rational? Whose prospects most happy? With
the one " God is angry every day ; " on the other he looks with complacency and delight : the joys of the one will soon termi- nate in inconceivable and everlasting misery ; and the sorrows of the other in endless and mispeakable felicity ^. The sinner in the midst of all his revellings has an inward witness of the truth of our Lord's assertion ; " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."]
3. Of what importance it is to attain just views of the character of God —
[If God be viewed merely as a God of all mercy, we shall never repent us of our sins : and if he be viewed as an inexorable Judge, we shall be equally kept from penitence by despair. 'But let him be seen as he is in Christ Jesus, a " God recon- ciling the world unto himself, and not imputing their trespasses unto them," let him be acknowledged as " a just God and yet a Saviour," and instantly will a holy fear spring up in the place of presumption, and hope dispel the baneful influence of despondency.
Know then, Beloved, that this is the very character of God as he is revealed in his Gospel: he is " just, and yet the justifier of them that believe in Jesus: " he is to the impenitent indeed " a consuming fire : " but, " if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un- righteousness." Let the groaning penitent then look up to him with cheerful hope ; yea, with assured confidence, that God will not despise even the lowest expressions of penitential sorrow : however " bruised the reed may be, the Lord Jesus will not break it ; nor will he quench the smoking fiax," though there be in it but one spark of grace, and a whole cloud of corrup- tion : never did he yet " despise the day of small things ; " " nor will he ever cast out the least or meanest that come unto him." Only come to him in faith, and " according t6 your faith it shall be done unto you."]
^ Luke xvi. 19 — 26, and Isai. xxxv. 10.