ON HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 1, 2. 33 according to thy fear, so is thy wrath," Psal. xc. 11. It is impossible for the most trembling consciences, or the most jealous fears of a guilty heart, to look beyond the wrath of God, or to conceive more of it than indeed it is. As in peace of conscience the mercy of God is revealed unto believers, from faith to faith, so in anguish of conscience the wrath of God is revealed, from fear to fear. A timorous man can fancy vast and terrible fears, fire, sword, tempests, wrecks, furnaces, scalding lead, boiling pitch, running bell - metal ; and being kept alive in all these to feel their torment. But these come far short of the wrath of God ; for there are bounds set to the hurting power of a creature, the fire can burn, but it cannot drown ; the serpent can sting, but he cannot tear in pieces. Likewise the fears of the heart are bounded within those narrow apprehen- sions which itself can frame of the hurts which may be done. But the wrath of God proceeds from an infinite justice, and is executed by an omnipotent and unbounded power, comprising all the terror of all other creatures (as the sun doth all other light) emi- nently and excessively in it. It burns, and drowns, and tears, and stings, and bruises, and consumes, and can make nature feel much more than reason is able to comprehend. O if we could lay these things seriously to heart, (and yet these are but low expressions, of that which cannot be expressed, and cometh as short of the truth itself, as the picture of the sun in a tablet, Both of the greatness and brightness of it in its own orb,) should we not find it necessary to cry out, Take away all iniquity ! this sickness out of my soul, this sword, this nail, this poisoned arrow out of my heart ; this dagger of Ehud out of my body, this millstone, this
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