044
TIrZ ETÉRNAL DURATION
OF
tDI$C.7CI1'I
language
of
every place,
and
of
every
hour,
will
then
be, awakened,
What
shall
I
do to
be saved?
Whither
shall
I
fly
for
refuge?
O
blessed
Jesus,
receive
me
into
thy protection,
and be thou
my
deliverer.
Give
me
leave to
repeat
this
sort
of expostulation
with
lingering
and delaying
sinners,
òr
with
drowsy and
formal
Christians.
If
you
would set yourselves often
in
the
blaze
of
these everlasting burnings, you would never
satisfy
yourselves with such
cold
faint
wishes,
such
lazy
endea-
vours, such
languid
efforts
of
faith
and
repentance
to es-
cape
this
fiery
indignation
that
shall
never
be
quenched
:
nor
would
you
content
yourselves with
dark
and
doubtful
evidences of your interest
in
the
love
of God, and
the
grace
of
our
Lord
Jesus;
but
you
would
be
day
and
night
busy with
your
own
hearts
in
the most intimate and
careful search after
converting grace and
living
chris-
tianity
:
you
would never be
at
-rest
till you felt
the
new-
nature working
with power and bright evidence
within
you,
that
you might
be
able
to
say,
" We
know
there
is no
condemnation
belongs
to
us,
but that
we
are
-passed
from
death unto
life,"
Let
us
proceed
upon
this
subject,
turning
the discourse
from
ourselves to
our
friends, and
say,
with
what
fervour
of
love,
with
what holy
zeal
and compassion should
we
'labour to
save
our
friends
and
all
that
are
dear
to
us
from this
eternal destruction?
What
words
of
fiery
'terror
shall
we
choose to awaken those
who
slumber on
the
edge
of
endless burnings?
What
language
of
kind
and tender
'passion
shall
we
choose
to
reach their hearts?
What, phrases of melting
pity to hasten
their
escape from
-this
precipice
of
burning ruin, or to pluck
them
as
brands
out of
the
fire
before
it
becomes
unquenchable?
Know-
ing
these
terrors
of
the Lord,
with
what
vehemence
of
zeal should
we
try to persuade
me-n,
our
fellow
-
mortals,
that
they
would
not
venture into
the midst
of
these
miseries, and beseech them
in
the name
of
Christ,
to
be
reconciled
to
God
?
This
was
the practice, and these
the
motives
of
the
great
apostle,
as he
describes them
at
the
latter
end
of
the
fifth
chapter
in his second epistle to
the
Corinthians;
verses
11
2
1.
O,
with what force
of ardent
and active
compassion
-should
ministers
preach
both
the
curses
of
the
law,
and
the
grace
of the
blessed gospel, to
perishing
sinners,
and
4