SOVEREIGNTY or CHRIST. 315 dice, his merry company and wanton dalliance, his cups and queans, yea, his hopes of heaven and confident conceits of escaping this wrath, are all perished with hire in the way : as the wax melteth before the fire, as the chaff is scattered before the wind, as the stubble consumeth before the flames, as the flowers do wither before the scorching sun ; so are all his sinful pleasures withered, consumed, scattered and melted. And is not the hearty embra- cingof Christ, and subjection to him, a cheap prevention of all this ? O ! who among you can dwell with the devouring fire ? " Who can dwell with the everlasting burnings ? " Isaiah xxxiii. 14. This God bath said he will surely do : if you are able to gainsay and resist him, try your strength ; read his challenge "Who would set the briers and thorns .against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together;" Isaiah xxvii. 4. 3. This perishing will be sudden and unexpected, in the way of their sin and resistance of Christ, in the way of their fleshly delights and hopes ; " They shall perish in the way; " 1 Thes. v. 3, Matt. xxiv. 30. As fire doth terribly break out in the night, when men are sleeping, and consumeth the fruit of their long labors, so will this fire break forth upon their souls; and how near may it be when you little think on it ! A hundred to one but some of us present shall within a fewmonths be in another World ; and what world it will be you may easily conceive if you do not embrace and obey the.Son. Howmany have beensmitten, with Herod, in the midst of their vain glory ! How many, like Ahab, have been wounded infight, and dunged the earth with their flesh and blood, who left the Lord's people to be fed with bread andiwater of affliction, in confidence of their own return to peace! How many have been swallowed up; like Pharaoh and his host, in their rash and malicious pursuit of the godly ! Little thinks many án ignorant, Careless soul, what a change of his condition he shall shortlyfind.. Those thousands of souls that are now in misery did as little think of that doleful, state while they were merrily pleasing the flesh on earth, and ,forgetting. Christ and their eternal state, as you do now; they could as contemptuously jeer the preacher as you, and verily believed that all this talk was but words, and wind, and empty threats, and ventured their souls as boldly upon their carnal hopes. Little thought Sodom of the devouring fire when theywere furiously assaulting the door of their righteous reprover. As little do the raging enemies of godliness among us think of the deplorable state which they are hastening to.. They will cry out themselves then, Little did I think to see this day, or feel these torments !' Why, thou wouldest not think of it, or else thou mightest ; God told thee in Scripture, and min- isters in their preaching, but thou wouldest not believe till it was too late.
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