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has it yet begun to dawn upon the mind, and spread its salutary and composing charm over that dark scene of conflict, under which many a sinner has to sustain the burden of the wearisome nights that are appointed to him? You may seek for love to God throughout all the chambers of his

practical establishment to the law of love, by surrounding it with accumulated penalties? This may irritate, or it may terrify,but for the purpose of begetting any thing like attachment, one may as well think of lashing another into tender regard for him. Or, do you think, that the terrors of the coming vengeance will ever incline a hu-heart, and seek in vain. The man may be man being to love the God who threatens him? Powerful as these terrors are, in persuading man to turn from the evil of his ways, they most assuredly do not form the artillery by which the heart of man can be carried. They draw not forth a single affection, but the affection of fear. They never can charm the human bosom into a feeling of attachment to God. And it goes to prove the necessity of some singular expedient, for restoring man to fellowship with his Maker; that the only obedience on which this fellowship can be perpetuated, is an obedience which no threatenings can force, to which no warnings of displeasure can reclaim,-which all the solemn proclamations of law and justice cannot carry,--and all the terrors and severities of a sovereignty resting on power, as its only foundation, can never subdue. The utterance of the words, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, or perish everlastingly, can This, then, is a case of difficulty, and, in no more open the shut and alienated heart the Bible, God is said to have lavished all of man, than it can open a gate of iron. the riches of his unsearchable wisdom on Multiply these arguments of terror as you the business of managing it. No wonder may,-arm them with tenfold energy, and that to his angels it appeared a mystery, make them to fall in thunder on the sin- and that they desired to look into it. It ner's ears,-tell him of the God of judg- appears a matter of direct and obvious ment, and manifest to him the frown of his facility to intimidate man,-and to bring angry countenance,-lay before him the his body into a forced subordination to all grim aspect of his impending death, and the requirements. But the great matter spread a deeper mantle of despair over the was, how to attach man,-how to work in vast field of that eternity which is on the him a liking to God, and a relish for his other side of it;-you may disquiet him, character; or, in other words, how to and right that he should be so, you may communicate to human obedience, that prevail on him to give up many evil doings; principle, without which it is no obedience and right that the whole urgency of the at all,-to make him serve God because he coming wrath should be employed to make loved him; and to run in the way of all his him give them up immediately,--you may commandments, because this was the thing set him a trembling at the power of God, in which he greatly delighted himself. To and better this than spending his guilty lay upon us the demand of satisfaction for career, in thoughtlessness and unconcern, his violated law, could not do it. To press about the great Lawgiver; but where, in home the claims of justice upon any sense the midst of all this, shall we find obedience of authority within us, could not do it. To to the very first and greatest commandment bring forward, in threatening array, the of the law? Has this obedience been yet terrors of his judgment, and of his power so much as entered on? Has love to God against us, could not do it. To unveil the so much as reached the infancy of its ex- glories of that throne where he sitteth in istence in that heart which is now begin-equity, and manifest to his guilty creatures ning to be agitated by its terrors? Amid the awful inflexibilities of his truth and all the bitterness of remorse, and all the righteousness, could not do it. To look out fearful looking for of judgment, and all the restless anxieties of conscious guilt, and anticipated vengeance, tell us, if a single particle of tenderness towards God has any place in this restless and despairing bosom? Tell us, if it act as an element at all, in this wild war of turbulence and disorder? Or,

acting such reformations as he is driven to, and may be clothing himself in such visible decencies, as he feels himself compelled to put on, and may be labouring away at the drudgery of such observances as he thinks will give him relief from the corrosions of that undying worm, which never ceases to goad him with its reproaches; but as to the love of God, there is as grim and determined an exclusion of this principle as ever,--that avenue to his heart has never been unlocked, through which it might be made to find its way,-every former argument, so far from having dissolved the barrier, has only served to rivet and to make it more unmoveable. And the difficulty still lies upon us,-how are we to deposit in the heart of man, the only right principle of obedience to God,-and to lead him onward in the single way of a pure, and spiritual, and substantial repentance?

from the cloud of vengeance, and trouble our darkened souls as he did those of the Egyptians of old, with the aspect of a menacing Deity, could not do it. To spread the field of an undone eternity before us, and tell us of those dreary abodes where each criminal hath his bed in hell, and the cen

shall wither and expire under the contagion of their ruffian example; and will patronize every step of that progress which leads from one depravity to another, till their ill fated proselyte, made as much the child of hell as themselves, shall share in that common ruin which, in the great day of the reve

turies of despair which pass over him are not counted, because there no seasons roll, and the unhappy victims of the tribulation, and the wrath, and the anguish, know, that for the mighty burden of the sufferings which weigh upon them, there is no end, and no mitigation; this prospect, appalling as it is, and coming home upon the belieflation of the righteous judgment of God, will with all the characters of the most immuta- come forth from the storehouse of his wrath, ble certainty, could not do it. The affections in one mighty torrent, on the heads of all of the inner man remain as unmoved as who boast of their iniquity. We have now ever, under the successive and repeated in- touched on the limits of a subject of which fluence of all these dreadful applications. half its horrors are untold; but through There is not one of them, which, instead of which, the minister of the counsels of heaconciliating, does not stir up a principle of ven must clear his intrepid way, in spite of resistance; and, subject any human crea- all its painfulness. We will not pursue it ture to the treatment of them all, and to at present, but neither will we count the nothing else, and he may tremble at God, digression out of place, should a single paand shrink at the contemplation of God, rent among you be led, from what we have and feel an overpowering awe at the thought now uttered, to be jealous over his children of God, when that thought visits him;- with a godly jealousy, and not to suffer those, but we maintain, that not one particle of for whose eternity he is so deeply responsiinfluence has been sent into his heart, to ble, to take their random direction through make him love God. Under such applica- society, just where the prospects of busitions as these, we can conceive the crea-ness, and of worldly advantage, may chance ture, gathering a new energy from despair, to carry them; to calculate on the possiand mustering up a stouter defiance than bilities of moral corruption, as well as on ever to the God who threatens him. Strange the possibilities of lucrative employment; contest between the thing formed and him to look well to exposures and acquaintances, who formed it;-but we see it exhibited and hours of social entertainment, as well among the determined votaries of wicked-as to the common-place object of a situation ness in life; and it is the very contest which gives its moral aspect to hell throughout all eternity. There God reigns in vindictive majesty, and there every heart of every outcast, sheathed in impenetrable hardness, mutters its blasphemies against him. O hideous and revolting spectacle! and how awful to think that the unreclaimed sons of profligacy, who pour along our streets, and throng our markets, and form the fearful But the difficulty in question still remajority in almost every chamber of busi-mains unresolved. How then is this reness, and in every workshop of industry, generation to be wrought, if no threatenings are thither speeding their infatuated way! can work it,-if no terrors of judgment What a wretched field of contemplation is can soften the heart into that love of God, around us, when we see on every side of it which forms the chief feature of repentthe mutual encouragement, the everply- ance,-if all the direct applications of law ing allurements,-the tacit, though effectual and of righteous authority, and of its treand well understood, combination, sustain-mendous and immutable sanctions, so far ing, over the whole face of this alienated from attaching man in tenderness to his world, a firm and systematic rebellion God, have only the effect of impressing a against God! We are not offering an ex- violent recoil upon all his affections, and, aggerated picture when we say, that within by the hardening influence of despair, of reach of the walk of a single hour, there stirring up in his bosom a more violent anare thousands, and thousands more, who tipathy than ever? Will the high and sohave cast away from them the authority of lemn proclamations of a menacing Deity God; and who have been nerved by all his not do it? This is not the way in which threatenings into a more determined atti- the heart of man can be carried. He is so tude of wickedness; and who glory in their constituted, that the law of love can never, unprincipled dissipations; and who, with-never be established within him by the enout one sigh at the moving spectacle of gine of terror; and here is the barrier to ruined innocence, will, in the hearing of this regeneration on the part of man. But companions younger than themselves, scat-if a threat of justice cannot do it, will an ter their pestilential levities around them, act of forgiveness do it? This again is not and care not though the hope of parents, the way in which God can admit the and the yet unvitiated delicacy of youth, guilty to acceptance. He is so constituted

in the world. And when you talk of a good line for your children, just think a little more of the line that leadeth to eternity, and have a care lest you be the instrument of putting them on such a path of danger, that it shall only be the very rarest miracle of grace that your helpless young can be kept from falling, or be renewed again into repentance.

that his truth cannot be trampled upon, | God with the eye of his mind under this and his government cannot be despoiled new aspect,-love to God would spring up of its authority, and its sanctions cannot, in his heart, as the unfailing consequence. with impunity, be defied, and every solemn Let man see God as he sets himself forth utterance of the Deity cannot but find its in this wonderful revelation, and let him accomplishment, in such a way as may believe the reality of what he sees; and vindicate his glory, and make the whole he cannot but love the Being he is employcreation he has formed stand in awe of ed in contemplating. Without this gospel, its Almighty Sovereign. And here is an- he may see him to be a God of justice; other barrier on the part of God; and that but he cannot do this without seeing the economy of redemption, in which a dead frown of severity directed against himself, and undiscerning world see no skilfulness a wretched offender: With this gospel, he to admire, and no feature of graciousness sees the full burden of violated justice to allure, was so planned, in the upper borne away from him; and God stands becounsels of heaven, that it maketh known, fore him unrobed of all his severities, and to principalities and powers, the manifold tenderly inviting him to draw near through wisdom of Him who devised it. The men that blood of atonement which was shed, of this infidel generation, whose every fa- the just for the unjust, to bring the sinner culty is so bedimmed by the grossness of unto God. Without this gospel, he may sense, that they cannot lay hold of the see the truth of God; but he sees it pledged realities of faith, and cannot appreciate to the fulfilment of the most awful threatthem, to them the barriers we have now enings against him: With this gospel, insisted on, which lie in the way of man he sees the full weight of all these actaking God into his love, and of God taking complishments resting on the head of the man into his acceptance, may appear to be great sacrifice; and God's truth is now so many faint and shadowy considerations, fully embarked on the most cheering asof which they feel not the significancy; surances of pardon, on the most liberal inbut, to the pure and intellectual eye of an- vitations of good will, on the most exceedgels, they are substantial obstacles, and ing great and precious promises. Without One Mighty to save had to travail in the this gospel, he may see the government of greatness of his strength, in order to move God leaning on the pillars of that immutathem away. The Son of God descended bility which upholds it; but this very imfrom heaven, and he took upon him the mutability is to him the sentence of despair; nature of man, and he suffered in his stead, and how can he love that face, on which and he consented that the whole burden of are stamped the characters of a stern and offended justice should fall upon him, and vindictive majesty? With this gospel, the he bore in his own body on the tree, the face of God stands legibly revealed to weight of all those accomplishments by him in other characters. That law which, which his Father behooved to be glorified, resting on the solemn authority of its firm and after having magnified the law, and and unalterable requirements, demanded a made it honourable, by pouring out his fulfilment, up to the last jot and tittle of it, soul unto the death for us, he went up on has been magnified, and has been made high, and by an arm of everlasting honourable, by one illustrious sufferer, who strength, levelled that wall of partition put forth the greatness of his strength, in which lay across the path of acceptance; that dark hour of the travail of his soul, and thus it is, that the barrier on the part when he bore the burden of all its penalof God is done away, and he, with untar- ties. That wrath which should have been nished glory, can dispense forgiveness discharged on the guilty millions he died over the whole extent of a guilty creation, for, was all concentred upon him, who because he can be just, while he is the took upon himself the chastisement of our justifier of them who believe in Jesus. peace, and on that day of mysterious agoAnd if the barrier, on the part of God, is ny, drank, to the very dregs, the cup of thus moved aside, why not the barrier on our expiation. And God, who planned the the part of man? Does not the wisdom of whole work of this wonderful redemption, redemption show itself here also? Does it-God, who in love to a guilty world sent not embrace some skilful contrivance, by his Son amongst us to accomplish it,which it penetrates those mounds that be- God, who rather than lose his alienated set the human heart, and ward the en- creatures, as he could not strip his eternal trance of the principle of love away from throne of a single attribute that supported it, and which all the direct applications of it, awoke the sword of vengeance against terror and authority, have only the effect his fellow, that on him the truth and the of fixing more immoveably upon their justice of the Deity might receive their basis? Yes it does,-for it changes the most illustrious vindication,-God, who, out aspect of the Deity towards man; and of Christ, sits surrounded with all the darkwere man only to have faith in the an-ness of unapproachable majesty, is now nouncements of the gospel, so as to see God in Christ, reconciling the world unto

himself, and not imputing unto them their trespasses; his tender mercy is now free to rejoice amid all the glory of his other bright and untarnished perfections, and he pours the expression of his tenderness, with an unsparing hand, over the whole extent of his sinful creation-and he lets himself down to the language of a beseeching supplicant, praying that each and every one of us might be reconciled unto him and, putting on a winning countenance of invitation to the guiltiest of us all, he tells us, that if we only come to him through the appointed mediator, he will blot out, as with a thick cloud, our transgressions, and that, as if carried away to a land that was not inhabited, he will make no more mention of them.

And thus it is, that the goodness of God destroyeth the enmity of the human heart. When every other argument fails, this, if perceived by the eye of faith, finds its powerful and persuasive way through every barrier of resistance. Try to approach the heart of man by the instru ments of terror and of authority, and it will disdainfully repel you. There is not one of you skilled in the management of human nature, who does not perceive, that, though this may be a way of working on the other principles of our constitution, of working on the fears of man, or on his sense of interest, this is not the way of gaining by a single hair-breadth on the attachments of his heart. Such a way may force, or it may terrify, but it never, never can endear; and after all the threatening array of such an influence as this, is brought to bear upon man, there is not one particle of service it can extort from him, but what is all rendered in the spirit of a painful and reluctant bondage. Now, this is not the service which prepares for heaven. This is not the service which assimilates men to angels. This is not the obedience of those glorified spirits, whose every affection harmonizes with their every performance; and the very essence of whose piety consists of delight in God, and the love they bear to him. To bring up man to such an obedience as this, his heart behooved to be approached in a peculiar way; and no such way is to be found, but within the limits of the Christian revelation. There alone you see God, without injury to his other attributes, plying the heart of man with the irresistible argument of kindness. There alone do you see the great Lord of heaven and of earth, setting himself forth to the most worthless and the most wandering of his children, putting forth his own hand to the work of healing the breach which sin had made between them,-telling him that his word could not be set aside, and his threatenings could not be mocked, and his justice could not be

defied and trampled on, and that it was not possible for his perfections to receive the slightest taint in the eyes of the creation he had thrown around him; but that all this was provided for, and not a single creature within the compass of the universe he had formed, could now say, that forgiveness to man was degrading to the authority of God, and that by the very act of atonement, which poured a glory over all the high attributes of his character, his mercy might now burst forth without limit, and without controul, upon a guilty world, and the broad flag of invitation be unfurled in the sight of all its families.

Let the sinner, then, look to God through the medium of such a revelation; and the sight which meets him there, may well tame the obstinacy of that heart which had wrapped itself up in impenetrable hardness against the force of every other consideration. Now that the storm of the Almighty's wrath has been discharged upon him who bore the burden of the world's atonement, he has turned his throne of glory into a throne of grace, and cleared away from the pavilion of his residence, all the darkness which encompassed it. The God who dwelleth there, is God in Christ; and the voice he sends from it, to this dark and rebellious province of his mighty empire, is a voice of the most beseeching tenderness. Good will to men is the announcement with which his messengers come fraught to a guilty world; and, since the moment in which it burst upon mortal ears from the peaceful canopy of heaven, may the ministers of salvation take it up, and go round with it among all the tribes and individuals of the species. Such is the real aspect of God towards you. He cannot bear that his alienated children should be finally and everlastingly away from him. He feels for you all the longing of a parent bereaved of his offspring. To woo you back again unto himself, he scatters among you the largest and the most liberal assurances, and with a tone of imploring tenderness, does he say to one and all of you, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will you die?" He has no pleasure in your death. He does not wish to glorify himself by the destruction of any one of you. "Look to me all ye ends of the earth, and be saved," is the wide and the generous announcement, by which he would recal, from the very outermost limits of his sinful creation, the most worthless and polluted of those who have wandered away from him. Now give us a man who perceives, with the eye of his mind, the reality of all this, and you give us a man in possession of the principle of faith. Give us a man in possession of this faith; and his heart, shielded, as it were, against the terrors of a menacing Deity, is softened and subdued, and resigns its every affection at the mov

ing spectacle of a beseeching Deity; and thus it is that faith manifests the attribute which the Bible assigns to it, of working by love. Give us a man in possession of this love; and animated as he is, with the living principle of that obedience, where the willing and delighted consent of the inner man goes along with the performance of the outer man, his love manifests the attribute which the Bible assigns to it, when it says, "This is the love of God, that ye keep his commandments." And thus it is, amid the fruitlessness of every other expedient, when power threatened to crush the heart which it could not soften,-when authority lifted its voice, and laid on man an enactment of love which it could not carry,—when terror

shot its arrows, and they dropped ineffectual from that citadel of the human affections, which stood proof against the impression of every one of them,-when wrath mustered up its appalling severities, and filled that bosom with despair which it could not fill with the warmth of a confiding attachment, then the kindness of an inviting God was brought to bear on the heart of man, and got an opening through all its mysterious avenues. Goodness did what the nakedness of power could not do. It found its way through all the intricacies of the human constitution, and there, depositing the right principle of repentance, did it establish the alone effectual security for the right purposes, and the right fruits of repentance.

SERMON XV.

The Evils of false Security.

"They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying Peace, Peace; when there is no peace."-Jeremiah vi. 14.

state of restlessness; and therefore it is, however seldom they are visited with any thought about eternity, and however gently this thought touches them, and however quickly it passes away, to be replaced by some of the more urgent vanities and inter

something like an actual making up of their minds, on this awfully important subject. There is a settlement they have come to about it, which, generally speaking, serves them to the end of their days;-and on the strength of which, there are many who can hush within them every alarm of conscience, and repel from without them, the whole force of a preacher's demonstration, and all that power of disquietude which lies in his faithful and impressive warnings.

WE must all have remarked, on what a slight and passing consideration people will dispose of a question which relates to the interest of their eternity; and how strikingly this stands contrasted with the very deep, and earnest, and long sustained attention, which they bestow on a question which re-ests of time, yet, with most men, there is lates to their interest, or their fortune, in this world. Ere they embark, for example, on an enterprise of trade, they will look at all the sides, and all the possibilities of the speculation; and every power of thought within them, will be put to its busiest exercise, and they will enter upon it with much fearfulness, and they will feel an anxious concern in every step, and every new evolution of such an undertaking. Compare this with the very loose and summary way in which they make up their minds about We speak in reference to a very numethe chance of happiness in another world. rous set of individuals, among the upper See at how easy a rate they will be satisfied and middling classes of society. There is a with some maxim of security, the utterance class of what may be called slender and senof which serves as a bar against all further timental religionists, who do profess a reprosecution of the subject. Behold the use verence for the matter, and maintain many they make of some hastily assumed prin- of its outward decencies, and are visited ciple in religion, not for the purpose of with occasional thoughts, and occasional fastening their minds upon it, but for the feelings of tenderness about death, and duty, purpose, in fact, of hurrying their minds and eternity, and would be shocked at the away from it. For it must be observed of utterance of an infidel opinion; and with the people to whom we allude, that, in spite all these symptoms of a religious inclinaof all their thoughtlessness about the affairs tion about them, have their minds very comof the soul, they are not altogether without fortably made up, and altogether free from some opinion on the matter; and in which any apprehension, either of present wrath opinion there generally is comprised all the or of coming vengeance. Now, on examintheology of which they are possessed. With-ing the ground of their tranquillity, we are out some such opinion, even the most re-at a loss to detect a single ingredient of that gardless of men might feel themselves in a peace and joy in believing, which we read

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