law of love is the moral law-and that this law curses every one who does not perfectly obey it. 3. It appears from what has been said that the law of love binds men to love God perfectly, whether they do love or hate him. God knew, when he gave the law of love to the Israelites, that they were generally sinners, and totally destitute of true benevolence:yet he commanded them to love him, not merely to the extent of their disposition, but to the utmost of all their natural powers and faculties. And the law of love still binds every sinner as well as every saint. 4. If God has a right to command sinners to love him perfectly;, then every excuse which sinners make for not loving him, on account of the depravity of their hearts, is virtually charging God with injustice in his law of love. 5. If God requires sinners to love him perfectly; then they disobey him totally, so long as they do not love. All their hearts-all their moral exercises are transgressions of the law of love. They disobey God constantly without intermission-while they act. 6. Is the law of love clothed with all the authority of God? Then sinners are in a most dangerous situation. God is against them, who is able to destroy them without remedy. 7. If sinners are condemned by the law of love; then it is a great mercy that they be forgiven. 8. This subject calls upon sinners to seek divine mercy. The law is a school-master, to teach them the necessity of flying to Christ. SENEX. For the Hopkinsian Magazine. NATIVE CHARACTER OF SINNERS. [Concluded from page 117.] If selfishness is the only reason why sinners reject the gospel, then they are wholly without excuse. They despise and condemn selfishness in all others, and know it is wrong in themselves. Their own consciences teach them that they ought to choose a greater good in preference to a less, to regard moral excellence for its own sake, to submit to just authority, and to respect the feelings of their infinitely holy Creator. But the plague of their own hearts, which consists in their total selfishness, leads them to love and hate all beings and objects, just as they appear to them to promote or hinder their own private good. While they regard their own good supremely, because it is their own, they constantly violate the dictates of their consciences, and destroy their own peace. They reject the infinite glory and interests of God, and the good of his whole kingdom, and hate them all, when they appear to stand in the way of securing their own private good; though they know that their own good is comparatively "nothing, less than nothing, and vanity." They wholly refuse to rejoice in the glory of God, and the good of others for its own sake. They have no heart to praise God for his infinite greatness, and goodness, and moral excellence. They hate him for the very reasons why they ought to love him supremely and constantly. They cannot serve him from the heart, because he is a holy God, and hates them for their selfishness. They reject all the invitations of his gospel, because they have no heart to condemn and abase themselves, and justify God in their righteous condemnation. All the excuses and complaints they make, only augment their own condemnation; because the whole difliculty lies in the unreasonable and inexcusable selfishness of their hearts. The reason why they do not abase themselves, and accept the offers of life, is not because they have too little, but because they have too much strength. They are stout hearted. They have strength to avoid walking in the selfdenying path to heaven, and to walk and even run in the broad road that leads to destruction,' but no heart to repent and believe the gospel. Against their own reason and conscience, against the commands and entreaties, and warnings of their benevolent Creator, against the expostulations of their friends and their own resolutions, and against all the light and motives of the gospel, they will continue in the road to endless destruction and despair. Hence, the justice of God in their final destruction, will appear exceedingly amiable and glorious. They have not only hated him without a just cause, but they have hated him for infinite and perfect goodness, which governs all his purposes and conduct. They have justified themselves for the very reasons why they ought to have condemned and abased themselves. They have been exceedingly ungrateful, unthankful, unholy and disobedient. Through their whole lives, and with all their hearts, they have violated sacred, solemn and known obligations to their Creator, and even justified themselves in so doing. They have hated God for acting in the wisest and best manner, in the creation and government of the world. And when we contemplate the number and aggravation of their sins, there appears such a fitness and congruity between their ill desert and their final punishment, that God will forever appear infinitely amiable and lovely in all the expressions of his vindictive justice. Who can read the history of Haman, and not admire the justice that overtook him? The heavenly hosts have had and will have the best opportunities, and a strong inclination to examine the nature and ill desert of sin. They will see some of their nearest and dearest friends and relatives, whom they love as themselves, cast off, and forever lifting up their eyes in tormest. And though their hearts will be filled with benevolence and holy compassion, they will be forever constrained to sing, "And in the greatness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee" Their supreme love of righteousness, and hatred of iniquity, will lead them to say, Alleluia," which signifies, so let it be, praise ye the Lord; while the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. In view of the character and conduct of sinners, how unspeakably great does the grace of God appear-How glorious the way of sal vation through the Lord Jesus Christ. O what astonishment and gratitude will fill the hearts of all the redeemed, while they sing the song of Moses and the Lamb; and how deeply will they feel that it is solely by the free and sovereign grace of God that they are what and where they are. Some of the chief of sinners will be freely admitted to heaven. O how justly, will they exclaim, might we have been cast off forever. Is it possible that such ill-deserving creatures as we are, can be freely admitted to enjoy the fellowship, and sing the praise, and partake in the unspeakable joys that will flow forever from the right hand of God. While many others, far less guilty than we, are cast off forever, we have been sanctified and freely forgiven through the great atoning sacrifice. O what astonishing grace. How precious the Saviour appears. of salvation. "Here the whole Deity is known; Nor does a creature gues, Which of the glories orightest shone, How glorious the way How bitter and insupportable will be the reflections of sinners in hell. They will be constrained to acknowledge, that the whole difficulty in the way of their own salvation, lay in their own voluntary selfishness of heart. They will see that the door of heaven was opened to them, as well as to others; but they refused to enter in. They cannot forget what was done for them, to prevent their going to that place of torment. They will know and feel, that they destroyed themselves. And they will not only reflect upon what they have been and might have been, but upon what they are and always will be. They will feel that they have not only lost heaven and all its happiness, but brought upon themselves endless misery and destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. And whether they look within or without, and contemplate the past, think upon the present, or anticipate the future, they will be selfcondemned, without hope, and completely miserable. They will be undone forever, and lost for a whole eternity. Their day of probation will be forever ended. They can see no light, and enjoy no hope; but must give themselves up a prey to despair, and lie down in eternal sorrow. Sinners have great reason to dread the divine wrath. If God loves holiness in himself and in his holy creatures, he must hate those who hate that holiness, and be disposed to punish them with a just severity. This he has threatened to do, and this he has predicted he will do, which renders it certain that all the finally impenitent will receive the just reward of their deeds. And it is well worthy of notice, that God has adapted his threatnings to the particular character of every class of sinners. To those who despise the offers of his pardoning mercy, and turn their back upon the Son of his love, he will say, "Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my council, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh, when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices." To the stouthearted he says, "I will be unto them as a lion, as a leopard by the way I will observe them. I will meet them as a bear bereaved of her whelps, and I will rend the caul of their hearts, and there will I devour them like a lion." Finally, if the character of sinners has been justly described, it will always be an unspeakably greater evil, to be what they are, than to be where they are. As holiness is a greater good than happiness, so is sin a greater evil than misery. Misery is only a just punishment for sin; and it is absurd to suppose, that a just punishment may be a greater evil than that for which it is inflicted. It is only a suitable expression of the divine hatred and abhorrence of sin. To hate and oppose a God of infinite wisdom and goodness, constantly brings upon the sinner the insupportable pain and condemnation of his own conscience; but mere suffering does not. Selfishness brings upon us the reproach and contempt of all moral beings; but misery is rather adapted to move their compassion. The character of sinners excites the divine displeasure; but their condition does not. The inhabitants of the dark world of woe, will always be able and bound cordially to accept the punishment of their iniquity, and love and justify God for their condemnation; which would radically mend their condition, fill their hearts with holy and joyful compassion for their fellow sufferers, and with the peculiar satisfaction of an approving conscience: but they can never remove any of their guilt. It will always appear unspeakably more deplorable to the saints in heaven, to look down and behold sinners disobeying, hating and blaspheming the God of heaven, than to see them suffering the due reward of their deeds. Hence it is, that all sinners under genuine conviction, are far more affected in view of their guilt, than in view of their danger. It is a keen sense of guilt and inexcusableness, that weighs down their spirits, and sinks them in wretchedness. It is a sense of God's holy hatred and just displeasure against them, that fills their souls with distress. If they could only flee out of his presence, escape the notice of his piercing eye, and his just displeasure; they sometimes feel that they would gladly be banished to hell. Like Altamont, they say within themselves, 'Hell itself would be a refuge, if it hide us from thy frowns.' S. C. For the Hopkinsian Magazine. REVIVAL MEASURES-NO. 5. In my last number, I stated several objections against the measures adopted by Dr. Credulus, to promote revivals. In this I design to consider several objections that are urged either directly or indirectly against the course adopted by my minister. It is said this course is not so successful in promoting revivals as the other. And what if it is not? Are we at liberty to depart from the divinely appointed means of grace, because God chooses frequently to try his people and fulfil his designs by withholding the influence of the spirit from his word? Is success in promoting revivals an infallible thermometer in determining the utility of preaching in the sight of God? Then Peter earned more honors in one day than his Lord and Master did in preaching several years.-Then the poorest ambassador of Christ who has had a revival under his instrumentality, deserves unspeakably more praise for a few successful sermons, than some of the mest eminent and faithful prophets of the Lord. And the preaching of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel in particular, must have been utterly unprofitable. For in reply to the inquiry of Isaiah, how long he must preach without success in turning any to the Lord, it was said, "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate." The truth is, God always acts as a sovereign in the dispensations of his grace, and success in promoting ever true religion, or the want of it, is very far from being a criterion of the real character and utility of preaching in the sight of God. I would by no means, however, justify that preaching which is not adapted to promote revivals, or harbor such a thought respecting the divinely appointed means of grace. But the bible informus that faithful ministers are a sweet savor of Christ in them who perish, as well as in them who are saved. And that preaching which under God is made a savor of death unto death, may be, and doubtless is, frequently as useful in the sight of God as that which is made a savor of life unto life. Much less is all the apparent success which attends preaching evidence of its usefulness in the sight of God. Those who have lowered down the terms of salvation, and kept back the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, have frequently been more successful in promoting revivals, than the most faithful stewards of Christ. The Methodists have made a great many more converts for twenty years past than the Calvinists. The Newlights in the last Century, even while they were ruining many of the New England churches, aud entailing moral desolation upon their posterity for half a century, were so elated by success, that they thought all their fathers had been fools, that a new era and new dispensation had began, and that the millennium was about to take place. The Cumberland Presbyterians, who deny or conceal some of the distinctive fundamental doctrines of the gospel, have often been greatly elated with success in revivals. But great success, especially among men of rank, influence and fortune, should rather lead us to |