midst of this sanctuary, and that you are gathered
here only to wait for him, and as trembling criminals on whom is to
be pronounced either a sentence of grace or a decree of eternal
death. For, vainly do you flatter yourselves; you will die such in
character as you are to-day. All those impulses toward change with
which you amuse yourselves, you will amuse yourselves with them
down to the bed of death. Such is the experience of all
generations. The only thing new you will then find in yourselves
will be, perhaps, a reckoning a trifle larger than that which you
would to-day have to render; and according to what you would be if
you were this moment to be judged, you may almost determine what
will befall you at the termination of your life.

Now I ask you, and I ask it smitten with terror, not separating in
this matter my lot from yours, and putting myself into the same
frame of mind into which I desire you to come,--I ask you, then, If
Jesus Christ were to appear in this sanctuary, in the midst of this
assembly, the most illustrious in the world, to pass judgment on
us, to draw the dread line of distinction between the goats and the
sheep, do you believe that the majority of all of us who are here
would be set on his right hand? Do you believe that things would
even be equal? Nay, do you believe there would be found so many as
the ten righteous men whom anciently the Lord could not find in
five whole cities? I put the question to you, but you know not; I
know not myself. Thou only, O my God, knowest those that belong to
thee! But if we know not those who belong to him, at least we know
that sinners do not belong to him. Now, of what classes of persons
do the professing Christians in this assembly consist? Titles and
dignities must be counted for naught; of these you shall be
stripped before Jesus Christ. Who make up this assembly? Sinners,
in great number, who do not wish to be converted; in still greater
number, sinners who would like it, but who put off their
conversion; many others who would be converted, only to relapse
into sin; finally, a multitude who think they have no need of
conversion. You have thus made up the company of the reprobate. Cut
off these four classes of sinners from this sacred assembly, for
they will be cut off from it at th