wise. And hear me again; I am not using the language of presumption, but I am speaking in the pure dialect of truth, when I say God cannot order it otherwise-if God be not glorified in your salvation, he must and will be in your destruction. In the name of all that is dear to you-in the name of God himself—in the name of every lovely principle that can inhabit the bosom of humanity-in the name of all that is good which you can possess in time or in eternity, I ask, have you been taught to glorify God? My brethren, I am not now inquiring for the eminent attainments of any of you, but for the reality of your religion; and I must do this. There is an awful description of the doom of the wicked in the 1st chapter of Proverbs— "I have called," says the Almighty, "and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh

upon you: then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.” And there will be justice in this—there will be awful, eternal retribution. God will eventually treat your cries as you treat his invitations—he will turn a deaf ear to them all. O may he open all our hearts that we may listen to him now and flee from the wrath to come, and be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation!

Consider, too, there is every possible encouragement held out, not to one sinner only, but to every sinner who hears the voice of God, let his case be what it may. He is infinitely more glorified in the salvation of one soul than he ever will be in the destruction of all his enemies-his justice and his power only are glorified in the destruction of his enemies, but not his love. All his perfections are glorified to the utmost in the salvation of one sinner. O God! open the hearts of careless sinners to listen to thy own voice. Lastly. This will involve eternally in it the

1 Prov: i. 24-28.

creature's highest welfare. When this is the case, hear me ! he who has been taught to glorify God is as invincible as God himself.

Now to God, &c.

SERMON II.

ISAIAH XIV. 24.

"THE LORD OF HOSTS HATH SWORN, SAYING, SURELY AS I HAVE THOUGHT SO SHALL IT COME TO PASS; AND AS I HAVE PURPOSED SO SHALL IT STAND."

GOD, it appears, then, has thought and purposed and as he has thought and as he has purposed, every thing shall stand for ever and

ever.

To think and to purpose are the attributes of all rational beings, whether created or uncreated. We should estimate lightly a man who did not think and purpose before he began to act. It is a disgrace to a finite being who

has rational powers, to act without thinking and without purposing.

It would be an infinite disgrace to the Deity to cherish this idea of him for a single moment : and yet it is absolutely necessary to dwell on these truisms, (the plainest, perhaps, when we come to consider them, of all truisms,) because many individuals when they hear of the purpose of the Almighty, shrink from it as if they shrank from the presence of damnation, little conscious that they are shrinking from every good, instead of from any evil.

I. God is such an infinitely perfect being, that his thoughts and purposes are co-ETERNAL WITH HIMSELF. God cannot possibly exist without his thoughts and purposes. I was very much struck some time ago, when reading of a child at school in France, who was asked by one of his teachers, or by some intelligent visitors, whether God reasoned or not? The child paused awhile, and answered, "No: God is too perfect to reason. He knows every thing without reasoning." This was excellent. Newton