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tures? "There is but an appearance: I cannot imagine: I cannot conceive." Would you on suppositions of this nature, risk your reputation, your honour, your fortune, your life? Why, then, risk your salvation?

The justice of God is, perhaps, not so rigorous, you say, as we have affirmed. It is true, that it may be so. If God have, by himself, some covenant of grace not yet revealed; if he should have some new gospel; if God have prepared some other sacrifice, your conjectures may be right. But if there is no name under heaven whereby we can be saved, but that of our Jesus, Acts iv. 12.; if there is no other blood than that shed by this divine Saviour; if God shall judge the world according to my gospel, Rom. ii. 16; then your arguments fail, and your salvation is hopeless.

Farther, what sort of reasoning is this? "There is but an appearance: I cannot conceive: I cannot imagine." And who are you that reason this way? Are you christians? Where then is that faith, which ought to subjugate reason to the decision of revelation, and which admits the most abstract doctrines, and the most sublime mysteries? If you are allowed to talk in this way, to reply when God hath spoken, to argue when he hath decided, let us establish a new religion; let us place reason on the throne, and make faith retire. The doctrine of the Trinity obstructs my thought, the atonement confounds me, the incarnation presents precipices to me, in which my reason is absorbed. If you are disposed to doubt of the doctrines we have advanced, under a pretext that you cannot comprehend them, then discard the other doctrines; they are not less incomprehensible.

I will go farther still; I will venture to affirm, that if reason must be consulted on the portrait we have drawn of God's justice, it perfectly accords with revelation. Thou canst not conceive how justice should be so rigorous; and I cannot conceive

how it should be so indulgent. I cannot conceive how the Lord of the Universe should be clothed with human flesh, should expose himself to an, enfu riated populace, and expire on a cross: this is the greatest difficulty I find in the Gospel. But be thou silent imperious reason; here is a satisfactory solution. Join the difficulty which thou findest in the administration of justice, with that which proceeds from thy notion of mercy; the one will correct the other. The superabundance of mercy will rectify the severity of justice; for the severity of justice proceeds from the superabundance of mercy.

If the people who talk in this manner; if the people who find the divine justice too severe; if they were a people diligently labouring to promote their own salvation; if they devoted an hour daily to the work, the difficulty would be plausible, and they would have apparent cause of complaint. But who are these complainers? They are a people who give full indulgence to their passions; who glory in their infamous intrigues: who are implacable in hating their neighbour, and resolved to hate him during life they are votaries of pleasure, who spend half the night in gaming, in drunkenness, in theatres, and take from the day the part of the night they have devoted to dissipation: they are proud, ambitious men, who, under a pretext of having sumptuous equipage, and dignified titles, fancy themselves authorized to violate the obligations of christianity with impunity. These are the people, who, when told if they persist in this way of life, that they cannot be saved, reply, that they cannot conceive how the justice of God should treat them with such severity. And I for my own part, cannot conceive how it should treat you so indulgently; I cannot conceive how he should permit the sun to enlighten you. I cannot conceive how he, who holds the thunder in his hand, can apparently be an idle spectator of your impiety. I cannot conceive how the earth does not

open beneath your feet, and, by its terrific jaws, anticipate the punishment prepared in hell by the divine vengeance.

You say again that this mercy, of which we draw so magnificent a portrait, is consequently very circumscribed. But say rather, how is it that you dare to start difficulties of this nature? God, the blessed God, the Supreme Being, has formed you of nothing; has given you his Son, has offered you his Spirit, has promised to bear with you such as you are, with all your infirmities, with all your corruptions, with all your weakness; has opened to you the gates of heaven; and being desirous to give you himself, he requires no return, but the conse. cration to him of your few remaining days on earth: he excludes none from paradise, but hardened and impenitent men. How, then, can you say that the mercy of God is circumscribed? What! is it impos. sible for God to be merciful, unless he reward your crimes? Is nothing mercy with you, but that which permits an universal inundation of vice?

You still say, if the conditions of the new cove nant are such as you have laid down, it is then an arduous task to become a christian, and difficult to obtain salvation. But do you think my brethren, that we are discouraged at the difficulty? Know you not, that straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life? Matt. vii. 14. Know you not, that we must pluck out the eye, and cut off the hand? v. 29. Surmount the most dear and delicate pro pensities; dissolve the ties of flesh and blood, of nature and self-attachment. Know you not, that. we must crucify the old man, and deny ourselves? xvi. 24. Know you not, that we must add to our faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge patience, to patience brotherly-kindness, to brotherlykindness charity, and to charity godliness. 2 Pet. i. 5.

But you add, that few persons will then be saved; another objection we little fear, though, perhaps, it

would have been unanswerable, had not Jesus Christ taught us to reply. But is this a new gospel? Is it a new doctrine to say, that few shall be saved? Has not Jesus Christ himself declared it? I will address myself, on this subject, to those who understand the elucidation of types. I will adduce one type, a very distinguished type, a type not equivocal but terrific; it is the unhappy multitude of Israel, who murmured against God, after being saved from the land of Egypt. The object of their journey was Canaan. Deut. i. 35, 36. God performed innumerable miracles to give them the land; the sea opened and gave them passage; bread descended from heaven to nourish them; water issued from the rock to quench their thirst. There was but one defect; they never entered into the land: there were but two adults, among all these myriads, who found admission. What is the import of this type? The very thing to which you object. The Israelites represent these hearers, the miracles represent the efforts of Providence for your salvation; Canaan is the figure of paradise, for which you hope, and Caleb and Joshua alone were admitted into the land, which so many miracles had apparently promised to the whole nation. What do these shadows adumbrate to the christian world? My brethren, I will not dare to make the ap. plication. I leave with you this object for contempla. tion; this terrific subject for serious reflection.

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But you still ask, why do you preach to us such awful doctrine? It subverts religion; it drives peo ple to despair. Great risk, indeed, and imminent danger of driving to despair, the men whom I attack! Suppress the poison, remove the dagger, exclude the idea of death from the mind, until the recollec. tion of their sins shall drive them to the last extremity. But why? The characters whom we have described, those nominal christians, those indolent souls, those men, whose hearts are sold to the world and pleasure; have they weak and delicate consciences,

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which we ought to spare, and for whom we ought to fear, lest the displays of divine justice should produce effects too severe and strong? Ah! unhappy people, even to mention difficulties of this nature. If you were already stretched on a dying bed; already come to the close of a criminal course; if hell had opened beneath to swallow you up; if you had no resource but the last efforts of an expiring soul, then you would be worthy of pity. But you are yet alive; grace is offered; all the paths of penitency are open; the Lord may yet be found: there is not one among you, but may call upon him with success. Yet you devote the whole of life to the world; you confirm the habits of corruption; and when we warn you, when we unmask your turpitude, when we discover the abyss into which you precipitate yourselves by choise, you complain that it is driving you to despair! Would to God that our voice might be exalted like thunder, and the brightness of our discourse be as that which struck St. Paul on the road to Damascus; prostrating yourselves, like that apostle, at the feet of the Lord! Would to God that the horrors of despair, and the frightful images of hell, might fill you with salutary fear, inducing you to avoid it! Would to God that your body might, from this moment, be delivered to Satan, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord.

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It rests with you, my brethren, to apply these truths; and to profit by the means which Providence, this day, affords for your conversion. If there yet remain any resources, any hopes, for the man who delays conversion, it is not with ministers of the Gospel to point them out. We are not the plenipotentiaries of our religion; we are the ambassadors of Christ; we have explicit instructions, and our commission prescribed. God requires that we publish his covenant, that we promise you every aid of grace, that we open the treasures of mercy, that we lead

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