DISe. VI.1 THE VAIN REFUGE OF SINNER'S. 415' Lamb arrayed in his robes ofjudgment ; but the wretches are immortalized to punishment, by the long abused ma- jestyand 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 " ever- lasting burnings : They have no rest day 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. Thus have we considered those huge and bulkybeings, the rocks and the mountains, in all their vast and mighty figures and appearances, with all their clefts and dens, and caverns for shelter and concealment, with all their fortification and massy thickness for defence, and with all their power to crush and destroy mankind, and yet we find them utterly insufficient to hide, cover, or protect guilty creatures in that great day of the wrath of God and the Lamb. REFLECTI'ON'S on the foregoing discourse. Reflection 1. " How strangely do all the appearances of Christ to sinners, in the several seasons and dispensa- tions of his grace, differ from that last great and solemn appearance, which, to them, will be a dispensation offinal vengeance?" Ile visited the world in divine visions of old, even from the dayof the sin of Adam, and it was to reveal mercy to sinful man, and he sometimes assumed the majestyof God, to let the world knowhe was not tobe trifled with. He visited theearth at his indarnation: How lowly was his state ! How full of grace his ministry ! Yet he then gave notice of this day of vengeance, when he should appear in his own, and his Father's most awful glories. He visits the nations now with the word of salvation, he appears in the glass of his gospel, and in the ordi nances ofhis sanctuary, as a Saviour whose heart melts with love, and, in the language of his tenderest Compas- sions, and of his dying groans, he invitessinners to be re- conciled to an offended God He appears as a Lamb made a sacrifice for sin, and, as a minister ofhis Father's mercy, offering and distributing pardons to criminals. But when he visits the world, as a final Judge, how so- lemn.and illustrious will that appearance be ? How ter- rible his countenance to all those who have 'refused to r M w
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