ce in an exact and terrible accordance with the
divine predictions. These are indeed matter of awful perusal, sufficient
surely to confound the fallacious confidence of any who, on the ground
that our Creator must be aware of our natural weakness, and must be of
course disposed to allow for it, should alledge that, though unable
indeed to justify ourselves in the sight of God, we need not give way to
such gloomy apprehensions, but might throw ourselves, with assured hope,
on the infinite benevolence of the Supreme Being. It is indeed true,
that with the threatenings of the word of God, there are mixed many
gracious declarations of pardon, on repentance, and thorough amendment.
But, alas! which of us is there, whose conscience must not reproach him
with having trifled with the long-suffering of God, and with having but
ill kept the resolutions of amendment, which he had some time or other
formed in the seasons of recollection and remorse?--And how is the
disquietude naturally excited by such a retrospect, confirmed and
heightened by passages like these? "Because I have called, 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: for that they hated knowledge, and did not chuse the fear of the
Lord[11]." The apprehensions, which must be excited by thus reading the
recorded judgments and awful language of Scripture, are confirmed to the
inquisitive and attentive mind, by a close observation of the moral
constitution of the world. Such a one will find occasion to remark, that
all, which has been suggested of the final consequences of vice, is in
strict analogy to what we may observe in the ordinary course of human
affairs, wherein it will appear, on a careful survey, that God has so
assigned to things their general tendencies, and established such an
order of causes and effects, as (however interrupted here below by
hindrances and obstructions apparently of a temporary nature) loudly
proclaim the principles of his moral government, and strongly suggest,
that vice and imprudence will finally terminate in misery[12]. Not that
this species of proof