for protection from wrath, brings you under the operation of its sanctifying power. Faith, cleaving to and exercising the thoughts and affections, on this great and wonderful subject, enlarges, deepens, strengthens the impression of the divine character, and raises the believer in the scale of spiritual excellence, till his conformity to the divine image become entire, and his communion with God unbroken. The Holy Spirit, bringing the things concerning Christ into contact with our affections, thus binds our heart to God and heaven, by the golden chain of love. The joy, the hope, the love-inspiring gospel is the root from which all the duties of holiness, derive their life and vigor. The divine power gives all things pertaining to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us. A deficiency in christian virtues and graces, is ascribed to a forgetfulness of the great atonement, in the faith of which they were "purged from their old sins." We escape the pollutions of the world "through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Pet. ii. 20.) The grace of God that bringeth salvation-teacheth "that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world." (1 Tit. ii. 11.) Paul having reminded Titus, that christians had been delivered from enmity and degeneracy by the knowledge of the love, kindness and mercy of God, adds: "these things," the doctrines of free grace mentioned in the four preceding verses, opposed to the unprofitable and vain things, foolish questions and genealogies, "I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works." (Tit. iii. 4-8.)

Here then, christians, you have a scriptural test to try yourselves by. Do your hearts and conduct, then, bear witness to the purifying influence of the cross? No real believer in the blood of the atonement, is fearless and careless of sinning. Faith worketh by love, which love is the life-blood of the Christian family. Its presence is the seal of hea ven on the soul, its absence the mark of perdition. Now, this law of love or of holiness, is written on every believer's heart, and by no other instrument but by the free mercy and grace of the gospel, proclaiming pardon, and thus overcoming the power of sin, and moulding the heart to the love of God and holiness. It is, therefore, a perversion of the gospel to teach men to cast off their sins, as a preparatory step to believing, and a condition of pardon. Repentance naturally follows faith in the pardoning mercy of God. Real sorrow of heart, on account of sin, can arise only from the

source of the amazing contrast between the wonderful love of God, and our infinite unworthiness. It is when we look on him whom we have pierced, that we truly mourn; and when we know that God establishes his covenant with us that we become ashamed-when we see sin connected with the blood of him who gave himself for our sins, that we truly loathe it. The more freely grace is proclaimed, and the more deeply sin is condemned; the more unworthy must we appear to ourselves. Godly sorrow, then, and a return to righteousness and holiness, have their source with free grace. This point cannot be pressed too much.

What impressions, then, have been made on your hearts by your views of the love and justice of God, manifested on the cross? Bring yourselves to a close and frequent scrutiny on this point. Are love, joy, gratitude, hatred of sin, the fear of God, wrought in your hearts?

God manifested in Jesus Christ, as the just God and Saviour, forgiving sin through the blood of the atonement, is the great spiritual mould into which the christian is cast, and from which the living form of the christian character derives its features. If you were closely and accurately cast into this mould, your hearts and lives would be exactly conformed to the law. Compare yourselves, then, with the law, that you may see how far you are from the form of the gospel mould. For one great use of the law is to try by this test, whether your views of the gospel are right. The law comes to be written on the heart by the faith of the gospel.

Have your views of God, in the gospel, altered your heart and drawn it to the love of God, and called forth its horror and indignation against sin? If you have not found it to be a doctrine according to godliness, your views of the gospel can not be right. If you refuse to try yourselves now, yet there is one above who will soon come to try every man's work of what sort it is. "Who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth?" They who now will not hearken to the calls of God, God will not hear them, though they call to him at the judgment. You are standing on the brink of eternity;-in a few days you shall all be launched into it.

May we all in time listen to wisdom's gracious calls:"Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of man." "Hear and your souls shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David."

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF THE REV. JOHN ANDERSON, D. D.

MR. ANDERSON was born on the south side of the Tweed, but so near it, that the congregation where his parents attended public worship was on the Scotch side. He was baptized by the venerable James Morrison of Norham, many years stated clerk to the General Associate Synod of Scotland. It is believed that his youth was passed, under the pastoral care of Mr. Morrison. It is certain that he entertained, for that venerable man, the most affectionate regard during the whole course of Mr. Morrison's long life; and a regular correspondence by letter was maintained between them, until Mr. Morrison's death. The writer of this sketch, recollects being shown by Dr. Anderson a letter from Mr. Morrison to him, written after he was ninety-one years of age.

Mr. Anderson was born about the year 1748. But little is known of his parents. If his own statements, very incidentally made respecting them, are rightly recollected, his father died before his remembrance; his mother set out with him for America, but died on the passage. He would sometimes allude to practices and remarks of his mother which showed her to be a woman of strong mind and unaffected piety. He was an only child; and never having had any of his own kindred in this country, and his habits of thinking and current of remarks, seldom leading him to speak of himself or his family connections; nothing is particularly known concerning them, more than what has been just related. His education was received in Scotland, but at which of the universities is likewise unknown. Nor indeed is this a matter of much consequence, especially in the case of a man of such extensive and various learning as Dr. Anderson; whose whole life was devoted to the successful pursuit of knowledge; and

whose attainments plainly showed, that he had left the usual acquirements of an academic or university course far behind. He studied Theology under the care of the Professor of the Associate Synod, who, it is believed, was at the time of his course, the younger Moncrief. After having completed the usual course of study, he was licensed: and having preached for some time as a probationer, it was found that his voice was too feeble, for the audiences which then generally attended the worshipping assemblies of the Associate Church in Scotland. And although it was his ardent desire to serve his divine Master and his generation, in preaching the everlasting gospel, yet on account of his voice, he was obliged to abandon it in Scotland. His accuracy as a scholar, and particularly his very correct taste, in language and every thing connected with composition, were known-for as a linguist and a belles-lettres scholar, he was justly entitled to take the first rank among the scholars of that age-and when he desisted from public speaking, he found ready employment as a corrector of the press, in large book-printing establishments, both in Glasgow and Edinburgh. And in this business he occupied himself during several years afterwards, that he remained in Scotland.

During the time that he was thus employed, his mind was still occupied about the concerns of the church. He found leisure to compose and publish a series of Essays on several important religious subjects. These Essays show a deep and thorough acquaintance with revealed truth, and a mind sensitive to its interests. Those who will compare these Essays with his latest writings, published nearly fifty years afterwards, can not but be struck with the undeviating consistency with which he held fast his religious principles. This publication brought him into favorable notice, both as a divine and a scholar.

When the Coalescence between some members of the Presbytery of Pennsylvania and the Reformed Presbytery in this country, in 1782, took place, by which the Associate Presbytery was almost annihilated, and when the Presbytery's need of aid was known in Scotland; Mr. Anderson was recommended to come immediately to America, and render such aid to the brethren here, as he might be enabled to do. Supposing that the audiences must necessarily be much smaller here, than they generally were in Scotland, it was thought that he might be usefully employed in preaching. Accordingly, he made his arrangements to come as soon as practicable, and arrived in Philadelphia in 1783. The first sermon he preach

ed after his arrival, was from Psalm xlvi. 5. "God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her and that right early." This was in Mr. Marshall's meetinghouse in Philadelphia. In the choosing of his text and in his discourse, he seemed to have a particular reference to the state of the Associate Church in this country. Those who heard this discourse, considered it highly seasonable and reviving to the interests and refreshing to the friends of truth. Mr. Marshall, knowing what had been his difficulty with regard to preaching in Scotland, and apprehensive that the same cause might prevent the edification of his people on that occasion, requested the congregation, before Mr. Anderson commenced, to draw as near the pulpit as possible. He was, however, heard with more satisfaction than had been apprehended. And although his own congregation and those who became familiar with his manner of speaking, heard him. without any particular inconvenience, yet it was always a complaint with strangers, through the whole of his ministry, that they heard him with difficulty. It may be here remarked, that although the difficulty that attended his speaking might in part be ascribed to the organic structure of the vocal organs, yet much of it doubtless arose from habits which were the effects of a strong degree of constitutional diffidence-a feeling often found in the greatest men. Those who had an opportunity of closely observing Dr. Anderson's habits, could readily enough see, that with this difficulty, he had to contend through his whole life, unless when a sense of duty, arising from a regard to some truth either in doctrine of practice, roused all the energies of his mind; then for a time he would appear wholly to overcome it. Under such circumstances, he has spoken during the whole of the public exercises of a day, so as not only to be heard with ease over a large assembly, but in a manner truly eloquent. Indeed, he seldom preached a whole day, in which he did not in some part of his discourses, become roused up to speak, for a few minutes, in the spirit, both as to language and manner, of the most genuine eloquence.

During the first two years after the Union, the operations of the Presbytery were confined chiefly to the eastern counties of Pennsylvania. And there in the vacancies under Presbytery's care, Dr. Anderson labored with great faithfulness and distinguished success for that period. For the intelligent and the pious always heard him with interest and satisfaction. And such always found delight and refreshment in