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6. Sodom is a city appointed to swift and sudden destruction. The destruction is not only certain and inevitable, and infinitely dreadful, but it will come speedily. "Their judg 'ment lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not ;" 2 Pet. ii. 3. And so Deut. xxxii. 35. "The day of their ca

shall come upon them

lamity is at hand, and the things that make haste." The storm of wrath, the black clouds of divine vengeance even now every moment hang over them, just ready to break forth and come down in a dreadful manner upon them. God hath already whet his sword, and bent his bow, and made ready his arrow on the string, Psalm vii. 12. There fore we should make haste, and not look behind us. For if we linger and stop to look back, and flee not for our lives, there is great danger that we shall be involved in the common ruin.

The destruction of Sodom is not only swift, but will come suddenly and unexpectedly. It seems to have been a fair morning in Sodom on the morning that it was destroyed. There is notice taken of the time when the sun rose that morning, Gen. xix. 23. It seems that there were no clouds to be seen, no appearance of any storm at all, much less a storm of fire and brimstone. The inhabitants of Sodom expected no such thing; even when Lot told his sons in law of it, they would not believe it; Gen. xix. 14. They were making merry; their hearts were at ease, they thought nothing of such a calamity at hand. But it came at once, as travail upon a woman with child, and there was no escape; as it is observed in the context, v. 28, 29. "They did eat, they drank; they bought, they sold; they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and detroyed them all."

So it is with wicked men; Psalm lxxiii. 19. "How are they brought into desolation in a moment; they are utterly consumed with terrors." If therefore we linger and look back, we may be suddenly overtaken and seized with destruction.

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7. There is nothing in Sodom that is worth looking back upon. All the enjoyments of Sodom will soon perish in the common destruction, all will be burnt up. And surely it is not worth the while to look back on things that are perishing and consuming in the flames, as it is with all the enjoyments of sin; they are all appointed to the fire. Therefore it is foolish for any who are flecing out of Sodom to hanker any more after them; for when they are burnt up, what good can they do? And is it worth the while for us to return back for the sake of a moment's enjoyment of them, before they are burnt, and so expose ourselves to be burnt up with them?

Lot's wife looked back, because she remembered the pleasant things that she left in Sodom. She hated to leave them; she hankered after them; she could not but look back with a wishful eye upon the city, where she had lived in such ease and pleasure. Sodom was a place of great outward plenty; they ate the fat, and drank the sweet. The soil where Sodom was built was exceedingly fruitful; it is said to be as the garden of God, Gen. xii. 10. And fulness of bread was oneof the sins of the place, Ezek. xvi. 49.

Here Lot and his wife lived plentifully; and it was a place where the inhabitants wallowed in carnal pleasures and delights. But however much it abounded in these things, what were they worth now, when the city was burning? Lot's wife was very foolish in lingering in her escape, for the sake of things which were all on fire. So the enjoyments, the profits, and pleasures of sin, have the wrath and curse of God on them: Brimstone is scattered on them: Hellfire is ready to kindle on them. It is not therefore worth while for any person to look back after such things.

8. We are warned by messengers sent to us from God to make haste in our flight from Sodom, and not to look behind us, God sends to us his ministers, the angels of the churches, on this grand errand, as he sent the angels to warn Lot and his wife to flee for their lives, and to say and do as we have account in Gen. xix. 15, 16. If we delay or look back, now that we have had such fair warning, we shall be exceedingly, inexcusable and monstrously foolish,

APPLICATION.

The use that I would make of this doctrine is, to warn those who are in a natural condition to flee out of it, and by no means to look back. While you are out of Christ, you are in Sodom. The whole history of the destruction of Sodom, with all its circumstances, seems to be inserted in the scriptures for our warning, and is set forth for an example, as the Apos tle Jude says. It, in a lively manner, typifies the case of natur al men, the destruction of those that continue in a natural state and the manner of their escape who flee to Christ. The Psalmist, when speaking of the appointed punishment of ungodly men, seems evidently to refer to the destruction of Sodom, in Psalm xi. 6. "Upon the wicked God shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup."

Consider therefore what the state is that you are to get out of, you that are seeking an interest in Christ: You are to flee out of Sodom. Sodom is the place of your nativity, and the place where you have spent your lives hitherto. You are citizens of that city which is full of filthiness and abomination before God, that polluted and accursed city. You belong to that impure society. You not only live among them, but you are of them, you are some that have committed those abominations, and have so provoked God as you have heard. It is you that I have all this while been speaking of under this doctrine; you are the inhabitants of Sodom. Perhaps you may look on your circumstances as not very dreadful; but you dwell in Sodom. Though you may be reformed, and appear with a clean outside, and a smooth face to the world; yet as long as you are in a natural condition, you are impure inhabitants of Sodom.

The world of mankind is divided into two companies, or, as I may say, into two cities: There is the city of Zion, the

church of God, the holy and beloved city; and there is Sodom, that polluted and accursed city, which is appointed to destruction. You belong to the latter of these. How much soever you may look upon yourselves better than some others, yet you are of the same city; the same company with fornicators, and drunkards, and adulterers, and common swearers, and highwaymen, and pirates, and Sodomites. How much soev er you may think yourselves distinguished, as long as you are out of Christ you belong to the very same society; you are of the company, you join with them, and are no better than they, any otherwise than as you have greater restraints. You are considered in the sight of God as fit to be ranked with them. You and they are altogether the objects of the loathing and abhorrence of God, and have the wrath of God abiding on you; you will go with them and be destroyed with them, if you do not escape from your present state. Yea, you are of the same society and the same company with the devils, for Sodom is not only the city of wicked men, but it is the hold of every foul spirit.

You belong to that city that is appointed to an awful, inev itable, universal, swift, and sudden destruction; a city that hath a storm of fire and wrath hanging over it. Many of you are convinced of the awful state you are in while in Sodom, and are making some attempts to escape from the wrath which hangs over it. Let such be warned by what hath been said, to escape for their lives, and not to look back. Look not back, unless you choose to have a share in the burning tempest that is coming down on that city. Look not back in remembrance of the enjoyments which you have had in Sodom, as hankering after the pleasant things which you have had there, after the ease, the security, and the pleasure which you have there enjoyed.

Remember Lot's wife; for she looked back, as being loath utterly and for ever to leave the ease, the pleasure and plenty which she enjoyed in Sodom, and as having a mind to return to them again: Remember what became of her..... Remember the children of Israel in the wilderness, who were desir

eus of going back again into Egypt, because they remembered the leeks and onions, &c. of Egypt; Numb. xi. 5. “We remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cu cumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick." Remember what was the issue of their hankering. You must be willing for ever to leave all the ease, and pleasure, and profit of sin, to forsake all for salvation, as Lot forsook all, and left all he had, to escape out of Sodom. And further to enforce this warning, let me intreat all you who are in this state, to consider these several things which I shall now mention :

I. The destruction of which you are in danger is infinitely more dreadful than that destruction of the literal Sodom from which Lot fled. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in a storm of fire and brimstone, was but a shadow of the destruction of ungodly men in hell; and is no more to it than a shadow or a picture is to a reality, or than painted fire is to real fire. The misery of hell is set forth by various shadows and images in Scripture, as blackness of darkness, a never dying worm, a furnace of fire, a lake of fire and brimstone, the torments of the valley of the son of Hinnom, a storm of fire and brimstone. The reason why so many similitudes are made use of, is because none of them are sufficient. Any one does but partly and very imperfectly represent the truth, and therefore God makes use of many.

You have therefore much more need to make haste in your-escape, and not to look behind you, than Lot and his wife had when they fled out of Sodom; for you are every day and every moment in danger of a thousand times more dreadful storm coming on your heads, than that which came on Sodom, when the Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven upon them; so that it will be vastly more sottish in you to look back than it was in Lot's wife.

2. The destruction you are in danger of is not only greater than the temporal destruction of Sodom, but greater than the eternal destruction of the inhabitants of Sodom. For how. ever well you may think you have behaved yourselves, you

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