122 TER WORLD To COME. 2. It is wrath that is awakened by the most precious and most expensive methods of salvation slighted and under- valued. Well may God say to christian nations, especially to Great Bri- tain, who sits under the daily sound of this gospel ? What could I have done more for you, than I have done ? .Is. v. 4. " I have sent my own Son, the Son of my bosom, the Son of my eternal love, to take flesh and blood upon him, that he might be able to die in your stead, who were guilty rebels, and deserved to die :- I have given him up to the insults and injuries of men, to the temptations, the buffetings and rage of devils, to the stroke of the sword of my justice, to the cursed death of the cross for you; here is heaven and salvation purchased for ,man with the dearest and most valuable life in all the creation, with the richest blood that ever ran in the veins of a creature, with the life and blood of the. Son of God, and yet you refused to receive and accept of this Salvation procured at so immense a price. I cal- led you to partake of this invaluable blessing freely, without money, and without price, and yet you slighted all these offers of mercy ; what remains but that my wrath should kindle against you in the hottest degree, and fill your souls with exquisite an- guish and misery ? You have refused to accept of a covenant which was sealed with the blood of my own Son, which was on;' firmed by the miraculous operations of my own Spirit ; you have valued your sinful pleasures, and the trifles of this vain world, above the blood of my Son, and the life of your souls : It is divinely proper, that divine vengeance should be your portion, who have rejected such rich treasures of divine love." Heb. x. 28- 31. He that despised Moses's law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, Who halt trodden under foot the on of God, and bath counted the blood of the covenant, where- with he was sanctified an unholy thing, and bath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know hint that hath said, vengeance belonget /t Unto me, I will repay/, with the Lord. 3. It . is wrath that must avenge the aíl'ionts and injuries done to the prime minister of God's government, and the chief messenger of his mercy. All the patriarchs, and the prophets, and angels themselves, were but servants to bring messages of divine grace to men : And some of them, in awful forms and ap- pearances represented the authority of God too : But the Son of God is the prime minister of his government, and the noblest ambassador of his grace, and the chiel deputy or vicegerent in his Father's kingdom. See Heb. i. 1, 2. Ps. ii. 6, 9, 12. His Father's glory and grandeur, compassion and love, are most sublimely exhibited in the face of Christ his Son, and God will not have his highest and fairest image disgraced and affronted, without peculiar and signal vengeance.
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