upon the Bible. It may be trifled with, but it cannot, I think, be gainsaid. I have studied hard to present this subject before you as it really is, and have for weeks reflected upon it. These principles of revelation and moral government have not been spread out for the purpose of mental exercise and gratification, but to save the soul. Be not content with having listened to them, but reflect— pray. Error here will ruin you for ever! If I were a lecturer I would call myself repaid for my labour by your attention; but O! my station is more awful. Nothing but your acceptance of the offers of life and salvation can satisfy my desires. O that I could now persuade you! With the full belief of the solemn truths which I have declared, I leave you, "commending you to God, and to the word of his grace."

XLI.

How OFT IS THE CANDLE OF THE WICKED PUT Out?—Job xxi, 17.

THE patriarch proposed this question with unusual anxiety. He seems to have expected that the answer it would extort would lead his friends to greater mildness in the review of the judgment they had passed on him. The idea conveyed is, that the wicked are seldom punished in this life, but are reserved to a future day. Job's friends believed him wicked because distressed, and exhorted him to repent. The ground of their argument was a moral government. He defended himself by showing the irregularity of that government in its present application to saint and sinner. Men are not here rewarded or punished according to their virtue or vice, and therefore external prosperity and the reverse are not true indications of virtue or of vice.

I. Let us consider this irregularity.

It is plain to you all that God governs the world by general laws; this is absolutely necessary. He has no general law to reward or punish by outward things, except that of the necessary operation of virtue and vice to produce happiness, and the reverse. "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Hence, in a qualified sense, the sentiment, "All things come alike to all," &c., (Eccles. ix, 2, 3,) is true. The saint and sinner share alike in misfortune, poverty, diseases, accidents, and death. Sometimes the sinner appears to have the advantage, as in Psa. lxxiii. You are to remember, however, this does not decide their relative happiness, and therefore does not militate against virtue; a saint in rags is happier than a sinner on the throne. True, it is a general law of God to provide for his children; (Psalms xxxvii and xci;) but he does so by human means. It is also a general law that "the years of the wicked shall be shortened;" but their end is brought about by natural causes. Man, not God, brings death on himself, as in the case of the drunkard; his candle burns out. The instances are rare in which God, by the breath of his anger, puts out the candle of the wicked. Sometimes he does so, as in the cases of "Korah, and all his company," Ananias and Sapphira, as if to impress upon the world the truth that there is a moral government, lest they should forget it in its irregularity, or trifle with its apparent laxity. Generally, however, he lets the blasphemer live to curse, nor takes the forfeiture at the swearer's hand.

The good are also sometimes brought to a premature grave. Thus was it with Josiah, that he might not see the evil which was to come upon Judah. "The righteous is taken away from the evil to come." Some of us this day know full well that the good man often dies in the

prime of his days, and in the strength of his wisdom. When the prospect of usefulness is to human view most flattering; when hope most doatingly fastens itself upon its object; when we are looking forward through the long vista of coming years, suddenly we hear the rattling of the wheels, and in sorrowful surprise are compelled to cry out, "My father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." But no sooner have we uttered the words than the chariot is gone; and, like the prophet on the plains of Jordan, we are left alone to rend our garments and to weep.

II. This irregularity shall not always exist.

Hence Eccles. viii, 12, 13; Isaiah iii, 10, 11. Ye who believe the Bible will not demur at this position, for God hath told you of a judgment, of its universality, and its relation to earthly deeds. But there is another process of proof quite convincing. Let us glance at it for a

moment.

1. The causes of this irregularity are manifestly limited to a definite time. There are good reasons for the present mode of administration. We can see some of them. Let us look at two.

Mercy is the disturbing force; a new power has been added to it by the atonement. It is necessary it should rule, that man may have a probation; justice would cut him down. Its pre-eminence is temporary, for probation is limited; it will end with the Mediatorial office, and that Christ will soon resign.

Were men to see all the legitimate effects of virtue and vice, (and they would, were there no irregularity,) there would be no opportunity for trial-no strong contending forces-no occasion for the exercise of faith. Yet these are necessary, as preparative for heaven. Hence the reason of the concealment of "the spirit-world." But the reason for faith and trial will cease, when man's

character shall have been completed, and his doom fixed.

2. The instinctive feelings of the soul in witnessing the sins of others, and in reflecting on our own, show that this state of things shall not always continue. You cannot look upon any act of cruelty or oppression which goes. unpunished here, without wishing for a future judgment, and rejoicing that there is one. We cannot think of our own sins but as acts of rebellion and treason, which will be punished for the sake of the example at least. We know and feel that they are, by no means, trifles. Sin has given us an importance, and the whole universe is deeply interested in our case.

3. The very fact that the candle of some is put out is irrefutable proof. It shows that God has respect to sin in some, and, to be impartial, as you feel that he is, must notice it in all-must notice every sin in all-that there may be no ground of complaint. Those whose fate is recorded in Luke xiii, 1-5, were not, perhaps, greater sinners than we. They might have offered many extenuating pleas which we cannot; and if you judge of the greatness of their sins by the calamities which came upon them, it may be said, that these were accidental, or rather contingent. "Do ye not know that the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath."

This subject should have a practical effect upon us all. It should reconcile saints to the outward ills of life; you see they are necessary to God's plan, and to the good of his universe. Why, then, should you indulge one murmuring thought?

"Ye good distress'd!

Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more."

It should

open the eyes of the thoughtless

"Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arraign'd."

Can you be secure? Your candle may soon be put out; it may now dazzle you and its beholders, but God may breathe upon it, and where is it? Be not blinded by its glare. The blackness of darkness is before you! Can you trifle? Will you sport? O, revolve this subject in your minds, and prepare for that day when "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."

XLII.*

HOW SHALL I GIVE THEE UP?-Hosea xi, 8.

GOD has always manifested a tender solicitude for the welfare of the human race. Though we have marred his image, and strayed widely from him, he has not given us over. He follows us with entreaties; and when all efforts have proved unavailing-when we stand on the precipice, and mercy must release its grasp, it does so with grief. "How shall I give thee up? ?"" If God were dependant in any sense on us, it would not be strange; but as it is not so, and as in the result he cannot be affected by our character or acts, it is strange. And why does his anxiety for our salvation so far exceed our own?

* This sermon was preached in Broomfield-street church a few weeks before the author's death. It is the last that he prepared for the pulpit, and the last that he preached.-ED.