[Alan B. Mac Farlane]

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 on 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