Neither can the awakened sinner be considered as the subject of such love of God. They see indeed the evil. Awakened Sinners are not lovers of God. They see indeed the evil of sin, and are sensible of its demerit? that they deserve destruction. But this doth not reconcile them to destruction, and make them willing to receive it. They tremble at the thoughts of it, strive against sin, and cry after deliverance. Were they willing to be damned, they would not be afraid of being damned, or seek in anyway to avoid it. It is equally impossible for the saint to be reconciled to damnation as will appear, by considering what it implies. It implies the total loss of the divine image, and banishment from the divine presence and favor! It implies being given up to the power of apostate spirits, and consigned to the same dreary dungeon of despair and horror, which is prepared for them! It implies being doomed to welter in woe unutterable, blaspheming God, and execrating the creatures of God, "world without end!" When people pretend that they are willing to be damned for the glory of God, they "know--not what they say nor whereof they affirm." They leave out the principal ingredients of that dreadful state. Bid they take them into the account, they would perceive the impossibility of the thing. To suppose it required is to blaspheme God--to pretend that man can submit to it, is to belie human nature--to conceive that a child of God can reconcile himself to it, is to subvert every just idea of true religion. To require it, God must deny himself! To consent to it, man must consent to become an infernal! The statement of the case is a refutation of the scheme. But if God's glory requires it, will not this reconcile the good and gain their consent? God's glory doth not--cannot require it. "The spirit of the Lord is not straightened." Human guilt and misery are not necessary to God's honor. It is necessary that divine justice should be exercised on those who refuse divine grace; but not necessary that men should refuse divine grace. "As I live, saith the Lord God. I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." Such is the language of revelation; and the measures which God hath adopted relative to our guilty race speak the same language. He hath provided a city of refuge, and urges the guilty to "turn to the strong hold."--He weeps over obstinate sinners who refuse his grace? "How shall I give thee up? How shall I deliver thee?" But rejoiceth over the penitent, as the father rejoiced over the returning prodigal. God would not have provided a Savior, and made indiscriminate offers of pardon and peace had he chosen the destruction of sinners, and had their ruin been necessary to his honor. But God hath done these things, and manifested his merciful disposition toward mankind. We have no need to "do evil that good may come. Our unrighteousness is not necessary to commend the righteousness of God."