· who is hc that shall determine in what proportions the attributes of justice and mercy, forbearance and severity, ought to be mixed up in the character of the Supreme Governor of the universe ?

Nor can it be proved that eternal punishment is incon. sistent with the schemes of God's moral government: for who can define the extent of that government? Who among the sons of men hath an exact understanding of its ends—a knowledge of its various parts, and of their mutual relations and dependencies? Who is he that shall explain by what motives the righteous are to be preserved from falling from their future state of glory? -That they shall not fall, we have the comfortable assurance of God's word. But by what means is the se. curity of their state to be effected ?-Unquestionably by the influence of moral motives upon the minds of free and rational agents. But who is so enlightened as to foresee what particular motives may be the fittest for the purpose? Who can say, These might be sufficient,

- these are superfluous? Is it impossible, that, among other motives, the sufferings of the wicked may have a salutary effect? And shall God spare the wicked, if the preservation of the righteous should call for the perpetual example of their punishment?-_Since, then, no proof can be deduced, from any natural knowledge that we have of God, that the scheme of eternal punishment is unworthy of the Divine character,--since there is no proof that it is inconsistent either with the natural perfections of God, or with his relative attributes ---since it may be necessary to the ends of his government, upon what grounds do we proceed, when we pretend to interpret, to qualify, and to extenuate the threatenings of holy writ?

The original frailty of human nature, and the provi. dential shortness of human life, are alleged to no purpose in this argument. Eternal punishment is not denounced

against the frail, but against the hardened and perverse; and life is to be esteemed long or short, not from any proportion it may bear to eternity (which would be equally none at all, though it were protracted to ten thousand times its ordinary length), but according as the space of it may be more or less than may be just sufficient for the purposes of such a state as our present life is, of discipline and probation. There must be a certain length of time, the precise measure of which can be known to none but God, within which, the promises and the threatenings of the gospel, joined with the experience which every man's life affords of God's power and providence-of the instability and vanity of all worldly enjoyments, there must, in the nature of things, be a certain measure of time, within which, if at all, this state of experience, joined with future hopes and fears, must produce certain degrees of improvement in moral wisdom and in virtuous habit. If, in all that time, no effect is wrought, the impediment can only have arisen from incurable self-will and obstinacy. If the ordinary period of life be more than is precisely sufficient for this trial and cultivation of the character, those characters which shall show themselves incorrigibly bad, will have no claim upon the justice or the goodness of God, to abridge the time of their existence in misery, so that it may bear some certain proportion to the short period of their wicked lives. Qualities are not to be measured by duration: they bear no more relation to it than they do to space. The hatefulness of sin is seated in itself-in its own internal quality of evil: by that its illdeservings are to be measured,—not by the narrowness of the limits either of time or place, within which the good providence of God hath confined its power of doing mischief.

If, on any ground, it were safe to indulge a hope that the suffering of the wicked may have an end, it would

be upon the principle adopted by the great Origen, and by other eminent examples of learning and piety which our own times have seen that the actual endurance of punishment in the next life will produce effects to which the apprehension of it in this had been insufficient, and end, after a long course of ages, in the reformation of the worst characters. But the principle that this effect is possible--that the heart may be reclaimed by force, is at best precarious; and the only safe principle of human conduct is the belief, that unrepented sin will suffer end. less punishment hereafter.

Perhaps, the distance at which imagination sets the prospect of future punishment, may have a more gene. ral influence in diminishing the effect of God's merciful warnings, than any sceptical doubts about the intensity or the duration of the sufferings of the wicked. The Spirit of God means to awaken us from this delusion, when he tells us, by the apostles and holy men of old, that the “coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” He means, by these declarations, to remind ever man that his parti. cular doom is near: for, whatever may be the season appointed in the secret counsels of God, for “ that great and terrible day, when the heavens and the earth shall flee from the face of him who shall be seated on the throne, and their place shall be no more found,"--whatever may be the destined time of this public catastrophe, the end of the world, with respect to every individual, takes place at the conclusion of his own life. In the grave there will be no repentance; no virtues can be acquired-no evil habits thrown off. With that character, whether of virtue or vice, with which a man leaves the world, with that he must appear before the judgmentseat of Christ. In that moment, therefore, in which his present life ends, every man's future condition becomes irreversibly determined. In this sense, to every one that standeth here," the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,

the Judge is at the door; let us watch, therefore, and pray,"-watch over ourselves, and pray for the succours of God's grace, that we may be able to stand before the Son of Man. Nor shall vigilance and prayer be ineffectual. On the incorrigible and perverse,-on those who mock at God's threatenings, and reject his promises, -on these only the severity of wrath will fall. But, for those who lay these warnings seriously to heart-who dread the pollutions of the world, and flee from sin as from a serpent-who fear God's displeasure more than death, and seek his favour more than life, though much of frailty will to the last adhere to them, yet these are the objects of the Father's mercy-of the Redeemer's love. For these he died,-for these he pleads, -these he supports and strengthens with his Spirit,these he shall lead with him triumphant to the mansions of glory, when Sin and Death shall be cast into the lake of fire.

SERMON XIII.

MATTHEW xvi. 18, 19.

I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter; and upon this

rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in hea.

ven, *

IT is much to be lamented, that the sense of this important text, in which our Lord for the first time makes explicit mention of his church, declaring, in brief but comprehensive terms, the ground-work of the institution, the high privileges of the community, and its glorious hope, -it is much to be lamented, that the sense of so important a text should have been brought under doubt and obscurity, by a variety of forced and discordant ex. positions, which prejudice and party-spirit have produced; while writers in the Roman communion have endeavoured to find in this passage a foundation for the vain pretensions of the Roman pontiff, and Protestants, on the other hand, have been more solicitous to give it a sense which might elude those consequences, than attentive to its true and interesting meaning. It will not

Preached before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, February 20, 1795.