The meanest parent demands this, and thinks his child disobedient until he serves him with design.

2. How wrong is that notion, that if the matter of an action be correct, it is of no importance what is the motive. In the scrap of sacred history that we have contemplated, the whole result, as bearing upon the agent, turns on the motive. The Assyrian corrected the Lord's people, this was well; but he meant not so, and this was the source of his ruin. His motive was, butchery, spoil, and dominion; this brought the curse of God upon him. He might have corrected the Lord's people, as he did; and accomplished his purpose, as he did; and been now in heaven, if only he had meant so.

Thus is established a general principle of the divine government; the motive is the whole that God will notice. If men will be careful on this one point, God will provide for the residue. They need have no fears that his decrees will not be done, and that exactly as he determined; but the motives with which they are done, will decide the destiny of every agent employed, from the beginning of the creation to the last day.

3. God did not create intelligent beings merely that he might destroy them. His ministers have been represented, as making this assertion; or advancing sentiments that must lead to this result. Now the so vereignty of God, as taught in this discourse, leads to a directly opposite result. Here we see him employing men, of the very worst character, in doing good; makes them correct his people, and feed them, and clothe them, and sanctify them, and bless them. And if God can oblige bad men, who do not love him, to do him a service like this, and still leave them free, and permit them

to be as happy as they can be, and will at last merely demand of them that their motives were good, none but devils, and men desperately hardened, will complain.

They all have liberty to attach themselves to his family, and be his people, and be served, and be happy. But if they will not quit their sins, will not love the Saviour, and will not serve voluntarily, so good a Master, they must either do nothing, that shall turn to any good account, or God must employ his wisdom and his power to turn all they do into a blessing to his people; and is this a hardship? For my life I cannot see, that in all this God does the impenitent any wrong. Or would it make them happy to know, that on their way to perdition, they had done mischief that God himself could not repair!!

I should think

from what I know of God, that he would do just so. It is spoken very much to the praise of Cromwell, that he could employ to advantage the vilest man in England. And it seems to me that every good man must be glad, as every angel is, that God has this power, and this wisdom. "And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up forever and ever."

If any would prefer not to serve as the ungodly do, while they mean not so, but prefer to do the voluntary service of a child, they may, and this is the very thing we wish and what God wishes. You need not build a Jerusalem, in which you are not to dwell, or a temple in which you are not to worship, unless you prefer the condition of a slave, to that of a son or daughter. You' have but to come in at the invitation of the Gospel, and you may in an hour belong to the family of Christ.

God lets you do what you please. And if he turns your mischief into good, this cannot hurt you. Serve him willingly, and he will reward you, and love you.

O, can there be a fairer offer? can there be a kinder God than this? I should think devils would be ashamed to complain of this doctrine. I know it exalts God, but I cannot see, if the life of my soul depended on it, what there is hard, or cruel, or oppressive, or discouraging, in the divine sovereignty. If men choose to say, that God is not sincere in offering them mercy, and that he always meant to destroy them, after making them hewers of wood and drawers of water in the camp of Israel, and that they have only to serve and then perish ;-if they will give divine truth this construction, and thus pervert it to their own ruin, we have only to leave them in the hands of a sovereign God, and rejoice that he is not the Jehovah they suppose him to be.

Finally, this subject must afford comfort to God's people. Here they see all their interests identified with the prosperity of God's kingdom, and he determined to make that kingdom happy, and employing for this purpose all beings and all events. If their enemies would hurt them, he puts his hook in their nose, and his bridle in their lips. He bids them "fear not," and has pledged his word, that all things shall work together for their good. He will guide them with his counsel, and afterward receive them to glory.

Ye happy believers, my soul casts in her lot with you. The God we serve is a gracious, and a mighty God. He rolls along the spheres, guides the events of every hour, manages the wrath of man, and the rage of devils, controls every storm, and directs the course of every atom. He is known in the palaces of Zion for a refuge, and his name is a strong tower into which you may run and be safe, whenever alarm comes over you.

It was in the confidence which this very doctrine inspires, that the Psalmist could say, "Though an host

should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear." A people so shielded, so served, and so beloved, can want only a song, equal to the gratitude they owe their Lord. They may keep at their Master's work, high in the confidence that he will never leave them, never forsake them. Amen.

SERMON XXX.

MAN HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER.

Genesis iv. 9.

Am I my brother's keeper?

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THUS early did the apostacy of the human family display itself in murder, in falsehood, in supreme selfishness, and in gross and daring impudence. Cain, you know, had murdered his brother, and he now lies in the hope to conceal it from God, and impudently repels the insinuation that it was at all his business to be his brother's guardian. He would have no care of his brother; he might die or live, it was no matter that concerned him. His own interest was care enough for him; his brother must be his own keeper. This same principle of depravity, supreme selfishness, has ever predominated in the breast of the human family, and may be placed at the head of the causes that operate to make and keep the world miserable. Yet the question put to Cain implies that God will govern us by another law. We are to know what has become of our brother. His life and health and happiness is to be the object of our care, and that by the authority of God himself. As he would not suffer Cain, so neither will he suffer us to throw off this obligation. And what then becomes of the argument by which men quiet their consciences, while they make no exertion to bless or save the human family? When God shall make inquisition for blood, and shall inquire of us as he did of the first murderer, Where are all those millions of heathen that lived in your day? what reply shall we make? When he