EVIDENCES OF FORGIVENESS. 149 of God which are engrafted upon our hearts by na- ture, and which all his works declare. Whatever, therefore, it be, this cannot be the design of God in his patience towards the world. He must long since have cut off' the whole race of mankind if he had had no other thoughtsand purposes towards them. Let us, therefore, see what is the end or design of this patience, and what it teaches us. It can have no end but that before rejected, unless there be forgive- ness of sins with God. Unless God, be ready to. forgive the singof them that come to him according to his ap- pointment, his patience is merely subservient to a de- sign of wrath, and a resolution to destroy. But this would reflect unspeakable dishonor upon the holy God. Let a man deal thus, and it manifests an evil and per- verse habit of mind. Let him bear with those who are in his power, in their faults, with no other design but that he may take advantage to bring a greater punish- ment and revenge upon them ; and what more vile af- fection, what more wretched corruption of heart and mind can he manifest? And shall we think that this is the whole design of the patience of God? God forbid! It may be objected_ to this argument, that it is said that God, " willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endures with much long - suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction," Rom. 9 : 22; and thus it seems that the end of God's endurance and long-suffering, to some at least, is only their fitting for destruction. I answer : God's " enduring with much long-suffer- ing," merely implies his withholding, for a season, the destruction which he might justly inflict : his patience denotes acting in a way of goodness and kindness for some special end. The next verse declares the great end of God's patience, and answers this objection, that "he might make known the riches of his glory in the ves-
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