tance to misery, are warmly addressed. God himself stoops to argue and expostulate with them in the most affectionate manner. "Come now, and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, eat that which is good, let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear and your soul shall live. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, who will abundantly pardon. How long will the scorners delight in scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn ye at my reproof: Behold, I will pour out my spirit, and make known my words unto you." When all the methods of his grace fail of their effect, with what reluctance does he proceed to punishment?"How shall I give thee up?-My heart is turned within me. Be thou instructed, lest my soul depart from thee.”

That his exhortations and reproofs may have a more extensive influence, he has commissioned his heralds to proclaim and spread them in the world, and urge and press them on all who will hear. "We are ambassadors for Christ," says the apostle, "as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." Ministers are to speak God's word to men, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. They are to be instant in season, and out of season; to be patient toward all men; and in meekness to instruct them who oppose the truth, if God peradventure will give them repentance.

Yea, farther, God strives with sinners by his gracious spirit, which accompanies the dispensation of

his word. In reference to this heavenly influence, the exalted Savior says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Hence those convictions and awakenings of conscience, and those relentings for sin and resolutions of amendments, which sinners often feel. Hence they who continue obstinate in their guilty course, are said to resist to grieve-to vex the Holy Spirit.

When we contemplate the various measures, which God is pursuing with sinful men, can we imagine, that he delights in their destruction?

4. God is patient and longsuffering to sinners.

The transgressor of God's law deserves the curse which it denounces. The gospel brings an offer of pardon: But every refusal of the offer is a forfeiture of the benefit. Impenitence in sin after pardon is offered is a reiterated contempt of grace, and a continual accumulation of guilt. In the mean time, the suspension of punishment is the effect of divine patience. It is this which, from day to day, interposes to stay the uplifted hand of justice. How easy it is with God to crush, in a moment, bold and contemptuous sinners? How many provocations to arrest and destroy them, do they give him every day? How wonderful is his forbearance, that he still waits to be gracious, and exalts himself that he may have mercy?

5. Many great offenders, by extraordinary means, have been brought to repentance, and through abundant mercy have obtained forgiveness. Thus God has displayed the riches of his grace for the encour. agement of all.

Paul says of himself, of himself, "He was once a blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious; but he obtained mercy, and the grace of Christ was exceedingly abun. dant toward him." And he acknowledges, that "for this cause he obtained mercy, that in him, as the

chief of sinners, Christ might shew forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them, who should afterward believe in him to life everlasting." The Ephesians, before the gospel came to them, were led away by that evil spirit, who works in the children of disobedience; they had their conversation in the lusts of the flesh; they fulfilled the desires of the carnal mind; they were by nature children of wrath. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith he loved them, even when they were dead in sins, quickened them together with Christ; that, in the ages to come, he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward them by Jesus Christ,"

From past examples of God's mercy, every awakened soul has encouragement to apply to him for the grace of repentance and the blessing of pardon. He is the same gracious and sin forgiving God, as when the gospel was first preached. He still beholds the returning sinner, even when he is a great way off; and still extends his gracious arms to embrace him,

This view of God's goodness, in its proper influence, would lead sinners to repentance. But some there are, who abuse this goodness to their encouragement in iniquity. "If God is thus gracious and merciful," say they, "surely those awful threatenings, found in the Bible, proceed not from him; or, if they do, they must be understood in a sense quite different from the natural import of the language,"

But what harm do you fear from these threatenings? They do not arbitrarily create a danger, which without them would not exist; They mercifully warn you of a danger which really does exist. May not seasonable warnings come from a good being? If there had been no threatenings at all, yet a

corrupt heart and wicked life tend to misery. Is your state the worse, because you are told of this? Threatenings are not intended to make you miserable, but to restrain you from making yourselves miserable. Take the warning which they bring, and they never will hurt you. Perhaps you think them too severe and terrible. But do you find, that they have too great an effect in reforming the world? Have they too powerful an influence on you? Terrible as they are, do not many sin still? Had they been more soft and gentle, perhaps iniquity would have been more bold and insolent. In short; if by them you are brought to repentance, you will never suffer from them. If you are unreformed, say not, they are too terrible; for you are not the persons to complain.

Perhaps you think, that God may have made these threatenings merely to operate as a check upon vice; and that he is too merciful finally to execute them. But certainly God has given no intimation, that he designed them merely as terrors to affright men into obedience. Such an intimation would have destroyed their effect. And if God has given no such intimation, you have no right to assume such a presumption. If God has denounced threatenings against the finally impenitent, he doubtless intended, that men should believe he was in earnest; for otherwise the threatenings might better have never been uttered. And if it is God's will, that we should believe he will execute them, certainly it must be his will to execute them, according to their import, on the subjects against whom they are pointed. For who will say, God would have us believe a lie? If it is consistent with God's goodness to pronounce such threatenings, it is consistent with his goodness to carry them into effect.

Farther; you should always keep it in mind, that wickedness tends to misery, and must, if retained, finally terminate in it. The question, therefore, is not so much concerning God's immediate execution of punishment on sinners, as concerning their bringing misery on themselves. If you continue in your sins, and die in your impenitence, "know ye, that your sins will find you out, and your iniquities will fall upon you." "His own iniquities shall take

the wicked himself; he shall be holden in the cords of his sins." It is absurd to start cavils against, and study evasions of the divine threatenings, unless you can prove, that a wicked and ungodly life, followed with a hardened and impenitent death, is, in its nature, consistent with glory and happiness.

Some, I suppose, will say, "If we are to judge of men's characters according to the tenor of the gospel, there is, and probably ever has been in the world, a much greater number of sinners, than of saints; and it is not credible, that a merciful God will doom to misery so great a proportion of his intelligent creatures."

But do you seriously think, that the number of sinners is a reason, why God will not punish any? If it is, then the greater the number, the stronger the reason for impunity. And consequently by promoting vice, you add to the general safety. I hope you will not act on such an opinion. Though the number of sinners be ever so great, and their combinations ever so strong, the wicked shall not be unpunished. If sin indulged in the heart, and practised in the life, not only deserves punishment from the justice of God, but tends to misery in its own nature, then the number of sinners is no security; for this will neither lesson sin's demerit, nui arrest its tendency. Though thousands should, at the same time, be afflicted with a painful disease, not