perceive by the following paraphrase. The delay of the day of judgment may be considered either in relation to men who must be judged, or to God himself who will judge them. If you consider it in regard to men who must be judged, they have no room to complain that God defers this important period; on the contrary, they ought to consider the pretended slackness, of which they complain, as an effect of the adorable love of their judge, who invites them to repentance. The manner in which God ordinarily takes men out of this life, is much more proper to incline them to repentance than the terrible retinue of his coming to judgment. How terrible will his appearance be! What eye will not be dazzled! Whose conscience will not be alarmed! Here blow the trumpets, the dreadful sounds of which proclaim the approach of the Judge of this universe. There, the heavens, which once opened to receive the Son of God, open again that he may return to the earth to execute his threatenings on rebellious men. Here, earth and sea restore the bodies which they have devoured. There, those thousand thousands, those ten thousand times. ten thousand, who are continually before God, Dan. vii. 10. offer their ministry to him, and are the witnesses, admirers, and executors of his judgment. Here, open the eternal books, in which so many unrighteous thoughts, so many unprofitable words, so many criminal actions are registered. There, sentences are preparing, destinies determining, final decrees just pronouncing. Who then could have presence of mind enough to recur to genuine repentance, even supposing there were yet time for repentance? Men then have no reason to complain that the day of judgment is not yet come. The Lord is patient towards all men, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. If you consider the pretended delay of judgment in regard to God, as we have considered it in regard to men, you will readily acknowledge that what appears delay to you does not appear so to him. Why? Because a thousand years are with him as one day, and one day as a thousand years; because this long term that offends you is but as an instant to the perfect Being. It seems to me that this reasoning is conclusive. This shall suffice for the present. Let us conclude, and let us employ the few moments which remain to infer from the doctrine of the general conflagration, secured against the objections of libertines, such motives to piety as the apostle intended we should draw from them. Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the. which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burnt up. This is the doctrine that the apostle establisheth. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God? This is the consequence which he deduces; the justness of which inference will appear by five descriptions, which the general conflagration traces before our eyes: 1. A description of the power of our Judge: 2. A description of the horrors of vice: 3. A description of the vanity of the present world: 4. A description of the beau ties of the world to come: 5. A description of the excellence of piety. This is the third part, and the conclusion of this discourse. 1. The destruction of the universe affords us a picture of the power of our Judge. How powerful, my brethren, is this Judge! Who can resist his will? Rom. ix. 19. Once there was no sea, no earth, no firmament; one frightful night covered the whole face of the universe. He said, and all these beings appeared, Gen. i. 3. Now we behold a sea, an earth, and a firmament. He will say, and the sea shall be dry, the earth shall be consumed, the stars shall disappear, the firmament shall be found no more. Such is the God whom the sinner attacks. A God, who taketh up the isles as a very little thing, Isa. xl. 15. A God, who removeth the mountains and overturneth them in his anger, who shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. A God, who commandeth the sun and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars; who doth great things past finding out, yea, and wonders without number, Job ix, 5, 6, 7, 10. This, sinner, is the God whom thou attackest. But doth the idea of a God so powerful never excite terror in thy rebellious soul? Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? 1 Cor. x. 22. Who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered? Job, ix. 4, Can any resist my power? Who would set the thorns and briars against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. O let them make peace with me, and they shall make peace with me, Isa. xxvii. 4, 5. 2. The conflagration of the universe affords us a picture of the horrors of vice. Behold how far God carries his resentment against sin. It is not enough to condemn to eternal flames, and to confine in chains of darkness, those who have fled from his justice. It is not enough to pour out his wrath upon those who have committed the crime, he detests even the instruments of the crime; he designs that all things that have served sin shall bear the marks of his anger. If, under the law, a man had defiled himself with a beast, he must die with the brutal object of his passion, Lev. xx. 15, 16. Thus God, not content to punish the avaricious with unquenchable fire, will destroy even objects of avarice, and dissolve the gold and silver with which the miser committed idolatry. Not content to punish the ambitious, he will destroy even the instruments of ambition, and overturn those thrones and palaces which have caused it. Not content to punish the voluptuous, he will destroy even objects of voluptuousness, and consume the heavens, the earth, and the elements, which have afforded matter for concupiscence. Heavens, earth, elements, are ye guilty? But if ye be treated with so much rigor for having been the unconscious instruments of the crime, what must the condition of the criminal be. 3. In the burning of the universe, we find a representation of the vanity of the present world. What is this world which fascinates our eyes? It is a funeral pile that already begins to burn, and will soon be entirely consumed; it is a world which must end, and all that must end is far inferior to an immortal soul. The thought of death is already a powerful motive to us to place our affections on another world; for what is death? it is to every individual what, one day, the final ruin will be to the generality of mankind; it is the destruction of the heavens, which pass away with a great noise ; it is the dissolution of the elements; it is the entire conflagration of the world, and of the works which are therein. Yet vanity hath invented refuges against this storm. The hope of an imaginary immortality hath been able to support some men against the fear of real death. The idea of existing, in the minds of those who exist after them, hath, in some sort, comforted them under the miserable thought of being no more. Hence pompous buildings, and stately edifices; hence rich monuments, and superb mausoleums; hence proud inscriptions, and vain-glorious titles, inscribed on marble and brass; behold the dissolution of all those bonds. The destruction of the world deprives us of our imaginary being, as death deprives us of our real existence. You will not only be shortly stretched in your tombs, and cease to use the houses, and fields, and palaces which you inhabit; but these houses, these palaces, these fields will be consumed, and the memory of all that is fastened to the world will vanish with the world. Since then, this is the condition of all sensible things, since all these sensible things must perish; immortal man, infinite spirit, eternal soul, dost thou fasten thyself to vanity and instability? Dost thou not seek for a good more suitable to thy nature and duration? Seeing all these things must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness? 4. The conflagration of the universe furnisheth a description of the world to come. You often hear us declaim on the nothingness of earthly things; we frequently diminish the worth of all that is great and glorious; we frequently cry with Solomon, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity: Vanity in pleasures, vanity in grandeurs, vanity in riches, vanity in sciences, vanity in all. But yet, my brethren, how substantial would this vanity be-how amia |