sun shall never reach its setting! The men that left their homes in peace, return to them no more! Time has run its course! The earth is dissolying! The elements melt, with fervent heat! The thrones are set, and the books opened: and quick and dead are summoned away to judgment! 0 my beloved brethren, Is this the world you cling to? Are these the perishing vanities, that are so dear to you? Think, how near their end! Look on all around you, and read God's curse written upon it; and, surely, it will cure you of your idolatrous attachment to it. Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner

of

persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation, and godliness." (2 Pet. iii. 11.) But, some, perhaps, will say, That day of judgment will never come, in my lifetime. It may be so: but, remember, there is a judgment that is going on, silently indeed, but fearfully, every hour. Were the veil removed, that separates the invisible world from our view, you might behold souls entering it, every moment, from every quarter; and receiving their doom, at the hand of God. And, presently, this must befall you. Death will, soon, overtake you. Perhaps, it may surprise you suddenly and, oh, if it find you in Sodom, if it take you looking back thither,-better were it for you, if you had never been born!

But, let me say, again, If you would profit by the admonition,

2. Seek a deep impression of the infinite mercy of God, in opening to you a way of escape from coming vengeance. If Lot's wife had been duly impressed, either with the terribleness of God's judgments, or with the tenderness of God's mercy to her, in saving her from that dreadful overthrow, she had never looked back to the guilty city. Take warning, from the consequences of her folly. If she escaped not, who slighted temporal mercies, "how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" (Heb. ii. 3.) Her mercies were not small; but, compare them, in any light, with ours, and they shrink into absolute insignificance. An angel came from heaven, and conducted her out of the city, and she was safe. But no angel could save souls. No. Mercy to souls cost God, (so to speak,) all that he had to give. Mercy to souls,-Deliverance from wrath to come, required the sacrifice of his well-beloved Son! and, in the greatness of his compassions, "he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." (Rom. viii. 32.) Now, my brethren, if you would be thoroughly cured of looking back to the world, if you want motives to forsake Sodom, and escape, with all your heart and soul, from the filthy conversation of the wicked, surely you have them here. Can it be, that Jesus has died, to deliver me from this present, evil world," (Gal. i. 4,) and shall I love

"

it still? cleave to it, and hanker after the delights of it, still? No, this remembrance of a dying Saviour, dying, under the wrath of God, for our rescue, kills affection to sin, in the believing soul.

And, then, Reflect, further, on this mercy, as it is distinguishing mercy. This greatly aggravated the sin of that guilty woman. She was one of four only, who found mercy of the Lord, in that day and, yet, she seems not to have had so much as a thought of gratitude! But, when a child of God looks on a "world lying in wickedness," (1 John v. 19,) and determined to go on in it; heedless of threatened judgment, as if it were all a fable: when he thinks how he himself was, once, as they are: he knew nothing, thought nothing, cared nothing, for it, more than others till mercy came, and took him by the hand, and gently prevailed with him to escape from the coming desolation,-O this, (if anything,) quickens him on his way: cuts the ties that bind him to a sinful world. He looks back, indeed; but it is with tears of joy with adoring wonder, and gratitude, at the goodness that has thus separated him from the company of sinners. He is ashamed, that ever he should entertain a thought towards that world from which he is escaped. And, then, he looks forward, and considers what he is escaping to: and, so, he "girds

up

the loins of his mind; he is sober, and hopes to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto him, at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Pet. i. 13.) He lets go the vanities that, before, entangled him, and presses on, to Zion.

God grant, my beloved brethren, this may be our improvement of the gracious admonition we have been considering! that it may make us "diligent to be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless." (2 Pet. iii. 14.)

REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE."

262

SERMON XIII.

SUBMISSION

UNDER GOD'S FATHERLY CHASTENING.

PROVERBS iii. 11, 12.

My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

HOLY Scripture is the book of God for man. All of it is "written for our learning :" is as really addressed by God to us, under the various circumstances which it supposes, as to those to whom it originally came. Solomon, in the words before us, doubtless, meant, in the first instance, to counsel his own son, as a wise and pious father but God, under whose influence he wrote, meant his instruction for a higher purpose. It is his own voice, to his children, in all ages, whom he is disciplining, and training, for the perfect enjoyment of himself. So the apostle