as a lefs evil, than the continual fear of dying. Other misfortunes overlook fome; but here all are equally engaged. As none are free, so none are able either to encourage or comfort their companions; nay, the mifery of each rebounds on all, fo that every man groans under his own fear, and carries that of his neighbour. Commerce and converfation will give place to terror. Cities will be turned into defarts, and caves into cities. The rich ufurer fhall forget his wealth, the lady her beauty, the prince his ftate, and the beggar his poverty. The common calamity fhall take away all the diftinguishing prerogatives of birth and title, and feat the king and the subject on the same level. In fine, nature muft die, and thefe dire fymptoms and convulfions must lay it in the grave: time must be no more: it must ftop to make room for eternity. Tell me not, all these frightful prodigies concern not you: that the world is longer lived than our age, and that you fhall end before time expires. But mistake not, dear reader: they regard all mankind, and Chrift has revealed thofe truths, to teach us the enormity of fin, and the vanity of all earthly toys, that run away with our hearts, and at laft plunge our fouls into an abyfs of mifery. For how deteftable muft fin be in the fight of God, feeing he purges with fire all thofe innocent parts of nature, that man's malice has made fubfervient to his offences? and that he has doomed the world to so strange a death, because we have forced it to concur to our exceffes? If God punishes finners so feverely, to fright them to repentance, what pangs, what throws will the impenitent feel? If divine justice, foften'd by the indulgence of an infinite mercy, be fo fuperlatively rigorous; how will it rage, when guided by anger, and inflam'd by revenge. But befides, as this catastrophe of the world lays before us a scene of horror, fo it opens a lively profpect profpect of our folly; for it tears off that gaudy vizor, that veiled an empty nothing under a dazling furface, that charmed our fenfes, to steal our hearts; and put upon us painted pleasures for folid happiness. To fhew therefore, for how short lived felicities we barter eternal joys; God has condemned to death the great world as well as the little; both are dust, and to dust both must return. Our ambition, at the price of a thousand crimes, would fain furvive the grave, and live in the memory of after-ages: though mortal, we affect immortality, and a life by proxy, and at second hand, in fpite of nature. But, alas! we build caftles in the air ; nothing done in this world is permanent; but vice or virtue, all must bend to time, and this must expire together with the world, and all we leave behind. So that earthly goods are vain all we have poffeffed are flown away, and those we leave behind are pofting after. Rife by your valour from the fheepcote to the throne; erect a thousand pyramids to eternife your memory; buy the pens of hiftorians, the rhetoric of orators, and the mufes of the poets; leave twenty heirs to propagate your family time will overturn your pyramids, devour your books, put an end to your race: your name will lie buried under the ruins of time, together with the Babel of your grandeur; and time itfelf will end in the fathomless ocean of eternity. : Why then do we fquander away our time upon those toys, that cannot outlive time? The time will come, when what we loved and feared here will be no more. Nay, we fhall lie plunged in oblivion, as little known to thofe, who will follow us, as to thofe, who went before: our works alone will accompany us, either to plead for mercy at God's tribunal, or to call for revenge. When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draw eth eth nigh. Chrift bids his difciples (and in them all the juft) regard these prodigies, not as furies fent to torment them, but as friends to break their chains, as fore-runners of their eternal happiness: when wealth fhall not purchase fafety, nor policy contrive fecurity; when fear fhall damp the courage and pall the fpirits of the heroes; virtue will embolden the just to contemplate the downfal of nature with a stedfaft eye, and a fearless heart. The deluge of water fpared Noah, who burned not with the fire of impure love; and this inundation of fire fhall refpect thofe, who burn with the flame of divine charity. But all these calamities are only the beginning of those fad evils that await the wicked: Christ himself will put an end to the temporal punishments, to condemn them to those that are eternal, and then shall they jee the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory; that is, Chrift will come to judge all the nations of the world, and to ratify by an irrevocable sentence the damnation of the wicked, and the falvation of the juft: this truth is too clear to want a proof; the very Barbarians expect a future judgment, and nature has imprinted it in the bottom of our fouls with fuch lafting characters, that forgetfulnefs is not able to deface them, nor impiety to blot them out. Revelation confirms this univerfal fentiment of nature; we must all appear at the bar of this great Judge, and receive from his mouth our final doom: either a Come ye bleffed, or a Depart ye curfed: our thoughts, words and actions fhall be exposed to the open view of heaven and earth, of the faints and angels, with all their aggravating circumstances; and those very crimes we blufh'd to confess in private, fhall be dragged upon this great theatre, to receive punishment and confufion. The damned fhall be feparated from the juft. Into what throws, into what tormenting agonies will this preliminary caft the damned? What would your Cæfars or Alexanders Alexanders give for the laft place among the elect? They lorded it in this world; they waded through feas of blood to thrones and fceptres. They flung up their quiet, to climb above the heads of their fellow creatures. And what have they reaped from all their greatness, but a great abasement? from their power, but a fatal prerogative of being more powerfully tormented? Were repentance in this extremity fignificant, the vale of Jehofaphat would ring with ten millions of Peccavi's, and as many Lord have mercy on me's. But, alas! the reign of mercy is expired, and justice alone fits on the bench! There is no time for amendment, no place for favour. The judge is inexorable; tears cannot bend him, nor entreaties foften him, nor forrow melt him into compaffion. But the moft terrible circumftance of all is, that once he was our friend; this character, that one would think should give confidence to the finner, is the very thing that plunges him into defpair; the best things degenerate into the worst, when corrupted, and from a contemned love springs the most exceffive hatred. Now Jefus Chrift having ftretched his love to man, almost as far as his omnipotence could carry it, and man ingratitude to the very extent of malice; he will obferve the fame method in his hatred, and appear that day as exceffive in rigour, as before in kindness. And now, what plea can a wretched finner make at a tribunal, before a Person who is both judge and plaintiff? Alas! he shall only run to (the last refuge of the unfortunate) tears; and to the ordinary theam of the miferable, unprofitable wishes that he had never finned, or that he had been fo happy as to have repented. Those that scorned to ftoop to the humiliation of a private penance, fhall undergo all the fhame of a publick confeffion, without the fatisfaction of pardon. Oh! once merciful Redeemer, but now juft Judge (will your beaux cry out) I confefs my crimes, and the memory of my offences reads me a continual leffon of my ingratitude. I feldom closed my eyes, but to fleep myself fober; and as feldom unclofed them, but to drown my reason again in wine, and to overcharge nature with banquets. My religion was to laugh at all, and comply with none, and my only piety to be fuperlatively impious. I went to church to multiply my fins, not to obtain pardon, and feldom prayed, but to meet a mistress; I staid no longer, than I found company to talk profanely; or to ridicule a peruke, or to censure a cravat-string. From the church I turned off to the tavern; and then to places I dare not name. So that I employed all my time either in committing new fins, or boasting of old ones. And now, what remains but the fad thought, I might have been happy, and a fad affurance I must be miserable! Ladies, who forget their fouls to pamper their bodies, will echo forth this fruitlefs theam. Oh God! I ask no pardon, but am forced to fubmit to thy juftice, though I dread it. Had I fuffered for thy love what I have undergone to court the world, I fhould have found a feat among the bleffed; but now I can expect no other crown for my martyrdom than the punishment of my folly. One fpeck in my face caft me into convulfions, and a thousand fears in my foul never alarmed my fear, nor moved me to repentance. My intrigues aimed at the conqueft of fome gallant, and I pawned heaven to gratify a raving paffion. My wicked intention died every ribbon with the colour of fire, and I might have discovered the face of a reprobate, had not my falfe glafs deceived me. Thus men will melt into fruitlefs tears; but they come too late to ftop the course of justice. Then will the judge fay (the Scripture tells us) to thofe on his left hand, Depart from me! O fweet Je fus! |