than on the believer. That
the danger of the believer is so extreme, that no greater danger can
possibly be. 1st. What are the denunciations of God's vengeance! 'There
are' (says the holy Revelation, xiv. 10,) 'who shall drink of the wine
of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of
his indignation, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, and the
smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no
rest day or night.' There's 'glad tidings of great joy' for you! The
Christian may get, over the terror of this denunciation by the selfish
and ungenerous chuckle of his 'Ah! well, these were very wicked people,
and must have deserved their doom; it need not alarm us: it doesn't
apply to us.' But good-hearted men would rather say, 'It does apply.
We cannot be indifferent to the misery of our fellow-creatures. The
self-same Heaven that frowns on them, looks lowering upon us.' And who
were they? and what was their offence? Was it Atheism! was it Deism'
was it Infidelity? No! It was for church and chapel-going; it was for
adoring, believing, and worshipping. They worshipped the beast: I know
not what beast they worshipped; but I know that if you go into any of
our churches and chapels at this day, you will find them worshipping the
Lamb; and if worshipping a lamb be not most suspiciously like worshiping
a beast, you may keep the color in your cheeks, while mine are blanched
with fear. The unbeliever only can be absolutely safe from this danger.
He only who has no religion at all, is sure not to be of the wrong
religion. He who worships neither God nor Devil, is sure not to mistake
one of those gentlemen for the other. But will it be pretended, that
these are only metaphors of speech, that the thing said is not the
thing that's meant? Why, then, they are very ugly metaphors. And what is
saying that which you don't mean, and meaning the contrary to what you
say, but lying? And what worse can become of the Infidel, who makes it
the rule of his life 'to hear and speak the plain and simple truth,'
than of the Christian, whose religion itself is a system of metaphors
and allegories, of double meanings, of quirk and quiddities in dread
defiance of the text that warns him, that 'All liars shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone?' Rev. xxi. 8.

"Is it a parable that a man may merely entertain his imagination withal,
and think no more on't,--though not a