God may promise, threaten, command: "Hearken to my voice, turn at my reproofs, cast away your transgressions. Awake from your wine, be chaste, sober, humble; let your merriment be turned into mourning, your jollity into heaviness. Remember your Creator, remember your souls; why will you die? turn and live." God may speak thus once, and twice, and ten times, but is not regarded; his words have no weight, his counsels have no credit, his warnings are of no value with hardened, fearless hearts. If the devil speak but once, he is heard; if lust speak but once, it is obeyed; if a proud companion speak but once, he is followed; while the word of the God of glory is made a reproach and a scorn. O, the intolerable contempt that is poured out upon the Most High by men that fear not God! "Make thy promises, and give thy gifts to whom thou wilt; give grace, and give glory where thou pleasest: the world for me; my pleasures, my honors, my liberty for me; this world for me, look after the other who will: let the Lord threaten, let the day of the Lord come; let it hasten that we may see it; let the Almighty do his worst, I will not hearken nor turn." This is the blasphemy of hardened, fearless hearts.

IV. God will recover HIS HONOR in the hearts of his people. He will put his fear in their hearts: while others are hardened, they shall tremble; while others kick, they shall stoop; whoever despise him, of these will he be had in honor.

V. WHAT THIS FEAR OF THE LORD IS, that he will put into their hearts. The fear of God is sometimes

taken in Scripture as comprehending all religion. Job was said, chap. 1, to be a man fearing God, that is, a godly man; but in this sense I shall not here speak of it. Sometimes it is presented more strictly as a distinct grace, distinguished from faith, love, hope, and other graces of the Spirit. And being taken in this sense, there are these two things included in it: A reverence of God, and an abhorrence of evil for God's sake.

1. A reverence of God. To fear God, is to have the awe of God abiding upon the heart-to be under a sense of the majesty and glory of the Lord, shining forth in all his attributes, especially in his holiness and omniscience: the glory of his holiness, and the sense of such a holy eye upon the soul strikes it with dread and consternation. This is expressed in Scripture by sanctifying the Lord in the heart. "I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me." Lev. 10:3. "Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." Isaiah 8:13. There is mention in Scripture of a sanctifying of God and a justifying of God. As God doth justify and sanctify his people, so they are to justify and sanctify God. These two, the justifying and sanctifying of God, though they be much the same, yet have some difference between them. To sanctify God, is to reverence him in our hearts, and to represent him in the glory of his holiness before men. To justify God, supposes a sinful judging and foolish charging of God in the hearts of men, and is our vindicating him from such charges. "Is God righteous?" say they; ."how

is it then that he is so partial in his dealings with the righteous and unrighteous; that he deals worse with those who fear him than with those who fear him not? Is God good? How is it then that he is so hard in imposing and inflicting such hard things upon his own? Is God true? How is it then that he fails his people so often, when he hath said, I will never leave them nor forsake them? Our flesh hath failed, yea, and our heart hath failed, yea, and our God hath often failed us too; we have often called, and have had no answer; we have often trusted, and have had no deliverer." Not so, we reply; yet God is righteous, yet God is good, yet God is true; he has not been unrighteous, he has not been a hard master, he has not failed nor forsaken. This is to justify God.

Our justifying God hath some points of resemblance with God's justifying us. God's justification of us consists in his not imputing sin to us, but accepting us as righteous; and our justifying of God, consists in our not imputing evil to him, but acknowledging him to be true, just, and good. God has justified me from my sins, and that is enough to proclaim him good and faithful, whatever his other dealings be. Let him afflict me, let him chastise me, since he will not judge me nor condemn me with the world. God has justified himself in my conscience. I have found that the Lord is gracious, I have found that God is faithful; he has said he will not, and I must say he does not, forsake me. He has not failed, when he has most failed me; when he has been farthest from me, he has even then been a present help

in trouble. He has answered, when he has been most silent; he has been most good, when he has been most hard. I have never found more sweet, than in his bitter cup. I must judge myself, not my God: I have sinned, I have sinned against him, and therefore I must justify him when he speaketh, and clear him when he judgeth. Hold thy peace, querulous heart, be silent all the earth before the Lord, for truly God is good to Israel, even to them that are of a clean heart. There are few among the worst of sinners, but, if conscience might be suffered to speak, would justify God. It is lust that quarrels, not conscience. "It is vain,” says lust, "to serve the Lord, and what profit is there to keep his ordinances? His ways are unequal and hard; his promise fails, take one time with another, oftener than it is made good. Who is it that plagues and disappoints and crosses and vexes us? This evil is of the Lord: why should I wait on the Lord any longer? Nay, whom does he punish more than those that are nearest him? Who have sorrow, who have trouble in the flesh, who are reproached, scorned, hunted up and down the world, but these? This they may thank God for, and their following him. It is better being the servant of sin, than the servant of Christ." Thus lust blasphemes. But speak, conscience. Is God unrighteous? Is God false to his word? Are the pleasures of sin better than the gain of godliness? Have the children of this world made a wiser choice than the children of light? Speak, sinner, let thy conscience speak, whether it be thus or not. God has not left himself with

out witness in the hearts of sinners, much less in the hearts of his saints; when they do speak, their hearts speak good of his name. But this by the way.

To return to the matter in hand. To sanctify God, is especially to reverence him in the heart-to have such a high and holy and honorable esteem of him as commands an awe upon the heart; and that,

(1.) At all times. "My son, be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long." "My son:" it is not only for slaves, but for sons to fear. "Be thou in the fear of the Lord:" it is not only, Let the fear of the Lord be in thee, habitually in thy heart, but actuate and stir up this holy fear, keep up a holy awe, a deep sense of God always upon thee; let the fear of the Lord be before thine eyes; be possessed and swallowed up of this fear "all the day long;" wherever thou art, with whomsoever thou hast to do, remember thou hast still to do with God. A Christian should stand always as before the tribunal; every day should be as the last day, the day of judgment to him. “So speak ye, and so do as those that shall be judged." James 2:12. The Judge stands at the door, yea, and thou mayest see him through every window, yea, through every wall-every wall is a window through which God may see and be seen. A Christian, when he is as he should be, cannot wink God out of sight; can look nowhere but he sees that eye which strikes an awe upon his spirit.

This abiding reverence of God, what an influence will it have upon the whole course! We shall then serve God acceptably; when we fear him, we shall