DISCOURSE VI. 131 what mountain can stand before his indignation, and where is the rock that can abide in the fierceness of his anger ? Nah. i. 2 -0, Were the whole globe of the earth one massy rock, and should it yawn to the very centre, to give thee a refuge and a hiding. place, and then close again, and surround thee with its solid de- fence, yet when the Lord commands, the earth will obey the voice of him that made it ; this solid earth would cleave again, and resign the guilty prisoner, and yield thee up to the sword of his justice. Wheresoever a God resolves to strike, safety and defence are impossible things. The sinner most suffer without remedy, and without hope, who bas provoked anAlmighty God, and awakened the wrath of that Saviour, who can subdue all things to himself. 4. Rocks and mountains falling upon us, are instruments of sudden and overwhelming death. When sinners therefore call to the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, and cover them, they are supposed to endeavour to put an end to their own beings by some overwhelming destruction, that they may not live to feel and endure the resentments of an affronted God, and an abused Saviour. Though they are just raised to life, they would fain die again ; but God, who calls the dead from their graves, will forbid the rocks and the mountains, and every creature, to lend sinners their aid to destroy themselves. Sinners, in that dread- ful day, shall seek death, but death shall flee from them. Their natures are now made immortal, and the tall of rooks and moun- tains cannot crush them to death. They must live to sustain the weight of divine wrath, which is heavier than rocks and mountains. The life which God hath now given to men in this mortal state, may he given up again, or thrown away by the daring im. piety of self- murder ; and they may make manycreatures instru- ments of their own destruction ; but the life which the Son of God shall give them, when he calls them from the dead, is ever- lasting ; they cannot resign their existence and immortality, they cannot part with it, nor can any creature take it from them. : They would rather die, than see God in his majesty; or the Lamb arrayed in his robes of judgment ; 'but the wretches are immor- talized to punishment, by the long abused majesty and power of God : And they must live for ever to learn what it is to despise the authority of a God, and to abuse the grace of a Saviour. Their doom is everlasting buntings: They have no rest dark nor night, the smoke of their torment will ascend for ever and ever in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb ; Rev. xiv. 10, 11. Time have we considered those huge and bulky beings, the rocks and the mountains, in all their vast and mighty figures and appearances, with all their clefts, and dens, and caverns for t
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