Yes, doubtless, and so they are, provided you follow the order which God has established in the world, provided you give God the throne in your heart, provided you live for His glory, and not unthankfully to enjoy His gifts. Otherwise, you also accuse providence, and blaspheme God. Do I falsely accuse you, who have not yet returned unto your God, but live in a guilty indifference, or rather, in real enmity against Him, regarding neither the invitations of His grace, nor the threats of His justice, nor His benefits, which ought to melt your hearts, nor His violated law, whose voice ought to make your conscience tremble to its lowest depths; you, who, though urged by all these considerations, to return to the Lord, to fear His judgments, and to open your hearts to His love, yet refuse to hearken to the call, depending upon a vague and false idea of His goodness, persuading yourselves that His justice will not take its course, and that, because He has spared you hitherto, He will never punish you at all? Do I falsely accuse you, in charging you with turning God's benefits and favours against Him, seeing that you make them a motive to continue in sin, and

despise the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? No; you calumniate His divine patience, you blaspheme God. Thou knowest, O my God, how even the most faithful among us, without abusing Thy gifts to this degree, without openly saying, "Let us continue in sin, that grace may abound," remain, notwithstanding Thy love and Thy tender mercies, yea, perhaps, because of Thy mercies, far below what we ought to attain to! And would this be the case, if we did not take occasion from Thy long-suffering, to show ourselves ungrateful to the best of parents, slothful in Thy service, and unmindful of Thy glory? Ah! Lord, we would, at least, take to ourselves the shame of our ingratitude. Humble us Thyself, humble us, and afterwards, in Thine infinite mercy, raise us up again!

My brethren, we have all a thousand reasons to be abased in the dust before God. Like Adam, we have known the holy law of our Creator; like Adam, we have violated that law knowingly and wilfully. Will you be so infatuated, as to refuse to listen to

the judgment which the voice of God pronounces in your conscience, and to endeavour to evade, by vain excuses, the solemn examination to which you are called? My brethren, who, among you, condemns himself? Who, among you, humbles himself ? Let him hear the Word of the Lord: "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy." Let us "judge ourselves, and we shall not be judged of the Lord."

But, my brethren, be this the case with you or no; hear and carry home this important consideration, which I would deeply engrave upon your hearts. In a very short time there shall be a tribunal erected before heaven and earth, before angels and men, far more solemn and terrible than that at which our first parents were arraigned in Eden. Whether we be unhumbled or repenting sinners, children of the world, or children of God, we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, where our destinies for eternity shall be determined. O, who among you will have a Saviour, an Intercessor, an Advocate with the Father, at that judgment-seat, from whence there is no appeal, and where no

excuses will be admitted; that judgment-seat, at which "every mouth shall be stopped." What overwhelming conviction awaits him who shall stand there, bearing the burden of his sins! What shame! What despair! Oh, if in that day there still remained one hour, one single hour for repentance, for humiliation, for fleeing to the throne of grace ! .. My brethren, that hour is at your disposal; it is that in which I am now speaking to you; now, now, unless you are determined to be lost, fly to Calvary! In one day, in one

hour, it may be too late.

My God, save them, save all of us!

K

"And the Lord said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat, all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

By various excuses, our first parents endeavoured to transfer the blame of their sin from themselves to the instrument by which they were induced to commit it. They are, however, at length, convicted, though not humbled. And now the sentence of condemnation and death, which the violated law reserves for the sinner, is about to fall upon their guilty heads. But God, to show them how hateful sin is in His sight, and also to lead them to