to depart accursed into everlasting fire. Such, O forgetful, careless and impenitent sinner, is the language in which the Creator, thy Judge now addresses thee, and he also tells thee,

Lastly, what will be the consequences of neglecting this warning: Consider this, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver. Lest the terrible threatening should be unnoticed or forgotten, if only once uttered, God, in different parts of his word, frequently repeats it. Speaking of sinners, he says, I will be to them as a lion and as a young lion; I, even I, will tear, and none shall rescue them. And again, I will be to them as a lion, as a leopard who watcheth for the prey will I observe them. I will meet them as a bear bereaved of her young, and will rend the caul of their hearts, and will devour them as a lion. My friends, what a terrible emphasis is there in these words. It is God, it is Jehovah, it is that very Being whom you fondly fancy to be altogether such an one as yourselves, who says this. I, he says, even I will do it; I who am omnipotent, and therefore can do it; I who am true to my word, and therefore will do it; I who am just, and therefore must do it. And if it is Jehovah the strong God, the mighty One, who threatens to do this, well may he add, that none shall rescue, that there will be none to deliver them. My friends, it is, indeed it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; of that God who is a consuming fire. Can thy heart, he says, endure, can thy hand be strong, in the day when I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord have spoken, and will do it. Yes, if you do not consider and repent, God will tear you in pieces as a lion. He will send death to tear your souls from your bodies; he will tear your hearts with unutterable anguish, he will give you up to be devoured forever by the gnawing tooth of that worm which never dies, and by the merciless jaws of the great tormentor who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; and there will be none to deliver, no Saviour to save, to interpose, to plead for you. Even the wrath of the Lamb, who is now willing to save, will be hurled against you. Even the rock of salvation, on which you now refuse to build, will then fall upon you and grind you to powder. Will you not then consider these things, ye who now forget God? Will you still think him altogether such an one as yourselves, and believe your own fancies, rather than his declarations? O do not,

I beseech you, do not, be so mad. Do not my sheep, my flock, do not refuse to listen to the voice of your Shepherd, do not follow the dangerous path, where the bear waits to tear you in pieces. Rather flee to the great Shepherd. He who will then tear, now offers to save you, and place you where you will be safe and happy forever.

SERMON LXVII.

THE SLEEPER AWAKENED.

What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God; if so be God will think upon us, that we perish not. — JONAH 1. 6.

In the preceding verses of this chapter, we are informed, that God gave a commission to the prophet Jonah, to go unto Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, and denounce heavy judgments against its inhabitants, on account of the sins, of which they were guilty. Important and honorable, however, as such a commission from the King of kings ought to have appeared in the eyes of Jonah, he was, for some reason or other, unwilling to undertake it. This unwillingness probably arose, either from a dread of the labors and fatigues which would attend the performance of his duty; from a reluctance to see the heathen enjoying those prophetic warnings and instructions, which had hitherto been exclusively confined to the Jews; or from an apprehension that the Ninevites would repent, and be received into favor; and thus he would not only be considered as a false prophet in foretelling their destruction, but the obstinate impenitency of his own countrymen in disregarding the multiplied warnings of their prophets, would be rendered more odious and inexcusable, by the ready submission and reformation of that idolatrous city. For these, or some other similar reasons, he resolved not to go to Nineveh, and supposing, in common with the rest of his countrymen, that the spirit of prophecy was

confined to the land of Israel, he hoped to escape from its inspiring influences, by flying into a foreign country. But, like all who endeavor to frustrate the designs, evade the commands, or flee from the presence of God, he found his hopes miserably disappointed. He, who maketh the winds his messengers, sent a storm to arrest the fugitive prophet, and bring him back to the path of duty. A mighty tempest arose in the sea, which entirely baffled the seamen's art, and threatened them with immediate shipwreck and death. But while the terrified mariners lightened the ship, and cried every man to his God for deliverance, Jonah, the cause of their distress, lay buried in sleep, ignorant of his danger, and insensible to the storm which roared around him. From this state of slothful security, he was roused to a sense of the horrors of his situation, by the pungent, alarming expostulation in our text: What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise and call upon thy God.

My friends, this address of the shipmaster to the slumbering prophet, is equally applicable to all those of you who are yet in your natural, unregenerate state; for your situation is far more dreadful and alarming than his. Like him you are exposed to the storm of divine wrath, which every moment pursues and threatens to overwhelm you; like him you are asleep and insensible of your danger. To illustrate the resemblance between your situation and his in these two particulars, and to urge you without delay to rouse from your slumbers and call upon God, that you perish not, is my present design.

I. Like the prophet you are exposed to the storm of divine. wrath, which every moment pursues and threatens to overwhelm you.

This, my friends, is a truth, which, however painful it may be for us to declare, and for you to hear, is too important to be concealed, and too plainly taught in the word of God to be either evaded or denied. We are there told, that mankind are by nature children of wrath, having no hope, and without God in the world; that there is no peace to the wicked, but that God is angry with them every day; that his curse is in their house, and that he will rain upon them snares and fire, and a horrible tempest, which shall be the portion of their cup. We are told that they have been unmindful of the Rock that begat them, and forgotten the God of their salvation, and that therefore God

is provoked to jealousy and has kindled a fire in his anger which shall burn even to the lowest hell, where indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, will be rendered to every soul of man that doeth evil.

We are told, that those who will not hearken to the voice of the Lord their God to do all his commandments, shall be cursed in the city and in the field, cursed in their basket and store, cursed when they go out and when they come in. In a word, the wrath of him who is a consuming fire, and the avenging curse of his law, like a tempest fraught with lightnings and death, pursues the sinner through all his hiding places and refuges of lies, hangs even now suspended over his head, and only waits for permission from that mercy which he is abusing, to burst in thunder and sink him in endless despair. These, you will observe, are not the idle phantoms of a distracted brain; they are not the declarations of a fallible mortal, which may be despised with impunity. No, they are the awful declarations of God himself; they are truths which he has revealed for our warning and instruction; they are like so many peals of thunder from Mount Sinai, to drive us for refuge to Mount Zion; and wo be to that man by whom they are neglected, or treated with contempt; for God has assured us, that if any man, when he hears the words of this curse, shall bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace though I walk in the imaginations of my own heart, to add one sin to another, then the Lord will not spare him, but the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses which are written in this book shall be upon him; and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. Do you ask, against whom are all these awful curses, woes, and denunciations levelled? My friends, if you are still in an unconverted state, they are levelled at you. It is you who are children of wrath; it is you who have provoked God to jealousy; it is you whom the curses of his law pursue; it is you with whom he is daily and hourly angry. Do you ask, why he is angry? I answer, he is angry to see rational, immortal, and accountable beings, spending twenty, forty, or sixty years in trifling and sin, serving divers idols, lusts and vanities, and living as if death were an eternal sleep. He is angry to see you forgetting your Maker in childhood, in youth, in manhood, making no returns for all his ben