should walk in the darkness which you love, and be separated from your
Saviour and His people, whom you dislike, and be permitted "to eat of
the fruit of your _own_ way, and be filled with your own devices?"
On "the great and terrible day of the Lord," you will, alas! be
"_convinced_" that the sentence pronounced upon you by the Saviour, of
"Depart from me!" is but an echo of what your own heart is now saying
to Him! Hear, I beseech you, the words of warning which God now
addresses to you, in order that you may, in time, "flee from the wrath
to come!" "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation,
which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law
died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer
punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden
under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant,
wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite
unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance
belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The
Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God," (Heb. x. 26-31.)

But let us further inquire, What shall be its results with reference
to the righteous?

1. The righteous will then fully understand the excellence of Christ's
government over themselves.

How profoundly mysterious, as yet, to ourselves, is our own individual
history! If we attempt to gather up the past, and to trace the whole
way along which we have journeyed, with the innumerable windings of