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rious appearances of the Supreme Judge; the solemn state of his majestic person; the splendid pomp of his magnificent and vastly numerous retinue; the obsequious throng of glorious celestial creatures, doing homage to their eternal King; the swift flight of his royal guards, sent forth into the four winds to gather the elect, and covering the face of the heavens with their spreading wings; the universal silent attention of all to that loud sounding trumpet that shakes the pillars of the world, pierces the inward caverns of the earth, and resounds from every part of the encircling heavens; the many myriads of joyful expectants arising, changing, putting on glory, taking wings and contending upwards, to join themselves to the triumphant heavenly host; the judgment seat; the books opened; the frightful amazed looks of surprised wretches; the equal administration of the final judgment; the abjudication of all to their eternal states; the heavens rolled up as a scroll; the earth and all things therein consumed and burnt up.

CONSCIENCE.

THAT men do things against their conscience, is no otherwise than as they do things against their reason; but a man may as well cease to be a man, as to be wholly without conscience. For the drunkard will be sober, and his conscience will be awake next morning: this is a perpetual pulse, and, though it may be interrupted, yet if the man be alive, it will beat before he dies; and so long as we believe a God, so long our conscience will at least teach us, if it does not also

smite us. But as God sometimes lets a man go on in sin, and does not punish him, so does conscience; but in this case, unless the man be smitten and awakened before he dies, both God and the conscience reserve their wrath to be inflicted in hell. It is one and the same thing, God's wrath, and an evil guilty conscience; for by the same hand by which God gives his law, by the same he punishes them that transgress the law. God gave the old law by the ministry of angels, and when the people broke it, he sent evil angels among them. Now God gives us a law in our consciences, and there he hath established the penalty. This is the worm that never dies; let it be trod upon ever so much here, it will turn again. It cannot die here, and it shall be alive for ever.

A GOOD CONSCIENCE THE GREATEST

COMFORT.

No bed so soft, no flowers so sweet, so florid, and delicious, as a good conscience, in which springs all that is delectable, all that may sustain and recreate our spirits. I am pleased in nothing so much as in the remembrances and conscience of my duty, said Cicero. Upon this pillow, and on this bed, Christ slept soundly in a storm; and Peter in prison so fast, that the brightness of an angel could not awake him, or make him rise up without a blow on his side. This refreshed the sorrows of Hezekiah when he was smitten with the plague, and not only brought pleasure for what was past, and so doubled the good of it, but it also added something to the number of his years.

And this made Paul and Silas sing in prison, and in an earthquake; and that I may sum up all the good things in this world, I borrow the expression of St. Bernard,-It is here a perpetual comfort, it will be hereafter an eternal crown.

THE NECESSITY OF A MEDIATOR.

THE God of the Christians is a God who makes the soul perceive that he is its only good; that its only rest is in him; that it can have no joy but in his love; and at the same time causes it to abhor those obstacles which hinder and withhold it from loving him with all its strength. Self-love and concupiscence which do this are insupportable to it. God makes it feel that there is this self-love deeply rooted within it, and that He alone can remove it. This it is to know God as a Christian. But, to know him in this manner, we must at the same time know our own misery and unworthiness, and the need we have of a Mediator, in order to draw nigh to God, and unite ourselves to him. We must never separate these truths, because either by itself is not only unprofitable but hurtful. The knowledge of God, without the knowledge of our own misery, produces pride. The knowledge of our own misery, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ, produces despair. But the knowledge of Jesus Christ exempts us both from pride and despair; because in him we see God, our own misery, and the only way of recovery from it.

We may know God without knowing our own miseries, or our own miseries without knowing God; or we may know both, without knowing

the means of deliverance from the miseries

which oppress us. But we cannot know Jesus Christ, without at the same time knowing God, our own miseries, and the remedy for them; because Jesus Christ is not only God, but he is God the healer of our miseries.

COVENANT OF GRACE.

Ir any thing ought to be accounted worthy of the most attentive consideration, it is indeed the covenant of grace. Here a way is shown unto a better paradise than the earthly, and to a more certain and a more stable happiness than that from which Adam fell. Here new hopes shine upon ruined mortals, which by so much ought the more to be acceptable, by how much it came more unexpected. Here conditions are offered, to which eternal life is annexed; conditions not again by us to be performed, which would cause the mind to despond; but by Him who departed not this life before he had truly said, "It is finished."

THE GOSPEL.

The word gospel signifies good tidings; and the message which the gospel contains is indeed fraught with the most cheering intelligence. It does not merely communicate news from a distant country, and concerning a people with whom we are little connected. It contains tidings of great joy, which respect ourselves. It does not rehearse the civil and political state of the dif

ferent nations of the earth, or inform us of new and better modes of conducting trade and government. It does not tell us of mountains unopened, where mines of treasure are to be found; or of regions unexplored, from which new luxuries may be imported. Its contents are infinitely more joyful and excellent. It describes to us the policy and the government of Emanuel's realm; and unfolds the treasures and delights which are the heritage of its subjects. It discovers to us at once the cause and the remedy of all our evils. It reveals whence and how we may obtain peace of mind on earth, and immortal felicity in heaven. If our share of worldly goods be little, it informs us how to make that little a treasure to ourselves; if much, how to render our superabundance a blessing to others. It unfolds the grand secret, how to be happy in every situation, to rejoice in afflictions, to smile beneath the gray hairs of age and to descend, with firm step and undaunted heart, to the chambers of death.

The Gospel is an object of importance to mankind. Unto men perishing in sin and misery, ths grace of God, or the doctrine of God our Saviour, is most interesting. Salvation to them is the one thing most needful; and the grace of God which brings the report of it to their ears, displays the glory of it before their eyes, and sets the blessings of it within reach of their hands, must be to them unspeakable and universally interesting. You who have believed the report, and beheld the glory, and received the blessings, are happy beyond expression; and bound, by every consideration, to esteem, and improve, and commend the glorious gospel, by which your

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