bringing us to obedience, confirms the guilty in his rebellious oppofition to his Maker. This must be manifest to every hearer. There can be no religion at all, either in inclination or performance, if there be no forgiveness with God. How fhould any fo much as attempt what they believe to be an unprofitable labor?

Though this is a truth which none will deny, I am afraid it is a truth not fufficiently attended to either in its certainty or influence. It tends greatly to illuftrate the whole plan of falvation, by the riches of divine grace, or the free, unmerited, unfolicited, love of God. How much does it add to the beauty and meaning of feveral paffages of fcripture! as 1 John iv. 10. "Herein is love, "not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and fent "his Son to be the propitiation for our fins." Rom. v. 8. "But God cominendeth his love towards us, in that while "we were yet finners, Chrift died for us." And the roth verse of the same chapter, "If when we were enemies, "we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; "much more being reconciled, we fhall be faved by his "life." Guilt is of a fufpicious nature, It is even obferved in offences committed by one man against another, that he who hath done the injury is always hardest to be reconciled. The fame thing appears very plainly in the difpofition of finners towards God. A gloomy fear, a defpondent terror, greatly hinders their return to him; nor can they ever take one step towards him, till, by the difplay of his mercy, this infuperable obftruction is re

moved.

2. As a difcovery of the mercy of God is abfolutely neceffary to our ferving him at all, fo it is, perhaps, of all others the most powerful motive to induce us to serve him in fincerity. Nothing whatever more illuftrates the divine glory. It prefents him as the proper object of worfhip, of confidence, and of love. When a finner is once burdened with a fenfe of guilt, fees the demerit of his tranfgreffions, and feels the juftice of his own fentence, what an inconceivable relief muft it give him to fee the divine mercy! and how infinitely amiable muft this God of mercy appear in his eyes! Others may reafon at their

eafe upon the fubject, he is tranfported with unspeakable joy on the profpect. His heart is immediately taken captive: he feels its conftraining power, and yields himself willingly to every demand of duty and gratitude. See, to this purpose, the expreffions of the prophet Hosea, ch. xi. 4. "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of “love, and I was to them as they that take off the yoke "on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them." The fame thing is every where in the New Teftament reprefented as the great commanding principle of obedience, 2 Cor. v. 14. "For the love of Chrift conftraineth us, because "we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all “dead." 1 John iv. 16. "“And we have known and be"lieved the love that God hath to us. God is love; and "he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in "him." And verfe 19, of the fame chapter, "We love "him, becaufe he firft loved us."

But further, even taking fear in a more limited fenfe, as fignifying a holy reverence and dread of the power and majefty of God, there being forgiveness with him, is so far from weakening, that it ftrengthens this fear; and that on the two following accounts.

1. The infinite obligations we lie under to divine mercy, must ferve to improve our fenfe of the evil of fin, as committed against fo good and fo gracious a God, and to increase our abhorrence of it. The mercy of God to the guilty, at the fame time that it brings unfpeakable confoJation, as delivering them from the wrath to come, ferves to humble them, by a view of their own unworthy and undutiful conduct. When an awakened convinced foul, under the apprehenfion of eternity approaching, begins to contemplate the mercy of God as the ground of forgivenefs, he immediately thinks upon this mercy, as having all along spared him in the midst of his provocations. What a wonder of mercy is it, does he fay,to himself, that I was not immediately cut off in my wickedness, at fuch a time, or at fuch a time, which now return full upon his memory! He cannot eafily feparate the remembrance of paft crimes from the mercy that with-held immediate vengeance. And furely nothing will ferve more to make

the finner tremble and ftand aftonished at his own guilt, than reflection on that forbearance of a patient God, which did not doom him to inftant and deferved deftruction, but fpared him to hear the glad tidings of peace.

Thus the unfpeakable grace of God in the gospel opens the fprings of pentitential forrow, and makes them flow more sweetly indeed, but more freely, and more copiously than before. You may obferve the ftrong picture of penitence and love, which is drawn with inimitable beauty by the evangelift Luke, ch. vii. 37, 38. “And behold a "woman in the city, which was a finner, when she knew "that Jefus fat at meat in the Pharifee's houfe, brought "an alabafter-box of ointment, and food at his feet be"hind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with "tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and

kiffed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." Was it not in grace and mercy that the fuffering Saviour looked upon Peter, which immediately confounded him? Luke xxii. 61, 62. "And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the "Lord, how he had faid unto him, Before the cock crow, "thou fhalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and " wept bitterly." What is it elfe that is reprefented by the prophet as having fo ftrong an effect upon the believer in producing penitential forrow, but the love of our Re deemer? Zech. xii. 10. "And I will pour upon the house "of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerufalem, the "spirit of grace and of fupplications, and they fhall look

upon me whom they have pierced, and they fhall mourn "for him, as one mourneth for his only fon, and shall be "in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his "first-born."

2. Forgiveness with God tends to increase our fear and reverence of him, from the manner in which, and the con dition on which it is beltowed. Every circumftance in this difpenfation of divine mercy is calculated to abafe the finner, and leave him nothing whereof to glory before God. Forgivenefs is always declared to be an act of fovereign grace, If. xliii. 25. "I, even I am he that blotteth "qut thy tranfgreffions for mine on fake, and will not

"remember thy fins." We are many times cautioned against imputing to ourselves, or our own merit, what is merely the effect of divine mercy. If the fcripture is read with care, there will be obferved many paffages which carry this inftruction in them, to beware of taking merit to ourselves from the divine goodnefs, or any effect or expreffion of it: Deut. ix. 4, 5. “Speak not thou in thine heart, "after that the Lord thy God haft caft them out from be"fore thee, faying, For my righteoufnefs the Lord bath "brought me in to poffefs this land: but for the wicked"nefs of thefe nations the Lord doth drive them out from "before thee. Not for thy righteoufnefs, or for the uprightnefs of thine heart, doft thou go to poffefs their land; "but for the wickedness of thefe nations the Lord thy God "doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, "Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob." Ezek. xxxvi. 21, 23. "But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of “Ifrael had profaned among the heathen, whither they "went. Therefore fay unto the houfe of Ifrael, Thus "faith the Lord God, I do not this for your fakes, O houfe "of lirael, but for mine holy name's fake, which ye have "profaned among the heathen, whither ye went."

66

It is probably alfo with this view, if we may prefume to offer an opinion on fo deep a fubject, that the objects of fpecial mercy are fometimes chofen from among the moft criminal, even the chief of finners. Does not this forbid, in the ftrongest terms, every man to harbor the leaft thought, as if by his own righteoufnefs, or being comparatively lefs wicked than others, he had been entitled to the divine favor: Rom. ix. 15.-18. "For he faith to "Mofes, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, "and I will have compaffion on whom I will have compaffion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him "that runneth but of God that fheweth mercy. For the fcripture faith unto Pharaoh, Even for this fame purpose "have I raised thee up, that I might fhew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout "all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he "will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth."

66

66

But the circumftance on which we are called chiefly to fix our attention, is, that forgiveness is bestowed only through the blood of Chrift. It is freely and graciously bestowed upon the finner, but was dearly and hardly purchafed by the furety. This is no new or unusual subject in this congregation. But Oh! my brethren, that we could in fome measure apprehend its infinite importance. Think, I befeech you, on the holiness and juftice of God, as they shine in the fufferings and cross of Chrift: that a righteous God required full fatisfaction for fin; that "the "Lord laid on him the iniquities of us all;" that “it "pleafed the Lord to bruife him, and to put him to grief." Are not the majefty and purity of God fet forth in this transaction, in the most clear and legible, nay in the molt awful and terrible characters? For they are written in blood. Is the Lord to be praifed for his mercy? and is he not alfo to be feared for his juftice? May we not, or rather must we not, fay, "If fuch things were done in the green tree, what fhall be done in the dry?" If God faw it neceflary to lay fuch a load of wrath upon the Holy One, when standing in the room of finners, what shall be the condition of the impenitent tranfgreffors, who shall lie under it forever? We may well adopt the words of Mofes to the children of Ifrael, Deut. xxviii. 58, 59. “If "thou wilt not obferve to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayft fear this glo"rious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;

then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and "the plagues of thy feed, even great plagues, and of long "continuance, and fore ficknesses, and of long continu"ance."

66

Do you not now, my brethren, fee much propriety, as well as inftruction, in this language. "But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayst be feared?" The expreffion indeed is not fingular in the holy Scripture, even in the fenfe now illuftrated. It is certainly on the fame fubject the Pfalmift is fpeaking, when he fays, Pf. xl. 3. "And he hath put a new fon in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many fhall fee it, and fear, and fhall "truft in the Lord." As alfo the prophet Hofea, ch. iii. VOL. I.

Qq