cruel and revengeful as they are,—and they presently think, if a fellow creature offended them at the rate that finners are faid to offend God, and they had as much power in their hands to punish and torture them as he has, they would be fure to execute it speedily;but because they fee God does it not, therefore they conclude, that all the talk of God's anger against vice, and his future punishment of it,—is mere talk, calculated for the terror of old women and children.—Thus speak they peace to their fouls, when there is no peace; -for though a finner (which the wife man adds by way of caution after the text) for tho' a finner do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged upon the earth,—yet sure I know, that it fhall be well with them that fear God, -but fhall not be well with the wicked.Upon which argument, the pfalmist, speaking in the name of God,-ufes this remonftrance to one under this fatal mistake which has mifled thousands;—these things thou didst, and I kept filence :—And it seems this filence was interpreted into confent ;-for it follows,—and thou thoughtest I was altogether fuch a one

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as thyfelf; but the pfalmift adds, how ill he took it at men's hands, and that they should not know the difference between the forbearance of finners,—and his neglect of their fins; -but I will reprove thee.-Upon the whole of which, he bids them be better advised, and confider, left, while they forget God, he pluck them away, and there be none to deliver them.

Thus much for the first ground and cause which the text gives, why the hearts of the fons of men are fo fully fet in them to do evil ;-upon which I have only one or two cautions to add; that, in the first place, we frequently deceive ourselves in the calculation that fentence fhall not be speedily executed.-By fad experience, vicious and debauched men find this matter to turn out very different in practice, from their expectations in theory; God having fo contrived the nature of things throughout the whole fyftem of moral duties,-that every vice, in some measure, fhould immediately revenge itself upon the doer ;—that falsehood, and unfair dealing, ends in diftruft and dishonour;

that drunkenness and debauchery should

weaken the thread of life, and cut it fhort, that the tranfgreffor fhall not live half his days;-that pride fhould be followed by mortifications ;-extravagance by poverty and diftrefs;-that the revengeful and malicious, fhould be the greatest tormentor of himself,the perpetual disturbance of his own mind, being fo immediate a chastisement, as to verify what the wife man says upon it,—That as the merciful man does good to his own foul, fo he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.

it

wrong.

revenge

In all which cases there is a punishment independent of these, and that is, the punishment which a man's own mind takes upon felf, from the remorfe of doing what is -Prima eft hæc ultio,—this is the first which (whatever other punishments he may escape) is fure to follow close upon his heels, and haunts him wherefoever he goes ;-for whenever a man commits a wilful bad action, -he drinks down poison, which, though it may work flowly, will work furely, and give him perpetual pains and heart-aches,—and, if no means be used to expel it, will destroy him at last.-So that, notwithstanding that

final fentence of God is not executed fpeedily in exact weight and measure,there is neverthelefs a fentence executed, which a man's own confcience pronounces against him;-and every wicked man, I believe, feels as regular a procefs within his own breast commenced against himself, and finds himself as much accufed, and as evidently and impartially condemned for what he has done amiss, as if he had received fentence before the most awful tribunal;-which judgment of confcience, as it can be looked upon in no other light but as an anticipation of that righteous and unalterable fentence which will be pronounced hereafter by that Being to whom he is finally to give an account of his actions.—I cannot conceive the state of his mind under any character than of that anxious doubtfulness defcribed by the prophet, That the wicked are like the troubled fea when it cannot reft, whofe waters caft up mire and filth.

A fecond caution against this uniform. ground of falfe hope, in fentence not being executed speedily, will arife from this confideration,―That in our vain calculation of this

distant point of retribution, we generally respite it to the day of judgment;—and as that may be a thousand, or ten thousand years off, it proportionably leffens the terror.-To rectify this mistake, we should first confider, that the diftance of a thing no way alters the nature of it. -2dly, That we are deceived in this distant profpect, not confidering that however far off we may fix it in this belief, that in fact it is no farther off from every man than the day of his own death. And how certain that day is, we need not furely be reminded :-'Tis the certainty of the matter, and of an event which will as furely come to pafs, as that the fun fhall rise to-morrow morning,-that should enter as much into our calculations, as if it was hanging over our heads. For though, in our fond imaginations, we dream of living many years upon the earth;-how unexpectly are we fummoned from it?-How oft, in the strength of our age, in the midst of our projects, when we are promifing ourselves the ease of many years?-how oft, at that very time, and in the height of this imagination,