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LETTER IV.

THERON TO ASPASIÓ.

DEAR ASPASIO,

New-England, April 3, 1759.

MANY an agreeable hour have we wandered over all the works of nature; viewed the heavens above, the earth beneath, and surveyed the mighty ocean; nor did you ever fail to intermingle devout reflections. If now, instead of painting the beauties of the creation, we rise at once to contemplate the glories of the CREATOR, glories infinitely superior to those of fields and forests, gardens and palaces; yea, infinitely superior to the bright expanse of heaven, adorned with all its shining orbs; no theme can, my Aspasio, better please.

GOD! how awful is the name! how great is the Being! Behold the nations are as a drop of the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Yea, all nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. And so great is the excellency of the DIVINE MAJESTY; so exceeding great is his beauty, that to behold his glory, and love, and honour, and enjoy him, is heaven itself; it is the chief happiness of all that world. The seraphim, while he sitteth on his throne, high and lifted up as the great MONARCH of the universe, through the brightness of his glory, cover their faces, unable to behold; and, as in a perfect ecstasy, cry, holy, holy, holy!-This is his character, the character he exemplifies in all his conduct, as Lord of hosts, as governor of the world; in a view of which, they add, the whole earth is full of his glory. Isai, vi. 3.

The two grandest affairs, which, according to Scripture, ever have been, or ever will be, transacted in the government of this glorious monarch, are the work of our REDEMPTION by the death of his Son, and the final JUDGMENT of the

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world. These, therefore, let us contemplate, that in them we may behold, as in a glass, the glory of the LORD.

Who was his Son? The brightness of his glory, and the image of his person; by whom, and for whom, all things were created; loved equally to himself, and honoured with equal honours in all the world above. Let us view him on the cross, incarnate! View him there as an incarnate God, dying for sinners! And fix our attention, whole hours together, on this greatest and most wonderful of all God's works! The plan was laid in heaven. This great event was determined in the council there. Acts iv. 28. All the perfections of the Godhead sat in council, when it was decreed the Son of God should die. Strange decree! Why was it made? Astonishing! Why did it ever come to pass? Did he die to move the compassions of his almighty Father towards a rebellious race? No: for to give his Son thus to die, was greater grace, at one sovereign stroke to have cancelled all our debt, and pardoned all the world. Did he die to take away, or lessen, the evil nature and ill-desert of sin? No: for infinite purity and impartial justice must look upon the rebellions of a revolted world, as odious and ill-deserving as if he had not died. He died, to bear the punishment due to us. We were under the curse; he was made a curse in our room; set forth to be a propitiation, by his holy Father, to declare his righteousness, and show the rectitude of his government in the eyes of all created intelligences; that he might be just, do as his law threatens, and yet not damn, but justify, the sinner that believeth in Jesus.

than

Eternal damnation was our due, according to the divine law; a law not founded in arbitrary will. A law arbitrarily made, may be arbitrarily repealed; but a law only declaring what is fit, must for ever stand in force. To rise in rebellion against the infinitely glorious Majesty of heaven, deserved eternal damnation; as he is infinitely worthy of the highest love and honour from all his intelligent creatures. His infinite amiableness and honourableness infinitely oblige us to love and honour him. All our heart and mind and strength are his due. The least defect deserves eternal wo. Thus the omniscient viewed the case. His Son, in the same

view, approved the law as strictly just. Both looked on the sacrifice and death of an incarnate God, in the room of sinners, to open a way for their salvation, as a plan infinitely preferable to the law's repeal by a sovereign act. The Son had rather endure the most painful, shameful death, than that one tittle of the law should fail; it was so strictly just. God ought to have his due. The law barely asserts the rights of the Godhead. So much, however, was his due, as to be loved, with all the heart, and obeyed in every thing. And so worthy was the Deity of this love and obedience, that the least defect deserved eternal death. ""Tis right, 'tis right," said the eternal SON," that the first instance, or the least degree of disrespect to my eternal Father, should incur eternal ruin to the sinning creature. And I had rather become incarnate and die myself, than yield this point." That GoD is infinitely amiable; that he ought to be loved with all our heart; that the infinite excellency of his nature infinitely obliges us, can never be set in a stronger light, than it is by the cross of CHRIST.

The infinite dignity of the Mediator, and the extreme sufferings he underwent, as an equivalent to our eternal wo, in the loudest manner proclaim, that the law was just; just in the eyes of God; and just in the eyes of his Son. A law, threatening eternal damnation, infinite goodness would never have enacted, had not impartial justice called for it. Much less would infinite goodness have appointed God's own Son to answer its demands, if in its own nature too severe. Το suppose, the Son of God died to answer the demands of a law, in its own nature cruel, is to make God a tyrant, and the death of his Son the most shocking affair that ever happened!

But what did this law, of which we so often speak, require? Say, my dear Aspasio, what was the first and chief command? Your master's answer you approve. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. But why was love required? Because God was lovely. And why the penalty so great? Because his loveliness was infinite. If the infinite amiableness of the divine being does not lay an infinite obligation on his creatures, to love him for being what he is, how can we justify

the law's demands, or vindicate the wisdom of God in the death of his Son?

From the cross, where an incarnate God asserted the rights of the Godhead by his dying pains, let us pass to the awful tribunal; where the same incarnate God, arrayed in all his Father's glory, with all the hosts of heaven in his train, by the last sentence, which he will pronounce upon his Father's enemies, dooming them to the burning lake, to welter for eternal ages in wo, will still proclaim the justice of the law : Would infinite goodness, would our compassionate Saviour, would he who wept over Jerusalem, the kind and tender-hearted Jesus, love to pronounce a sentence so infinitely dreadful, if it were not strictly just? Yet he will do it, without the least reluctance; yea, with the highest pleasure: while angels and saints shout forth their hallelujahs, all around him.

But can this ever be accounted for, on any other hypothesis, than that the infinitely glorious MONARCH of the universe appears, clearly appears, in that solemn hour, to be infinitely worthy of all that love and honour his law required, in being what he is; and so sin an infinite evil?

If sin is really an infinite evil, then it is meet that it should be discountenanced and punished as such, i. e. with an infinite punishment, i. e. with the eternal pains of hell. And it was fit, that the governor of the world should make a law, thus to punish it. And fit, that this law should be magnified and made honourable. And even wise, in the eyes of infinite wisdom, that one by nature God, should become incarnate, and die in the sinner's stead, rather than set the law aside. And on this hypothesis, the final doom of the wicked may well appear perfectly beautiful in the eyes of all holy intelligences. But sin cannot be an infinite evil, unless we are under infinite obligations to do otherwise.

LOVE is the thing required. Not merely a love of gratitude to God, as an almighty benefactor: but a love of esteem, complacence, and delight. We may feel grateful to a benefactor, merely as such, without even a knowledge of his general character: yea, when his general character would not mit us, did we know it. The Israelites, notwithstanding their and gratitude at the side of the Red sea, were far from a

disposition to be suited, to be pleased, to be enamoured, with such a being as GOD was. Yea, the more they knew of him, the less they seemed to like him; so that in less than two years they were for going back to Egypt again. But if we may feel grateful towards God, merely as our almighty benefactor, without the knowledge of his true character; yet esteem, complacence, and delight, suppose his true character known; as that is the object of this kind of love. And what can lay us under infinite obligations to love God, in this sense, but his own infinite AMIABLENESS? Yet the divine law requires us to love God with this kind of love; and that with all our hearts, on pain of eternal damnation for the least defect. And this law was binding on all mankind, previously to a consideration of the gift of Christ to be a Saviour.

While, therefore, the law supposes our obligations to be infinite; and the death of the Son of God, and the final judgment, give the highest possible proof, that the OMNISCIENT -esteems the law exactly right; the infinite dignity, excellency, and glory of the MOST HIGH GOD, is hereby set in the strongest point of light.

Take away the infinite amiableness of the Deity, and we, in effect, ungod him: He ceases to be the GOD OF GLORY; He ceases to be a proper object of this supreme regard, in the eyes of finite intelligences. It is no longer an infinite evil, not to love him; the law is no longer just; the death of Christ is needless; and the whole system of doctrine revealed in the bible, is sapped at the foundation; nothing remains, to a thinking man, but infidelity.

And yet, dear Aspasio, this was my very case. The infinite amiableness of the Deity, which is the real foundation of all true religion, was wholly left out of the account, in my love and joy, and in all my religious affections. All my love, and joy, and zeal, arose from my faith. And my faith consisted but in believing that Christ, pardon, and heaven were mine. I rejoiced just like the graceless Israelites, in a sense of their great deliverence, and in expectation of soon arriving to the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands. Theirs was a graceless, selfish joy; and so was mine. Theirs was soon over; and so was mine. Their car

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