obstinate rebels to abandon their prison, and enter cheerfully his kingdom, as infinite wisdom, goodness, and mercy, sees fit and desires. He will not mar his glory, or the happiness of his kingdom, by bringing in too many, nor by omitting to bring in enough. His redeemed kingdom, as to the number and the persons who compose it, and the happiness included in it, will be such as shall be wholly satisfactory to God, and to every subject of his kingdom. no mere ma And if God governs according to his pleasure, he will do no injustice to his impenitent enemies. He will send to misery no harmless animals without souls,chines,―none who have done, or even attempted to do, as well as they could. He will leave to walk in their own way none who do not deserve to be left; and punish none for walking in it who did not walk therein knowingly, deliberately, and with wilful obstinacy. He will give up to death none who did not choose death, and choose it with as entire freedom as himself chooses holiness; and who did not deserve eternal punishment as truly as himself deserves eternal praise. He will send to hell none who are not opposed to him, and to holiness, and to heaven; none who are not, by voluntary sin and rebellion, unfitted for heaven, and fitted for destruction, as eminently as saints are prepared for glory. He will consign to perdition no poor, feeble, inoffensive beings, sacrificing one innocent creature to increase the happiness of another. He will cause the punishment of the wicked to illustrate his glory, and thus indirectly to promote the happiness of heaven. But God will not illumine heaven with his glory, and fill it with praise, by sacrificing helpless, unoffending creatures to eternal torment; nor will he doom to hell one whom he will not convince, also, that he deserves to go thither. The justice of God, in the condemnation of the impenitent, will be as unquestionable, as his infinite mercy will be in the salvation of the redeemed. If the will of God is done on earth, among men, there will be no more injustice done to the inhabitants of the earth than there is done to the blessed in heaven. Was it ever knowndid any ever complain was it ever conceived that God was a tyrant, in heaven? Why, then, should we question the justice of his government on earth? Is he not the same God below as above? Are not all his attributes equally employed? Does he not govern for the same end, and will not his government below conspire to promote the same joyful end as his government above? 7. It is greatly to be desired that God should govern the world according to his pleasure, because his own infinite blessedness, as well as the happiness of his kingdom, depends upon his working all things according to the counsel of his own will. Could the Almighty be prevented from expressing the benevolence of his nature, according to his purposes, his present boundless blessedness would become the pain of ungratified desire. God is love, and his happiness consists in the exercise and expression of it, according to his own eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began. It is therefore declared, "The Lord hath made all things for himself;" that is, to express and gratify his infinite benevolence. The moral excellence of God does not consist in quiescent love, but in love active, bursting forth, and abounding. Nor does the divine happiness arise from the contemplation of idle perfections, but from perfections which comprehend boundless capacity, and activity in doing good. . From what has been said, we may be led to contemplate with satisfaction the infinite blessedness of God. God is love! This is a disposition which, beyond all others, is happy in its own nature. He is perfect in love; there is, therefore, in his happiness no alloy. His love is infinite; and, of course, his blessedness is unbounded. If the little holiness existing in good men, though balanced by remaining sin, occasions, at times, unutterable joy, how blessed must God be, who is perfectly and infinitely holy ! It is to be remembered, also, that the benevolence of God is at all times perfectly gratified. The universe which God has created and upholds, including what he has done, and what he will yet do, will be brought into a condition which will satisfy his infinite benevolence. The great plan of government which God has chosen, and which his power and wisdom will execute, will embrace as much good as in the nature of things is possible. He is not, like erring man, straitened or perplexed, through lack of knowledge or power. There is in his plan no defect, and in its execution no failure. God, therefore, is infinitely happy in his holiness, and in the expression of it which it pleases him to make. The revolt of angels, the fall of man, and the miseries of sin, do not, for a moment, interrupt the blessedness of God. They were not, to him, unexpected events, starting up suddenly, while the watchman of Israel slumbered. They were foreseen by God as clearly as any other events of his government, and have occasioned neither perplexity nor dismay. With infinite complacency he beholds still his unshaken counsels, and with almighty hand rolls on his undisturbed decrees. Surrounded by unnumbered millions, created by his hand, and upheld by his power, and made happy in the contemplation of his glory, he shines forth, God over all, blessed forever. What an object of joyful contemplation, then, is the blessedness of God! It is infinite; his boundless capacity is full. It is eternal; he is God blessed forever. The happiness of the created universe is but a drop, a drop to the mighty ocean of divine enjoyment. How delightful the thought, that in God there is such an immensity of joy, beyond the reach of vicissitude! When we look around us below, a melancholy sensation pervades the mind. What miserable creatures! What a wretched world! But when, from this scene of darkness and misery, we look up to the throne of God, and behold him, high above the darkness and the miseries of sin, dwelling in light inaccessible and full of glory, the prospect brightens. If a few rebels, who refuse to love him and participate in his munificence, are groping in darkness on his footstool, God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. 2. How vast may we conceive to be the sum of created good which is comprehended in the kingdom of God. It will satisfy infinite benevolence. If all the good might exist which angels and men could conceive, it would be nothing, compared with the enjoyment which God will actually communicate and uphold. The happiness which God will communicate will be worthy of himself. It will illustrate, so far as a created system can illustrate, the power and wisdom and goodness of God. How vast and blessed, then, must that kingdom be, which God erects as an expression of his glory, and in which he dwells and reigns, to prove, by experiment, his capacity to govern and to bless the universe! This kingdom of God, so vast and so full of joy, is still destined to increase. God will never be idle. He will never have communicated, actually, infinite blessedness. His work will continue to grow under his hand, and his kingdom to Oh, how great is expand around him in capacity and joy. God! How glorious will his works be! flowing, and never exhausted, pouring out streams of blessedness to fill unnumbered fountains around him, each, to eternity, becoming more capacious, and yet the whole bearing no proportion to the uncreated source! It seems to be the imagination of some that the kingdom of darkness will be as populous and as vast as the kingdom of light, and that happiness and misery, of equal dimensions, will expand, side by side, to all eternity. But, blessed be God, it is a mere imagination, totally unsupported by reason or revelation. Who ever heard of a prison that occupied onehalf of the territories of a kingdom? and who can believe that the universe, which was called into being, and is upheld and governed, to express the goodness of God, will contain as much misery as happiness? How could the government of God be celebrated with such raptures in heaven, if it filled with dismay and ruin half the universe? How vast soever, therefore, the kingdom of darkness may be, in itself considered, it is certainly nothing but the prison of the universe, and small, compared to the realms of light and glory. The misery of that unholy community, whose exile from heaven is as voluntary as it is just, when the eye is fixed upon that only, fills the soul with trembling; but when, from this dreadful exhibition of sin, and display of justice, we raise the adoring eye to God, reigning throughout his boundless dominions, and rejoicing in their joy, the world of misery shrinks to a point, and the wailings of the miserable die away, and are lost in the song of praise.* *I am aware that Calvinists are represented as believing and teaching the monstrous doctrine, that infants are damned, and that hell is doubtless paved with their bones, But, having passed the age of fifty, and been |