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too, that the thief on the cross, on offering one short prayer at last, was assured that on that very day he should be with the Saviour in paradise: and you feel, therefore, inclined to delay your repentance under the presumptuous and daring imagination, that after a long course of indulgence in your iniquities, you too may repent at last and be forgiven. Now, you I would refer to the case of Manasseh's son, Amon. He probably argued in a similar way with yourselves. But God quickly cut him off in the midst of his sins. (verse 21-23.) And he seems to be a beacon, set up close by the side of his penitent and accepted father, to warn all persons against presuming on the mercy manifested to Manasseh. Just as, in the New Testament, by the side of the penitent thief is set up his companion, who died impeni, tent and blaspheming, as a warning of a precisely similar description. May all who are disposed to abuse God's mercy to a continuance in sin, reflect duly on these instances, which were written for their especial instruction: may they be adequately impressed with a sense of the shortness and uncertainty of life: may they not forget, too, that it is possible that their day of grace may be shorter still and may they be stirred up by the divine blessing on such considerations as these, not to defer their repentance; but to-day, while it is

called to-day, to weigh well, and practically, the exhortation not to harden their hearts, lest God should swear in his wrath that they shall never enter into his rest.

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SERMON XIV.

MERCY A MOTIVE TO OBEDIENCE.

PSALM CXXx. 4.

"There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared."

Ir is a very groundless apprehension which is entertained by many, lest plain and explicit declarations of the mercy and grace of God should lead to nothing but presumptuous transgression on the part of man lest statements of God's readiness to forgive should only serve to encourage men to encroach on that forgiveness, and to sin on, that grace may abound. We deny not, indeed, that the doctrine of the divine grace and mercy may be very incautiously and injudiciously stated we deny not, too, that this doctrine, even when stated with the greatest degree of caution and judgment, may yet be flagrantly

abused, as what good thing may not? and be perverted to the worst of purposes. Still we maintain that it is a truth expressly taught us in Scripture, and amply confirmed by observation and experience, that a just apprehension of the divine compassion is the most persuasive and prevailing motive to a cordial and uniform obedience; and that a clear discovery of that forgiveness, which is with God, is the most powerful and constraining argument to induce us to serve him with reverence and godly fear. This is clearly the truth which is contained in the words of the text: "There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." In which words we have,

I. A DECLARATION MERCY; and,

RESPECTING THE DIVINE

II. THE END FOR WHICH THAT DECLARATION IS MADE the declaration, that there is forgiveness with God; the end for which this declaration is made, that he may be feared. We have here,

I. A DECLARATION RESPECTING THE DIVINE MERCY: "There is forgiveness with thee."

1. But, at the very outset, it is by no means impossible that some persons may be ready to observe: "And what great discovery is here? Who is there that denies that there is forgiveness with

God?" To this question we reply, that undoubtedly nothing is more common than certain general and undefined notions respecting the divine mercy. But then these notions are of a perfectly different nature from that firm persuasion of this truth, which reigns in the heart of the real believer in Christ. The notions in question are the result, not of an anxious inquiry whether there really be forgiveness with God, or no; an inquiry this, which is instituted by the Christian with the view of arriving at a well-grounded peace of conscience; but they are the result of light and unworthy thoughts of the Most High, and of the apprehension which men are so prone to entertain, that God is altogether such an one as themselves; one who thinks as lightly of sin as they do, and who will never call them to account for it. This presumptuous reliance too on the general mercy of God differs as much from a scriptural and spiritual discovery of that forgiveness which is with him, in its effects, as in its cause. For, instead of leading to a holy fear of him, its direct tendency is to produce a kind of contemptuous disregard of him; to extenuate the evil of sin; to check all salutary conviction of it; and to leave the proud, and avaricious, the sensual, the trifling, and the worldly, at ease in their several pursuits and courses of life.

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