him their love, or their confidence. As the promoter of the universal good, God can in no way so contribute to this great and glorious end, as in unfolding his own supremely excellent character. This is the source and foundation of all virtuous, sincere, and enduring nappiness. In this conduct of God, therefore, the universe is infinitely interested.

In each particular dispensation to them also, he directly pursues the same end, in all the parts of his endlessly diversified administration. Not a wrong, not a mistake, not a defect finds admission into his providence, throughout eternity and immensity.

But it is chiefly as the great Ruler of all beings, that the justice of God demands a particular consideration at this time. In this character, his justice is employed in the distribution of rewards to holy and virtuous creatures, and of punishments to false and rebellious subjects of his government.

All these distributions are made on the ground of law. Such as obey the law of God, are by impartial justice rewarded: those who disobey are punished. The perfection of these distributions consists in this; that each creature is rewarded, or punished, according to his character and conduct, exactly; so that the reward or the punishment shall be precisely proportioned to the several degrees of virtue or guilt, just as they have existed. In this case all the palliations and aggravations of guilt, and all the means of increasing or diminishing virtue, will enter completely into the estimate of the character of each individual. Of all these, God, who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins, is a perfect judge. Nothing is unknown or forgotten by him, and nothing will be left out of the estimate of character, which will be the foundation of the reward or the punishment.

I. The proofs of the justice of God exhibited by reason, or found in the system of providence, are not to us demon-. strative: yet they are well deserving of our attention.

1. The character and circumstances of God strongly lead us to believe in his perfect justice. God is perfectly independent, in the actual possession of all possible good, and completely secure against every possible loss and evil. Whatever he pleases to have exist or done, is certainly brought to pass, and in the precise manner which is pleasing to him. Hence

no temptation or inducement to any injustice can exist with respect to him. Possessing all things, he can need nothing; contriving all things, he can fear nothing; effecting all things which he chooses, with infinite ease, and no possible obstruction, he can never have occasion to adopt any other character or conduct but that of perfect justice. Injustice in our experience is always derived, and of course, from the dread of some disadvantage, or the desire of some advantage, which otherwise would not exist. But these things have no possible application to God. Reason sees not therefore, how God can be under any inducement to injustice. But without such inducement, injustice cannot exist.

2. In this state of trial, many exhibitions of the divine justice are made in divine providence. These are seen chiefly in the application of punishments and rewards to nations, considered in their national capacity. Nations as such, exist only on this side of the grave. Hence it would seem, that in this peculiar character as nations merely, they are with propriety rewarded or punished here. Thus nations, after they have become corrupted to a certain degree, have constantly been destroyed for their national corruption. God indeed has usually waited with wonderful patience, until their iniquities were full; and so evidently, that the ancient heathens described and painted Justice as lame; that is, slow in arriving. This conduct of the Creator is highly becoming his glorious character, as a most bountiful and merciful God towards beings still in a state of trial.

Yet the destruction or punishment has been sure, however late it may seem to us. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.' So evident has been the justice of God in such instances, that the heathen have strongly marked and fully acknowledged it, generally throughout the whole heathen world a clear proof that it has struck the eye, and convinced the mind of common sense.

3. The justice of God is conspicuous in this great fact, that mankind are never afflicted beyond their deserts. In the last Discourse but one I have observed, that this truth is rendered evident in the only case in which it can with the least appearance of reason be disputed; viz. the sufferings of virtuous

men; by their own uniform acknowledgment, that they never suffer even so much as they are conscious of having deserved. But the only tendency of any mind to injustice is to withhold good, or inflict evil contrary to or beyond the desert of the recipient. As neither of these is ever the fact; as, on the contrary, men always receive more good and less evil than they have merited; it is plain that the justice of God on the one hand, and his absolute freedom from injustice on the other, are strongly evinced in his dispensations to man in the present world.

4. All the arguments which I have deduced from the character and circumstances of God, to prove that he is benevolent, are capable of an equally forcible application to the present subject, and contribute in the same manner to prove that he is just. As these have been so lately rehearsed, it will be unnecessary to mention them again at the present time.

5. As God is benevolent, it is impossible that he should not be just. In the last Discourse I observed, that love constituted the whole moral character of God; and that although we were obliged for the sake of distinctness to consider, as the Scriptures themselves often do, this character in different views and under different names; yet it is in reality a disposition simple and indivisible; these names denoting only its different modifications and exercises. As I expect hereafter to consider this subject more fully, I shall only observe here, that the doctrine being admitted, the benevolence of God, if proved, as I flatter myself it has been, from the light of nature, is itself complete proof of the justice of God. A Being, willing, as a benevolent one necessarily is, to do more good to others than justice demands, cannot be willing to do less, the only manner in which he could possibly be unjust.

This proof of the justice of God is, I think, ample and satisfactory. At the same time, in such a world as this, where the system of dispensations extends to so many beings and so many events, in themselves varied almost endlessly, and in their relations still more numerous and diversified; it cannot but be, that mystery should in a great measure overspread the whole. In each individual case there will be much that we cannot understand: in the comparison of that case with others, there will be more. A state of trial also involves the doctrine, that in it a complete exhibition of justice cannot be made. All

that is just in such a state cannot be seen to be just, especially by creatures whose discernment and comprehension are like ours, so limited and so disproportioned to the objects of investigation. Amid the multitude of these objects we are lost, by their variety we are perplexed, by their strangeness we are staggered; and by the relations which they bear to each other, often apparently very dissimilar, often seemingly inconsistent, we are not unnaturally nor unfrequently overwhelmed with difficulties, doubts, and distresses.

It is probable that, except in the case of nations already mentioned, the dispensations of good and evil in this world are designed rather as restraints on the sinful conduct, and as encouragements to the virtue of mankind, than as full manifestations of the justice of God. In this view of them they contain abundant proofs of wisdom, equity and goodness, wholly suited to the state of man. It ought at the same time to be observed, that there is no argument which renders it probable in any degree that God is not just.

II. What the state of Providence thus teaches, the Scriptures have completely disclosed. The justice of God is in the Scriptures exhibited to us in various methods.

1. God has informed us in multitudes of direct declarations, that he is a God of consummate justice. All these declarations receive the whole weight of his whole character, as exhibited in the Scriptures; a weight which no mind that admits any part of this character can resist.

2. He has displayed in the history of the Scriptures many highly important and impressive instances of his justice, executed on mankind, both as nations and individuals. These are very numerous and various, and in them all, complete examples of this awful attribute are presented to our view.

3. In his law he has required all men to be just, assuring them that in this character they will be loved by him, and in the contrary character hated; promising them in this character glorious rewards, and threatening them, in the contrary character, most fearful punishments. Exactly of this nature every command, every promise, and every threatening. These promises and threatenings have also, as was observed under the last head (for these considerations illustrate each other,) been often most exemplarily executed even in the pre

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sent world.

In these instances we are not left to our own conjectures to interpret the dispensations of Providence; but are directly informed of their nature by God himself. In these instances therefore the dispensations become plain and intelligible, and all doubt is excluded.

4. He has informed us, that there is beyond the grave a future being; that in the future world he has appointed, at the end of this system, a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, and will reward every man according to his works.

5. He has required us to acknowledge, reverence, love, worship, and obey him, as being Just, perfectly and infinitely. In no other character does he require any love, homage, or service. That God in requiring our homage to him, should require it to a character not his own, is an absurdity which can neither be admitted nor explained.

There is indeed no possible reason which can be devised, why any and all of these things should be done in the Scriptures, except that God is the just Being which he is there represented to be. These things united comprise all the proof which we can reasonably wish, of the justice of God, and cannot possibly be destroyed nor lessened. Accordingly no person who believed the Scriptures to be the word of God, ever thought of doubting this great truth.

REMARKS.

1. How gloriously is God qualified by this attribute for the government of all things! In what an amiable, majestic, and dignified light is he here manifested to our view. Without this attribute all others would be vain. A Ruler he might be, because his power would easily compel all beings to obey him. But he would be merely an arbitrary and despotic ruler, neither venerable nor lovely. No creature would or could serve him willingly, with either love or confidence. The fear which gendereth bondage, would be the only principle of subjection; nor would any subjection or service secure his creatures from perpetual danger and distress.

What a dreadful instrument would Omnipotence be in the hands of an unjust being. What evils must not all creatures

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