pISCOURSE VI. .129 his Son, by whom all things were made, shall agree to arise and go forth against them in their rohes of judgment, and with their artillery of vengeance 6 What created being dares interpose in that hour, to shelter or defend a condemned criminal? What high and mighty creature is able to afford the least security or protection ? The princes of the earth, and the captains, the kings, and heroes, and conquerors, with all their millions of armed men, are not able to lift a hand for the defence of one shiner against the anger of God and the Lamb., They them- selves shall quake and shiver at the tremendous sight, and they shall fly into the holes of the rocks, like mere cowards, and shall join their outcries with the poor and the slave, en- treating the rocks and mountains to befriend them with shelter and safety. Not the highest mountains, not the hardest or the strongest rocks, not the most exalted, or most powerful persons, or things in nature can defend, when the God of nature resolves to de- stroy : When he, who is higher than the highest, and stronger than the strongest, shall pronounce destruction upon rebels, what creature, can speak deliverance ? The rocks and the mountains obey their Maker, they shiver in pieces at the word of his wrath, and will yield no relief to criminals : But man, rebellious man, disobeys his Maker, and calls to the rocks and moun- tains to protect him. Vain hope, Oh sinner ! to make the most exalted creatures your friends, when God, the Creator, is your enemy. These inanimate things have never learned disobedience to their Maker, and rather than screen á rebel from his deserv- ed judgments, they will offer themselves as instrumentsof divine vengeance. 2. Rocks and mountains, in their clefts and dens and caverns, are sometimes considered as. places of secrecy and con- cealment. My text tells us, that kings, and mighty men,, the rich and the free -man, as well as the poor and the slave, hid themselves in dens, and in the rocks of the mountains. They Loped there might be some secret corner, whose thick shadows and darkness were sufficient to hide them, where the Judge might not spy or find them out.. Vain hope, for sinners to hide in tiie holes of the rocks, and the deepest caverns of the moun- tains, to escape the nótice of that God, who is all eye and all ear, and present at once in every place of earth and heaven ! Foolish ,expectation indeed, to avoid the notice of the on of God, whose eyes. are as a flame of fire ; Rev. i. 14. and . shoot through the earth, and its darkest caves ! Read the cxxxix. Psalm, Oh sinner ! and then think if it be possible to flee from the eye of God, and to hide thyself 'n the clefts of the rock, where his hand shall not find thee. --He Las already beset thee behind and before,.. and his hand already VOL. vn, I
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