the threatenings denounced by God in the Scriptures, against sinners dying without repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus, will be exactly executed. At the same time, this awful character will contribute as much perhaps, if not more than any thing else in the divine kingdom, to preserve righteous beings in a state of unchanging obedience. Obedience cannot be the result of constraint and coercion. The number and nature, the power and presence of motives only can produce, or continue in the minds of moral beings, a disposition to obey. Among these, the immutable hatred of God to sin, and his immutable determination to execute vengeance on obstinate sinners, are pre-eminently cogent; and united with his unchangeable love to holiness, and his unchangeable determination to reward it, may be regarded as the chief means of retaining virtuous beings in their allegiance and duty. At the same time these motives have a primary and commanding influence in the present world, to produce the awakening, conviction, and conversion of wicked men. Knowing the terrors of the Lord,' says the Apostle Paul, we persuade men.' Knowing the terrors of the Lord, men are actually persuaded to turn from the error of their ways, and save their souls alive.

4. These attributes especially, render God the object of supreme confidence to virtuous beings.

Confidence, every man knows, can never, though chiefly an emotion of the heart, exist rationally or permanently, unless firmly founded in the conviction of the understanding. Of course, the Being who is rationally confided in must be seen, with solid conviction, to possess those qualities on which confidence may safely repose. Immutability of character, and the immutability of purpose and conduct resulting from it, are undoubtedly the only objects in which rational beings can ultimately confide. A Being possessing these attributes must, if he love holiness at all, love it invariably and for ever. That which he loves he will bless, of course. All his designs to reward those who possess it must be unchangeable, all his declarations true, and all his promises exactly fulfilled. That faithfulness by which they are fulfilled, is no other than the Moral Immutability of God, and an essential part of his infinite glory. On this character every virtuous being places an entire and safe reliance, a hope which can never make him ashamed.' How

ever vast, however rich, however incredible in appearance, the promises of future happiness may seem to such minds as ours; we know that they are the promises of Him who can neither deceive nor change; and that therefore, every one of them will be carried into complete execution. According to these observations, the Immutability of God is directly asserted in the Scriptures to be the only foundation of safety to righteous men. 'I am Jehovah,' says God, in the passage already quoted from Malachi; I change not; therefore ye sous of Jacob are not consumed.' The backslidings and provocations, even of the best men in this world, are in all probability great enough to shake any purposes of kindness in any mind, which is not absolutely incapable of change. The eternal God' is the true and final ' refuge' of his children, only because he cannot change. Amid all their wanderings, their unbelief, their hardness of heart, and their multiplied transgressions, they have hope and security, because his truth is as the great mountains, stedfast and immoveable, and his promises endure for ever.

Were God, contrary to this glorious character, to begin to change, what a mighty difference would be introduced into his being, his attributes, and his conduct? As he is possessed of all power, knowledge and goodness, it is intuitively certain that he cannot have more. Of course, any change must be a diminution of one or other of these attributes; and God must, in the case supposed, become less powerful, less knowing, or less good. How fearful to all virtuous beings in the universe must such a change be. How plain is it that it might, for ought that appears, be the beginning of a course of mutability, endless in its progress. That God would ever after exist as a successive changeable Being; have no fixed purposes, and be divested of that unalterable faithfulness on which, now, his intelligent creatures rest with confidence and safety? What might not in this case be dreaded, in the everlasting change of his administrations, by all who love good, either in the Creator, or in his creatures?

5. How great encouragement do these attributes of God furnish to Prayer.

All encouragement to prayer is derived from these two considerations; that God has required it of us as a duty, and that he has promised blessings in answer to our prayers.

Were he a mutable God, it would be impossible for us to know, that what was his pleasure yesterday would be his pleasure today; that what he had required yesterday, he would not prohibit to-day; or that what he promised yesterday, he would be willing to perform at any future period.

It is impossible to determine that a mutable God would not alter, not his conduct only, but his views, his principles of action, and the rules by which he governed his creation. What he now loved, he might hereafter hate: what he now approved, he might hereafter condemn: what he now rewarded, he might hereafter punish. Of course, virtuous beings now loved, approved and rewarded by Him, might one day be hated, condemned and punished. Wicked beings, on the contrary, now the objects of his hatred, and declared to be hereafter the objects of his punishment, might one day become the objects of his friendship and favour, and triumph over the good in a manner equally unreasonable and dreadful.

Of these changes we could gain no possible knowledge, unless he should choose to communicate them to us by an immediate Revelation. From his mode of being, so diverse from ours, we could learn and conjecture nothing. From his past designs and administrations we could never argue at all, to those which were future. Equally barren of instruction would be the Nature of things: for we could never be assured that he would or would not regard this subject, or in what manner he would regard it at any period to come. Even if he should reveal his designs and his pleasure, we could never be certain that he had revealed them truly; and if we were assured of this fact, the Revelation could be of no material use, except for the moment. What he disclosed he might at any time revoke; and nothing could be known to be acceptable to him any longer, than during the moment in which the disclosure was made. In the mean time, his power and his knowledge would still be such, that no hope could be indulged of either resistance or escape. Existence would in this case be therefore, a dreadful succession of suspense; and immortal being, so far as we can discern, undeserving of a wish.

In such a situation of things, what encouragement would remain for prayer? The humble and faithful suppliant, coming to God with a firm belief that he is, and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him,' might find the man

ner of his praying, the spirit with which he prayed, and his prayers themselves, unacceptable and odious. The things heretofore most proper to be urged, might hereafter be the least The consideration which once ensured success, might proper. at another time ensure rejection. The prime, the only motives to prayer, would therefore be taken away.

In the same manner the whole use of this duty, as it is intended to affect advantageously the character of the suppliant, would be finally removed. The great use of prayer in this view, is to establish in the heart a humble dependence on God, and a firm confidence in him. Confidence, as I have already observed, would, in the case supposed, be shaken and destroyed; and without confidence, dependence would possess neither use nor worth. In the present state of things, these attributes constitute the proper, and the only proper temper of the soul, for the reception of blessings: the spirit which is eminently beautiful and lovely in the sight of God, and which is accordingly chosen by him as the proper object of his unchangeable favour. In the case supposed, these attributes could not be united, because confidence could not exist: since the mind could not but perceive, that a changing God might, and probably would, in the infinite progress of things, become the subject of infinite change. If therefore it could feel satisfied or safe, for a hundred or a thousand years, it would still rationally fear, that at some unknown and more distant period of eternity the order of all things would be inverted; and its former obedience and former prayers rise up at this dreaded season in the character of crimes, and prove the causes of its future suffering. Dependence therefore, existing solitarily, would degenerate into anxiety and alarm; and instead of being the means of union between the soul and its Maker, would become a wall of dreadful separation.

The Immutability of God has often, but erroneously, been imagined to involve Inexorability in his character. The Scriptural account of this great Being is, on the contrary, that he is immutably exorable; or in other words, that he is immutably disposed to hear and answer prayer. His own words are, Every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.' This and this only is his true character, agreeably to which the system of his dispensations is immutably established. In this system, in

finite encouragement is holden out to every suppliant, and to every faithful prayer. Here the petitioner knows, that what is once acceptable to God will always be acceptable: and that the things which he has once required, he will require for ever. His faith therefore is built on the Rock of Ages; and with whatever violence the rains may descend, the winds drive, or the floods beat, their rage and fury will assault him in vain.