"who kills and makes alive." But why have they deferred, so long deferred, their addresses to God? Why have they despised all his counsels, and stood incorrigible under his incessant reproofs? How often have they been forewarned of these terrors, and most importunately entreated to seek the Lord while he might be found? I wish they may obtain mercy at the eleventh-at the last hour. I wish they may be snatched from the jaws, the opened, the gaping, the almost closing jaws of damnation. But, alas! who can tell whether affronted Majesty will lend an ear to their complaint? whether the Holy One will work a miracle of grace in behalf of such transgressors? He may, for aught any mortal knows, "laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear cometh." Thus they lie, groaning out the poor remains of life; their limbs bathed in sweat; their hearts struggling with convulsive throes; pains insupportable throbbing in every pulse; and innumerable darts of agony transfixing their conscience. In that dread moment, how the frantic soul O! might she stay, to wash away her crimes, BLAIR'S Grave. If this be the end of the ungodly, "My soul, come not thou into their secret! Unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united:" How awfully accomplished is that prediction of inspired wisdom: "Sin, though seemingly sweet in the commission, yet at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." 66 Happy dissolution, were this the period of their woes. But, alas! all these tribulations are only the beginning of sorrows;" a small drop only from that cup of trembling which is mingled for their future portion. No sooner has the last pang dislodged their reluctant souls, but they are hurried into the presence of an injured, angry God; not under the conducting care of beneficent angels, but exposed to the insults of accursed spirits, who lately tempted them, now upbraid them, and will for ever torment them. Who can imagine their confusion and distress, when they stand, guilty and inexcusable, before their incensed Creator! They are received with frowns: "The God that made them, has no mercy on them," Isa. xxvii. 11. The Prince of peace rejects them with abhorrence: He consigns them over to chains of darkness, and receptacles of despair, against the severer doom, and more public infamy, of the great day. Then all the vials of wrath will be emptied upon these wretched creatures. The law they have violated, and the gospel they have slighted; the power they have defied, and the goodness they have abused; will all get themselves honour in their exemplary destruction. Then God, the God to whom vengeance belongeth, will draw the arrow to the very head, and set them as the mark of his inexorable displeasure. Resurrection will be no privilege to them; but immortality itself their everlasting curse. Would they not bless the grave, " that land where all things are forgotten," and wish to lie eternally hid in its deepest gloom? But the dust refuses to conceal their persons, or to draw a veil over their practices. They also must awake-must arise-must appear at the bar, and meet the Judge; a Judge before whom "the pillars of heaven tremble, and the earth melts away;" a Judge once long-suffering and very compassionate, but now unalterably determined to teach stubborn offenders 'what it is to provoke the omnipotent Godhead; what it is to trample upon the blood of his Son, and offer despite to all the gracious overtures of his Spirit. O! the perplexity, the distraction, that must seize the impenitent rebels, when they are summoned to the great tribunal! What will they do in this day of severe visitation, this day of final decision? Where? how? whence can they find help? To which of the saints will they turn? whither betake themselves for shelter, or for succour? Alas! it is all in vain; it is all too late. Friends and acquaintance know them no more; men and angels abandon them to their approaching doom; even the Mediator, the Mediator himself, deserts them in this dreadful hour. To fly will be impracticable; to justify themselves, still more impossible; and now to make any supplications, utterly unavailable. Behold! the books are opened! the secrets of all hearts are disclosed! the hidden things of darkness are brought to light! How empty, how ineffectual now, are all those refined artifices with which hypocrites imposed upon their fellow-creatures, and preserved a character in the sight of men. The jealous God, who has been about their path, and about their bed, and spied out all their ways, "sets before them the things that they have done." They cannot answer him one in a thousand, nor stand in the awful judgment. The heavens reveal their iniquities, and the earth rises up against them; Job xx. 27. They are speechless with guilt, and stigmatized with infamy before all the armies of the sky, and all the nations of the redeemed. What a favour would they esteem it, to hide their ashamed heads in the bottom of the ocean, or even to be buried beneath the ruins of the tottering world! If the contempt poured upon them be thus insupportable, how will their hearts endure, when the sword of infinite indignation is unsheathed, and fiercely waved around their defenceless heads, or pointed directly at their naked breasts! How must the wretches scream with wild amazement, and rend the very heavens with their cries, when the right-aiming thunderbolts go abroad! go abroad with a dreadful commission, to drive them from the kingdom of glory, and plunge them-not into the sorrows of a moment, or the tortures of an hour, but-into all the restless agonies of unquenchable fire, and everlasting despair! Misery of miseries! too shocking for reflection to dwell upon. But, if so dismal to foresee, and that at a distance, together with some comfortable expectation of escaping it; O! how bitter, inconceivably bitter, to bear without any intermission, any mitigation, through hopeless and eternal ages! Who has any bowels of pity? who has any sentiments of compassion? who has any tender con-cern for his fellow-creatures? who? In God's name, and for Christ's sake, let him shew it, by warning every man, and beseeching every man, to seek the Lord while he may be found; to throw down the arms of rebellion before the act of indemnity expires; submissively to adore the Lamb while he holds out the golden sceptre. Here let us act the friendly part to mankind; here let the whole force of our benevolence exert itself; in exhorting relations, acquaintance, neighbours, whomsoever we may probably influence, to take the wings of faith unfeigned, of repentance undelayed, and flee away from this wrath to come. Upon the whole, what stupendous discoveries are these! Lay them up in a faithful remembrance, O my soul! Recollect them with the most serious attention, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. When thou walkest, receive them for thy companions; when thou talkest, listen to them as thy prompters; and whatever thou dost, consult them as thy directors. Influenced by these considerations, thy views will greaten, thy affections be exalted, and thou thyself raised above the tantalizing power of perishing things. Duly mindful of these, it will be the sum of thy desires, and the scope of thy endeavours, to gain the approbation of that sovereign Being, who will then fill the throne, and pronounce the decisive sentence. Thou wilt see nothing worth a wish, in comparison of having his will for thy rule; his glory for thy aim; and his Holy Spirit for thy ever-actuating principle. Wonder, O man! be lost in admiration at those prodigious events which are coming upon the universe; events, the greatness of which nothing finite can measure; such as will cause whatever is considerable or momentous in the annals of all generations, to sink into littleness and nothing. Events (Jesus, prepare us for their approach! defend us when they take place!) big with the everlasting fates of all the living and all the dead.* I must see the graves cleaving, the sea teeming, and swarms unsuspected, crowds unnumbered, yea, multitudes of thronging nations, rising from both! I must see the world in flames, must stand at the dissolution of all terrestrial things, and be an attendant on the burial of nature ! I must see the vast expanse of the sky wrapt up like a scroll, and the incarnate God issuing forth from light inaccessible, with ten thousand times ten thousand angels, to judge both men and devils! I must see the curtain of time drop; see all eternity disclosed to view; and enter upon a state of being that will never, never have an end! And ought I not (let the vainest imagination determine; ought I not) to try the sincerity of my faith, and take heed to my ways? Is there an inquiry, is there a care, of greater, of equal, of comparable importance? Is not this an infinitely pressing call to see that my loins are girded about, my lamp trimmed, and myself dressed for the bridegroom's appearance? that, washed in the fountain opened in my Saviour's side, and clad with the marriage-garment wove by his obedience, I may be found in peace, unblamable, and unreprovable? Otherwise, how shall I stand with boldness, when the stars of heaven fall from their orbs? how shall I come forth erect and coura * Great day of dread decision and despair! Lets go its eager grasp, and quits the hold.-Night Thoughts. |