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SERMON XIII.

The Cause of the Destruction of Impenitent Sinners.

HOSEA Xiii. 9.

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine

help.

THESE words are so concise in the Hebrew text, that no distinct idea can be affixed to them, unless we supply something. All expositors allow this. The only question is, what word ought to be supplied to express the prophet's meaning.

Some supply, thine idols, or thy calves, have destroyed thee and by these they understand the images which Jeroboam placed at Samaria to prevent the ten tribes, who had revolted under his direction from the government of Rehoboam, from returning to that prince, as probably they might have been tempted to do, had they gone to worship the true God at Jerusalem.

Others supply, thy king hath destroyed thee, O Israel, meaning Jeroboam, who had led the people of Israel into idolatry.

But, not to trouble you with a list of the various opinions of expositors, I shall content myself with observing that which I think best founded, that is, the sense given by the ancient Latin version, Thy destruction is of thyself, O Israel, or thou art the author

of thine own ruin. This translation, which supplies less to the original, is also perfectly agreeable to the idiom of the Hebrew language. With this the version of our churches agrees, thou hast destroyed thyself, or thou art destroyed, which is much the same, because others cannot destroy us unless we contribute by our own negligence to our own destruction. This translation too is connected with what precedes, and what follows, and in general with the chief design of our prophet.

This chief design is very observable in most chapters of this prophecy. It is evident, the prophet intended to convince the Israelites that God had discovered in all his dispensations a desire to fix them in his service, to lead them to felicity by the path of virtue, and that they ought to blame none but themselves if judgments from heaven should overwhelm them, giving them up to the Assyrians in this life, and to punishment after death. This design seems to me most fully discovered in the latter part of this chapter, a few verses after the text, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction." You know,

my brethren, St. Paul informs us, that this promise will not be accomplished till after the general resurrection, "Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy thing? O grave, where is thy victory?" But, adds our prophet, "Samaria shall become desolate, for she hath rebelled against her God.” The text is therefore connected with the foregoing

and following words according to this translation, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.

I class the text then among those passages of scripture in which God condescends to exonerate his conduct in regard to sinners by declaring, that they ought to take the whole blame of their own destruction on themselves; and in this point of view I am going to consider it. The difficulties of this subject chiefly proceed from three causes, either from our notion of the nature of God-or the nature of religion or the nature of man. We will examine these difficulties, and endeavour to remove them in the remaining part of this discourse.

I. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself. The first difficulties that seem to belong to this truth, are taken from the nature of God, who, having created nothing of which he had not an idea before, and having realized no idea, all the consequences of which he had not foreseen, is the author not only of every being that exists, but also of every thing that results from their existence, and seems for this very reason the only cause of the miseries of his creatures.

It is much to be wished, my brethren, that mankind were so apprised of the narrow limits of their own understanding, as not to plunge themselves into some deep subjects which they are incapable of fathoming, and so as to attribute to their natural incapacity, their incompetency to answer some objections against the perfections of God. Some pagans have been more aware of this than many Christians; and the Persians, followers of Mohammed, have endeavoured to make their disciples comprehend it by an ingenious fable.

"There were, say they, three brethren, who all died at the same time; the two first were far advanced in age; the elder had always lived in a habit of obedience to God, the second, on the contrary, in a course of disobedience and sin, and the third was an infant, incapable of distinguishing good from evil. These three brothers appeared before the tribunal of God; the first was received into paradise, the second was condemned to hell, the third was sent to a middle place, where there was neither pleasure nor pain, because he had not done either good or evil. When this youngest heard his sentence, and the reason on which the Supreme Judge grounded it, sorry to be excluded from paradise, he exclaimed, Ah, Lord! hadst thou preserved my life as thou didst that of my good brother, how much better would it have been for me? I should have lived as he did, and then I should have enjoyed as he does the happiness of eternal glory! My child, replied God to him, I knew thee, and I knew hadst thou lived longer thou wouldst have lived like thy wicked brother, and like him wouldst have rendered thyself deserving of the punishment of hell. The condemned brother hearing this discourse of God, exclaimed, Ah, Lord! why didst thou not then confer the same favour upon me as upon my younger brother, by depriving me of a life which I have so wickedly mispent as to bring myself under a sentence of condemnation? I preserved thy life said God, to give thee an opportunity of saving thyself. The younger brother hearing this reply, exclaimed again, Ah! why then, my God, didst thou not preserve my life also that I might

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