457 / 674
DISC.
VI.]
THE VAIN REFUGE
OF
SINNERS.
437
ship, to the
moles,
and
to
the
bats,
to go
into the
clefts
of
the rock, and into the
tops of
the ragged rocks,
for
fear
of
the Lord,
and for the
glory
of
his
majesty, when
he ariseth
to shake
terribly
the
earth."
Sinners, who once
could
not
tell
how
to spend
a day
without
gay
company, those sons
and daughters
of
mirth,
who
turned their
midnights into noon, with the
splendor
of
their
lamps,
and the rich and
shining
furniture of their
palaces
;
those noisy companions
of
riot,
who made
the
streets of the
city
resound
with
their
midnight
revels,
they shall
now
fly
to
the solitary caverns
of
the rocks,
and
would be glad to dwell
there in darkness and
silence
for
ever,
if
they might
but
avoid
the wrath
of
a provoked
God,
and the countenance
of
an
abused Saviour.
They
would fain
be
shut up
for
ever
from day- light,
lest
they
should
see
the
face
of
an almighty
enemy, whose
name
and honour
have
been
reproached
in
their
songs
of
lewd
jollity
and profaneness.
Sinners, who once were
fond
of
liberty
in
the
wildest
sense,
and could
not bear that
any
restraints
should be
laid upon
their
persons or
their
wishes,
who
never could
endure
the thought
of a confinement to their
closets
for
one half hour
to
converse with God,
or
with
their
own
souls
there, they
now call
aloud
to
the rocks and the
moun-
tains, to immure them round,
as
a refuge
from
the
eye
of
their Judge.
They
were once
perpetually roving abroad,
and gadding
through
all
the
gay
scenes
of
sensuality,
in
quest of
new
and
flowery
pleasures,
but
now they
beg
to
be imprisoned
for
in
the dens and caves
of
the earth;.
the deepest and
most dismal
caves
are their most
ardent
wishes,
that
they might never
see
the
countenance
of their
divine avenger, nor
feel
the
weight
of
his
hand.
Sinners,
who,
heretofore, thought
themselves, and
their
deeds
of
darkness, secure enough from the
eye
of God,
and
from the
strokes of
his
justice,
while they
revelled in
their
common
habitations
;
those
who,
even
under
the
open
sky,
could
defy the Almighty, "could
laugh
at
his
threatenings, and mock the prophecies of
his
vengeance,
now they can
find
no caverns deep or
dark enough to
hide them from
his
sight
;
his
lightnings
penetrate the
hardest
rocks and
shine into
the deepest solitudes
:
There
is
no
screen
or shelter
thick
and strong enough to stand
between
God and
them,
and to
cover
and shield them
ßr3