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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-
jesty
and
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 bulky
beings,
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
of
final
vengeance
?"
Ile
visited the world
in
divine visions
of
old,
even from the day
of
the
sin
of
Adam, and
it
was
to
reveal
mercy to sinful man,
and
he sometimes
assumed
the
majesty
of
God,
to
let
the world know
he
was
not tobe
trifled
with.
He
visited
the
earth 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
of
his
sanctuary,
as
a
Saviour
whose
heart
melts
with
love,
and,
in
the language
of
his
tenderest
Compas-
sions,
and of
his
dying groans, he invites
sinners to
be
re-
conciled to an offended
God He appears
as a
Lamb
made
a sacrifice
for
sin,
and,
as
a
minister
of
his
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