which will occafion eternal fufferings, but not out of obedience to God-not with defign to glorify

him.

NEITHER can the awakened finner be confidered as the subject of such love to God. Awakened finners are not lovers of God. They fee indeed the evil of fin, and are fenfible of its demeritthat they deserve deftruction. But this doth not reconcile them to deftruction, and make them willing to receive it. They tremble at the thoughts of it, ftrive against fin, and cry after deliverance. Were they willing to be damned, they would not be afraid of being damned, or feek in any way to avoid it.

Ir is equally impoffible for the faint to be reconciled to damnation, as will appear, by confidering what it implies. It implies the total lofs of the divine image, and banishment from the divine presence and favor! It implies being given up to the power of apoftate fpirits, and configned to the fame dreary dungeon of despair and horror, which is prepared for them! It implies being doomed to welter in woe unutterable, blafpheming God, and execrating the creatures of God, "world without end !"

WHEN people pretend that they are willing to be damned for the glory of God, they "know not what they fay, nor whereof they affirm." They leave out the principal ingredients of that dreadful state. Did they take them into the account, they would perceive the impoffibility of the thing. To suppose it required is to blaspheme

God-to pretend that man can submit to it, is to belie human nature-to conceive that a child of God can reconcile himself to it, is to fubvert every juft idea of true religion. To require it, God muft deny himself! To confent to it, man must confent to become an infernal! The statement of the cafe is a refutation of the scheme.

BUT if God's glory requires it, will not this reconcile the good and gain their consent ?

GOD's glory doth not-cannot require it. "The fpirit of the Lord is not ftraitened." Human guilt and mifery are not neceffary to God's honor.

It is neceffary that divine juftice fhould be exercifed on those who refufe divine grace; but not neceffary that men fhould refuse divine grace. "As I live, faith the Lord God, I have no pleafure in the death of the wicked; but that the wick. ed turn from his way and live."

SUCH is the language of revelation; and the measures which God hath adopted relative to our guilty race fpeak the fame language. He hath provided a city of refuge, and urges the guilty to "turn to the strong hold."-He weeps over obftinate finners who refufe his grace-" How fhall I give thee up? How fhall I deliver thee ?" But rejoiceth over the penitent, as the father rejoiced over the returning prodigal.

GOD would not have provided a Savior, and made indifcriminate offers of pardon and peace had he chosen the destruction of finners, and had their ruin been neceffary to his honor. But God

hath done these things, and manifefted this merciful difpofition toward mankind.

We have no need to "do evil that good may come. Our unrighteousness is not necessary to commend the righteoufness of God."

How then are we to understand the prayer of Mofes, placed at the head of this difcourfe-blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou haft writ.

ten?

As this is one of the principal paffages of fcripture which are adduced to fupport the fentiment we have exploded, a few things may be premifed, before we attempt to explain it.

I. SHOULD it be admitted that Mofes here imprecated utter deftruction on himself, it could not be alleged as a precept given to direct others, but only as a folitary incident, in the hiftory of a faint, who was then compaffed with infirmity. And where is the human character without a fhade? This fame Mofes neglected to circumcife his children-broke the tables of God's law-fpake unadvisedly with his lips-yea, committed fuch offences against God, that he was doomed to die fhort of Canaan, in common with rebellious Ifrael.

II. THE time in which it hath been particularly infifted that a perfon must be willing to be damned for God's glory, is at his entrance on a state of grace; but Mofes had been confecrated to the fervice of God long before he made this prayer. Nothing, therefore refpecting the temper of those under the preparatory influences of the fpirit can be argued from it.

M

III. SHOULD we grant that Mofes here imprecated on himself the greatest evil, a fenfe of other people's fins, and not a fenfe of his own fins, was the occafion. But,

IV. No fufferings of his could have been advantageous to others, had he submitted to them for their fake. Had he confented to have been a caftaway-to have become an infernal, as we have feen implied in damnation, this would not have brought falvation to Ifrael. Mofes' hatred of God, and his fufferings, and blafphemies, would not have atoned for the fins of his people, or tended in any degree to turn away the wrath of God from them.

Ir feems furprizing that the whole train of expofitors fhould confider this good man as imprecating evil on himself, for the good of others, when it is obvious that others could not have been benefited by it. For though expofitors differ refpecting the magnitude of the evil, they seem to agree that he did with evil to himself, and pray that he might fuffer for his people! We have seen no expofitor who is an exception.

BUT let us attend to the prayer. Oh! this people have finned a great fin; yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their fin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee,

out of thy book.--

Ifrael had fallen into

We know the occafion. idolatry while Mofes was on the mount-had made an idol, and bowed in adoration before it. God told Mofes what they had done-threatened to destroy them-excufed Moses from praying for

them, which had before been his duty, and promifed to reward his faithfulnefs among fo perverfe "hold his peace, and

a people, if he would now let God alone to deftroy them." But Mofes preferred the good of Ifrael to the aggrandifement of his own family, earneftly commended them to the divine mercy, and obtained the forgiveness of their fin" The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto them." But he gave at that time no intimation of his merciful purpose toward them.

WHEN Mofes came down and found the congregation holding a feaft to their idol, he was filled with grief and indignation; and took measures. immediately to punish their fin and bring them to repentance. He first destroyed their idol, and then about three thousands of the idolators, by the fword of Levi, who at his call, ranged themselves. on the Lord's fide. The next day, fearing that God would exterminate the nation, agreeably to his threatening, Mofes gathered the tribes, fet their fin before them, and told them that he would return to the divine prefence and plead for them, though he knew not that God would hear him. "Ye have finned a great fin; and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I fhall make an atonement for your fin. And Mofes returned unto the Lord and faid, Oh this people have finned a great fin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet, now, if thou wilt, forgive their fin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou haft writ

ten.