heart-rending truths. May God the Holy Spirit deeply and lastingly impress them on our minds! that we, as ministers and people, may be stirred up to greater diligence in 1 Mark ix. 44.

22 Thess. i. 7-9.

working out our "own salvation with fear and trembling ;" and that, knowing these truths to be the truths of the "God who cannot lie," we may do all in our power to "persuade" others "to flee from the wrath to come." For, every one of us, who name "the name of Jesus," is bound to do all he can to bring others "to the knowledge of the truth," to pluck them as brands from the fire.

"KNOWING the terror of the Lord, we persuade

men."

It was the sober and abiding conviction of the truth of God's holy word that moved St. Paul and his fellow-labourers to venture their lives in proclaiming these truths, in warning, exhorting, and instructing their fellow-men. "We have not," saith St. Peter, "we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is the conviction of the truths contained in the Holy Scriptures that should move the minister of Christ now to warn, exhort, teach and " persuade " the people committed to his care, and to labour for their good; and however unwelcome to some his plain and faithful dealing with their souls may be, he must please "God rather than men ;” he must acquit himself as a faithful steward in "the household of God." "Let a man so account of us, 3 Phil. ii. 12. 5 Acts v. 29.

4 2 Pet. i. 16.

5

as of the ministers of Christ, and the stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man may be found faithful." 6 Impressed with the awful responsibility of his office, assured that the blood of every soul lost, through his unfaithfulness, and firmly persuaded that all the threatenings, as well as the promises, of the word of God will be fulfilled, the christian minister dares not, as he ought not to, keep back or qualify God's messages to a sinful world. "Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."

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Knowing the terror of the Lord, WE PERSUADE

MEN."

We persuade men. To what did the apostles persuade men? If you will refer to the twentieth verse, you will find: "We pray you, in Christ's stead, BE YE RECONCILED TO GOD." This was the great end at which the apostles always aimed: leading their fellow-sinners to Christ, as "the way, the truth, and the life,” 7 by whom alone we have access to the Father. To accomplish this, they continually laboured; they warned every man of his danger; they set before men the majesty, the holiness of God; they proclaimed to men the blessedness of such as by faith flee to the Lord Jesus Christ for refuge; and they also 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2.

7 John xiv. 6.

pointed out to all professing Christians, the rules by which they ought to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." 8

The

The state of man by nature is now what it was in the days of the apostles, and what it has been ever since the fall of Adam. His wants are now the same as they always have been. The provision of grace to meet those wants is the same. gospel of Christ, in which that provision is freely offered, is the same now as it was when first exhibited to a perishing world. Yes, the fountain of divine grace is as full, and the streams of grace are flowing as abundantly now, as they were when the first redeemed soul" tasted that the Lord is gracious." There is no lack in God. There is nothing new in the records of truth; there is nothing new in the necessities of man. The faithfully setting forth of these necessities, the publishing of these records, the preaching of "the unsearchable riches of Christ," is the great business of the minister of God's holy word; and this business he must faithfully and fearlessly perform, "whether men will hear or whether they will forbear." 9 If, through prejudice against the word or its minister, they refuse to hear and profit by the word preached among them, the loss is their own, the sin is their own, and its consequence will fall on their own 8 Col. i. 10.

9 Ezek. ii. 5.