and that, as I told you before, God and his throne will be guiltlefs for ever?

3. Confider how dreadful will be your punishment, if you should perish at last by your prefent wilful negligence. My text tells you what will be the defign of your punishment; it will be to fhew the wrath of God, and make his power known. Such will be your punishment, as will be fit to fhew that it is almighty power that inflicts it, and that it is an almighty God who is angry with you. It will be his profeffed defign to dif play the dreadful glory of his vindictive attributes upon you, particularly his juftice, as the fupreme Magiftrate of the univerfe: and even his juftice deferves to be displayed; for juftice is not that ugly, grim, horrible thing, which criminals imagine. In a ruler, especially in the fupreme and univerfal Ruler, juftice is not only a majestic and terrible, but it is a lovely, amiable, ingratiating attribute, effential to his character, and to the public good, and fo it appears to all competent judges; that is, to all who are not felf-flattering criminals, and therefore parties. The difplay of this attribute, therefore, upon proper objects, is neceffary to give a full view of the Deity to the world; to represent him as he is.

Now, whatever attribute of his he intends to dif play in any of his works, he always does it in a manner worthy of himself. When his defign was to dif play and glorify his creative power, wifdom, and goodness, fee! what a ftately, well-furnished univerfe he spoke into being! What a magnificent, Godlike building! When his defign was to fhew the riches of his grace towards our guilty race, what wonders did he perform! What inimitable exploits of condefcenfion and love! His only begotten Son muft become a man, muft ftruggle with all the calamities of life for three-and-thirty long and painful years, must expire in torture upon an ignominious crofs, and redeem the guilty with the blood of his heart. This was Godlike love and grace indeed, beyond all example.

He

ample. O! Who is a God like unto thee, that par doneth iniquity? Micah vii. 18. He is as much diftinguished from all other beings by the wonders of his love and grace as by the eternity of his exiftence, or by that wisdom which planned the universe, or that power which produced it out of nothing. When, in profecution of the fame defign, he intends to give a farther difplay of the riches of his glorious grace upon the vellels of mercy, what Godlike provifions hath he made for them! Eye hath not feen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things he hath prepared for them. hath prepared for them a city, fuch a glorious refidence, that he is not ashamed to be called their God. He is not ashamed to own the relation, because he has acted up to the character, and worthy of himself. Heb. xi. 16. And when his defign is to fhew his avenging wrath, and make his punitive power known; when it is to fhew what Godlike punishments he can inflict, fuch as may, by their terror, declare him to be the Author, and ferve as loud warnings to all prefent, and, perhaps, future creations, to deter them from the breach of his facred laws; and when the fubjects of the punishment are strong capacious veffels of wrath, fit for nothing but deftruction; I fay, when this is the cafe, what Godlike vengeance will he execute! what fignal, unexampled punishment will he inflict! The defign of punishment, which is not the reformation of the criminal, but the benefit of others, and the display of his perfections, require that he give a loose to all the terrors of his power. And what miracles of mifery, what terrible illuftrious monuments of vengeance will that perform and erect! As far furpaffing all the punishments inflicted by mortals, as the creation of the world out of nothing exceeds all the works of human art.

And are you proof against the energy of fuch confiderations as these? Then you are dreadfully fitted. for deftruction indeed! For the ftrongeft perfuafives

to

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to deter you from it, which God himself can reveal, or the human mind conceive, have no weight upon you!

But may I hope that I fhall fucceed at leaft with fome of you this day to fly from this tremendous deftruction, into which you are this moment ready to fall? Alas! it is hard, if even a ftranger cannot prevail with fo much as one foul, in fo large an affembly, and in a point fo reafonable, and fo ftrongly enforced by your own intereft. But I muft leave this warning with you, and if you do not remember it now, you will remember it millions of ages hence, when the remembrance of it will torment you with intolerable anguifh.

There are fundry in this affembly, I doubt not, who, by comparing their difpofitions with the nature of heavenly happiness, may make the welcome difcovery, that they are, in fome meafure, prepared for it. To fuch happy fouls I have time only to fay, that if this be your character, you may be fure that immenfe happiness fhall be yours: your prefent heavenly temper is a certain pledge and earneft of it. You may be fure God would never make you fit for it, and then exclude you from it.

And, on the other hand, if you find that the dif pofitions of hell are fubdued in you, affure yourselves God will not doom you to it. Can you think he would gain your hearts and allure your love, and then bid you depart from him, to languifh and pine away with the eager anxious paintings of disappointed bereaved love? Will he doom you to refide for ever among thofe whole works you deteft, and whose fociety you abhor? No; he will thoroughly prepare you, and make you holy, and then advance you to dwell for ever in that prefence which you love, in the element of holiness; to breathe in that clear refined air; to live in that wholesome climate, fo agreeable to your conftitution; to be employed in thofe fervices in which you delight; to enjoy that fublime and deli

cate

cate happiness which you relish, and to converse in that fociety which you affect, and which is of the fame temper and spirit with you.-And for that bleffed region may we all be prepared, and there may we all meet at laft, to enjoy that endless felicity which awaits those who firmly put their confidence in God, through Jefus Chrift! Amen.

SERMON

XLIV.

THE NATURE AND NECESSITY OF TRUE REPENTANCE.

ACTS xvii. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.

WE

E here find St. Paul in as learned an affembly as perhaps he ever appeared in. We find him in Athens, a city of Greece, famous all over the world for learning; a city where Socrates, Plato, and the moft illuftrious philofophers of antiquity, lived and taught. We find him in the famous court of Areopagus, or Mars-Hill, where the wifeft men and best philofophers of this wife and philofophical city were met together; in the fame court where Socrates, the moft likely candidate in all the heathen world for the honours of martyrdom, had been accufed and condemned, and for very much the fame crime, namely, introducing a foreign religion, and bringing the gods of the country into contempt. And how does the apostle conduct himself in thefe critical circumstances? Why, inftead of amufing them with a learned harangue; inftead of confirming them in their idolatry, and vindicating himself, by publicly profeffing, with poor Socrates, that he worshipped the gods of the country, and facrificed at the established altars; in

ftead

ftead of this, I fay, the apoftle boldly, though in a very handsome and genteel manner, exposes their fuperftitións, calls them off from their idols to the worthip of the one true God, the Maker and Ruler of heaven and earth; and, having afferted these fundamental articles of natural religion, he introduces the glorious peculiarities of revelation, and preached Jefus Christ to them, as the Saviour and Judge of the world.

In my text he inculcates the great gospel-duty of repentance as binding upon all mankind (philofophers and judges, as well as the illiterate vulgar, in Athens) as well as in the most barbarous countries of the earth.

The times of this ignorance God winked at. By the times of ignorance, he means the times previous to the propagation of the gospel in the heathen world, who for many ages were funk into the moft grofs ignorance of the true God, and into the moft abfurd and impious fuperftition and idolatry, notwithftanding the loud remonftrances of the light of reason, and the various leffons of the book of creation, fo legible to all. When it is faid that God winked at thefe times of ignorance, it may mean, as our trans lators feem to have understood it, that God feemed to connive at, or not to take notice of this univerfal ignorance that had overfpread the world, fo as to fend his prophets to them for their reformation. In this view, there is a ftrong antithefis between the first and the last parts of my text. q. d. "God once feemed to connive at the idolatry and fuperftition of mankind, and to let them go on, without fending his meffengers to call them to repentance; and in these dark times their impenitence was the lefs inexcufable. But now the cafe is altered; now he has introduced a glorious day, and he plainly and loudly calls and commands all, men every where to repent; and therefore, if you now continue impenitent, you are utterly inexcufable." Or the word may be rendered, God overlooked these times of ignorance: he overlooked them by way of difpleafure: he would not favour fuch guilty times with a gracious