SERMON VI.

HEBREWS xii. 1, 2.

"

WHEREFORE, SEEING WE ALSO ARE COMPASSED ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A CLOUD OF WITNESSES, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT, AND THE SIN WHICH DOTH SO EASILY BESET US, AND LET US RUN WITH PATIENCE THE RACE THAT IS SET BEFORE US,-LOOKING UNTO JESUS, THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF OUR FAITH; WHO FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, DESPISING THE SHAME, AND IS SET DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE THRONE OF GOD."

“LOOKING unto Jesus.” We must have some external object, properly speaking, to look upon. God is the only being who can live without an external object. Every finite being must have an object foreign to himself. What object have you and I? If we do not worship

the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, we are worshipping something else—something as foolish, and as ridiculous, as the Egyptians, who worshipped dogs, and cats, and mice, and other things." Do not libel us, Sir, as you do from the pulpit," say some of you. Nay, my brethren, I libel you not; you libel yourselves, and of this you will be convinced on examining your own hearts. I tell you, in the presence of the living God, this day, that, unless you worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you are idolaters! you have some being or other infinitely unworthy of God and of your affections, whom you worship. "Looking unto Jesus." Who is he? The puny being Socinians make him out to be? By no means. He is the great God and our Saviour.

Consider this truth in another point of view. All finite being is infinitely unworthy of the whole of the human heart.

"Looking unto Jesus"-certainly, as Mediator between God and man; and, for that very reason, God-man-for it might be proved that no one but one who is God; no one but one

who is man as well as God, could be mediator between God and man.

Give me leave to tell you another thing. No one, (limited as the capacities of man are,)

limited as his intellect is-limited as his affections are no one is capable of filling him but God. All the worlds which God has ever created cannot fill the human heart. Think, will you? I am presenting you with truths of infinite moment.

66

Looking unto Jesus." And why? Because there is in him every thing we need; because it is his, to dispense to us every thing we want in life, in death, and for ever.

Ye sons and daughters of folly!-learn to think, I beseech you. What I have cautioned you against, Sunday after Sunday, is this— against the abuse of reason, not against the use of it. If what I have said be true, and true it certainly is, remember one thing,-the time is fast approaching when the besom of destruction will sweep every thing away from you! God will be eternally absent; all evils will be eternally present!

Sons and daughters of affliction !—consider

this likewise. Do you weep, any of you, for your bereavements at the present moment? Remember this, there is a God who can fill your hearts: there is a God who is a substitute for every thing, in the depths-in all the depths, of the deepest distress.

"Looking unto Jesus," unto him, not for one thing, but for every thing. There are, however, a few things especially, to which I would direct your attention at the present moment.

Looking unto him,

I. AS AN ATONEMENT.

He satisfied the justice of an offended Deity. Some of our modern divines tell us that God is not reconciled to man—that man only is reconciled. This (to tell you a secret,) is downright Socinianism. The Saviour reconciled, in himself, God to man and man to God. God must have been judicially displeased with man, and, to remove this displeasure, Christ died. Nothing less than this can satisfy an individual who is convinced of the evil and desert of sin— his conscience tells him this, "I have transgressed the law of an infinitely holy and just

Being; no one can atone for me but one who is infinitely holy and infinitely just."

The sacrificial glories of the Saviour constitute the sun of our spiritual system, if I may be allowed so to speak, while they fully unfold all the divine glories. They develope the divine perfections in an infinitely more glorious manner than if all finite being had persevered in their original innocence. Sin has been atoned for, and every sinner who hears the voice of God, in his gospel, is welcome to return to him. And now, suffer me to ask you individually, and to ask myself also, have we looked to Christ as the atoning sacrifice? John the Baptist, I am very sorry to say, has been charged by thoughtless professors with legality. No individual was ever further from it than he: he insists on works, "fruits meet for repentance;" but, I ask, does he substitute these for the sacrifice of Christ? By no means. "Behold," says he, "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!"'1

1 John i. 29.