DIgCOURSE V. 125 accept of this salvation, and made Jesus wait on an impenitent rebel, with the commission of mercy in his hand, while I have refused to receive it ? Let my soul be this day awakened to lay hold of the covenant of grace, to submit to the gospel of Christ, lest to-morrow the days of his commission of mercy toward me expire, lest the patience of a God be finished, lest the abused love of a Saviour turn into fury, and nothing remains for me but un- avoidable destruction. 6. It 'is a sentence of divine wrath, which shall be attended with the fullest conviction of sinners, and self - condemnation in their own consciences. This doubles the sensations of divine wrath, and enhances the anguish of the criminal tea high degree. This final unbelief, and rejection of grace, is a sin against so much light, and so much love, that however men cheat their consciences now, and charm them into silence, yet, at the last great day, their own consciences shall be on the side of the judge, when he pronounces wrath and damnation upon them, what in- finite terrors will shake the soul when there is not one of its own thoughts can speak peace within ? When all its own inward powers shall echo to the sentence of the judge, and acknowledge the justice and equity of it for ever ? Oli, who can express the agonies of pain and torture, when the impenitent sinner shall be awakened into such reflections as these ? " I was placed in a land of light and knowledge ; the light of the gospel of grace shone all round me ; but I winked my eyes against the light, and now I am plunged into utter and eternal darkness. I was convinced often, that I was a sinner, and in danger of death and hell; I was convinced of the truth of the gospel, and the all- sufficiency of the salvation 'of Christ, but I loved the vanities of this life ; I followed the appetites, of the flesh, and the delusive charms of a tempting world, I delay- ed to answer to the voice of providence, and the voice of mercy; the voice of the gospel inviting me to this salvation, and the voice of Christ requiring me to be saved. My own heart condemns me with ten thousand reproaches : How righteous is God in his indignation ! How just is the resentment of the Lamb of God in this day of his wrath ! What clear, and convincing, and dreadful equity attends the sentence of my condemnation, and doubles the anguish of my soul !" 7. It is such wrath as shall be executed immediately and eternally, without one hour of reprieve, and without the.least hope of mercy, and that through all the ages to come ; For though Jesus is the Mediator between God and man, to reconcile those to God, who have broken his law, there is no Mediator appointed to reconcile those sinners to Christ, when they have finally resisted the grace of his gospel. There is no blood nor death that can atone for the final rejeçtion of the blood of this
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