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discomfiture, it is no encouragement to shun the encounter. That forgiveness of God through Christ which is its watchword, is not yielded, save to a spirit that truly sighs after it; none of these consolations of grace and mercy come to any who are not occupied to their utmost with the sincerest desire after holiness. No one can calculate on this acceptance into favour, or this remission of his daily sins, who is not occupying his faculties and his means with Christian efforts, strengthened and sustained by Christian hopes and Christian aids. The moment he ceases to make head after his captain's orders he loseth of his captain's favour, and if he come not under obedience he inherits double disgrace in the end.-So that the spiritual man is held to obedience by his affections, his interests, his desires, his hopes, his fears, his every faculty and power;-than which nothing more can be made of any creature perfect or imperfect.

Now, as to those who hold out against this constitution of grace and justice and mercy, refusing to shelter themselves beneath law and gospel, the two wings of his love, with which the Lord of Hosts overshadoweth the tabernacles of men, (though this is not the time to speak of Judgment) we cannot close without asking them what defence they can set up for themselves at all? They admire not the purity of the law, else they would long to reach as near to it as possible through the means of the Gospel; they fear not its undischarged demands, else they would flee to the cross of Christ

for a ransom; they are not accessible to affection, else Christ's charities would attract them; they are not grateful for favours, else Christ's unspeakable gifts would ingratiate him with their souls; they care not for the favour of God, else they would revere his overtures; they are not afraid of Judgment, else they would provide against its issues. Heaven they affect not; hell they dread not. The compass of God's promises containeth no attraction; the scope of his power createth no awe; the magnitude of his threatenings engendereth no terror. The past hath no sticking remorses, the womb of the future no heaving presentiments. The present world gloweth before them in all the glory of the New Jerusalem; time filleth their minds like the immensity of eternity; the favour of the world stands them in the stead of God's. Some form of creation is their idol, some condition of earth their heaven.

Men who have thus stood out against the overtures of God, and steeled their hearts to the noble and engaging sentiments of the Gospel, have made free choice of the fatal consequences, and have themselves alone to blame. They cannot dispute God's right to place us under government, nor that the constitution of government, under which he hath placed us, is well devised to please every good feeling and to uphold every good interest. In rejecting it, therefore, they stand condemned at the bar of every good feeling which refused to listen to his voice, and of every good interest which refused to be built up by his power. And, if it should

appear in the progress of this inquiry, that God denudes their future being of those good feelings which would not hear his voice, and ships them far away from those good interests which would not be upheld by his power, can they have the boldness to complain? Why, the whole matter is before them! They can take or reject; and if they coolly reject, they must stand to the consequences

of their choice.

No legislator ever pledged himself to make laws which no one would break: neither does God. The legislator makes the best he can devise, and assigns to the breaking of them suitable punishments: so doth God. A culprit may curse the law, but the law seizeth him notwithstanding: so doth God. This is universally held just, wise, and the greatest mercy upon the whole. Why should not God have the same verdict of our mind? For no code was ever constructed on such principles of mercy and forgiveness as his, nor took such pains to captivate its subjects to obedience. But have our verdict, or not have it, God careth not. He hath prepared a constitution upon which all men may be justified before all created intelligences, and upon which they may be condemned before all created intelligences; upon which he can justify himself to himself, and to the nobler orders of creation, and even to man's own conscience, reprobate and sunken though it be. That is all, and there needeth no more upon this head of our argument.

OF JUDGMENT TO COME.

PART IV.-DIGRESSION.

ACTS XVII. 30, 31. GOD COMMANDETH ALL MEN EVERY WHERE TO REPENT: BECAUSE HE HATH APPOINTED A DAY, IN THE WHICH HE WILL JUDGE THE WORLD IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

THE GOOD EFFECTS OF THE ABOVE CONSTITUTION, BOTH UPON THE INDIVIDUAL AND UPON POLITICAL SOCIETY.

GOD is not wanting in his care of that constitution under which he hath placed the world; but accompanies the acceptance and obedience thereof with all the rewards which the soul of man is capable of tasting in this sublunary state.

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Being turned to contemplate those pictures of purity which the law contains, we forget all meaner things, and are delivered by degrees from the vulgar fears and ordinary measures under which we were formerly in bondage. The guardianship of human laws and the eye of man, the laugh of the world and the world's frown, to which we are such slaves, lose their power in proportion as conscience, which is the eye of the mind, comes to take the oversight of our affairs. A liberty, a self-mastery, an independence on the opinion of others, and a mind ever conscious of a right intention, come instead of artifice and cunning and plodding adherence to customary rules. And this selfguidance is hindered from degenerating into self

conceit or self-willedness, by the constant superiority of the law of God, which is, as it were, the telescope through which conscience looks upon the world of duty. The spheres of honour and honesty and domestic worth and patriotism become absorbed, with all the estimable things which they contain, in the wider sphere of God's will and glory which contains them, as the primum. mobile of the ancient astronomers contained the celestial spheres.

Now it cannot otherwise happen, than that a mind constantly accustomed to behold and constantly training itself to practise whatever is noble and good, must grow greatly in its own esteem, and advance likewise in the estimation of the wise and good, and rise into influence over the better part of men so that there will attend upon the goings of the servant of God a light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day, a harmony of motion pleasant to all beholders, and a liberty of action. delightful to himself. There will also grow within his soul a unison of faculties through the tuition of the law of God-impetuous passions being tamed, irregular affections being guided in their proper courses, the Understanding being fed from the Fountain of truth, Hope looking to revelations that shall never be removed, and Will being subordinated to the good pleasure of God. Like a busy state, in which there is no jarring of parties, but one heart and one soul through all its people; like the body, when every member doth its office, and the streams of life flow unimpeded; the soul, thus

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