himself incapable of repenting at all? What is a penitent reconciliation to God? It includes, at least, reflection and thought, the laying down of principles and the deducing of consequences: but people of this kind, through their excessive intoxication, generally incapacitate themselves for inferring a consequence, or admitting a principle, and even for reflecting and thinking; as experience, experience superior to all our reasoning, hath many time

shewn.

But is it necessary to reason in order to discover the injustice of this disposition? Do you really think God created you capable of reflection that you should never reflect? Do you indeed believe God gave you so many fine faculties that you should make no use of these faculties? In a word, can you seriously think God made you men in order to enable you to live like beasts?

III. I said, in the third place, that the disposition, of which the wise man speaks in the text, sometimes proceeds from a principle of grave folly. So I call the principle of some philosophers, who imagine they find in the delay of the punishment of sinners, an invincible argument against the existence of God, at least, against the infinity of his perfections.

We do not mean, by a philosopher, that superficial trifler, who, not having the least notion of right reasoning, takes the liberty sometimes of pretending to reason, and, with an air of superiority, which might impose on us were we to be imposed on by a tone, saith, The learned maintain such an opinion: but I affirm the opposite opinion. Casuists advance such a maxim: but I lay down a very different maxim. Pastors hold such a system: but, for my part, I hold altogether another system. And who is he who talks in this decisive

tone, and who alone pretends to contradict all our ministers, and all our learned men; the whole church, and the whole school? It is sometimes a man, whose whole science consists in the casting up of a sum. It is sometimes a man, who hath spent all his life in exercises, that have not the least relation to the subject which he so arrogantly decides; and who thinks, if I may be allowed to say so, that arguments are to be commanded as he commands a regiment of soldiers. In a word, they are men, for the most part, who know neither what a system, nor a maxim is. Let not such ple imagine they are addressed as philosophers; for we cannot address them without repeating what hath been said in the preceding article, which is their proper place.

peo

We mean, when we speak of men who despise the long-suffering of God as philosophers, people, who have taken as much pains to arrive at infidelity, as they ought to have taken to obtain the knowledge of the truth: who have studied as much to palliate error, as they ought to have studied to expose it who have gone through as long a course of reading and meditation to deprave their hearts as they ought to have undertaken to preserve them from depravity. Among the sophisms, which they' have adopted, that, which they have derived from the delay of the punishment of sinners, hath appeared the most tenable, and they have occupied it as their fort. Sophisms of this kind are not new, they have been repeated in all ages, and in every age there have been such as Celius, (this is the name of an ancient atheist) of whom a heathen poet saith, Celius says that there are no Gods, and that heaven is an uninhabited place; and the chief reasons he assigns are these; he continued

happy, and he had the prospect of continuing so, while he denied the existence of God.

As the persons, to whom we address this article, profess to reason, let us reason with them. And you, my brethren, endeavor to attend a few moments to our arguments. One chief cause of our erroneous notions of the perfections of God is the considering of them separately, and not in their admirable assortment and beautiful harmony. When we meditate on the goodness of God, we consider his goodness alone and not in harmony with his justice. When we meditate on his justice, we consider it in an abstract view, and without any relation to his goodness. And in the same manner we consider his wisdom, his power, and his other attributes.

This restriction of meditation (I think I may venture to call it so) is a source of sophistry. If we consider supreme justice in this manner, it will seem as if it ought to exterminate every sinner: and, on the contrary, if we consider supreme goodness in this manner, it will seem as if it ought to spare every sinner; to succour all the afflicted; to prevent every degree of distress; and to gratify every wish of every creature capable of wishing. We might observe the same of power, and of wisdom, and of every other perfection of God. But what shocking consequences would follow such views of the divine attributes! As we should never be able to prove such a justice, or such a goodness, as we have imagined, we should be obliged to infer, that God is not a Being supremely good; that he is not a Being supremely just; and the same. may be said of his other perfections.

Persons, who entertain such notions, not only sink the Supreme Being below the dignity of his own nature, but even below that of mankind.

Were we to allow the reasoning of these people, we should increase their difficulties by removing them, for the argument would end in downright atheism. Were we to allow the force of their ob- . jections, I say, we should increase their difficulties, and, instead of obtaining a solution of the difficulty which attends our notion of a divine attribute, we should obtain a proof that there is no God: for, could we prove that there is a being su premely good, in their abstract sense of goodness, we should thereby prove that there is no being supremely just; because supreme goodness, considered in their abstract manner, destroys supreme justice. The same may be said of all the other perfections of God, one perfection of the divine nature would destroy another, and to prove that God possessed one would be to prove that of the other his nature was quite destitute.

Now, if there be a subject, my brethren, in which people err by considering the perfections of God in a detached and abstract manner, it is this of which we are speaking; it is when people raise objections against the attributes of God from his forbearance with sinners. God seems to act contrary to some of his perfections in his forbearance. Why? Because the perfection, to which his conduct seems incongruous, is considered as if it were alone, and not as if it were in relation to another perfection: because, as I have already said, the divine attributes are considered abstractly and not in their beautiful assortment and admirable harmony.

I confine myself to this principle to refute the objections which some, who are improperly called philosophers, derive from the delay of the punishment of sinners, to oppose to the perfections of God. I do not, however, confine myself to this

for want of other solid answers: for example, I might prove that the notion, which they form of those perfections to which the delay of divine vengeance seems repugnant, is a false notion.

What are those perfections of God? They are, you answer, truth, which is interested in executing the threatenings denounced against sinners: wisdom, which is interested in supplying means of reestablishing order: and particularly justice, which is interested in punishing the guilty.

I reply, your idea of truth is opposite to truth: your idea of wisdom is opposite to wisdom: your idea of justice is opposite to justice.

Yes, the notion you entertain of truth is opposite to truth, and you resemble those scoffers, of whom the apostle speaks, who said, Where is the promise of his coming? 2 Pet. iii. 4. What Jesus Christ hath said of St. John, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? chap. xxi. 22. had occasioned a rumour concerning the near approach of the dissolution of the world: but there was no appearance of the dissolution of the world: thence the scoffers, of whom St. Peter speaks, concluded that God had not fulfilled his promise, and on this false supposition they said, Where is the promise of his coming? Apply this reflection to yourselves. The delay of the punishment of sinners, you say, is opposite to the truth of God: on the contrary, God hath declared he would not punish every sinner as soon as he had committed an act of sin, The sinner doth evil an hundred times, and God prolongeth his days.

The delay of the punishment of sinners, you say, is opposite to the wisdom of God: on the contrary, it is this delay which provides for the execution of that wise plan which God hath made for mankind, of placing them for some time in a state

L