Let us borrow the striking imagery in the text, and apply it to ourselves. Let each individual fancy himself represented, as a mortal and a sinner, in the person of the king of Babylon, before his doom was fixed, and his life hung in suspense. Let him suppose himself,—his principles and pretensions,—his heart and life,—put into the balance. The scriptures of the Old and New Testament, in perfect coincidence with each other, are the two sacred even-balanced _scales_, by which his whole self is to be weighed. As the decalogue is the great standard of moral rectitude, and the gospel is the test of evangelical principles; I hope it will not be any straining of the metaphor, to consider the _two tables of the law_, and the _requisitions of the gospel_, as the just _weights_, by which the pretensions of the pharisee and the soaring professor are to be examined; since we are commanded to bring every thing to the test of “the law and the testimony.” This is the more requisite, because the _essential truth_ of God is the _beam_, from whence the two scales of scripture are suspended, and by which they are made to connect in perfect harmony. Let us consider the hand of infinite _justice_ as holding the balance, weighing its contents, and determining the value. And let every sinner under heaven fancy himself thus subjected to the examination of the Most High God, and his state to be determined by his just and unalterable judgment; while the fate of his never-dying soul is to be fixed for ever by the issue. It is in vain to attempt either to supersede or elude this scrutiny. For, it is carrying on, every moment, though by an invisible process; death is now hovering round the head of every one of us, and only waits for the divine commission to take out of the scale what God hath weighed in it, and to turn over the sinner to that tribunal, which retributive justice shall one day erect. In detecting the fallacious hopes and specious principles by which mankind are deceived and destroyed, it is necessary that we weigh in the balance of the sanctuary, all _human righteousness_, all the _possessions of earth_, and all the _pleasures of sense_. These are the three principal sources, from whence men, in general, are labouring to derive happiness. And if I can only convince them that every one of these springs is dry, and that happiness floweth in a pure and perennial stream from a different fountain; much may be done towards bringing them to the enjoyment of what they have hitherto pursued, with fruitless search, in objects calculated rather to ensure misery, than procure happiness.