a stroke, then a great ransom cannot deliver thee." Such a caution would seem not very needful, when we remember that God had said of Job, there is none like him in all the earth; a perfect and upright man; one that feareth God and escheweth evil." Remembering this character, and the authority on which it was given, most would have thought the language of congratulation much more appropriate than the language of caution. Most would have been ready thus to accost him "Because thou hast made the Lord, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil come nigh thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." But there will never arrive a season till men are made perfect in holiness, and are saved to the uttermost, when it will not be needful for them to remember" the wrath of God that cometh on the children of disobedience," and to employ that as a motive to refrain from sin; and if such considerations become them, who have a probable evidence of a right spirit and salvation through the Redeemer, how much more do they become them who are hastening onward to the judgment seat of Christ, without any preparation for the scrutiny they must then pass, and the account they must then give. Certainly, if there be any thing that has importance, or should have weight in human estimation, it is the attainment of "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." There is wrath with God against sin. Most men believe it; they dare not deny it; they cannot doubt it. As soon could they doubt the felicities and glories of heaven, the

eternal life that shall be the portion of them that believe in Jesus Christ, and repent of transgression, as that despair and misery shall be the wages of unrighteousness, the punishment of them who continue opposed to God and to his word. But how little they are benefited by this this conviction, how seldom it proves subservient to their good. They can easily glance at many judgments recorded in sacred history as the effects of divine wrath; in their passage through life they have witnessed many painful events, which they have attributed to the same cause; they have acknowledged that the hand of God has done it; they can familiarize their minds with testimonies of judgments still to be expected; but what useful principles have been brought into operation in their minds, or what godliness has been effected in their character ?

With vast multitudes such considerations have been hitherto unavailing, but with some they have had a far happier result; they can say, "I have chosen the way of truth, thy judgments have I laid before me."

It is one great excellence of God's dealings with men, that he announces the consequences of disobedience before they come, he gives repeated warnings of his wrath before it is poured out. The very same Spirit that indited the glorious gospel of the grace of God for the benefit of sinners, that they might be saved, indited, in the very same record, forewarnings of his righteous vengeance, for the benefit of the very same characters. This is an augmentation of his benevolence towards them. Should any be disposed to enquire of what advantage it can be to men, that God should tell them that his wrath is treasured up against all ungodliness of men,

it may be replied, it is of much; and if men consult their own feelings in reference to the common transactions of life, they too must acknowledge it. When, in human jurisprudence, the punishments to be awarded to certain crimes, are published together with the laws that prohibit those crimes, is it not, that those who are under the laws may know how to avoid the of fences, that they may not be liable to the punishment? And though these threatenings are not always effectual, there are, doubtless, many instances where they are. God's threatenings of wrath are way-marks on the road to hell, forewarning sinners that they persist no further in it. God has so placed them, in compassion to their immortal souls; they are not merely to instruct and reprove them that shall be lost, but to admonish and restrain them that shall be saved. Hence it is, that threatenings of his displeasure are so often connected with his counsels of peace, as in his address to the church at Sardis: "Remember, therefore, how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent. If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I come upon thee." As in his address to the Jewish church: "Thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up the fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise your selves to the Lord, and take away the foreskin of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn, that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. How inexcusable must be the sinner who still goes on in his trespasses! When a lighthouse is erected on some shore, it may be built with strength, and beautified

with every architectural decoration, but it is not intended for mere ornament and show; it is designed for usefulness, to save the property and lives of men. If, then, the mariner, seeing the bright flame that it exhibits, holds on his course, and still steers onwards, unmindful or reckless of the danger of which the beacon reminds him, should death befal him, none would wonder at his destruction, none would acknowledge him blameless of his own undoing. Thus the sinner is inexcusable, while he tempts God to execute upon him the vengeance he has threatened.

The evils which God has denounced against rebellious men,

are

more than arbitrary annunciations of his displeasure; they have, through transgression, fully merited them. The wrath of God never comes, but " on the children of disobedience. He never threatened it to any who, in Christ, follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. It is guilt that provokes those evils, it is on the guilty that they are sent. Some men are prone to ask, "of what are we guilty?" To whom it may be replied," Are you not guilty of withholding from God what he has required as his due, a holy reverence, a humble fear, sincere love, due submission? May he not charge you, "My fear is not on thee, thou hast gone away backward?" Have you not indulged licentiousness, in spite of his holy commandment, and the threatening he has annexed to it? You live in the most advantageous dispensation, the times of the Gospel. Under former dispensations, men had tokens of divine love, grants of divine mercy, the benefits of redemption and salvation. But mark the comparison an evangelist proposes between those times and the present. The law

was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now there is a more lucid and prominent exhibition of grace and truth, than was ever given before, so that faith is more practicable and disobedience more sinful. The despisers of a holy law were obnoxious; but those who, in addition to that sin, are despisers of a holy Gospel, are more obnoxious still. To neglect the great salvation, merits more awful recompense than the transgression and disobedience of the words spoken by an angel. This should be, with every impenitent sinner, & prevailing motive to turn unto God by Jesus Christ. "He that believeth not, shall not see life;" and according to the Saviour's doctrine, an offending right hand not cut off, and an offending eye not plucked out, entails an unavoidable liability to utter destruction.

It is in the heart principally that this evil reigns, which thus brings forth sin unto death. The heart thus occupied is like a citadel, surrendered to an enemy, by the possession of which his advantages are fearfully increased. Men sometimes speak of bringing wicked hearts with them into the world, but were they to say they bring hearts prone to wickedness, they would use greater propriety of speech. The heart is in such a state that it is capable of being more deeply corrupted. He whose heart is wicked at the age of fifteen years, may have it more wicked at twenty-five; more wicked still at forty, and it may be progressive in wickedness to the utmost span of life. Nothing can more easily deceive men than their own heart, especially when it is desperately wicked. It will give false suggestions of the government of God, and of the moral condition of man; it will boast of the dignity and glory of human

nature, when that nature is degraded and covered with reproach. Evil affections will grow in it by an imperceptible progress, and with many specious disguises it will become the pander of vice. Every man then should beware of the objects, the persons, the designs, the entertainments, and the diversions after which he permits his heart to lead him. He will do well to take the appropriate advice given by the excellent author of the Christian Father's Present to his Children, "Perpetually examine it, (the heart,) enter the house within you, break open every door, go into every apartment, search every corner, sweep every room, take with you the lamp of revelation, and throw light on every hiding place."

Religion is much commended and enforced in the word of God, as being a matter of supreme good to men; but it is of no good to any man till it affect his heart. If he profess doctrines that are divine, and attend on ordinances of heavenly prescription, neither the one nor the other avail him so long as his heart is captivated by the pleasures of sin, and controlled by the powers of darkness. He must receive the love of the truth that he may be saved; and the love of the truth can have no consistence with the love of lying vanities in the heart of any man. A good man must have a good treasure in his heart, or he cannot bring forth good things. Simon, son of Jonas, is not fit to feed his master's sheep, unless he love his master. Men are not the servants of Christ, unless they do his will from the heart.

Being liable to the judgments of God, it becomes man to keep the doors of his mouth, and to be cautious as to the language that he utters. When the tide of events opposes the current of human

lest he strike thee, but lest he take thee away with a stroke. God often strikes when he does not take men away. Personal afflictions, losses and grievances, family bereavements, and national evils, are strokes inflicted by the hand of God, that men may learn obedience, and turn their eyes to heaven, that they may know that God ruleth among men in righteousness and in judgment. "Heaven gives the needful, but neglected call,

What day, what hour, but knocks at human hearts;

To wake the soul to sense of future scenes?

Deaths stand like Mercurys in every

way,

And kindly point us to our journey's end."

inclinations, the unruly evil becomes unruly indeed. Even Job deemed it a calamity that he had ever been born, and cursed the day of his birth. Jonah decided that he did well to be angry, and that it would be better for him to die than to live. To these and similar follies and weaknesses men are very liable, in all which they are either finding fault with the appointments of God, or are guilty of presumptions derogatory to his government. A day is the work of God, and what is any man that he should curse it? since God has sent it for the benefit of all living, why should any Iman wish it to be excluded from the number of the months, because the events of it are unfavourable to himself? Strange that Jonah deemed his anger just, because God was gracious, and that he should be weary of life because God had saved a city. This is still more apparent in the unconverted and insincere. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. The wanton profligate says, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my own heart, to add drunkenness to thirst." The vain and spurious professor of religion, disappointed in his expectation, and defeated in his purpose, cries out, "the ways of the Lord are not equal." O, sensual man, how canst thou meditate a course of vicious indulgence, of hypocritical profession, and expect a peaceful end, when God has said there shall be no peace to the wicked, and the sinner shall not stand in the congregation of the just. Then, because there is wrath, beware of thy words, for "by thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned."

The transgressor in the midst of his sin should be earnestly accosted, “beware lest he take thee away with a stroke." Not merely

But God takes away with a stroke. We need not mention the eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them, nor need we refer to Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, Nadab, and Abihu, who, for sacrilege and insurrection committed in Israel, became victims of sudden vengeance. Our own acquaintance furnishes a catalogue long enough. Where are many now, with whom we sported in our childhood, and accompanied in our youth; some whom we saw the very last year in the vigour of their strength, and strangers to disease? they are gone, they disappeared suddenly as a shadow— they fell, for God smute themtheir beauty consumed away like a moth, for they were but vanity : soul and body are most closely united together, but they are most easy of separation. Nothing happened to them that are departed, that may not happen to thee; the hand that smote them upholds thee, and can as suddenly let thee fall; thy constitution is susceptible of all that wore them down; accidents may be as fatal to thee as they were to them. "There is