heart, but that we have by nature evil hearts of unbelief, inclining us to depart from the living God?

And let me ask, why all the threatenings of the gospel, but that it was written for the use of a disobedient and gainsaying people? why on every page does there meet us some anathema, but that it was intended for those who love not our Lord Jesus Christ? why has death passed upon all men, but that all have sinned? why a judgment and a place of torment, but that those who have carried their entire depravity with them into the coming world, may be distinguished, and may go to their own place.

Finally, it is matter of doubt whether an honest man, acquainted with the Bible, and willing to collect his creed from it, will find it possible to exclude the doctrine of the text from a fundamental place in its structure. What doctrine can he preach, if he denies it? what precept enforce? what threatening announce? what promise apply? We need no gospel if this doctrine is not true, and we have none. "Let us eat and drink, for

to-morrow we die."

Will the great God defend his own truth, and bless every effort for its vindication, and sanctify his people through its influence, and speedily let it cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Will he bring the multitudes of the ungodly to know, that they are in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity, and persuade them to fly for refuge, to lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel.

SERMON XLIX.

ONLY ONE TRUE GOD.

John xvii. 3.

This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God.

In the report of that gospel, that shall deal honestly with dying men, it is of the first importance, that there be exhibited the true character of God. As men are to

be sanctified through the truth, it will be confessed, that no truth can be of higher importance, than that which relates to the being and attributes of Jehovah. Unless on this point there is made a full and clear exposure of the truth, our religion may be so defective, as to neither profit us in this life, nor save us in the life to come. Under the very names that belong to the true God, we may worship an idol, and thus give our depravity the shape of the grossest insult.

We have sometimes listened to a loud and earnest address on the subject of religion, and it professed itself the gospel, in which the character of the true God was industriously concealed. Men may speak of God, and with much engagedness; his adorable names may swell every clause, and round every period, and the whole be uttered with a decent and well-bred softness; and one may suppose himself religiously employed, in hearing the true gospel, and be charmed with the changes rung upon the names he has been accustomed to adore; and

still the god proclaimed may not be the blessed Jehovah. There may be a view exhibited that does not belong to the Creator, but to some imaginary god created for the occasion.

The text would furnish several topics of remark, but I intend to confine myself to one, To expose some of the false views of God, which are not unfrequently presented us under the appellation of the gospel; and thus illustrate the character of that only true God whom to know is eternal life.

I. There is sometimes an extolling of all the more clement attributes of God, as some have presumptuously distinguished, while the severer attributes are unnoticed. The design of these declaimers seems to be, that our attention be fixed exclusively upon what, in their estimation, is soft and mild and lovely in God, while his holiness, his justice and his truth;-all in him that can go to make a sinner afraid, or beget conviction and repentance, is industriously concealed. God's compassion for our lost and miserable world, his patience, his endurance, his long-suffering, his promptness to pardon, and total aversion to destroy;-all those features of the divine mind, that can soothe alarm, are early and industriously developed, as if embracing the whole of God that he himself loves, or man is required to worship and adore; while the other parts of the divine image are obscured, as one would hide the scars and excrescences that have fortuitously covered more than half his visage. Thus the great luminary of the moral world must be cast into a deep and dark eclipse, that the naked eye of sense may gaze upon his few remaining glories. It is feared, we presume, that were the whole character of God exhibited, sinners would be filled with disgust, and be driven from the bosom of their Sovereign. He must not adhere to

the principles of that law he has promulgated, nor care to vindicate himself from the aspersions that sinners have cast upon his character and his government. He must not resolve that mercy and truth meet together; and that righteousness and peace kiss each other. He must cast a smile upon the prodigal, ere he shall turn his face or his feet toward his father's house. Thus must the holy and righteous God, before whom devils tremble, melt down into the weak and pitiful parent, or not one of his apostate family shall come back to his bosom and his service. So men would judge.

But God seems to have had other views, and has revealed his whole character, fearless of the predicted consequences. If there was any danger from a full exposure of his character, why did he not hold himself concealed, or throw into the shade, as men would do for him, those parts of his character that must give offence. If that be good policy which I am venturing to expose, God could have directed that neither the works of creation, nor the Bible, should have told us the whole truth respecting himself. He might have suppressed the history of that revolt in heaven, and its results, and told us nothing of hell and the judgment, nor named in his Book those attributes that throw around him such an atmosphere of darkness and terror. He need not have given us, if he had so pleased, the stories of the deluge, and of Sodom, and of Korah and his company. God has exposed the whole truth, and that in the very Book which he has directed should be our daily companion.

But

If the scheme I oppose be true, I know not how to account for such a Bible as God has put into our hands, just calculated to betray a secret that should not have been divulged for worlds. If there belong to God any

attributes that were not intended to be made known to sinners till they are reconciled to him; if they cannot safely be told that he is angry with the wicked every day, has appointed a time and place of judgment, and prepared a deep and dark perdition for the condemned; if they are to be urged to come to him, expecting to find him all mercy; then by what alarming oversight have we resolved to put the Bible into the hands of sinners? Must the parental character of God so dazzle and fill the eye, as to eclipse the Sovereign, and the Judge, the Abettor of truth, and the Avenger of wrong and of outrage? And must we never know the whole character of God, till we have to deal with him in the judgment? Can we be sure that the prodigal, after he has been thus decoyed home to his father's house, will be pleased with his father? Had he not better know, while away in his land of exile, exactly the father he must meet, and the father he must love, and stay there till this character is approved?

I know not where in the whole Bible we are authorised, to elevate one attribute of God above another, and term the one mild and the other severe. I know not where men have learned, that there are principles in the divine nature and government, that to be fully known would subvert the benevolent design of the gospel. If God has thus instructed any of his ministers, and they act by his authority in deciding what may and what may not be developed to the world of the ungodly, I have only to say, "To their own master they stand or fall"

II. There is perhaps some occasion to fear, that some have gone into the opposite extreme, and have presented exclusively the more forbidding attributes of God, while his grace and mercy have been in this case too much concealed. When Jehovah is exhibited as constituted of