the other to do him good-the other finding that the truest gladness of his heart lies in the impulse of a gratitude, by which it is awakened to the charms of a new moral existence. Salvation by grace-salvation by free grace-salvation not of works, but according to the mercy of God-salvation on such a footing is not more indispensable to the deliverance of our persons from the hand of justice, than it is to the deliverance of our hearts from the chill and the weight of ungodliness. Retain a single shred or fragment of legality with the Gospel, and you raise a topic of distrust between man and God. You take away from the power of the Gospel to melt and to conciliate. For this purpose, the freer it is, the better it is. That very peculiarity which so many dread as the germ of Antinomianism, is, in fact, the germ of a new spirit, and a new inclination against it. Along with the light of a free Gospel, does there enter the love of the Gospel, which in proportion as you impair the freeness, you are sure to chase away. And never does the sinner find within himself so mighty a moral transformation, as when under the belief that he is saved by grace, he feels constrained thereby to offer his heart a devoted thing, and to deny ungodliness.

Tell a man to be holy-and how can he beyond the reach of disturbance-or, that compass such a performance, when his he can repose in him, as one friend reposes alone fellowship with holiness is a fellow- in another-or, that any liberal and geneship of despair? It is the atonement of the rous understanding can be established becross reconciling the holiness of the law-twixt them-the one party rejoicing over giver with the safety of the offender, that hath opened the way for a sanctifying influence into the sinner's heart, and he can take a kindred impression from the character of God now brought nigh, and now at peace with him. Separate the demand from the doctrine, and you have either a system of righteousness that is impracticable, or a barren orthodoxy. Bring the de'mand and the doctrine together-and the true disciple of Christ is able to do the one, through the other strengthening him. The motive is adequate to the movement; and the bidden obedience of the Gospel is not beyond the measure of his strength, just because the doctrine of the Gospel is not beyond the measure of his acceptance. The shield of faith, and the hope of salvation, and the Word of God, and the girdle of truth-these are the armour that he has put on; and with these the battle is won, and the eminence is reached, and the man stands on the vantage ground of a new field and a new prospect. The effect is great, but the cause is equal to it-and stupendous as this moral resurrection to the precepts of Christianity, undoubtedly is, there is an element of strength enough to give it being and continuance in the principles of Christianity. The object of the Gospel is both to pacify the sinner's conscience, and to purify his heart; and it is of importance to observe, that what mars the one of these objects, mars the other also. The best way of casting out an impure affection is to admit a pure one; and by the love of what is good, to expel the love of what is evil. Thus it is, that the freer the Gospel, the more sanctifying is the Gospel; and the more it is received as a doctrine of grace, the more will it be felt as a doctrine according to godliness. This is one of the secrets of the Christian life, that the more a man holds of God as a pensioner, the greater is the payment of service that he renders back again. On the tenure of "Do this and live," a spirit of fearfulness is sure to enter; and the jealousies of a legal bargain chase away all confidence from the intercourse between God and man; and the creature striving to be square and even with his Creator, is, in fact, pursuing all the while his own selfishness instead of God's glory; and with all the conformities which he labours to accomplish, the soul of obedience is not there, Conceive a man to be standing on the the mind is not subject to the law of God, margin of this green world; and that, when nor indeed under such an economy ever he looked towards it, he saw abundance can be. It is only when, as in the Gospel, smiling upon every field, and all the blessacceptance is bestowed as a present, with-ings which earth can afford, scattered in out money and without price, that the se- profusion throughout every family, and the curity which man feels in God is placed light of the sun sweetly resting upon all the

To do any work in the best manner, you would make use of the fittest tools for it. And we trust, that what has been said may serve in some degree, for the practical guidance of those who would like to reach the great moral achievement of our textbut feel that the tendencies and desires of Nature are too strong for them. We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our heart, than to keep in our hearts the love of God-and no other way by which to keep our hearts in the love of God, than building ourselves up on our most holy faith. That denial of the world which is not possible to him that dissents from the Gospel testimony, is possible, even as all things are possible to him that believeth. To try this without faith, is to work without the right tool or the right instrument. But faith worketh by love; and the way of expelling from the heart the love that transgresseth the law, is to admit into its receptacles the love which fulfilleth the law.

pleasant habitations, and the joys of human its sounds of sweeter melody; and he clearly companionship brightening many a happy saw, that there, a purer beauty rested upon circle of society-conceive this to be the every field, and a more heart-felt joy spread general character of the scene upon one itself among all the families; and he could side of his contemplation; and that on the discern there a peace, and a piety, and a other, beyond the verge of the goodly benevolence, which put a moral gladness planet on which he was situated, he could into every bosom, and united the whole sodescry nothing but a dark and fathomless ciety in one rejoicing sympathy with each unknown. Think you that he would bid a other, and with the beneficent Father of voluntary adieu to all the brightness and them all.-Could he further see, that pain all the beauty that were before him upon and mortality were there unknown; and earth, and commit himself to the frightful above all, that signals of welcome were solitude away from it. Would he leave its | hung out, and an avenue of communication peopled dwelling places, and become a soli- was made for him-perceive you not, that tary wanderer through the fields of non- what was before the wilderness, would be entity? If space offered him nothing but a come the land of invitation; and that now wilderness, would he for it abandon the the world would be the wilderness? What homebred scenes of life and of cheerfulness unpeopled space could not do, can be done that lay so near, and exerted such a power by space teeming with beatific scenes, and of urgency to detain him? Would not he beatific society. And let the existing tencling to the regions of sense, and of life, and dencies of the heart be what they may to of society?—and shrinking away from the the scene that is near and visible around us, desolation that was beyond it, would not he still if another stood revealed to the prosbe glad to keep his firm footing on the ter-pect of man, either through the channel of ritory of this world, and to take shelter under faith, or through the channel of his sensesthe silver canopy that was stretched over it? then, without violence done to the constiBut if, during the time of his contempla- tution of his moral nature, may he die unto tion, some happy island of the blest had the present world, and live to the lovelier floated by; and there had burst upon his world that stands in the distance away senses the light of its surpassing glories, and from it.

SERMON III.

The sure Warrant of a Believer's Hope.

"For if, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son: much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."-Romans v. 10.

ST. PAUL, who, by the way, is by far the mode of reasoning in common discourse. most argumentative of all the Apostles- If a neighbour be bound to sympathise with and who, from being the most successful of the distresses of an unfortunate family, how them all, proves that argument is both a much more, when that neighbour is a relegitimate and a powerful weapon in the lative? If I obtained an offer of friendship work of making Christians, sometimes un- from a man in difficulties, how much more dertakes to reason upon one set of premises, may I count upon it should he now be and then to demonstrate how much more translated into a state of sufficiency and valid and irresistible is the conclusion which ease? If, in the very heat of our quarrel, he tries to establish, when he is in actual and under the discouragement of all my propossession of another and more favourable voking insolence towards him, my enemy set of premises. In this way a great addi- forbear the vengeance which he had the tional strength is made to accrue to his ar-power to inflict, how much more, should gument and the how much more with the quarrel be made up, and I have been which he finishes, causes it to come with long in terms of reconciliation with him, greater power and assurance upon his rea- may I feel myself secure from the effects ders-and it is this which gives him the of his indignation? Such also is the arguadvantage of what is well known, both in ment of my text. There is one state of matlaw and in logic, under the phrase of argu-ters in which God sets forth a demonstramentum a fortiore, or, an argument which tion of friendship to the world, and this is affirms a thing to be true in adverse and compared with the present and actual state unpromising circumstances, and therefore of matters, more favourable than the former, far more worthy of being held true in like- and from which, therefore, the friendship lier circumstances. It is quite a familiar of God may be still more surely inferred,

and still more firmly confided in. But it worshippers-had they, whose conscience will be further seen, that in this short sen- was a law unto themselves, just acted and tence of the Apostle, there lies a compound followed on as they might under the guidargument which admits of being separated ance of its compunctious visitations-had into distinct parts. There is a reference there been any thing like the forth-going made to a two-fold state of matters, which, of a general desire, however faint, towards by being resolved into its two particulars, that unknown Being, the sense and impres brings out two accessions of strength to the sion of whom were never wholly obliteconclusion of our Apostle, which are inde-rated—then it might have been less decisive pendent of each other. He, in fact, holds of God's will for reconciliation, that he gave forth a double claim upon our understand-way to these returning demonstrations on ing, and we propose to view successively the part of his alienated creatures, and the two particulars of which it is made up. reared a pathway of communication by There is first, then, a comparison made which sinners may draw nigh unto God. between one state of matters, and another But for God to have done this very thing, state of matters which obtain in our earth- when these sinners were persisting in the and there is at the same time a comparison full spirit and determination of their unholy made between one state of matters, and warfare-for him to have done so, when inanother state of matters which obtain in stead of any returning loyalty rising up to heaven-and from each of these there may him like the incense of a sweet-smelling be educed an argument for strengthening savour, the exhalations of idolatry and vice the assurance of every Christian, in that blackened the whole canopy of heaven, salvation which the Gospel has made known and ascended in a smoke of abomination before him-for him to have done so at the Let us first look, then, to the two states very time that all flesh had corrupted its upon earth-and this may be done either ways, and when either with or without the with a reference to this world's history, or law of revelation, God saw that the wickedit may be done with a reference to the per-ness of man was great in the earth, and that sonal history of every one man who is now a believer.

to us.

every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually-in these circumstances of deep and unalleviated provocation, and when God may have eased him of his adversaries, by sweeping the whole of this moral nuisance away from the face of the universe which it deformed→ for such a time to have been a time of love, when majesty seemed to call for some solemn vindication, but mercy could not let us go-surely, if through such a barrier between God and the guilty, he, in the longings of his desire after them, forced a pathway of reconciliation, he never will turn himself away from any, who, cheered forward by his own intreaties, are walking upon that path. But if, when enemies, he himself found out an approach by which he might beckon them to enter into peace with him, how much more when they are so approaching, will he meet them with the light of his countenance, and bless them with the joys of his salvation.

"That point of time in the series of general history at which reconciliation was made, was when our Saviour said that it is finished, and gave up the ghost. God may be said to have then become reconciled to the world, in as far as he was ready to enter into agreement with all who drew nigh in the name of this great propitiation. Now think of the state of matters upon earth, previous to the time when reconciliation in this view was entered upon. Think of the strength of that moving principle in the bosom of the Deity, which so inclined him towards a world then lying in the depths of ungodliness-and from one end to another of it, lifting the cry of rebellion against him. There was no movement on the part of the world towards God-no returning sense of allegiance towards him from whom they had revolted so deeply-no abatement of that profligacy which so rioted at large over a wide scene of lawless, and thankless, and careless abandonment-no mitigation of that foul and audacious insolence by which the throne of heaven was assailed; and a spectacle so full of offence to the unfallen was held forth, of a whole province in arms against the lawful Monarch of creation. Had the world thrown down its weapons of disobedience-had a contrite and relent-all-let a believer in Christ fix his regards ing spirit gone previously forth among its generations-had the light which even then glimmered in the veriest wilds of Paganism, just up to the strength and degree of its influence, told aright on the moral sensibilities of the deluded and licentious

But this argument may be looked to in another way. Instead of fixing our regards upon that point in the general history of the world, when the avenue was struck out between our species and their offended Lawgiver; and through the rent vail of a Saviour's flesh, a free and consecrated way of access was opened for the guiltiest of them

upon that passage in his own personal history at which he was drawn in his desires and in his confidence to this great Mediator, and entered upon the grace wherein he now stands, and gave up his evil heart of unbelief, and made his transition out of dark

world are now sleeping in profoundest lethargy; and withheld altogether that light of the spirit which he had done so much to extinguish. But if, instead of all this, God kept by him in the midst of his thankless provocations-and while he was yet a regardless enemy, made his designs of grace to bear upon him-and throughout all the mazes of his chequered history, conducted

ness to the marvellous light of the Gospel. Let him compare what he was, when an alien from God, through wicked works of his own, with what he is when a humble but confiding expectant of God's mercy through the righteousness of another. Who translated him into the condition which he now occupies? Who put into his heart the faith of the Gospel? Who awakened him from the dormancy and unconcern of na-him to the knowledge of himself as a reconture? Who stirred up that restless but salu- ciling God-and so softened his heart with tary alarm which at length issued in the family bereavements, or so tore it from all secure feeling of reconciliation? There was its worldly dependencies by the disasters of a time of his past life when the whole doc- business, or so shook it with frightful agitrine of salvation was an offence to him, tation by the terrors of the law, or so shone when its preaching was foolishness to his upon it with the light of his free Spirit, as ears; when its phraseology tired and dis- made it glad to escape from the treachery gusted him; when, in light and lawless of nature's joys and nature's promises, into companionship, he put the warnings of reli- a relying faith on the offers and assurances gious counsel, and the urgency of menacing of the Gospel-why, just let him think of sermons away from his bosom-a time when the time when God did so much for himthe world was his all, and when he was and then think of the impossibility that God wholly given over to the idolatry of its will recede from him now, or that he will pursuits, and pleasures, and projects of ag- cease from the prosecution of that work in grandizement a time when his heart was circumstances of earnest and desirous conunvisited with any permanent seriousness currence on the part of the believer, which he about God, of whom his conscience some- himself begun in the circumstances either times reminded him, but whom he soon of his torpid unconcern, or of his active and dismissed from his earnest contemplation- haughty defiance. The God who moved a time when he may have occasionally towards him in his days of forgetfulness, heard of a judgment, but without one prac- will not move away from him in his days tical movement of his soul towards the task of hourly and habitual remembrance-and of preparation--a time when the overtures he who intercepted him in his career of reof peace met him on his way, but which bellion, will not withdraw from him in his he, in the impetuous prosecution of his own career of new obedience—and he who first objects, utterly disregarded--a time when knocked at the door of his conscience, and death plied him with its ever-recurring me- that too in a prayerless, and thankless, and mentoes, but which he, overlooking the regardless season of his history, will not, short and summary arithmetic of the few now that he prays in the name of Christ, little years that lay between him and the and now that his heart is set upon salvalast messenger, placed so far on the back- tion, and now that the doctrine of grace ground of his anticipation, that this earth, forms all his joy and all his dependence; this passing and perishable earth, formed he who thus found him out a distant and the scene of all his solicitudes. Is there exiled rebel, will not abandon him now that none here present who remembers such a his fellowship is with the Father, and with time of his by-gone history, and with such the Son. It is thus that the believer may a character of alienation from God and from shield his misgiving heart from all its deshis Christ, as I have now given to it? And pondencies. It is thus that the argument of who, I ask, recalled him from this aliena- the text goes to fortify his faith, and to pertion? By whose guidance was he con- fect that which is lacking in it. It is thus ducted to that demonstration either of the that the how much more of the Apostles press or of the pulpit, which awakened him? should cause him to abound more and more Who sent that afflictive visitation to his in the peace and the joy of believing--and door, which weaned his spirit from the should encourage every man who has laid world, and wooed it to the deathless friend-hold on the hope set before us, to steady ships, and the ever-during felicities of heaven? Who made known to him the extent of his guilt, with the overpassing extent of the redemption that is provided for it? It was not he himself who originated the process of his own salvation. God may have abandoned him to his own courses; and said of him as he has done of many others, "I will let him alone, since he will have it so;" and given him up to that judicial blindness, under which the vast majority of the

and confirm his hold still more tenaciously than before, so as to keep it fast and sure even unto the end.

With a man who knows himself to be a believer, this argument is quite irresistible, and it will go to establish his faith, and to strengthen it, and to settle it, and to make it perfect. But it is possible for a man really to believe, and yet to be in ignorance for a time whether he does so or not-and it is possible for a man to be in earnest about

is moving towards God, and earnestly seeking after him, if haply he may find him?

his soul, and yet not to have received that loathsome and polluted dwelling-places---if truth which is unto salvation--and it is pos- to get at his strayed children, he had thus sible for him to be actuated by a strong to find his way through all those elements general desire to be right, and yet to be of impiety and ungodliness, which are most walking among the elements of uncertain-abhorrent to the sanctity of his nature, think ty-and it is possible for him to be looking you, my brethren, think you that the God to that quarter whence the truths of the who made such an advancing movement Gospel are offered to his contemplation, and towards the men whose faces were utterly yet not to have attained the distinct or satis- away from him--is this a God who will fying perception of them-thoroughly en-turn his own face away from the man who gaged in the prosecution of his peace with God, determinedly bent on this objeet as the highest interest he can possibly aspire after, This argument obtains great additional labouring after a settlement, and, under all force, when we look to the state of matters the agonies of a fierce internal war, seeking, in heaven at the time that we upon earth and toiling, and praying for his deliverance. were enemies, and compare it with the state It is at the point of time when faith en- of matters in heaven, now that we are acters the heart, that reconciliation is entered tually reconciled, or are beginning to enterupon-nor can we say of this man, that he tain the offers of reconciliation. Before the is yet a believer, or, that he has passed from work of our redemption, Jesus Christ was the condition of an enemy to that of a friend. in primeval glory-and though a place of And yet upon him the argument of the text mystery to us, it was a place of secure and should not be without its efficacy. It is ineffable enjoyment-insomuch, that the such an argument as may be employed not fondest prayer he could utter in the depths merely to confirm the faith which already of his humiliation, was to be taken back exists, but to help on to its formation that again to the ancient of days, and there to be faith which is struggling for an establish- restored to the glory which he had with ment in the heart of an inquirer. It falls, him before the world was. It was from the no doubt, with fullest and most satisfying heights of celestial security and blessedness light upon the heart of a conscious be- that he looked with an eye of pity on our liever--and yet may it be addressed, and sinful habitation-it was from a scene where with pertinency too, to men under their first beings of a holy nature surrounded him, and earliest visitations of seriousness. For and the full homage of the Divinity was give me an acquaintance of whom I know rendered to him, and in the ecstacies of his nothing more than that his face is towards fellowship with God the Father, all was Zion-give me one arrested by a sense of peace, and purity, and excellence-it was guilt and of danger, and merely groping from this that he took his voluntary deparhis way to a place of enlargement-give ture, and went out on his errand to seek me a soul not in peace, but in perplexity, and to save us. And it was not the parade and in the midst of all those initial difficul- of an unreal suffering that he had to enties which beset the awakened sinner, ere counter; but a deep and a dreadful endurChrist shall give him light-give me a la-ance-it was not a triumphant promenade bouring and heavy laden sinner, haunted through this lower world, made easy over by the reflection, as if by an arrow sticking all its obstacles by the energies of his Godfast, that the mighty question of his eter- head; but a conflict of toil and of strenuousnity is yet unresolved. There are many Iness-it was not an egress from heaven on fear amongst you to whom this tremendous a journey brightened through all its stages uncertainty gives no concern-but give me by the hope of a smooth and gentle return; one who has newly taken it up, and who, but it was such an exile from heaven as in the minglings of doubt and despondency, made his ascent and his readmittance there has not found his way to any consolation- the fruit of a hard won victory. We have and even with him may it be found, that nothing but the facts of revelation to guide the same reason which strengthens the hope or to inform us, and yet from these we most of an advanced Christian, may well inspire assuredly gather, that the Saviour, in stepthe hope of him who has still his Christian- ping down from the elevation of his past ity to find, and thus cast a cheering and a eternity, incurred a substantial degradation comforting influence on the very infancy of his progress. For if it was in behalf of a careless world that the costly apparatus of redemption was reared-if it was in the full front and audacity of their most determined rebellion, that God laid the plan of reconciliation-if it was for the sake of men sunk in the very depths of ungodliness, that he constructed his overtures of peace, and sent forth his Son with them amongst our

that when he wrapped himself in the humanity of our nature, he put on the whole of its infirmities and its sorrows-that for the joy which he renounced, he became acquainted with grief, and a grief, too, commensurate to the whole burden of our world's atonement-that the hidings of his Father's countenance were terrifying to his soul-and when the offended justice of the Godhead was laid upon his person, it re