DEUT. XXXII. 35 -THEIR FOOT SHALL SLIDE IN DUE TIME.-
 In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked
 unbelieving Israelites, who were God's visible people, and who
 lived under the means of grace; but who, notwithstanding all
 God's wonderful works towards them, remained (as ver. 28.) void
 of counsel, having no understanding in them. Under all the
 cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous
 fruit; as in the two verses next preceding the text. - The
 expression I have chosen for my text, THEIR FOOT SHALL
 SLIDE IN DUE TIME, seems to imply the following things, relating
 to the punishment and destruction to which these wicked
 Israelites were exposed.

 1. That they were always exposed to DESTRUCTION; as one that
 stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. This
 is implied in the manner of their destruction coming upon them,
 being represented by their foot sliding. The same is expressed,
 Psalm lxxiii. 18. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places;
 thou castedst them down into destruction."

 2. It implies, that they were always exposed to sudden
 unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is
 every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment
 whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he
 falls at once without warning: Which is also expressed in Psalm
 lxxiii. 18, 19. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou
 castedst them down into destruction: How are they brought into
 desolation as in a moment!"

 3. Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall OF
 THEMSELVES, without being thrown down by the hand of
 another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs
 nothing but his own weight to throw him down.

 4. That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall
 now is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said,
 that when that due time, or appointed time comes, THEIR FOOT
 SHALL SLIDE. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined
 by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery
 places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very
 instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such
 slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand
 alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.

 The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is
 this. - "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one
 moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." - By the MERE
 pleasure of God, I mean his SOVEREIGN pleasure, his arbitrary
 will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of
 difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in
 the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the
 preservation of wicked men one moment. - The truth of this
 observation may appear by the following considerations.

 1. There is no want of POWER in God to cast wicked men into
 hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot be strong when God
 rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any
 deliver out of his hands. - He is not only able to cast wicked men
 into hell, but he can most easily do it. Sometimes an earthly
 prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who
 has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong
 by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is
 no fortress that is any defence from the power of God. Though
 hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine
 and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces. They
 are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large
 quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy
 to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth;
 so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing
 hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his
 enemies down to hell. What are we, that we should think to stand
 before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before
 whom the rocks are thrown down?

 2. They DESERVE to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never
 stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his
 power at any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary,
 justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine
 justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom,
 "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" Luke xiii. 7. The
 sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their
 heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God's
 mere will, that holds it back.

 3. They are already under a sentence of CONDEMNATION to
 hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but
 the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of
 righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is
 gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are
 bound over already to hell. John iii. 18. "He that believeth not is
 condemned already." So that every unconverted man properly
 belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John viii. 23.
 "Ye are from beneath:" And thither he is bound; it is the place that
 justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable
 law assign to him.

 4. They are now the objects of that very same ANGER and wrath
 of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell. And the reason
 why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because
 God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them;
 as he is with many miserable creatures now tormented in hell,
 who there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea, God is a
 great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth:
 yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, who
 it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now
 in the flames of hell.

 So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness,
 and does not resent it, that he does not let loose his hand and cut
 them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves,
 though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God bums
 against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is
 prepared, the fire is made ready, the fumace is now hot, ready to
 receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering
 sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its
 mouth under them.

 5. The DEVIL stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as
 his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to
 him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion.
 The scripture represents them as his goods, Luke xi. 12. The
 devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they
 stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their
 prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If
 God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they
 would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is
 gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if
 God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.

 6. There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish
 PRINCIPLES reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out
 into hell fire, if it were not for God's restraints. There is laid in the
 very nature of carnal men, a foundation for the torments of hell.
 There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and
 in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. These
 principles are active and powerful, exceeding violent in their
 nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon
 them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the
 same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in
 the hearts of damned souls, and would beget the same torments
 as they do in them. The souls of the wicked are in scripture
 compared to the troubled sea, Isa. lvii. 20. For the present, God
 restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the
 raging waves of the troubled sea, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou
 come, but no further;" but if God should withdraw that restraining
 power, it would soon carry all before it. Sin is the ruin and misery
 of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it
 without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul
 perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is
 immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked me live
 here, it is like fire pent up by God's restraints, whereas if it were
 let loose, it would set on fire the course of nature; and as the heart
 is now a sink of sin, so if sin was not restrained, it would
 immediately turn the soul into fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and
 brimstone.

 7. It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are
 no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural
 man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way
 he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident,
 and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his
 circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the
 world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on
 the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into
 another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of
 persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and
 inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a
 rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering
 so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are
 not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the
 sharpest sight cannot discem them. God has so many different
 unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and
 sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that
 God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the
 ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at
 any moment. All the means that there are of sinners going out of
 the world, are so in God's hands, and so universally and
 absolutely subject to his power and determination, that it does not
 depend at all the less on the mere will of God, whether sinners
 shall at any moment go to hell, than if means were never made
 use of, or at all concerned in the case.

 8. Natural men's prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or
 the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a
 moment. To this, divine providence and universal experience do
 also bear testimony. There is this clear evidence that men's own
 wisdom is no security to them from death; that if it were otherwise
 we should see some difference between the wise and politic men
 of the world, and others, with regard to their liableness to early
 and unexpected death: but how is it in fact? Eccles. ii. 16. "How
 dieth the wise man? even as the fool."

 9. All wicked men's pains and CONTRIVANCE which they use to
 escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain
 wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. Almost
 every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall
 escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he
 flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or
 what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind
 how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he
 contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They
 hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part
 of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one
 imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than
 others have done. He does not intend to come to that place of
 torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual
 care, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail.

 But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in
 their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and
 wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of
 those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace,
 and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to hell; and it was not
 because they were not as wise as those who are now alive: it was
 not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to
 secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire
 of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and
 when they used to hear about hell, ever to be the subjects of
 misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, "No, I
 never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in
 my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself - I thought my
 scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon
 me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that
 manner; it came as a thief - Death outwitted me: God's wrath was
 too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering
 myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do
 hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then sudden
 destruction came upon me."

 10. God has laid himself under no OBLIGATION, by any promise
 to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly
 has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance
 or preservation from eternal death, but what are contained in the
 covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom
 all the promises are yea and amen. But surely they have no
 interest in the promises of the covenant of grace who are not the
 children of the covenant, who do not believe in any of the
 promises, and have no interest in the Mediator of the covenant.

 So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about
 promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it
 is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in
 religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ,
 God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from
 eternal destruction.

 So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God,
 over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are
 already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his
 anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually
 suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and
 they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that
 anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold
 them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping
 for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain
 lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their
 own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in
 any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any
 security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold
 of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will,
 and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.

 Application
 The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted
 persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case
 of every one of you that are out of Christ. - That world of misery,
 that take of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you.
 There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God;
 there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to
 stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between
 you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of
 God that holds you up.

 You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of
 hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things,
 as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your
 own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But
 indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his hand,
 they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air
 to hold up a person that is suspended in it.

 Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to
 tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and
 if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly
 descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy
 constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best
 contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more
 influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's
 web would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the
 sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one
 moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you;
 the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption,
 not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you
 light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her
 increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your
 wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you
 for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you
 spend your life in the service of God's enemies. God's creatures
 are good, and were made for men to serve God with, and do not
 willingly subserve to any other purpose, and groan when they are
 abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end.
 And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign
 hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. There are the black
 clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of
 the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the
 restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon
 you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his
 rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your
 destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like
 the chaff of the summer threshing floor.

 The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the
 present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and
 higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped,
 the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose.
 It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been
 executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been
 withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing,
 and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are
 constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is
 nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back,
 that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If
 God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would
 immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and
 wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would
 come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were
 ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times
 greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it
 would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

 The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the
 string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the
 bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of
 an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps
 the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.
 Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by
 the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that
 were never bom again, and made new creatures, and raised from
 being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether
 unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God.
 However you may have reformed your life in many things, and
 may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of
 religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is
 nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this
 moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However
 unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and
 by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being
 in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them;
 for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they
 expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and
 safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended
 for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty
 shadows.

 The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a
 spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is
 dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he
 looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the
 fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you
 are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the
 most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him
 infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it
 is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire
 every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not
 go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in
 this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no
 other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell
 since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you
 up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to
 hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his
 pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn
 worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason
 why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

 O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great
 fumace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath,
 that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is
 provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of
 the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames
 of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe
 it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator,
 and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the
 flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have
 done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one
 moment. - And consider here more particularly,

 1. WHOSE wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were
 only the wrath of man, though it were of the most potent prince, it
 would be comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is
 very much dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have
 the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power,
 to be disposed of at their mere will. Prov. xx. 2. "The fear of a king
 is as the roaring of a lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth
 against his own soul." The subject that very much enrages an
 arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that
 human art can invent, or human power can inflict. But the greatest
 earthly potentates in their greatest majesty and strength, and
 when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble, despicable
 worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty
 Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that they can
 do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost
 of their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as
 grasshoppers; they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their
 love and their hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great
 King of kings, is as much more terrible than theirs, as his majesty
 is greater. Luke xii. 4, 5. "And I say unto you, my friends, Be not
 afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that
 they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear him,
 which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say
 unto you, Fear him."

 2. It is the FIERCENESS of his wrath that you are exposed to. We
 often read of the fury of God; as in Isa. lix. 18. "According to their
 deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries." So Isa.
 lxvi. 15. "For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his
 chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his
 rebuke with flames of fire." And in many other places. So, Rev.
 xix. 15, we read of "the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of
 Almighty God." The words are exceeding terrible. If it had only
 been said, "the wrath of God," the words would have implied that
 which is infinitely dreadful: but it is "the fierceness and wrath of
 God." The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! Oh, how
 dreadful that must be! Who can utter or conceive what such
 expressions carry in them! But it is also "the fierceness and wrath
 of ALMIGHTY God." As though there would be a very great
 manifestation of his almighty power in what the fierceness of his
 wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence should be as it were
 enraged, and exerted, as men are wont to exert their strength in
 the fierceness of their wrath. Oh! then, what will be the
 consequence! What will become of the poor worms that shall
 suffer it! Whose hands can be strong? And whose heart can
 endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth
 of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject
 of this!

 Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain in an
 unregenerate state. That God will execute the fierceness of his
 anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God
 beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your
 torment to be so fastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees
 how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an
 infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you, he will not
 forbear the executions of his wrath, or in the least lighten his hand;
 there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay
 his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all
 careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than
 only that you shall NOT SUFFER BEYOND WHAT STRICT
 JUSTICE REQUIRES. Nothing shall be withheld, because it is so
 hard for you to bear. Ezek. viii. 18. "Therefore will I also deal in
 fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though
 they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them."
 Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may
 cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But when
 once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous
 cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown
 away of God, as to any regard to your welfare. God will have no
 other use to put you to, but to suffer misery; you shall be continued
 in being to no other end; for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to
 destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel, but to be
 filled full of wrath. God will be so far from pitying you when you cry
 to him, that it is said he will only "laugh and mock," Prov. i. 25, 26,
 &c.

 How awful are those words, Isa. lxiii. 3, which are the words of the
 great God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them
 in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments,
 and I will stain all my raiment." It is perhaps impossible to
 conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of
 these three things, viz. contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of
 indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from
 pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or
 favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And
 though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of
 omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he
 will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your
 blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments,
 so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will
 have you in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for
 you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the
 streets.

 3. The MISERY you are exposed to is that which God will inflict to
 that end, that he might show what that wrath of Jehovah is. God
 hath had it on his heart to show to angels and men, both how
 excellent his love is, and also how terrible his wrath is.
 Sometimes earthly kings have a mind to show how terrible their
 wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would execute on those
 that would provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and
 haughty monarch of the Chaldean empire, was willing to show his
 wrath when enraged with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego;
 and accordingly gave orders that the burning fiery furnace should
 be heated seven times hotter than it was before; doubtless, it was
 raised to the utmost degree of fierceness that human art could
 raise it. But the great God is also willing to show his wrath, and
 magnify his awful majesty and mighty power in the extreme
 sufferings of his enemies. Rom. ix. 22. "What if God, willing to
 show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with
 much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?"
 And seeing this is his design, and what he has determined, even
 to show how terrible the unrestrained wrath, the fury and
 fierceness of Jehovah is, he will do it to effect. There will be
 something accomplished and brought to pass that will be dreadful
 with a witness. When the great and angry God hath risen up and
 executed his awful vengeance on the poor sinner, and the wretch
 is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of his
 indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to behold
 that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it. Isa.
 xxxiii. 12-14. "And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as
 thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire. Hear ye that are far off,
 what I have done; and ye that are near, acknowledge my might.
 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the
 hypocrites," &c.

 Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you
 continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of
 the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable
 strength of your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence
 of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when
 you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of
 heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle, that they
 may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is; and
 when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great
 power and majesty. Isa. lxvi. 23, 24. "And it shall come to pass,
 that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to
 another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.
 And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men
 that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die,
 neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring
 unto all flesh."

 4. It is EVERLASTING wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this
 fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must
 suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite
 horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for
 ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your
 thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of
 ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at
 all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages,
 millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this
 almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done,
 when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this
 manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So
 that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express
 what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can
 possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation
 of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For "who knows the
 power of God's anger?"

 How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in the
 danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the
 dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been
 bom again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they
 may otherwise be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you be
 young or old! There is reason to think, that there are many in this
 congregation now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the
 subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We know not who they
 are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. It
 may be they are now at ease, and hear all these things without
 much disturbance, and are now flattering themselves that they are
 not the persons, promising themselves that they shall escape. If
 we knew that there was one person, and but one, in the whole
 congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an
 awful thing would it be to think of! If we knew who it was, what an
 awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might all the
 rest of the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over
 him! But, alas! instead of one, how many is it likely will remember
 this discourse in hell? And it would be a wonder, if some that are
 now present should not be in hell in a very short time, even before
 this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons, that
 now sit here, in some seats of this meeting-house, in health, quiet
 and secure, should be there before tomorrow morning. Those of
 you that finally continue in a natural condition, that shall keep out
 of hell longest will be there in a little time! your damnation does
 not slumber; it will come swiftly, and, in all probability, very
 suddenly upon many of you. You have reason to wonder that you
 are not already in hell. It is doubtless the case of some whom you
 have seen and known, that never deserved hell more than you,
 and that heretofore appeared as likely to have been now alive as
 you. Their case is past all hope; they are crying in extreme misery
 and perfect despair; but here you are in the land of the living and
 in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation.
 What would not those poor damned hopeless souls give for one
 day's opportunity such as you now enjoy!

 And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein
 Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in
 calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein
 many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God.
 Many are daily coming from the east, west, north and south; many
 that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are
 in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him
 who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own
 blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to
 be left behind at such a day! To see so many others feasting,
 while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and
 singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow
 of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one
 moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as
 the souls of the people at Suffield, where they are flocking from
 day to day to Christ?

 Are there not many here who have lived long in the world, and are
 not to this day born again? and so are aliens from the
 commonwealth of Israel, and have done nothing ever since they
 have lived, but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? Oh,
 sirs, your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous.
 Your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Do you not
 see how generaity persons of your years are passed over and
 left, in the present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of
 God's mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and awake
 thoroughly out of sleep. You cannot bear the fierceness and wrath
 of the infinite God. - And you, young men, and young women, will
 you neglect this precious season which you now enjoy, when so
 many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities, and
 flocking to Christ? You especially have now an extraordinary
 opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as with
 those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and
 are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.
 - And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that
 you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God,
 who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be
 content to be the children of the devil, when so many other
 children in the land are converted, and are become the holy and
 happy children of the King of kings?

 And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit
 of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or
 young people, or little children, now hearken to the loud calls of
 God's word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord, a
 day of such great favour to some, will doubtless be a day of as
 remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their
 guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their
 souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons
 being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God
 seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the
 land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall
 be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be
 as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in
 the apostles' days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be
 blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse
 this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see
 such a season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that
 you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now
 undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe
 is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that
 every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down
 and cast into the fire.

 Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly
 from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now
 undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let
 every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and escape for your lives, look
 not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."