ch
are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may
_do_ all the words of this law[23]."

To any one who is seriously impressed with a sense of the critical state
in which we are here placed, a short and uncertain space in which to
make our peace with God, and then the last judgment, and an eternity of
unspeakable happiness or misery, it is indeed an awful and an affecting
spectacle, to see men thus busying themselves in these vain speculations
of an arrogant curiosity, and trifling with their dearest, their
everlasting interests. It is but a feeble illustration of this exquisite
folly, to compare it to the conduct of some convicted rebel, who, when
brought into the presence of his Sovereign, instead of seizing the
occasion to sue for mercy, should even neglect and trifle with the
pardon which should be offered to him, and insolently employ himself in
prying into his Sovereign's designs, and criticising his counsels. Our
case indeed is, in another point of comparison, but too much like that
of the convicted rebel. But there is this grand difference--that at the
best, his success must be uncertain, ours, if it be not our own fault,
is sure; and while, on the one hand, our guilt is unspeakably greater
than that of any rebel against an earthly monarch; so, on the other, we
know that our Sovereign is "Long-suffering, and easy to be intreated;"
more ready to grant, than we to ask, forgiveness. Well then may we adopt
the language of the poet:

What better can we do, than - - - prostrate fall
Before him reverent; and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg; with tears
Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air
Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek?

CHAPTER III.

_Chief defects of the Religious System of the bulk of professed
Christians, in what regards our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy
Spirit--with a Dissertation concerning the use of the Passions in
Religion._

SECT. I

SCRIPTURE DOCTRINES.

That "God so loved the world, as of his tender mercy to give his only
Son Jesus Christ for our redemption:"

That our blessed Lord willingly left the glory of the Father, and was
made man;

That "he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief:"

That "he was wounded for our transgressions; that he was bruised for our
iniquities:"

That "the Lord laid on him the iniqui