sation? "He pleased God, and was beloved of him; so that being among sinners, he was translated, yea, speedily was he taken away, lest that wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul. He being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time, for his soul pleased the Lord, therefore hasted he to take him away from among the wicked." In these words we see the reason of God's dealings in one most important order of cases, made manifest; we may apply, under due limitations, the same line of reasoning to almost every case, not presumptuously pronouncing on the mysteries of the Almighty Providence-mysteries, which from the contracted state of our understandings, we cannot expect should be now disclosed. It is well for us, however, to use the light which we have, and to apply this reasoning when it is applicable. We shall not indeed solve the difficulties of every case, but we shall have very frequent opportunities of tracing the dispensations of God to their proper source; of accounting even by sight for some of these, and by faith of referring them all to the same merciful and wise intentions.

From what has been said, the application of this subject to ourselves is a very easy one. In all the afflictions with which the Almighty is pleased to visit us, under these views, we trace the arm, not of an angry God, but a tender Fa

ther; we get rid of that delusive notion, both with respect to ourselves and others, that every tribulation is always a judgment. If it be a judgment, which sometimes cannot be denied, it is also a trial, and a discipline. The Almighty best knows what is the surest means of bringing our souls to him, of correcting those habits, and abating those passions, which threaten to separate us for ever from our reward. It is on this ground that disease is suffered to ravage our frame, disappointment to subvert our exertion, losses and afflictions not only to try our faith, but to correct and amend our hearts, and to withdraw them from those worldly objects which ever encroach upon our affections.

SERMON XI.

PSALM CXXX. 4.

For there is mercy with thee, therefore shalt thou be

feared.

Of all the attributes with which the majesty of God is arrayed, there is not one of which our limited capacities can form so adequate an idea, there is none to which the mind of man, can so uninterruptedly direct its view, as to that of his mercy. Eternity and immensity, amaze our thoughts and bewilder our imaginations. Omniscience, while it commands our admiration, defies our comprehension. Infinite justice, clothed with infinite power, can be surveyed alone with astonishment and terror. The lustre of the divine purity, is of too intense a brightness for the eyes of a sinful creature to survey; the fartherary way his unassisted speculations pierce is drawn between heaven and

wful sense will he feel, of the the finite creature

from the infinite Creator, of fallen man from his offended God. While every other attribute is hidden in the clouds and darkness which surround his throne, to mercy alone can we look for comfort and support. It is not only that portion of the divine perfection, upon which we can look with confidence, but it is the medium through which we derive our faint and indistinct conceptions of every other attribute. It is the channel of communication between God and man. In mercy hath he revealed himself to the sons of men; in mercy is every dispensation formed; through mercy alone can infinite purity condescend to visit and to bless the children of sin; and to discover himself not in the terrors of offended Majesty, but in the tenderness of a kind and an affectionate father. This is the attribute which, when interwoven as a ground-work with all the other perfections of the Divine nature, so tempers their sublime splendour, as to render them the objects of our love, no less than of our adoration.

But whatever may be our general ideas of this transcendant attribute of the Deity, as the source of all our opportunities of pleasure, and capacities of its enjoyment; we shall find that a reasonable mind will direct them all to one point, upon which if any uncertainty arises, all our joys fade away, and every blessing which this world

affords, becomes an affliction and a curse. In the pardon of sins and remission of punishment is concentrated every ray of the Divine mercy, and to this as to a focus, they will ultimately tend. If our being, our life, our preservation are blessings, they are blessings only as referred to this one point, the pardon of sin. Without this they are little more than the sensual gratifications of the frame, the momentary enjoyment of a fleeting and precarious pleasure, alloyed with all those misgivings of mind which are ever attendant upon a sense of unredeemed and unexpiated guilt.

To this particular view of the subject we shall be directed by the consideration of the psalm from which my text is taken. It was evidently composed under that depression of soul, which a review of the infirmities of our fallen nature is calculated to excite in a heart awakened to a sense of its desperate condition. "Out of the

deep have I called unto thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice; O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it?" These are the fearful misgivings of a mind distracted with the terrors of an offended God, these are the afflictions which no medicine can reach, which all the powers human reason cannot eradicate. The distemper

of