sin against liim with impunity? If men saw before their eyes the instruments of torture whereby the violators of a law were to be put to a lingering and cruel death, and knew at the same time that there was no possibility of escape to any one who should transgress the law, would they incur the penalty with the same indifference that they now transgress the laws of God ? How much less then would they rush into wretched- ness, if they saw hell open before them, and heard the groans of those who are now suffering under the wrath of God ? No verily : they would not then " make a mock at sin," but would tremble at it, and flee from it as from the face of a serpent. If then you would be preserved from sin, listen not a moment to this accursed suggestion : and if the whole world should unite in saying, " Ye shall not surely die," reply to them, " Get thee behind me, Satan," for " thou art a liar from the beginning."]
2. Hence it is also that men make so light of sal- vation—
[Salvation by Christ is offered to a ruined world. But who believes our report ? Who receives it with that gratitude which it might well be expected that a perishing sinner should feel towards his reconciled God and Saviour? With the ex- ception of a few, the whole world regard the Gospel as little better than a cunningly devised fable ; so faint are the emo- tions it excites, and so transient the effects which it produces. And what is the reason of this ? Is it not that men do not feel their need of such a Saviour, and that they do not believe that God's threatenings will ever be executed upon them? Yes : to this source must it be traced : for if they verily be- lieved, that the wrath of God, which is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, would fall upon them, and that all their hope of escaping it was by embracing the Gospel, they would flee to Christ with their whole hearts, and cleave unto him with their whole souls, and not rest a moment till they saw themselves within the gates of the city of refuge. Were they duly sensible of their danger, even a hope, a mere peradventure that God might have mercy upon them, would be sufficient to make them weep before him day and night. Not a word of mercy was mixed in Jonah's message to Nineveh : yet the most distant hope of mercy was sufficient to encourage that whole city to repent in dust and ashes. What then would not all the promises of the Gospel effect, if men really felt the greatness of their guilt and danger ? It is evi- dent, that all the indifference of men about the Gospel must be traced to this one source, their believing of Satan's lie in preference to the truth of God : and, if ever the Gospel is to have a saving influence on our hearts, we must begin by