Future Judgment. will accept our tender charities to his members, and our fellow-creatures; will accept our works of faith and labours of love, as if we had been happy enough to have had an opportunity of performing them, even to his own person! and, publishing the grateful tidings to all around, he will allow us to partake of his triumph, and to enter, amid his returning saints and angels, those regions of glory and peace, where we shall live with him, and enjoy everlasting happiness. But we will refer to our next chapter what we have to add respecting the peculiar blessedness of that state, and the exquisite misery reserved for those who know not God, and who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who will be punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance; and when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them who believe, in that day.* A passage of scripture which cannot fail greatly to influence * 2 Tim, i. 7. Future Judgment. those who give it that attention which its importance deserves: for who can think of everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power, without an anxious desire to avoid that destruction, the very terror of which chills the heart! Prostrate, my contrite heart I bend: LORD ROSCOM MON, Punishment. CHAPTER XX. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. MATT. XXV. 26. ETERNAL punishment! Eternal life! What awful words! What solemn sanctions! Who can read them and be unconcerned? Who can' think of them, and be indifferent to the momentous truths they impart ?-Were our existence to terminate with the present passing scene, indulgence might be laudable, and every self-gratification right. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die; let us crown ourselves with rose-buds; let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness;" would then be the language of reason and truth-But Eternity before us-consummately blessed, or consummately Future Punishment. wretched ;-and death every moment shaking his dart triumphantly over us, preparing to strike once and strike no more;-can it be possible that any rational being should remain unsolicitous, and neglect to prepare for the important realities of Eternity, while chasing with unremitted ardour, the fugitive vanities of Time! Yet, alas! many beings, proud of their faculties, and boasting their superior reason-are found, are daily found, immersed in sin, and rivetted to the world! heedless of God, of themselves, and immortality; uninfluenced by every motive of gratitude, unmoved by every argument of interest to obey the voice of Religion and Truth, and to secure the eternal salvation of their souls! Oh that they would indulge one serious reflection; that they would condescend awhile to meditate, with us, on the miserable woe reserved for those who forget their God-on the inexpressible comforts which they shall reap in joy who love and serve him! Think then, my fellow-creatures, oh, think of that awful day of which we spoke in the preceding chapter, and imagine, if you can, the horror which must seize the souls of those who hear the Hell. dreadful sentence, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!-driven from the presence of God, which is itself complete and perfect joy; driven from the habitations of the blessed, where songs of gladness are heard continually; driven from the society of those best-beloved friends, whose kind remonstrances they would not hear on earth, and now-ah! fatal separation-now must never, never more hear or behold! and driven thenceaggravating circumstance! even by the condemnation of that Lord of Love, who, desirous to bless and to save, freely shed even his own blood, and as freely would have given life, had they but asked it! And were not this, even only this expulsion from God, from Christ, from Heaven-of itself a hell sufficient! Yet what horrors remain behind? They shall be driven into the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, whose actual and insufferable tortures shall aggravate the mind's inward horror.-Oh, who can dwell with everlasting burnings! yet where, where shall one drop of water be found to cool the parched tongues? who can dwell where devils and condemned souls shall mix their mutual and insulting taunts and |