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its centre, and enveloped in devouring flames. For no finite intelligence could refrain his indiguation for a length of years, or could penetrate into all the reasons, why "sentence against an evil work should not be speedily executed;" why the murderer should not be arrested by death before his hand is lifted up to strike; why the tyrant should not be cut off before his victims are secured; and why the slave should be doomed to drag out so many long years under the rod of a relentless master. But God beholds all these actions in all their bearings and relations to the plan of his government, and in all their eternal consequences; and, beholding them, he "keeps silence," and refrains from executing immediate and deserved punishment.

This part of the divine character, when seriously considered, is calculated to excite strong emotions of admiration and wonder; and these emotions must be raised to their highest pitch, when we consider the many instruments of vengeance which are every moment wielded by the hand of the Almighty. If forbearance were owing to impotence, or a want of means for the infliction of retributive justice, our admiration would cease. But all the elements of nature are under the immediate control of the Governor of the universe; and, in a thousand modes incomprehensible by us, He could make them the instruments of his vengeance to chastise a guilty world. "For in his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind." Let us consider, for a little, some of those agents which lie within the sphere of our knowledge in the system of nature."

Of all the elements of nature there is none more delightful and beautiful in its effects than light. "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." It diffuses a thousand shades of colouring over the hills, the vales, the rivers, and the boundless deep, and opens to our view the glorious host of heaven. Yet this delightful visitant, by a slight modification, from the hand of Omnipotence, is capable of being transformed into the most tremendous and destructive element in nature. Light flies from the sun at the rate of 200,000 miles in a second of time; and it is owing to its particles being almost infinitely small, that we feel no inconvenience from

their rapid velocity. But, were the Creator to condense several millions of these particles into one, or impel them with a still greater velocity, the solid crust of our globe would be perforated and shattered in every point by this celestial artillery, and its inhabitants would soon be battered to atoms.

Again, the atmosphere which surrounds us, and in which we live and breathe; which contains the principles of life; which fans us with its gentle gales, and wafte to our ears the harmonies of music-is capable of being converted into an instrument of terror and destruction. It is composed chiefly of two different ingredients; one of these is the principle of flame,-and if the other ingredient were extracted from the atmosphere, and this principle left to exert its native energy without control, instantly the forests would be in a blaze; the hardest metals, and the most solid rocks, would melt like wax; the waters of the ocean would add fuel to the raging element; and, in a few minutes, the whole expanse of our globe would be enveloped in one devouring flame.

Again, the globe on which we reside is whirling round its axis every twenty-four hours, and is carried round the sun with a still greater velocity. Should that Almighty arm which first impelled it in its career, cause these motions suddenly to cease, mountains would be tumbled into the sea, forests torn up by their roots, cities overthrown and demolished, all nature would be thrown into confusion, and terror and destruction would overwhelm the inhabitants of the world. Not only the stopping of the earth's motions, but even a new direction given to its axis of rotation, would be productive of the most fatal effects. The earth's axis is at present directed to certain points of the heavens, from which it never deviates, but in a very small degree; but were the hand of Omnipotence to bend it so as to make it point in a different direction, the ocean would abandon its present bed, and overflow the land; and a second universal deluge would overwhelm all the monuments of human grandeur, and sweep the earth's inhabitants into a watery grave.

Again, not only the elements which immediately surround us, but even celestial bodies which are just now invisible to our sight, and removed to the distance of a

thousand millions of miles, might be employed as ministers of vengeance. There are at least a hundred comets connected with the solar system, which are moving in all directions, and crossing the orbits of the earth, and the other planets. Were the orbit of one of these bodies, in its approach to the sun, to be bent in a direction to that of the earth the most alarming phenomena would be exhibited in the heavens. A ruddy globe, larger in appearance than the moon, would first announce terror to the inhabitants of the earth every day this terrific object would increase in size, till it appeared to fill the celestial hemisphere with its tremendous disk; the light of the sun would be eclipsed -the stars would disappear-the ocean would be thrown into violent agitation, and toss its billows to the cloudsthe earth would "reel to and fro, like a drunkard”—and universal alarm and confusion would "seize upon all the tribes of the living world. At length, this tremendous orb would approach with accelerated velocity, and, strik-" ing the earth with a crash, as if heaven and earth had burst asunder, would shiver the globe into fragments, and for ever exterminate the race of man.

It will at once be admitted, by every one who acknowledges the incessant agency of a Supreme Being in the movements of the universe, that any one, or all of these effects combined, are within the compass of Omnipotence; and not only so, but they might all be accomplished with terrific energy in the course of a few moments. If puny man, by his mechanical dexterity, can suddenly stop a stupendous machine which he has put in motion-if he can impel red hot balls at the rate of 500 miles an hourif he can extract the oxygen from a small portion of the atmosphere, and cause it to set on fire the hardest metallic substances- -we cannot doubt for a moment, that, with infinitely greater ease, the Almighty could stop the earth in its career, separate the component parts of the atmosphere, set on fire the foundations of the mountains, or impel the blazing comet towards the earth, to crush it to atoms. That God has been a constant spectator of the wickedness of man for four thousand years; that he has, during all that period, wielded in his hands so many terrific ministers of vengeance; and that he has hitherto refrained from executing deserved punishment on the workers of in

iquity-is, therefore, a striking evidence that his mercy is infinite, and that he is "long-suffering and slow to anger, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

It would, however, be a most unwarrantable conclusion, from this circumstance, to imagine that God beholds with indifference the scenes of iniquity that are hourly presented before him. In order to show that he is not an unconcerned spectator of the ways of men, and that the instruments of punishment are always in his hand, he sometimes "cometh out of his place, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity," and displays the holiness of his nature, by "terrible things in righteousness." In such visitations, "his way is in the whirlwind and the storm; clouds and darkness are round about him; a fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about; the stormy winds are his messengers, and flames of fire his ministers; the clouds pour out their waters; the sky sends forth a sound; the voice of his thunder is in the heavens; his lightnings enlighten the world; the earth quakes, and the people tremble." The hurricane, which tears up whole forests by the roots, and tosses them about as stubble, which levels the loftiest spires with the ground, and dashes the stateliest ships against each other, till they are broke into shivers, and plunged into the deep; the lightnings, which fill the atmosphere with their blaze, which shatter the strongest buildings, and strike whole herds of cattle into a lifeless groupe; the pestilence, "which walketh in darkness," and cuts off thousands of its victims in a day; the volcano, belching forth rivers of fire, causing surrounding cities to tremble, and sending forth its bellowings over a circuit of a thousand miles ;— these, and many other agents which are in operation in the system of nature, are experimental proofs of the dreadful energy of those ministers of destruction, which are constantly under the superintendence of the Almighty, and of his occasionally using them for the purpose of chastising the nations for their iniquities.

In particular, the earthquake is one of the most terrible and destructive instruments of vengeance. In the year 1755, the shock of an earthquake was felt at Lisbon, which levelled to the ground more than the half of that populous

city, and buried fifty thousand of its inhabitants in the ruins. This shock extended its influence over an extent of four millions of square miles; and therefore, it is easy to conceive, that, had a little greater impulse been given to the physical agents which produced this terrible effect, the solid globe on which we stand might have been convulsed to its centre, and all its inhabitants crushed to death, amidst the universal ruin.

We have also an experimental proof, that there are physical principles in the constitution of our globe, sufficient to give it a shock throughout every part of its solid mass, and that such a shock, at one period, it actually received. When the wickedness of man became great upon the earth, "when every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually," the fountains of the great deep were broken up, the cataracts of heaven were opened, and the whole solid crust of our globe received such a shock as rent the mountains asunder, and hurled them into the plains; the effects of which are still visible, in every Alpine district, and in the subterraneous caverns of the earth. Of all the millions of the race of Adam that then existed, only eight individuals, after having been tossed for seven months on the tremendous billows of a boundless ocean, survived, to tell to their posterity the tidings of this universal wreck. The dreadful scenes of horror and consternation which must have been presented at this awful crisis; the stupendous forces which must have been in operation in the atmosphere above, and in the foundations of the earth. beneath, and the tremendous clash of elemental war which must have ensued, throughout every region of earth, air, and sea,—it is beyond the power of the human imagination to depict, in all their terrific grandeur. But we have every reason to conclude, that the bottom of the ocean was lifted up to the level of the loftiest mountains, that disruptions of the mountains and of the densest rocks ensued, that dreadful explosions resounded throughout the whole expanse of Nature, and that the mighty waters hurled their billows with resistless fury in every direction, rolling immense rocks and forests from one continent to another, and whirling the wrecks of different regions to the opposite extremities of the globe.

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