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fear! What evils would they not suffer! What spectacles of vengeance and woe, would not his arm call up into being. How instantaneously would all hope vanish, all safety cease, all good perish! The universe would become a desert, a dungeon, an immense region of mourning, lamentation, and woe.

Now, all creatures are secure from every possible act of injustice from the hand of God. Powerful as he is, knowing all things as he does, these amazing attributes are employed only to discern that which is just and right, and to bring it in every instance to pass. Hence he is the universal safeguard of his unnumbered creatures, the rock on which their rights and interests immoveably rest, the proper and unfailing object of supreme and endless confidence. Wrong he cannot do, right he cannot fail to do. Submission to his will, his law, his government, is safe; and when voluntary, is assured of the regard, the approbation, and the rewards which are promised to cheerful obedience.

Were God not possessed of this glorious attribute, his Benevolence would be mere weakness. All froward, rebellious, obstinate creatures would presume on his want of energy to vindicate his own honour, and the rights of the suffering universe. A mind formed for immortal being, naturally makes progress in all its habits, and in the strength of all its powers. An evil mind, unrestrained by the awe or the exertions of Omnipotence, would naturally increase in its pride, selfishness, malice, and cruelty; in a general disregard to the wellbeing of others, and in a supreme devotion to its private, separate purposes. To all who oppose, to every thing which clashes with these things, such a mind is of course an enemy. Nor can any bounds be set to this enmity, or to its effects, except by God himself. Were he to remain quiescent in mere kindness and good wishes to the universe, the schemes of personal greatness, oppression, rage, revenge and fury, which would be formed by evil beings, cannot be measured. Every evil being would become a fiend; and to tempt a race, to ruin a world, and to involve a system in misery, would be familiar events in the annals of the universe.

2. What reason have wicked men to fear the justice of God! The wicked are secured by God's perfect justice from the sufferance of any evil which they have not de

served; but at the same time, are wholly exposed to the suf ferance of all such evils as they have deserved. These are sufficiently dreadful to excite in their minds every degree of alarm which man is capable of experiencing.

The denunciations of woe in the Scriptures of truth are couched in as awful terms as language can furnish. The God who is immutably and eternally just, as he uttered them in conformity to strict justice, so in executing them will conform to the same justice in the most perfect manner.

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Whatever their rebellion against God, their rejection of his Son, their deceit, injustice, and cruelty to each other, and their pollution of themselves, deserve they will receive exactly at his hand, and will be rewarded exactly according to their works.' It becomes every impenitent sinner to ask himself, what reward he ought to expect for a life spent wholly in rebellion of thought, word and action; with no account of voluntary obedience, and millions of accounts of gross disobedience against his Maker?

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It is plainly a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' In his hand, and within his knowledge and power, are all the avenues to woe, all the ingredients to misery. He is equally able to pierce the soul, and to agonize the body. There is no escape from his power, no concealment from his eye. What then will become of hardened sinners? How will the justice of God overwhelm them in consternation and horror at the great day!

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3. We see here the great reason why the Scriptures are opposed and denied by wicked men. All the difficulty which men find in admitting the Scriptures to be the word of God, exists in this attribute. I do not remember that I ever heard or read of a single objection to the Scriptural God, except what was pointed against his justice. All men are usually willing to acknowledge his power, wisdom, goodness, faithfulness, truth, and mercy; but few beside good men are ready to acknowledge his justice.

Whence this objection? Is not Justice a glorious and eminently divine perfection? Can an unjust ruler be the object of approbation? Is not injustice the ground of perpetual complaint against earthly rulers? The secret lies wholly in this fact. We are willing, nay desirous, that rulers should be just, when justice does not endanger ourselves and our happiness:

men.

but no character is so dreaded, so hated, when justice is considered as inconsistent with our safety, peace, and hopes. But can this be right? A just ruler must punish wicked and anjust We choose that other wicked and unjust men should be punished, and hesitate not to say that the common good indispensably requires it. But we make another law for ourselves, and would rather that the ruler should prove unjust, than either reform ourselves or be punished.

The justice of God holds out to us and to all others, certain and dreadful punishment as the proper reward of our sins. If God be just, we cannot without repentance, faith and reformation of life, possibly escape. Between reformation and punishment there is no alternative. Reform we will not; be punished we cannot. Hence we believe that God is not just, because we wish this not to be his character. Of course we deny the Scriptures to be his word, to free ourselves from the terror of his justice. What wretched reasoning is this! How foolish, how fatal! How foolish, because it cannot possibly help or save us; since God will plainly pursue his own counsels, and accomplish his own purposes, whether we believe his justice or not. How foolish, because the whole purpose for which such reasoning is adopted, is to enable us to continue peacefully in sin; a miserable character, and plainly exposed always to a miserable end.

On mere

How fatal is such reasoning, because it will actually induce us to continue peacefully in sin, and prevent us from repentance and salvation. On what is it grounded? wishes. Who form, and indulge them? Can God be such as wicked men wish him to be?

suppose it? have rule?

Wicked

men only. Can they

What kind of a ruler do wicked men wish to
What God do wicked men wish to

A vile one.

Because such No good man,

have rule the universe? A vile one. Why? a God only can be supposed to favour them. no angel, ever regretted that God was just. It is impossible that a virtuous being should not rejoice in the justice of God. The instinctive voice of all the virtuous universe is the voice. of angels, and of the spirits of just men made perfect in the heavens, crying, Alleluia! Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, be unto the Lord our God: for true and righteous are his Judgments. Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty: just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints!

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SERMON XI.

THE TRUTH OF GOD.

AND THE TRUTH OF THE LORD ENDURETH FOR EVER. PSALM CXVII. 2.

In my last Discourse, I considered briefly the Justice of God. I shall now proceed to make some observations concerning His Truth, which in the text is asserted to be an eternal, and therefore an inseparable, attribute of Jehovah.

As a prelude to these observations, it will be useful to take a concise notice of the several significations of this term. The word Truth, denotes,

(1) A proposition, conformed to the real state of things. Thus St. Paul says, 'I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not.' Rom. ix. 1.

(2) All such propositions, generally considered. Thus Pilate asked Christ, What is truth?' John xviii. 38.

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(3) That collection of such propositions which is contained in the Gospel, and is commonly called evangelical truth. Thus says our Saviour, The Spirit of truth shall guide you into all Truth: John xvi. 13. Thus also St. Paul observes, Love rejoiceth in the Truth.' 1 Cor. xiii. 8. In both these instances, the truth mentioned is Evangelical Truth.

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(4) Reality, in opposition to that which is fancied or vision· ary. Thus the True God' denotes the real God, in opposition to the imaginary gods of the heathen.

(5) The substance, in opposition to types. Thus Christ calls himself the Truth,' as being the great Antitype of all the types in the Old Testament.

(6) Veracity, that is, a disposition always to declare Truth, or to speak according to the real state of things.

(7) Faithfulness, that is, a disposition always to fulfil covenants, trusts, and promises.

In these two last senses, I shall consider the Truth of God as declared in the text. Veracity and Faithfulness are attributes so nearly allied, as to be considered together with great advantage. The former is speaking, and as the case may be, acting according to a state of things, seen or supposed to exist. The latter is declaring a future state of our own conduct, and afterwards acting so, that that conduct shall be conformed to the declaration. No moral attributes are more perfectly of a kindred nature, nor can we conceive of him who possesses one of them, as in any less degree possessed of the other. There is no reason, therefore, for making them separate subjects of examination in this series of Discourses.

It will be obvious to those who hear me, that as the works of Creation and Providence, consisting of beings and events merely, furnish us with no declarations made by God; and as every such declaration must in its nature be a revelation: so in these works there can be no proper specimen of his Truth or Faithfulness. To every direct display of these attributes, declarations are indispensably necessary. The only way in which the works of God exhibit, by themselves, any manifestation of these attributes, seems to be this. In the regular succession of causes and effects, a state of things is formed and continued, on which we usually and safely rely; and so far as this is concerned, enter upon our various kinds of business with security from disappointment. This state of things may be justly considered as manifesting a disposition on the part of Him, by whom it is established, not to deceive his creatures, but to exhibit to them that conduct on which they may place a safe reliance. Thus we confide in the regular succession of seasons, the return of day and night, the productiveness of the earth, the efficacy of rain and sunshine, and generally, in the nature, qualities, and effects of the various things by which we are surrounded.

But, notwithstanding this want of declarations in Creation and Providence, the proofs by which the Truth of God is capable of being evinced by Reason, independently of Revelation, are, I think, satisfactory, and sufficient.

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