Which of us has not often said, in his heart, "Thou wilt not require it ;" and sinned in the face of the sentence registered against all iniquity,-in the face of the sentence registered against fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry,—against anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication,-in the face of the sentence registered against all those that forget God? But you will say,-Surely God is a merciful God! Are we not told that he is full of mercies and loving kindnesses, that his mercy rejoiceth against judgment, that he has sworn, as he liveth, "that he hath no pleasure in the death of the sinner?" True: his mercy is indeed boundless and astonishing; amazing, beyond what "eye hath seen, or ear heard, or hath entered into the heart of man to conceive." But how has that mercy been shewn? By visiting sentence to the very uttermost. He did not fling us his mercy indolently from his throne; but he executed sentence to the very uttermost upon his only begotten Son. His mercy does not consist in extinguishing his justice, but in executing it upon the head of the Son in whom he was well-pleased. Awful mercy! terrible forgiveness! mercy that we must not dare to trifle with.

Let us be ourselves the judges: if any man makes this mercy an argument for sin, what new punishment, what fresh torments, how many times must the furnace be heated for that man,-for him who dares to say, because the Lord Jesus has died for me, I will follow my iniquities!-for him who would thus make Christ the minister of sin! That blessed mercy-that glorious manifestation of infinite love, was always used in Scripture as an argument for repentance, for holiness, and for all good; but any man that curses God's blessing, by turning it into an argument for continuing in sin,-how is he described in Scripture? He is "The enemy of the Cross of Christ ;" and "He crucifies the Son of God afresh, and puts him to an open shame!" It had been "good for that man that he had never been born."

Every hour of sin that you add to your life, under this dispensation, is gathering over your head-in judgment. The goodness of God, in not cutting you off with your sins still green and fresh, is turning every day into wrath. For what says the apostle? Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance;" but, after thy hardness and impenitent heart "Treasurest up wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God?" Here you see two things: first, that the goodness of God, in bearing with you thus long, in not blotting you out from the face of the earth while you were engaged in the last sin that you committed, was leading you to repentance: it cannot lead to mercy but through repentance: secondly, you see that every time you neglected and refused, you have been treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath." There is a treasury of vengeance in heaven: and day by day, and hour by hour, you have been casting in your mite. When will your cup be full? Perhaps at this moment it may be overflowing; perhaps the plain, simple warning that you hear this day may be the last that the Lord God will ever vouchsafe to your soul. This at least is certain,-that the next time you return to your sin it will be in deliberate defiance of the wrath of the Almighty. Who shall say, whether you will be allowed to make the trial a second time? Probably your cup may then be full- and he may strike you dead upon the spot. Or if not, he may let you live as a monument of his vengeance; and as Pharaoh was allowed to live, after he had resisted all the means of grace, that the Lord might openly manifest his power and his justice upon him, God may prolong your life only that men may see a sinner gasping without hope upon his death-bed,-and, as they look upon the horrors of your dying countenance, they may smite their breasts and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

SERMON XIV.

1 JOHN, iv. 10.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

IF God had waited until we loved him before he loved us, we should not have been assembled here this day to read the history of his mercies, and to humble ourselves before him, in astonishment at the multitude of his loving kindnesses. If God had waited until we loved him, before he loved us, we should never have known what it was to come together on a Sabbath morning, to talk of mercy and salvation, and the holy charity that binds us to God and to each other: we should be now bowing our heads before the works of our hands, and the inventions of our own imaginations: perhaps, at this instant, we should be met together to perform our impure and bloody ceremonies to the powers of darkness the house which is now the Lord's tabernacle, and the place where his honour dwelleth, might be the temple in which we adored the God of intemperance and sensuality, or made our offerings to the wicked spirit that delighteth in war, violence, and revenge; or we might be flocking to the table of our evil god— not to eat the bread of life, or to drink from the fountains of the living water, but to sound his praises in festivals of drunkenness, riot, and indecency; or we should be kneeling at his altar-not to offer the sacri

fice of a broken and a contrite heart, but to worship him with the knife, and with the blood of our fellowcreatures; and, perhaps, we should now be preparing the children that we loved as our own souls, to pass through the fire of sacrifice that was kindled in his honour, that we might satisfy his fury and avert his indignation.

It is true, the very mention of these things may now shock our feelings, and we may fancy, if we please, that no possible conjuncture of circumstances could have reduced us to such crimes and enormities: but such was the state of the world at the time that the Son of God came down upon the earth,—and we shall not find it very easy to prove, either that we are a superior race of beings to the men of those days, or that the natural progress of society has caused the difference between them and ourselves.

The men of those days were our superiors in many of the arts of civilised life, and it was then four thousand years since the creation of the world. The world had time enough to have learned how to love God, if it could have loved him: but "When they knew God, they glorified him not as God; and their foolish heart was darkened." They had suffered the knowledge of God to be blotted out of their minds, and of course the love of God had disappeared from their hearts. Their religion only had shewed itself in their festivals,-in drunkenness, impurity, and blood; in the common course of their lives he was forgotten; and, by the terrible ceremonies by which they attempted to appease his wrath, or conciliate his good-will, they proved that they regarded him as their enemy. So that if God had only allowed men to go on in the way which they had chosen for themselves, if he had not turned to them before they turned to him, we should have been now sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, sinuing on to our ruin, without a thought upon the God whom we were offending.

But, indeed, it is not necessary to look back to past

ages in order to make this gloomy discovery. If a man looks into his own heart but for one moment, he may soon perceive that if God had loved us it cannot be because we have first loved him.

Among all the natural passions and affections of the human heart, where is the love of God to be found? We love parent and child,-we love friends and country, we love riches and honour,-we love sin in all its shapes, and we embrace it with all our souls; these affections take their root in our nature, they grow wild in our hearts, and scarcely require cultivation. But, instead of finding religion growing naturally within, only observe with what care and watching and anxiety it must be cherished, and refreshed, and preserved; and if once neglected, yea, but for a little, how soon it begins to wither and decay! Any of the other affections of our heart it would be almost impossible to get rid of; but to acquire and cultivate a spirit of religion, is the slow and patient work of earnest watchfulness and persevering humility. Where is the man amongst us who would venture to put up to God such a prayer as this,-Regard me as I have regarded you; treat me as I have treated you ? For how have we regarded him? how have we treated him? Really, do we look upon him more as a friend or as an enemy? How often do we wish that he was far away, and that his eye was not open upon our hearts, and that he did not hear the words of our lips, or witness the deeds of our lives? How often would it have been a relief to us to think that he was not everlastingly present amongst us? Does not our conscience often bear testimony that we love the things he hates, by the effort we make to forget and to banish him whenever we wish to give way to our sinful propensities, or to indulge in pride, covetousness, drunkenness, sensuality, or revenge? Is it not a confession that he is at war with those things that we love, and that he who loves sin cannot love God? So true is the word of God, which says, "He that loveth me keepeth my commandments."