5. If guilt or ill desert consists in the evil intentions of the heart, then there is a wide difference between awakenings and convictions. Sinners are commonly awakened before they are convinced. They are often greatly alarmed in the view of future and eternal misery, while their conscience is not awakened to convince them of their guilt and desert of the punishment they fear and dread. It is one thing to be sensible of their danger, and another thing to be sensible of their guilt. While sinners are merely awakened to see their danger, their hearts rise against God, complain of the penalty of his law, call him a hard master, oppose the doctrine of election, and of reprobation, condemn their Maker, and justify themselves. But when their conscience awakes, it condemns all their free, voluntary exercises and actions as altogether selfish and sinful, and real transgressions of the law of love. The commandment comes, sin revives, and they die. They measure their guilt by the divine law, which places it not in their external conduct, but in their internal intentions, desires and designs. They find that whatever the law saith, either in its precept or penalty, it saith to them. Their mouths are stopped, and they become entirely guilty before God, and feel that they justly deserve that eternal punishment which he has threatened to inflict upon them. Such genuine conviction prepares them for a sound conversion, if God sees fit to change their hearts. And none have a right to think that their hearts are changed, if their consciences have not been thus convinced.

6. If guilt or ill desert consists in the selfish and sinful affections of the heart, then we may see why moral sinners commonly experience the deepest convictions before they are converted. They are not so easily awakened and alarmed, as more open and profligate sinners. Their external conduct excites their fear. They see that they are externally worse than others, and imagine that God views them as much worse, and is more disposed to destroy them, than less vicious sinners; which throws them into great anxiety and distress. But moral sinners view themselves better than others, and imagine that God views them better, and feels less disposed to punish them so severely as others. If God comes and awakens the young, the vain, and externally bold and obstinate, they feel whole and secure; for they are not as other men, who openly defy and trifle with sacred and divine things. But when the Holy Spirit awakens their consciences, and shows them the plague of their hearts, they are far from thinking that they are better than other sinners. They are convinced that not only their externally bad actions, but their externally good actions, have been altogether selfish and criminal, and rendered them worthy of God's wrath

and curse, both in this world and the world to come. They see the nature and ill desert of sin, which destroys all their former false notions of being better than others, and all their false hopes founded upon their false opinion of themselves. It is not so much the sense of danger, as the sense of guilt, that presses them down and pushes them to the borders of despair. They view themselves far worse, instead of better than other men. They are ready to imagine that God will more readily pardon the sins of other men, but their own sins appear too great to be forgiven. They have thought, and read, and heard more than the vain and stupid; but they have done nothing but abuse the light and knowledge they have received, by which their guilt has been ten fold augmented. This is the distressing case of moral sinners under convictions; whether they have, or have not neglected the means of grace, or whether、 they have, or have not professed to love religion. Sinners are generally stout hearted under awakenings, but when their conscience is wounded with a sense of guilt, they have more than they can bear, and are constrained to stoop.

7. Since all guilt or ill desert consists in the evil affections of the heart, it is easy to see why good men have been so much borne down with the burden of sin. Job, David, and Paul had a deep and habitual sense of their great criminality and guilt. The reason was, they had experienced keen convictions of conscience before they were converted; and this made their conscience always tender afterwards. You may have remarked it, that those who have appeared to have the deepest conviction before they were converted, have generally appeared to have the most tender conscience, and to be the most afraid of stifling it, or acting against its dictates aud remonstrances. And so long as good men keep their conscience alive, it will do its of fice, cause them to keep their heart with all diligence, condemn them for every deviation from the path of duty, and teach them to see, to feel, and lament their great moral imperfections in the sight of God. Good men are much more troubled with their hearts from day to day, than sinners are with their hearts. They see the nature and ill desert of sin, and feel that they deserve eternal death, though they hope to enjoy eternal life. They groan, being burdened, and cry with the apostle, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" They judge and condemn themselves, and the divine law judges and condemns them. They accept the punishment of their iniquities, and realize that they deserve to be destroyed more than any they know of, who ever have been, or ever will be destroyed.

Finally: In the view of this subject, impenitent sinners may

see their guilty and deplorable condition. Every imagination of the thoughts of their heart has been evil, only evil, continually. They have never felt as they ought to feel, nor acted as they ought to act. They have been constantly adding sin to sin, and increasing their load of guilt, by which they have forfeited the favor of God and of all good beings. They have despised the love of God in sending his Son to redeem them. They have despised the love of Christ in dying for them. They have despised the salvation he has offered to them. And now, what can they say if God should punish them for ever, according to their deserts? They must be speechless. What will their pious friends and dearest relatives say, if they should see them lifting up their eyes in torments? We know they will say, "Amen, Alleluia." They will not have a friend in the universe that will take their part. All heaven will justify God, and condemn them. Those who once sincerely prayed that they might repent and flee from the wrath to come, will be pleased to see God glorify his justice upon those who refused to repent and give glory to him. Can their hands be strong or their heart endure, in the day that God shall deal with them, and make them completely friendless and hopeless for ever? But some may ask, Can all this be true? Ask your pious father and mother, your pious brother and sister, or any of your pious friends, and they will tell you that all this is true; and perhaps they have often told you so. But if you are still in doubt, ask your own consciences, and they will tell you so. The only reason why you do not now feel yourselves to be in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, is, because you have neglected or refused to see the plague of your own hearts; and to realize that ill desert which you constantly carry about with you, and which will infallibly bind you over to everlasting destruction, except you repent. And what reason have you to hope you will ever repent? Neither the word, nor providence, nor patience of God, have yet brought you to repentance. God may justly let you alone, and leave you to fill up the measure of your sins, and treasure up to yourselves wrath against the day of wrath and your final doom. There may be but a step between you and both temporal and eternal death. "Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."

SERMON XIII.

THE CHARACTER, CONDUCT AND STATE OF JUDAS.

Ir had been good for that man, if he had not been born. -MATTHEW, xxvi. 24.

OUR Lord, the same night in which he was betrayed, called together his twelve disciples to celebrate the Passover. On that solemn occasion, he informed them of one peculiar circumstance of his approaching death, which he had never hinted to them before, and which deeply affected their hearts. "As they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful; and began every one to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of man goeth, as it is written of him; but wo unto that man, by whom the Son of man is betrayed: It had been good for that man, if he had not been born."

The text naturally leads us to make several observations respecting Judas, the person of whom the Saviour here speaks. In these observations, I intend to exhibit from the scriptures a statement of plain facts, which are stubborn things, and which bring irresistible evidence in favor of whatever doctrines are justly deduced from them. And to begin:

1. Judas was a man. He was one of the natural descendants of Adam. He was the son of Simon. Twice he is called the son of Simon, and twice Simon's son. Christ, who perfectly knew him, calls him a man, in the text. And though elsewhere he calls him a devil, yet he evidently calls him so figuratively, as having the spirit of the devil, or rather as being possessed of him, and instigated by him, after he had received

the sop, to betray his divine Master. Hence it is evident that he was a fallen man, under the influence of a fallen angel.

Now Judas, as a man, possessed all the powers and faculties which belong to human nature. He was endued with perception, memory, reason, conscience, and volition. These he exercised and manifested, as clearly as the other apostles. He was no more nor less dependent upon God than other men. He was a free, moral agent. He acted of choice and design in the view of motives. For we know of some of the motives, in view of which he acted from time to time. There is no intimation that he was the least of the apostles, as to natural powers and abilities. In this respect he was, no doubt, upon a level with the rest of his fellow men and fellow apostles.

2. Judas was a man whom God was pleased to treat with distinguishing favor. He blessed him with a rational and immortal spirit. He formed him wiser than the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven, and made him but little lower than the angels. And he gave him his birth in a happy place; not in the dark corners of the Western world, but in the most enlightened part of Asia; in the land of Canaan, where he had fixed the residence of his chosen people, and deposited his sacred oracles. He also gave him his birth at a happy time; just as Christ was making his appearance among men, as the Saviour of the world; a time which Abraham, Moses and the prophets would have esteemed it a signal favor to have seen. Moreover, he gave him an opportunity to become personally acquainted with Christ, and to be admitted into the number of his apostles, who were his constant attendants. In a word, God raised Judas to heaven in point of privileges.

3. God used no compulsive measures to lead him into sin. He neither commanded, nor advised him to sin; nor once intimated that he should be pleased with his sinning. He never compelled him to love or hate; or to say or do any thing whatever, contrary to his own inclination. Of this we have the best evidence; even the evidence of Judas against himself. When he stood in the most pressing need of some excuse to exculpate himself, not only before God and the world, but before his own conscience, he brings no complaint against God; nor attempts to plead the least degree of compulsion to act wickedly, contrary to the voluntary exercises of his own heart. He confesses he betrayed innocent blood; he acknowledges the action to be his own; he feels and takes all the blame to himself, though it sinks him into horror and despair. But,

4. Instead of being compelled to sin, he had the most powerful means used with him to restrain him from it. He enjoyed the writings of Moses and the prophets, and the living exam