salvation, which our more remote predecessors had not; advantages arising out of that accumulation of force and increase of weight which certain motives are ever receiving as time makes progress. We have a longer experience to instruct us. We have more numerous examples to admonish us. There is in the history of divine providence as it goes on, a constant repetition of warning; and the voice which proclaims that the wicked shall not go unpunished, is getting louder and more distinct every day. The generation which came out of Egypt had not all the same examples to warn them, that we have. If they could doubt what would be the fate of rebellion against God, yet how can we? Who but a madman can now expect impunity in sin; when God has made so many declarations that he will punish, and when in confirmation of his word, he has so many times actually punished? Our situation then is more favorable to repentance. We feel a heavier pressure of motive upon us. So also we sin under more aggravating circumstances, for with this increased weight of motive, there comes also a heavier load of responsibility.

But to come to the more direct discussion of the text, let us consider,

1. What God does to keep men from sinning; to arrest transgressors in their guilty course, and to reclaim them from it.

His doing any thing signifies that he would have them cease from sin, and illustrates the sincerity of the divinely expressed wish: "Oh! that they would fear me and keep my commandments always,"

and of the exhortations, "turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways." God does a great deal to arrest the sinner and bring him to repentance; "for all this," it is said; implying that much had been done. The truth is, all that God does up to a certain point in the history of every individual, is done with this view. All his dispensations and dealings propose the sinner's repentance and salvation, until that period when his Spirit, which he says shall not strive always with man, ceases to strive with him; that unknown period when he says of the incorrigible trasgressor, as he said of Ephraim, "he is joined to his idols, let him alone." All up to that fearful hour in the sinner's history is with a view to reclaim him from sin, but after that nothing is done with that view. He is given over. The things belonging to his peace are forever hid from his eyes. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, he is not saved, and he is not to be saved. He who sins up to that hour, shall sin on forever; he shall be abandoned to have unmolested his own way; he is left like Pharaoh to harden his heart more and And God's thus leaving him, and ceasing from those measures whose intent and tendency are to reclaim, is all that is meant by his hardening the sinner. But antecedently to this much is done for the sinner. He would be astonished, if he were at once to see it all. He would be filled with wonder at God's goodness and forbearance, and at his own ingratitude and rebellion. But he turns his eyes away from it; he does not consider the work of the Lord, nor regard the operation of his hands. He does not

more.

study to know the meaning of every mercy, and of every affliction. He is prospered, but he forgets God, he is afflicted, and his aim is, as soon as possible to forget the affliction. He does not know that God is dealing with him for the sake of his soul. He does not consider that the spirit of the Lord is striving with him about the matter of his salvation. When he wakes up in eternity he will see it, and he will wonder that he could ever have heen blind to it. "For all this, they sinned still."

The fact that God does so much to arrest the sinner, in his progress, proves that it is all-important to his happiness, essential to his salvation that he should be stopped. His deliverance can be accomplished in no other way. Iniquity must be his ruin, unless he ceases from it. It is on no other condition that he can have any hope from the mercy of God. If he will sin still, his perdition is inevitable.

But that we may answer the question, “What does God do to arrest the sinner ?" What are those persuasive measures he resorts to, to make the sinner willing and obedient? What motives does he present? I have time to mention only some of them; nor can I do much more than merely mention them.

1. He proclaims his own infinite abhorrence of sin. And will you persist in the love and practice of that which he abhors; is it not reason enough why you should hate and eschew it, that he hates it in its most plausible form, and in its mildest degree?

2. In the exercise of his sovereign authority, he positively and pointedly forbids it; and dare you do what God forbids, knowing, too, that he forbids it?

Fear you not him who can not only kill the body, but destroy both body and soul in hell?

3. He has annexed to the commission of sin a penalty, deep as hell, enduring as eternity, inexhaustible as infinitude. He has declared his inflexible determination to inflict that penalty without abatement. He can do it, for all power is his. He will do it, for there is no change in him, "hath he said, and shall he not do it?" There is no possibility of eluding his eye or escaping out of his hand, for his eye and hand are every where. Wilt thou tempt that penalty? Wilt thou defy him to do his utmost?

This penalty he has annexed to all and every sin. He has made every offence committed against him capital. In his penal code, there is no punishment short of death. "Death is the wages of sin; the soul that sinneth it shall die."

4. He has not only threatened, but begun to execute his threatenings. The weight of his indignation long suspended, has fallen on many and buried them in the bottomless pit. Man's life here below is made up of vanity and labor because of sin. The aspect of Providence is dark with the frowns which hang upon it; and the first death has passed or is passing upon all. He has punished. His acts confirm his declarations. Oh! who that reflects on what God has said about sin and done against it, can go on in it? Who dare continue in a course which he has so determinately set himself against, on which he so darkly frowns, and from which he so terrifically warns?

This is a part of what he has done. And surely

this were enough to frighten the most courageous into obedience, if one could be frightened into that, whose principle and fulfillment is love, which casteth out fear.

But he has adopted a different set of measures measures inviting, attracting, winning, melting; measures of mercy. He would draw by cords of love; he would overcome by methods of kindness. He declares his reluctance to punish. He proclaims his willingness to forgive; and that he might consistently pardon he lets us see at what expense he has been; how that to spare us, he spared not his own Son, but laid on him the iniquities of us all, that, by his stripes, we might be healed. He has consented that one, infinitely dear to him, should stand in our place, and bear the curse for us, that we might be redeemed from the curse. The cross of Christ, at the same time, in the same exhibition, demonstrates that God will punish sin, and that he would spare the sinner. There comes forth from it the most powerful of all possible motives; mercy and judgment meet there. All that fear can do, and all that love can do are here united in one appeal, irresistible, I would say, but that, alas! it is resisted. Can you gaze upon the cross of Calvary, and go on in sin? If you can, there remaineth nothing more; you must go on.

These are measures which God employs with sinners generally. But what has he done for you in particular? Think; you know your own private history best. Have you never felt him near you? Have you not sometimes thought that God was deal