390 CHRISTIAN MORALITY, VIZ. [SERM. XXIII. our souls were inured to the meditation of such sublime wonders as these; we should not easily immerse our- selves in trifles and fooleries. Again, let us meditate on the more awful doctrines, the more solemn and dreadful truths of our religion, and these will be an effectual restraint to a vain temper of mind. Let us think on the justice of God manifested in the destruction of sinners in all ages, when it ap- peared in a prodigious flood of water, and with a deluge of ruin testified against the wickedness of the old world ; and when it came down in flaming fire upon Sodom, and upon the cities of the plain. Let us meditate on the wrath of God, that has been revealed in numerous in- stances against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Let us contemplate that divine and severe jus- tice, that appeared in the sufferings and death of God's own Son, when it pleased the Father to bruise him, and to make his soul an offering for sin. Let us think of his agonies in the garden, and on the cross, when he bore the weight of our iniquities, and stood in the place of sinners. Let us send our thoughts down to the regions of death andhell, and behold the fallen angels bound in chains of darkness, and groaning under present tor- ments; yet waiting for the day of greater vengeance. Let us think with ourselves what millions of our fellow- sinners, the sons and daughters ofAdam, lie there ba- nished from the ,presence of the Lord, and tormented with fire in their consciences without remedy, and with- out hope, and say, why are not we there too ? Let us often look forward to the awful moment of our death, and the time of our departure from all the flatter- ing scenes of this present world. This will put a damp upon the vainest mind, and hang with a painful weight upon the sons of mirth and levity. This will be a means to restrain us from that foolish and trifling behaviour, which otherwise our tempers might incline us to. And let us remember the solemn -hour when we must stand before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, divested of all these gaudy shews of life, in which we are now ready to pride ourselves, and there we must receive a sentence without repeal, which shall send us to heaven or to hell at once, and fix our everlasting state. These are terrors or glories too solemn to be trifledwith; these are thoughts that will hold our souls awake and serious;
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=