what sweet affections, meditations and expressions should we live, if we lived but according to the rate of those mercies upon which we live! Love, and joy, and thanks, and praise, would be our very lives. What sweet thoughts would mercy breed and feed in our minds when we are alone! What sweet apprehensions of the love of God, and life eternal, should we have in prayer, reading, sacraments, and other holy ordinances! Sickness and health, poverty and wealth, death as well as life would be comfortable to us for all is full of mercy to the vessels of mercy. O Christians, what a shame is it that God is so much wronged, and ourselves so much defrauded of our peace and joy, by passing over such abundance of great invaluable mercies, without tasting their sweetness, or well considering what we do receive! Had we David's heart, what songs of praise would Mercy teach us to indite! How affectionately should we recount the mercies of our youth and riper age; of every place and state that we have lived in to the honour of our gracious Lord, and the encouragement of those that know not how good and merciful he is.

But, withal, see that you contemn not, or abuse not mercy use it well; for it is mercy that you must trust to in the hour of your distresses. O do not trample upon mercy now, lest you should be confounded when you should cry for mercy in your extremity!

4. The Mercifulness of God, must cause his servants to imitate him in love and mercy: "Be merciful, for your heavenly Father is merciful. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." (Matt. v. 7.) Be merciful in your censures Be merciful in your retributions: You are none of God's children, if you "love not your enemies, and pray not for them that curse you, and do not good to them that hate and persecute you" (according to your power). (Matt. v. 44, 45.) “If you forgive not men their trespasses," but take your brother by the throat, "neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses." (Matt. vi. 14, 15.) Mark, that even while he is called "your heavenly Father," yet he will not forgive, if you forgive not. Unmerciful men are too unlike to God, to claim any interest in his saving mercy, in the hour of their extremest misery. Men of cruelty, blood, and violence, he abhorreth: and usually they do not "live out half their days:" but they that "bite and

devour one another, are devoured one of another." (Gal. v. 15.) The last judgment will pass much according to men's works of mercy, to the members of Christ. (Matt. xxv.) "He shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy and mercy rejoiceth against judgment." (James ii. 13.) "Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James i. 27.) "He that having this world's goods, seeth his brother in need, and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" But above all cruelty, there is none more devilish than cruelty to souls. And in those that undertake the place of pastors, cruelty to men's souls is a far greater sin than in any others. To starve those that they undertake to feed; and to seduce those whom they undertake to guide, and be wolves to those whose shepherds they pretend to be, and to prefer their worldly honours, and commodity, and ease, before the souls of many thousands, to be so cruel to souls, when Christ hath been so merciful to them, as to come down on earth to seek and save them, and to give his life a ransom for them; this will one day be so heavy a charge, that the man that must stand as guilty under it, will a thousand times wish, that a "milstone had been hanged about his neck, and he had been cast into the bottom of the sea," before he had betrayed or murdered souls, or offended one of the little ones of Christ. Be merciful to men's souls and bodies, as ever you would find mercy with a merciful God in the hour of your necessity and distress.

CHAP. XXI.

20. The last of God's attributes which I shall now mention, is, his Dreadfulness or Terribleness, to those that are the objects of his wrath. This is the result of his other attributes, especially of his Holiness, and governing Justice, and Truth in his comminations. He is a "great and dreadful God." (Dan. ix. 4.) "A mighty God and terrible." (Deut. vii. 21.) "A great and terrible God," (Nah. i. 5.) "With God is terrible Majesty." (Job xxxvii. 22.) "The Lord most high is terrible." (Psal. xlvii. 22.)

1. His children therefore must be kept in a holy awe; God is never to be approached or mentioned, but with the

greatest reverence. We must "sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and he must be our fear and dread." (Isa. viii. 13.) Even they that "receive the unmoveable kingdom, must have grace in their hearts to serve him acceptably, with reverence and godly fear, because our God is a consuming fire." (Heb. xii. 28, 29.) When we come to worship in the holy assemblies, we should think, as Jacob, "How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." (Gen. xxviii. 17.) Especially when God seemeth to frown upon the soul, his servants must humble themselves before him, and deprecate his wrath, as Jeremiah did, "Be not a terror to me." (Jer. xvii. 17.) It ill becometh the best of men, to make light of the frowns and threatenings of God. Also when he dealeth with us in judgment, and we feel the smart of his chastisements, though we must remember that he is a Father, yet withal we must consider that he sheweth himself an offended Father: And therefore true and deep humiliation hath ever been the course of afflicted saints, to turn away the wrath of a terrible God.

2. But above all, what cause have the ungodly to tremble at the dreadfulness of that God, who is engaged in justice, (except they be converted) to use them everlastingly as his unpardoned enemies. As there is no felicity like the favour of God; and no joy comparable to his children's joys; so there is no misery like the sense of his displeasure, nor any terrors to be compared to those, which his wrath inflicteth everlastingly on the ungodly. O wretched sinner! what hast thou done to make God thine enemy? what could hire thee to offend him by thy wilful sin? and to do that which thou knewest he forbid and condemned in his word? What madness caused thee to make a mock at sin and hell, and to play with the vengeance of the Almighty? What gain did hire thee to cast thy soul into the danger of damnation? Canst thou save by the match, if thou win the world and lose thy soul? Didst thou not know who it was thou hadst to do with? It had been better for thee that all the world had been offended with thee, even men and angels, great and small, than the most dreadful God! Didst thou not believe him, when he told thee how he was resolved to judge and punish the ungodly? Read it, 2 Thess. ii. 7-10; ii. 10, 11; Matt. xxv; Jude 15; Psalm i. &c. What caused

thee to venture upon the consuming fire? Didst thou not know that he is merciful, so he is jealous, holy, just, and terrible? In the name of God, I require and entreat thee, fly to his mercy in Jesus Christ; and hearken speedily to his grace, and turn at his reproof and warning; to-day, while it is called to-day, harden not thy heart, but hear his voice, lest he resolve in his wrath, that thou shalt never enter into his rest; there is no enduring, there is no overcoming, there is no contending with an angry, dreadful, holy God: Repent therefore and turn to him, and obey the voice of mercy that thy soul may live.

3. The dreadfulness of God, doth tell both good and bad, the great necessity of a Mediator. What an unspeakable mercy is it that God hath given us his Son! and that by Jesus Christ we may come with boldness and confidence into the presence of the dreadful God, that else would have been to us a greater terror than all the world, yea than Satan himself. The more we are apprehensive of our distance from God, and of his terrible Majesty, and his more terrible justice against such sinners as we have been, the more we shall understand the mystery of redemption, and highly value the mediation of Christ.

4. Lastly, Let the dreadfulness of God prevail with every believing soul, to pity the ungodly that pity not themselves. O pray for them, O warn them, exhort them, entreat them, as men that know the terrors of the Lord. (2 Cor. v. 11.) If they knew, as well as you do, what sin is, and what it is to be children of wrath, and what it is to be unpardoned, unjustified, and unsanctified, they would pity themselves, and cry for mercy, mercy, mercy, from day to day, till they were recovered into a state of life, and turned from the power of Satan unto God. Alas! they know not what it is to die, and to see the world to come, and to appear before a dreadful God: They know not what it is to be in hell fire; nor what it is to be glorified in heaven: They never saw or tried these things, and they want the faith by which they must be foreseen by those that are yet short of nearer knowledge: You therefore that have faith to foreknow these things, and are enlightened by the Spirit of God, O pity, and warn, and help the miserable! Tell them how much easier it is to escape hell, than to endure it: and how much easier a holy life on earth is, than the endless wrath of the most

dreadful God. Tell them that unbelief, presumption, and security, are the certain means to bring their misery, but will do nothing to keep it off; though they may keep off the present knowledge and sense of it, which would have driven them to seek a cure. Tell them that death and judgment are at hand, and that when they laugh, or sport, or scorn, and jest at the displeasure of the dreadful God, it is posting toward them, and will be upon them before they are aware; and when they slumber, their damnation slumbereth not: but while unbelieving sinners say, peace, peace, sudden destruction will come upon them, as unexpected travail on a woman with child, and they shall not escape. O tell them how dreadful a thing it is, for a soul that is unregenerate and unsanctified, to go from that body which it pampered and sold its salvation to please, and to appear at the tribunal of God; and how dreadful it is for such a soul to fall into the hands of the living God. At least save your own souls, by the faithful discharge of so great a duty; and if they will take no warning, let them at last remember, when it is too late, that they were told in time, what they should see and feel at last, and what their latter end would prove; and that God and man did warn them in compassion, though they perish because they would have no compassion or mercy upon themselves. Thus let the terribleness of God provoke you, to do your duty with speed and zeal, for the converting and saving of miserable souls.

And thus I have briefly set before you the glass in which you may see the Lord, and told you how he must be known: and how he must be conceived of in our apprehensions; and how the knowledge of God must be improved, and what impressions it must make upon the heart, and what effect it must have upon our lives. Blessed, and for ever blessed, are those souls, that have the true and lively image of this God, and all these his attributes imprinted on them, (as to the creature they are communicable). And O that the " veil were taken from our hearts, and that we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord,” (2 Cor. iii. 18,) and may increase and live in the knowledge of the true and only God, and of Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. Amen.