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being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness."* By the blood of Jesus,"—and the reconciliation he has made-"we have boldness to enter into the holiest;" but what is the conclusion that the apostle draws?" Therefore let us draw near with a true heart, and in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." The very prophetical words in which God's promises of reconciliation are made, namely, "I have blotted out as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins,"proceed, as a natural consequence, to enjoin, Therefore "return unto me, for I have redeemed thee." Christ's blood indeed "speaketh better things than that of Abel: "§-but it will not speak this language with respect to us, if we make his offering of none effect by still persisting in the path of sin, and bringing the guilt of his murderers upon our heads by "crucifying the Son of Man afresh." If we reject this last and only refuge that remains, then shall that blood indeed, like Abel's, cry unto God from the ground, and call loudly, and not in vain, for vengeance. Our lives therefore, our very thoughts, our words, our actions, must prove whether we are really amongst the ransomed and the redeemed. He is + Hebrews x. 21, 22. Isiah xliv. 22. § Hebrews xii. 24.

1 Peter ii. 24.

not truly free from bondage whom you may see still in the enemy's country, bearing the chains of the captive on his enslaved and unresisting limbs. And oh! let us not impose on ourselves the fond delusion that we are really partakers in the redemption of Christ, if this world still absorbs our hearts; if its pride, and its lusts, and its covetousness, and its ambition supply the motive and object of our lives; or if the law of man's opinion or the prospect of man's applause yet form the standard of our conduct, and the end of our pursuit.

But if inquiries such as these into the principles that actuate our lives, can be satisfactorily answered, then we are justified in seeking and applying to ourselves, from the same story of Abraham, some illustrations of the kind of feelings with which we may venture to regard this great and transcendent mercy of our God. Endeavour, for a moment, to picture to yourselves the overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude with which that aged patriarch must have received back to life his beloved and devoted child. ture to yourselves the rapture with which he must have listened to those words of infinite mercy, when the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, and he said, Here am I; and the Lord said, Lay not thine

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hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him, for now I know that thou fearest God,

seeing that thou hast not witheld thy son, thine only son, from me.” Picture to yourselves the ardour of devotion and of grateful piety with which, in the strong revulsion of feelings mighty and intense, amidst the throbbings of a parent's heart-almost bursting, we may well suppose, with the conflict of a thousand violent and contending emotions-he joined in that vicarious and propitiatory sacrifice which God vouchsafed to accept in the place of the child of promise. Oh! think of these things, and then apply them to yourselves. Apply them, I say, to yourselves; for to you and all of us they do apply, in more than comparison, in more than type, in more than prophecy. We, like Isaac, had come into the presence of God, laden with a burthen greater than his, the burthen of our many sins. Like him, with fearful and melancholy foreboding, we had made the anxious enquiry, Where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Where shall the vicarious sacrifice be found?' We, like Isaac, were destined to die; but unto us, as in his case, there hath come forth mercy in the midst of judgment. The voice of the messenger of heaven hath been heard saying to the destroyer, "Stay thine atoning victim hath been found."

hand for an

The song of

the company of the angels hath pealed upon mortal ears, celebrating the rescue that hath been wrought for man ;--a voice even more joyful than that with which, at the first creation," the morning stars sung together, and the sons of God shouted for joy." And a world of glad messages of hope and joy indeed was made known, in the tidings which told that "on this day was born in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord."

Such then, oh! such as this, be now the Christian's joy. It is no common or ordinary blessing that we commemorate this day. It is more than safety from danger and harm. It is more than the rescue of the dearest relative from the jaws of the grave. It is more than the restoration of a child to an afflicted parent; of a lost parent to an afflicted child. It is life, everlasting life and happiness, offered—(and oh! that it were more often accepted!)—yet still offered to ourselves;—to those who are nearest and dearest to us,—to all the world. With joy, therefore, and gratitude, come ye, and give thanks unto God. With joy-not like that mere worldly gladness in the midst of which the heart may yet be heavy, and "the end of that mirth be bitterness." With a joy, rather, like that which could make the apostles, in the midst of sorrow, yet "always

rejoicing," rejoicing in God when man's friendship had all forsaken them,-rejoicing in the hope of heaven when the world had nothing further to bestow. Let us rejoice as culprits

who have been just

reprieved and pardoned, and from whom the bitterness of death hath

unexpectedly passed away. Let us rejoice like captives, long in prison, restored to liberty and life. Let the social and domestic affections which at this period are enkindled with peculiar warmth, be sanctified with that grateful love to God which alone can truly and permanently bind the attachments of earthly friends. Let all the best feelings of the heart and soul be attuned into one glad and passing harmony of praise unto the King of kings. And, catching some distant echoes of that language of joy and piety with which the holy angels hymned the birth of the infant Saviour, let us join in that beautiful and cheerful strain which has formed a part of the service of this day, saying, "Therefore, O God, with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory, glory be to thee O Lord Most High !"