instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee! Why, why will ye die O house of Israel! Ps. lxxxi. 8; Jer. vi. 8. O were we wise, these expostulations would reign over our hearts! O! if there remained the least spark of reason in us, the frightful image of hell would henceforth make the deepest impressions on our souls! Frightful ideas of judgment and hell! may you be always in my mind, when the world would decoy me to stain my ministry by its vain and glaring snares! Frightful ideas of judgment and hell! may you strike all these hearers so as to give success to this sermon, and weight to our ministry! Frightful ideas of judgment and hell! may you ever follow us, so that by knowing the terror of avenging justice, and the unspeakable value of grace set before us, we may be rendered capable of participating eternal glory; which I wish you, my brethren, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. SERMON XLI. THE UNIFORMITY OF GOD IN HIS GOVERNMENT. HEBREWS xiii. 8. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. ST. Paul gives us a very beautiful idea of God, when he says, 'The wisdom of God is manifold, Eph. iii. 10. The first great cause, the Supreme Being, has designs infinitely diversified. This appears by the various beings which he has created, and by the different ways in which he governs them. What a variety in created beings! A material world, and an intelligent world! Matter variously modified, or, as the apostle speaks, One kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, another of birds, celestial bodies, and bodies terrestial; one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and so on to an infinite multitude. There is a similar variety of spirits; men, angels, seraphim, cherubim, powers, dominions, archangels, and thrones. What a variety in the manner in which God governs these beings? To restrain ourselves to men only, are not some loaded with benefits, and others depressed with adversities? Does he not enlighten some by nature, others by the law, and others by the gospel. Did he not allow the antediluvians one period of life, the cities of the plain another, and us another; the first he overwhelmed with water, the next consumed by fire, and the last by an endless variety of means. But, although there be a diversity in the conduct of God, it is always a diversity of wisdom. Whether he creates a material or an intelligent world; whether he forms celestial or terrestrial bodies,men,angels,seraphim, or cherubim; whether he governs the universe by the same, or by different laws; in all cases, and at all times, he acts like a God, he has only one principle, and that is order. There is a harmony in his perfections, which he never disconcerts. There is in his conduct a uniformity, which is the great character of his actions. His variety is always wise, or, to repeat the words just now mentioned, 'the wisdom of God is of many kinds.' These great truths we intend to set before you to-day; for on these the apostle intend ed to treat in his epistle to the Hebrews. Look, said he on the present period, reflect on past times, anticipate the future, run through all dimensions of time, dive into the abysses of eternity, you will always find the perfections of God in exact harmony, you will perceive an exact uniformity characterize his actions, you will acknowledge, that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,' 1 John v. 20. Are you disposed, my brethren, to elevate your minds a little while above sense and matter? Can you sufficiently suspend the impressions, which sensible objects made on your minds last week, to give such an attention to this subject as its nature and importance demand? Let us then enter into the matter, and God grant while we are contemplating to-day the harmony of his perfections, and the uniformity of his government, we may be changed into his image from glory to glory, even as by his Spirit.' God grant, as far as it is compatible with the inconstancy essential to human nature, we may be always the same, and amidst the perpetual vicissitudes of life may have only one principle, that is to obey and please him! Amen I shall connect, as well as I can, the different explications of my text; I would rather conciliate them in this manner, than consume my hour in relating, and comparing them, and in selecting the most probable from them. These expositions may be reduced to three classes. Some say, the apostle speaks of the person of Jesus Christ; others of his doctrine; and a third class apply the passage to the protection that he affords his church. The first class of expositors, who apply the text to the person of Jesus Christ, are not unanimous to the strict sense of the work; some think, the apostle speaks of the human nature of Jesus Christ, and others say, he speaks of his divine nature. The latter take the text for a proof of his eternity; and accord ing to them the words are synonymous to these, I am Alpha and Omega, the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty,' Rev. i. 8 The former consider the apostle as speaking of Christ either as man or as mediator; and according to them St Paul means to say, The Saviour, whom I propose to you, was the Saviour of Adam, of Abraham, and of the whole church, agreeably to what I have elsewhere affirmed.Him hath God set forth a propitiation through faith, for the remission of sins that are past,' Rom iii. 25; that is, his sacrifice always was the relief of sin ners. worship, which he required of men; at another time he required a worship altogether spiritual and free from ceremonial ages. At one time his laws tolerated some remains of concupiscence: at another time he commanded the eradication of every fibre of sin. At one time the church saw sensible miracles, and grounded taith on them; at another time faith followed a train of reasoning, made up of principle and consequences. At one time the church participated worldly pomps and grandeurs; at another it experienced all the misery and ignominy of the world. A work so different, and, in some sort, so opposite in its parts, is, however, the work of one and the same God. And what is more remarkable, a work, the parts of which are so different and so opposite, arises from one principle, that is, from the union and harmony of the divine perfections. The same The second class of interpreters affirm, that St. Paul does not speak of the person of Jesus Christ: but of his doctrine. In this view the text must be connected with the words which immediately follow. be not car-principle, that inclined God to grant the ried about with divers and strange doctrines.' Why would not the apostle have Christians carried about with divers doctrines? Because Jesus Christ, that is Christianity, the religion taught by Jesus Christ. is always the same, and is not subject to the uncertainty of any human science. church a small degree of light at one time, engaged him to grant a greater degree at another time. The same principle which induced him to require a gross worship under the economy of the law, inclined him to exact a worship wholly spiritual under the gospel; and so of the rest. But other expositors ascribe a quite differ- 1. We see in God's government of his ent sense to the words, and say, the apostle church, various degrees of light communicaspeaks neither of the person of Christ, nor of ted. Compare the time of Moses with that his doctrine, but of that protection which he of the prophets, and that of the prophets with affords believers. According to this, the that of the evangelists and apostles, and the text has no connexion with the following difference will be evident. Moses did not enverse, but with that which goes before. St. ter into a particular detail concerning God, Paul had been proposing to the believing the world in general, or man in particular. It Hebrews the examples of their ancestors and should seem, the principal view of this legispredecessors, some of whom had sealed the lator, in regard to God, was to establish the doctrine of the gospel with their blood. Re- doctrine of his unity; at most to give a vague member' your guides, who have spoken unto idea of his perfections. It should seem, his you the word of God; whose faith follow, chief design in regard to the world in general considering the end of their conversation.' was to prove that it was the production of In order to induce them to imitate these that God, whose unity he established. bright examples. he adds. 'Jesus Christ is And, in regard to man in particular, it should the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever;' seem, his principal drift was to teach, that, that is to say. he supported, and rewarded his being a part of a world which had a begin primitive martyrs, and he will confirm and ning, he himself had a beginning, that he de crown all who shall have courage to follow rived his existence from the same Creator, their example. and from him only could expect to enjoy a happy existence It would be easy to multiply this list of various opinions: but, as I said, I will connect the three different expositions which have been mentioned, and endeavour to show you the admirable harmony of the perfections of God, and the uniformity of his actions in regard to mankind. first as they appear in the economy of time, and secondly in that of eternity; and we will attempt to prove that God is the same in both. I. We see in the economy of time four remarkable varieties. 1. A variety in the degrees of knowledge given to the church 2. A variety in the worship required of it. 3. A variety in the nature of the evidences. on which it has pleased God to found the faith of the church. 4. A variety in the laws. that he has thought proper to prescribe. At one time he gave only a small degree of knowledge; at another he drew aside the veil, and exposed to public view the whole body of truth and knowledge. At one time he prescribed the observation of a great many gross ceremonies along with that spiritual Pass from the reading of the writings of Moses to a survey of the prophecies, thence proceed to the gospels and epistles, and you will see truth unfold as the sacred roll opens. You will be fully convinced, that as John the Baptist had more knowledge than any of his predecessors, so he himself had less than any of his followers In these various degrees of knowledge communicated by God to men, I see that uniformity which is the distinguishing character of his actions, and the inviolable rule of his government The same principle that inClined him to grant a little light to the age of Moses, inclined him to afford more to the time of the prophets and the greatest of all to the age in which the evangelists and apostles lived What is this principle? It is a principle of order, which requires that the object proposed to a faculty be proportioned to this faculty; that a truth proposed to an intelligence be proportioned to this intelligence. What proportion would there have been between the truths proposed to the Israelites, when they came out of Egypt, and the state in which they then were, had God revealed all the doctrines to them which he has since revealed to us? Could a people born in slavery, employed in the meanest works, without education, meditation, and reading, attain a just notion of those sublime ideas, which the prophets have given us of the Deity? How Could God have enabled them to conceive rightly of these truths unless he had more than assisted them, unless he had new made them? And how could he have recreated them, if I may speak so, as far as was necessary to fit them for understanding these truths, without annihilating their faculties, and without violating that law of order, which requires every one to make use of his own faculties? What proportion would there have been between the state of the Israelites and their abilities, had God revealed to them some doctrines taught us in the gospel? These would have been, through the stupidity of the people, useless, and even dangerous to them. Thus we may justly suppose of some prophecies concerning the Messiah; had they represented him in such a manner as the event has shown him to us, the representation, far from attaching them to the worship of God, would have tempted them to conform to that of some other pations, which was more agreeable to their concupiscence. Particularly, of the doctrine of the Trinity, which makes so considerable a part of the Christian system, we may justly suppose what I have said. A people who had lived among idolaters, a people, who had been accustomed not only to multiply gods, but also to deify the meanest creatures, could such a people have been told without danger, that in the Divine essence there was a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit? Would not this doctrine have been a snare too powerful for their reason? If they so often fell into polytheism, that is, into the notion of a plurality of Gods, in spite of all the precautions that Moses used to preserve thein from it, what, pray, would have been the case, had their religion itself seemed to favour it ? If we follow this reasoning, we shall see, that when the church was in a state of infaney, God proportioned his revelation to an infant state, as he proportioned it to a mature age, when the church had arrived at maturity. This is an idea of St. Paul,When I was a child, I thought as a child,' 1 Cor. xiii. 11. I thought the perfections of the great God had some likeness to the imperfections of men, at least, I was not sufficiently struck with the immense distance between human imperfections and divine excellence; I represented God to myself as a being agitated with human passions, and capable of wrath, jealousy, and repentance: But when I became a man, I put away childish things; God made me understand, what he described himself to be under these emblems, for the sake of proportioning himself to my capacity, condescending, as it were, to lisp with me, in order to learn me to speak plainly. When I was a child, I thought as a child;' I thought it was a matter of great consequence to man to have fruitful fields, heavy harvests, and victorious armies; I thought a long life, protracted through several ages, the greatest felicity that a mortal could enjoy: But when I became a man, I put away childish things;' God then revealed to me his design in proposing motives to me adapted to my weakness; it was to attract me to himself by these incitements; then I understood, that the longest life, how happy and splendid soever it might be, fell infinitely short of satisfying the wants and desires of a soul, conscious of its own dignity, and answering to the excellence of its origin: I was convinced, that a soul aspiring to eternal felicity, and filled with the noble ambition of participating the happiness of the immortal God, considers with equal indifference the highest and the meanest offices in society, riches and poverty, the short duration of twenty years, and the little longer of a hundred. When I was a child, I thought as a child;' I thought the Messiah, so often promised in the prophecies, so often represented in types, and expected with so much ardour by the church, would come to hold a superb court, to march at the head of a numerous army, to erect a throne, to seat himself there, and to make the Romans, the conquerors of the whole earth, lick the dust: But when I became a man I put away childish things;' God informed me, that a Messiah, sent to make me happy, must come, to restrain my avidity for the world, and not to gratify it, to check my passions, and not to irritate them; he instructed me, that a Messiah, appointed to redeem mankind, must be fastened to a cross, and not seated on a throne, must subdue the devil, death, and sin, and not the Romans; must be despised and rejected, and not encircled with a pompous court. 2. What justifies the government of God on one of these articles, on the various degrees of light bestowed on his church, will fully justify him in regard to the worship required by him. Let Jesus Christ, as far as the subject will allow, be opposed to Moses; contrast Moses giving a hundred ceremonial precepts along with one precept of morality, with Jesus Christ giving a hundred moral precepts with one ceremony. Compare Moses, imposing on the Israelites heavy burdens grievous to be borne,' Matt. xxiii. 4, with Jesus Christ, proposing an easy yoke and a light burden, chap. xi. 30. Oppose Moses enjoining festivals, purifications, sacrifices, and observances without number, to Jesus Christ reducing all the ritual of his religion to baptism and the Lord's Supper, to a worship the least encumbered, and the most artless and simple, that ever a religion proposed declaring, 'Now is the hour, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,' John iv. 23. Notwithstanding this seeming difference, God acts on the uniform principle of order. Uniformity, if I may express myself so, is in him the cause of variety, and the same principle, that engaged him to prescribe a gross sensible worship to the Israelites, engages him to prescribe a worship of another kind to Christians. Conceive of the Jews, as we have just now described them, enveloped in matter, loving gnashing of teeth; expressions which we will explain by and by. Accordingly, the disciples of the head of the sect just now mentioned, and whose system we oppose, have renounced these two parts of their Master's doctrine, and, neither denying the generality of these punishments, nor the reality of them, are content to oppose their eternity. 3. But, it appears by Scripture, that future punishment will be eternal. The holy Scripture represents another life as a state, in which there will be no room for repentance and mercy, and where the wicked shall know nothing but torment and despair. It compares the duration of the misery of the damned with the duration of the felicity of the blessed. Future punishment is always said to be eternal, and there is not the least hint given of its coming to an end. 'Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, Matt. xxv. 41. Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,' Mark ix. 44. If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than, having two hands, to be cast into everlasting fire, Matt. xviii. 8. The devil, that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast, and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever,' Rev. xx. 10. Again in our text, the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.' These declarations are formal and express But, as the word eternal does not always signify proper and literal eternity, it is presumed, the Spirit of God did not intend, by attributing eternity to future punishment, strictly and literally to affirm, that future punishment should never end: but only that it should endure many ages. We grant, my brethren the word eternal does not always signify properly and literally eternity. It has several meanings; but there are three principal. Sometimes eternity is attributed to those beings which are as old as the world. Thus we read of 'everlasting hills,' or 'mountains of eternity,' Gen. xlix. Sometimes it is put for a duration as long as the nature of the thing in question can permit. Thus it is said, a servant, who would not accept his liberty in the seventh year of his servitude, should serve his Master for ever, Exod. xxi. 6, that is, until the time of the Jubilee, for then the Jewish republic was new modelled, and all slaves were set free. Sometimes it expresses any thing perfect in its kind and which has no succession. Thus the sacrifice of Melchisedec, and that of Jesus Christ, of which the first was a shadow, abide continually, or for ever, Heb. vii. 3. This term then, must be taken in a metaphorical sense in the three following cases. 2. A metaphorical sense must be given to the term, when the sacred history assures us, that what it calls eternal has actually come to an end. Thus, it is plain, the fire of Sodom was not eternal; for sacred history informs us, it was extinguished after it had consumed that wicked city, and it is called eternal, only because it burned till Sodom was all reduced to ashes, Jude. 7. But what history can engage us to understand in this sense the eternity attributed to the torments of the wicked? 3. The term must be taken metaphorically when the subject spoken of is not capable of a proper eternal duration, as in the case just now mentioned, that a mortal servant should eternally serve a mortal master. But, we presume, the eternity of future punishment in a strict literal sense implies no contradiction, and perfectly agrees with the objects of our contemplation. This leads us to our second part, in which we are to examine those objections, which reason opposes against the doctrine of eternal punishment. II. If the doctrine of eternal punishment imply a contradiction, it must either regard man, the sufferer of the pain, or God, who threatens to inflict it. 1. The nature of man has nothing incongruous with that degree and duration of punishment, of which we speak. Turn your attention to the following reflections. Nothing but an express act of the will of God can annihilate a soul. No person in the world can assure himself, without a divine revelation, that God will do this act. Whatever we see, and know of our soul, its hopes and fears, its hatred and love, all afford a presumption, that it is made for an eternity of happiness or misery. The will of God is the only cause of the sensations of our souls that alone establishes a commerce between motion and sensation, sensation and motion. His will alone is the cause, that from a separation of the component parts of the hand by the action of fire there results a sensation of pain in the soul; so that, should it please him to unite a condemned soul to particles of inextinguishable fire, and should there result from the activity of this fire violent anguish in the soul, there would be nothing in all this contrary to daily natural experiment. Farther, Weigh particularly the following reflection." Choose, of all the systems of philosophers, that which appears most reasonable; believe the soul is spiritual, believe it is matter; think, it must naturally dissolve with the body, believe it must subsist after the ruin of the body; take which side you will, you can never deny this principle, nor do I know, that any philosopher has ever de1. When that, which is called eternal in one nied it: that is, that God is able to preserve place, is said in another to come to an end. soul and body for ever, were they perishable Thus, it was said, the ceremonial law was to by nature; and this act of his will would be endure for ever. This expression must not equal to a continual creation. Now, this prinbe taken literally; for all the prophets in- ciple being granted, all arguments drawn formed their countrymen, that the ceremonial from the nature of man to prove its inconeconomy was to end, and to give up to a bet-gruity with the Scripture idea of eternal ter. Now the holy Scriptures do not restrain punishment vanish of themselves. in any one passage what it establishes in others concerning the eternity of future punishments. But Origen did not enter into these reflec tions. With all that fertility of genius, which enabled him to compose (if we believe St. Epiphanius,*), six thousand books, and in spite of all his Greek and Hebrew, he was a sorry philosopher, and a very bad divine. The church has condemned his doctrine in the gross. All his philosophy was taken from the ideas of Plato; but, thanks be to God! my brethren, we live in ages more enlightened, and were educated by masters wiser than Aristotle and Plato. So much shall suffice for objections taken from the nature of man. 2. Let us attend now to others taken from the nature of God. A man who opposes our doctrine, reasons in this manner. Which way soever I consider a being supremely perfect, I cannot persuade myself, that he will expose his creatures to eternal torments. All his perfections secure me from such terrors as this doctrine seems to inspire. If I consider the Deity as a being perfectly free, it should seem, although he has denounced sentences of condemnation, yet he retains a right of revoking, or of executing them to the utmost rigour; whence I infer, that no man can determine what use he will make of his liberty. When I consider God as a good being, I cannot make eternal punishment agree with infinite mercy bowels of compassion' seem incongruous with devouring flames; the titles merciful and gracious' seem incompatible with the execution of this sentence, depart ye cursed into everlasting fire,' Matt. xxv. 41 In short, when I consider God under the idea of an equitable legislator, I cannot comprehend how sins committed in a finite period can deserve an infinite punishment Let us suppose a life the most long and criminal that ever was; let the vices of all mankind be assembled, if possible, in one man; let the duration of his depravity be extended from the beginning of the world to the dissolution of it even in this case sin would be finite, and infinite, everlasting punishment would far exceed the demerit of finite transgression, and consequently, the doctrine of everlasting punishment is inconsistent with divine justicer There are libertines, who invent these difficulties, and take pains to confirm themselves in the belief of them, in order to diminish those just fears, which an idea of hell would excite in their souls, and to enable them to sin boldly. Let us not enter into a detail of answers and replies with people of this kind. Were we to grant all they seem to require, it would be easy to prove, to a demonstration, that there is a world of extravagance in deriving the least liberty to sin from these objections. If, instead of a punishment enduring for ever, hell were only the sufferings of a thousand years' torments, were the sufferer during these thousand years only placed in the condition of a man excruciated with the gout or the stone; must not a man give up all claim to common sense, before he could, even on these suppositions, abandon himself to sin? Are not all the charms employed by the devil to allure us to sin absorbed in the idea of a thousand years' pain, to which, for argument's sake, we have supposed eternal punishment reduced? How pitiable is a man in dying agonies, who has nothing to oppose against the * Advers. Blæres. lib. 2. terrors of death but this opinion. Perhaps hell may be less in degree, and shorter in duration than the scriptures represent! Some Christian divines, in zeal for the glory of God, have yielded to these objections; and under pretence of having met with timorous people, whom the doctrine of eternal punishment had terrified into doubts concerning the divine perfections, they thought it their duty to remove this stumbling-block. They have ventured to presume, that the idea which God has given of eternal punishment, was only intended to alarm the impenitent, and that it was very probable God would at last relax the rigorous sentence. But if it were allowed that God had no other design in denouncing eternal punishments than that of alarming sinners, would it become us to oppose his wise purpose,and with our unhallowed hands to throw down the batteries, which he had erected against sin? Shall we pretend to dive into his mysterious views? or, having, as it were, extorted his confidence, should we be so indiscreet as to publish it, like the bold adventurer in the fable, who, not content with having stolen fire from heaven for himself, endeavoured to encourage other men to do so? Let us think soberly,' and not more highly then we ought to think; let us not think above that which is written,' Rom. xii. 3; 1 Cor. iv. 6. Let us preach the gospel as God has revealed it. God did not think the doctrine of everlasting punishment injurious to the holiness of his attributes. Let us not pretend to think it will injure them. 6 None of these reflections remove the difficulty. We proceed then to open four sources of solutions. 1. Observe this general truth. It is not probable, God would threaten mankind with a punishment, the infliction of which would be incompatible with his perfections. If the reality of such a hell as the Scriptures describe be inconsistent with the perfections of the Creator, such a hell ought not to have been affirmed, yea, it could not have been revealed. The eminence of the holiness of God will not allow him to terrify his creatures with the idea of a punishment, which he cannot inflict without injustice; and considering the weakness of our reason, and the narrow limits of our knowledge, we ought not to say, such a thing is unjust, therefore it is not revealed: but, on the contrary, we should ra ther say, such a thing is revealed, therefore it is just. 2. Take each part of the objection drawn from the attributes of God, and said to destroy our doctrine, and consider it separately. The argument taken from the liberty of God would carry us from error to error, and from one absurdity to another. For, if God be free to relax any part of the punishment denounced, he is equally free to relax the whole. If we may infer, that he will certainly release the sufferer from a part, because he is at liberty to do so,we have an equal right to presume he will release from the whole, and there would be no absurdity in affirming the one. after we had allowed the other. If there be no absurdity in presuming that God will release the whole punishment denounced against the impenitent, behold! Il systems of |