tory of benefits, a difplay of mercy, a profufion of loving-kindness, which aftonish while they delight? Whole portion of felicity is fo fcanty, as not to exhibit wonders of goodness infinitely above the defert of angels? What understanding is fo brutifh, what heart fo ungrateful, as not to recur, at the first call, to a multitude of special bleffings, preffing upon the memory, urging prior or fuperior claims of acknowledgment and praife? Need you to be told, ungrateful, forgetful children of men! Need you to be told, the value of an uninterrupted and steady courfe of good health; or of the more fenfible benefit of recovery from fickness and pain? Shall I fend you back to years that are long paft, or recall yesterday to your recollection? Shall I remind you of that common bounty which gives you, day by day, your daily bread; or of that fingular, fhall I fay miraculous, interpofition, which feemed to drop down manna around your tabernacle? Must all ages, and nations, and regions of the world, be made to pafs in review before your eyes; or will you confine your observation to your own moment of existence, your own hand-breadth of fpace, your own two or three acquaintances and contemporaries, your own pittance of knowledge? Shall the glories of nature, or the wonders of Providence, be unfolded to your view? Will you contemplate the fatness and fragrancy of the fertile earth, or the vastnefs and brilliancy of the azure vault of heaven? Will you confine yourselves to things feen and temporal; or, borne as on the eagle's wing, contemplate things which are unfeen and eternal? Will you converse with your fellow-mortals on the furface of this mole-hill, or join in the fongs and raptures of angels, who furround the throne, and of the fpirits of just men 'made perfect, immortal intelligences, perfectly awake to the full perception of their bleffednefs? Choose you to dwell on the tranfitory comforts of the life that now is, or to anticipate the joys fubftantial, fincere and lafting, of that which is to come? Crea

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tion spreads her fair, her ample, her fplendid page to the delighted eye. The mysterious volume, fealed to the careless reader as with feven feals, to the ferious and attentive foul unveils the hidden wifdom of GOD, and, written with a fun-beam, there ftands recorded the gracious purpose of Him who "worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”

Wouldft thou be fatisfied, O man, that the great GOD has means innumerable, unutterable, incomprehenfible, of conferring happiness on mankind? Think, O think, how he has loved the world, in the redemption of it by CHRIST JESUS! Think how many demonftrations of grace meet in that one, "GOD fpared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all!" And when you have ruminated, and ruminated, on the hiftory of redeeming love; when you have recovered from the astonishment and joy of contemplating what GOD has done for you, lose yourself afresh in the profpect of what the LORD hath laid up for the heirs of falvation-in the profpect of that great, exceeding and "eternal weight of glory," "which eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, and of which it hath not entered into the heart of man" to form any adequate conception or idea! Fly, O my foul, whither foever thou wilt; fettle whereever thou wilt, infinite goodness ftill fupports thy flight, and fettle thou must on the rock of ages, at last.

But, ah! my friend, this GOD, almighty to fave, is alfo mighty to deftroy. As his bounty is an inexhaufted fource of plenty to blefs his friends, fo his juftice is a capacious quiver, ftored with innumerable poifoned arrows, to fhed the blood, to drink up the fpirits of his adverfaries. Think, in how many parts ait thou vulnerable? In every particle of thy frame, every faculty of thy foul. Every sense opens a pasfage for the entrance of an avenging GOD. The understanding, at his command, expands to the dreadful perception of juftice that will not bend; of feverity that knows not to relax; of vengeance that admits

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not of pity. Memory, roufed by that trumpet which awakes the dead, gives new form and fubftance to the hideous spectres of tranfgreffions long fince departed, and which were vainly imagined to be laid in the grave forever; and the guilty wretch is dragged to the bitter recollection of what he once dwelt on with unhallowed delight, and now would fain bury in eternal oblivion; or which he gladly would, at the price of worlds, redeem from the hiftory of his wretched life. As memory, to fulfil the righteous judgment of GOD, can readily fummon up all that is paft, in order to awaken remorfe, and inspire terror; fo fear launches forth into the boundless, endless regions of futurity, and roufes defpair; and in the very abyffes of burning hell, fhudders at the thought of a deeper gulph, and of a hotter flame. Read, Ŏ finO ner, the history of the plagues of Egypt, and tremble! Suppofe, for a moment, the cup wherewith thou art ready to quench thy burning thirst, instantly turned into blood, to the loathing of thy foul and thy flefh. Suppose thy body ftruck with an univerfal leprofy, or the duft under thy, feet quickened into abominable vermin; the air around thy head impregnated with fwarms of noisome infects; thy fun extinguished for three tedious lingering days, and the thunder of an angry God rolling over thy guilty devoted habitation; and fuppofe all this to be but the beginning of forrow; the mere threatenings of wrath to come; woe that may be endured, torment that may expire: for ah! from yonder fearful pit arises the fmoak of a fire that shall not be quenched; fmoak that fhall ascend forever and ever. I hear groans bursting from the bofom of despair; and the rattling of everlasting, adamantine chains. Behold the wild looks, the agonizing pangs of that poor rich man, when, from the flames of his torment, he beholds Lazarus in Abraham's bofom: when he beholds heaven removed to an inacceffible diftance; heaven disjoined by an unpaffable gulph. Heaven, the rest of the weary, and VOL. III.

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the reward of the faithful, affords to him a momentary glimpse of its joys, only to embitter remorfe, only to pierce the foul with keener pangs, and to heat the furnace feven times hotter than it was before. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living GOD."

After ferious reflection upon thefe things, our fecond obfervation would feem ill-founded, and deftitute of all probability and truth, did not all history, and daily experience confirm the woeful certainty of it. It is this that by frequent indulgence, and inveterate habits of fin, the heart may at length become quite callous; may be rendered equally infenfible to the calls of mercy, and the alarms of juftice. We are ftruck with astonishment, at the fight of a poor, infatuated wretch like Pharaoh, repeatedly braving that power which returned to crush and humble him, and flighting that grace which as often relented and afforded space and means for repentance. Would to God there were room to think the reprefentation more unnatural than it is, and that the character of Pharaoh were a rarity in the world. But alas! what is the life of moft men, but an habitual fighting: against God? Upon whom falls the weight of our remark? Upon a few thoughtlefs, hardened wretches only, who have found out the fecret of lulling confcience to reft; who, having conquered the fenfe of fear and of fhame, commit iniquity with greedinefs; who hide not their fin, like Sodom, but publish it like Gomorrah?" Let us not deceive ourselves, but watch over our own hearts, and "exhort one another daily, left any be hardened through the deceitfulness. of fin." There ftands Pharaoh, the daring, the prefumptuous finner; whom goodnefs could not mollify nor judgments fubdue; and let him who is without fin caft the firft ftone at him. Who can flatter himfelf with the thought, that the errors of his life were the mere inadvertencies of hafte and inattention? Who can fay of himself, "This fault I corrected, as

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foon as I discovered it? Having been once made fenfible of the danger and wickedness of that finful course, I inftantly forfook it, and have returned to it no more. Smarting from the effects of my folly, I have never again dared to provoke the lash of my Father's chaftening rod. The refolutions which I made in the day of fickness, and forrow, and calamity, I have faithfully remembered, and diligently kept. Vows made at the Lord's table, I have made confcience to perform. The threatenings of God's word I have not difregarded; the long-fuffering of my God I have not abufed." Alas! alas! the reverfe of all this is the truth which condemns every one. Not a fingle, but repeated acts of intemperance, injuftice, impurity, impiety; not cafual and undefigned expreffions, but deliberate and indulged habits of falsehood, malevolence, selfishness and uncharitablenefs, place us as criminals at the bar, by the fide of Pharaoh, and forbid us to condemn him, because we also have finned. What avails it me to fay, that my offence is not the fame with his? Perhaps I had neither power, nor inclination, nor opportunity, for committing that man's tranfgreffion. Have I therefore washed my hands in innocence? Can I therefore plead, "not guilty?" The great question is, Have I kept myself free from mine own tranfgreffion? And, fpared of God to make the inquiry-let Pharaoh's impenitence, and Pharaoh's doom, awaken us to a fenfe of our danger; and urge a speedy flight from the wrath that is to come.

Thirdly, This history leads us to remark the great difference between the flow, reluctant, partial fubmifsion of fear, and the prompt, cheerful and unreserved compliance of a grateful and affectionate heart. Pharaoh, like a fullen, sturdy flave, will not move a step, till ftimulated by a fresh application of the whip; the moment that the pain of the stripe ceases, he stands ftill, or turns back. The first fummons is treated by him with infolence and fcorn; and he refolves that Ifrael fhall not have a fingle moment's relaxation from their

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