"the difputer of this world? Hath not God "made foolish the wisdom of this world * ?” But let us defcend a little more to particulars. We are told, that, to fave mankind from the punishment due to their fins, the promulgation of a free pardon, on the part of God, would have been fully fufficient. Let us fuppofe then for a moment, that this had actually been the cafe. Let us fuppofe, that the Son of God, or fome other di"vine meffenger, had been fent on earth merely to tell mankind, that they need be under no apprehenfions about the confequences of their fins, for that they would all be freely forgiven; and that, provided they behaved better for the future, they would be received into the favour of God, and rewarded with everlafting life. What do you think must have been the confequence of fuch a general unqualified act of grace and indemnity as this? Would it not have given the world reason to imagine, that God was regardless of the conduct of his creatures, and that there was little or no danger in tranfgreffing his laws? Would not this eafinefs of difpofition, this facility in pardoning, have given men encouragement to continue in their fins; or, at leaft, to have returned in a fhort time to their favourite and long-indulged habits, in a certain expectation of meeting with the fame gentle treatment which they had already experienced? And does not every one fee, that this would have quickly extinguished all the little remains of virtue that were left in the world? There was, indeed, I allow, fome ground to hope, that a God of infinite mercy and goodness would find out fome means of faving a guilty world from deftruction. But no man of common fenfe could imagine, that he would do this in fuch a manner as fhould be inconfiftent with his other attributes; those attributes, which are as effential to his nature as his goodness and his mercy; I mean, his justice, his wifdom, his authority, as the moral governor of the univerfe. All these must have been fhaken to their very foundation, had he pardoned mankind without some fatisfaction made to him for their difobedience; without fome mark of his abhorrence stampt upon guilt; without fome public exercife D 2 ercife of his coercive power, which might prevent the finner from flattering himself, that he might go on tranfgreffing with impunity, and might fafely prefume on the mercy of God, even in prejudice to the great ends of his moral government. But repentance, you fay, would of itself have answered all these purposes; would have been a fufficient atonement for paft offences, fufficient fatisfaction to God's juftice, and a fufficient fecurity to the finner against the future effects of God's displeasure. Admitting all this for a moment to be true, there is ftill another queftion of fome importance to be asked and answered, and which yet is commonly quite left out of the account. What reafon have you to think, that had Christ done nothing more than offered to the Heathen world a free pardon of their fins, on condition of repentance, they would have accepted and performed that condition; in other words, that, without fome fignal indication of God's abhorrence of fin, to ftrike their imagination, to affect their hearts, and roufe their confciences to a juft sense of their guilt, they would ever have repented at all? Confider Confider only for a moment what the condition of mankind was, when our Lord made his appearance on earth. Their corruption and profligacy had grown to fo enormous an height, and ran out into fuch a variety of horrible vices, as even in these degenerate days would appear appear fhocking and portentous. They were, as St. Paul affures us, in a letter addreffed to thofe very Romans of whom he is fpeaking," they were filled with all un"righteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetoufness, malicioufnefs; full of full of envy, "murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whifperers, backbiters, haters of God, defpiteful, " proud, boafters, inventers of evil things, "disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural af"fection, implacable, unmerciful *." What now do you think of fuch a race of monsters as thesfe? Do you think it poffible, that mere exhortation alone, or even the most awful denunciations of punishment, would ever have brought fuch mifcreants as these to real repentance and vital reformation? What little probability there was of this, you will judge from what St. Paul further tells you in the fame epiftle, that they not only did thefe things themselves, but took "pleasure in those "that did them." They were delighted to fee their friends, their neighbours, and even their own children, grow every day more profligate around them. They became vain in their "imaginations, and their foolish heart was "darkened +." They were alienated from "the life of God, through the ignorance that "was in them, becaufe of the blindness of their heart; they were paft feeling, and gave themfelves over unto lafcivioufnefs, to " work all uncleannefs with greedinefs t." This fhews, that the number and the groffnefs of their crimes had effaced all their ideas of guilt, and "had feared their confciences with "a hot iron §." Add to this, that their philofophers and their pricfts, who ought to have reftrained their vices, did themselves, by their own example, encourage them in fome of their worst. Many parts even of their religious worship, instead of purifying and reforming, tended to corrupt and debafe their hearts with Rom, i. 32. + Rom. i. 21. Eph. iv. 18, 19. the |