'268 THE WORLD TO COME. friends, in sport and merriment. They will not believe that the blessed God will ever be found so severe and formidable as preachers describe him : And because judgment is not speedily executed against the men of iniquity, therefore the sons of peen have their hearts set in them to do mischief; Ec. viii. 11. Madness is in their hearts, chapter ix. 3. Because God delays his indignation they will not believe he has any belonging to him, notwithstanding all the terrible words by which he is repre- sented by the prophets, the apostles, and the Son of God him- self: And while they rush boldly on those crimes which God has severely forbidden, they are ready to think God is just such an one as themselves, regardless of virtue and government ; Ps. 1. 21. And because they make nothing of sin, they imagine God will make nothing of it. O that the sons of men would once learn to know God bet- ter, for there are many who have not the true knowledge of God, I speak it to their shame, when they .fancy he is all made,up of gentleness and forbearance, without holiness and justice ! i Cor. xv. 34. Alas, Sirs, these attributes are as necessary in a God as grace and compassion : He is and he must be a wise, a righteous Governor of the world ; and his wisdom requires that impenitent sinners should be punished, to secure the honour of his law, and to guard his gospel from contempt *. These awful perfections of the blessed God are as necessary to vindicate his authority and his government from insult and ,rebellion, as his goodness is needful to encourage sinful creatures to repent and return to their 'duty. The . word of God expressly tells us, he is a God of holiness and consuming fire; lieb. xii. 29. but there is many a sinner that v$ill never learn this lesson till the torments of hell teach it hint by dismal experience. They have trilled with his majesty, and mocked at his threatenings all their life, 4ill at the moment of death he awakes like a lion, and tears their spirits with everlasting anguish. I might take notice also in this place, that there is another mistaken notion of God, into which some persons have unhap- pily fallen; as " though God were the cause and author of sin," and have spoken unadvisedly with their lips, in such language as borders too near upon blasphemy. But it is evident, that a God, who will punish the sins of men with such intense pain and torment, can never be se inconsistent with himself as to be the * A Governor made up of mere goodness and mercy could be no Governor at all :.for it is absurd to call that a government, where every subject may do what iniquity and mischief he pleases with impunity. The laws of such a go- vernment would cease to be laws, and become mere rules and directions for living, which every one might observe or not, just according to his inclination. To say thatit became the wisdom of God to threaten offenders, but that Ws goodness will interpose in'the end and hinder the punishment, is to says, that God is not wise, for if be,were.be would certainly base taken care not to let those men into the preset. Bishop Herts's Sermons, page 315.
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