the Son of God by our continuance in sin, and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and have done despite to the Spirit of his grace g." And, as for the laws either of the first or second table, we have never made them the rule of our conduct, or even desired to conform to them any further than suited our own interest or convenience. In our baptism indeed we engaged to walk according to the revealed will of God ; but in our whole lives we have rebelled against him, and " cast off the thing that was good."]
What then can we expect at God's hands ?
[He told the hypocritical Jews that " their Assyrian enemies should pursue them." True, the Assyrians thought only of gratifying their own ambition ; but they were a sword in God's hand to " avenge the quarrel of his covenant:" and they did fearfully execute on these transgressors the Divine judgments.
And has not God instruments at hand to inflict punishment on us? See the perturbed state of Europe at this moment11," and see how we ourselves are approximating towards it. The outrages and conflagrations which have recently pervaded our land will have been as nothing in comparison of what we may soon behold, if God give us up to that anarchical spirit which
now threatens to bear down all before it Truly the
occasional prayers which have for some time been in use amongst us by the appointment of our ecclesiastical superiors, may yet well be continued amongst us, for the averting of those judgments which we have so justly merited.
Amongst the professors of religion, too, there is a spirit not unlike to that which prevails in the ungodly world, a spirit of unhumbled inquiry, and of dogmatical assertion, tending only to divide the Church of God, and to diffuse uncharitable feelings amongst those who ought to " love one another with a pure heart fervently." To what that also may grow, God alone knows. But it is a sad scandal to the Church of God, and can be pleasing to none but Satan, the author and abettor of all evil.
But there are other enemies that may pursue both the world and the Church of God : for most assuredly the wrath of God shall follow and overtake sin, whether it be found in the openly profane, or in the professors of the Gospel of Christ. " The sin of every man," whoever he may be, shall assuredly, in due season " find him out." A man's profession may have raised the admiration of all around him : but if it
s Heb. x. 29.
h Of France and Belgium more particularly, May 1831.