that day as a chimera. Where (said they) is the promise of the Lord's coming: for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation?' 2 Pet. iii. 4. &c. The words of my text are an answer to this objection; an idea which we will presently explain, but which ye must, at least in a vague manner, retain all along, if ye mean to follow us in this discourse, in which we would wish to include all the different views of the apostle. In order to which three things are necessary.

I. We will examine our text in itself, and endeavour to establish this proposition, That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

II. We will prove what we have advanced; that is, that St. Peter's design in these words was to answer the objections of libertines against the doctrine of the conflagration of the world; and we will show you that they completely answer the purpose.

III. We will draw from this doctrine, secured against the objections of libertines, such motives to piety as the apostle presents us with.

In considering these words in this point of light, we will apply them to your present circumstances. The renewal of the year, properly understood, is only the anniversary of the vanity of our life, and thence the calls to detach yourselves from the world. And what can be more proper to produce such a detachment than this reflection, that not only the years which we must pass on earth are consuming, but also that the years of the world's subsistence are already consumed in part, and that the time approaches, in which it must be delivered to the flames, and reduced to ashes?

Let us first consider the words of our text in themselves, and let us prove this proposition, 'one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.'

The notion which I have of God is my principle: the words of my text are the consequence. If I establish the principle, the consequence will be incontestable. 1. Eternity. 2. Perfect knowledge, and, in some sort, the sight and presence of all that has been, of all that is, and of all that shall be.-3. Supreme happiness are three ideas which form my notion of the Deity: this is my principle. A thousand years' then 'are as one day, and one day as a thousand years with the Lord: this is my consequence. Let us prove the truth of the principle, by justifying the notion which we form of the Deity.

1. God is an eternal being. This is not a chimera of my mind; it is a truth accompanied with all the evidence of which a proposition is capable. I exist, I speak, you hear me, at least you seem to hear me. These are facts, the certainty of which all the philosophers in the world can never destroy. I am not able to new-mould myself, nor can I help the perception of truths, the knowledge of which (if I may be allowed to say so) is as essential to me as my own existence. It does not depend on me not to regard Pyrrho and Academus, those famous defenders of doubt and uncertainty, as fools who extinguished the light of common sense, or rather as impostors, who

prononnced propositions with their mouths, the falsity of which it was impossible their minds should not perceive. I repeat it again, the most subtle objections of all the philosophers in the world united, can never diminish in me that impression which the perception of my own existence makes on my mind, nor hinder my evidence of the truth of these propositions; I exist, I speak, you hear me, at least (for with the people whom I oppose, one must weigh each expression, and, in some sort, each syllable) at least I have the same impressions as if there were beings before my eyes who heard me.*

If I am sure of my own existence, I am no less sure that I am not the author of it my. self, and that I derive it from a superior Be ing. Were I altogether ignorant of the history of the world; if I had never heard that I was only of yesterday,' as the Psalmist speaks, Psal. xc. 4; if I knew not that my parents, who were born like me, are dead; were I not assured that I should soon die; if I knew nothing of all this, yet I should not doubt whether I owed my existence to a su perior Being. I can never convince myself that a creature so feeble as I am, a creature whose least desires meet with insurmountable obstacles, a creature who cannot add one cubit to his stature,' Matt. v. 27, a creature who cannot prolong his own life one single instant, one who is forced to yield, willing or unwilling, to a greater power which cries to him, Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return,' Gen. iii. 19; I can never convince myself that such a creature existed from all eternity, much less that he owes his existence only to himself, and to the eminence of his own perfections. It is then sure that I exist: it is also certain that I am not the author of my own existence.

6

This certainty is all I ask, I ask only these two propositions, I exist, I am not the author of my own existence, to convince me that there is an eternal Being. Yes, though a revelation emanating from the bosom of Omniscience had never given me this idea of the Divinity; though Moses had never pronounced this oracle, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting thou art God,' Psalm xc. 2; though the four and twenty elders, who surround the throne of God, had never rendered homage to his eternity, or, prostrating before him, incessantly cried, We give thee thanks, Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come, Rev. xi. 17; though the eternal Being had never said of himself, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,' Rev. i. 8; yea, though the eternal Being had never convinced me of his grandeur, by the works of his hands, if I had been all alone in the nature of beings, I should have been forced to admit an eternal Being. And this proposition, 'There is an eternal Being,' naturally flows from those, I exist, and I am not the author of my own existence, for if I be not the author of my own existence, I owe it to another Being. That Being to whom I owe my existence, derives

* Des Cartes reasoned in the same manner, and made Ego cogo, erga sum, I think, therefore, I am, the first axiom of his system. J. 8.

his from himself, or like me, owes it to another. If he exist of himself, behold the eternal Being whom I have been seeking; if he derive his existence from another, I reason about him as about the former. Thus I ascend, thus I am constrained to ascend, till I arrive at that Being who exists of himself, and who has always so existed.

Let such of you, my brethren, as cannot follow this reasoning, blame only themselves. Let not such people say, These are abstruse and metaphysical reflections, which should never be brought into these assemblies. It is not fair that the incapacity of a small number, an incapacity caused by their voluntary attachment to sensible things, and (so to speak) by their criminal interment in matter; it is not right that this should retard the edification of a whole people, and prevent the proposing of the first principles of natural religion. Eternity enters then into the idea of the creative Being; and this is what we proposed to prove.

2.Omniscience, intimate acquaintance, and, in a manner, the presence of all that is, of all that has been, of all that shall be,' is the second idea which we form of the Deity. The more we meditate on the essence and self-existence of the eternal Being, the more are we convinced that omniscience necessarily belongs to eternity; so that to have proved that God possesses the first of these attributes, is to have proved that he possesses the second. But, as I am certain, that a great number of my hearers would charge those reflections with obscurity, of which they are ignorant only through their own inattention, I will not undertake to prove, by a chain of propositions, that the eternal Being knows all things: that, as author of all, he knows the nature of all; that, knowing the nature of all, he knows what must result from all. It will be better to give you this subject ready digested in our Holy Scriptures, than to oblige you to collect it by your own meditation. Recall then on this article these expressions of the sacred writers: O Lord, thou knowest all things,' John xxi. 17.'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? I the Lord search the heart and try the reins,' Jer. xvii. 9, 10.-Known unto him are all his works from the beginning,' Acts xv. 18.The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, Heb. iv. 12, &c. Some interpreters think, that by the word of God, we must understand here, not the gospel of Jesus Christ, as the phrase is generally understood, but his person. If this be St. Paul's idea, he uses, methinks, the same metaphysical reasoning which we have proposed: that is, that he who created all, knows all. Observe how this reasoning is followed and developed in the apostle's words. The Word of God, or, as it is in the Greek, the Logos, the Word of God is quick and powerful; that is to say, that as Jesus Christ, as

God, has a fund of life and existence, he has also freely and effectually communicated life and existence to others. In this sense it is elsewhere said, that by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers,' Col. i. 16. And in St. John's Gospel, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made,' John i. 1. 3. But this Word, quick and powerful, who has given being to all, perfectly knows all; sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.' Omniscience, intimate knowledge, and, as I said before, the presence of all that is, of all that was, of all that shall be, are as essential to God as eternity. This also, we hope, is sufficiently proved.

3. Supreme felicity is the third idea which we have formed of God; it flows immediately from the two first. Every intelligent being is capable of happiness, nor can he regard happiness with indifference; he is inclined by his very nature to render himself happy. He cannot love misery as misery; he never suffers a present misery but in hopes of a future pleasure; or else he supports a misery because it appears to him more tolerable than the means proposed to deliver him. Even those who have wilfully plunged themselves into the gulfs of hell, in a fit of black melancholy, would not have taken that dreadful step, had they not revolved this melancholy imagination in their distracted minds, that the assurance of being plunged into hell is less tolerable than hell itself. It implies a contradiction, that an intelligent being, capable of being happy or miserable, should be indifferent to his own happiness or misery. If any thing be wanting to the fe licity of God, the defect must not be attributed to his will, the cause must be sought in his weakness, that is, in his want of power,

But who can conceive that a Being who existed from all eternity, who gave existence to all things, and who knows all things, has only a finite and limited power? I am well aware of the difficulty of following the attributes of the Deity, and that, in the greatest part of our reasonings on this grand subject, we suppose what ought to be proved. But as far as we are capable of penetrating this profound subject, we have grounds for reasoning in this manner: God has given being to all things, and he saw what must result from them; it depended then entirely on him to form the plan of the world or not to form it; to be, alone or to impart existence it depended on him to form the plan of such a world as we see, or to form another plan. He has followed, in the choice which he has made, that which was most

proper for his own glory. If, to these feeble speculations, we join the infallible testimony of revelation, we shall find a perfect agreement with our ideas on this article; that the Creator is the happy God by excellence, 1 Tim. i. 41,* and that because he is eternal and omniscient, he must for those very reasons be infinitely happy. This article also is sufficiently proved.

These three ideas of the Deity are three sources of proofs, in favour of St. Peter's proposition in the words of my text, 'a thousand years before the Lord are as one day, and one day as a thousand years.'

God is an eternal Being. Then 'a thousand years with him are as one day, and one day as a thousand years; that is to say, 'a thousand years and one day' are such inconsiderable measures of duration, that, whatever disproportion they have to each other, they appear to have none when compared with the duration of eternity. There is a great difference between one drop of water and twenty thousand baths which were contained in that famous vessel in Solomon's temple, which, on account of its matter and capacity, was called the sea of brass, 1 Chron. xviii. 8; but this vessel itself, in comparison of the sea, properly so called, was so small, that when we compare all it could contain, with the sea, the twenty thousand baths, that is, one hundred and sixty thousand pounds weight, appear only as a drop of wa ter. The extreme difference between that quantity of water and a little drop vanishes when compared with the ocean. One drop of water with the sea is as twenty thousand baths, and twenty thousand baths are as one drop of water. There is a great difference between the light of a taper and that of a flambeau; but expose both to the light of the sun, and their difference will be imperceptible. The light of a little taper before the sun is as the light of a flambeau, and the light of a flambeau as that of a little taper. In like manner, eternal duration is so great an object, that it causes every thing to disappear that can be compared with it. A thousand years are no more before this than one day, nor one day than a thousand years; and these two terms, so unequal in themselves, seem to have a perfect equality when compared with eternity. We, minute creatures, we consider a day, an hour, a quarter of an hour, as a very little space in the course of our lives; we lose without scruple a day, an hour, a quarter of an hour: but we are very much to blame; for this day, this hour, this quarter of an hour, should we even live a whole age, would be a considerable portion of our life. But, if we attend to the little probability of our living a whole age; if we reflect that this little space of time, of which we are so profuse, is the only space we can call our own; if we seriously think that one quarter of an hour, that one hour, that one day, is perhaps the only

* 1 Tim. i. 11. bienheureux dieu, panagios Osos. •panagios, quasi una xar, id est, multum et valde gaudens: beatus Deus, que sibi sufficiens erat ad beati tudinem. Vide Nov. Test. Græc. cum notis, Londini, 1768.

time given us to prepare our accounts, and to decide our eternal destiny; we should have reason to acknowledge, that it was madness to lose the least part of so short a life. But God revolves (if I may venture to say so) in the immense space of eternity. Heap millions of ages upon millions of ages, add new millions to new millions, all this is nothing in comparison of the duration of the eternal Being. In this sense, 'a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thou sand years.'

2. God knows all. Then, a thousand years are with him as one day, and one day as a thousand years;' because he sees no more in a thousand years than in one day; be cause he sees as much in one day as he can see in a thousand years. Ignorance and uncertainty are the principal causes that make us think a short space of time a long duration; especially, when our ignorance and uncertainty respect things which we ardently desire to know: 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,' Prov. xiii. 12, is a saying of the wise man. The very time in which we are in suspense about an apprehended evil, is insupportable to us. It seems to us, while we expect a fatal sentence, that we are every moment suffering its execution.

God knows all. He sees all that was, all that is, all that ever will be. The moment which he assigned for the formation of this universe, is as present to his mind as that which he has determined for its destruction. He knows the success of the various plans which at present exercise the speculations of the greatest geniuses, and which occasion an infinite number of different opinions among politicians. He knows to what lengths that tyrant, who is the scourge of the whole earth, shall carry his rage. He knows how long that empire shall maintain its dignity, which at present subsists with so much glory. He knows during what space Antichrist shall yet oppose the dominion of the king Messiah; and when the king Messiah shall make him lick the dust. He knows when the air shall resound with that comfortable exclamation, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit! Rev. xviii. 2.

3. In fine, God is supremely happy. Then, 'a thousand years with him are as one day, and one day as a thousand years.' In the enjoyment of perfect happiness, the duration of time is imperceptible. Placed, as we are, my dearest brethren, in this valley of miseries, tasting only imperfect and embittered pleasures, it is very difficult for us to conceive the impression which felicity makes on an intelligence supremely happy. If the enjoyment of some small good makes us conceive, to a certain degree, a state in which ages appear moments, the miseries insepararable from our lives presently replunge us into a state in which moments appear ages; in which sorrows of the body, and sorrows of the mind, frequently less tolerable than those of the body, so powerfully apply our minds to each indivisible space of time spent in pain, that we think our sufferings have been long, when we have scarcely begun to suffer. But

God is always happy, and always supremely happy; he always enjoy's that perfect felicity, which makes a thousand years, ten thousand millions of years, vanish with an inconceivable rapidity. It would be unhappy not to enjoy this kind of felicity more than ten or twelve millions of years, because the impression which that felicity would make on the soul would be so powerful and lively, that it would render him who enjoyed it insensible to time; time would expire, and he would hardly perceive that he had enjoyed any thing, even when he had possessed happiness as long as I have supposed. God would be unhappy (allow me this expression) if his felicity were not eternal. But this is one of the subjects which must intimidate a preacher through the difficulty he meets with in furnishing matter. We must have ideas beyond human. We must have terms which mankind have not yet invented. We ourselves must have participated the felicity of God; we must speak to men who also had partaken of it; and afterwards, we must have agreed together on a new language to express each idea excited by the happiness, of which we had made so blessed an experience. Represent to yourselves a Being, or rather think, think, my dear hearers, on the difficulty of representing a Being, who, having in the prodigious capacity of his intelligence all possible plans of this universe, has preferred that which appeared to him the wisest, the best, the most conformable to the holiness of his attributes; represent a Being who has executed this plan, a Being who has created in this vast extent which our imagination fancies, in that which our whole mind, more capable still of conceiving grand objects than our imagination alone, or our senses admire; represent to yourselves a Being who has created whatever is most capable of contributing to perfect felicity; represent a Being who loves, and who is beloved by objects worthy of his love; a Being who knows how to repress the madness of those who rebel against his empire; a Being who shares his felicity with spirits, whom he esteems, and by whom he is esteemed above all things; a Being who has the pleasure of rendering the objects of his esteem happy, and who acknowledge that all their happiness comes from him;-spirits who continually praise the author of their felicity, and who, casting their crowns at his feet, incessantly cry, Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of thy glory,' Isa. vi. 3: represent to yourselves a Being who is approved by intelligences skilful in virtues, in grandeurs, in objects worthy of praise; a Being who loves only order, and who has power to maintain it; a Being who is at the summit of felicity, and who knows that he shall be so for ever. O ages! O millions of ages! O thousands of millions of ages! O duration, the longest that can be imagined by an intelligence composed (if I may speak so) of all intelligences, how short must ye appear to so happy a Being! There is no time with him; there is no measure of time. One thousand years, ten thousand years, one quarter

of an hour, one instant, is almost the same. 'A thousand years are with him as one day, and one day as a thousand years.'

We have considered our text in itself; we will now show the end of the apostle in proposing it, and that it was very proper to answer that end. This is our second part.

St. Peter, as we said before, St. Peter meant to refute the odious objections of some profane persons of his own time, who pretended to make the doctrine of a universal judgment doubtful, and who said, in order to obscure its truth, or enervate its evidence, Where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things remain as they were?' 2 Pet. iii. 4. I am aware that this comment is disputed, and some have thought that the destruction of Jerusalem was the subject of this whole chapter, and not the end of the world; but, however averse we are to the decisive tone, we will venture to demonstrate that the apostle had far greater objects in view than the fatal catastrophes of the Jewish nation. This I think clearly appears,

1. By the nature of the objection which libertines made. Where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things remain as they were? These libertines did not mean that from the beginning of the world the commonwealth of Israel had suffered no considerable alteration; they did not mean from that false principle to draw this false consequence, that Jerusalem would always remain as it then was. How could they be such novices in the history of their nation, as not to know the sad vicissitudes, the banishments and the plunderings, which the Jews had undergone? They meant, that though some particular changes had happened in some parts of the world, the generality of creatures had always remained in the same state; thence they pretended to conclude that they would always remain so.

This appears further by the manner in which the apostle answers them in the verses preceding the text. He alleges against them the example of the deluge. This,' says he, 'they are willingly ignorant of, that the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished,' ver. 5, 6. To this he adds, 'the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the things that are therein shall be burnt up,' ver. 10. On which we reason thus: The world that was formerly destroyed with water, is the same which shall be destroyed by fire; but the world that was destroyed with water, was not the Jewish nation only: St. Peter then predicts a destruction more general than that of the Jews

3. This appears further by this considera tion. The people to whom St. Peter wrote did not live in Judea, but were dispersed through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. These people could have but little to do with the destruction of Jerusalem. Whether Jesus Christ terminated the duration of that city suddenly or slowly, was a question that regarded them indirectly only; but the day of which St. Peter speaks, inter

Such is the chain of religious truths: such is the connexion, not only of each truth of speculation, but of speculative truths with the truths of practice. There is then a concatenation, a harmony, a connexion in the truths of religion; there is a system, a body of doctrine, in the gospel. This is the article that we proposed to prove.

But, a religion in which there is such a chain, such a harmony and connexion; a body of doctrine so systematically compacted and united, ought not to be taken by bits and parts.

To illustrate this we may compare spiritual with natural things. The more art and ingenuity there is in a machine composed of divers wheels, the more necessary it is to consider it in its whole, and in all its arrangements, and the more does its beauty escape our observation when we confine our attention to a single wheel because the more art there is in a machine, the more essential is the minutest part to its perfection. Now deprive a machine of an essential part, and you deface and destroy it.

Apply this to spiritual things. In a compact system, in a coherent body of doctrine, there is nothing useless, nothing which ought to occupy the very place that the genius who composed the whole hath given it. What will become of religion if ye consider any of its doctrines separately? What becomes of religion if ye consider the holiness of God, without his justice, or his justice without his mercy?

II. Let us then proceed to inquire why so many of us confine ourselves to a small number of religious truths, and incapacitate ourselves for examining the whole system. The fact is too certain. Hence, our preachers seem to lead us in obscure paths, and to lose us in abstract speculations, when they treat of some of the attributes of God; such as his faithfulness, his love of order, his regard for his intelligent creatures. It is owing to this that we are, in some sense, well acquainted with some truths of religion, while we remain entirely ignorant of others, which are equally plain, and equally important. Hence it is that the greatest part of our sermons produce so little fruit, because sermons are, at least they ought to be, connected discourses, in which the principle founds the consequence, and the consequence follows the principle; all which supposes in the hearers a habit of meditation and attention. For the same reason we are apt to be offended when any body attempts to draw us out of the sphere of our prejudices, and are not only ignorant, but (if you will pardon the expression) ignorant with gravity, and derive I know not what glory from our own stupidity. Hence it is that a preacher is seldom or never allowed to soar in his sermons, to rise into the contemplation of some lofty and rapturous objects, but must always descend to the first principles of religion, as if he preached for the first time, or, as if his auditors for the first time

which are true in themselves, demonstrated in our scriptures, and essential to religion, become errors, yea, sources of many errors in our mouths, because we consider them only in themselves, and not in connexion with other doctrines, or in the proper places to which they belong in the system of religion. This might be easily proved in regard to the doetrines of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of the cross, the necessity of the Holy Spirit's assistance: doctrines true, demonstrated, and essential; but doctrines which will precipitate us from one abyss to another, if we consider them as our people too often consider them, and as they have been too of ten considered in the schools, in an abstract and detached manner. The fact then is too certain. Let us attend to the principal causes of it.

Four principal causes may be assigned: 1. A party-spirit. 2. The choice of teachers. 3. A hurry of business. Above all, 4. The love of pleasure. As we shall take the liberty of pointing out the causes of this malady, we shall also prescribe the remedy, whether our most humble remonstrances regard the people, the pastors, or even the sovereign, whose noblest office, as well as most sacred and inviolable duty, it is to watch for the support of the truth, and the government of the church.

1. The first cause that we have assigned is a party-spirit. This is a disposition that cannot be easily defined, and it would be difficult to include in a definition of it even its genus and species: it is a monstrous composition of all bad genuses and of all bad species; it is a hydra that reproduces while it seems to destroy itself, and which, when one head hath been cut off, instantly produces a thousand more. Sometimes it is superstition, which inclines us to deify certain idols, and, after having formed, to prostrate first before them. Sometimes it is ignorance which prevents our perceiving the importance of some revealed truths, or the dreadful consequences of some prejudices that we had embraced in childhood. Sometimes it is arrogance, which rashly maintains whetever it has once advanced, advanced perhaps inconsiderately, but which will afterwards be resolutely defended till death, for no other reason but because it has been once asserted, and because it is too mortifying to yield, and say, I am wrong, I was mistaken. Sometimes it is a spirit of malice and barbarity, which abhors, exclaims against, persecutes, and would even exterminate, all who dare contradict its oracular propositions. Oftener still it is the union of all these vices together. A party-spirit is that disposition which envenoms so many hearts, separates so many families, divides so many societies, which has produced so many excommunications, thundered out so many anathemas, drawn up so many canons, assembled so many councils, and has been so often on the point of subverting the great work of the reformation, the noblest opposition that was ever formed against it.

This spirit, which we have faintly described, must naturally incapacitate a man for consider