The prospect of meeting the Lord God Almighty, constitutes the bitterest drug in the cup of the wicked, and is the most tormenting thought, in the view of their dissolution, that racks them on the verge of eternity. How would they court death, and solicit his arrival; were it not, that _after death is the judgment_! How gladly would they meet and embrace the messenger, could they but be excused from meeting that God; the light of whose countenance makes heaven, but in whose frown, is hell! From a reluctance to do this, arise dismal apprehensions, dreadful impatience, torturing doubts, and a tormenting anxiety to live. All which conflict of raging and tumultuous passions, in a soul, at the article of dissolution, and upon the point of meeting God, is most beautifully described in the following striking imagery of the poet: “In that dread moment, how the frantic soul Raves round the walls of her clay tenement! Runs to each avenue; and shrieks for help! But shrieks in vain! How wishfully she looks On all she’s leaving, now no longer her’s! A little longer, yet a little longer, O might she stay, to wash away her crimes, And fit her for her passage! Mournful sight! Her very eyes weep blood; and every groan She heaves, is big with horror! But the Foe, Like a staunch murd’rer, steady to his purpose, Pursues her close through ev’ry lane of life, Nor misses once the track; but presses on; Till forced at last to the tremendous verge, At once she sinks,”—sinks into the bottomless and gloomy gulf of everlasting darkness and death! Awful plunge! Dreadful exit! What heart can conceive, or tongue describe, the state of an immortal soul, trembling on the brink of fate; arrested by death; the prisoner of guilt and fear; reluctant to depart, yet viewing dissolution inevitable; looking forward to eternity with painful dread, and backward, upon the world, with sorrow and regret; unwilling to go, yet unable to stay; soliciting a reprieve for a year, another month only, or even a week, but denied one moment’s delay; putting off in imagination or in wish, what is present to sense; quitting the world, and bidding an everlasting farewell to all its enjoyments, with nothing in prospect to compensate for the loss; at length, forced to launch, though sure of shipwreck; and nothing in view, but a black abyss, a forfeited heaven, and an angry God! This is the end that awaits the wicked. This is the fate of those who die without Christ! Oh that the consideration might awaken the fears of the careless, and prompt the people of God, _to give diligence to make their calling and election sure_! 2 Pet. i. 10. And yet this is not all. For,