sequences which are for ever annexed to it by the order of his providence. The unhappy King was punished, severely and signally, by the rebellion of his darling son, by the general profligacy of his children, and by those various miseries which a profligate and wicked family must necessarily cause to a father, who has any spark of a father's tenderness remaining in his heart : and how must those miseries have been aggravated by the reflection, that his own example had contributed to cherish the wickedness which occasioned them?

The doctrine of our text then stands clear of all exception. Iniquity alone has caused the separation between man and his Maker: nothing else did, and nothing else could have made God regard his creature with any thing but unmixed love and benevolence. The history of our fall makes this clear; and in making this clear, it proves most plainly, that the revelation contained in our Scriptures was intended to impress men with a conviction, that sin ever was and ever will be odious in the sight of God; that He will in every instance visit

it, sooner or later, with those marks of his displeasure, which its own depraved nature and its opposition to his will deserve; and that, as it originally compelled Him to deprive man of his favour, so it will be for ever attended with the same effect, and inevitably bring down upon the impenitent sinner the wrath and indignation of hea

ven.

SERMON V.

HEB. xii. 14.

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

THIS is one of those plain texts of Scripture, which, if they were better considered and better obeyed, would do more for the improvement and happiness of society than all the controversial subtleties, which have ever employed the pens of polemics. Peace and holiness united, would alter, not the appearance only, but the real condition, both of individuals and communities; they would at once put an end to disorder and confusion, by restraining or eradicating those "lusts which war in men's members a and which experience, no less than the authority of God's word, assures us are the

a James iv. 1.

"

original source of all the "wars and fight

66

ings" among them. But important as the cultivation of peace always is, (and it never was more important than in these days of ours,) it does not fall in with my present purpose to press this part of the subject upon your consideration; it is the latter branch of the text, to which I beg to draw your attention, as another proof of the Moral Tendency of Divine Revelation, contained in the explicit assertion, that "without holiness no man shall see the "Lord." And how direct a proof it is, cannot but be allowed upon an impartial examination of the matter.

We have already seen, that man was originally holy; that as such he was put in possession of undisturbed happiness; and that he lost that happiness solely by the commission of sin, the transgression of his Maker's law. It comes therefore naturally to be inquired, in the next place, whether there is any hope of a restoration to that happiness; and if there be, upon what conditions and by what means it may be attained. And upon the first view of the