first offer; but, if that offer be despised, it needs not recourse to the assistance of Sinai; it has its own threatnings, and its own punishments. Jesus Christ never intended to leave his gospel naked and unarmed, to abandon it to the unavenged contempt of unbelief and impenitence. There can be no law, without punishments attached to its violation, as well as promises annexed to its fulfilment. You cannot listen to the gospel, without frequently hearing the thunder of some terrible threatning. This epistle abounds with them. It is to the honour of Jesus Christ, that his grace cannot be trampled on with impunity. He is no longer on earth, to be still an object of contempt; he is in heaven, prepared to crush all his enemies. If he has a crown, he has likewise a rod of iron; if he has a sceptre, he has also a sword,

The preaching of the gospel must be supported by threatnings, to restrain the wicked from running, so easily at least, into every kind of excess. The gospel must be accompanied with threatnings, to render them inexcusable when the day of punishment shall come: otherwise they would plead that they had never been warned. There must be threatnings, to effect the conversion of the faithful, which ordinarily commences with terror. They are necessary to the faithful themselves, as salt to keep from corruption; and as preservatives against the fear of men, that they may be able to oppose divine threatnings and eternal torments to human frowns and momentary afflictions. Therefore do we find in the scriptures such awful denunciations of the righteous judgment of God; denunciations which, if they fail

of producing a salutary effect, will certainly be executed; and one of them is delivered by St. Paul, when he says, "How shall we escape, if we neglect

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so great salvation?" His argument is from the less to the greater. He compares the two covenants, and the punishments attached to the violation of the law with those which await disobedience to the gospel. Having said, in the preceding verse, "If the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How," he adds, "shall we escape?" How much more severe must be the vengeance annexed to the violation of the gospel and the contempt of its promises! He reasons in the same manner in the tenth chapter. "He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy, under "two or three witnesses: of how much sorer "punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, "wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and "hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord." And in the twelfth chapter, he says: "See that ye refuse

not him that speaketh: for, if they escaped not, "who refused him that spake on earth, much more "shall not we escape, if we turn away from him "that speaketh from heaven." Ah! my brethren, how cogent and awful are these arguments! The law was so severe in corporeal punishments, that a man was stoned for having felled some wood on the sabbath, The law was avenged with such rigour,

that God destroyed twenty-four thousand idolatrous Israelites in one day. The violation of the gospel must be punished, according to St. Paul, with greater severity: the punishment must increase, in proportion to the dignity of the covenant, and the greater guilt of trampling under foot the blood of Jesus Christ. In ancient times, eternal punishments were but obscurely known, in comparison with the clear revelation of them under the present dispensation. Now, we can no longer be ignorant that "the lake which "burneth with fire and brimstone" is reserved for the impenitent, and those who despise the gospel. "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great "salvation?"

This mode of expression, "How shall we escape?" has great force. The apostle feels an anxious concern for sinners: he seems to inquire if there can possibly be any way of screening them from the divine vengeance, when they despise the gospel. How will they deceive eternal justice? how frustrate its threatnings? how elude its strokes? Will it be by flight? by some new asylum? by another redemption, another mercy, another blood, another Jesus? Creatures, answer, advise us; shew us some way to shelter, to save ourselves, when we have despised the gospel. But there is no other. St. Paul's question has more than the force of a negation. It is as if he had said: Judge of the matter yourselves; can you escape? is it not absolutely impossible? In like manner, St. Peter said: "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and "the sinner appear?" that is, the sinner will find

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no place on which to stand. Thus also Jesus Christ said: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how

can ye escape the damnation of hell?"* that is, you cannot possibly escape it. This point requires very serious consideration: after you have despised the great salvation which God offers, there will be no other means of escaping punishment; vengeance will be altogether inevitable. It is possible to escape human justice, how powerful soever princes and monarchs may be: whatever be the length of their arms, they may be eluded by flight; a retreat may be found beyond their dominions, and death always delivers from their power. But how is it possible to escape from God? or whither to flee from his Spirit? Where cannot his hand reach? Death itself drags the fugitives to his feet, and consigns them over to his vengeance.

I know that men sometimes escape the judgments of God in this world. For reasons of patience towards the wicked, and of trial towards the righteous; from various considerations of wisdom and justice, God does not always punish great criminals in a visible manner in the present state. They die sometimes in tranquility, as if they had escaped his vengeance: but it is only delayed. On their departure from this life, it overtakes and seizes them. Final impenitence, obstinate neglect of salvation is unpardonable, as well as the sin against the Holy Ghost. If they could live for ever, they might flatter themselves with impunity but death is certain; no man can escape that executioner of divine justice: and with death ends the season of grace, the time of mercy, the

Matt. xxii. 33.

day of salvation. Then, negligence is remediless, ministers speechless, man incapable of hearing, repentance impossible, justice inexorable: no more opportunity of imploring pardon, no more means of obtaining it. If death were the annihilation of existence, salvation might be neglected with impunity, This is the hope of atheists: a hope worthy of them, worthy of their lives; a hope, nevertheless, false and delusive. The soul is immortal, and God will make it feel his anger for ever. If after death the soul merely subsisted in a state of insensibility, incapable of pleasure or pain:-but the soul is necessarily active, capable of thought and reflection; and how should it lose what is essential to its nature? Wherefore should it lose a capacity, which is rather weakened than strengthened by its union to the body, and becomes more vigorous and active after their separation? No, it will be capable of seeing, in the clearest light, its sin and its ruin, God and eternity: this cannot but be a punishment. The separate soul will be capable of feeling; for, even in this life, it is not properly the body which feels, it is the soul: why then, when separated from the body, should it no longer be susceptible of impressions of misery?

If no time were assigned for the soul to render an account of its actions; no tribunal or judge before whom to appear; there might perhaps be some pretext for hope after having neglected salvation. But "God hath appointed a day in the which he "will judge the" whole "world in righteousness, by "that man whom he hath ordained."* A judgment

• Acts xvii. 31