433 THE VAIN REFUGE OF SINNERS. fDPSO. VY, from his thunder. They call now to the mountains and the rocks to be an eternal screen ; but the rocks and the mountains are deaf to their cry ; then shall they remem- ber, with unknown regret and anguish, those days of grace when Christ Jesus, who is now their judge, offered himself to become a screen to them, and a defence from the anger of God, their Creator: But they rejected this offered grace. He would have been the rock of their safety, where they should have found refuge from the fiery threatenings of the broken law, and the majesty of an offended God. The Father himself hath appointed him for this kind office to repenting sinners ; and, perhaps, he gave Moses a type or emblem of it, when he com- manded himself " to hide in the clefts of the rock, to secure him from destruction, while the burning blaze of his glory passed by;" xxxiii. 22. And Isaiah the prophet had foretold, that this Jesus " should be as the shadow of a great rock ;" Is. xxxii. 2. to shelter them from the beams of the wrath of God ; but they refused this blessing, they renounced this refuge ; and now they find there is no other rock sufficient to become a shelter from the stroke of his almighty arm, or a sufficient sha- dow from the burning vengeance. Sinners, who once over-rated their flesh and blood, and loved it with infinite fondness, who treated their fleshly appetites with excessive nicety andelegance, and affected a humourous delicacy in every thing round about them, they would now gladly creep into the mouldy ca, verns of the rocks, they would be glad to hide, and de- file themselves in the dark and noisome grottos of the earth, and squeeze their bodies into the rough and nar- row clefts, to shield themselves from the indignation of him that sits upon the throne, and of the Lamb. Those, who once were so tender of this mortal life and limbs, and could not think of bearing the least hardship for the sake of virtue and piety, are nowwishing to have those delicate limbs of theirs crushed by the fell of rocks and mountains : They wish earnestly to have their.lives and their souls destroyed for ever, and their whole na- tures buried in desolation and death, if they might but avoid. the eternal agonies and torments that are pre- pared for them. Now they long for caverns and graves to hide them fig ever from the justice of God, whose au-
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