their stead. 2. The patience which he exercises towards them. 3. The crimes that he pardons. 4. The familiar friendship to which he invites them. And 5. The rewards that he bestows on them. Ah! ye tender fathers, ye mothers who seem to be all love for your children, ye whose eyes, whose hearts, whose perpetual cares and affections are concentred in them, yield, yield to the love of God for his children, and acknowledge that God only knows how to love! Let us remark, 1. The sacrifice that God has substituted in the sinner's stead. One of the liveliest and most emphatical expressions of the love of God, in my opinion, is that in the gospel of St. John. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," ch. iii. 16. Weigh these words, my brethren, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." Metaphysical ideas begin to grow into disrepute, and I am not surprised at it. Mankind have such imperfect notions of substances, they know so little of the nature of spirits, particularly, they are so entire ly at a loss in reasoning on the Infinite Spirit, that we need not be astonished if people retire from a speculative track in which the indiscretion of some has made great mistakes. Behold a sure system of metaphysics. Convinced of the imperfection of all my knowledge, but particularly of my discoveries of the being and perfections of God, I consult the sacred oracles, which God has published, in order to obtain right notions of him. I immediately perceive that God, in speaking of himself, has proportioned his language to the weakness of men, to whom he has addressed his word. In this view, meet with no difficulty in explaining those passages in which God says, that he has hands or feet, eyes or heart, that he goes or comes, ascends or descends, that he is in some cases pleased, and in others provoked. Yet I think, it would be a strange abuse of this notion of Scripture, not to understand some constant ideas literally; ideas which the Scriptures give us of God, and on which the system of Christianity partly rests. I perceive, and I think very clearly, that the Scriptures constantly speak of a being, a person, or if I may speak so, a portion of the divine essence, which is called the Father, and another that is called the Son. I think I perceive, with equal evidence in the same book, that between these two persons, the Father and the Son, there is the closest and most intimate union that can be imagined. What love must there be between these two persons, who have the same perfections and the same ideas, the same purposes and the same plans? What love must subsist between two persons, whose union is not interrupted by any calamity without, by any passion within, or, to speak more fully still, by any imagination? With equal clearness I perceive, that the man Jesus, who was born at Bethlehem, and was laid in a manger, was in the closest union with the Word, that is, with the Son of God; and that in virtue of this union the man Jesus is more beloved of God than all the other creatures of the universe. No less clearly do I perceive in Scripture, that the man Jesus, who is as closely united to the Eternal Word, as the word is to God, was delivered for me, a vile creature, to the most ignominious treatment, to sufferings the most painful, and the most shameful, that were ever inflicted on the meanest and basest of mankind. And when I inquire the cause of this great mystery, when I ask, Why did the Almighty God bestow so rich a present on me? Especially when I apply to revelation for an explication of this mystery, which reason cannot fully explain, I can find no other cause than the compassion of God. Let the schools take their way, let reason lose itself in speculations, yea, let faith find it difficult to submit to a doctrine, which has always appeared with an awful solemnity to those who have thought and meditated on it; for my part, I abide by this clear and astonishing, but at the same time, this kind and comfortable proposition, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." When people show us Jesus Christ in the garden, sweating great drops of blood; when they speak of his trial before Caiaphas and Pilate, in which he was interrogated, insulted, and scourged; when they present him to our view upon mount Calvary, nailed to a cross, and bowing beneath the blows of heaven and earth; when they require the reason of these formidable and surprising phenomena, we will answer, It is because God loved mankind; it is because "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." 2. The patience that God exercises towards sinners, is our second remark. Here, my brethren, I wish that as many of you as are interested in this article would allow me to omit particulars, and would recollect the histories of your own lives. My life, says one, is consumed in perpetual indolence. I am a stranger to the practice of private devotion, and to speak the truth, I consider it only as a fancy. I attend public worship, only because I would conform to example and custom. I hear the sermons of the ministers of the gospel as amusive discourses, that treat of subjects in which I have no interest. I take no part in the prayers that are addressed to God in behalf of the sick or the poor, the church or the state. I, says a second, ever since I have been in the world, have cherished one of the most shameful and criminal passions; sometimes I have been shocked at its turpitude, and sometimes I have resolved to free myself from it: in some of my sicknesses, which I thought would have ended in death, I determined on a sincere conversion: sometimes a sermon, or a pious book, has brought me to self-examination, which has ended in a promise of reformation: sometimes the sight of the Lord's Supper, an institution properly adapted to display the sinfulness of sin, has exhibited my sin in all its heinousness, and has bound me by oath to sacrifice my unworthy passion to God. But my corruption has been superior to all, and yet God has borne with me to this day. A third must say, As for me I have lived thirty or forty years in a country where the public profession of religion is prohibited, and opens his heart to his friend, and communiI have passed all the time without a member-cates to him his most secret thoughts, dividing ship to any church, without ordinances, without public worship, and without the hope of a pastor to comfort me in my dying illness; I have seduced my family by my example; I have consented to the settlement of my children, and have suffered them to contract marriages without the blessing of heaven; my lukewarmness has caused first their indifference, and last their apostacy, and will perhaps cause day. and yet God has borne with me to this Why has he borne with me? It is not a connivance at sin, for he hates and detests it. It is not ignorance, for he penetrates the inmost recesses of my soul, nor has a single act, no, not a single act of my rebellion, eluded the search of his all-piercing eye. It is not a want of power to punish a criminal, for he holds the thunders in his mighty hands, at his command hell opens, and the fallen angels wait only for his permission to seize their prey. Why then do I yet subsist? Why do I see the light of this day? Why are the doors of this church once more open to me? It is because he commiserates poor sinners. It is because he pilies me "as a father pitieth his children." with him all his pleasures and all his pains? God will have this relation with thee: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," Ps. xxv. 14. "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" Gen. xviii. 17. "I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you," John xv. 15. Art thou touched with the tenderness of a mother, whose highest earthly happiness is to suckle the son of her womb? God will have this relation with thee: " can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee," Isa. xlix. 15. Hast thou some good reasons for disgust with human connexions? Are thy views so liberal and delicate as to afford thee a conviction that there is no such thing as real friendship among men? And that what are called connexions, friendships, affections, unions, tendernesses, are generally no other than interchanges of deceit disguised under agreeable names? Are thy feelings so refined that thou sighest after connexions formed on a nobler plan? God will have such connexion with thee. Yes, there is, in the plan of religion, a union formed between God and us, on the plan of that which subsists between the three persons in the godhead, the object of our worship: that is, as far as a similar union between God and us can subsist without contradiction. God grants this to the intercession of his Son, in virtue of that perfect obedience which he rendered to his Father on the cross. This Jesus Christ requested for us, on the eve of that day, in which, by his ever memorable sacrifice, he reconciled heaven and 3. Let us remark the crimes which God pardons. There is no sin excepted, no, not one, in the list of those which God has promised to forgive to true penitents. He pardons not only the sins of those whom he has not called into his visible church, who, not having been indulged with this kind of benefits, have not had it in their power to carry ingratitude to its height: but he pardons also crimes committed under such dispensations as seem to render sin least pardonable. He pardons sins committed under the dispensation of the law, as he forgives those which are committed under the dispensation of nature; and those that are com-earth: "I pray not for the world, but for them mitted under the dispensation of the gospel, as those which are committed under the law. He forgives, not only such sins as have been committed through ignorance, infirmity, and inadvertency, but such also as have been committed deliberately and obstinately. He not only forgives the sins of a day, a week, or a month, but he forgives also the sins of a great number of years, those which have been formed into an inveterate habit, and have grown old with the sinner. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,” Isa. i. 18. But what am I saying? It is not enough to say that God forgives sins, he unites himself to those who have committed them by the most tender and affectionate ties. which thou hast given me, for they are thine," ture is too indigent: our faculties are too indigent: society is too indigent: religion itself is too indigent. 4. Our next article therefore regards the fa-, This leads us to our fifth and last article, miliar friendship to which God invites us. That is, the felicity that God reserves for his What intimate, close, and affectionate relation children in another world. A reunion of all canst thou imagine, which God is not willing the felicities of this present world would not be to form with thee in religion? Art thou affect-sufficient to express the love of God to us. Naed with the vigilance of a shepherd, who watches over, and sacrifices all his care, and even his life for his flock? This relation God will have with thee: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters," Psal. xxiii. 1, 2. Art thou affected with the confidence of a friend, who Nature is too indigent: it might indeed afford us a temperate air, an earth enamelled with flowers, trees laden with fruits, and climates rich with delights; but all its present beauties are inadequate to the love of God, and new heavens and a new earth," Isa. lxv. 17. Our faculties are too indigent; they might indeed admit abundant pleasures, for we are capable of knowing, and God could gratify our desire of knowledge. We are capable of agreeable sensations, and God is able to give us objects proportional to our sensations; and so of the rest. But all these gratifications would be too little to express the love of God to us. Our faculties must be renewed, and in some sense, new cast; for "this corruptible body must put on incorruption; this natural body must become a spiritual body," 1 Cor. xv. 44. 53; so that by means of more delicate organs, we may enjoy more exquisite pleasures. Our souls must be united to glorified bodies, by laws different from those which now unite us to matter, in order to capacitate us for more extensive knowledge. there must be another world, another economy, | us," Psal. xxxi. 19. "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love," Hos. xi. 4. Let us meditate on the love of God, who, oeing supremely happy himself, communicates perfect happiness to us. Supreme happiness does not make God forget us; shall the miserable comforts of this life make us forget him? Our attachments to this life are so strong, the acquaintances that we have contracted in this world so many, and the relations that we bear so tender; we are, in a word, so habituated to live, that we need not wonder if it cost us a good deal to be willing to die. But this attachment to life, which, when it proceeds only to a certain degree, is a sinless infirmity, becomes one of the most criminal dispositions when it exceeds its just limits. It is not right that the objects of divine love should lose sight of their chief good, in a world where, after their best endeavours, there will be too many obstacles between them and God. It is not right that rational creatures, who have heard of the pure, extensive, and munificent love of God to them, should be destitute of the most ardent desires of a closer union to him than any that can be attained in this life. One single moment's delay should give us pain, and if we wish to live, it should be only to prepare to die. We ought to desire life only to mortify sin, to practise and to perfect virtue, to avail ourselves of opportunities of knowing ourselves better, and of obtaining stronger assurances of our salvation. No, I can never persuade myself that a man, who is wise in the truths of which we have been discoursing, a man, in whom the love of God has been "shed abroad by the Holy Ghost given unto him," Rom. v. 5; a man, who thinks himself an object of the love of the Great Supreme, and who knows that the Great Supreme will not render him perfectly happy in this life, but in the next, can afford much time for the amusements of this. I can never persuade myself that a man, who has such elevated notions, and such magnificent prospects, can make a very serious affair of having a great name in this world, of lodging in a palace, or of descending from an illustrious ancestry. These little passions, if we consider them in themselves, may seem almost indifferent, and I grant if ye will, that they are not always attended with very bad consequences, that, in some cases, they injure nobody, and in many, cause no trouble in society: but, if we consider the principle from which they proceed, they will appear very mortifying to us. We shall find that the zeal and fervour, the impatient breathings of some, to depart, and to be with Christ," Phil. i. 23; the aspiring of a soul after the chief good; the prayer, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," Rev. xxii. 20; the eager wish, "When shall I come and appear before God," Psal. xlii. 2. We shall find that these dispositions, which some of us treat as enthusiasm, and which others of us refer to saints of the first order, to whose perfections we have not the presumption to aspire; we shall find, I say, that these dispositions are more essential to Christianity than we may have hitherto imagined. Society is too indigent, although society might become an ocean of pleasure to us. There are men whose friendships are full of charms; their conversations are edifying, and their acquaintance delightful; and God is able to place us among such amiable characters in this world: but society has nothing great enough to express the love of God to us. We must be introduced to the society of glorified saints, and to thousands of angels and happy spirits, who are capable of more magnanimity and delicacy than all that we can imagine here. Religion itself is too indigent, although it might open to us a source of delight. What pleasure has religion afforded us on those happy days of our lives, in which, having fled from the crowd, and suspended our love to the world, we meditated on the grand truths which God has revealed to us in his word; when we ascended to God by fervent prayer; or renewed at the Lord's table our communion with him! How often have holy men been enraptured in these exercises! How often have they exclaimed during these foretastes, Our souls are "satisfied as with marrow and fatness," Psal. lxiii. 5. "O how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee," xxxi. 19. We are " abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house: we drink of the river of thy pleasures," Psal. xxxvi. 8. Yet even religion can afford nothing here below that can sufficiently express the love of God to us. We must be admitted into that state in which there is neither temple nor sun, because God supplies the place of both, Rev. xxi. 22, 23. We are to behold God, not surrounded with such a handful of people as this, but with "thousand thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand," Dan. vii. 10, who stand continually before him. We must see God, not in the displays of his grace in our churches, but in all the magnificence of his glory in heaven. We are to prostrate ourselves before him, not at the Lord's table, where he is made known to us in the symbols of bread and wine: (august symbols indeed, but too gross to exhibit the grandeurs of God) but we are to behold him upon the throne of glory, worshipped by all the happy host of heaven. What cause produces those noble effects? From what source do those "rivers of pleasure flow?" Psalm xxxiv. 8. It is love which "lays up all this goodness for May God make us truly sensible of that noble and tender love which God has for us! May God kindle our love at the fire of his own' May God enable us to know religion by such his ways, and how little a portion is heard of pleasures as they experience who make love him!" to God the foundation of all virtue! These are our petitions to God for you: to these may each of us say Amen! SERMON VIII. This incomprehensibility of the goodness of God, (and what attention, what sensibility, what gratitude, have we not a right to expect of you?) this inconceivableness of the goodness of God we intend to discuss to-day. The prophet, or rather God himself, says to us by the prophet, "My thoughts are not your THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF THE thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. MERCY OF GOD. ISAIAH lv. 8, 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Lo, "these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him!” Job xxvi. 14. This is one of the most sententious sayings of Job, and it expresses, in a very lively and emphatical manner, the works of God. Such language would produce but very little effect indeed in the mouth of a careless, unthinking man: but Job, who uttered it, had a mind filled with the noblest ideas of the perfections of God. He had studied them in his prosperity, in order to enable him to render homage to God, from whom alone his prosperity came. His heart was conversant with them under his distressing adversities, and of them he had learnt to bow to the hand of Him who was no less the author of adversity than of prosperity, of darkness than of day. All this appears by the fine description which the holy man gives immediately before: "God," says he, "stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up his waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. He hath compassed the waters with bounds. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof. He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens." But are these the only production of the Creator? Have these emanations wholly exhausted his power? No, replies Job, "These are only parts of his ways, and how little a portion is heard of him!"' My brethren, what this holy man said of the wonders of nature, we, with much more reason, say to you of the wonders of grace. Collect all that pagan philosophers have taught of the goodness of the Supreme Being. To the opinions of philosophers join the declarations of the prophets. To the declarations of the prophets, and to the opinions of philosophers, add the discoveries of the evangelists and apostles. Compose one body of doctrine of all that various authors have written on this comfortable subject. To the whole join your own experience; your ideas to their ideas, your meditations to their meditations, and then believe that ye are only floating on the surface of the goodness of God, that his love has dimensions, a "breadth, and length, and depth, and height," Eph. iii. 18; which the human mind can never attain: and, upon the brink of this ocean, say, "Lo, these are only parts of For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Three things are necessary to explain the text. I. The meaning must be restrained. II. The object must be determined. III. The proofs must be produced. And this is the whole plan of my discourse. I. The words of my text must be restrained. Strictly speaking, it cannot be said, that "God's thoughts are not our thoughts," and that his ways are not our ways:" on the contrary, it is certain, that in many respects, God's "ways are our ways, and his thoughts are our thoughts." I mean, that there are many cases, in which we may assure ourselves that God thinks so and so, and will observe such or such a conduct. The doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God is one of those doctrines which we ought to defend with the greatest zeal, because it has a powerful influence in religion and morality: but it would become a subversion of both, were it to be carried beyond its just bounds. Libertines have made fewer proselytes by denying the existence of God than by abusing the doctrine of his inconceivableness. It makes but little impression on a rational man, to be told, that matter is eternal; that it arranged itself in its present order; that chance spread the firmament, formed the heavenly orbs, fixed the earth on its basis, and wrought all the wonders in the material world. makes but little impression on a rational man, to be informed that the intelligent world is to be attributed to the same cause to which libertines attribute the material world: that chance formed spirit as well as matter; gave it the power, not only of reflecting on its own essence, but also of going out of itself, of transporting itself into the past ages of eternity, of rising into the heavens by its meditation, of pervading the earth, and investigating its darkest recesses. All these extravagant propositions refute themselves, and hardly find one partisan in such an enlightened age as this, in which we have the happiness to live. It There are other means more likely to subvert the faith. To give grand ideas of the Supreme Being; to plunge, if I may be allowed to say so, the little mind of man into the ocean of the divine perfections; to contrast the supreme grandeur of the Creator with the insignificance of the creature; to persuade mankind that the Great Supreme is too lofty to concern himself with us, that our conduct is entirely indifferent to him; that it signifies nothing to him whether we be just or unjust, humane or cruel, happy or miserable: to say in these senses, that God's ways are not our ways, that his thoughts are not our thoughts, these are the arms that infidelity has sometimes employed with success, and I am necessarily engaged to be grateful for his favours, and entirely submissive to his will. If creature-perfections be only emanations from him, the source of all perfections, I ought to have nobler sentiments of his perfections, than of those of creatures, how elevated soever the latter may be. I ought to fear him more than I ought to fear the mightiest king, because the power of the mightiest king is only an emanation of his. I ought to commit myself to his direction, and to trust more to his wisdom than to that of the wisest politician, because the prudence of the wisest politician is only an emanation of his: and so of the rest. Let it be granted, that God is, in many respects, quite incomprehensible, that we can attain only a small degree of knowledge of this infinite obthoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways:" yet it will not follow, that the notions, which reason gives us of him, are less just, or, that the consequences, which immediately follow these notions, are less sure; or, that all the objections, which libertines and skeptics pretend to derive from the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God, against natural religion, do not evaporate and disappear. and against the attacks of which we would guard you. For these reasons, I said, that the meaning of the text must be restrained, or that it would totally subvert religion and morality. We have seldom met with a proposition more extravagant than that of a certain bishop, who, having spent his life in defending the gospel, endeavoured at his death to subvert it. This man, in a book entitled, The imperfection of the Human Mind, and which is itself an example of the utmost degree of the extravagance of the human mind, maintains this proposition, and makes it the ground of all his skepticism: that before we affirm any thing of a subject we must perfectly understand it. From hence he concludes, that we can affirm nothing of any subject, because we do not perfectly understand any. And from hence it nat-ject, or, to use the words of our text, that "his urally follows, that of the Supreme Being we have the least pretence to affirm any thing, because we have a less perfect knowledge of him than of any other subject. What absurd reasoning! It is needless to refute it here, and it shall suffice at present to observe in general, the ignorance of one part of a subject does not hinder the knowing of other parts of it, nor ought it to hinder our affirmation of what we do know. I do not perfectly understand the nature of light; however I do know that it differs from darkness, and that it is the medium by which objects become visible to me. And the same may be affirmed of other subjects. In like manner, the exercise of my reasoning powers, produces in me some incontestable notions of God; and, from these notions, immediately follow some sure consequences, which become the immoveable basis of my faith in his word, of my submission to his will, and of my confidence in his promises. These notions, and these consequences, compose the body of natural religion. There is a self-existent Being. The existence of all creatures is derived from the self-existent Being, and he is the only source of all their perfections. That Being, who is the source of the perfections of all other beings, is more powerful than the most powerful monarchs, because the most powerful monarchs derive only a finite power from him. He is wiser than the most consummate politicians, because the most consummate politicians derive only a finite wisdom from him. His knowledge exceeds that of the most transcendant geniuses, because the most transcendant geniuses and the most knowing philosophers derive only a finite knowledge from him. And the same may be said of others. There are then some incontestable notions, which reason gives us of God. From these notions follow some sure and necessary consequences. If all creatures derive their being and preservation from him, I owe to him all that I am, and all that I have, he is the sole object of my desires and hopes, Peter Daniel Huet, bishop of Avranches, a countryman of our author's. He was a man of uncommon learning, and, in justice to Christianity, as well as to his lordship, it ought to be remembered, that he wrote his demonstratio evangelica, in the vigour of his life; but his traite philosophique de la foiblesse de l'esprit humaine, of which Mons. Saurin complains, was written more than forty years after, when he was ninety years of age, and was superannuated. Father Castell, the Jesuit, denies that it was written by Huet at all. If reason affords some adequate notions of God, if some necessary consequences follow these notions, for a much stronger reason, we may derive some adequate notions of God and some sure consequences from revelation. It is a very extravagant and sophistical way of reasoning to allege the darkness of revelation upon this subject, in order to obscure the light that it does afford us. These words, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways," do not mean, then, that we can know nothing of the divine essence; that we cannot certainly discover in what cases he will approve of our conduct, and in what cases he will condemn it: they only mean, that infinite minds cannot form complete ideas of God, know the whole sphere of his attributes, or certainly foresee all the effects that they can produce. Thus we have endeavoured to restrain the words of the text. II. We are to determine their object. The prophet's expressions would have been true, had they been applied to all the attributes of God: however, they are applied here only to one of them, that is, to his goodness. The connexion of the text with the preceding verses proves this. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon," ver. 6, 7. The text immediately follows: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." It is clear, I think, that the last words, |