go to my dark recess, and pray to God; could withdraw from my friends, and read my bible; I could make time for communion; I could once take up the language of the Psalmist, and say, "My meditation of him shall be sweet;" but where is it all gone now? I go to my daily occupations, and I sometimes taste no more of God all the day than if there were no God. I am placed in the midst of trials and temptations, and they seem to dry up my very soul. My dear brother, things may be laid upon my conscience at this moment which may not be laid upon thine. I believe that these cases exist, not merely by tens, but by hundreds; not merely by hundreds but by thousands. In this congregation many might be found who would say, Oh, that it were with me as in the days that are past;" and yet they have been walking much in worldliness. What did I hear only this last week-what testimony did I receive? that the greatest stumbling block given to a young one just beginning, or before he began, was the ungodliness of two professors; because under the garb of profession they had lived the world, and gone into its worst habits. I believe such things are neither rare nor seldom to be met with, but are frequent and I stand up this night with all affection, but with all boldness, neither regarding the favour nor the approbation of manto tell you my unvarnished declaration of the solemnity of this state before God. If there be but one who hears me to-night, whose heart the Holy Ghost has melted, and as he hears of God, and as he hears of his goodness, and as he hears of his grace, finds there is something within him that leads him to say, Since it is so I lay myself prostrate at thy feet-since thou dost say " Only acknowledge"-Lord, I come telling thee I am the greatest of sinners, God be merciful to me the sinner. Such is the character of God, that he not only welcomes the first approach of such a one, but the revivals of his own sins, the sorrowful remembrance of which are all the fruits of his blessed Spirit.

:

Observe thirdly, WHAT ARE THE BLESSINGS WHICH RESULT FROM THIS CONFESSION. In the first place, it is God's appointed way for clearing the

conscience. "If we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." When David was brought to a simple acknowledgment, as it were, over the head of the scape-goat, then it was that God was pleased to manifest forth his forgiving love to his conscience. The work of Jesus is a great and glorious work. The great atonement was finished nearly eighteen hundred years ago. there never can be any thing added to it; there never can be any thing taken from it. "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." The Saints of God, in consequence of it, stand before God without a spot. There is not a moment that one sin is laid to their charge: there is not even the scar of the wound; they are all cast into the depths of the sea; they are all thrown into the very depths of oblivion, where they shall be remembered no more.

There is a great difference between dealing with God as a father, and dealing with God as a judge. It is the mercy of a believer not to deal with God as a judge; it is the mercy of the child of God to look up to God as his father: and though there are thousands of God's children who do not realize him as their father, yet it is their privilege notwithstanding; and never for one moment ought we to look up to God as a judge any more. That thing, as Romaine says, was brought into court, and settled, and over. If you walk with God as a child, you will walk with him as accepted in the beloved; and what you go to him for is, a father's application of his own blessing to your consciences by the power of the Holy Ghost. As there is a walk which displeases your Father, there is a walk that pleases him; and when you are led in confession to open your heart to God, placing your hands by faith upon the head of the blessed scape-goat, it is his covenant mercy in that place, to renew your sense of his full, free, everlasting forgiveness. There are numbers that think they are walking in the sense of God's forgiving love, who are doing no such thing. To have a sense of it is no light matter. They seem as if they could rise with it, and go to bed with it, and carry it through the day, as if by some especial work of their own. It is the pe

culiar work of God the Eternal Spirit: | it is his office, it is his glory, to take of the things of Christ, to bring them to our hearts, and apply God's forgiving love to our consciences. The place where he doeth it is in the place where our sins are confessed before God. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

The believer that is led simply and filially to walk with God in a state of perpetua! unfolding of the heart to God, taking little sins before him, opening the heart when there has been a wound received, by that process finds his conscience become exceedingly tender. Look at a mirror whose surface is dim-place any object before it, I see nothing: remove the dimness, I see every object clearly. Such is our conscience: a conscience defiled by guilt is a dim mirror; a conscience cleansed by blood is a clear mirror, and I can see things I could not see before. The man, who lives in the habit of filial confession, lives under the influence of a mirror, that will make even a thought to be sinful in his sight. Tenderness of conscience is the result of the application of the blood of the Saviour.

If I were to point out other mercies, I would say it is an errand. Some of God's people consider it their real business. I have great business with God. My constant occupation is to walk with God, confessing my sins over the head of the blessed Immanuel. This is a continued errand; this is, as it were, a continued message which I send to God. It is a blessed thing when you and I have an errand to God. There is such a thing as preaching there is such a thing as praying-there is such a thing as reading-there is such a thing as visiting, and going about-things which are right in themselves; yet I have no errand to God. But I have an errand when I go to God for his sweet sense of pardon. I want a renewed application-I want a renewed sense of it-I want the fresh application of it to my conscience. If a man knows this blessing, he soon feels the loss of it. A man that knows his Father's presence, seeks after him; if he cannot find him in one place, he will search for him in another; and he

will never be satisfied till he finds him. Do you ask me for another blessing? The soul that is led in tenderness of conscience so to walk with God, confessing his sins over the head of the scape-goat, and receiving continued blessings from his father, receives a new spring he will take up the cross while another is looking at it; he will deny himself when another man flinches; he will walk softly, abasedly, humbly, tenderly, thinking much of a word, of a thought, of a principle and of his practice. When our blessed Jesus comes in, he comes in with a royal train; when he speaks of forgiveness to a man, there is a sweet sense of it; and he being in a state of peace with God, does not seem as if he could be offended with man. When the peace of God is enjoyed in a man's conscience, it is the same as if the Holy Ghost looked through his eyes; there shall be something in his manner, and conduct, and principles, something in the very savour of the man, that shall show he has been with Christ: he has brought a fragrance away with him; he does not only talk about forgiveness, but he has it; he has peace with God through Jesus Christ.

The subject has a most delightful aspect. Of all the real foundations for practice through this week, I know of nothing so influential as to begin with a loving view of God. I know nothing whatever of to-morrow: I may have crosses-I may have trials-I may have perplexities-I may have unkindness-I may have the death of friends-many things the world knows nothing of. But if the Lord assists me, and I go, as it were, with a sense of his love in my heart, and of his gracious character, all looks smooth. The poor sinner dresses up a false god: he is always thinking-" Thou art an austere man." He austere! God austere ! Ask his saints-ask himself: what does he say? Testify against me." As if he said, "I will strip myself of my Godhead-I will strip myself of my perfections-I will come and stand at thy bar: come, now, and bear witness against me; testify against me." Is he a wilderness? Go and ask the saints of God. He has returned good for evil, kindness for unkindness, blessing for ingratitude; he has always began-he

him eternal, together with him the creator and the governor of the universe. He was God, and was with God, we are informed, in the beginning. By him all things were made; by him all things consist: he is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, God over all, blessed for ever. It is impossible for the most uninstructed or unreflecting to read these representations, with

pel.

By all these varied images, under all these multifarious forms of expression, have the scriptures, through the name of Jesus, preached forgiveness of sins, and the attainment of glory, and declared that by him we are justified from all things from which we could not be delivered by the law of Moses, or by any other law.

It ceases, therefore, to be a mere speculative doctrine, upon which it is immaterial whether we think right or no-it becomes, at once, both an interesting and important point of doctrine, to determine the nature of this being to whom so much is attributed; in order that we may know, first, to whom it is that our praise and gratitude for such unnumbered mercies are due; and in order to be assured, in the second place, that he has power to fulfil the promises which are made to us in his name.

Survey we then, in the first instance, the various declarations which are made in the scriptures concerning the nature of Christ. Let us examine, in the second place, in what manner the seeming difference between these various representations may be reconciled and in conclusion, as a fair comparison of the whole, let us endeavour to draw forth the entire doctrine which is revealed to us concerning this fundamental principle of our religious faith.

It must be evident to every one, who turns his mind to the examination of those passages in the New Testament, which refer to the person of our blessed Lord, that there are no less than three separate classes of texts, by each of which he is spoken of in a different manner. There are a variety of texts, which represent the Saviour of the world, as possessed of an essential equality with God, as together with

ments of uncreated Deity, the boundless attributes of the God that is supreme, the attributes of everlasting adoration, over-ruling providence, and Almighty God.

On the other hand, there are texts which describe the same Saviour of the world, as a human and created being, as standing in a state of decided inferiority, as doing what he did by the Father's power, speaking what he spoke by the Father's wisdom, and as directed in all things by the Father's will. He is that man whom God has ordained to be the judge of quick and dead. "Jesus answered and said to his disciples, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing but what he seeth the Father do; for the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth." Again, he adds concerning his doctrine, "The words that I speak, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Lastly, he declares, My Father is greater than I, and I came into the world, not to do my own will, but the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

To increase the singular dissimilarity of statement concerning the Son of God, we have yet another collection of texts, in which he is spoken of as possessed of all power in heaven and in earth-as placed in dignity and glory, above all angels, and principalities, and powers. But then he is declared in these texts to possess his divine power, not because he has attained it by inhe. ritance from eternity, but because it has been communicated to him in time: for the authority and dominion which he exercises over the universe is not said to belong to him, in right of his divine nature, but to have been conferred by the Father, who, according to his own word, hath given all power into his hands. Thus we are told, that "Christ