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rase,
VI.]
THE VAIN REFUGE
OF.
SINNERS.
441
is
the case
of sinners
in
that
day, when
they
are
driven
to
this
last extremity,
to seek
help
from
the rocks
and the
mountains
?"
It
is
the
last,
but
the fruitless refuge
of
a
frighted and perishing
creature
:
The
rocks and mountains
refuse
to
help
them
;
they
will
not
crush
to
death
those
wretches,
whom the
justice
of
God
has
doomed
to
a
painful
immortality, nor
will
they conceal, or
shelter
those obsti-
nate
rebels, whom the
Son
of God
has
raised
out of their
graves, to
be
exposed
to
public shame and punishment.
Those
high
and
hollow rocks, those dismal
dens and
ca-
verns dark
as
midnight, those
deep and gloomy
retreats
of
melancholy and sorrow,
which
they
shunned
with
utmost
aversion, and could hardly bear
to
think
of
them
without horror, here
on
earth, are
now
become
their
only
retreat
and shelter
;
but it
is
a very vain
and
hope-
less one.
"
When
I
see such
awful
appearances
in
nature, huge
and
lofty
rocks hanging over
my
head,
and
at
every
step
of
my
approach,
they
seem
to nod
upon
me with over
whelming
ruin,
when
my
curiosity searches
far into
their
hollow
clefts,
their dark and deep caverns
of
solitude and
desolation, methinks
while
I
stand amongst them,
I
can
hardly
think myself
in safety,
and,
at
best,
they
give
a
sort of
solemn
and dreadful delight
:
Let
me
improve
the
scene to religious purposes, and raise
a
divine
medita-
tion.
Am
I
one
of
those wretches, who shall call to
these huge impending rocks to
fall
upon me?
Am
I that
guilty and miserable creature,
who shall
entreat
these
mountains
to
cover
me
from
hirn
that
sits on the
throne,
and
the
Lamb
?
Am
I prepared
to
meet the
countenance
of
the
blessed
Jesus,
the
judge
in
that
day? Have
I
such
an acquaintance
with the
Lamb
of
God,
who
takes away
the
sins
of
the
world, such
a
holy
faith
in his
meditation,
such
a
sincere
love to
him,
and such an unfeigned
repen-
tance
of
all
my
sins,
that
I
can
look upon
him as my
friend and
my
refuge,
and a
friend infinitely
better than
rocks and mountains,
for he
not
only
screens
we from
the
divine anger,
but introduces
me
into the
Father's
love,
and
places
me in his
blissful
presence for ever
?
Reflection
V.
" What hideous and everlasting mischief
is
contained
in
the
nature of
sin,
especially
sin
against the
gospel
of
Christ,
against the methods
of
grace,
and the
of
fers
of
salvation, which exposes
creatures
to
such extreme