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fiving God, than into the paws of bears or lions, yea furies or devils; God himself will be thy tormentor; thy destruction shall come from the prefence of the Lord, 2 Tbef: i. 9. “ Tophet is “deep and large, and the wrath of the Lord, like • a river of brimstone, doth kindle it,". Ifa. xxx. “33. If God be against thee who shall be for " thee; If one man sin against another, the judge “ Thall judge him; but if a man fin against the “ Lord, who shall intreat for him ?” Sam. ii.

15 " Thou, even thou art to be feared ; and who “ shall stand in thy fight when once thou art “angry?". P/alm Ixxvi. 7. • Who is that God “ that shall deliver you out of his hands ?” Dan.

Can Mammon? “ Riches profit not in “ the day of wrath ?” Prov. xi. 4. Can kings or warriors ? No: “ They shall cry to the mountains “ and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from " the face of him that fitteth on the throne, and « from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day “ of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to os ftand?" Rev. vi. 15. 17:

Sinner! methinks this should go like a dagger to thy heart,, to know that God is thine enemy : O, whither wilt thou go? Were wilt thou shelter thee? There is no hope for thee, unless thou lay down thy weapons, and sue out thy pardon, and get Christ to stand thy friend, and make thy peace: If it were not for this, thou mightest go into some howling wilderness, and there pine in forrow, and run mad for anguish of heart and horrible despair : But in Chrift there is a possibility of mercy for thee ; yea, a proffer of mercy to thee, that thou mayest have God more for thee, than he is now againit thee; but if thou wilt not forsake thy sins,

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nor turn thoroughly and to some purpose to God, by a sound conversion, the wrath of God abideth on thee, and he proclaimeth himself to be against thee, as in the prophet Ezekiel, chap. v. 8. “Therefore thus faith the Lord God,

Behold, I, even I am against thee."

I. “His face is against thee,” Psalm xxxiv. 16. The face of the Lord is againft them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them.” Wo unto them whom God shall set his face against. When he did but look on the host of the Egyptians, how terrible was the consequence! Ezek. xiv. 8. “I will set my face against that man, and “ will make him a sign and a proverb, and will cut “ him off from the midst of my people, and you 6. shall know that I am the Lord.”

Il. “ His heart is against thee.” He hateth all the workers of iniquity; man, doth not thy heart tremble to think of thy being an object of God's hatred ? Jir. xv. I. « Though Moles and Samuel “ stood before me, yet my mind could not be “ towards this people; cast them out of my fight.” Zech: xi. 8. “My foul lothed them, and their souls also abhorred me.

III. “ His hand is against thee,” i Sam, xij. 14, 15. All his attributes are against thee.

First, His juftice is like a flaming sword unTheathed against thee: “If I whet my glittering “ sword, and my hand take hold on judgement, I “ will render vengeance to mine adversaries, and

will reward them that hate me: I will make mine “ arrows drunk with blood,” Deut. xxxii. 40.41.

So exact is Justice, that it will by no means clear the guilty, Exod. xxxiv. 7. God will not discharge thee, he will not hold thee guiltless,'

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Exod. xx. 7.; but will require the whole debt in person of thee; unless thou canst make a scriptureclaim to Christ, and his fatisfiction. When the enlightened finner looks on Justice, and sees the balance in wriich he is to be weighed, and the {word by which he must be executed, he feels an earthquake in his breaft: But Satan keeps this out of fight, and persuades the foul (while he can) that the Lord is all made up of mercy, and so lulls it afleep in fin. Divine Justice is very strict, it must have satisfaction to the utmost farthing, it denounceth “indignation and wrath, tribulation and

anguih, to every soul that doeth evil,” Rom. ii. 8, 9. “ It curseth every one that continueth not “ in every thing that is written in the law, to do “it,” Gal. iii. 10. The justice of God to the unpardoned finner, that hath a sense of his misery, is more terrible than the fight of the bailiff or creditor to the bankrupt debtor, or than the fight of the judge and bench to the robber, or of the irons and gibbet to the guilty murderer. When Justice fits upon life and death, O what a dreadful work doth it make with the wretched finner! “ Bind' “ him hand and foot, cast him into utter darkness; " there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, Matt. xxii. 13

“ Depart from me, ye cursed, “ into everlalting fire,' Matt. xxv. 41. This is

,. the terrible sentence that Juftice pronounceth, Why finner, by this severe justice muft thou be tried! And, as God liveth, this killing sentence shalt thou bear, unless thou repent and be con. verted. Secondly, “The holiness of God is full of anti

« pathy against thee," Psalm v. 4, 5. He is nos

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only angry with thee (io he may be with

his own children) but he hath a fixed, rooted, habitual dis. pleasure against thee, “ He lothes thee," Zech. xi. 8. And what is done by thee, though in subftance commanded by him, Isa. i. 14. Mal. i. 10. God's nature is infinitely contrary to fin, and fo he cannot but hate a finner out of Christ.

O, what misery is this, to be out of the favour, yea, under the hatred of God! Ecclef. v. 6, Hof. ix. 15.; that God who can as easily lay afide his nature, and cease to be God, as to be contrary to thee, and deteft thee, except thou be changed and renewed by grace. O finner! how darest thou to think of the bright and radiant son of purity, of the beauties, the glory of holiness that is in God! “ The stars are not pure in his fight,” Job xxv. 5. "He humbles himself to behold things that are “ done in heaven," Psalm cxii. 6. O those light and sparkling eyes of his! What do they spy in thee? And thou haft no interest in Chrift neither, that he should plead for thee. Methinks he should hear thee crying out (aftonished) with the Bethfhemites, " Who fhall ftand before this Lord God!" 1 Sam. vi. 20.

i Thirdly, "The power of God is mounted like “a mighty cannon against thee.” The glory of God's power is to be displayed in the wonderful confufion and destruction of them that obey not the gospel, 2 Thell. 1.8,9. He will make his power

known in them” Rom. ix. 22. How mightily he can torment them, for this end he raised them up “ that he may make his power known.Rom. ix. 17. Oman! Art thou able to make thy part good with thy Makeri No more than a fiily reed against the cedars

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of God, or a little cock-boat against the tumbling ocean, or the childrens bubbles against the blustering winds. Sinner, the power of God's anger is against thee, Psalm xc. 11. ; and power and auger together make fearsul work; it were better thou hadít all the world in arms against thee, than to have the power of God against thee. There is no escaping his hands, no breaking his prison. “The thunder “ of his power who can understand ?” Job xxvi.

Unhappy man that shall understand it by feeling it! “ If he will contend with him, he can“ not answer him one of a thousand. He is wise “in heart, and mighty in strength : who hath “ hardened himself against him and prospered ! " Which removeth the mountains, and they know

it not; which overturneth them in his anger ; “ which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the

pillars thereof tremble; which commandeth the “ fun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars ? “ Behold he taketh away, who can hinder him? « Who will say unto him, What doeit thou! If 6. God will not withdraw his

anger,

the proud “ helpers do stoop under him," fob ix. 5. &c. And art thou 'a fit match for such an antagonist? “O! consider this, you that forget God, left he “ tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver “you,Pfal. 1. 22. Submit to mercy, let 'not dust and stubble stand out against the Almighty ; fet net briers and thorns against him in battle, left he go through them, and consume them together ; but lay hold on his frength, that you may

is make “ peace with him," lja. xxvii. 4, 5. « Wo unto os him that striveth with his Maker," l/a. xlv. g.

Fourilly, “ The wisdom of God is set to rain as thee."

He " hath ordained his arrows, and

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