dom and Gomorrah to be read in our ears, that men may hear, and fear, and flee from such abominations. Some, no doubt, there have been, in time past, and some there are still, who have maintained that men are never to be alarmed by the terrors of the Lord. But very different was the opinion of the apostle Paul, seeing that, after the enumeration of various instances of divine wrath against sinners, he adds: "Now, all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition" (1 Cor. x. 7). Let me, then, beg your attention, whilst I endeavour to impress this portion of holy writ more particularly upon you, and, in order to do so, consider we I. So much of the scripture history as may set this awful judgment fully before us; II. The truths illustrated and confirmed by it; and, III. The lessons of instruction it is calculated to convey to us. sued the confederate kings, overtook them near the springs of Jordan, recovered the spoils which they had taken, and brought back Lot as well as the other captives in safety. Years passed away, and the sins off these cities went on increasing, till at length they brought down upon them the signal judgments of the Most High. The angels, commissioned to punish these guilty people, after having visited Abraham, and com municated to him their purpose, repaired to Sodom, and there were received and entertained by Lot, who was sitting at the gate of the town when they arrived. While they were at supper the house was beset by a number of men, who demanded that the strangers should be given up to them for the unnatural purposes which have given a name of infamy to Sodom in all generations. Lot resisted this demand, and was on that account loaded with abuse by these wicked men, who would have forced the door, had First, then, I am to detail to you so much not the angels, thus awfully by their own exof the scripture history as may set this awful perience convinced of the righteousness of the judgment fully before you. Lot was the son doom they came to execute, smote them with of Haran, and the nephew of Abraham; and instant blindness, by which their attempts by the early death of his father becoming were rendered vain, and they themselves altogether his own master, he determined to were constrained to disperse. Towards mornleave the land of his nativity, and to ac-ing the angels apprised Lot of the doom company his uncle, when he went into the which was ready to be brought upon the land of Canaan. For a time they continued place, and urged him to hasten thence with to live together; their united substance, which his family. He was allowed to extend the consisted in cattle, not being too large to pre-benefit of this deliverance to the families of vent them from occupying one encampment: his daughters who had married in Sodom; eventually, however, their possessions were so greatly increased that they were obliged to separate; and Abraham, with rare generosity, conceded to his nephew the choice of pasture grounds. Lot availed himself of this liberality of his uncle as he deemed most for his own temporal advantage, and fixed his abode at Sodom, that his flocks might pasture in and around that fertile and well-watered neighbourhood. But, though his choice might be good in a temporal point of view, it was by no means so in a spiritual one: his flocks might be well fed, but his soul was altogether starved in that vile place; the inhabitants of which were such sinners before the Lord that "his righteous soul was vexed from day to day with their filthy conversation". About eight years after the separation of Lot from Abraham, Che dorlaomer, king of the Elamites, not receiving the tribute imposed some years before on the kings of the cities of the plain, assembled certain of his confederates, and invaded their territories, and carried Lot away captive along with the other inhabitants of Sodom. News of this reaching Abraham, he without delay armed his servants, pur but the warning was received by those families with incredulity and insult; and he therefore left Sodom, accompanied only by his wife and two daughters. As they went, being hastened by the angels, his wife, anxious for those who had been left behind, or reluctant to remove from a place which had long been her home, and where much valuable property was necessarily left, lingered after the rest, and was suddenly involved in the destruction, and, smothered and stiffened as she stood by saline incrustations, became a pillar of salt. Such, brethren, is the history to which the text refers. II. Consider we, in the second place, the truths which are illustrated and confirmed by it. And, first, it strikingly shows the truth of the wise king's observation, that "because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Eccles. viii. 2). The Almighty had poured down very great blessings upon this people: they lived in a country which enjoyed an abundance of natural advantages; but, so far from being led from nature up to nature's God, they had been altogether unmindful of him and unthankful to him; and, seeing that they had not liked to retain God in their knowledge, he had given them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was among them; and they wrought all uncleanness with greediness. But was this, it may be asked, the character of all the inhabitants? No, brethren: the Saviour gives what would be considered a much milder report of the character of the generality. He merely says of them: "They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;" and yet goes on: "the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Luke xvii. 28, 29). And were these, what the world would call altogether harmless and innocent characters, involved in one and the same appalling ruin with the rest? Yes, brethren, the Saviour plainly tells us so; and let this teach you what men in general are very backward to learn-that there are in the sight of God but two classes of persons, the righteous and the wicked, those who serve God, and those who serve him not; and that, if men live without God in the world, practically regardless of the God who made them, of the Saviour who died to redeem them, and of the Spirit who would sanctify them, whether it be pleasure or business or mere amusement which thus entirely engrosses their minds and absorbs all their attention, they are as much servants of Satan as those who are given up to more abominable sins, and must share the same awful punishment. able a one, is equally established by the awful events here recorded, namely, that, though judgment is God's strange work, and often long delayed, yet the impenitent and unbelieving will not in the end escape. "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck," says the Lord by his servant Solomon, "shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy" (Prov. xxix. 1). That Lot had faithfully warned these people of their sins and their iniquities there is every reason to believe; and to how little purpose, the conduct of the inhabitants in general, as well as that of his own immediate connexions, sufficiently prove. "He seemed as one that mocked, unto his sons-in-law:" they were called, but they would not answer: they were warned, but they would not hear: they cast God's words behind them, set at nought all his threatenings, and poured contempt upon his messages of love and mercy. But did the righteous judgment of God not overtake them at last? Yes, brethren, they probably expected the execution of God's threatened vengeance as little as you may do this day; but, when the sun was risen upon the earth, and Lot had reached a place of safety, "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and all that which grew upon the ground" (Gen. xix. 23). III. But I will now proceed to point out some of the lessons of instruction which this history may teach us. And, first, learn from the example of Lot to take heed of being guided by mere worldly considerations in the choice of situations, either for yourselves or your children. When it was needful for him to separate from Abraham, Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom; and by what motive was he influenced? It is to be feared that he was led solely by the love of gain, without any regard to his spiritual interests. Though, upon the whole, an upright servant of God, he was, it would appear, too much under the power of a selfish and covetous disposition. Another important truth, which this history illustrates, is, that "God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live" (Ezek. xxxiii. 11). Why had God allowed Chedorlaomer to subdue these people, and to bring them under tribute? Was it not that affliction might lead them to call their ways to remembrance, and to repent them of their sins? Or why was Lot per-"He lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the mitted to take up his abode among them? plain of Jordan, that it was well watered Was it not that his warning voice might be every where, even as the garden of the Lord" raised against their iniquities, and that he (Gen. xiii. 10). He chose that situation, might show these people their transgression then, because it was suitable to his flocks and and their sins? And does not the inter- herds, without considering to what snares it cession of Abraham set before us in the exposed him, and how extremely unfavourliveliest manner the the patience and long-able it was to the growth of real religion. suffering of the Lord, seeing that if there had been ten righteous persons in all these cities he would not have poured out upon them his wrath and indignation? But another truth, though not so accept And are there none, brethren, in our own day, who do very much the same? who, for the sake of their own worldly interests, are altogether careless as to the temptations to which they may expose either themselves or was not induced to yield to them. Nay, not only was he mercifully preserved from the wickedness universally practised around him, but he stood forth as a bold reprover, warning sinners of their danger, though he had none to countenance and support him. And, without endeavouring to multiply examples, we know, from the testimony of the apostle Paul, that there were saints even in the household of the wicked Nero (Phil. iv. 22). And if, brethren, very great outward dis advantages did not prevent these persons from serving the Lord, so neither need ont ward disadvantages prevent you from serving him. If God was pleased to vouchsafe sufficient grace to Lot to preserve in him, even amid the iniquities of Sodom, a strong abhorrence of sin, fear not that he will be wanting of his grace to you, if you diligently seek it. Paul could do all things through Christ strengthening him. And so, brethren, may we as our days, so will our strength be. Learn, again, from the example of Lot's wife, that the religion of the heart, and not a mere outward observance of its forms, will their children? Earthly prosperity is all that they think about; and whether the welfare of the soul is likely to be forwarded or impeded, enters not into their consideration, or at least has no proper weight with them. How many, for the sake of temporal advantage, will leave places where their souls are nourished with the bread of life, and take up their abode where there is an absolute famine of the word! and how many form connexions for life upon no better principle! Suitable indeed in such cases is the observation of the apostle, and too frequently, alas! has it been verified by sad experience: "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Tim. vi. 9, 10). But did Lot's policy succeed, even in a worldly point of view? did. he reap the advantages he expected from his residence in Sodom? No, brethren, very far from it. A dispute arising among the neigh-alone stand the test when God ariseth to bouring kings, Sodom was taken and plundered; and Lot was suddenly deprived of all his substance, he himself becoming a captive in the hands of an enemy. And though, by the bold and vigorous exertions of his uncle Abraham, a remarkable deliverance was vouchsafed to him, and he recovered his liberty and his property, yet, returning again to Sodom, he so far shared the punishment of its inhabitants that, instead of securing to himself an abundance of riches, he suffered the loss of all, and even his life was given him as a prey. And thus will the love of this world be recompensed to all. If God have designs of mercy towards them, he will either take away from them the objects of their idolatrous regard, or embitter to them the possessions in which they have sought delight; for it is not without reason that the apostle John warns us, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John ii. 15, 16). Learn, secondly, from this history, that, if by no fault of your own, or if by a voluntary choice which you now deeply repent, you find yourselves placed in situations of great temptation, there is no cause for despair, but only greater need of watchfulness, and a firmer reliance upon God. Though Lot had made so imprudent a choice, it does not appear but by God's grace he was enabled to maintain his integrity. In so abandoned a place as Sodom solicitations to evil must have been continually urged upon him; but he judge the earth. The wife of Lot had enjoyed many and great advantages: she was united in marriage to a pious man, had probably the privilege of daily family worship, was kept out of the way of many sinful indul gences, and saw constantly the pain which irreligion and sin gave to her husband, and how zealous and earnest he was in reproving it. But she herself had not seriously thought of these things: her own heart had experienced no change; and, therefore, having no proper sense of the evil of sin and of the necessity of an utter forsaking of it, she heeded not the injunctions of her heavenly deliverers, and perished in the general con flagration. but And have there not ever been, are there not still too many who bear a close resem blance to this early despiser of the injunctions of God-persons who have the form of godliness, but deny the power of it; who hear, it may be, good sermons, but seldom meditate on what they hear; attend, perhaps, with some regularity upon the means of grace, think not whether they themselves receive any spiritual benefit; read, mayhap, the lively oracles of God, but, faith being absent, become not wise unto salvation? They have knowledge, convictions, hopes and fears; but they are not truly humbled nor spiritually minded: they do not cordially receive Christ as in the scriptures he is revealed-not only as a Priest to make atonement for, but as a Prophet to teach, and as a King to rule over and in his people. Nor do they sincerely love his ordinances and his commandments. The old nature is to a certain degree impressed and alarmed; but no new nature is implanted; and, therefore, in time of sharp trial they fall away, and are lost for ever; for "the earth, which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and yet beareth only thorns and briars, is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; and its end is to be burned" (Heb. vi. 7). people, and to walk before him in soberness, righteousness, and godliness, whilst you are upon earth, desiring to be holy as God is holy, and pure as he is pure. Many, mayhap, may think it strange that you run not into the same excess of riot with themselves, as no doubt the inhabitants of Sodom did in the case of Lot; but by grace he was enabled to maintain his integrity; and the same grace I have now, brethren, been directing your will not be wanting to you. Many, again, attention to the awful visitation of wrath may ridicule your fears, and scoffingly ask, poured upon the cities of the plain, not with" Where is the promise of his coming? for, the view of unnecessarily exciting the fears of any, but in order to warn all to flee from the wrath to come: knowing the terrors of the Lord, we would persuade you to escape them; for the Saviour hath especially connected this history with our own immediate interests, by saying, "Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed" (Luke xvii. 30). Let me then, briefly, in conclusion, sum up the subject we have been considering. You have been hearing of several cities, to since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" (2 Pet. iii. 4). But be not ye moved from your stedfastness, knowing that the Lord is not slack concerning either his promises or his threatenings, but that, while men sleep in indifference and sin, their judgment lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." A CALL TO REPENTANCE: PLEDGED MEMBERS OF TEM PERANCE SOCIETIES). BY ONE OF Themselves. Prov. xxx. 12; 2 Cor. x. 18; Tit. iii. 3-7. Nor a pledge of abstinence, but repentance from Christ, right with God, and qualifies him for felsin, sets the drunkard, through faith in Jesus lowship with Christian brethren. gether with all their inhabitants, men, women, (ADDRESSED TO No reformation of life, however praiseworthy in the sight of men, can take away a man's sins, or stand instead of repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Though all the world should join together to declare a retian brethren give him the right hand of fellowformed drunkard a good man, and though Chrisship, and he think himself worthy of it; yet, until godly sorrow for his past life work in him repentance, his sin remains. Sin, unrepented of, is sin unpardoned. "Repent ye, and be converted, One effect of sin on the soul is, to make the soul that your sins may be blotted out" (Acts iii. 19). insensible that sin is sin. Especially drink and fornication do this (Hos. iv. 11). Solomon says, "The adulterous woman eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, 'I have done no wickedness;"" and, again: "They drink, and forget the law" (Prov. xxx. 20, xxxi. 5). He represents the of heart: "They have beaten me; and I felt it drunkard complaining against his own hardness not; when shall I awake?" (Prov. xxiii. 35). Nabal is an example of this. His wife's prudence had saved his life: she came home to him, and found him very drunk. That night she told him nothing; for he could not hear reason; and next morning, when she related all, he could not feel humbled or repent: his heart died within him: he became as a stone, and fell into despair (1 Sam. xxv. 36, 37). Dr. Beecher, in his six sermons on intemperance, affirms the effects of drink on the conscience to be deadly: "It robs a man of all sense of being accountable to God, stupifies the conscience, and hardens the heart." Such being the effect of drinking habits as to render a man incapable of seeing himself guilty, and feeling his soul to be under wrath; and the taking a pledge of abstinence having no promise of pardon, and setting a man only right as to his duty to himself and his neighbour, it is to be feared that many members of temperance societies have been flattered to believe themselves cleared of the past by taking the pledge; while their sin, unrepented of, remains unpardoned; and some, as we have heard, have been so ill advised as to believe that the taking the pledge was as great or a greater work of goodness than to make a profession of religion; nay, that abstinence had done more for them, and had made them better men, than many professors of religion were. But let it be thoroughly well known and understood that God will save no man without repentance. Until he mourn over his sins, and loathe himself for committing them, and until he make a believing application to his own soul of the blood of the Son of God, and have the seal of pardon set by the Holy Spirit on his own heart, his debt stands, and his doom is fixed. A whitewashed coal is black still; and a reformed drunkard is liable to all a drunkard's woes until he repents and is converted. Some men, who thought themselves right in the sight of God because they abstained from open sin, rejected the Saviour, conceiting themselves of being well able to see without his light; but he answered them, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin. But now you say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth" (John ix. 41). It becomes, then, the duty of every man who wishes above all things that the soul of his pledged brother may prosper, to put him in mind that not only the drunkard, fornicator, idolater, proud, covetous, and all that love this world, shall not inherit the kingdom of God, but that, except he repent of sin past, though he live soberly now, he shall likewise perish; that repentance is one of the names of that gracious change of nature, of which it is written, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God;" that, whosoever has received the Spirit of adoption in his soul, and knows and believes the love God has to him in Jesus Christ, he will see his past sins to be as though he had been all his life robbing, smiting, provoking, and cruelly wounding the Saviour himself (Zech. xii. 10; Ps. li. 4). And, besides, the Spirit in his soul will teach him that God abhors sin; that every sinner is cursed, and must perish; that only Satan loves sin: the Spirit will show him the world in rebellion against the law of God, filled with violence, dyed in blood, clad in mourning, wailing in sorrow, crying for misery, agonizing in pain, covered with graves, through and only through sin, in which he had his share in the days of his drunkenness; and the same Spirit will also show him that every one of the companions of his sin, every one with whom he has drunk, and sung, and quarrelled, and matched jibe for jibe, outh for oath, and curse for curse; every woman whom he has tempted with drink, every virgin whom he has corrupted, every wife whom he has insulted, that each one of them has a soul that shall survive the sun, and live when this world is no more; that the most drunken, de graded, profligate amongst them, drinking in inquity like water, working all uncleanness, possesses, nevertheless, a soul so costly that no man can name its value; a soul for which the Son of God undertook and died; a soul which, if it be not aroused to repent, must be wretched without end, must be tormented without rest, must dwell with everlasting burnings. He once helped on those souls to fill the cup of drunkenness: little thought he death was in the cup-eternal death in the drinking customs of men; but now a new light breaks upon him, and a single soul coming short of salvation is a grief to him; and he sees and feels too surely that he may have been the guilty though ignorant cause of destroying by drink many souls for which Christ died. Can be see these things, and his heart not be ready to break for sorrow? In the hope of helping those who have been plucked as brands out of the fire of imtemperance, in the great work of remembering their own evil ways, and confessing to the Lord,Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done" (Josh. vii. 20), so that both repenting they may find pardon, and, pardoned they may be full of love, and their love be kept to work, by the spur of bitter experience, to labour for the turning others from the same sins, the following sum of the chief evils which are be gotten by the giant sin drunkenness is offered for serious consideration : 1. Vast sums of money, and much valuable property are wasted on strong drink. On spirits alone is spent yearly in this country as much money as would employ 428,750 men; and by drinking spirits, 95,000 offenders have been cast in prison in one year, to be fed by the county rates. Besides this, it is believed that three beg gars out of four who live on industrious men's money have become beggars through drink. And who cannot name some families, once prosperous, now covered with rags; tradesmen bankrupts, for tunes wasted, houses burnt, ships wrecked by means of drink? Our labouring people might be come rich, but for the tax laid upon their wages by drink; and among emigrants, thousands of promising young men have lost all, and gone to ruin by it. If you are in business, must not part of your profits go in treating at markets and fairs? If a man might save this expense; if he is no better, but worse for the drink he takes; if he wastes what he might save, or pays for a poison what he might spend in serving God, is he not guilty who drinks? A gentleman found his brewer's bill £35 a year: he took the pledge, and divided the £35 among religious and charitable societies: this was fruit meet for repentance. Go, and do thou likewise. 2. Robbery, smuggling, poaching, and all sorts of crime are favoured by strong drink. Men will do anything to obtain drink. My neighbours tell me some men will give half a day's work for a pint of ale. In London, multitudes pawn their Sunday clothes again and again on Mondays, to have money for drink. On a sabbath morning in Glasgow, a person saw fifty people go into a pawnshop in one hour; and in an entry near by were men, women, and children stripping off their coats, gowns, jackets, and shoes to sell or pawn: just opposite was a spirit store, which caught |