no variableness, neither shadow of turning. All these considerations prove, indubitably, that in the highest possible sense we are the property of this great and glorious Being; in such a sense, as nothing is ours. Indeed, nothing is ours, except what he has given us; and all the property which Intelligent creatures possess or can possess, in any thing, is created solely by the gift of God.

From these considerations, it is evident, God has an absolute right to dispose of us in whatever manner seems good in his sight: Particularly, he has an unquestionable right to prescribe for us such laws, and require of us such services, as he pleases. Whatever he prescribes we are bound by the highest possible obligation to obey: whatever he requires, we are by the same obligation bound to perform.

This unlimited right God is infinitely able to vindicate. His power is immeasurable. Disobedience to his commands he can punish without bounds, and without end. He knows every avenue to the heart; and can make every thought and every nerve, a channel of suffering. To escape from his eye or his hand, is alike impossible. Every element, every faculty, and even every enjoyment, he can convert into a minister of vengeance. He needs not the famine nor the pestilence, the storm nor the thunder-bolt, the volcano nor the earthquake, the sword nor the sceptre of tyranny; to execute his wrath upon his rebellious creatures. He needs no lake of fire and brimstone to torment the workers of iniquity. He can arm an insect, he can commission an atom, to be the minister of his anger. He can make the body its own tormentor. He can convert the mind itself into a world of perdition, where the gloom of despair shall overcast all the faculties; the sigh of anguish heave, and the stream of sorrow flow forever.

In the possession of this mighty power he is still just. No intelligent creature will ever find a solid reason for complaining of God. His commandments concerning all things are absolutely right. I do not intend, that they are right, because they are his commandments: they are right in themselves. The things

which they require, are the very things which wisdom sufficiently informed, and virtue sufficiently pure, would choose to do in preference to all others. In themselves therefore, they contain ample reasons why they should be done by us.

At the same time he is infinitely good. "Thou art good," says David," and thou dost good; and thy tender mercies are over all thy works." Even in this rebellious world he has not left himself without abundant witness, "in that he gives us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, and fills our hearts with food and gladness." Our health, our food, our raiment, our friends, our hopes; the nameless and numberless enjoyments which succeed each other without intermission, and flow in an unceasing stream through the period of life; and peculiarly, the means and proffers of life beyond the grave; are all daily and divine proofs of the kindness of our great Benefactor. From Him who does these things, to such beings as we are, what blessings would not descend were we better. Were we innocent; can we doubt, that our thorns and briers would bloom with the beauty of Paradise? Were we of an angelic disposition; can we hesitate to believe that earth would be changed into heaven?

Of the goodness of God his mercy is the consummation and glory. When we had ruined ourselves, and had none to save, or even to pity us; he sent his Son, his only beloved, to redeem us from our sins, and to rescue us from perdition. He sent him to endure the contradiction of sinners, and to undergo the death of the cross. At the tidings of this wonderful work heaven opened its gates to receive mankind; and thousands and millions of repenting sinners entered the path, which leads to immortal life; and found themselves welcomed in that happy world, with a joy, never exercised over just persons who need no repentance.

He is also our Ruler, our Judge, and our Rewarder. The universe which he has made, is his own empire. All the beings by which it is inhabited, are his subjects. The dominion which he exercises over them, is dictated by the glorious perfections which I have mentioned. To rebel against it, is to oppose the excellence and authority of the Ruler, and the interests of his immense

%

and eternal kingdom. Those, who rebel, he will therefore summon to judgment; and demand from them an account of all the deeds, done in the body. According to these deeds they will be judged and rewarded.

From these considerations, he, who realizes them, will perceive in the clearest light that in every sin, he is guilty of gross injustice to his Maker, in refusing him that which is his by the highest and most unquestionable right; an injustice, at which he would start, were it practised upon his neighbour; of bold and impious rebellion against his righteous government; of gross and dreadful ingratitude to his goodness and mercy; and of an impious disregard to his perfect and glorious character.

The guilt, inherent in all this wickedness, will be mightily enhanced by distinct perceptions of the purity of God. Behold, the heavens are not clean in his sight; and his Angels are charged with folly! How abominable then, ought every sinner to exclaim, how filthy am I, who drink iniquity like water. That every Intelligent creature ought, in some good measure, to resemble his Maker in this attribute, will not be questioned, except by a mind peculiarly gross and guilty. It cannot be soberly doubted, that both our thoughts and our lives ought to be clean. Accordingly, we are taught that good men, of course, aim assiduously at this character. "Every man that hath this hope in him," saith St. John, "purifieth himself, even as God is pure." But nothing can more strongly enhance the sense of our impurity, than a comparison of our own character with that of God. We cannot but discern that the all-perfect Mind, infinitely distant from every stain, must demand an absolute freedom from pollution in those who are to dwell with him, and obtain an interest in his everlasting love. What abasing views of himself must this consideration, strongly realized, awaken in the mind of every sinful being?

The same effect will be exceedingly increased by just appre hensions of the transcendent Greatness of God. The importance which a sinner attributes to himself has no existence, except to the jaundiced eye of pride. Yesterday we were formed of the dust: to-morrow we go down to the grave. From our birth to

cur death we are frail, dependant, helpless, little, ignorant, and polluted from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. Still we are proud of ourselves, and of our circumstances. How strange is this conduct! How weak; how sinful; how unhappy! There is no method in which this miserable spirit can be extinguished, or even lessened, so effectually, as by bringing God before our eyes. To the view of solemn thought what a being must He be, who called the Universe out of darkness; who spoke, and it was filled with inhabitants; who himself fills immensity; who inhabits eternity; whose smile makes heaven; whose frown makes hell? Who can be profitable to such a Being? Who can be necessary? Were heaven to be emptied of its Angels at once; his word would replenish it again with others equally wise, great, and good. What then must we be? Nothing, less than nothing, and vanity.

As it is impossible, that he should need us or our services, it is certain that he requires nothing of us for himself; and that all his commands are given for our good, and not his. Of course, all the advantages, derived from our obedience, must be our own. He will not be benefited. We shall be better, and of course happier.

But from his hand we need all things. We are of yesterday, and know nothing. If our mental darkness is illumined, the light must come from heaven. Our strength is weakness; and of ourselves we can do nothing. All our sufficiency is from God. His breath animated our lifeless forms. His power quickened our souls into thought, and action. We breathe his air; we live upon his food. His arm guides us; his hand sustains us; his mercy calls us to the possession of eternal life. We are nothing, we have nothing, we hope for nothing, but what he is pleased to give. With these considerations in view, our importance and our pride sink in the dust. In this manner good men have, in all ages, learned and loved to abase themselves. Thus David, in the eighth Psalm, strongly affected with a sense of the greatness of God as displayed in the works of his hands, cries out with the deepest humility: "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy

11 fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him!" Thus, also, Job exclaims in the text: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

All these considerations will be mightily enhanced, and their efficacy powerfully increased, by the recollection of the Omnipresence, and Omniscience, of God. The consciousness, that this great and awful Being is wherever we are; accompanies us wheresoever we go; and surrounds us in crowds, and in solitude; gives a solemnity to our existence, and an importance to all our conduct, which can be derived from nothing else. What an eye is that which is employed in searching the hearts, and trying the reins, of the children of men; which is always looking directly on our hearts; which, as a flame of fire, shines into the recesses of the soul, and changes the darkness into day; which has watched all our sins from the beginning, and has seen every impious and profane, every ungrateful and impure thought, word, and action! What a hand is that, which has recorded all these things in the book out of which we shall be judged; and will open to us the dark and melancholy pages, at the final day! How must the presence of such an eye and such a hand make every sinner turn pale with conscious guilt, and tremble at an approaching judgment; if he be not blind, and deaf, and dead, in trespasses and sins!

When we call to mind what an appearance we must make before Him, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon sinners; how can we fail of seeing ourselves in some measure as God sees us? of thinking concerning sin as he thinks? and of feeling in our hearts, that, as our guilt is of the deepest die, our punishment must be dreadful?

Were all these considerations regularly present to the mind; were they daily and deeply realized; they must, one would believe, almost necessarily make a thinking man sober; a sober man serious; a serious man awakened; an awakened man pen