take no deep-felt interest in the scheme of everlasting salvation, which was devised in the eternal counsels of the Godhead-which was purchased with a price that it mocked the riches of a universe to pay-which prophets and apostles, and evangelists and pastors, have been ordained to promulgate and administer to a guilty world—and which, with a fulness of blessing that imagination cannot fathom, comes as a suppliant to your very door, and knocks for admittance into your very heart? Or will you banish from your view, or will you lightly esteem that period of coming retribution, at which God will reckon with each one of you for the reception you have given to a preached gospel and an offered Saviour-when he who now beseeches you by the agonies of his cross to be reconciled, will sit upon the throne of righteous judgment to award your never-ending doom, and when assembled myriads will be looking on to see you taking your place on the right hand or on the left hand of the great white throne, and listening to the voice which, louder than a thousand thunders, and irresistible as omnipotence, sends you to heaven or to hell? No, my dear friends, I trust that none of you is thus insensible to what so deeply and so necessarily concerns you, now and forever. Settle it in your minds at this moment; vow it in your inmost soul; let that sun which now locks upon you, as an emblem of him who called himself the light of the world, witness the engagement which you make; let the God whose eye, brighter than all the luminaries that shine in the firmament, penetrates the deepest recesses of thought and of purpose, and whose presence encompasses and pervades you; let God be invoked to sanction the covenant into which you now enter—that you will separate yourselves from the world that lieth in wickedness; that you will repair to the foot of that cross on which Christ expiated the guilt of his people; that there you will surrender your souls and your bodies to the redeeming power and to the sanctifying grace of Jehovah; that you will honor those whom he sends to leave his mes

sage and plead his cause with you; and that, with grateful and rejoicing hearts, you will walk in the way that he points out as the way that leads to life and immortality. And when inward corruption, or an ensnaring world, or spiritual enemies, interfere to weaken your faith and seduce you into sin, think of your obligations -think of the grace by which alone you can be saved-think of the wounds by which Jesus takes away your transgressions-think of the love of that Holy Spirit whom your backsliding will grieve-think of the sorrows of those who, desiring you to be their crown of joy and rejoicing, must mourn and weep when they see your falling away-think of the endless ages that lie before you; and let all these considerations put their interdict upon every unbelieving thought-upon every unholy desire-upon every forbidden gratification; and determine you, under God, to remain steadfast in the faith of the gospel, and inflexible in your adherence to that Saviour, who encourages you to steadfastness and perseverance by this high promise, "Unto him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me upon my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father upon his throne."

SERMON II.*

HUMAN AND DIVINE LOVE CONTRASTED.

ROMANS v. 7, 8.

"For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

God's love to men, in its various relations, and in its various expressions, is the great and prevalent theme of the gospel. The gospel, indeed, is altogether a manifestation of that love, not only in the plan which it unfolds, but throughout all the language of its record. It is not only asserted that God loves us, but one principal object of whatever the sacred writers have been prompted to say, appears to be that of magnifying the divine attribute, and enhancing the estimation in which it should be held by those who are the objects of its exercise. And they do so, by employing simple but emphatic declarations-by indulging in bold and striking figures-and by having recourse to interesting, familiar, and impressive analogies.

Of this latter mode of showing forth the greatness of God's love, we have an excellent example in the words

Preached at the celebration of the Lord's Supper, in St. George's Church, Edinburgh, 10th May, 1829.

of my text. The apostle draws his illustration from what occurs among men-from their sentiments and behavior towards those of their own species, whom they are led to succor or befriend. In the practical regards, which they exhibit for one another in circumstances of danger, or in times of need, we may sometimes be called to witness an extraordinary display of generosity and disinterestedness. But the most surprising instance of it, which has actually happened, or which can even be expected or imagined to happen, comes far-comes infinitely-behind that love to our race which God has revealed in the scheme of human redemption. On comparison, not only does the latter infinitely surpass the former in degree, but it possesses a richness, and it flows in a direction, and it engages in enterprises, and it delights in doings, which constitute a perfect contrast between the one and the other, and represent the love of God to man as belonging to a higher order of affections, than the love of man to his fellow, even in its purest and loftiest achievements.

Let us give our attention for a little to this important subject, by considering the two branches separately, into which it here divides itself, and the relation which they bear to the apostle's object in bringing them under our view.

I. First, there is the love of man to his fellow-creatures. "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die."

In the annals of the world, you may find instances of generosity and of gratitude, in which these sentiments were manifested by the greatest of all personal sacrifices -the sacrifice of life. But such instances are rare,— so rare, that the apostle himself does not seem to have been aware of one which he could specify as authentic and appropriate; for he speaks here, not as if he had a matter of real and known fact in his eye, but only as if he were admitting an hypothesis, an event within the bounds of possibility or of likelihood. And, with all your

knowledge of history, even since the introduction of Christianity has engendered the spirit, and given larger room for the exploits, of a nobler philanthropy, there are but few among you, perhaps, who can produce a single example of the benevolent heroism to which we allude. You may have read or heard of frightful dangers being encountered, poignant sufferings being endured, and extraordinary alienations of wealth or power being submitted to, for the purpose of rescuing others from threatened and inevitable destruction. There may be cases of this kind, amounting to the romantic and the splendid, which cannot be contemplated without admiration, and which redeem our species, in some measure, from the stigma of that selfishness which is generally imputed to it, and by which it is too truly characterized. But seldom has it been known, that any one has deliberately devoted himself to death, in order to deliver his fellow-mortal even from the heaviest calamity, or to procure for him even the most precious privilege. And among the few solitary cases of this kind, with which the course of ages has furnished us, it may not perhaps be difficult to discover, that the deed which has been ascribed to generous and high-wrought, feeling, might be justly, and in a great degree at least, traced to the workings of self-love, or to a desire for posthumous fame, or to some other motive. which detracts from the worth and purity of the affection that was supposed to be chiefly operative.

Granting, however, that instances could be adduced free from all such imperfection and alloy, it remains true, that wherever the elevated spirit in question has displayed itself, it has been uniformly a tribute paid to distinguished and commanding excellence, or in acknowledgment of obligations too strong and too sacred to be satisfactorily fulfilled by a less noble or a less costly recompense. It has been dictated by an enthusiastic and worshipping delight in pre-eminent virtue, or called forth by such experience of undeserved, and unexpected, and unmeasured kindness, as over