How will ye escape? Will ye call to the mountains to fall on you, the rocks to cover you? Alas, the mountains themselves, the rocks, the earth, the heavens, are just ready to flee away! Can ye prevent the sentence? Wherewith? With all the substance of thy house, with thousands of gold and silver? Blind wretch! Thou camest naked from thy mother’s womb, and more naked into eternity. Hear the Lord, the Judge! _Come ye blessed of my Father! inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world._ Joyful sound! How widely different from that voice, which ♦echoes through the expanse of heaven, _Depart, ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels_! And who is he, that can prevent or retard the full execution of either sentence? Vain hope! Lo, hell _is moved from beneath_, to receive those who are ripe for destruction! And the _everlasting doors lift up their heads_, that the heirs of glory may come in! 5. _What manner of persons_ then _ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness_? We know it cannot be long, before the Lord will descend with the _voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God_; when every one of us shall appear before him, and _give account of his own works. Wherefore, beloved_, seeing ye _look for these things_, seeing ye know, He will come and will not tarry, _be diligent that ye may be found of him, in peace, without spot and blameless_. Why should ye not? Why should one of you be found, on the left hand, at his appearing? He _willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to_ repentance; by repentance to faith in a bleeding Lord; by faith to spotless love, to the full image of God renewed in the heart, and producing all holiness of conversation. Can you doubt of this, when you remember, the Judge of all, is likewise _the Saviour of all_? Hath he not bought you with his own blood, that ye might _not perish, but have everlasting life_? O make proof of his mercy rather than his justice! Of his love rather than the thunder of his power! _He is not far from every one of us_: and he is now come, _not to condemn, but to save the world_. He standeth in the midst! Sinner doth he not now, even now knock at the door of thy heart? O that thou mayst know, at least _in this thy day_, the things that belong unto thy peace! O that ye may now give yourselves to him who _gave himself for you_, in humble faith, in holy, active, patient love! So shall ye rejoice with exceeding joy _in his day_, when he cometh in the clouds of heaven. SERMON XVI. THE MEANS OF GRACE. MALACHI iii. 7. _Ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them._