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

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 instance to pass. Hence he is the universal safeguard every 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 sufferance 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.

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?

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!

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;

But

but no character is so dreaded, so hated, when justice is considered as inconsistent with our safety, peace, and hopes. can this be right? A just ruler must punish wicked and unjust We choose that other wicked and unjust men should

men.

be punished, and hesitate indispensably requires it.

not to say that the common good 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.

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? On mere wishes. Who form, and indulge them? Wicked men only. Can God be such as wicked men wish him to be? Can they suppose it? What kind of a ruler do wicked men wish to have rule? A vile one. What God do wicked men wish to

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!'

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.

(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.

(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.