But, brethren, unhumbled, unenlightened, unsanctified by the Spirit of Christ, reflect upon your condition and prospects! You may resist the authority of man, and may escape for a season the penalties incurred by it; but can you resist with similar impunity the AUTHORITY OF GOD? Can your hands be strong, or your hearts endure in the day when he shall deal with you? No! "Be not deceived, God is not mocked."[18] If you are not now humbled under the sceptre of his grace, you will, ere long, be crushed by the rod of his power. If you are not now brought in the humility of faith to the cross of Jesus, and there taught by the renewing of your minds, that the yoke of his commandments is easy, and the burden of them light, when he comes, as he will quickly, "to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe;"[19] but "taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not his Gospel;"[19] you will be "punished with everlasting destruction from his presence, and from the glory of his power."[19]--"Turn ye, turn ye, then at his reproof, for why will ye die?" Rest not in an empty profession of the Gospel, that does not bring you into submission to its precepts. Get, while the means are afforded you, a _practical_ knowledge of its truth. Receive _Christ_, as He is continually offered to you in the Gospel,--a Prophet to teach, a Priest to atone for you,--a King to reign over, and to govern you. And, oh! if you are once brought to such a reception of Christ as this; vain will be the efforts of evil designing men to seduce you from the submission due, either "to the King," whom God's providence has set over you as "supreme," or "to the governors" that are "sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and the praise of them that do well." If Christ rules "in your heart by faith," you will certainly be ready, _for His sake_, to tread the same path that Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs have trodden before you. You will feel with St. Paul, that "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil"--that they "bear not the sword in vain"--that they are "the ministers of God to you for good"--"avengers to execute wrath upon every soul that doeth evil."[20] You will be ready, in a word, as well in _civil_, as in spiritual matters, "to obey them that have the rule over you, and to submit yourselves."[21]