136 THE' WORLD' TO 'COME. gaged by' his honour to break my rebellious spirit with un-. known torments. If I look at his goodness or his love, it is, love and goodness that I have despised and abused, and it is now changed into divine fury. If I look at the face of Jesus, and find there the correspondent features of. his Father, I shall then hate to see it for this very reason, because it bears his Father's image who is so terrible to my thoughts. I shall neither be able to bear the sight of God, or of his fairestcopy, that is, Jesus his Son, because I am so shamefully unlike them both, and besides I have affronted their majesty, and despised, their mercy. "How painful and smarting will be the reflection of my heart in that day, when I shall remember that Jesus called out to me from heaven, by the messengers of his grace and said, Behold me, behold me, look unto me from the ends of the earth, and he saved; Is. xlv. 22. But now he is armed with a commission of vengeance, and he strikes terror and exquisite pain into my soul with every frown, so that I shall wish to be for, ever hid from the face of the Lamb, for the great day of his Wrath is come, and who shall be able to endure'this wrath, to to stand before his thunder, or bear the lightning of this day? Alas, how miserable must I be, by an everlasting necessity, if I cannot bear the countenance of God and Christ, which is the spring of unchangeable happiness to all the saints and the bles- sed angels ? Oh may I timely secure the love of my God, and gain an interest in the favour and salvation of the blessed Jesus! Here, Oli Lord, at thy foot I lay down all the weapons of my former rebellions ; I implore thy love through the interest of thy Son, the great' Mediator r Let me see the light of thy counte- nance, and the smiles of thy face : Let me see a reconciled God, and let him tell me, that my sins are all forgiven ; then shall I not be afraid to meet the countenance of him that sits upon the throne, and the Lamb, when Christ shall return from hea- ven to punish the impenitent rebels against divine grace." IV. " How hopeless, as well as distressed, is the case of .sinners in that day, when they are driven to this last extremity, to seek help from the rocks and the mountains 1" It is the last but the fruitless refuge of a frighted and perishing creature : The rocks and mountains refuse to help them they will not crush to death those wretches, whom the justice of God has doomed to a painful immortality, nor will they conceal or shelter those obstinate rebels, whom the Son of God has raised out of their graves, to be exposed to public shame and punish- ment. Those high and hollow rocks, those dismal dens and caverns dark as midnight, those deep and, gloomy retreats of melancholy and sorrow, which they shunned with utmost aver - sion? and could hardly bear to think of titeìn without horror here
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=