of a few days or years bear to the everlasting torments of hell ? He cannot believe that God will ever be so unmerciful and unjust as to execute on men the threatenings of his word. The proud formalist thinks it strange indeed that he is to perish. What ! must he, who has been so sober, so moral, so regular, so observant of all his duties to God and man, must he perish, because he does not adopt the principles, and imitate the practice, of a few wild enthusiasts ? No : he hates fanaticism ; and will never believe that God requires all that strictness which some enthusiasts speak of; and much less that he will ever banish from his presence those whose whole lives have been so blameless as theirs. The hypocritical professor, who can talk of Christ, and exert himself zealously to promote the Gospel, cannot imagine, that he should be obnoxious to the Divine displeasure, or that God could be at all just in condemning him. True indeed, he does not always adhere to truth, and perhaps is not very strictly just in his dealings : his cares about the world too engross almost all his thoughts ; nor has he any pleasure in the duties of the closet : evil dispositions too are unhappily very prevalent in him ; pride, anger, envy, hatred, malice, evil-speaking, uncharitableness, retain more or less the ascendant over him ; perhaps too intemperance and impurity, if not indulged to such an extent as to expose him to public disgrace, are far from being mortified so as to give way to the habitual exercise of the opposite virtues. But can it be that God should reject him, when all his confidence is in Christ, and in the covenant which God has made with us in Christ ?
Such are their modes of arguing on the subject of God's final judgment. But we ask, What equity is there in such expec- tations as these? Is it equitable that a man who lives alto- gether without God in the world, should be placed on the same footing with one who devotes himself entirely to God ? Is it equitable that a man who possesses no more than a form of godliness, should find the same favour with God as one who lives under the continued influence of its power ? Is it equit- able that a professor of religion who in no respect adorns his holy profession, should be honoured of God like one who is a bright pattern of every virtue, and daily increasing in a conformity to his Lord and Saviour ? We ask, Is there any equity in such things ? Will any reasonable being venture to say, that such a procedure is becoming a God of holiness and truth ?]
But on the part of God there is no such inequality —
[The moral and religious character of men will be the one ground of all his decisions in the day of judgment : " According to your ways and according to your doings will he judge you, O house of Israel." " Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be